The Unification Chronicles

1: Acci­dent

Daniel Cho was on his way home from tae kwon do prac­tice when he heard the unmis­take­able col­li­sion of steel on steel and shat­ter­ing glass. Dammit, he thought, this is sup­posed to be my night off. He dropped his gym bag and bolted towards the sound of the collision.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he dialed 911. “This is Daniel Cho. Report­ing a mul­ticar acci­dent at 17^th and M, send emer­gency units.” With­out wait­ing for a con­fir­ma­tion, he dis­con­nected the call and reached into his back pocket for the latex gloves he kept there just in case.

The acci­dent was a bad one, a three car pileup. As Daniel pulled on the gloves, he could see in the glare of the street­lights what had hap­pened. A heavy Mer­cedes town car had been bar­rel­ing down M and ran the light, t-​​boning a mini­van into the pickup truck going the other way. The whole clus­ter had veered side­ways and now blocked off M street in both direc­tions, along with part of 17^th. It would be at least half an hour before the ambu­lance and fire truck got here, if then. Daniel had sat in the back of that ambu­lance wait­ing to get to wrecks like this, knew what that wait was like.

Well, now he didn’t have to wait. Why do I even have nights off, he won­dered as he approached the near­est car, the Mercedes.

Before he even got the door open he could see that the dri­ver was beyond help. The bas­tard who caused all this car­nage hadn’t been wear­ing a seat­belt, and the force of the crash had pro­pelled him onto the steer­ing wheel with enough force to break off the wheel itself and ram the steer­ing col­umn through his ribcage. The car pre­dated airbags, so there was really noth­ing to do. The blood was every­where in the cabin, even drip­ping from the ceil­ing. It looked almost black in the arti­fi­cial illu­mi­na­tion. But what Daniel noticed most was the man’s eyes. They were angry, focused on the road ahead of him, as if deter­mined to con­tinue on their way. That’s odd, Daniel thought. They usu­ally look surprised.

Daniel shook it off and moved to the next vehi­cle, the mini­van. It was sand­wiched between the other two cars, and Daniel couldn’t seen much past the shat­tered wind­shield. He didn’t hear any­thing, or sense any move­ment. Come back to this. He moved on to the pickup truck.

The pickup dri­ver was belted in and con­scious, try­ing to claw his way past the deployed airbag. Daniel opened the pas­sen­ger door and leaned in to help. “It’s okay,” he said, “I’m going to help get you out of there.” The man was still dazed, but com­plied with Daniel’s efforts to slide him out of the truck cab.

Daniel quickly pal­pated the man, look­ing for hid­den injuries. He had sev­eral minor cuts from bro­ken glass and would have the dual black eye rac­coon mask from the airbag, but fun­da­men­tally he seemed okay. No bro­ken bones and his spine looked nor­mal. Daniel guided him to the side­walk and propped him into a seated posi­tion against a build­ing. “Just sit here, and try to stay awake until we can get you to a hos­pi­tal and check for any head injuries,” Daniel said. The man nodded.

Now Daniel had the hard work to do. He went back to the pickup and crawled through the cab. The now shat­tered dri­ver side win­dow was matched up with the pylon on the mini­van. He couldn’t reach into the mini­van, but he could get a bet­ter look inside it.

The front seat was just the dri­ver, a woman in her late twen­ties. She was also slumped over a deployed airbag, and had both blood and tiny cubes of safety glass in her hair. He didn’t see any major bleeds, so she could prob­a­bly hold on for a bit while he fig­ured out how to get her out. He looked into the back seat and froze. Daniel had seen a lot of hor­rific things in his career. This was one of them.

Behind the dri­ver was an infant, maybe a year old, maybe less in a car seat. He was cov­ered in blood and bro­ken glass but seemed to be breath­ing. Thank­fully, he was also uncon­scious. He didn’t have to see what was next to him.

