Welcome to the Madhouse

by S. E. Sasaki

  “And ‘simple’ is actually his middle name, Dr. Grace,” Dr. Al-Fadi said. “Please do not tell me, Dr. Darwin, that you are our anesthetist for today.”

  “Love you too, Nappy,” Dr. Darwin said, blowing the little man a kiss. “What sort of Frankenstein experiment are you doing today?”

  Dr. Darwin bent down towards Grace and whispered very loudly, behind a raised hand, “The man takes the legs off a birdman, attaches them to the body of an orca female, sticks a wolf head on top and thinks he’s put the right soldier back together again. Delusional, the man’s completely delusional. Meanwhile, the rest of the birdman is flopping around on the orca tail trying to scratch itself and sniff its own butt!”

  “How uncouth. Your jealousy is showing through, Dr. Darwin,” Dr. Al-Fadi said.

  “What? Jealous of you? A tiny, bald man with an ego the size of the universe? As I said, Hiro, you’re delusional. I’ve wasted most of my life trying to live up to someone worth feeling diminished by: my namesake, Charles Darwin.”

  “Well, Dr. Darwin, I hate to make you feel more diminished—although you certainly could use some physical diminishment, I hate to point out—but you are holding us up. How can I not say you are such a disappointment? I thought Dr. Cech was a slacker, but you are possibly the epitome of ‘slackness’ and I am not referring to your abdominal musculature, either. I never thought I would say this, ever, but . . . I wonder where Dr. Cech is?”

  Just at that moment, Dejan Cech walked into the lounge.

  “Did I hear my name being taken in vain?” Dejan Cech asked, looking around at the three doctors in the lounge.

  “Hiro, here, has been pining for you, Dejan . . . again. You really have to stop leading this poor little man on. You have to make it clear to him that you really do love your wife. He just doesn’t seem to be able to do without you.”

  “Ah. Hello, Charles. Being inappropriate again, as usual,” Dr. Cech said. “Please ignore this man, Dr. Lord. It has been my experience, unfortunately, that every health center has at least one major flaw, a disaster waiting to happen—a Titanic, so to speak, and I am not referring to his size—ready to drag us all down in his wake, and what an enormous wake it would be. You have just had the disagreeable pleasure of meeting ours.” Dr. Cech held his hand out to indicate Dr. Darwin and bowed.

  Chuck Darwin blew a kiss at Dejan Cech, as well. “Love you, too, Ceckie!”

  “Unless you absolutely have no other choice whatsoever, Dr. Lord, avoid this man like the plague. He is like a great, hairy, walking bubo ready to explode at any moment. And when it does, Dr. Lord, I assure you, it won’t be nice.”

  “Thanks, Dejan. Thanks a lot. Now let me get this straight,” Chuck Darwin said, turning his great bulk in his chair to look directly at Grace. “Your parents called you Grace Lord . . . ? That was nasty,” Chuck said, shaking his head.

  Dr. Cech slapped Dr. Darwin hard on the shoulder. “Apologize, you oaf. Be nice! That was inexcusable, incorrigible, inconsiderate and insulting. You are being incredibly insensitive, again, Dr. Darwin. Can you think of anymore adjectives, Hiro? When will you ever learn, Charles? You are supposed to be pleasant and affable and welcoming to the new surgical fellows, at least in the beginning. After they have become indoctrinated and desensitized, then you can be your usual, unbearable self.”

  “I’m trying! I’m trying to be nice!” Dr. Darwin yelled.

  “Try harder! Now, I am off to help the Great One. See you people later,” Dr, Cech announced, and strode out.

  “As the old saying goes, with friends like that, who needs enemies?” Dr. Darwin muttered.

  “Who is the ‘Great One’ Dr. Cech is referring to?” Grace asked Dr. Darwin.

  Dr. Al-Fadi looked at Grace in annoyance. “What? Have you been sleepwalking since you’ve been here, Dr. Grace? The only ‘Great One’ around here is me! Dr. Cech, as usual, is just trying to annoy me. Ignore him completely. I am surrounded by blockheads, buffoons, and imbeciles. It is my karma. Delinquents, degenerates, deviants and disappointments, I have to contend with all of these on a daily basis. And delays, caused by decidedly indolent dolts like Dr. Darwin, here. I must have been a mass murderer in my previous life to deserve this punishment now. I literally curse my past self, for having done this to me.”

