Welcome to the Madhouse

by S. E. Sasaki

  “What if someone you save does not want to go back out into the field?” Grace asked.

  “Then that someone does not go back out into the field,” Dr. Al-Fadi said, simply.

  “Simple as that?”

  “Simple as that,” Dr. Al-Fadi said, firmly.

  “All right,” Grace said, satisfied.

  “Who are we talking about?” Dr. Al-Fadi asked.

  “Captain Damien Lamont.”

  “Ah. The tiger who jumped on the bomb to save his squad?”

  “Yes,” Grace said, nodding.

  Dr. Al-Fadi sighed. “Some of my best work,” he said, wistfully. “Does he know that his tiger adaptation will be reversed, if he leaves the military?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said.

  “Perhaps you should tell him that,” Dr. Al-Fadi said. “Make sure he knows what he is asking for. Maybe he should see one of the ‘head doctors’.”

  “So they can convince him to go back out in the field and get blown up?” she demanded, her blue eyes flashing with anger. “Is that sanity . . . or is sanity deciding not to go out and get blown up, again? He is not crazy, Dr. Al-Fadi. Why should I have the psychiatrists try and convince him otherwise?”

  Dr. Al-Fadi took off his antiquated reading glasses, rubbed his eyes, and carefully put them back on. “That is a very good question, Dr. Grace, and I do not have an answer for that one. My, you are full of lots of good questions, today. You almost make me wish I had not gotten out of bed.”

  “Does he have to see a psychiatrist?” Grace asked, feeling her irritation start to lessen.

  “To get a discharge from the military and permission to return to a civilian setting, he does, Dr. Grace. I am sorry, but that is just the way things are set up.”

  “I’ll ask Dr. Jeffrey Nestor to see him,” she said.

  “Good choice,” Dr. Al-Fadi said. “I wish the captain luck. But remember this, Dr. Grace. All you and I can do, is do our jobs, which is to save lives. What those patients do with their lives is completely up to them. If they saved a planet, would you take credit for that?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “Then why would you feel responsible, if they killed someone? Then why would you feel responsible, if they got themselves killed? Would you be more responsible if they were killed by a bullet, than by falling down a set of stairs at home? At the end of the day, the only thing you are responsible for, Dr. Grace, is your own actions, not anyone else’s.”

  “But what if the choices I make, influence the choices a patient makes?”

  “What makes you think your choices influence anyone else’s choices? That’s pretty arrogant of you to think so.”

  Grace paused to think about what her mentor said and then laughed. “Touché, Dr. Al-Fadi. Touché.”

  “Come,” he said, quietly. “We have lives to save, so that they can have their own choices to make. Good or bad.”

  “Dr. Al-Fadi?” Grace asked, following him out the door.

  “What, Dr. Grace?”

  “How did you get to be so wise?”

  Dr. Al-Fadi turned around and looked up at Grace with enormous dark brown eyes, registering astonishment and indignation.

  “Why, Dr. Grace, I am shocked that you feel the need to ask me such a question. Isn’t it obvious? I was born this way!”

  Chapter Eleven: Cardinal Rule

  Grace was taking a much needed break in one of the doctors’ lounges, resting her tired, aching legs, after standing for ten hours straight, when a very tall man in operating scrubs, cap, and surgical mask rushed into the room. She could tell he was bald beneath the surgical cap and he had huge green eyes and jet black skin. His searching, panic-filled eyes focused on her and they lit up with apparent relief. He said, in an extremely low, commanding voice, “Come!” and then he spun on his heels and exited the room.

  As there was no one else in the lounge, Grace assumed the tall man had been talking to her. She sensed his air of urgency and desperation, and jumped up to follow him, even though she had no idea who he was or what he wanted. It seemed the man was in frantic need of an extra pair of hands and Grace knew what that feeling was like: being in an emergency situation and desperately needing help. Grace felt obligated to be of assistance and she wanted to at least satisfy her sense of curiosity about what this was all about. She was also curious about who this very tall, black-skinned man with the melodious, deep voice was.

