Elena Rostova did not move toward the door lever.
She stood balanced on the balls of her feet, one hand gripping the cold steel rim of Clara’s isolette, the other holding her silver Littmann Cardiology Stethoscope.
Outside the bus, the freezing thirty-four-degree draft curled against the front folding doors. But Elena had spent seven years running the overnight trauma triage at St. Jude’s Municipal Hospital. She knew how people died when they crossed an uninspected threshold.
Amateurs charged forward. Amateurs saw an open door, panicked, and ran into the room. And thirty seconds later, the orderlies were mopping their blood out of the floor drains.
In a hospital, you never stepped into an isolation ward without reading the yellow contamination chart on the door frame. On the Night Shift, you never stepped off a vehicle without finding the Stamped Brass Anchor Plaque.
“Keep the doors sealed, Mac,” Elena said. Her voice was low and calm. “Nobody steps onto that concrete apron ungrounded.”
“I am not touching the air valve, Nurse,” Mac Cole growled from the driver’s seat. He sat with his hands locked to the wheel, his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror. “Under Sheet 4A, Rule 1, this coach is our sovereign territory until we drop the boarding ramp. The moment our tires leave the ramp approach, we are in their staging vault.”
