Why? Doctor Nevrus asked himself as he watched the O.R. doors.

"Here she comes," Jackson shouted.

The slammed opened. Four furs entered carrying a vixen on a makeshift stretcher consisting of canvas stretched between two boards.

"Get her on the table," Nevrus said.

"Shot three times in the chest. Unconcious for two minutes." The med crew set the stretcher onto the operating table. "One, two," they lifted her up and Roberts pulled the stretcher out from under her. Nevrus moved quickly up to her.

"Get her clothes off." Nevrus shouted. Ellis and Kyule began frantically cutting her clothes off. Jackson began inserting a tube down her throat to suck out her stomach contents.

No time to shave her. There never was time. "Scalpel." Kelly handed him the scalpel. He cut into her chest. He pulled back the skin to expose her breastbone. Ellis began suctioning blood. Kyule started the rotary bonesaw.

"Get back," Nevrus said as Kyule brought the saw down to cut through her sternum. "Spread it." Roberts and Nevrus pulled her ribcage apart. Her chest cavity was full of blood.

Why would anyone do this to anyone else?

"Get that suction on there." As Ellis was suctioning out the blood. "Kelly get that CPB, Jackson get that tuber in her bladder. Stop staring like it's the first time you've touched a girl. Her heart is going into arrest, we need to stop it. Roberts, get ready with the probes. Kyule, suction, Ellis insert that tube into her left atrium, I'll do the aorta." Ellis nervously took the tube. "You've got to do it sometime, ready, one, two."

The two doctors inserted the probes into the vessels. Kelly flipped on the CPB. "Everybody clear." They jumped back. "Jackson!" Jackson jumped back, Roberts touched the probes to the heart. The organ stopped.

"Get that suction in her." The CPB was pumping cryox into her body, and out the wounds in her chest. The Doctors began working to cauterize closed the broken and torn blood vessels.

Why would anyone volunteer themselves for this?

"Damn," said Nevrus.

"Get some more suction on that." Roberts joined Kyule in suctioning out the fluid.

"Wait," Ellis said, "Tweezers." Kelly handed him the set. Ellis reached in and pulled a bullet out. He dropped it into the tray Kelly held. "That's one," he said.

They continued to work, Kelly pulling out the second bullet. "Barely missed her spine. She lucked out on that one."

"One more," Nevrus said.

"It's in her lung."

"I know." Damn, that liquid was cold on his hands. The lung was another animal.

They cut into the sac around it and began cauterizing off torn sections. Kelly eventually pulled the final bullet from her body.

Why would anyone create this place?

"We need a breathing tube, Jackson."

"But she's on cryox."

"I need it to find any holes left in her lungs." How had that kid past medical school? Probably barely, like everyone else in the room.

Nevrus found and removed the final bullet.

After all the wounds had been patched they would start finalizing the process. Nevrus had done the routine too many times. They would raise the temp of the cryox. As the temperature raised Kelly would start administering anesthetic, in slowly increasing concentrations. Jackson would attach the EKG, and they'd restart her heart. They'd monitor for a while, then remove the probes of the CPB once again allowing her heart to do the work of pumping her blood. Well, the cryox for now.

The blood which had been pushed from her body would have the white blood cells seperated and they would reintroduce those intraveneously. Slowly to monitor for any adverse reactions. If there were any, they'd have to seperate the cells back up and wait for her body to regenerate its own blood before reintroducing them. She'd have to be closely monitored and kept on harsh antibiotics until that time.

After everything looked good they'd close her back up. In a few weeks after everything began to heal they'd do some minimally invasive procedures to check up on the damaged areas.

Nerve or muscle cells would be biopsied then reverted back to stem cells. Since those two cells never divided, they retained the bodies original genetic code best. The stem cells would then be used to create tissue grafts. Those grafts would be inserted once again using minimally invasive techniques, along with nanotech to meld them seamlessly into her own body. Those areas would be as good as they were the day she was born.

In six to eight weeks her sternum would finally be healed from the surgery, and the fox would be completely free to do whatever she wanted again. Which would probably be to come back and get herself shot again.

Why the hell did anyone come to Livestone?

Why?

***

Of course he knew the answer to all of these questions.

Money, for one thing. Glory, another. And simple bloodlust, above all else.

He sipped his tea as he stood on his balcony looking out across the desert landscape.

But why was he here?

He knew that answer, too. Because no one else would hire him.

He was a bottom of his class, at a low tier university. He was an orthopedic specialist because he had failed out of cardiopulminary and gastroenterology.

He couldn't even get a job mopping the floors in a hospital.

But this place, this place had to take what no one else wanted. If they wanted a doctor then Doctor Nevrus was what they were going to get and what they would have to take.

