Free Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon Page A

had gone, but when he stood up, she was outside the doorway, watching. She beckoned to him with a timid wave.
    â€œCould that happen to Mandrake?” she asked quietly. “Going blind?”
    â€œI wouldn’t worry about it,” Monks said. “Unless he gets to a hospital, he’s not going to live anywhere near that long.”
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    Twenty minutes later, the blanket was pulled roughly aside again. Monks was surprised—he hadn’t heard footsteps approach this time. Freeboot strode into the room with a small duffel bag full of stuff, which he dumped on the table. He was still barefoot.
    â€œHere’s your insulin,” he said triumphantly.
    Monks was surprised by this, too. After the couple of hours of driving on back roads, he had assumed that the nearest town big enough for an all-night pharmacy would be a long round trip.
    He got up from his chair to look. There were two bottles of insulin, both manufactured by Eli Lilly. One was Humulin RU-100—regular insulin, 100-units-per-milliliter strength. The other was longer-acting Humulin NPH. There were also a handheld glucose meter and strips for measuring blood sugar, disposable lancets for drawing the blood drops—and packets of Monoject 1-cc syringes, available only by prescription.
    The explanation came clear fast. The plastic caps that sealed fresh insulin bottles were missing. The bottles and packets all had been opened and were partially empty.
    â€œYou got this from a diabetic patient?” Monks said.
    â€œSomebody we know. Don’t sweat, we paid for it.”
    â€œI’m not worried about that. This medicine is that person’s lifeline. They need it.”
    â€œ We need it, man. She can get more.”
    Monks hesitated: push had come to shove. Now was the last moment when he could simply refuse to cooperate. It might call Freeboot’s bluff—force him to take Mandrake in for treatment.
    If not, Mandrake was as good as dead.
    Reluctantly, Monks hefted the two bottles, one in each hand, as if that could help him gauge the dosage. In the ER, when someone came in critically ill with IDDM, the insulin was administered intravenously, with the blood sugar constantly monitored. There was always the grave danger of the insulin driving the sugar level too low, which could bring on hypoglycemia, convulsions, and brain damage.
    He knew the appropriate dosages and procedures for those situations, and in the ER he carried a personal digital assistant for calculations and information that wasn’t at his fingertips. But here, it was going to be a very dicey affair.
    Freeboot was watching him intently. “You got a problem?”
    â€œThis isn’t straightforward, like an antibiotic,” Monks said. “There’s a lot of factors involved. How about finding me some rubbing alcohol.”
    Freeboot’s eyes narrowed, and Monks realized again that even such a mild demand was an affront to that huge ego. But he had plenty to worry about without having to pussyfoot around.
    â€œWe don’t keep anything like that around here,” Freeboot said.
    â€œVodka, then.”
    Freeboot stalked to the door. “Marguerite!” he barked into the other room. “Bring me a bottle of vodka.”
    Monks went through the flow chart in his head once more. An adult patient would typically take both kinds of insulin together, morning and evening—perhaps ten units of the regular, to help metabolize meals, and twenty units of the NPH long-term, for general stabilization. But the NPH was of no use to someone in crisis, and ten units of the RU-100 would be way too much. Mandrake weighed no more than fifty pounds, and, sick as he was, the risk of overlowering his blood sugar outweighed the possible benefit of a high dose.
    Monks decided on three units, injected subcutaneously rather than intravenously. If there was no adverse response, he would repeat it in two hours, then start lengthening the