3 – Medical Care

Tony watched the girl at the counter wave Adelaide through, then leaned back in the hard, plastic seat, closing his eye as he tried to let the latest wave of nausea and throbbing pain roll over him. Was it too soon for another hit of the stim? He almost chuckled at the idea. He’d known plenty of jittery operators who regularly used similar substances. Honestly, it was a little hard to believe that he’d never hit an inhaler quite like the one Bert had given him—it was serious business. He could see how someone could get hooked.

“C’mon, dummy,” he whispered as he began to bounce his leg up and down, using the motion to distract him from the pain. “You’re at the clinic. Just hang tough and see what the doc says.”

“Yo,” a guy to his left said. “You better take a number before someone else comes in.”

Tony opened his eye and blearily looked around the room. Sure enough, a big red LED sign on the far wall read D77, and he could see a check-in kiosk near the door. Had Adelaide said anything about that? Did he space it? “Thanks,” he grunted, nodding to the guy—middle-aged, dark skin, dreads in a loose, knit cap, clothes that looked like he’d slept in ’em. Tony stood and walked over to the kiosk and began filling in his information:

Name: Anthony Santoro

DOB: 07-21-2089, Age: 29

Insurance: NA

Payment Method:

Tony frowned, looking at the options: Sol-bits, Boxer-bits, Other Major Corporation Currency, Dust, Other. Shrugging, he selected “other.” The box beeped, the camera flashed, startling him, and a high-pitched, androgynous voice said, “Thank you! Your number is D92.” After a brief pause, the machine hummed and spat out a paper ticket. Tony fumbled his grab as it began to fall toward the floor—depth perception with one eye was no joke. He leaned over, almost fainted, and snatched up the ticket. Woozily, he made his way back to his seat.

“You ain’t looking too hot, sport,” his neighbor remarked.

“I’m not feeling too hot.” Tony closed his eye and leaned back, resting his head on the plasti-sheet wall. The guy didn’t say anything else, but Tony heard some of the other people in the waiting area talking.

A little boy was sniffling, and his mother was worried he had Dust poisoning. A young woman was in tears, talking to someone through her PAI—it sounded like it must be her boyfriend because she was mad that he was missing “another wellness check-up.” An old guy was grumbling to his wife, saying they were wasting time, but she was worried about his joints—how would he keep working if he could barely walk?

All in all, the snippets of conversation were a nice reminder that he wasn’t the center of the universe. He wasn’t the only one who was having a shitty day. He smirked, though, wondering if anyone else could boast that they’d been stripped of upwards of two million Sol-bits worth of Dust. Tony wrapped the stray thought up, stuffed it into a box, and then tossed it through the door, where he’d locked up his memories of Jen and Eric. He didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with that kind of regret and anger—not yet.

The door behind the receptionist opened, and a wheelchair emerged, carrying a young man who looked half-conscious. His eyes were sunken, and his flesh so wan and yellow that it looked like a cheap synthetic knockoff. A slender, gray-haired guy with a high-end scientific visor and wearing a blood-stained white smock pushed the chair.

As soon as the guy was clear of the door, he let go of the handles, waved to a woman sitting nearby, and said, “He’ll be good to walk when the sedatives wear off. Make sure he does! Mobility is the key to getting those new organs working.”

The woman wiped tears from her eyes, and in Tony’s opinion, they looked joyful. She stood to take charge of her husband, brother, or, heck, maybe son. The doctor smiled and nodded at her, then scanned the waiting room and let his opaque lenses settle on Tony. “Tony?”

“Um, yeah.” Absurdly, Tony felt his heart rate speed up and a little anticipatory excitement, like he was a kid waiting to be picked for a streetball team.

“Come on back, I’ve got your…results.” Clearly, the doc was trying to forestall a riot by calling him back ahead of the other folks in the lobby. Still, the grumbling was thick in the air as Tony stood and hurried through the door behind the doctor.

“Thanks,” he said when he was through the door, and it swung shut behind him.

“Not a problem. Addie told me about your situation, and those anti-bac canisters will more than cover a simple install.” The doctor had very precise diction, and as he scanned his weird, black-lensed visor with its little sensor and camera nodules over Tony’s half-empty track-suit sleeve, he tsked and put a friendly hand on Tony’s shoulder, guiding him down the hallway. “Come on, we’re going to have to prep the install site; whoever amputated your arm didn’t do you any favors.”

