by S. E. Sasaki
Just then, Lamont’s eyelids whipped open. Huge, fierce, amber eyes, speckled with flecks of gold, were glaring at Grace with feral hostility and suspicious rage. Gasping, Grace instinctively jumped backwards. With astonishing speed, the tiger patient lunged towards her, claws fully extended and fangs bared. A deafening roar exploded from his lungs, spraying hot spittle in Grace’s face. His long, white fangs no longer looked so quaint.
Razor-sharp claws scored down both of Grace’s forearms, as she retreated further back. Thankfully, the manacles and chains on the captain’s arms stopped him from doing more damage. Lamont’s furious gaze seemed to stab right through her and, as he struggled against the solid metal restraints, he roared again at her in incoherent outrage.
Grace had cried out, more from the surprise of the attack than from the pain, although the score marks did sting. The gouges running down both of her forearms did not burn nearly as much as her cheeks though, as she flushed in embarrassment. Silently, she thanked the nurses for placing those metal restraints on the patient and she quickly turned to the medication computer at the patient’s bedside. She punched in a heavier dose of sedation. Soon after, the captain relaxed back onto his pillow and fell back to sleep.
The Intensive Care Unit nurses came running into the room and activated the overhead lights. They took one look at Grace’s injuries and apologized profusely. They quickly dragged her to the nursing station, where they sterilized her wounds and bandaged her up.
“I am so sorry,” a young nurse cried, her hands shaking. “I thought the chains on the patient’s arms were tight enough. Obviously they weren’t. Your injuries are all my fault!”
“They are not your fault,” Grace said, firmly, staring at the petite, black-haired, tan-skinned beauty. “It was my fault and my fault alone. I was careless and just wasn’t thinking. I should not have stood so close to the patient, so soon after his surgery. He has been through so much and is reviving from cryostasis, battle trauma, and extensive reconstructive surgery. He is on numerous medications. I should have known better. He may have been experiencing a flashback or drug-induced nightmare. Perhaps, if I’d had a bit more sleep, I would have been more alert, but regardless, you are definitely not to blame. I was just thankful that there were restraints on the patient. So, thank you.”
Grace gave the nurse an encouraging smile. The small young woman stared back at Grace, with anxious, light brown eyes.
“I have never cared for a patient with a tiger adaptation before,” Grace admitted, her cheeks suddenly feeling like they had had too much sun. “His recuperative powers are astonishing. If I had been a bit more astute and alert, taking into account the severe pain the patient probably is in from his surgery, I would have been much more circumspect.”
“I still feel very bad, Dr. Lord,” the young girl whispered, looking as if she were close to tears.
“Don’t. It wasn’t your fault,” Grace insisted, shaking her head and patting the young nurse’s hand. “Let’s just look at this as an instructive lesson for both of us. Hmm?” She smiled and the young nurse gradually smiled back.
“What is your name?” Grace asked.
“Sophie Leung,” the nurse said, looking down at her wringing hands and then shyly up at Grace’s face, through thick, dark lashes.
“Are you in training?”
Sophie nodded, hesitantly, her forehead creased in worry lines and her lower lip trapped between her teeth.
Well, so am I,” Grace said. “This is only my second day here.”
“I know,” Sophie whispered. “You are Dr. Al-Fadi’s new surgical fellow.”
“That is correct. And, Sophie, if there is one thing I am positive about, it’s that we are going to come across a lot worse shit than this, while we are here,” Grace announced in a cheery voice.
Sophie’s eyes popped open and her eyebrows leaped upwards. She covered her mouth with a hand and giggled at Grace’s archaic expression. She nodded in agreement.
“Why don’t you and I get back to work, Nurse Sophie,” Grace said, getting up. “Don’t worry about these scratches. They will heal fine and always be a reminder to me to be more careful!” she pronounced firmly. “I consider them my first battle wounds on this medical station—only the first of many, I am sure—but one I hope not to repeat.”
Then Grace thought about her bruised body, sore back, twisted knee, swollen cheek, abraded hands, and thought, well . . . maybe not the first.
“Yes, Doctor. Thank you, Doctor. I will run and get you some new operating greens,” Sophie said.
