Jack toured the bottom floor of the Operations area. He liked the layout. Josie had
done a good job in his opinion. He nodded at the scanner set up for the patients.
Jane found him looking over instruments for surgery. He grinned at her and her
companion when they came into the room. He straightened and flexed his hands.
“Jack, this is Massa,” said Jane. She gestured at the midwife. “I told her that you
wanted to be shown how the scanner works.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” said Jack. He waved at the operating theater. “Jane said you
needed a machine to take out growths in you without causing too much fuss. I wanted
to look at them and see what I could do to spark an idea.”
“I suppose that is all right,” said Massa. “How do you want to get started?”
“Show me how to use the scanner, and then show me the reading,” said Jack. He
looked around. “I may have to use someone a bit ugly. You might want to close your
eyes while I am running my lookover.”
“You cut on the machine,” said Massa. She flipped the switches that powered the
scanner up. “You lay down for this one. The other at the House, you just have to walk
through. It takes a picture of your body, and then it gives you a code for what it thinks
is wrong with you.”
She lay on the table. A light crossed her body like the light in a copier. A picture
printed out. Then a code sheet printed out.
“We used this for Marla,” said Jane. “Her babies were causing problems for her.”
“So we know this works,” said Jack. He nodded. “All right. What I need to do is
going to be similar but different. I might have to touch you. Are you okay with that?”
“Touch me?,” said Massa.
“Yes,” said Jack. “Jane will be right here. I am not going to do anything inappropriate
but I am going to have to look at your back with my bare eye, and touch you. Are you
okay with that?”
“Yes,” said Massa. “What does this have to do with building a new machine?”
“Anything I build that does an auto surgery will cost days of work and pain for
anyone who gets operated on,” said Jack. “I want to do something that won’t hurt
anybody, and you don’t have to cut anybody up. Downtime ideally would be a day,
maybe two.”
“You’re talking about an elixir,” said Jane.
“Ideally,” said Jack. “But it will have to be checked against what we want to fix.”
“If you can fix me, I can help Madam Harp move our women through this that much
faster,” said Massa. “If you can’t, someone can take my spot until I feel better.”
“I am going to turn around so you can take the top of your dress off,” said Jack.
“Then I need you to lay facedown on the bed. I want you to look away from me until
I get this done. The persona I am going to use is not good looking.”
He turned to look away. He still felt creepy and wondered how doctors could deal
with this day in and day out. He supposed modesty and a lack of respect for personal
space was the first thing to go in medical school.
“All right,” said Jane. “She is laying down.”
“All right,” said Jack. He turned around. He looked at the freckled back with a frown.
“I am going to put the picture down on your back so I can compare looks. That’s what
you are going to feel.”
He placed the picture and code page on her lower back.
“I am going to change,” said Jack. “Please don’t look at me while I am working.”
“Is it that bad?,” asked Jane.
“If I didn’t need you as a witness, I would ask you to turn away too,” said Jack. “This
doctor is ugly and monstrous looking. The last thing I need is problems because of
the way it looks.”
“I understand,” said Jane. “You are still you, right?”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “It’s just the worst looking of the bodies I have been using so far.
I don’t like displaying it unless I have to.”
“I think I am more embarrassed than you will be,” said Massa. “I’m laying here
without a cover. Get on with whatever you are doing, but I will tell Josie if you do
something inappropriate.”
Jane waved her hand in agreement.
Jack called on Doctor Strange. Jane made a sound but stifled it with her hand. He
shrugged with some of his tentacles to say ‘see what I mean?’. He called on the
screens he used for his diagnostics.
“All right, Massa,” said Jack. “I am going to poke your back with a needle. There
might be a stinging. It should feel like a bee sting.”
“I’m ready,” said Massa. She closed her eyes. She tried not to flinch at the stab in her
back.
Jack placed his sample inside his body. He watched the screens as the sample was
analyzed. He blinked six of his eyes when numbers and symbols popped up.
“All right,” said Jack. “I’m going to stab you again. Then I am going to need you to
wait for a minute while I compare the two samples.”
“I understand,” said Massa. She felt another stab in roughly the same place. She
closed her eyes at the sudden sting, but said nothing.
“All right,” said Jack. He watched the other sample break down into numbers. He had
a possible cure for the spine growths in his sample. All he needed was something to
make the cure so he could move on with his day.