Tony had to laugh at the comment. “No, doc, I don’t think they were trying to help me out.”

The doctor chuckled, shaking his head grimly, then gestured to a pair of plastic swinging doors. “My operating theater.” When he pushed his way through, Tony had to hold his elbow to his nose; the coppery scent of blood and something like a mix between shit and a dead rat almost made him gag. “Sorry about the smell. My last patient needed a bowel replacement, and the medical waste bin is a touch too full.” He gestured to a big red and white barrel in the corner, and Tony grimaced at the dark smears on the top and sides.

“Jesus, doc.” He looked around the room and saw overfull trash bins and three autodoc tables, all of differing makes and clearly of vastly disparate capabilities. One of them looked to be forty or fifty years old. He caught a glimpse of Adelaide in the corner, dragging one of the anti-bac canisters over to the table there.

“Here, go over and sit down on the autodoc in the corner where she’s loading up the anti-bac.” Peters pointed to the stainless table equipped with half a dozen robotic arms, all sporting different tools—from a circular saw to a wide-gauge needle to a compression cuff.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Adelaide tugged a rubber hose out from the densely packed innards of the autodoc, trying to pull it toward the nozzle of one of the anti-bac canisters. She looked up with a red-faced grimace as Tony approached. “His assistant called in sick.”

Tony was still holding his sleeve to his mouth and nose, and he nodded emphatically. “I can see why!”

“They mostly volunteer; they’re used to the, uh—” Adelaide turned her face down into her shoulder and coughed, sucking in a deep breath through the fabric of her T-shirt. “Smell!”

Seeing her like that, red-faced, struggling to help despite being grossed out, Tony remembered she was only there for him and felt a surge of guilt. “Hey, let me do that. You don’t need to be in here.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. I was supposed to get a mask.” She paused, frowning at the hose she clutched. “Yeah, Tony, you do this. I’ll go grab us a couple of masks.” She jumped up and strode toward a big white cabinet by the sink, and Tony bent to try, one-handed, to do what ought to be a simple task but seemed daunting in his current state. Luckily, the tank was heavy, and it held still while he grasped the hose and pressed it to the nozzle, putting his weight behind it. With a hiss and a click, it popped into place.

“Hey, you got it!” Addie presented a white medical mask, and Tony took it, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible.

He hooked one strap over his left ear, then pulled it over his mouth and nose. It was made of some kind of paper and smart-gel blend and almost immediately made a pretty tight seal against his skin. “You’re a rockstar, thanks.”

“Anyway, I’m not in here for you, Tony, so don’t get your wires twisted. I volunteered to help out for a little while when I saw Peters running around like his eggs were on fire.”

“His, uh, eggs?”

“You know, like when you put too much powder in the oil and the burner flares up?”

Tony used his hand to leverage himself up onto the stainless table. “I think you and I have very different ideas about how you’re supposed to fry an egg.”

Adelaide crossed her arms over her chest, cocking her head as she regarded him. “You really are from ’Hattan, aren’t you?”

“You thought I made it up?”

She chuckled. “C’mon, have you looked in a mirror? Still, I can see that left eye of yours is pretty special, and you have a casual way of mentioning stuff—fry an egg? Really? Like a whole egg?” She shook her head again, her right eyebrow cocked up at an impressive angle.

“Adelaide!” Peters called her from the other side of the operating “theater,” where he was struggling with the barrel of medical waste. “Let me get this loaded on your sled, then you can drive it out back for me! There should be an empty one by the back door!”

“Oh, brother. Good thing these masks are filtered.”

“You want me to—”

“No! You look like you’re about to faint. Just let the doc do his thing.” She paused, staring at his face, and Tony realized his shades had slipped down while he’d been leaning over the anti-bac canister. “You lost your eye, too?”

“I don’t know if ‘lost’ is the right word.” He shook his head, his lips quirking into a wry grin.

Addie looked at him like his lunacy might be contagious, then turned and hurried over to help the doc. Tony sat there reflecting on his ability to make light of his predicament. Had he gone over the edge? Was he cracked? Considering all he’d been through, it seemed possible he’d finally snapped some noodles.

“I mean,” he said to the autodoc, “they pulled my whole data port. Maybe they took some brains out by mistake. Sometimes those synthetic nerves go pretty deep.” His grin turned into a chuckle as he laid back on the stainless table, staring up at the spider-like surgical arms.

