Night Shift

Gabriel Alphonse sat alone in the dark in his office. The door to the infirmary was open, so that the light on his desk illuminated the dark room. The silence was only broken by the beeping of the monitors connected to Pamala Sheldon. She was recovering well, given how sick she was. He leaned back into his chair.

“How the fuck am I mixed up with spies,” he asked himself. Hans Hermann was so open about his paranoia that Alphonse thought he could be entrapping him. “This is mad, I don’t care about spies.”

He was angry to be in this position at all. He was a good doctor, caring, thorough, and with the best for his patients always foremost in his mind. He remembered the time he’d told the team owner that the team’s striker wouldn’t be available no matter how much he demanded they play him injured. He didn’t want Pamala to know that he knew she was listening to the conversation he and Hermann had been having. The way her pulse had quickened after Hermann said she was a spy caught his attention immediately, but he said nothing. He didn’t want anything to do with spies, real or imagined, and the last thing that his patient needed was to be accused of something when she was in this condition.

“Who could these people all be spying for?”

He pondered the thought. Green Mars Corp was pretty strange, he thought, maybe they have spies to ensure loyalty? Or maybe another corporation like SpaceY or a national government was spying… Paranoia like Gabriel had never felt before swirled in his mind. How could I be stuck between to companies, he mused. He’d always hated the capitalists, their money-over-life attitudes, their greed, but when FIFA and Bundesliga and Green Mars Corp called, he answered. And he had been well paid for it too he thought. It was funny really, knowing he was a rich man on Earth, and nobody was rich on Mars. Was he denying himself or was he a fool who worked for yet another evil corporation? He wished he knew the answer, but it felt unknowable.

He walked sleepily to the patient, using the light of the office to guide his way. He didn’t want to wake her, and her vitals were stable enough to let her sleep. 0300 hours, the absolute graveyard shift back in the real world but here? He was the on-call doctor all the time. He sat back in the office chair with a squeak and sighed heavily. It had been a long time since he did this shift. The privilege of the sports surgeon. He hadn’t worried about one of his patients like this in… years. He admitted to himself that he’d taken this shift on purpose. He wasn’t used to this nagging worry. The correct healing of an injured athlete’s body doesn’t hold a candle to the anxiety of having a patient fighting for her life.

The infirmary door opened with a metallic squeak. He looked up to see Ilsa Kellerman walking into the infirmary. She stopped at Pamala’s bed and checked her vitals. She nodded with satisfaction, and walked into the infirmary office, closing the door behind her.

“Ilsa, how are you?”

“Good evening doctor, I am well thank you,” she said formally.

“Please, it’s just us round here, call me Gabriel.”

“Thank you, Doctor. The patient I see is recovering nicely. Very good.”

He smiled inwardly at her formality. The military did a number on this one.

“Not sleeping well Ilsa?”

“No, it’s been… difficult.”

“The midnight sun…”

“Well, yes this is annoying too.” She brushed her blonde hair back from her face. She looked **** in a way Alphonse had never seen before. Even though they were the same height, the tall medic usually seemed so tall and confident, but today, she seemed bent over with anxiety or sadness.

“Are… are you OK Ilsa?”

“I am fine, I thought I’d check on the patient.” Alphonse that was an odd thing to say, given the shift schedule. She must have known he was there.

“I see. She is well, you can get some rest, I got this. I’m not a bad doctor you know.”

Ilsa smiled and looked up at him, and he realized she was crying. Tears rolled softly down her cheek and her eyes glittered with tears.

“Ilsa I… Are you OK? Talk to me.”

“Scheisse. I don’t sleep well Doctor. It’s… I cannot speak of it. The mission.”

“I know this is a small place far away from the real world, but you can talk to me Ilsa, doctor patient confidentiality still applies out here.”

“I have not slept well in a very long time, it’s worse here, but not new,” she said, fidgeting, rubbing her thumb on the dent on her ring finger.

“The war?”

“Wars, herr doctor. Yes, but no. The war was, a lot of things, but life went on and…”

“You were married before you got here, right?” She nodded slowly.

“The wars, the drills, the exercises, the fear, the anger. The solitude doctor, it can be tough on a marriage.”

“I’m sorry he wasn’t able to…” Kellerman cut him off.

“George was a good husband; I was not a good wife.”

“Don’t blame yourself Ilsa, it’s a tough situation, nobody knows they would handle something like you did.”

“Thank you for that doctor but I assure you, I will still go to bed telling myself this anyway.”

“I’m sorry Ilsa. If there is anything I can do for you…”

She smiled weakly.

