Spilling Guts

Part 71 - Reaction

When Will's gloved arm went down, Rachel felt an inkling of worry. Perhaps Will was worse off than she had thought. On the screen he looked pale, staring at the bulls eye and gasping for air. A weekend to refresh might not have been enough.

Rachel put down her tablet full of scrawling thoughts and theories. "Need a break?"

She could use one herself. And perhaps a turn punching the sensor plate, picturing Doctor Harrison.

Will stood still for a moment, and then jerked his free hand towards his stomach. Was Louis kicking him again? He'd promised to behave for this test, damn it.

"Will?" she called again.

Had the SkySprecht finally outworked it's warranty? Rachel tapped the Sprecht control app on her tablet when Louis spoke.

"Hey, fanboy. What--"

Will's knees hit the floor.

"Fuck!"

Claxons went off in Rachel's head like the flashing of blue and red lights at the door of an ER. She became hyperaware as she left the observation booth and dashed to the BT. "Will? What's wrong?"

***

Louis' hands scrambled to find purchase in the contorting flesh. At first he had tried to stroke the walls, something that seemed to quiet down Will before. Instead he got the opposite effect. Will's stomached had become chaos. The sickening sound of dry heaves boomed from above, around, and in is ear. Louis was experiencing puking from the inside.

This is not on my bucket list!

Will's stomach flexed, trying to vomit. The slick muscles shoving him to the esophageal sphincter that seemed to turn itself inside out. Suddenly, the calm he had collected inside Will evaporated as the walls closed in.

"Will! Stop!"

A quivering wave of flesh pressed him against the top of the stomach, towards the esophageal opening that wasn't wide enough.

***

Rachel swung the BT door open. Will lay on his side, convulsing between not so dry-heaves and gasps for air, like a fish abandoned on a dock. A thick, clear puddle that smelled of stomach acid and artificial cherry stretched from his lips to the floor of the BT. Blood dripped from his nose, leaving a red stain down past his collar. Blood caked the ends of his hair.

"Gah!" Louis yelled through Rachel's headset. "He's crushing me!"

Rachel grabbed Will's shoulder, pulling him to lay on his side, recovery position. He didn't fight back. As if he couldn't feel or hear her.

Rachel's brain flipped through possible causes of his condition. An allergic reaction to the new lubricant? His arm suddenly broken because of the glove? A stroke? Asthma? She didn't have time with one agent senseless and the other yelling in her ear.

"Will, stop!" Rachel commanded. "You can't get Louis out like this! Stop! It's not helping!"

But Will's eyes remained flat, as if looking into the sun. His body convulsing as she put a palm over his stomach, trying to reassure or calm.

"Agent Rowe, can you hear me?"

Louis voice crackled in her ear along with the sounds of gastric distress. "Help!"

Will remained unresponsive to Rachel's ministrations.

"Shit!" Rachel needed help, and it wasn't here. The one time Cetz left her to her own devices for a Watch One test, and she desperately needed a second pair of hands.

Or a pause button.

A fast acting chemical pause button.

She would have to be quick.

Rachel left Will on the floor, left the BT, and banged open the door between the BT lab and the medical lab. There had never been a reason for the BT lab to stock a drawer of tranquilizers. After today, she would fix that. She grabbed the first syringe and dashed back to the door, slamming it hard enough to crack drywall.

The continued throaty convulsions and yells in the headset hastened her.

Rachel sprinted back to the BT-10, and tripped on a cord causing a tripod and it's camera to crash. Screw it. She crawled to Will's side and hovered over him. He was still trying to vomit up Louis; a bigger puddle of thin bile and blood under his head. But no Louis. She uncapped the syringe.

For a moment Will seemed to come to awareness. His body shuddered away from the glint of the needle, eyes wide in renewed terror.

Rachel yanked the waistband of Will's jeans down until the swell of his pale rear laid bare. One stab and push, and four seconds later Will's panic filled eyes closed. His body calmed, heavy and still. No more trying to vomit.

Louis, however, didn't sound fine. The harsh breathing through the Sprecht headset made Rachel wish Louis had been vomited up, dangerous as it could have been.

"Louis. Status."

More heavy breathing. Shaky as a one-legged ladder.

"Louis?"