“Uh, thank you, Sophie,” Grace said, as she surveyed her blood spattered scrubs with dismay. “I would appreciate that. I do not know where you keep them around here.”
The young nurse scurried off.
At that moment, Dr. Dejan Cech walked into the nurses’ station, took one look at Grace, and said, “Are you going for the Mummy look this morning, Dr. Lord, or did the nurses just grab you for bandage practice?”
The nurses within hearing distance of this comment all turned and looked up at Dejan Cech, their mouths dropping open in shock.
“Catching flies are we, ladies and gentlemen?” Dr. Cech asked, as he looked around at all the gaping mouths.
“Dr. Lord just got attacked by your patient, Dr. Cech!” the head nurse of the intensive care unit snapped, angrily.
“Oh . . . no. I was hoping you were not going to say that,” Dr. Cech said slowly. “I am very sorry, Dr. Lord. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Grace said, a warm flush moving up from her neck to her ears to her scalp.
“I can’t wait to see your wounds,” the older gentleman said, wiggling his whitish-grey eyebrows up and down.
There was a loud, collective gasp heard around the nursing station.
“That’s it. You are in for it this time,” bellowed the head nurse, as she got up from her chair and marched towards the anesthetist.
She was a tiny, round woman with short, curly brown hair, rosy cheeks, and fiery brown eyes. In terms of height, Grace guessed the nurse probably came up to Dr. Cech’s sternum, but Grace actually stepped back, in trepidation, as the nurse approached. This woman, although small in stature, was nonetheless, physically formidable. One did not become a head nurse of an ICU on a Premier Medical Space Station, if one was not. This feisty woman proceeded to whack Dr. Cech on the left upper arm with what looked to Grace like a rubber hammer.
The anesthetist winced as the blow made contact. He muttered, ‘Ouch’, and rubbed the spot on his arm where he had gotten hit. He looked sheepishly over at Grace and shrugged.
“Head Nurse Louise Balotelli keeps that rubber mallet thingy here, specifically for me,” Dr. Cech whined, as he rubbed his arm. “My body is covered in bruises. She likes to hit me when I get out of line or when I am being inappropriate . . . which, unfortunately, is usually most of the time. I suspect she feels I am being both inappropriate and out of line, right at this very moment. Am I not correct, sweet, Nurse Balotelli?”
It was Grace’s turn for her mouth to drop open.
“Don’t you ‘sweet’, me, you . . . you scoundrel,” the head nurse scowled, trying to hide a smile, but not succeeding very well.
“It’s true,” Head Nurse Balotelli said, turning to Grace, as she wound up and whacked the anesthetist again with the rubber hammer, this time on the other arm. “But he deserves it, Dr. Lord. He is totally incorrigible. And he has the gall to keep stealing these mallets on me, as well. But I just keep having Stores make me a new one, with his name on it, so I can keep the rogue in line.”
“Really, Nurse Balotelli, I know you just like to hit me, because you like me,” Dejan Cech said, grinning wolfishly at the head nurse. “It fulfills some deep-seated, erotic desire, I am sure.” He then wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“What?” the nurse exclaimed, her face beaming scarlet. She bopped him again, this time with great force on his right shoulder, before making a show of stomping away. Suddenly, she spun back towards
Dr. Cech and he backed up, wincing, as she shook the rubber mallet at him. She shot him a scathing glance.
“You apologize to this nice young doctor properly, or I’ll string you up by the you-know-what’s!”
“Ouch,” Cech said, pantomiming grabbing his ‘you-know-what’s’. He blew a kiss at Head Nurse Balotelli and waved at her to go away. Nurse Balotelli sniffed at him and marched off.
Dr. Cech returned his attention to Grace, his face suddenly serious, and he said, “All joking aside, Dr. Lord. Are you all right? Would it be presumptuous of me to ask what happened?”
“Nothing but my stupidity, Dr. Cech,” Grace sighed, trying unsuccessfully to cover her bandaged arms with her hands.
“Please. Call me Dejan. As you may have noticed, I prefer not to be so formal and uppity as Dr. All Fatty. Oops. Did I say that? Must have been my ‘inner voice’ speaking. Pardon me, Dr. Lord. I meant . . . Dr. Al-Faaaahhdi.”
Grace could not help but grin at that. “Please. Call me Grace.”
