un: romano | text

[badlydisarmed]

I have one question and one important announcement.

The question:

Do you pull the lever?

As for the announcement, the hospital now has a wing to treat magical maladies. Witch doctors and the like are welcome to come check it out. People with magical maladies also welcome to come get treated, I don't know how any of this shit works.

Comments

[reincarnesiac]

( There is no word to even describe this generational gap, but you know what. That's the delight of being from forty years apart on Earth.

Alex gets down to her underlayer shirt so the attaching of nodes goes simply where they need to be. She's so exceedingly nonchalant, it's apparent that even that far in the future, some tests still run like this. (They're wireless, she'd say, but they do indeed monitor the same areas.) )

Is he the one who lives out at the school? Aurora mentioned there's someone like that. Wherever that school is. But um... I guess you could think of it like superpowers? Stuff people are born with. One guy I know has gravity, another one has light. Then one of my coworkers has Micromodifications and can rebuild near anything she can think of. They're not as durable as traditionally made things, but it's impressive anyway.

[badlydisarmed]

No idea. I'm not even sure if he's still here, I didn't see him last month.

[ Robert's hoping the readings are normal because it'd be such a pain to have to monitor this kid to establish a baseline. He misses the days when other people did that and he only had to come in if a surgery was needed. ]

[reincarnesiac]

( Alex accommodates connecting everything by stripping off her overlayer, hanging around in her tanktop. No hospital gowns is fine by her, though the gel is going to be a pain later on. )

Weird how this city is both so small and too big to keep up with so few people scattered around it.

( Her heart will... show an abnormality, but nothing that indicates bloodflow is restricted, or that her pulse is affected. Once the ultrasound wand is in, it'll be giving feedback that there's something rounded and stable in structure that's beating with her heart. Also embedded within it. Somehow. )

[badlydisarmed]

[ Robert really wants to be annoyed but he's helplessly fascinated. He'd never seen anything like it. ]

What do you know about people with a similar condition?

[ It's immediately obvious to him it'd be a high risk surgery, and this is only basic monitoring. He wants to do an MRI now, see what's happening in there. ]

how to explain this sci fi nonsense with no clear explanation in canon loooool

[reincarnesiac]

( Alex tries to think, because as a patient she knows more than anyone from the outside who isn't in the field, but as far as general markers of her condition in others? )

We call it Protocore Syndrome. You're exposed to a Protocore and a shard of that energy condenses within you, and it slowly poisons you over time. Like... you know, kind of like radiation poisoning. Except that with Protocore Syndrome that poison spreads as crystals inside and outside of your body, not as cancer or whatever else radiation poisoning does.

( She lifts her hands, like she's searching for words. She knows she's not explaining this terribly well. )

You manage the spread with different type-specific suppressants. I rarely need that kind of medical intervention, but we can ask Aurora to make sure what my type would need is on hand... my case has never shown signs of spreading crystals, but it does impact my cardiac function when it's destabilized. Like miniature heart attacks.

it's ok my medical knowledge comes from soapy tv procedurals. together we can make shit up

[badlydisarmed]

How big are these fragments?

[ This is a pointless question because he can't do open heart surgery with only one hand, but he's still hoping for a new one eventually. ]

perfect we are on this like sphagetti sauce

[reincarnesiac]

They vary. Mine's a complete core these days, but it was about this size before.

( She indicates the size using her fingers. Maybe like a baby fingerling potato? )

[badlydisarmed]

I'd like to run more tests first, but why haven't you tried surgery?

[reincarnesiac]

Mine's non-operable. Protocore fragments can react to outside stimuli, and that's unfortunately been proven true in surgical settings too. If it wasn't lodged in my heart, there'd be a chance. Like this, there's an equal chance it'll destroy my heart if they try, and the transplant list doesn't take protocore syndrome patients due to high mortality rates.

[badlydisarmed]

Mmh, I'll have to figure out how to neutralize it.

[reincarnesiac]

If you do, make sure to write it down so I can share it with my cardiologist back home.

( ... it... won't................. but it's weird when you deal with a thing that is both energy and solid and also partly alien and willing to jab anything that comes near it with black crystals. So rude! )

[badlydisarmed]

Maybe the magical wing has something for it. It came with a bunch of steampunk machines I still haven't looked into.

[reincarnesiac]

I mean... doesn't hurt to check?