The pas­sen­ger side of the back seat held a bag of meat that used to be a lit­tle boy, maybe six or so. He was dead cen­ter for the front end of the Mer­cedes and took the brunt of the kinetic energy trans­fer. Every bone was bro­ken, sev­eral jut­ting out through his flesh and cloth­ing, red smeared white shards in all direc­tions. Bits of gray brain mat­ter where drip­ping from the ceil­ing, and what the seat belt held in place was crammed into his brother’s car seat.

So three pos­si­ble sur­vivors, two dead on arrival, Daniel thought. As these kinds of crashes went, that actu­ally wasn’t bad, but the next few min­utes would prove crit­i­cal. And he needed some help.

He backed out of the pickup and looked around. Daniel could hear now the dis­tant wail of the ambu­lance siren. He couldn’t wait. If the mother and her baby were going to live, they needed to get out of that car as soon as pos­si­ble. He saw a burly man in a Red­skins t-​​shirt. Daniel jogged up to him.

“Hey!” Daniel said. “Ever been a hero?”

The man started wav­ing his hands in front of him and backpedal­ing. Daniel reached out and caught him by the fore­arm. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m a doc­tor. I just need an extra pair of hands and a strong back. You in?”

The man gulped audi­bly and nod­ded. “I ain’t never done any­thing like this,” he said. “I was just on my way home.”

“That’s okay,” Daniel said. “I do this all the time. I’ll tell you what to do. Come on.”

They went back to the mini­van and looked at the shat­tered safety glass of the wind­shield. Daniel hopped up on the hood and checked around the edges until he found what he was look­ing for, a two inch sec­tion where the seam had sep­a­rated with the crum­pling of the pylon. He worked his fin­gers into it and started pulling. Once he got about a foot free, he waved Red­skins over. “Grab this and pull as hard as you can,” Daniel said.

They both pulled, and the wind­shield peeled away from the metal like a giant band aid. Once it was free, they cast it aside and Daniel was able to get a closer look at the mother.

It was worse than he’d hoped. The airbag was mostly deflated and it was clear that the woman’s mater­nal instincts worked against her. Her right arm was flat­tened, smashed as she tried to reach back and pro­tect her chil­dren at the moment of impact. Right now the bleed­ing was con­tained by the pres­sure, but they’d have to apply a tourni­quet before pulling her out. She also had a large gash on the side of her head Daniel hadn’t seen before, and it was bleed­ing badly. Great, Daniel thought, shouldn’t move her, but can’t afford not to if that head wound is as bad as it looks.

He looked back at Red­skins. “Give me your belt,” he said. As the man started to stam­mer, he added, “I need to use it as a tourni­quet or she’s going to bleed out through her arm when we move her. Come on, now!”

The man quickly pulled it belt out and handed it over. “Good, Daniel said. “Now I’m going to need some kind of stick or rod to tighten it. See what you can find.”

Red­skins ran off on his quest. Daniel threaded the belt under the woman’s arm and tied it off at the del­toid, mak­ing sure he had a grip on her brachial artery. Red­skins ran up with a tire iron. “Got this from the pickup” he said.

Daniel grabbed it and slid it through the belt before spin­ning it to tighten the bind, then tied it down with the other end of the belt. It wasn’t the best field tourni­quet he’d ever applied, but it would hold. She might even be able to keep the arm if they got her in surgery fast enough.

“Okay,” Daniel said. “We’re going to have to move her now. Get up here.”

Red­skins climbed up on the hood and looked into the cabin. He gagged. “I never seen so much blood,” he said.

“You’re doing great,” Daniel said. “I couldn’t do this with­out you.” He tried to slide over as much as he could to give the big man room to get a hold, but the Mer­cedes had crum­pled in most of that half of the mini­van. “We need to make sure we grab her by the torso, not the arms, and we need to make sure we cra­dle her head. Her head wound has me wor­ried, so I want to make sure we don’t jos­tle her any more than we have to.”

