Read Online Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon - Free Book Online Page B

Captain America had been on duty,then had been relieved by someone called Sidewinder, announcing this in a ritualistic fashion: Take this, brother, may it serve you well . Whatever that meant.
    Monks sat again on Mandrake’s bed with a cup of water, as he’d been doing every half hour or so. The bed’s other occupant was the only stuffed animal that the little boy seemed to have, a fat, four-foot-long lime-green snake with a happy grin. The small pile of books on the dresser had a few old children’s standards—Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, Dr. Seuss—but was mainly made up of more modern works, like copies of Heavy Metal magazine and Angry Blonde , the rap lyrics of Eminem.
    Monks cupped the back of Mandrake’s neck with one hand, then poured a slow trickle of water into his mouth.
    â€œCome on, buddy,” Monks said. “You need this. Attaboy.” Mandrake sputtered, but swallowed. Monks kept the water coming until his head twisted aside.
    â€œThis must be a pretty neat place to live, huh?” Monks said. “Up here in the forest? I bet there’s deer that come around.” His hands drifted gently over Mandrake’s body as he spoke, absorbing information about his condition. The boy’s eyes had opened a little while he was drinking the water, but then closed again.
    â€œYou know, what those deer really like is bread,” Monks said. “That’s a good way to make friends with them. You want to try feeding them tomorrow?”
    No response. Monks reached under the covers and felt the diaper. It was wet. There was a box of Huggies beside the bed, another bizarre touch in this rustic scene. He pulled off the wet one, tossed it into a slops bucket, and got two fresh ones, using one to dry Mandrake and putting the other on him. It took Monks a moment to figure out the self-adhesive strapping arrangement. Back in the days when his own kids were in diapers, his wife had mostly used the washable kind.
    His mouth twisted. He had been trying not to think about Glenn.
    He covered Mandrake up and walked across the room to a crude wooden chair. The cable dragged behind him on the floor.
    Monks had been dredging up everything that he could find in his memory about diabetes. It was a condition he encountered frequently in the ER, but usually as a complication or a contributing factor to the presenting ailment. He had diagnosed it enough times in children to recognize it tonight. And he seen plenty of people come into the ER deathly ill from it—usually because they hadn’t taken their insulin, or had ignored dietary rules. He knew that it was easy for diabetics to get very sick very fast, and much harder for them to pull back out.
    But extended treatment of diabetes lay in the realm of specialists—internists, endocrinologists, and pediatricians. Even under ideal conditions, in a hospital setting, he wouldn’t have considered himself qualified, let alone in a situation like this. And without the all-important lab workups to measure blood sugar and electrolytes, he felt as helpless as a soldier going naked into battle.
    He was sure that he was looking at juvenile-onset diabetes, technically known as “Type 1,” or “insulin-dependent” diabetes mellitus—usually called IDDM. Patients who did not get insulin died.
    And there were other complications. Mandrake’s dehydration was advanced. He was drinking as much water as he could, but the sugar in his urine was carrying out even more than he could take in. Soon he wouldn’t be able to drink enough to keep up. That would bring on a coma and, eventually, death.
    He was also losing potassium, which had its own spectrum of ugly side effects, including paralysis and respiratory failure. That, too, could be fatal.
    Then there was a rarer nightmare, but perhaps the worst of all, and one seen most often in kids—cerebral edema. The brain swelled, compressing the brain stem,