  There were a lot of doctors on the medical space station whom she had not yet met and she had seen this gentleman around at some of the surgical rounds. He would have been very hard to miss, standing at over two and a half meters tall. His demand for her to come had not even waited for an answer.

  By the time Grace had poked her head out of the doctors’ lounge, the tall man had reached the end of the corridor and was striding away purposefully. Grace had to scurry to try and catch up to him. She could see him speaking into his wrist-comp as he marched briskly ahead, his long legs creating a pace that Grace had difficulty matching. Up ahead, he turned a corner to the right.

  Grace frowned. The direction the tall doctor took led to the obstetrical and gynecological wing of the medical station. She had never even been near those wards. What did this man want with her there? He certainly did not expect her to deliver a baby, did he?

  The tall man disappeared through some operating room doors without looking back, even once, to see if Grace was following. Grace slowed down, wondering what she was doing here. Just as she got close enough to almost peek in through a window into the operating room, the man popped back out the door and said, “Scrub. Now.”

  Almost without thinking, Grace’s hands grabbed a surgical cap, which was located outside the door in the scrub area. She put it over her hair and attached a surgical mask with a protective splash visor over her nose and mouth. She thrust her hands into the sterilizer followed by the glover. The tall, dark man, whom she assumed was an obstetrician, had already disappeared back into the operating room, gloved hands in the air. Grace backed in through the doorway and turned. Her eyes opened to the size of saucers.

  She had certainly not expected to see this!

  Nurse androids were running around, connecting leads and opening instruments, as the tall doctor finished tying up his surgical gown. He began to paint pink sterilizing solution on the tummy of a very pregnant, leopard-adapted female. The female snow leopard was lying back on the operating table, snarling and swearing in equal measure, as Natasha Bartlett was busy trying to listen to her lungs. Grace approached the scrub nurse, who gave her a surgical gown to don and suddenly Grace was helping paint the soft, white, underbelly fur of this pregnant leopard-adapt. The tall doctor handed her the sterile sheets to lay around the woman’s belly.

  Grace was assisting in a Caesarian section on a pregnant leopard-adapt. Hopefully she did not have to know anything about the leopard uterine anatomy, because she would not be much use to this obstetrician, if she did. She had not assisted in any leopard operations before, but then again, how different could they be from tigers, she wondered. She quickly refreshed her mind on tiger anatomy.

  A capped, masked, and gowned leopard man was being led into the operating room and was allowed to sit by the head of the patient, presumably his partner. He was so big, he dwarfed the little anesthetist, Natasha Bartlett, but she bossed him around without any noticeable qualms.

  “Sit quietly and do not touch the sterile sheets. You had best not look at what is going on down on the other side of the sheets because, if you faint, I am not picking you up,” Grace heard the little anesthetist say. “You may go ahead, Dr. Papaboubadios.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Bartlett,” Grace heard the deep, bass voice of the obstetrician rumble.

  Dr. Papaboubadios finally looked at Grace and said, “Thank you for assisting me with this delivery, Doctor. The babies were showing signs of significant fetal distress and they needed to be delivered now.”

  His hands moved quickly as he made an incision in
the fur-covered skin, parted the abdominal muscles along the midline, and skillfully made an incision along the base of the uterus. He reached in with his right hand, inside the uterus, and then told Grace to push. Grace put pressure on the top of the woman’s abdomen, pushing towards the pelvis. The obstetrician pulled out one bluish-purple-hued, human baby, suctioned out the lungs, and then quickly and neatly tied off the umbilical cord. He passed the baby off to one of the nurses. Then he reached inside the uterus a second time.

  “Push,” he ordered, and Grace applied pressure to the woman’s upper abdomen again. He extracted a second human infant, cord wrapped around its neck, who immediately started crying upon suctioning. Both babies were crying heartily now and Grace was shaking her head, almost crying herself. For some ridiculous reason, she had half expected little leopard cubs to be delivered, but obviously the babies would be human as the parents’ eggs and sperm would not have been genetically modified. She looked down at the mother’s and father’s faces and they were crying as well, tears streaking down their beautiful, patterned, furry cheeks and down their white whiskers. Grace’s breath caught, seeing the emotion exhibited by these two stunning parents.