  “I curse him, too, believe me,” Dr. Darwin muttered. “All right, Dr. All Flabby. I’m going.”

  The huge anesthetist struggled once, twice, three times to try and get out of the low chair. Finally succeeding in pushing himself up onto his feet, he lumbered off, cursing under his breath.

  “You’d think we were working in a spa, not a hospital!” Dr. Al-Fadi yelled after the man. “So hard to find good help these days!”

  Dr. Al-Fadi turned back and frowned at Grace. “I certainly hope you are not going to turn into a disappointment, Dr. Grace.”

  “I hope not, Great One,” Grace said, straight-faced.

  “Thank you. That feels so much better.”

  “Any time,” Grace said.

  “Dr. Grace, we have a few minutes, while Dr. Darwin gets everything prepared for our next case. I just want to say that . . . I hope you don’t think badly of us, with all of this banter.”

  Grace looked at Dr. Al-Fadi, her eyes widening. She quickly shook her head.

  “Dr. Cech and Dr. Darwin are two of the finest doctors I have ever had the honor and pleasure to work with. Their work is impeccable and their characters are flawless. But don’t you ever tell them I said this. I will deny every word,” Dr. Al-Fadi said, looking around to make sure they were alone.

  “All the staff on this station are excellent and committed and, although we have been known to joke around a bit, I hope you understand that it is merely a means of blowing off steam and dealing with the stresses of our jobs. A patient’s health and welfare is always sacrosanct, never a laughing or joking matter. But a colleague? Well, we have been known to tease a bit. Correction: a lot.

  “Of course you have to be selective in who you tease. Some people have no sense of humor. We try and avoid them, like the plague. They are no fun and act like black holes, sucking the fun out of a room and every situation, rather like your three predecessors, I am sorry to say. I am glad you can roll with the punches and give as good as you get, Dr. Grace. I like a surgical fellow with some wit. But just remember, it is all in goodnatured fun and not to be taken seriously.”

  Grace smiled and nodded.

  “Now, let’s discuss the patient we are operating on today. She is an amphibian adaptation, from one of the Conglomerate’s marine worlds, who has chosen to transform into a full-fledged, dolphin adaptation. When people choose to become a cetacean, we always do it in two stages, because the transformation from human to cetacean is an enormous change, which we will get to in a minute.

  “The initial stage of amphibian adaptation is used first, to determine whether a person really likes the marine environment. You would be surprised at the number of people who become amphibians only to discover, to their dismay, that they hate being submerged in deep water. They only realize, after all of the adaptation surgery, that they actually hate it. Or the number of bat adaptations who discover they are afraid of the dark. Or the number of bird adaptations that are afraid of heights. Even after extensive psychological profiling and in-depth, three dimensional simulation testing, it happens, more often than we would like to admit.

  “Then we have to reverse the adaptation. Not so hard with bird, bat, and amphibian adaptations, because the patient still walks upright. But, when we transform a patient into a full cetacean, either dolphin or orca, the orientation of the patient’s skeleton flips horizontally and the arms and legs become fins. Forward propulsion is now in the axis of the head-to-tail direction. Echolocation—a totally new sense for us humans—becomes important in understanding one’s environment in three dimensions instead of just two and vocal cord changes are made. Cerebral augmentations are required to help the patient adjust to the overwhelming changes we have just d
iscussed. It is all so complicated and drastic.

  “These are enormous changes and I am not just referring to the patient’s whale- or dolphin-like size. The patient must adapt to all these new changes at once. Some patients just do not cope. We see high rates of suicide and depression and that is a terrible thing to witness in a cetacean. They just dive and basically don’t come up for air.