There was a knock on the door. "It's open," Nevrus shouted.

"Hey," Doctor Kelly said as he stepped out onto the balcony. "Gotta love this cool desert air. Wanna beer?"

"I have tea."

"That stuff can't be good for you." Kelly opened a bottle.

They were quiet for a bit. "Good job today with that fox, I thought she was a gonner for sure. Heard the guy who shot her's really throwing a fit."

"Hmm," was Nevrus' only reply.

"You know you can't let this place get to you, man. You can't control who comes through that door, all we can do is fix them up best we can. What's it been, six months since anyone has died with you in that room? That's pretty damn good, considering this place."

"I haven't counted. Besides, the first week I was here everyone died on the table."

"You're still beating yourself up over that? I mean, seriously, that was years ago. And it could have been worse."

"How could it get worse than everyone dying?"

"Okay, so it couldn't have gotten worse. Well, it's not like you didn't try your best."

"Try my best? This is life and death surgery, not elementary school kickball."

"What's your specialty?"

"What?"

"What is your field of medicine. I assume you practiced medicine?"

"Don't worry, I'm a real doctor. Orthepedics."

Kelly burst out laughing. "What'd they tell you on your first day here? 'Here, this guy has some broken ribs for you to fix. Oh and while you're in there could you maybe patch up his lungs, and stop all that internal bleeding? And we think there might be a piece of metal in there, could you get that for us? Thanks, you're a peach.'" Kelly kept laughing.

Nevrus looked at him darkly.

"What I mean is, look at Kyule, she's a podiatrist, for heaven's sake. And Roberts is a general practitioner. Jackson is a gynecologist."

Nevrus looked at Kelly again.

"No, really, he studied gynecology. I think he got into it hoping to touch some girl parts, and then got fired for sexual harassment after staring at some chick for ten minutes." Kelly was laughing.

"Girl parts? Did you just say 'girl parts?'"

"I was trying to be immature, like, him, ya know."

"Girl parts, seriously? It can't be true, anyway. He couldn't have gotten his medical liscense without having some contact with the female body. I'll have to look into it." They didn't have many standards, but Nevrus was particullarly insistant they hired people who at least had passed med school.

"But anyway, my point is we're all misfits who couldn't make it anywhere else."

"Except you."

"What?"

"You're an anesthesiologist, and you're a good one. Top of your class from a top university and med school. A dozen papers to your name. Why the hell are you here."

Kelly chuckled a bit, "Let me tell you, the higher you are, it just means you have that much further to fall. You're right, I was up there. And that meant I took care of all the surgery for the upper crust. And when the wrong member of that upper crust died on the operating table, well, everyone decided to blame the anesthesiologist. And politics being what they are, I basically ended up blacklisted from every hospital in the galaxy. Hell, I couldn't get a job as a school nurse.

"I ended up flipping patties for a year before this place found me. Granted that was in many ways a step down. But yeah, I felt that this would be the chance to get myself back on my feet. Turn things around. Then I found out I was working with a bunch of idiots who were no good at what they were suppose to be good at, let alone this. Not that I should call them that. Sorry. But that's what it seemed like at the time. And everyone wanted the victims to die anyway, so if I did turn things around it wouldn't do any good.

"I'm amazed we managed to save anyone, back then. Before you came along. I don't know what it is about you, you've got that charisma. That take charge attitude. You came in, I thought just another kid who doesn't have a clue, and by the next week I was asking you what we should do. I couldn't do what you do, that's for sure.

"And now they rarely die. It took some practice, yeah, but we've got a good system now."

"Yes, practice. This day in age. Is it worth those lives so I could get practice?"

"It's all we had. Just got to go with the motto, if they didn't want to die, they should have drawn faster."

"Somebody has to die."

"That's the general idea, yeah."

The cat shook his head. "Why?"

"I couldn't answer that for ya. I really can't." Kelly sipped his beer. "You've just got to do the best you can. Do what little good we can here. Stive back the evil. Steal the kills away from these murderers. Hopefully every once in a while one will take this brush with death as a notice to change and do something good with their lives."

They sat quietly for a while. "Well, I'd best get going. My hubby'll get all pissy with me if I'm not home soon. See ya tomorrow."

"See ya." Doctor Kelly left. Nevrus turned his gaze back over the desert. Yes, he needed to do what good he could. And he did do good, didn't he?"

Just for tonight, he let Livestone draw him in. He did do good here. Who else could do what he does?

He complained that he would never find work anywhere now that this place was on his resume, but where would he have found work, anyway? And where else could he do this? Where else could he save so many from so close to death?

And did he not, in some deep way, love every minute of it. He was addicted to it, the adreneline surging through his body as he try to beat the clock.

Why would he want anything else?