Intelligent Telehealth Protocol
Kiko-Lyn, thinking during the ethics lesson comes to the decision that she must visit and support Ninan even if the surgery nauseates her. I’ll just program my nose filters to filter out the antiseptic hospital smell.
Disturbance in Patient Activity
She is woken from sleep with her head on the desk, sleeve marks on her forehead, and a painful crick in her neck. I must have nodded off as the lesson ended. She remembers her dreams and shutters. Her dreams bordered just this side of nightmares. She had been lost in a ‘groundhog day loop’ in a hospital. She was maybe four. Her parents kept bringing her in for tests where she was prodded and poked and then left in a white room with puzzles she needed to solve to let out the lab animals and save them from some unnamed threat. Just as she got them free, the day would reset and she would have to do it all again - varying what she could in a futile attempt to get free of the loop.
Nightingale, “Sorry to wake you, but Ninan is out of the recovery room from the bullet repair. He is asking for you. Kiko-Lyn, we have him in a sterile environment because of the cybernetics. Shower again with this disinfectant. Put on the isolation smocks and slippers we have placed beside you. Then follow the yellow light guide path on the walls.”
Was I so out I did not notice someone or something leaving these surgical supplies beside me, worries Kiko-Lyn. She goads herself to reading herself for the visit to Ninan’s hospital bed.
“My little Kendogg[4], you make furfrou[5] look good,” jokes Kiko-Lyn. He looks so worn, she thinks.
“Believe me, the outside matches the inside.” His voice is slurred, but the repartee they were developing is still there. Kiko-Lyn thinks, it is right I came.
“As you can see, I am at a loss of arms and legs just now, so please excuse me if I don’t get up to give you a hug. But maybe you can give me one?”
“Why aren’t you just frailable[6]. If anyone deserves it around here it’s you.” She leans over to kiss his cheek. She whispers for him alone, “I think we may be captors here.”
His response is a brush kiss of her ear. “Please do what you must, but my life balances on the switch of an IV bag. Let me get on my feet and there will be no stopping us leaving.”
Putting on a bad Scottish accent, “And don’t I have just the present to cheer you up.” She kicks up a few bars of Irish step dance. “Come my dragonflies and mummer for this disabled vet. Spin him tails to make his convalescence soar.” She spins her short staff and winged mechanical dragonflies swirl up in luminescent evolving colors. “Just ask for me, ‘Kiko-Kiko’, like a little birdie and they will form a broadcast screen showing what I''m doing. Speak ‘Whatever You Wish’ and I will come running.”
Ninan nods. He’s seen these dragonflies in combat. He can sleep without worry with them watching. With a one sweeping arm, a head dip bow, he follows her role play. “I feel safer already, knowing my lady is near.”
She leans back and asks the room, “Nightingale, what is his status? How long until he is on his feet and we can leave?”
“I have his treatment in hand. He will need at least one more operation to repair the damaged reinforcements to his bones and organs. I have ordered the materials and they should be couriered in today. He will have that operation tonight. I have retrieved his records from the Watson Clinic and have the anti rejection course they used in his original enhancement. Some drugs are not generally used in this market and that also needed to be couriered in.
“You can see that we detached his limbs for the surgery –”
“Yea, but they still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch,” growls Ninan.
Ignoring him, Nightingale speaks to Kiko-Lyn. “There is damage to these limbs from gunshot. Fortunately they were using low velocity soft rounds and not armor piercing. Still the damage needs repair if he is not to experience pseudo pain and is to operate efficiently. We have no one skilled in this work, but we do have both a small prosthesis shop and medical electronics repair lab. Would you take on the task of fixing these limbs?”
Ninan winks, “I see no one I rather put on my hand than you. And leg too.”
