Bishop » Henry

After each shift was complete, that vampire would simply leave the clinic and head for their safe house. The relationship of vampire to safe house was random: they simply knew where their first marker to the East was, and that marker could cause them to backtrack West or continue forward across the United States. The first marker varied by the time-of-day of their shift (earlier shifts had further markers) but were otherwise randomly assigned. Cohorts of vampires had an identifier and the marker would show which cohort should go where next. By the end, the vampire would be at their refuge.

At the end of each shift — a thousand vampires went into motion from a thousand different locations … heading for a hundred different markers … and would arrive at them sporadically throughout the day. Vampires would likely reach a particular marker at least 10 minutes apart from the previous and next vampire, but it they could possibly be spaced by hours.

There was no particular hurry for the vampires to progress along their trail: they could last a week without dialysis… as long as they allowed for how weak they would be near the end of that time period. Fortunately blood-sight improves with blood-loss, so the treasure map would always be visible.

BISHOP » HENRY

Later I would find out — we were the first successful raid of a satellite cave. This is not surprising given we were in completely plain and conspicuous sight: the Living Vehicle RV looks like nothing you would find in Bishop, and people in the area know trucks well enough to recognize the 450 isn’t within most people’s income level. Combine them together, and I am surprised the neighbors weren’t knocking on our door all day long for a tour. Instead we had a constant flow of dialysis patients as we had completely replaced the local clinic.

Instead of friendly and curious neighbors though, a curious Bishop Country sheriff named Walt knocked on the door. I simply let Walt in and showed him around. I presented our sterile equipment and facility, explained how this was just like home peritoneal dialysis (so clearly legal), described how I was trained in hemodialysis, etc. Walt very politely listened to me and then decided I should hang out at the police station while he talked with the district attorney.

Given I could be charged with a crime — Walt wasn’t sure what the crime was, but felt pretty certain a crime had been committed — I should probably contact a lawyer if I had one. Mark had given me the FaceTime information for someone named ‘John’ and said to FaceTime him if there were any problems. So I ‘dialed’ the 510 phone number at the relatively pleasant time of 9AM, and a distinguished lawyerly man answered. Is he a vampire too? Does he know about vampires? Is that knowledge attorney client privileged?

“Hi John, Mark told me to call you if I have any issues. I am Henry and am in Bishop.”

“Hi Henry. What is happening?”

“The local sheriff believes I might have committed a crime by having my own dialysis clinic. Mark provided me with the facilities and I am a trained dialysis technician as well as having certain other abilities, so I believe this is both legal as well as superior to the clinics. Or at least the clinic we have in Bishop.”

“And they are charging you with a crime? What is the crime?”

“The sheriff, Walt, doesn’t seem to know what the crime is. Presumably practicing medicine without a license.”

“Were the patients prescribed dialysis by a doctor?”

“Yes”

“Did they freely consent to you performing dialysis on them?”

“Yes”

“Are your facilities sterile to the same degree as the dialysis clinic in Bishop?”

“Yes”

“Do you know how to do dialysis to the same extent as the technicians at that clinic do?”

“I was the main person doing dialysis at the clinic, so clearly yes.”

“Please Henry, for me that answer is fine and informative. But if asked by the DA, judge, or anyone else, please keep your answers to the briefest possible and state ‘I do not recall’ if you are not sure of your answer”

“OK”

“As a test run: Do you know how to do dialysis to the same extent as the technicians at that clinic do? ”

“Yes”

“Great. I will be out there as soon as possible. Preferably don’t answer any questions until I arrive.”

Peritoneal dialysis — where you inject your abdomen with distillate — can be practiced at home by patients, so what our caves are doing should not be considered practicing medicine. Unless eating, discharge, insulin injections, and treating wounds are considered ‘practicing medicine’. Even taking a splinter out involved a needle when my mother did it for me as a child. Yes, our technique is different from peritoneal dialysis, but the results are similar… only better. And, finally, a doctor prescribed the patient as getting hemodialysis. We are just a ‘pop up’ clinic for it.

The Bishop sheriff was not interested in any of those details though, and decided to jail Phil and Brian, the vampire and human running the Bishop cave. Things were about to get very interesting.

From Phil’s description, Phil and Brian called John at WilmerHale from jail. I had given out his direct number to anyone in the satellites.

“Hi… John?”

“Yes, speaking”

“My name is Phil, and Mark told us to call you if we had any issues with the law”

“Mark Fussell?”

“Yes. Well… we are having issues with the law. We are in jail in Bishop, California.”

“I will be there as soon as I can. Don’t say anything or do anything that could be considered ‘disobedient’ unless absolutely necessary.”

John was a longtime friend & lawyer, and WilmerHale was a longtime customer of my services before the transition. I helped FAANG companies in multi-billion litigations. So there was both a personal and financial bond between us.

I warned John of the impending calls, and he was nice enough to accept my explanation around hemodialysis which excluded the vampiric part. I am pretty sure he knew something was ‘smelly’ about my explanation, but he apparently felt he could argue the case without knowing what was causing that stink.

John was also nice enough to go bail out Phil and Brian in Bishop. John brought Phil back to Boardwalk so we could make sure he was OK and could continue dialysis without returning (caving in) to his original clinic.

John shows up — at the perimeter of the siege in his white 300ZX TT (for T-Top). There are a half-dozen police besieging us: half in their cruisers, the other three in a water-cooler style chat circle. John walks up to the three with Phil, flashes something, and then they continue onward to our doors.

With an approving signal (the American Sign Language version of ‘let them in’) the doors shuffle. Phil & John saunter up to me a few minutes later.

“Excellent” I say with a Mr. Burns (from the Simpsons) accent.

“You could have picked locations a little further. I like driving the 300. I can only do it when my kids are not around.”

“Sorry, tried my best. But the state line was a limiting factor. Can you practice in Nevada?”

“No… I don’t think I can. Except maybe for desert tortoises”

“You studs want to get some food?”

“I should start working on the case. The DA there seemed very energetic”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I suspect the case will disappear before you get home. But you probably have better food there. Thank you for dropping Phil off. Visit any time you can worm by those officers. Might be harder if the FBI decides to join us”

“Getting past them would be inconceivable. Enjoy your evening and see you and Phil later in the week if your prediction is incorrect”