The halogen lamps of Workshop Bay 12 hummed under full emergency voltage. He cast crisp, shadowless light across the steel workbench. Arthur had already stripped off his outer combat uniform, donning a sterile rubber razor-sharp apron and forearm sleeves. The air in the bay was thick with the sharp, healing bite of chlorhexidine, iodine, and boiling saline.
“I need three hundred milligrams of stygian-refined coagulant in the air-powered hollow tube, Toby,” Arthur ordered, his voice clipped and entirely focused. “And keep the oxygen-cold air balance in the nasal prongs at forty-sixty. If her core heat drops below thirty-four degrees, her bright red blood will turn to jelly.”
Toby worked the manual pump of the anesthesia vaporizer, his hands steady despite the sweat dripping from his chin. “Nasal prongs secured. Heart rate sitting at one-hundred-and-eighty, down from two-twenty. Body heat thirty-five-point-two. She’s stabilizing, but barely. Her dark-blood pressure is dropping fast.”
Arthur leaned over the animal. The lynx lay on her side upon a heated razor-sharp pad spread across the workbench. Her starved frame looked heartbreakingly fragile beneath the harsh overhead glare. Every rib was etched against her taut, scarred skin. Her rust-tabby coat was bald in patches where chemical burns had eaten away the fur.
