The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 9
By Diana the Valkyrie
The Nurse's tale


Fiona:

The trouble with being dedicated to duty, is that people do not merely take
advantage of your dedication, they actually go out of their way to drop
bedpans on you from a great height. I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the
floor when I had my revelation. "Fiona," said a voice, "what do you think
you're doing? Why is a senior ward nursing sister scrubbing floors?" The voice
was one that was very familiar to me; it was my own.

It was the last straw. When I got back to my rented room that night, over my
sardines and beans I turned to the back pages of Nursing Times, and looked at
the job ads. You can only take so many bedpans on your head. If it meant I'd
be leaving the country, then so be it. My commitment is to nursing, not to
nursing in one particular country.

One advert particularly caught my eye. They wanted an experienced senior
sister to organise an international network of child care establishments. The
more I thought about that, the more I liked it. One big downside of hospital
work, is you're very often dealing with patients who die, and either you never
get used to that and it's always a big downer, or else, even worse, you do get
used to it. But when you work with children, the reason why you don't see them
any more is because they've grown and can look after themselves, and although
it's always a bit sad, it's the right sort of sad, a happy sort of sad, if you
see what I mean.

So I sent in my resume, applied for the job, and they called me in for an
interview.

I turned up wearing full fig, the formal regalia of a Queen's Nursing Sister,
including the head-dress, apron and cape. I was first interviewed by a tall
young dark-haired woman carrying two babies. I wasn't sure what she was
wearing - it kind of looked like a nursing uniform, but it wasn't one I
recognised. White tunic and skirt, white cape, gold belt. Although I've never
seen a nurse wearing such a short skirt.

She asked me some simple stuff about babycare. I couldn't see why; a first
year trainee nurse knows how to feed and change a baby. If I were doing my job
properly, I shouldn't be doing that sort of thing, except in some emergency.
My job ought to be recruitment, organisation, training, supervision. Making
sure that the right things were done, by the right people. I began to have
second thoughts about this job; then I thought about getting down and
scrubbing floors, and stuck with it.

Then the second interviewer turned up, a man about my own age, and he took
over. He asked me much more relevant questions - about how I organised my
wards, about rostering, people management, how I did the training of the
junior staff, what inspections I did to ensure that patients were getting the
best possible care. Then he asked me what part of my job I liked most, what
part I liked least. Well, the "liked most" part is easy, it's when you watch a
patient walk out of the door, and when you first saw them, you weren't sure if
they'd make it. But liked least? A couple of years ago, I'd have said that it
was the ones you didn't win, especially the young ones, at the moment when you
know you've lost them, and you turn away, and stop trying because the live
ones need you more than the dead.

But now? I explained to Duncan, this was why I was leaving. What should hurt
most, is death. That's how it should be. It hurts, but it's what you get in
hospitals, it's how things are. But what was hurting most, was scrubbing
floors. Not that I felt that I was above scrubbing floors. It was that the
people who controlled the finances of the hospital had fired most of the
cleaners, trying to cut costs, and that this was such a total screw-up, that a
trained and qualified nurse could save more lives by scrubbing the floors than
by direct patient care.

A hospital should not be a place of filth and garbage. Dirt breeds germs,
every nurse since long before Florence Nightingale knows that - the first
thing you want is a clean, antiseptic environment. Even the bean counters
surely know that? So, scrubbing the floors meant that I wasn't only fighting
the usual battles against pain and disease, it meant that I was also fighting
the people who were supposed to be part of my support. And instead of
supporting the nursing effort, they were stabbing us in the back. And no-one
listens to the nurses. Why? Because we have no power, we can't go on strike,
because a nurses strike hurts the patients, the same people we're dedicated 
to caring for. We're just the bedpan brigade, what do we know?

So I told him all this. I hadn't meant to, but once I started, it all poured
out, and after a few minutes I thought, well, I've blown this job, I just
spent five minutes moaning and whining about the people who run the hospitals.
And then I just lost my rag; I told him about patients left in corridors
because we didn't have beds, about patients who couldn't get in because they
only had a minor problem, until the minor problem became major and urgent, and
then we could treat them. I told him about how half the equipment didn't work,
and there was no money to get it repaired, how we didn't have enough
autoclaves to sterilise the linen so we had to boil it in kitchenware, I told
him about when the lift broke down and we had to bump patients up and down the
stairs for a week, because the other two lifts have been broken for months.

