Sequel

The medicine thing in here I made up off the top of my head. As it IS supposed to be something that doesn't exist in our world. I got a laugh out of Rel's reaction near the end. Mainly because I've seen the Sidhe go into their meditative states and... well... Palt is in for quite a surprise.

I think they all are really.

And Rel has a very long, very boring fourteen hours ahead of him.

If you find a Past in there instead of a Palt, I appologise, I tried to get them all fixed but I had a raging headache and took something and then got sick from the something and the end result was a very confused me. Despite the fact that Palt and Past both view Sidhe in very different ways.

Read, Review and Enjoy.



Mm lay prone on an exam table, wrists and ankles strapped to the bed. IV in his arm and a nurse standing with a needle ready to go. Rel glanced at the small bottle but couldn’t read the label from where he was. There was no colour on the label, usually speaking labels were colour coded, to prevent someone from injecting a poisonous substance when they wanted a sedative.

Palt walked to the screen and popped the image into it, flicking the light screen on, “fourteen bits of metal.”

Rel squinted at the x-ray and picked out the points in the x-ray. Small metal filings in Mm’s intestines, caught just where the intestines would bend in a person. Whether or not they bent that way in a Sidhe was questionable.

“Those are pretty small,” Rel murmured, pulling the tooth out of his pocket, “almost… too small. I don’t see any small scratches on here, why would the large bits go through, but not the small ones?”

“Larger an object is, harder it is to get caught in the small cracks,” Palt murmured, “but I’m surprised nothing larger is lodged in his gut.”

“Is it fixable?”

“You can’t tell from this?”

“No. Sidhe … Mm heals faster, and I don’t know how Sidhe in general heal or how fast their hearts beat. Given heart rate of a normal person, of bacteria and the resistant strains of destructive bacteria that can exist in an operation room… a person could not survive the removal of all of these at once.”

“Half as fast and none of our bacteria affect Sidhe. Chemicals, things we put in our foods and drinks to help us harm them. They are highly well made.”

“Half the heartbeat and the possibility of a long operation? He could survive the operation,” Rel murmured, “but we need someone who can do the operation. Only Tahluen still practice long, open body surgeries and most of them are older folk who may or may not be able to hold scalpel.”

“I can do it.”

“What?”

“Army surgeon,” Palt muttered to Rel, “Do it open or let them die. I’m used to removing shrapnel but this… his flesh could be grown over the shards. What I need from you is to know the statistics of him surviving this.”

Rel looked over at Mm and wondered. He could easily say no, say the statistics were too low. The nurse would deliver the poison and Mm would never wake up. Rel could leave, go home, go somewhere else. Do anything at all. He would be able to fly under the radar and go the places he never could go when he was the spotlight genius boy. People would leave him alone.

He swallowed.

“Do it, the operation.”

But to do that was wrong and if Illuva taught him anything, it was that he was better than that. He couldn’t take the easiest option, he had to take the one that was more beneficial. He had to do what was right. Even if it meant he still might die.

“What are the statistics?” Palt asked Rel, a prodding tone.

“I don’t know and I don’t care, he’ll beat the odds. Fourteen hours for the operation, let’s say four days to recover from the damage we cause to fix him. His heart beats slower, means that he should burn through drugs slower, he should be out longer but he isn’t and the blood that carries oxygen should pump faster for faster healing…”

“… and?”

“Switch out the mitochondrial DNA, a twitch to the frontal lobe and you can imitate that in people. It would only work for a specific sequencing… if we give him dimorphophenophene, it will put him into a coma that will help him heal, he’ll be out three days including surgery time, sew him up, give him a dose of the counter agent and the healing will start.”

“Why?”

“Tahluen have successfully used it in the past. Change the DNA, twitch the frontal lobe and you put them in a state like this. Slow heart rate, faster healing. Give them dimorphophenophene will shut off the healing but has the result of tripling healing power when the counteragent is introduced into his bloodstream. It’s taken a damaged major artery and fixed it in four days rather than months of protein treatments and being in a healing coma. Puts him under for three days, but by the time he wakes, everything’s normal.”

“Doctor,” the nurse murmured, “I think he’s waking.”

Rel went to Mm’s side and took the Sidhe’s hand. The creature jerked upward and Rel had to push him back down to the table.

“Easy,” Rel motioned as best he could as he spoke, “another needle, we had to wake you up for this one to work.”

“You aren’t a doctor, there’s no possible way you could know that it will work,” Palt muttered, moving to the cabinet, “What exactly is the shelf life of this stuff?”

“Expiry date is blazed onto the side of the bottle’s metal topper. One letter, indicating the month by the letter’s place in the alphabet. Followed by three circles, marking the new century coming up, and a symbol, what’s the symbol?”

“A question mark.”

“Ten more years or so, it’s fine,” Rel responded, “half the dosage, we have to take into account how Mm heals. Everything must be out of him when the counteragent is introduced into his system, do the stitches with surgical thread, they’ll melt away with time, it’s the only thing that we can use. Hold him together to heal without leaving huge scars.”

“Rel,” Mm murmured, tightening his grip on Rel’s hand.

“It’s okay. Mm. Now. This hasn’t been tested on Sidhe before. We don’t know how far under you’ll go. But you’ll come back, okay? We’re not going to let you stay under,” Rel said soothingly as Palt walked over to the IV and injected the tube with the needle’s contents, “breath in,” he demonstrated, and let the breath out slowly. His head spun at the thought of sedatives.

How many times had he been under? Watching someone else go under was the same as going under himself. Rel tried not to look sick as Mm’s eyes slid closed.

The heart monitor, hooked up to Mm’s other hand, went dead. Rel’s head jerked up as he stared at the screen. For a moment fear raced through his veins. Only for a moment before his head tried to reason out why Mm’s heart had stopped.

Palt glared at the monitor and waited.

Rel looked between the doctor and the monitor, “aren’t you going to do something? Paddles or adrenaline or something?”

“Souse, when we put him under, went so far under that his heart beat every five minutes,” Palt responded, “operating room is ready to go. Just have to make sure that his heart is still going to work. He’s not completely under yet so-”

Beep.

“We won’t have to wait the whole five minutes. Nurse, call in the others. Rel. Outside. Into the receiving room, the nurse there will get anything you need, food, water, a book, whatever. I suggest you stay nearby.”

“I told him-”

“Despite their resistance to bacteria and viruses, we will not take the risk of having yet another body in the OR, too much could go wrong. Go.”


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