  “Congratulations! You have a boy and a girl!” Grace told them, excitedly.

  The mother burst into loud sobs, which were mixed with sounds like snarls, and the father shushed her, stroking her face.

  Dr. Papaboubadios gave Grace a very stern look and said, “We still have work to do, Doctor,” in a tone that indicated admonishment. Grace’s eyebrows shot up and then wrinkled in puzzlement. What had she said that was so wrong?

  The rest of the operation went quickly. The placentae were delivered and then the obstetrician skillfully and efficiently closed up the uterus and abdomen. The nurses took the babies away and Grace wondered why they did not give the babies to the mother or father to hold, as was standard procedure. The operating room was quiet, except for the beeps of the heart monitor and the sniffing of the mother. It was the saddest Caesarian section Grace had ever assisted on.

  She removed her gown, gloves, eye-shield, and face mask and congratulated the parents again on their beautiful babies. She got another odd look from the tall obstetrician and decided it was best she left, without saying anything more to anyone. As Grace stalked back towards the surgical wing, in complete confusion, she heard the deep voice of Dr. Papaboubadios call, “Doctor, please, come back. I would very much like to explain what was going on in there.”

  Grace turned around to see the obstetrician hurrying after her. He stopped before her and held out his huge hand.

  “I am Vilas Papaboubadios. I am, as you have probably guessed by now, one of the obstetrician/gynecologists on this station. I want to thank you for helping me with that delivery. You must be new here, as I have not seen you before, but I appreciate you coming so quickly when I asked for help.

  “It was an emergency. Those babes needed to come out immediately, before any brain damage occurred. I am very grateful for your assistance and I apologize for my over-bearing attitude in the doctors’ lounge. You would have had every right to ignore me, but I am glad you had the decency not to. Please forgive my rudeness.”

  “I’m Grace Lord, Dr. Al-Fadi’s new surgical fellow, Dr. Papaboubadios,” Grace said, hoping she got the man’s name correct. “I have not been on the station that long and I have not had a chance to meet many of the staff yet. But believe me, I know what it is like to desperately need a second pair of hands. I was happy to help.”

  “I know you are confused as to what happened in there. It was not your usual, happy delivery, I am afraid to say. What I wanted to explain to you, Dr. Lord, is the tough situation most of these animal adaptation couples find themselves in. The parents are both military soldiers. For some reason, their birth control method failed and the woman became pregnant. The couple is unable to raise the babies where they are stationed and they feel they cannot raise human babies in their leopard adapted forms. In their powerful, superhuman bodies, they are concerned about the high risk of accidentally harming the infants.

  “The only way to raise their own children is to leave the military and reverse their adaptations. This couple did not choose to do so and so they are compelled to give the babies up for adoption. It was a very difficult choice for them and you saw how they both were suffering for it. I am sorry I did not have a chance to warn you about it, before the delivery. Most of the staff know the situation for most of these soldiers but you, being new, could not have known this.”

  Grace felt her stomach do a flip flop and her cheeks flamed as she recalled what she said to the weeping couple. “Oh, I am sorry if I caused your patients distress,” Grace said, covering her mouth with her hand. “I had no idea they were giving the babies up. It makes sense, now that you explain it to me, Dr. Papaboubadios, that their leopard adaptations and the fact that they are soldiers in the military, make it difficult to keep the babies. I just had never really thought about it. Well, I didn’t even know I was helping with a C-section, until I stepped into the operating room!”

  “And for that, I apologize profusely, and thank you again, for your assistance and your understanding, Dr. Lord. Sometimes, there is just no time to talk!”

  “What will happen now, to the babies?” Grace asked, a sinking feeling enveloping her heart.