“How are we doing, Tony?” The voice startled him, and Tony jerked his face to the right where the doc stood in his significant blind spot.

“I think I’m cracking up.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at some transient delirium, considering these readings.”

“Huh?” Tony caught a flicker of movement above him and saw that the autodoc was moving a bulb of glass that flickered with multiple LEDs back and forth over his body.

“Yeah, they did a number on you, huh? Looks like you had quite a robust Dust matrix pulled out and not delicately. Is the wound on your chest where your old Dust reactor was?”

Tony tried to touch the sore spot under his tracksuit but just flapped the empty sleeve over his chest. He tried again with his left hand, gingerly prodding the tender flesh. “Yeah.”

“Was your arm natural?”

“Just my forearm, but only partially; I had a chrome hand and a plasma forge mounted to the bones.” His “chrome” hand had been high-end, too—bones stronger than plasteel but flesh that looked as real as any natural skin. He could punch through bricks with that hand, but why would he when he had a tier-two plasma forge?

“Well, the good news is that they left most of your nerves intact, especially in your eye; that significantly cuts down on the expense if you get a prosthetic.”

“I’m broke, doc.”

“Yeah, got that impression. Well, let’s start with what we can; I’m going to clean up these extraction sites and prep your arm and chest for the hardware Bert sent over. I’ll go ahead and sedate you ’cause this autodoc isn’t gentle, and I’ve got other patients to see to. When it’s done with the prep work, do you want me to go ahead and do the installs? I need you to verbally confirm for legal purposes.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And what, exactly, am I installing? Again, I need you to say it.”

“The, uh, cybernetic arm and old-ass Dust reactor and matrix.”

“And you’re okay with the install site for the reactor being your chest? As you know, the more marrow it has access to, the more effective its transmissions. I’ve done them in femurs, too, but—”

“Just put it in the old hole.”

“Sternum, got it. And you consent to me feeding the Dust matrix into your arterial system via the femoral artery?”

Tony sighed. “Whatever’s easiest, doc.”

“Excellent. Now, the arm Bert sent over is a full arm replacement. It can be modified to attach at the elbow where your amputation took place, but I could also go ahead and remove—”

“Nah, let me keep as much of my arm as you can, please.”

“Not a problem. The arm has all the adapters. I’ll be able to tie your muscles and nerves into the provided synthetic grafts.”

Tony sighed and closed his eye. He was a little surprised Peters was being so careful; he’d been to chop docs plenty of times, and they usually cut first and asked questions later. Of course, it was the first time he’d been on the table in a place like that, so he was more than a little grateful for the doc’s concern. He chuckled, images of Chavez’s spa-like clinic flashing through his mind. Oh, man, if Eric could see him on this bloody, stainless table! The humor quickly turned to anger as he reminded himself he was there because of Eric.

“Any questions or concerns?” Peters asked, snapping him out of his dark reverie. Once again, Tony boxed up the emotions and stuffed them into the storage room he’d built in his mind.

“Can you do anything about the throbbing in my eye socket?”

“Yeah. I can help with that. I’ll clean it up and give you something topical, so you don’t have to drug yourself up with Bert’s old inhaler.” When Peters saw Tony’s confused scowl, he added, “Addie mentioned it, but only out of concern.”

“All right, Doc. Push ‘play’ or ‘enter’ or whatever you do on these machines, and let’s get this over with.”

Peters chuckled. “It’s not quite that easy. Take off your tracksuit top, though; there's no sense in letting the machine rip it off. I’ll start the sedation protocol, and when you wake up, you should be feeling a lot better.”

Tony obliged, unzipping the tracksuit and pulling his arm and a half out of the sleeves. He handed it to the doc and then laid back, shivering involuntarily as the cold stainless touched his bare shoulders. Peters hung the jacket over a stainless stool nearby and returned to the autodoc’s control panel. A moment later, two of the arms whirred into action. One hooked a blood pressure cuff around his left biceps, and the other attached to his lower arm at the elbow, where it skillfully and nearly painlessly inserted an intravenous tube.

“Okay, Tony, countdown from twenty, and by the time you get to one, I’ll be waking you up, and you’ll be feeling a lot better.”

“If you say so.” Tony forced a smile, then began counting, “Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…” He felt something cold rush into his arm. “Seventeen…six…six-uh-six…”