Red­skins started shak­ing his head. “You sure you don’t want some­one more — ”

“You’re doing fine,” Daniel said. “And I need some­one strong. You’re strong.”

Red­skins nod­ded. He was psych­ing him­self up, Daniel could see it. He was amazed what peo­ple could rise to when given the oppor­tu­nity. He’d seen it before.

“Okay,” Daniel said. “Let’s do this.” He reached in and took hold of the woman under the tourni­quet, guid­ing Red­skins to the other side. He also unlatched her seat­belt and pulled it free. “On three, we’re going to lift her out, and keep her head steady.”

He guided Redskins’s hand to the side of her head and showed him how to brace it.

“On three, he said. “One, two, three.”

Daniel and Red­skins pulled and started eas­ing her out. As soon as her arm cleared the wreck­age, her eyes snapped oven and she screamed.

Red­skins dropped his side and part jumped, part fell off the hood to the pave­ment. The woman kept scream­ing, a high keen­ing wail. Daniel reached round and grabbed under her other arm, brac­ing her head with his own while she screamed into his ear. He pulled slow and steady until he had her out of the car and on the hood. Only then did he notice how her lower leg flopped to the side. Her leg was bro­ken, prob­a­bly both the tibia and fibula, snapped when the Mer­cedes crum­pled the cabin.

Noth­ing for it now, he needed to get her sta­bi­lized. He pulled her off the mini­van and laid her down in the road, try­ing to make sure at the very least he didn’t make things worse. Her scream­ing died down to a whim­per, then sob­bing. She reached up with her good arm and grabbed Daniel’s shirt.

“Rus­sell,” she rasped, “Elijah…”

Must be the kids’s names, Daniel thought. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he told her. “I’m a doc­tor.” Daniel checked her head wound. it was start­ing to clot, for once some­thing not as bad as it looked. As Daniel pulled back, he saw that the woman had passed out again. He’d rather her stay con­scious until they got an MRI on her head, but frankly, what he still has to do would prob­a­bly be eas­ier with her out.

Red­skins was still sit­ting on the con­crete, shirt stained now with the woman’s blood. He had a blank stare, and Daniel knew he was done. Coura­geous as he may have been, every­one had their lim­its, and Daniel knew the signs all too well. He had to get the kid alone.

With­out another word, Daniel vaulted up on to the minivan’s hood and pulled him­self into the cabin. He reached down and felt for the latch to release the dri­ver seat back, and pulled it for­ward, try­ing to get as clear a shot as he could to the baby. Again he shud­dered when he saw what was left of the lit­tle boy on the pas­sen­ger side. He felt bile rise in his throat and choked it down. Not now, he thought. Plenty of time to freak out later. Crawl­ing over the dri­ver seat, he got a closer look at the baby and felt gen­tly for injuries. He was still out cold, but oth­er­wise he seemed okay. His brother had absorbed all the pun­ish­ment for him, shielded the baby from the worst of the impact. Daniel won­dered if the kid would ever know that as he grew up.

Reach­ing around the car seat, he unbuck­led the seat belt hold­ing it in place and lifted the whole assem­bly. Then he real­ized he couldn’t back out and hold the kid at the same time. “Hey back there!” he called. “Can you pull me out?”

Daniel felt two strong hands grab his ankles and pull him back. He held the car seat as high as he could while he felt the tiny cubes of shat­tered safety glass dig­ging into his thighs through his jeans. “Whoa!” Daniel said. “Careful.”

Sud­denly he was free of the van and back into the harsh glare emer­gency flares. He turned and handed the carseat with the baby not to Red­skins, but to a uni­formed police offi­cer. “Thank you, patrol­man…” Daniel checked the officer’s nametag. “Fit­sim­mons. Appre­ci­ate the assist.”

The cop nod­ded and put the baby down next to his mother, who was still out. Daniel clam­bered down from the mini­van and stretched. His mus­cles were stiff from tension.

