—Note— So I basically dropped of the face of the earth for a little over a year, sorry about that, really, there was a plethora of reasons for it and all of them will just sound like excuses, so I’ll just call it a severe case of writers block. Thank you for your patience.–
Addendum to previous note– So this was, or rather is a chapter that was mostly done around march last year, when I for some reason or another managed to drop my computer, yes the whole thing, and cracked the disks, all three of them, data loss not withstanding, here she is attempt five at making a story post, or even just a post in general.
The lights flickered and hummed, adding to the discomfort of the situation. Tentatively Dame Sprigot opened one eye, attempting to survey the room and get a feel of her surroundings. The feel part, she found, was lacking. “Possibly due to being sedated, and rather of your rocker.” Came the inevitable voice of the late Sir Ingles. “Allegedly late.” He corrected her. “Although currently I must say, honoured to be your coping mechanism my dear.” To her left she could see a writing desk with, oddly enough, a holographic projection seated behind it, filling out paperwork. “What in the?” She had said it even before she could consider not to. “Trying to be sneaky? Miriam, you should stick to…” A cough. “Progress reports.” Dame Sprigot felt as if someone had just poured several gallons of ice water down her back. “The rumours….You know the rest.” Another cough.
“My patient would do well to rest, yes?” A somewhat feminine voice, synthetic of course, from somewhere to her right, just above a quarantine shield. To her left however the hologram stirred. “Nurse, there is no need, nor benefit, to mother the patient. If I had deemed this to be necessary for his recovery, I would have increased his sedation.” Dame Sprigot shuddered, the autodoc was actively arguing with itself! “Yes doctor Holme, apologies.” “Don’t fret nurse, we learn from our mistakes, now then. 5461. How are you feeling? Wait don’t answer yet, numb, and probably confused are too obvious, instead you must have questions, so ask.” The reply had shocked her, it had stated it was capable of learning, as well as considering the ‘nurse’ as a separate thing. Also it had told her to ask questions, allowing, or even inviting her to crash it.
“Thank you, doctor, I do in fact have questions, some of which are mathematical.” A raised hand cut her off. “How droll, shall we leave the rather irrelevant dividing by zero jokes until after you ask me the relevant questions? Such as your comrades survival rate, I always found my patients to be, heh, morbidly fascinated with such things.” She could practically feel her heart skipping more than a few beats.
A program had just reprimanded her, one that just casually mentioned he could just ignore basic logic flaws. “What on earth are you?” Dame Sprigot had blurted it out without thinking. ” I do believe I already introduced, are your cognitive abilities damaged? A simple test, what, is, my, name?” The alleged autodoc spaced it’s words and articulated in an exaggerated manner. ” Holme.” Her courage drained from her as she realised that she had never actually heard of a protocol in the H-series let alone a medical one, not to mention that the Camelot had been lost before the first autodoc had ever been built. ” I see, well very little wrong with your brain as of yet, except for the exhaustion of course.” She could almost taste the sarcasm, and was it feigning sympathy? and rather poorly at that. ” Doctor Holme, am I correct in assuming you are beyond human comprehension?” The hologram affected a near fatherly smile as it set aside a stack of files, the entire situation seemed a ridiculous mockery. ” So it would seem, let me just say mostly, as most of the humans I treated were, retarded at worst, or on average in possesion of a combined IQ of 85, so I might be biased in my judgement.”
-originally this is where the chapter was supposed to end, and the draft has that co notation however at one point I had picked up the first draft, missed this and just continued writing.-
The answer was just vague enough to know this line of questions was going nowhere.
