Procedure One: The Blonde Surgeon

A black limousine rolled through London. In the back, Director Robert Henney checked his watch. 7AM. With a sigh, he relaxed into his seat. The director was a tall, thin man in his 60s, with green eyes, neat grey hair and a bristly beard and moustache. A long, white coat covered the black business suit he wore underneath. The streets had only the first signs of life. He saw a discarded bag drift along the pavement, caught on the wind, and a homeless cat dug through an upturned rubbish bin.
        “Would you like some refreshment, sir?” asked his chauffer.
        “Not right now, Kinpachi,” Director Henney replied in a dreamy state. He looked at his notes. A new surgeon was meant to be starting today, having just finished his residency in America. Great. A Yank. Just what he needed. Probably all cowboy hats and cigars. This wasn’t Scrubs, it was real life.
        Henney sighed and stared out of the window.
        “Actually, I will have that refreshment, Kinpachi.”
        “Right, sir,” the chauffer replied.

Not long after, the limousine pulled up in the car park of a large building composed of pink and white marble, with a series of short, blue-roofed towers on top of it. On the wide extension overhanging the threshold of the hospital was decorated with ‘HOPE ROAD’ in blue. Perched on top of that was a pink and white HR, the symbol of Hope Road, the international medicinal army. From above, the building resembled a symbolic heart.
        Henney entered his office, on one of the hospital’s higher levels, and sat down to look at the manila folder on his desk. He opened it up. Inside was a file about the new recruit, including a black-and-white photo. Henney had to admit he was impressed. This new recruit had a lot of qualifications, perfect records, a lot of skill it seemed…but one part worried him greatly.

At age fifteen through eighteen, the boy had been a junkie.

Despite his rehab being reported as successful, this young upstart from the States, this Harris, worried him greatly.

Dr. James Aggas was instantly recognisable around the hospital for his wide chin and mass of black curls. He entered Hope Road hospital a few short minutes after Director Henney and after doing his morning rounds, relaxed in the staff cafeteria. Sitting opposite was Nurse Emily Armitage, the anaesthetist, and just up the table was Dr. Joshua Van Morrison, the senior surgeon.
        “Did you hear about the new guy starting today?” Emily asked excitedly.
        “Hear about him?” James laughed. “Em, I used to go to school with him!”
        Emily’s eyes widened and she leaned forward over the table. “Really?”
        “We met in year ten,” James explained. “He was kind of a strange one, you know? The quiet one. Didn’t start coming out of his shell until very late into our last year at secondary school. I wonder what he’s like now…”

A black-and-green quad bike thundered up the road towards the hospital. The Coasters blared out of the radio and the driver bobbed his helmeted head in tune with it.

                Don’t you give me no dirty looks,
                Your father’s hip; he knows what cooks!
                Just tell your hoodlum friends outside,
                You ain’t got time to take a ride!
                (Yakety-yak!)
                Don’t talk back!

The quad pulled into the staff car park. The driver hopped off, chained it in place and slipped his helmet under his arm. He had blonde hair in a tight ponytail and wise, grey eyes behind his glasses. He brushed some loose hair out of his face and walked into the complex. The wind blew out his white coat, giving the impression of an angel of healing. Guan Yin’s male avatar imprinted on the skin of this world, with a smile for all and an outstretched helping hand.
        Heal the world, kid.
        The blonde man found the lockers and stuffed his jacket and helmet inside.
        Looking over his shoulder, he saw a man walking down the hallway. An old man with tufts of grey hair curling off the sides of his head, a narrow, hawk-like face and pale, blind eyes. He was dressed in a dark red gown and slippers. The man paid him no need, but the blonde doctor was certain there was an air of…nothingness. Todash.
        Todash? Where the hell did that come from?
        He heard someone clearing their throat and looked away from the man in red. A tall doctor was approaching him. He had a stern look on his face, brown eyes and neatly combed black hair. His nametag said he was the senior surgeon, Dr. Joshua Van Morrison.
        “You must be the new boy,” Van Morrison said dryly.
        “Uh, yeah, I am…” the newcomer replied.
        “I’ve seen better,” the senior surgeon remarked, having made a quick examination already, “but don’t sweat it, I’ve seen worse too. Now, come on Blondie, I suppose I’d better give you a quick tour of the hospital and then run you through protocol and procedures.”
        He walked off, and Blondie had to follow him at a brisk pace.
        “You don’t talk like an American,” Van Morrison commented.
        “Because I’m not,” Blondie replied. “I just did my residency over there. I was going to be working in Los Angeles until I got a message from the Committee.”
        The Committee; the bunch of old coots who ran Hope Road’s main administrative base on the Equator. Rumours said that the world’s greatest surgeon and neurosurgeon were members. Probably right. The Harper Foundation was believed to have been a driving force behind Hope Road’s genesis as well.
        “An Englishman in Los Angeles,” Van Morrison tittered, “how McGann can you get?”
        Oh, how witty, Blondie thought bitterly. How many times he had heard that tired old joke before? One person had even told him he was in the wrong city; told him New York was the place. He’d left the git with several broken teeth and a big mushy lump where his nose had been. That was during the days when his body was still trying to live without all the junk. His days of violence. They called him ‘Blood-and-Guts’ Harris during that period. Some still did.
        Van Morrison led him all over Hope Road. The complex was as huge as it was spectacular. The world’s foremost medicinal technology, all located under this roof, and the roofs of Hope Road’s counterparts across the globe.

Looking down a corridor, the newcomer noticed a curly-haired man in a long scarf talking to a woman dressed as a French schoolgirl. Down another there was an Asian girl holding (a doll?) a green lizard in a brown robe. Emerging from a third there was a mime in black biker clothes. Shaking off those odd feelings from these misfits, he looked back at Van Morrison’s receding form and picked up the pace.
        “You’ll have to excuse some of the motley lot around here,” the senior surgeon sighed. “Nothing we can do for visitors’ dress sense, you know.”
        “To each his own,” his subordinate shrugged.