Fit­sim­mons turned to him. “Sir, could I see some ID?”

Daniel nod­ded and dug out his wal­let. “Sure. It’s okay, I’m a para­medic with the 33^rd.”

Red­skins, still seated in the mid­dle of the road, seemed to wake up at this. “Para­medic? You said you was a doctor!”

“I am,” Daniel said. “Sort of.”

Fit­sim­mons con­tin­ued rifling through Daniel’s wal­let. “None of this says you’re a doctor.”

Red­skins popped up. “I swear, that’s what he said. I never woulda touched that woman if he hadn’t said he was a doc­tor. I swear, that’s what he said.”

With­out hand­ing back Daniel’s wal­let, Fit­sim­mons turned to Red­skins. “ID, sir?”

Red­skins had his dri­vers license ready and handed it over. “Ran­dall Schlot­sky, your honor.”

“I’m not a judge,” Fit­sim­mons said.

“Sorry, your honor. Any­ways, this guy said he was a doc­tor, and that’s why I thought it was okay to move that woman.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Daniel said. “I am a doc­tor. Or I was. I have an M.D.”

Hand­ing Schlotsky’s dri­vers license back to him, Fit­sim­mons turned back to Daniel. The ambu­lance sirens were louder now, much closer. “You’re an M.D., but you work as a para­medic.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

“I just moved here from San Fran­cisco a few months ago,” Daniel said. “I don’t have a med­ical license in the Dis­trict.” He con­ve­niently left out that he had no inten­tion of get­ting another med­ical license.

“Um hmm,” Fit­sim­mons said, hand­ing back Daniel’s wal­let. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave the scene.”

The ambu­lance finally broke through the last of the traf­fic and pulled up. It wasn’t from Daniel’s sta­tion, and he didn’t know the para­medics who jumped out.

“I have no inten­tion of leav­ing the scene,” Daniel told Fit­sim­mons. “I was the first respon­der here, I called it into 911, and I saved that woman’s life.” He strode past the cop and addressed the para­medics. “We’ve got a prob­a­ble con­cus­sion to that man,” he said, point­ing at the pickup dri­ver, “and con­cus­sion and crush injuries to the woman. Aside from minor abra­sions, the infant seems fine, and we have two DOAs. A young boy in the van, and the dri­ver of the Mercedes.”

Fit­sim­mons, walk­ing around the scene, said, “Did you say the dri­ver of the Mer­cedes was DOA?”

Daniel walked over. “Of course he is. What, you can’t see him through all the blood?”

“I see the blood,” Fit­sim­mons said. “Just not the driver.”

“Dammit,” Daniel said, almost to the Mer­cedes, “he’s right…

“There.” Daniel stood silent for a moment. The dri­ver was gone.

“What the fuck?” Daniel started run­ning, loop­ing around the car. There was a faint blood trail for a few steps, but then noth­ing. But the man had been impaled. Even if some­one had pulled him out of the wreck­age, there should have been blood every­where. He started scan­ning around at the build­ings adja­cent to the intersection.

And then, despite the heat of the Wash­ing­ton DC sum­mer day, Daniel saw some­thing that made his blood run cold. Walk­ing down a back alley was the Mer­cedes dri­ver, absently rub­bing the still gap­ing hole in his chest. His clothes were still soaked with blood and gore, but he wasn’t spurt­ing or drip­ping, and the size of the wound seemed to be smaller than it had been before. The man glanced over at Daniel, grinned, and dis­ap­peared behind a Dumpster.

Daniel sprinted into the alley and tried to fol­low the man, but saw noth­ing behind the Dump­ster but a graf­fiti scrawled brick wall. He had no idea where the man had gone.

Daniel felt some­one walk up behind him and spun around to see Offi­cer Fit­sim­mons. “Did you see that?” Daniel asked. “Did you see him?”

Fit­sim­mons took a firm grip on Daniel’s arm. “Sir,” I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”