And then I got back to the thing that was really driving me out, the way we
had skilled nurses scrubbing floors, and I was too, because I will not ask my
nurses to do something that I'm not doing, you lead a nursing team from the
front, and I started crying, which is a *most* unprofessional thing to do, but
by then I'd stopped being a candidate for a job, I'd stopped being a senior
nursing sister, I was just a woman who had gone past the point of no return.
And then I felt someone hugging me, and I looked up through my tears and the
woman in white was kneeling next to me and holding me close, and I just put my
face into her hair and cried. No, I howled.I must have been bottling it up
for months, and now it all came out.

After a while, I stopped howling, stopped bawling, and just sniffled. She held
me close to her warm body, and patted me, and rubbed my back, and stroked my
hair, and I felt some sort of warm comforting blanket wrapped around me, and
she told me not to worry, and all the things that I do when I've got a patient
scared white about what's happening to him. When I looked up again, Duncan had
gone. "Here, take Rosetta," she said, and she gave me a baby to hold. So I
held the baby, hugged the baby, and all the old training kicked in. When
you're looking after a baby, you just cannot be weak and weepy. The baby made
me feel stronger, and I talked to the woman. "I'm Sister Fiona," I said.
"Hello," she replied, "I'm Wendy the Weapon." "Weapon?" I asked. "I break
things," she explained. "Oh. Is this your baby?" "They're both mine," she
said, proudly. "They're lovely," I said, and they were, fine bonny babies.
"You like babies?" she asked. "Love them," I said. "You have babies?" she
asked. "No, I'm not even married. I'm married to nursing," I explained,
"except that right now I'm thinking about a divorce." She looked confused. "I
mean, I can't take it any more, I'm getting out of hospitals. That's why I
applied for this job, but I'm not that bothered about messing up the
interview, I'll find something, there's lots of people want experienced senior
nursing sisters." "But you didn't mess up the interview. Duncan told me to
tell you the job's yours if you want it."

I blinked, and brushed the back of my hand against my eyes. "It is?" "Yes,"
she nodded, "he said that you were exactly what we were looking for. A
competent nurse, an organiser of nursing staff, and someone who cares
passionately about what she does. Fiona, please say you'll come and help us?"

"Well, uh." My immediate instinct was to say yes, but it wouldn't hurt to find
out more about the job first. "No-one told me what I'll be doing."

Wendy looked to the side, then said "I just called Duncan, he'll be along in a
jiffy." And sure enough, he came back into the room.

"I thought Wendy would be better than me when you started crying, are you
feeling any better now?" I cuddled the baby on my lap, and said "Much better,
thanks. But I would like to know what this job is all about; I'm pretty sure I
want it, but I would like to know some details."

"Well, first of all, pay and hours." I wasn't actually too bothered about pay,
although I doubted if I could actually live on any less than I'd been getting
from the hospital. And I wasn't at all concerned about hours, because I
couldn't actually work any longer hours than I already worked; apart from
eating and sleeping, nursing was all I had time for. But the pay was actually
rather good; more than a senior Ward Sister got, for sure, and maybe even as
much as one of the beancounters in the admin department. "And the hours are
whatever you need to do." I nodded; par for the course.

"Now the job. Let me start off by explaining what we do." "You're a
transportation company, I looked you up on the web." He grinned. "That's what
most people think we are. Actually, we're a baby rescue company." "A what?"

He explained. "You know how Martin Luthor King used to say 'I have a dream'?"
"Uh huh?" "Well, Wendy has a nightmare. A billion crying babies." I looked at
her. She looked serious, and nodded. "All babies cry," I said, "it's natural."
Wendy looked at me. "Matty cries when she's hungry, so I feed her. She cries
when she's wet, so I change her nappy. She cries when she's just lonely, so I
pick her up and cuddle and play with her. That's not the problem. The problem
is all the babies who cry, and no-one feeds them, no-one cleans them, no-one
cuddles them. And maybe there aren't a billion, but there's far too many, and
you humans aren't doing enough about it."

"Us humans?" "Yes, they're your babies, you should be caring for them. For all
of them. Not just the ones that are nearby. And you aren't." I looked at
Duncan. And then I remembered, I'd read about this in the Nursing Times, this
was The Weapon, she'd handled that forest fire, everyone had been talking
about it at the time.

"So you want me to run an orphanage, right?"