“I don’t think I can heal a broken heart far away. Let me take care of the patient tonight please, it would be good to have the distraction. I’ll do my shift too, don’t worry, and I am rested enough to responsibly…”

“Ilsa, Ilsa, relax. If it would make you feel better, I don’t mind getting some shuteye. I am pretty sleepy. You tell me if you need me to take over early though OK?”

“Thank you doctor it means a lot.”

“Well,” he said, standing, “the patient’s fever is broken, O2 sat is 96, and her last chest X-ray showed major improvements. She’s resting now.” Alphonse turned to leave.

“Very good, thank you doctor,” she said curtly, standing also. “And doctor?”

He paused and turned. Ilsa moved close and gave him a hug, squeezing him tightly against her muscular body.

“It means a lot, doctor. If I am sad, I’d rather be making someone feel better.”

Alphonse smiled.

“Wake me if you need anything and have a good evening Ilsa.”

Alphonse’s mind was a flurry of thoughts as he walked back to his room. Spies, **** medics and pneumonia was hardly what he expected from the first month on station. He thought of Ilsa’s body pressed up against his. She was so fit, and tight, he wondered what she looked like naked.

“Stop that Gabriel,” he told himself when he walked into his room, “she was confiding in you, not trying to fuck you.”

Try as he might, he had a hard time not picturing Ilsa’s tall lean body up against his. He imagined her naked, pressing her firm little tits into his chest. A thought for another day he mused and went to bed. Sleep didn’t come as easy as he planned. Hans Hermann’s voice echoed through his head.

“Our spy will live.”

It was such a cold blooded, brutal statement. If there was a spy, maybe it’s Hans. He seems more like a spy than sweet little Pamala. Still, if she wasn’t a spy, why did she pretend to be asleep.

“She was probably scared. Poor thing is sick and accused of something she can’t defend herself from. Could I be imagining it? Maybe she wasn’t awake at all,” he said to the ceiling of his room. “Why would an arctic uranium mine be where someone recruited a spy? Merde, why am I thinking about spies at all? Fucking shit.”

The headache was back. He assumed it must have been related to stress. He grabbed a bottle of pills from the bedside table. Three pills left after these he thought as he tossed two back. He’d have to replace them before too long, somehow.

“If Pamala is the spy, she can get me some with her secret spy connections,” he chuckled ruefully. “I’ll need to figure out how to explain why so many are missing already… Shit.”

He laid down in his bed, and sleep eluded them until he felt the pills kick in.

The next morning Alain awoke with his head foggy. The pills, he thought, give sleep, but not necessarily good sleep. He ate breakfast quickly, barely registering what the food was, then, tea in hand, went to the infirmary. Ilsa Kellerman was talking to Pamala Sheldon when he arrived.

“Good morning doc,” said Sheldon, seeing him approach.

“You look much better Pam,” he said, seeing the life in her eyes.

“Our patient is doing much better,” beamed Kellerman, who proceeded to rattle off Sheldon’s vitals.

“I’m very glad to see it. How are you?”

“I’m doing well, thanks doc,” she said, smiling. “It was… rough for a while there. I’m not one hundred percent or nothing, but seriously, so much better. I owe ya one,” she turned to Kellerman, “both of you.”

“All part of the job Pam,” Kellerman said, with a warm smile. Alphonse could see Kellerman too appeared to be feeling better. She seemed warm and happy.

“Ilsa, I can take over for a while, I’ve already had my breakfast.”

“Sure doc, I’ll go get mine. Pam, do you want me to grab you something?”

“Um, sure, that’d be great thanks hon. What’s on the menu today Gabe?”

“Oh,” he said, still waking up his brain, “I barely noticed. Fruits? I think I had a berry something.”

“Oh well! A berry something,” mocked Kellerman, “I will go grab us a something then.”

Alphonse watched her leave, feeling less guilty than the night before about sneaking a view of her tight round ass as she did. When he looked back at Sheldon, he realized she noticed.

“I think she likes you Gabe,” she said with a smile.

“She is my subord… really?”

“Hehe, yeah. She didn’t say so like, directly, but the way she talks about you; you have a shot.”

“You think so eh? Good to know, good to know,” he said, nodding awkwardly.

“She’s hot right,” she said, smiling, clearly knowing the answer.

“I um, she is beautiful yes,” Alphonse said.

“Maybe I’m biased because I think you have a shot with a lot of women here,” Sheldon said, smirking. “The good doctor is a handsome and popular guy.”

“Um, well, good to know that too Pam.” He started wondering if she knew he was covering for her. The layers of this mess made his mind spin. Spies and beautiful women. There are worse ways to go to Mars. Kellerman came back with breakfast for the two, and Alphonse went to his office to let them chat. He heard scandalized giggles from the two and wondered what, or who, they were talking about.