  “There is a registry. There are always families looking for healthy babies to adopt - everywhere. These children will be examined and assessed for any genetic diseases. If there are any, they will be corrected and then the babies will be put into cryopods and sent via interplanetary FTL transports to the planets with the highest number of requests or where there is the greatest need.”

  “Will they be separated, brother from sister?”

  “Most likely,” Vilas Papaboubadios said, sadly. “With fertility rates not the greatest in space, due to radiation exposure and other various factors, healthy babies are much in demand. The children will hopefully not want for anything in their lives, but it is hard on the parents, when they choose to give them up. Many of the women who choose to be soldiers do not feel they are fit to raise children. But I see how much it breaks their hearts. It is just that a war is no place for a baby, if there are other options.”

  “Yet the mothers can always choose to leave the military,” Grace added.

  “Not that easy to do,” the obstetrician said, shaking his head. “They give up their livelihood, their friends—who are really now their only family, their home away from home so to speak—their support group, and usually their partner, if they choose to keep the baby. And the military are not helpful to the women that choose motherhood, believe me. These women are virtually discharged with nothing and they are converted back to mostly human as well.

  “There are a lot of sacrifices for the baby. Very few women end up going that route because of those sacrifices. I certainly don’t envy the mothers that do it, but I definitely admire them.”

  “May I visit the mother?” Grace asked.

  “The parents will be shipping out in the next day or two, so you had better hurry, if you want to see her. The mother’s name is Kindle, Dris Kindle.”

  “Thank you,” Grace said.

  “No. Thank you,” Vilas Papaboubadios said, with a big smile and a deep bow.

  Leaving the obstetrical wing deep in thought, Grace soberly pondered all that Dr. Papaboubadios had told her. How heartrending it had been, to see those magnificent leopard parents shed tears, as their babies were taken from their sight. It was obvious that the decision had been very painful for both of them. Grace wondered if their relationship would survive this ordeal. To have to give up their babies, if that was not their true desire, seemed so unjust and unfair. Grace would not have wanted to be in their position, having to make such a difficult choice, and she wished there was something she could do. Unfortunately, there was little someone in her position could do for the couple.

  “Something troubling you, Dr. Lord?” a smooth, sensuous voice asked.<
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  Looking up into mesmerizing, dark brown eyes, shaded by a tumble of brown curls, Grace felt a shiver run tickling down her spine. Sweat leaped onto her skin and her heart began to drum wildly within her chest.

  Why did this man have such an effect on her? It was thrilling but also disturbing, because Grace hated not being in control, especially of her own physiological reactions. She did not trust herself, or her body, around someone who made her feel so . . . vulnerable.

  “Just thinking about some patients, Dr. Nestor,” Grace said, quietly, looking away from his perfect features.

  “Please, call me Jeffrey,” the psychiatrist said, smiling warmly at her. Grace suddenly felt like she was under a heat lamp. She wanted to fan herself.

  “All right . . . Jeffrey. And, please, call me Grace,” she said, trying to calmly meet the psychiatrist’s captivating eyes.

  “Is it something you want to talk about, Grace?” he asked, as he moved too close to Grace. Grace backed away, feeling a little uncomfortable.

  “Oh . . . no,” Grace said, with a smile. “But, there is someone I would very much like you to see. His name is Captain Damien Lamont and he recently suffered terrible trauma from a bomb blast. I wanted to know if you would see him for counseling.”

  “It would be my pleasure, Grace. Would you like to discuss his case with me, over dinner?”

  “I am sorry, Jeffrey, but I do not feel that would be appropriate. I can send you all of the patient’s information through to your wrist-comp. Thank you for the invitation, though.”

  “I feel like you are avoiding me, Grace,” Jeffrey Nestor said, the beginnings of a pout taking shape on his face.

  “I appreciate the interest and kindness you are showing me, Dr. Nestor, but I do not think it is a good idea that I have dinner with you. I am sorry,” Grace said, almost in a panic, fighting the lump in her throat. The little voice in her head screamed, ‘No, no, no, no, no! What are you doing?’