midnite_md

02:45 pm: Midnight in Portsmouth.
There's a soft drizzle cascading through the air, typical for the Pacific Northwest. It's visible in the street lights, drifting on the gentle breezes coming off of the ocean. A somewhat peaceful night, most would say. Dr. Mid-Nite would beg to differ.

Swinging over Dutch Street, he lands with a silent perch on the corner of an office building and reels his line back in. Adjusting his goggles for a better peek into the fourth floor window of DeTouche & Loitte, a local banking firm. As he has come to lamentably expect, they are up to no good.

05:11 am: It's Mid-Nite in New York City.
The plague took a lot out of Dr. Pieter Cross, but he's come out of it with revelations, and a new confidence, as well a new apprentice, eventually.

The prototype filter masks he designed performed remarkably well, and helped stave off the plague for a lot longer than he'd could have hoped. He has a much greater level of endurance than he expected to have in such a situation. Querl Dox is an unbelievable intellect, and he's yet to find a proper way to express gratitude for his presence during the crisis, as the world surely wouldn't have been saved without him.

As he hurls a set of crescent-shaped blades at a looter in Alphabet City, forcing him to stumble to his knees and drop the medical supplies he was trying to steal for the black market, another revelation he's come to is that he's MISSED this.

The crime-fighting has always been a necessity rather than anything he took great joy in. It had to be done, because the system shackles free-thinkers in both the fields of medicine and law enforcement. He knew the most important work was helping the ill and the infirm that couldn't afford what they needed. But after spending a month concentrating exclusively on medicine... it's a bit of an invigorating thrill to swing down from a rooftop to kick in the faces of two more of the foolish bastards attempting to capitalize on the greater-than-average need for healthcare in the wake of the plague.

He even indulges in a little pride, smirking to the gathering swarm of thugs and waving two fingers at them, urging them on.

And foolishly, they do.

After the trouncing, and after he's sedated the criminals so they don't wake up before the police arrive, he carefully places the supplies back where they were being stolen from, before heading back out the door, shaking his head at them. He launches himself upwards with the grappling hook, and smiles widely as he swings over the city.

Dr. Pieter Cross is exhausted. Dr. Mid-Nite is well-rested and ready to roll.

03:05 am: The personal journal of Dr. Pieter Anton Cross:
Health care in this country is an abomination. Yes, this is a recurring theme of mine, but it cannot be said enough. The pharmaceutical industry has completely bought off the United States government and controls all the research, shaping it to their whims. Small-minded professional physicians care more about their BMWs than they do about critically thinking about the drugs they're passing onto patients, and the drug companies are lining their pockets to make sure they don't start questioning things. I have no patience for it, and while I'm thankful to work outside of it, it saddens me every day it decays even further.

This rant is only tangentially related to the events of this evening, but it was brought up this time by a visit to Auntie Scum's soup kitchen, and the resulting chaos that ensued when a homeless man (I will NOT call them 'transients' as the developers would have me do, for it's too clinical and soulless a word to describe a human being in a state of absolute desperation) went into cardiac arrest after a sudden, startling power outage. I was the only one that could see him to tend to him. I called the paramedics, but eventually I managed to assuage the condition with a mix of highly specialized acupunture and a very particular methodology of massage therapy I've been developing for just such a purpose. Mr. McMonegle was back on his feet and finishing his dinner in thirty minutes.

The paramedics did not arrive for a full hour after I called them.

Portsmouth City is NOT that big a location, and it was late enough in the day that the traffic could not have been the reason for the delay. Their contemptuous attitude gave me all the information I needed to understand what had happened. They just don't GO to that section of town. What a crime it is to be poor and without insurance in this nation - not even worthy of basic human dignity. How far have we fallen that health care is only for the wealthy?

...

I've filled pages with this talk already. I've published essays on these topics before the frame-up ruined my career, and been rewarded handsomely with faint praise and false promises of change.

The sole positive aspect to this is that I have an outlet for this frustration, and there is a ridiculous attempt at a protection racket emerging lately that needs to be beaten back severely before they start to believe that their idea was wise.

...

I also must stop thinking about Dinah. And I must stop foolishly resenting Oliver Queen for being a walking medical miracle - a dead man returned to life. Something most everyone in my field would applaud, proving the impossible to be possible after all.

More the fool I am, selfishly frustrated that a friend has cheated death to take his true love out of my arms. This is not sensible, this is not wisdom... but the human heart remains an enigma.

The moon is full tonight. My life, however, remains empty.

The clock strikes twelve. Time to punch in.