  “Thus, we only allow people to convert to the cetacean adaptation in two stages and, when they are in the amphibian stage, they spend a lot of time in the 3D simulators, experiencing what real cetaceans experience. They wait for three years, as amphibians, before they are allowed to go on to the full cetacean adaptation. It cuts down the number of failures or suicides we see. It is such a massive surgery and such a drastic change, that we do very few, but the marine worlds cry out for cetacean-adapt personnel.

  “It’s also one hell of a surgery to perform—and to reverse!—so empty your bladder and whatever else you need to do, Dr. Grace, as we are going to be busy for hours, and I mean hours. If you haven’t already, fill up your stomach, too. If you want to be hooked up to a catheter bag, you can ask one of the nurses.”

  At the horrified look on Grace’s face, Dr. Al-Fadi smiled. “I’m joking. If you have to take a break, Dr. Grace, let me know. I assure you, we will be taking a few.”

  A light flashed on Grace’s wrist-comp at the same time as one went off on the wrist-comp of Dr. Al-Fadi.

  “Good. That slacker, Darwin, has finally gotten the patient ready for the operation. About time. What did I say about good help? Now, did you get something to eat, Dr. Grace? Something substantial?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grace nodded.

  “Good. Then, it’s showtime.”

  The small Chief of Staff smiled and rubbed his hands together. To Grace, he seemed as excited as a little boy.

  “Oh, and don’t forget to put on your rubber galoshes, Dr. Grace!”

  Chapter Ten: Angels and Choices

  Grace was exhausted from the previous day’s surgery. Twenty-two hours. Her cerebral augmentation implant allowed her to work continuously for twenty-four hours without getting tired, but she had been doing too many of those long shifts in a row. She had gotten about two hours sleep, when a call had come in paging her to see one of her patients, stat!

  A tiger adapted soldier from Captain Damien Lamont’s squad was causing a ruckus. Grace hoped she was in restraints. The tiger woman’s name was Corporal Delia Chase. Grace rubbed her eyes and stumbled toward the surgical wards, yawning as she went.

  With her mouth gaping open, she heard a very familiar velvety voice say, “Good morning, Dr. Lord. Long night?”

  Grace shut her mouth with a loud snap and her eyes bugged open.

  It was the gorgeous Dr. Jeffrey Nestor standing right before her. Grace wanted a hole to open up in the floor, so she could just drop into it. She did not want to talk to this annoyingly attractive man. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth, combed her hair, or looked in a mirror, when she had stumbled out of bed, stepped into her shoes, and had gone looking for the stat call.

  Now she was standing in front of Doctor Delicious and she did not want to open her mouth. She could feel an intensely warm flush work its way upward, from her abdomen to her hairline. Irritated and suddenly angry for him being in her way and looking so disgustingly good, she grumbled, “Yes,” and tried to move past him.

  “Not a good time to talk?” the psychiatrist asked, looking at her either sensitively or with amusement. Grace was far too annoyed to tell.

  Grace shook her head, covering her mouth with her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a SAMM-E just slipping around a corner and out of sight. She thought there was something odd about its movements, its furtiveness, but then quickly forgot about it with Mr. Adorable obstructing her path, scrutinizing her in her unkempt wretchedness.

  “Well, I hoped to be able to renew our conversation of the other day. However, I have just heard your name paged ‘Stat’ to a patient’s room, so I guess I should bid you ‘good day’, Dr. Lord. I am still interested in getting together with you for dinner,” Dr. Nestor said, too damned cheerfully as far as she was concerned.

  Grace could just tell, by the tone of his voice, that Jeffrey Nestor was having far too good of a time. She refused to look at his face. She wanted to gut him. Where was a scalpel, when you needed one? Grace despised people who were so cheerful in the morning, especially drop-dead gorgeous men who took great delight in torturing disheveled, exhausted women with no time to brush their teeth since being pulled—due to a bloody emergency—out of a dead sleep.

  She shook her head, growled an inarticulate apology from behind her hand, and stomped off. Over her shoulder, she snarled, “Good day,” while she was thinking: ‘What’s so good about it? So far it has been a complete and utter disaster.’

  When Grace entered the ward, it was not hard to find her patient’s room. It was the room from which all of the crashing and snarling and yelling was coming from. And it was the doorway before which all the security police, with their stunners out, were gathered. Grace noticed one of them raising their stunner to shoot and she yelled, “Stop!”

