The first sign of trouble was the thermostat war.
Technically, it started on Floor 3. But like all proper hospital conflicts, it spread like a staph infection in an elevator with bad timing.
Someone turned the heat up.
Someone else turned it down.
At some point, the unit gave up entirely and settled on what it felt was the right answer: full blast heat in the morning, arctic chill by noon.
Jude was first to notice.
He walked into the lounge, took one look at Marcus wrapped in a blanket like a rejected tortilla, and said, "Prophecy fulfilled."
Then he made tea using the steam coming off the radiators.
By 9:30 AM, we had:
Two space heaters set up in Pediatrics (confiscated by admin),
Three nurses in ICU wearing scrubs under their winter coats,
A patient requesting discharge "before frostbite claims another toe" (they were in for a sprained ankle),
And someone—probably Kip—submitting a facilities ticket titled "Please explain why the walls are sweating."
Everett came in, paused, sniffed the air, and calmly asked, "Why does it smell like someone microwaved a gym sock?"
Marcus, sweating through three layers, replied, "Thermostat."
Everett nodded slowly, then said, "Kill it before it lays eggs."
No one knew what he meant. No one asked.
Somehow, Facilities blamed it on "sensor interference."
The building was old. The wiring was older. The thermostat system was routed through something called a Climate Integration Hub—which sounded suspiciously like a made-up excuse to not fix anything until next fiscal quarter.
Trevor taped up a hand-drawn sign in the hallway that read:
"Thermostats Are Merely Suggestions"
Under it, he doodled a thermometer holding a protest sign that said "Down With Oppressive HVAC Regimes."
The temperature confusion soon led to:
Pants Confusion: Scrubs worn with shorts underneath. Some wore snow pants. Jude wore neither. He said he was "embracing the season."
Patient Gown Rebellion: Several patients began tying their gowns into makeshift togas to protest the cold.
Coffee Theft: With staff rotating to warm breakrooms, the one reliable pot of hot coffee went missing. A ransom note appeared 20 minutes later:
"We have your dark roast. It's warm. For now."
That's when I found the ice packs.
Dozens of them.
Someone had opened the Emergency Trauma Supply fridge and stuck them all around the vents—believing, somehow, it would reverse the airflow.
I confronted Kip.
He claimed it was "guerrilla climate control."
Jude whispered, "Revolution is a dish best served cold."
Meanwhile, Camila updated her hallway whiteboard:
TODAY'S FORECAST:
9:00 AM – Hellfire
10:30 AM – Antarctic Research Base
12:00 PM – Emotional Meltdown
1:30 PM – Admin Memo
2:00 PM – Spontaneous Heatstroke or Enlightenment. TBD.
Trevor drew a sun wearing a frown. Someone else added sunglasses and wrote "Hot Nurse Summer."
By 3:00 PM, three rooms had patients refusing blankets while two others requested full wool layering and thermal socks. Vitals machines malfunctioned in the ICU. Jude claimed the ward's humidity was high enough to "water a cactus through osmosis."
That's when Everett made his move.
He walked into the breakroom, pulled the main thermostat control cover off the wall, took out a Sharpie, and wrote across the panel:
"NO."
Then he walked away.
Later, I asked him what that was supposed to do.
He said, "Sometimes the illusion of control is enough."
I'm still not sure if he meant the thermostat… or all of us.