City Out of Time. William Robison III
Absolutely nothing about the City excited him like the idea of being a doctor. If he couldn’t be a doctor here, he’d be a doctor somewhere else.
There was, however, one thing he had to do before he left the City. After changing into his regular clothes, Lanz walked from City Hospital over to Corps HQ and asked around for his brother.
Seth came out of a debriefing looking a little beat and torn up. He seemed pleased to see Lanz, but Lanz could tell that he’d been through a rough day. Lanz suggested that they could both use a drink and Seth agreed that it was probably a good idea.
Seth took him to a nearby bar that was frequented by Corps members. It was called the H.G. Wells and it was a faux English pub. The place was packed. As they waited at the bar for some beer, Celeste waived them over to her booth. Lanz and Seth picked up pints of Bass Ale and joined her.
“It’s been a while, Lanz,” Celeste noted. “What have you been up to?”
“It’s been a rough week,” Lanz admitted.
“Oh, really, how so?” asked Seth sarcastically. It was clear that Seth had something on his mind.
Lanz deferred, however, and asked, “Something happen to you Seth?”
“One of our teams was ambushed the other day,” Celeste explained quickly.
“Yeah… I know,” Lanz replied.
Seth looked up, “You know?”
“I was looking for you guys when they brought the team in,” Lanz explained. “There was nobody there and they needed medical attention so I went to help.”
Seth nearly laughed. “That was YOU?”
“Yeah,” Lanz said bitterly. “That was me.”
“Colonel Field was talking about how you rushed in and helped his guys out and then how the Head Doctor, who’s kind of an ass, chewed you out,” Seth said, his mood greatly lifted. “But nobody knew who the mystery medic was. They really liked the way you told him, ‘I’m from the Army, OOH RAH!’”
Lanz thought about correcting his brother, but let it slide.
“Getting the Head Doctor angry can’t have been good,” Celeste commented.
“No,” Lanz said. “In fact, he fired me.”
“He can’t fire you,” Seth said. “You were just trying to save someone’s life.”
“Not only can he fire me,” Lanz snapped. “But he can prevent me from ever being a doctor in this City.”
“Oh Lanz… I’m so sorry,” Celeste said.
“What an idiot,” Seth replied. “Here we are, getting shot up on our missions, and he’s getting rid of perfectly qualified medics.”
“Yeah… but that’s sort of why I came to find you guys… I…wait… You were getting shot at? I thought these Corps missions were relatively safe?”
“Normally our missions are non-combat missions, brother, unless we, you know, go into a combat zone. But even then, we try really hard not to get into combat with anyone. We go in. We retrieve. We get the hell out. No muss, no fuss.” Seth explained. “But after one of our teams got ambushed, we had to find out why. So our team went out today with three other teams to find out what was going on… and we got jumped as well.”
“We didn’t see them coming,” Celeste agreed. “But they knew we were going to be there.”
“How does anyone know you’re coming?” Lanz asked. “You were traveling in time. You could come at any moment.”
“Exactly,” said Seth. “That means that whoever ambushed our teams was a time traveler as well. So you can see why we’re all in a pretty sour mood today.”
“We lost three members,” Celeste noted. “Perez, Cho, and our medic…”
“It was a hard day. They were the first three men our unit has ever lost.”
Lanz drank deeply from his beer. His plans to leave suddenly seemed so petty. Could he tough it out as a janitor?
No, what was he thinking? He hadn’t gone to school and joined the Army and received all that education and training to throw it all away so that he could clean floors and empty trash cans. But, then again… could he really leave Seth in danger again?
“You have medics on your teams?” Lanz asked.
“Not every team does,” Celeste noted. “We usually only take them with us into dangerous situations – which is pretty rare. One of the teams that did have a medic was ours.”
“I was going to leave,” Lanz said after another sip of his beer.
“Lightweight,” Seth replied. “Not even one beer and you’re calling it a night?”
“No,” Lanz explained. “I meant the City. The only chance I have of becoming a doctor now is to leave the City and go back to my old life.”
Seth coughed in his beer.
“What? No. Bad idea, Lanz… bad idea.”
“That’s why I’ve changed my mind.” Lanz said.
“Good, Lanz. You don’t know what it took for me to get you here in the first place. I’d hate to have you leave again… so soon…”
Seth looked up at Lanz and Lanz nodded his understanding of Seth’s mostly unspoken words. A goofy grin spread across Seth’s face.
“That’s why I’ve decided to stay here and join the Corps as a medic.”
Seth’s grin disappeared.
Celeste noted. “There’s an opening.”
“No, no, no, bad idea, Lanz. The body isn’t even cold,” Seth noted. “Besides, you hate all that adventure stuff. The Corps will be all wrong for you.”
Celeste looked at Lanz and said, “I think you would be perfect in the Corps.”
Lanz Franco didn’t need to hear another word. Though Seth spent the rest of the night, and quite a few beers, trying to convince Lanz otherwise, the next day he walked over to the Indoctrination building, went past all of the secretaries and others, down the stairs, down the halls, and right into the office of his Job Coordinator.
Jack Stiles looked up as Lanz walked in.
“Yes?”
“I want to join the Retrieval Corps.”
Stiles smiled and said, “Class starts on Monday. I have the paperwork right here.”
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