Duncan grinned, and leaned forward. "Not quite. No. We already have a couple
of orphanages, but we're about to have a major expansion. You should think
more in terms of a thousand establishments. Probably more."

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it again. "You're serious?" I asked. He
looked at Wendy, and gestured with his hand, pointing upwards. She rose slowly
in the air, her cape spread out behind her, a baby held in one arm. "You're
serious," I said, "but a thousand orphanages?"

He nodded. "I'm probably oversimplifying this," he said. "What we want to set
up, is an organisation that is capable of taking in babies and children,
feeding and sheltering them, bringing them up and educating them, so that when
they do eventually leave, they're good and productive members of their
society, capable of looking after themselves and others. These aren't just
orphanages, they're residential, educational and social. We call them "Rescue
Centers" I have to admit, I don't know how to do all that, and Wendy certainly
doesn't. That's where you come in. You'll be our VP Rescue."

"Sounds great, but have you any idea what that would cost? There's a reason
why this stuff doesn't get done, you know. Oh, the governments do a lot, and
charities do even more, but to do it properly, you need commitment and long
term funding. A lot of funding."

"We're committed," said Wendy.

"And we're funded," he said. "Your annual budget will be half a billion
dollars. Initially. I'd hope that we'll be able to grow that."

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it again. Then I blinked. Then I shook my
head. "I can't. It's too big. I'm a senior ward sister, I run six wards, three
dozen staff, a couple of hundred patients. You're talking, hmmm, a million
children? Half a million? Thousands of establishments? I'd be completely out
of my depth. I wouldn't even know how to handle that amount of money."

"Fiona, you hire a bunch of accountants for that, to make sure that the
finances work smoothly. And you make sure they understand that they're support
staff, not management. You hire property managers, retain lawyers, do deals
with food supply companies. Pretty Flamingo will be a major voice in this
area, because we'll be so big, people will be very keen to get business from
us. You don't do everything yourself, but you know what needs to be done, so
you can tell other people to do it."

I shook my head again. "I don't know. I'm a nurse, not an administrator. You
want someone who can run a business, not someone who knows how to work a
bedpan."

Duncan and Wendy looked at each other. He stood up, and walked to the door.
"You're the best candidate for the job that we've seen. I think you can do it,
and I think you want to do it. I think you're just scared of the possibility
of failure. Wendy, talk to her." And he left.

She floated back down to my level. "If Duncan thinks you can do it, then you
can," she said with certainty. "Maybe. But what if I fail? What if I make a
mess of it? I've never done anything like this before." "You won't fail. You
can't fail."

I sighed. "I wish I had your confidence."

She took one of my hands in hers; her other hand was still holding the baby.
"Look, Fiona. This failure thing is bullshit. Whatever we do, it won't be
enough. Duncan reckons we can care for half a million. I think there's a
hundred times as many that need care. So we're going to be a 99% failure, are
we? No! It isn't about success or failure, it's about doing what you can, and
doing your best." She walked to the window, and opened it. "Come here." I
joined her at the window. "Fiona, listen. Listen. Can you hear them crying?"

I listened. I could hear the sound of the traffic outside. "No, I can't hear
crying." "You have to get closer. If you get closer, you'll be able to hear
them. Would you like to get closer?" I nodded. "We'll have to go to India."
"India?" "Yes. Are you ready?" "Ready?" "To fly." "Fly?"

This was all happening too fast. She took Rosetta back from me, put both the
babies into a carrier on her back. She stepped up to me, embraced me, her arms
around me. Her cape swirled around us both, and she dived through the window
with me in her arms.

I admit it - I screamed. I was scared, no, I was terrified. She slowed down,
hovered. She held me while I got my composure back. A senior ward sister does
not scream like a frightened rabbit. Even when the world is going to hell in a
handbasket, a senior ward sister maintains her composure, because if she
panics, so do the junior sisters, so do the nurses, and so do the patients. I
took a deep breath, and willed myself to stay calm. "Nice weather we're
having, don't you think?" I said.