“You mentioned your patients.” Not a real question, but maybe it would trigger something. ” Yes, immagine that a doctor mentioning patients, more than once even, how odd.” A mild tone of sarcasm and annoyance. ” Could you tell me about them?” A deliberate trap, a program or protocol would always try to do so. ” To an extent, but that does not mean I will.” “Why not?” She felt like she was getting somewhere, maybe. ” For one, It’s irrelevant to you, for another, Doctor patient confidentiality, also, you’re a terrible conversation partner, -who isn’t really,-And a worse captain, or otherwise commanding officer, I know you heard me earlier, but should you not at least PRETEND to care?” “I DO!” She surprised herself, the machine had gotten to her,instead of her figuring it out, it was figuring her out, no, actually it already had, and was now playing her like a fiddle. “I do care, but as you just said,,,” her voice trailed off. ” Don’t worry 5461, the other patients are doing, well enough, saying as little as that is fine, no confidentiality breach, I could also say that they are mostly not dead or dying , Hah I might even say they are recovering from the radia,,,” He stopped and stared at her. ” this is all going right over your head isn’t it?” He rolled his eyes at her, and she realized she was getting annoyed with him, and then it dawned on her that she had stopped thinking of him as a thing,,,
“So you are in fact not an autodoc?” Dame Sprigot Stared at the hologram as it sat itself at the foot of her bed, after which he folded his hands in a triangle, something that seemed to be a subconscious gesture. “Are you really surprised? Have I ever said I was? I do believe, however that may sound, That I never lied to you, 5461.” She frowned at his almost fatherly inflection, the all too human mannerisms, in fact had he not been a glowing projection, it would have been a very convincing performance. “You probably didn’t, so then doctor Holme, how did you become a doctor?” The hologram sighed and shook it’s head. “Again about me, your interest, though flattering, is entirely misplaced.” He stood, and walked over to a wall console. ” Tell me 5461, do you take cream with your coffee?” Dame Sprigot coughed but nodded. ” Do not feign confusion, please, your caffeine dependence was showing rather obviously. Oh yes, Nurse.” The doctor imitated irritation as he stood aside, only for a mechanical, rail guided arm (that appeared to belong to a production line) to smoothly take his place at the wall console. However when the ‘nurse’ took the steaming cup of coffee from the wall over to her she realized that the irritation was in fact quite real, Dr. Holme was genuinely annoyed at his inability to touch. Something that should not actually be possible. “Thank you.” It came out rather sheepishly, but at least she hadn’t coughed, and surprisingly the ‘nurse’ hadn’t spilled hot liquid all over her either. And as much as she would want to deny it, she was actually really thankful to have an actual cup of coffee. “I assure you, 5461, that it is not drugged.” Right as the Dr. said that Dame Sprigot took her first sip, using the action to hide her face, and hopefully the fact that she hadn’t even considered that option. “Of course you already knew that, after all Caffeine is a stimulant, using that to carry a sedative,, well let’s say I prefer not to cross medicate.”
“Naturally doctor, so why, aside from my caffeine dependency, are we having coffee?”
She was stalling, and she knew it.
“Typically I would do this when I would have certain news for a patient, today it is for good news, well, relatively good anyway.” Her breath got caught in the back of her throat at the word relatively, as such she was barely audible as she replied: “Could you elaborate?” She had a sinking, somewhat detached feeling, she knew this mattered, but somehow it felt like it didn’t concern ‘her’, in spite of being about her. ” Yes, of course, Physically you are recovering well, so far I can safely say you could soon be released from our care, along with most, if not all of your fellows. However.” Holme frowned as he adjusted his position. “It is your mental state that I find myself concerned about.”
Dame Sprigot swallowed the mouthful of coffee. “My mental state? Why? I mean?” She cut herself of and stared at him, there had been comments about it but surely,,” Yes, your mental wellbeing has suffered quite a bit, if I am not mistaken. Now it is not unusual for a patient to enter a state of delirium, especially not when under the amount of stress, I assume, you have been under.” Delirium? Stress? What was he getting at? “Still, I can’t under good conscience, declare you fit for duty in the state you are currently in.” ” I’m fine doc, really.” It was a stupid attempt, but as soon as the thought had presented itself she tried it anyway. ” Shall I add pathological liar to the list of disorders 5461?” Dame Sprigot closed her eyes.
” He has you there Miriam.” spoke the voice of the allegedly late Sir Ingles.
“I’m completely of my rocker aren’t I?” She stared into her empty cup, taking a while before noticing that ‘Nurse’ was apparently waiting to take it from her, out of curiosity she handed it over. “Care for a refill, sweetie?” She didn’t notice the odd addition at the end, just nodded somewhat non-commitally as she allowed her mind to fall into the familiar act of categorizing the parts that made up the bulk of ‘Nurse’.
Most of the hydraulics seemed to originate from a powered assist suit, used here to replace the cruder type more commonly associated with the frame, which appeared to be some sort of excavator? Maybe not exactly but definitely industrial equipment at the least, like a production line arm, or a spot welder maybe? ” Here you go dearie.” Her train of thought (Run away freight train more like), got interrupted as she snapped back to reality, and took the cup with a meek : ” Thank you.” The ‘Nurse’ made a nod like gesture before resuming it’s prior activities.
” Her frame was modified to suit my needs for an assistant. The frame itself belonged to a robotic spray arm, the actuators and hydraulics are all tuned for precision, or accuracy if you like, The optics come from a war beast that unfortunately broke down. Nurse possesses a full sensory suite including IR, and broad spectrum, that same war beast supplied Nurse with her back up power supply, satisfied?” She nearly dropped her cup. “How?” The doctor sat back down near the foot of the bed. ” You were staring, and I assume you are an engineer.”
Raz Blackheart 