Tyson hit the corridor like a storm front, barefoot slaps on waxed floor, gown flapping treacherously behind him. Eleanor scrambled up, snatched a clean sheet from a linen cart—somebody had to try for modesty—and hurried after him, heart punching at her ribs.
The Code Grey siren yelped twice and cut. Overhead lights warmed from night‑shift dim to interrogation bright. Through the glass at the far end, red nav lights from a helicopter wandered across the skyline.
The elevator dinged.
Security arrived like a decision the hospital had made in a rush: two men from the night shift contractor.
Eleanor knew them—everyone on nights did. Gerry Volkov, 145 kilos (320 pounds) on a good week, a man who could turn a swivel chair into a habitat; and Evan Cho, his cousin and "trainee," barely there at 64 kilos (141 pounds) and all elbows. Gossip said the previous rover had a cardiac event mid‑raid in the security room while Gerry was "monitoring cameras," which was how Evan—seventeen, allegedly "eighteen next month"—ended up filling a schedule no one else wanted.
They'd been in the security room seconds ago. Eleanor could tell by the donut shrapnel shining on Gerry's polo and the laptop strap biting Evan's shoulder. Gerry's badge reel still displayed a tiny Alliance crest, like a confession.
They skidded to a stop halfway down the hall, breathing hard, eyes taking in a bare‑arsed heavyweight advancing with purpose and a British nurse running behind him with a sheet like she was chasing a rogue parade float.
"Oh hell no," Gerry said, planting his feet and discovering his courage did not share a body with his cardio. "I do not get paid enough for this."
Evan was already drawing his Taser, the yellow plastic bright as a school bus. His voice came out high and certain, full of every anime he'd ever believed in. "Sir! Mr. Tyson! I'm a big fan, but you've broken the rules. Get on the floor! Hands where I can see 'em!"
Tyson didn't even slow. He pointed past them, toward the EXIT, toward the city. "You ain't orderin' me, white boy," he said, soft, lisp curling the edges. "I'm the chosen. Trumpets in the sky. Get out my way."
"Taser, Taser!" Evan barked, and fired.
The cartridge popped. Probes shot out on silver wire. AFID confetti—those little paper tags lawyers loved—snowed to the tile. One barb bit Tyson's upper chest. The other kissed gown and hung there, snagged in linen, not skin.
The device crackled. Tyson stiffened—calves knotting, teeth bared—but he didn't drop. He kept walking, step‑jerk, step‑jerk, dragging wire like party streamers.
Gerry made a face like he'd just watched a raid wipe at 1% boss health. "Aw, come on."
He pulled his own Taser as if from a holster made of wishful thinking. "Taser!" he announced, and shot. Both barbs landed—one low in Tyson's flank, one outer thigh—but the spread was tight. It hurt him, it didn't erase him. He stumbled, knees dipping, a grunt dragged out of him—
—and then he ripped forward again, furious, alive.
"Lightning ain't gonna do it," Evan panted, eyes huge. "We need more power—"
"Or less Tyson," Gerry said.
Evan holstered on some reflex he would later call training and lowered his shoulders like a linebacker who watched too much late‑night television. "I'm goin' in!"
"Don't—" Eleanor started, because it was obviously the worst idea in the corridor.
He charged. The tackle hit with heart and no technique; Tyson's hips turned, one hand found the back of the kid's head and the other an elbow, and he shucked Evan aside with the terrible efficiency of a man who'd spent a life inside collisions. The kid met wall with a thump that rang through the sheetrock.
"Stay down," Tyson said, not loud, not mean—just absolutely.
"OH HELL NO!" Gerry bellowed, voice three octaves lower than his willpower. He launched in a kind of forward‑fall that physics recognized as a committed bear hug. His arms snaked under Tyson's armpits; his center of mass did the rest. Momentum gathered them like laundry.
All three went down—Evan beneath (wrong place, wrong time), Tyson on top of him, then Gerry on both, a human landslide of good intentions.
The air fled the hallway in a single communal oof.
For a breathless half‑second they were a sculpture: security, champion, and trainee compressed into a stack. Then the sculpture moved. Evan wriggled like an envelope being squeezed; Gerry clamped harder, forearms trying to lock, palms sliding on sweat. Tyson planted a foot, tried to pry an arm free, failed, tried again.
Eleanor, because she was a professional, threw the sheet like a matador and missed completely. "Please, stop—" she said to everyone and no one.
"Got— you— champ," Gerry grunted, face crimson, eyes determined. Somewhere deep in his core, something betrayed him.
The fart was an event.
It rolled out of the stack with dignity and power, a low, declarative note that spoke of long service and poor choices. It hit Eleanor a second later, impossible to ignore. She clapped a hand over her nose; her eyes watered; Nightingale did not cover this.
"Dude—DUDE," Evan croaked from the bottom, voice thin as paper. "Friendly fire!"
"Shut— up— and cuff him," Gerry wheezed, mortified and steadfast at once.
Tyson made a noise that was not a word and bridged—hips up, head back, a violent shrug of the world. Gerry slid, arms peeling like tape in humidity. Tyson yanked a wrist free, shoved off the floor, and crawled. Wires snapped with little guitar‑string twangs.
He slithered out from under gravity and outrage and the smell of donuts. Evan popped free the other way, rolling onto hands and knees, blinking as if the air had committed a crime.
"Where my people at?" Tyson barked, on one knee, then the other. He rose—impossibly, inevitably—gown flapping, dignity long since evacuated. "Follow me. Listen to the truth!"
Evan lunged for an ankle; Tyson's heel flicked and met forearm; the kid recoiled with a sharp yip. Gerry grabbed at air and found only aftershock.
Eleanor snatched the sheet again, coughed, and punched the nurses' station extension into her phone. "Code Grey—still active—security down—patient eloping west hallway—and there's— there's a biohazard," she added, pinching her nose because the truth mattered.
At the far end, Tyson hit a stride: those old predator steps, even barefoot, even concussed. He ran for the glowing red EXIT sign, a mess of wire tails and flapping cotton and conviction.
"Did you— see that?" Evan gasped, climbing to his feet and peeling a Taser wire off his sleeve like tinsel. "I had him."
"You had a lag spike," Gerry puffed, palm on the wall, one hand fanning uselessly. "Christ on a raid boss."
"Stop talking and move," Eleanor snapped, surprising herself as much as them. She took off after Tyson, sheet under her arm like a banner, because however mad the world was, the chart would later ask what she did next.
Behind her, the men lumbered and limped into motion. Ahead, Mike Tyson—sweat, breath, bruise, and belief—pounded around the corner toward the stairwell as the helicopters outside banked, humming like distant drums.