"Don't worry," she replied, "most people act the same the first time I take
them up, and I don't think there's anything I can say that would prepare you
for it. Now, let me explain what's going to happen next. We've got a couple of
Rescue Centers in Bombay, and I want you to see what it's like there. So we'll
be flying half way around the world." "That's an awfully long trip, I didn't
even pack a toothbrush," I replied. "Not as long as you think," she said, "we
won't be going the route that the passenger jets take, and we won't be going
as slowly as they do. We'll be blasting off into space, to Near Earth Orbit,
we'll fly a fractional orbit, then re-enter over the Indian Ocean. The whole
trip should take less than an hour, each way." "Wow. I've spent that long in
traffic just trying to get halfway across London!" "Sub-orbital is the
quickest way around. But you need to be warned about two things. First, we'll
be accelerating for several minutes. I'll only be pulling two Gs, because I
don't want the babies to get any more than that, if we were in a hurry, I'd
leave them behind and you'd get three Gs. And secondly, once we get above a
few miles high, the air gets rarified; at fifty miles up it's nearly a vacuum.
So I'll be wrapping my cape around us, so you can all breathe. Don't worry,
I've done this lots of times before, it works great."

An hour later, we were landing in Bombay. It was hot, oppressively hot. And
dusty. And the sun slammed down like a blast of sandpaper from the sky. And
crowded, and smelly, and dirty, and muggy, and, well, horrible. I suppose the
climate wouldn't feel so bad if you were used to it, but I'm an English Rose,
and I like English weather. She took me to one of their Rescue Centers. It was
cooler inside, but still much too hot for my liking. At least it was clean,
and my nose welcomed the familiar smell of carbolic. She showed me the nursery, 
and the dormitories, and the schoolrooms. She took me round the kitchens, the
bathrooms, the playrooms. "You see," she said, "this is not complicated. And
it doesn't have to be perfect." I nodded.

Kids are tougher than people think. You feed them, teach them and love them,
and most of them will thrive just fine on that. Sure, there's always some who
need a bit more, and there's scrapes and bruises, and measles and flu.

"Now come and see the alternative," she said, picking me up again.

The alternative was grim. On the streets, in the alleys, on rubbish heaps.
Naked children living like animals, foraging for food. I will not cry. Some
lying in the street, too weak to move. I will NOT cry. Some looking like
skeletons covered in skin. No-one to feed them, no-one to teach them, and
above all, no-one to care, no-one to love them. I *WILL* not cry. We hovered,
twenty feet above the ground, looking down at a baby that had been left to die
on a rubbish dump. Left to die! "Now can you hear them crying?" she asked. I
WILL NOT CRY. "We can't just leave that baby there!"

She looked at me. "We can try to rescue them one at a time, or we go the way
Duncan has planned. You know what he says to me? He says, how many babies can
you look after. And the answer is, maybe a couple of dozen. But if we work
through Pretty Flamingo, we use my abilities, we make money, we spend the
money on an organisation, we get fifty thousand people all working to rescue
them, then we can make so much more of a difference. And you can do it, you
can run this thing, I know you can because Duncan says you can, and you know
you can, you want me to tell you?" "Tell me," I whispered. "You can because
you want to. It's as simple as that. Plus, you've got me backing you, I'm The
Weapon, I'm the Defender of Humanity, and I can do things that you humans
can't do. If you get a problem, you tell me, I'll kick it out of the way,
because I can. And I will, I kick pretty hard. I'm The Weapon, I break things,
if something gets in our way, I'll break it."

She wiped away my tears, and I looked up at her. "I'll do it. I'll do it, but
on one condition." "What's that?" I pointed downwards. "That one. That one
comes with us. We don't just leave that baby to die, we take her back with
us."

She frowned, and held me at arm's length, away from the warmth and comfort of
her body; I could see the ground a long way down. "You don't tell me what to
do," she said. I nodded. "You don't make conditions," she continued, "and you
don't let yourself get tied up with one baby when there's a million to take
care of." I nodded again, and whispered, "You're right. I'm sorry." I felt the
tears running down my cheeks, but she was right. A nurse has to look after her
patient, but a ward sister has to think of the welfare of the whole ward; all
the nurses and all the patients under her care. She looked at me in the eyes
again, a vivid penetrating gaze. I felt that she could see right into my soul.
I looked straight back at her. "Let's go," I said, "we have work to do."
"Right," she agreed, "but first ..."

We landed, and she waited while I picked up the abandoned baby. She was thin,
far too thin, and the sun had burned her naked skin. I wrapped her in my
head-dress, and held her in my arms. I looked up at Wendy, the Defender of
Humanity. "Thank you," I said. "That's why we're here," she answered.

And that was how I came to be VP of Babies, at Pretty Flamingo.