“What do you think, Jack?,” asked Jane. She had fought herself not to try to interfere
when one of the tentacles had produced a needle to stab her subordinate in the back.
“I don’t know how to teach hippos how to dance,” said Jack. “I was never good with
animals.”
“What do you think about Massa’s spine growths?,” said Jane with an irritated huff
at the end of her sentence.
“I think I have part of a cure according to these numbers,” said Jack. “I won’t even
have to operate. The problem is we’ll have to test it, and see what happens. The cure
is no good if it kills the patient before the problem does.”
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“Really?,” asked Jane and Massa at the same time.
“Maybe,” said Jack. “I am going to put together something that will produce a small
elixir to cure the growths. When I do that, someone will have to be used to be tested
and watched for side effects.”
“Side effects?,” asked Massa. As the number two for the hospital, she was responsible
for anyone they used as a test subject.
“Ideally, we mix things together and you only have something like mild gas,” said
Jack. “But I can see this going with your body trying to release everything in your
intestinal track at the same time.”
“That sounds like the effects of food poisoning,” said Massa. “I don’t think that will
be pleasant for anybody.”
“I can go with a lower dosage and see if that cuts the stuff down with a small amount
of discomfort,” said Jack. He grabbed a cup with a tentacle and dropped some fluid
into it.
“A lower dosage means more time,” said Massa. “But it also means a smaller shock
to the system.”
“I think it would be better for morale if we didn’t kill the first people we worked on,”
said Jane.
Jack took one last look at his screens before he dismissed them, and his persona.
“All right,” said Jack. “I am turning away so you can pull your dress and shirt
together. The rest is going to be some mechanical work, and then I will need a test
subject to use the first dose on. Do you guys have someone expendable we can try
this out on?”
“It will be me,” said Massa. She sat up and pulled the front of her dress together and
buttoned it up. “If I am afraid to do it, no one else will.”
“Make sure to exclude the pregnant women,” said Jack. He didn’t turn to argue with
her. “We don’t know what this formula will do their babies. I will have to come
through and do something else for them.”
“I agree with that,” said Jane. “When we start training, they will be told about the
potential problem.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I am going to need to get some stuff to make the device and
more of the formula. I am going to put this in the ice box for preservation until I get
back. Do not drink it straight out the cup. First, we test the lower dose to make sure
it doesn’t kill people, or eat all of their bones at the same time, or whatever. Then we
produce enough to start moving everyone through and healing them up.”
“Go ahead,” said Jane. “We will wait for you in the offices next to the cafeteria. I will
get some of the nurses so they can start their training with this.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Massa. “If I can’t do anything while this is going on, I will
need someone to watch out for me. And then they can train the new ones as they go
through the process.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I will be back in a few minutes.”
He picked up the cup and walked back to the cafeteria. Ellen and her crew were
putting together a dinner for people to pick up when they came through. She smiled
when she saw him coming through the room.
“I need to put something in the ice box until I get back,” said Jack. “Is that okay?”
“Sure,” said Ellen. She pointed him to the giant metal door of the thing in the back
of the kitchen. “What are you working on?”
“I hope that I have an idea to clear the growths some of the Amazons are suffering
and the women sleeping on the yard at the House,” said Jack. He walked back to the
walk-in and opened the door. “If it works, we can start clearing everybody and send
people home.”
“Do you know who is getting the first dose,” said Ellen.
“It’s going to be tested to make sure it doesn’t make a person’s guts fall out of their
nether regions,” said Jack. “If it works, then the machine I make will be able to make
more on demand.”
“Really?,” said Ellen.
“I know it doesn’t sound like much, but we do need our insides to stay inside and not
liquify and fall out our butts,” said Jack. He stepped inside and put the cup on the
tallest shelf he could find. He stepped out of the walk-in.
“I think it would be good if someone else was experimented on before I take the
solution,” said Ellen.
“I agree with you a hundred percent,” said Jack. “Once the bugs are worked out, then
we can make sure everyone gets a dose without any fear of harm.”
“All right,” said Ellen. “I will be waiting.”
Jack grinned at her before he left the kitchen. He still had things to do. The next thing
was to make sure his sample did the job, and he had a way to make more without
actually supervising the whole process.
