Episode 3 Night Skies

Under the sinking sun, the moon rises and blackness approaches. The stakes always seem higher at night. Jeopardy is too close a companion. You never know what you'll find in the shadows.

Mary Scherpenberg, Air Ambulance Paramedic

Mary Scherpenberg is one of the very few female helicopter paramedics. 38 years old, she's been working for Emergency Medical Services for eight years. Hers is a world of lights, sirens, adrenaline rushes and blood freezing cool. Driven and dedicated, Mary works rotating nights and is called out for assistance with medical emergencies of every kind that require air transport. The EMS is based at Toronto Island Airport and responds to calls from all over southern Ontario.

Mary's calls can be emotionally blistering. She picks up and transports bleeding traffic victims, fresh organs, and traumatized children. She is the only liaison between air and ground ambulance personnel. It's a kind of flying M.A.S.H. unit, and Mary has to concentrate on her tender cargo - even when the chopper hits a storm, even when the radio goes down, and she and her charge are isolated in midair, in the middle of the ultimate race.

Bill Dimkovski, Private Detective

Bill Dimkovski hates night shift. Age 36, married and a parent, Bill works for "Knight On Guard", a detective agency. He's been a private eye for eight years.

When the case demands it, Bill spends the nights tailing a suspect. Sometimes he's asked to get photographs. Most times, he's parked in the shadows, watching the strange assortment of passersby the night attracts, looking for the one face he's after.

That face may lead him into boarded-up warehouses waiting for demolition, or into the rooming houses where urban wildlife outnumber the human residents. It could be a trap or just another dead end, and he won't know until he's inside.

Bill knows his way around the mean streets and the mean people of Toronto. And he doesn't like cops. But then again, they don't like Bill much either.

Ralph MacQuinn, Water Taxi

Forty-year-old Ralph MacQuinn is rough and gruff and was born near the sea in the Maritimes. Salt runs through his veins. He's still on the water but now he lives on a sailboat in Toronto's harbour and runs a fleet of four water taxis with his brother.

The waterfront is lonely at night, and the wind blows hard and cold of the water.

Ralph never know who'll need his "aqua-cab", or why. He's picked up dead bodies floating in the lake and been part of rescues.

Ralph waits by his phone for the calls, whether from the partygoers late getting home of the cops. He tuns up the country music in his engine room for the night, then heads out into the wind and the blackness of the lake.