  A blast from the stunner would undo some of the delicate, bioelectrical programming that had just gone into this tiger woman’s repair. Grace raced up. “Please put those stunners down, gentlemen,” she said, firmly. “Give me a minute with this patient.”

  “This soldier is going berserk, Doctor. She could easily break you in two. We are here for your protection and it is obvious she is not calming down. Be very careful,” said one of the security detail.

  “Thank you very much. I will be careful, but I also have to find out what is going on with this patient. I need her conscious for that. I don’t want her hurting herself or you harming her with your stunners. A great deal of very sensitive and expensive equipment has gone into her repair which your stunners could undo with one blast. I would suggest that the cost of the replacements, coming out of your pay, would not be something you would welcome. Now please, all of you, step aside!”

  The security detail parted and Grace looked inside the room. The tiger woman had barricaded herself in the furthest corner from the doorway. She had moved the bed, table, and chairs to make an enclosure and she was crouching behind them, holding a chair up like a club. Her brown eyes were narrowed, gauging her opposition, and her breathing was almost a pant. Grace’s heart went out to this frightened woman and she turned to the security force.

  “You will move away from this door and only come if I call you,” Grace ordered.

  “But, Doctor . . .” the apparent leader of the group started to say.

  “No buts. Move!” Grace demanded. “I want you all away from this door, NOW, so I can talk to my patient in privacy.”

  “We are not responsible if something happens to you . . .” the fellow said. Grace wanted to strangle this persistent man. Grace took a deep breath to calm herself.

  “I understand. Now, please, back away from the door. I would like for my patient to feel less intimidated,” Grace said, as calmly and politely as she could. She waited until the group had reluctantly shuffled off down the corridor. Then she turned back, inhaled a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and entered the patient’s room.

  “Corporal Chase,” Grace said, as calmly as she could, “I am Dr. Grace Lord. I am one of the doctors who operated on you. Could you please tell me what has upset you?”

  “They keep giving me drugs to put me under, Doc. I don’t want to be drugged up anymore. And no one will tell me where our captain is, whether he is alive or not, and where they are keeping him. I demand to know if he is alive and what you have done with him. I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” the tiger woman almost shouted.

  Grace jerked in surprise. “Which detail are you from? Who is your captain?” Grace asked, her body suddenly feeling sweat-drenched. A twinge of guilt started to cramp her stomach.

  “Squad XB6578, Eighth Army Div
ision, out of the planet, Dais, under the command of Captain Damien Lamont,” the corporal rang off.

  “Well, Corporal Chase, Captain Damien Lamont is alive and recovering slowly,” Grace announced, as soothingly as she could.

  Immediately, she saw the tiger woman’s eyes well up with tears and her shoulders fall.

  “Why couldn’t anyone else have just said so?” the corporal snarled, in frustration.

  “Medical Station policy, I am afraid. I know. It stinks and it’s wrong, but the nursing staff are all required to abide by it,” Grace said. “It is for the protection of each individual patient, Corporal Chase, and the security guards can arrest me, if they want. Captain Lamont was hurt very badly. He took a great deal more damage than the rest of your squad, and so his recovery is more involved. He is not yet ready to see anyone, but he is definitely doing better.”

  “He shouldn’t be,” Corporal Chase whispered. “We were out on patrol, in a very contested area, where rebels are trying to overthrow the Conglomerate government. We were moving forward, in formation, me just to the right of the Captain, patrolling through deep jungle. The soldier on point duty triggered the trap. The Captain shoved me aside and threw himself on the triggered bomb. I didn’t see anything. It all happened so fast.

  “I don’t think I could face living, Doc, if he didn’t make it. It should have been me who took the brunt of the explosion. I was the closest to it. He saved my life!”

  “Well, your Captain is going to pull through, Corporal Chase,” Grace said. “He is a strong man. I will definitely let him know about your concern. We still have a few others in your squad to treat, but some of your mates are up and walking around. If you let us come in and help you, perhaps we could make arrangements for you to see some of them.”