He hoped that he wasn’t giving the Amazons a fast way to kill themselves
accidentally.
He needed materials to shape into a machine to create the elixir pill that he wanted
to make. He decided that a small factory with its own legs would be the thing he
needed. He didn’t want it to make a really powerful medicine, just enough to clear out
the growths without killing people.
He went back to the Operations theaters and found Jane and Massa talking. They both
looked at him.
“I need to get some stuff together,” said Jack. “The stuff is in the freezer until I need
it. I am thinking that we should test the cure at the lowest power that we can. I don’t
want to cripple anyone trying to fix the problem.”
“Are you coming back today?,” asked Jane.
“This will take a few minutes,” said Jack. “Most of that will be in the planning. I need
to know where you need the hypothetical dispensary I am going to make for this.”
“We should probably put it in one of the supply closets near the elevators,” said
Massa. “We will need to make sure the door is locked against bystanders.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I will be back to find you in a few. I have to get some metal
and some other things. Then I will put this thing down so you can draw out a few
pills at a time to use them.”
“How strong will you make these pills?,” asked Massa.
“Maybe .5 milligrams in each one,” said Jack. “We don’t want them too strong at
the start. We need to see how they will perform. If they need to be boosted, we can
up the dosage.”
“And we need to know what will happen to anyone who takes the cure,” said Massa.
“I approve the discretion.”
“All right,” said Jack. “Let me get my gear together. You pick out a room you want
to stay in until the cure passes. Send someone to get you something to look at while
you wait to get out of bed. Then we’ll see how everything goes.”
“I’ll wait for you by the gate,” said Jane. “We’ll have everything organized by the
time you come back.”
Jack nodded. He went to the gate and punched in six sixteen. He stepped through the
gate and out in the Hangar. He pulled the lever to open the roof so he could gather the
bushes he was going to turn into his device.
He found three good samples of what he needed just outside the fear ring. He changed
into Magik and pulled them out of the ground, transmuting them into iron bars. He
dropped the persona and carried them back into the Hangar. He shut the roof and
punched in the three digit code for the hospital. He realized he had made a mistake
when he stepped out in the House yard. He punched in the code again, and this time
he went to the hospital like he wanted.
“That was quick,” said Jane. “Massa and her future nurse just went upstairs.”
“Show me the closet, and I will do what I can,” said Jack. “I need the sample from
the ice box. Let me get that too.”
“What happens if you are wrong?,” asked Jane.
“Massa’s skeleton turns into liquid and escapes every hole in her body at the speed
of a snapping of fingers,” said Jack. He grinned. “That’s why we are going to try
out a small dose first so she only loses her spine.”
“I think you like scaring people a little too much,” said Jane.
“I don’t think there is any such thing,” said Jack. He gestured for her to lead on.
They walked down to where the closet waited. Nurses in green shirts pulled towels
and wash cloths out of the way. They stacked them on a nearby desk as he surveyed
the space.
“I need to get the sample,” said Jack. “I will be right back.”
He placed the rods on the floor in front of the closet and ran back to the cafeteria. He
grabbed the jar from the ice box and went back to the closet. He put the sample down
to be used later.
He turned into Magik and grabbed the first rod in his hand of letters and symbols. He
molded it like wet clay into the rough shape he wanted. He put that hexagon on the
floor of the closet, and solidified it into a solid shape. He picked up the second rod
and formed a tube. He jammed that down into the base to form a body.
He took the last rod and pinched it in various places between thumb and index finger.
He swung it back, then whipped it forward. The rod became a stream of gears and
rods that built themselves into an assembly line that punched through the body
already constructed to hold it.
He realized he needed one more thing. He looked around. He grabbed one of the
folded towels and shook it into a grill over the top of his device. He slapped it and the
thing became something fantastical but realistic as if built by a factory somewhere
that specialized in strange machinery.
He let the persona go as he inspected the machine. Did it work?
“I need some water so we can start building the pills,” said Jack.
One of the nurses presented a pitcher full of water. He poured the contents into the
top of the machine. A line told him when to stop. He pressed the button. The machine
hummed, then spit out a blue pill into a shelf at the base of its body. He dropped that
into the sample cup. The substance inside the container broke down to a cloud of
particles that danced in the air.
“Let’s see what it will do to Massa,” said Jack. He pushed the button to get another
pill.