“Thank you, Grace. Good. You are smiling again. This makes me happy and, contrary to what Dr. Al-Fadi says, your goal in life is always to make the anesthetists happy, because we are the ones keeping your patients alive, while you do all sorts of horribly barbaric, torturous things to them.
“Now, again I ask, Grace. What happened?”
“I was doing my rounds on the tiger soldier, Captain Damien Lamont—just checking his radial pulse—when he woke up with a roar and managed to get a few claws on me, before I jumped back out of his reach. Perfectly understandable from his point of view and perfectly stupid, from mine.”
“What? You, a surgeon, were actually touching the patient while he was not under a general anesthetic? How astonishing and utterly unconventional. Might I also say, rather unique. I am impressed, Dr. Lord. That was certainly nothing I ever saw your predecessors do.”
Dr. Cech narrowed his eyes and peered at Grace beneath bushy, furrowed brows. “Are you really a surgeon or actually an impostor? What did you do with the real Dr. Lord? Are you really even a doctor?” Cech asked, a mock horrified look on his face.
“I would like to think so,” Grace sighed, with an embarrassed look on her face. “But I certainly wasn’t thinking in doctor mode, this morning.” She held her gauze-wrapped arms out to the anesthetist as proof.
“Is that anything like ‘Doc commode’?” Cech quipped. Then he said, “Ahhh . . . I do apologize, Dr. Lord.”
“For what?” Grace asked.
The anesthetist gave a big sigh and shrugged. “Sometimes I just can’t help myself. These stupid things just pop out of my mouth, at the most inappropriate times, before I can close my lips. Like just now, and I have countless bruises all over my arms to prove it. Those damned rubber gavels,” Dejan Cech sighed, theatrically. “I do hope you will make allowances for a silly old man?”
Grace just grinned, not knowing quite what to say.
“Well, Grace, I must regrettably admit to you that the same thing happened to me, the first time I cared for a jaguar-adapted patient. And I, too, have the scars to prove it.”
Dejan Cech pulled up his shirt sleeves to show off his collection of faint, linear scars running down both of his arms. “My battle wounds. Makes the ladies go crazy,” he whispered, rolling his eyes and wiggling his thick eyebrows suggestively at Grace.
“Now, your turn for ‘Show and Tell’. Let me see your battle wounds,” he said.
Grace narrowed her eyes at the anesthetist, trying to determine whether he was really serious or not. As the anesthetist just stood there, staring at her expectantly, Grace shrugged and carefully unwrapped her bandages.
“Mere scratches,” the anesthetist announced, after examining the wounds carefully. “They are not deep enough to even leave permanent scars, like mine . . . or so I hope. For that, Grace, I am very much relieved. I would have been overcome with terrible guilt and shame, had the situation been otherwise. I would have had to go and self-flagellate for at least an hour or two. Thankfully, I think only thirty minutes shall suffice, as I still do feel terrible guilt and shame, but not quite as much as before. Nevertheless, I do most sincerely apologize for your injuries. I would never have forgiven myself, if your beautiful arms had been permanently scarred.”
Blushing, Grace laughed. “I am fine, Dr. Cech. Really.”
“You must take precautions against cat scratch fever,” Dr. Cech exclaimed, helping Grace re-wrap her wounds. “I shall make sure one of the nurses gives you a shot for that. Head Nurse Balotelli was correct in her estimation that this was all my fault. I should have had the patient much more sedated than he was, if he was able to do this to you. Obviously, I terribly miscalculated the rate at which he metabolized his drugs. These animal adaptations always surprise me.”
“Captain Lamont certainly surprised me,” Grace murmured.
“I apologize, again, from the bottom of my heart for your misfortune, Grace. Will you please find it in your heart to forgive a foolish old goat?”
“Uh . . . of course, Dr. Cech,” Grace said, stuttering. Her face erupted into flames as Dejan Cech stared at her. “But you aren’t an old goat. You aren’t even old.”
“Ah, thank you for that, Grace. You are too kind—and far too dishonest!—but I will take whatever flattery I can get. Now, unfortunately, you will have to scrub with the surgical soap far more carefully. Those scratches are going to sting,” he said, wincing dramatically.
