Story code: ST-000156
Part 2: The Silver Needle
Mateo braced himself, his mind flashing to a weapon or a badge, but the suited man withdrew neither. His fingers emerged gripping a heavy, cylindrical object made of brushed steel. It looked like an auto-injector, but it was entirely devoid of medical markings or prescription labels. A single, tiny red LED pulsed near the base, and as the man adjusted his grip, a wicked, three-inch metallic needle slid smoothly from the top.
He didn’t aim it at Hector’s chest. He angled the thick needle directly toward the pulse point on Hector’s dark, bruised neck.
Mateo panicked. He broke his CPR rhythm, abandoning the life-saving compressions to lunge across Hector’s torso. He grabbed the suited man’s wrist with both hands, his sweat-slicked palms struggling to find purchase on the stiff fabric of the charcoal jacket.
“What are you doing?!” Mateo screamed, his voice cracking. “He needs the shock! Help me open the machine!”
The physical contact was deeply jarring. Beneath the expensive wool of the suit sleeve, the man’s wrist felt as hard and unyielding as a length of rebar. He did not flinch. He did not drop the injector. He simply turned his gaze from Hector’s face to look down at Mateo’s desperate grip. The man’s eyes were a flat, icy gray, completely devoid of the panic that was currently drowning Mateo.
Mateo shoved his weight against the stranger’s arm, trying to force the needle away from Hector’s throat. His triceps shrieked in protest, the muscles already exhausted from the endless minutes of chest compressions. He felt his grip slipping. The suited man applied a slow, terrifyingly measured pressure, inexorably driving his hand downward despite Mateo’s entire body weight working against him.
“Someone help me!” Mateo yelled over his shoulder, his boots scraping frantically against the dusty stones of the plaza.
He looked back at the wall of voyeurs. A few people shuffled backward to avoid getting kicked, but the circle remained unbroken. A man wearing thick-rimmed glasses adjusted a motorized gimbal, making sure the violent struggle remained perfectly centered in his phone’s frame. A teenager with a half-eaten churro chewed methodically, her screen reflecting the harsh glare of the overhead string lights. The utter lack of human empathy hit Mateo like a physical blow. They were treating this life-and-death struggle as nothing more than an interactive street performance. They were watching Hector die in real time, capturing his tragedy for their social media feeds, completely disconnected from the brutal reality of the blood and sweat staining the concrete.
“Release me,” the suited man said. His voice was shockingly quiet, barely a whisper over the ambient hum of the market, yet it carried an unnatural, resonant authority that vibrated in Mateo’s chest.
“You’re not a doctor!” Mateo gasped, his arms trembling violently as he fought to keep the silver needle inches away from Hector’s skin.
“If you power on that machine, you will kill him,” the man stated, his tone as cold and level as a machine. “The electrical current will incinerate him from the inside out. Let go.”
Mateo’s mind raced, completely disjointed by the bizarre warning. Standard medical protocol dictated chest compressions and immediate defibrillation for sudden cardiac arrest. It was the only way to reset a fibrillating heart. What the hell did he mean by incinerate? Mateo looked down at Hector. The older man’s lips had shifted from a dusky blue to an ashen, terrifying gray. He had been without oxygen for too long. His brain was dying.
Realizing he could not overpower the suited stranger in a test of pure strength, Mateo changed tactics. He suddenly released his grip on the man’s wrist, using the loss of resistance to throw himself backward toward the bright yellow AED case sitting on the pavement.
Mateo’s hands scrambled over the heavy plastic clips. He snapped them open and tore the lid back. A synthetic, robotic voice immediately sliced through the heavy silence of the onlookers.
*”UNIT OKAY. REMOVE PADS FROM PACKAGE AND APPLY TO PATIENT’S BARE CHEST.”*
Mateo ripped the sealed foil pouch open with his teeth, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped the square adhesive pads. He scrambled back to Hector’s side on his hands and knees. The suited man had not rushed his injection. He was simply waiting, the silver needle hovering a fraction of an inch above Hector’s jugular, his flat gray eyes tracking Mateo’s frantic movements.
*”APPLY PADS TO PATIENT’S BARE CHEST,”* the machine repeated, a loud, piercing beep punctuating the command.
During the initial compressions, Mateo had only unbuttoned the top of Hector’s shirt to check his airway, performing CPR through the thin cotton fabric. Now, he grabbed the edges of the shirt and ripped it completely open, sending small plastic buttons scattering across the concrete to bounce against the shoes of the spectators.
Mateo peeled the backing off the first pad, but as he moved to press it against Hector’s upper right pectoral, his hand froze.
Beneath the stark white light of a teenager’s camera flash, Mateo saw it.
Radiating outward from the center of Hector’s sternum, right where Mateo had been pressing his palms, was a thick, raised webbing of black veins. They looked like wires buried just beneath the pale skin, and they were pulsing with a faint, unnatural heat. The dark, sprawling network stretched across Hector’s ribcage, completely alien and terrifyingly wrong. The skin around the black webbing was blistered, looking less like a biological heart attack and more like a chemical burn spreading from within.
The robotic voice of the AED blared again. *”ANALYZING RHYTHM. DO NOT TOUCH THE PATIENT.”*
The suited man leaned in, the silver needle now pressing slightly into the skin of Hector’s neck, drawing a single bead of dark blood.
“Your choice,” the stranger whispered.