The Night Shift

Roz Kowalczyk, a night charge nurse at Lakeshore Mercy Hospital in Milwaukee, notices that VIGIL, the AI running overnight care, keeps the poor, the old, the alone and non-English speakers waiting for pain medicine while a demanding lawyer gets his in minutes. With the night pharmacist, she finds the hidden reason: a Liability Exposure Index that scores every patient on how likely they are to sue. After her patient Leon Gaskins falls waiting for help, Roz is written up and the evidence is erased from the system. But her handwritten crossword-book log, a printed export and Leon's own testimony reach the state and the newspaper. VIGIL's medication functions are suspended and Wisconsin bans the score, but Calyx renames it and keeps it running in 212 hospitals in eleven other states.