“I have had worse, Dr. Cech. The soap will be good for the wounds.”
“Yes. Of course. Thank you so much, again, for your understanding, Grace. I shall speak to the nurses about that shot for you, and then I shall see you in the OR.”
Dejan Cech made a deep bow towards Grace and then strode off, on his very long legs, to find Head Nurse Balotelli. He turned around and winked at Grace, rubbing his arms theatrically, before sneaking up on the unsuspecting nurse and snatching the rubber gavel out of her sight. Nurse Balotelli then demonstrated how easily she could improvise. Clearly, she did not need a rubber mallet at all, to teach Dr. Cech a lesson or two.
Bud was in complete shock . . . or what he believed was ‘shock.’ His body was trembling. He had followed the enthralling Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord from outside her call room to Captain Lamont’s intensive care room, taking care to ensure she had not seen him. There he witnessed the tigerman’s attack on her.
The assault on the elegant Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord had taken him totally unawares and he had been frozen in immobility. To make things worse, he’d had to shamefully hide when all the nurses had come running. Now he stood outside the intensive care room, where the captain was sleeping peacefully, and his mind replayed, over and over, the regrettable injury that the vulnerable Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord had incurred.
Bud could not believe something so terrible had happened to the beautiful Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord and that he had been unable to prevent it. He had peeked through the observation window of the Intensive Care room, as she had checked the tiger captain’s pulse and had stood there, useless, as she was scored by the delusional soldier. The gentle Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord had only narrowly avoided being seriously mauled—if not killed!—by the tiger captain.
Bud felt ?upset?. . . ?guilty?. . . ?ashamed? He had been unprepared. He had been totally ineffectual, unaware that the good doctor had been in any danger at all. His reflexes, his reaction time, his ability to respond were completely inadequate for protecting the winsome Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord.
What fragile creatures these humans were! If anything more serious had happened to the remarkable Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord, Bud would not have been able to continue to function. He would have had to wipe his memory or shut himself down or volunteer himself for scrap. How did humans live with this painful emotion called guilt?
It was horrible!
Bud suddenly realized just how dangerous the world was for a human being. Harm could result from anything or anyone, at any time. He resolved to keep a closer watch on the delicate Dr.
Grace Alexandra Lord, so he could protect her from all the possible and impossible dangers on this medical space station, especially from traumatized surgical patients.
Bud would have to shadow the dainty Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord much more closely, without her noticing, in order to keep her safe. He would have to start making modifications on his body design to deal with his totally inadequate speed and reaction times. He needed to be stronger, faster, more invincible, and much more alert. He would have to figure out a way to protect the fetching Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord at all times, without her noticing . . .
How to do that?
Bud would first have to modify his little nanobots . . .
Chapter Six: Drop Dead Gorgeous
“Dr. Grace!” Dr. Al-Fadi exclaimed loudly, as Grace entered the doctors’ lounge. “Where have you been? We have been waiting for you . . . again. How do you expect us to get any work done, if you are nowhere to be found?”
“I was rounding on our patients,” Grace said, in an apologetic tone.
“Ah. Then I am afraid I will have to . . . forgive you,” the surgeon said, with a placated expression on his round face.
“ . . . Come along, Dr. Grace, and look at these scans of our next patient. Tell me what you think we should do.”
The small surgeon beckoned for Grace to sit down on the couch beside him. After activating a control on the table before them, Dr. Al-Fadi called up a patient’s three dimensional body scan. It was displayed and rotated right before them as a hologram. Using a swipe of her fingers, Grace manipulated the series of full body scans of the patient, who happened to be enormous, turning them around, removing layer by layer, front to back and top to bottom, to examine each vital organ and body part.
Throughout the heart and both lungs of this patient were scattered hundreds of long, sharp needles, each about the length of her index finger. The needles had pierced the soldier’s body armour and shredded the tissues of the patient’s upper body. Grace winced as she looked at the images. If it were not for her battlesuit sealing over all the holes and immediately cryofreezing the patient, there would not have been much upper body left to operate on. Surprisingly, brain activity was still intact, so if they were successful in replacing the heart, lungs, thoracic aorta, pulmonary veins, esophagus, and if they could fix all of the holes in the chest wall, the patient might actually have a chance of making a successful recovery.
