Chapter Text
Viktor new he had been at this for too long when management assigned him and his partner an intern.
He had already heard about her from techies and nurses at the emergency rooms. They called her a bumkin, nomad trash, rolled their eyes when describing the way she drawled her words and how she had a virgin body, devoid of the implants everyone used. During a smoke break at the landing pad, Sweeney from respiratory told the group how she asked to use a vein finder to stick a patient.
"She doesn't have a single fucking upgrade! She needed an IV to check off, and we were all digging around for a finder! I don't even think we have one!"
Vic took a drag before he asked, "Did she get the stick though?"
Sweeney paused.
"I mean, yeah. First try too."
"That's actually impressive, doing it old school."
Vik flicked the butt onto the cement, heading back to his AV-4, he didn't have the patience to shit talk a newbie. He barely finished restocking the ship before another call came in.
Trauma Team had a high turnover rate, so at Vik's age, he was considered a veteran. Even so, the PTSD and inhumane grind got to him. People were broken objects meant to be fixed. Stop the bleeding, get some oxygen in them, plug up some holes. Transport times were short in the AVs, but there were plenty of times when the crafts were damaged in gunfire, had to land for quick repairs, and he and his partner were stuck with a patient for longer than comfortable with limited supplies. There was no care involved with the work, if someone was stable you kept them knocked out, don't talk or bond with them. Time is money and the longer you're with the patient in transport, the less Trauma Team can charge.
Luckily, by the time the new intern was with him, she had learned to be quick in the ER. Out in the field, though, he had to teach her to keep her head on a swivel. She became so lazer focused on tubing a corpo that took too much, he had to pull her away when mercs came to shower them with gunfire. Security almost threw her out of the way before he managed to drag her into another room in the formally habitable office building.
They listened to guns from their security and the mercs while they caught their breath.
Willis, his partner, was with the AV prepping narcan doses for the patient.
This girl had to get some optical analyzers, or hearing enhancement, even some fucking radar in the skull would help. What most people took for granted, she probably couldn't even afford.
"V," his hands on his knees, leaning on a wall, Viktor gave the green EMT his most serious, grave glare.
"NEVER. Never begin treatment before we have the area secured."
She nodded, hands digging into her hair, the braid that was so clean and brushed at the beginning of the shift now in frizzy disarray. By the way she trembled, looking at the filthy carpet under her boots, and brow furrowed, Vik knew that she knew she fucked up.
An explosion shook the dilapidated walls around them, it seemed to break her loop of self-loathing.
Security came on the coms, informing them that the patient could not be retrieved. They were now working on securing their path back to the AV. Since V did not have a bio tracker, he had to confirm that she was with him.
The newbie sat against the wall opposite him, now leaning her head back and looking at the stained ceiling above them.
"This is my fault."
Vik sat down too, "better the mercs got him then try to take down the AV."
"We could have gotten him in there before then, if I hadn't been such a..." she winced, "fuuucking dumbass."
Self doubt, self blame, all such green things to be worrying about. Victor new this, he remembered it from when he was green. The tight feeling of failure and stress in your chest. Wracking your brain after a call, replaying it over and over, thinking of all the things you could have done differently for a better outcome.
"They wanted him dead. Don't fuck with 'what-ifs'. We have to save our asses before we can save other asses. A dead medic saves no lives."
She sighed, then lolled her head down to look him in the eye. There were no reflective glares behind her irises, no metal lenses zooming in on him. She was in her early twenties, but her naivety in the field made her seem much younger than he felt.
She couldn't optically analyze him, but he could analyze her, something he hadn't done yet. She really had no implants, nothing in her body. No synthetic tendons, no security grips in her palms. Her eyes were just hers, an almost childlike feature in Night City. They were a blue-grey, and dilated as he stared at her, her heart rate decreasing as danger abated.
He was lost in ugly, perfectly repairable scars that flecked her skin, when she arched and eyebrow and broke his calm respect for her by rolling her eyes at him.
He tilted his head at her, looking incredulous as she let out a long, sophomoric "oh, pleeeeeease. Give me a fucking break."
Out of all the insults and catty banter he had heard about her, he never got the impression that she was a brat.
"Save the one-line platitudes for inspirational posters. I know I'm being irrational, just let me wallow in it for a bit."
So, she isn't a brat, just self-aware. Victor couldn't help but chuckle, then laugh as he shook his head. V smirked, perhaps finally finding some commraderie in this profession that would eat anyone alive.