un: Bachelor | text

[thantagonist]

Attention Fellow People of Etraya,

I am Doctor Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine. As I understand it, few of you have seen a doctor lately. That simply won’t do! Please, don’t wait to get sick to establish care. I am situated in the hospital, ready to take consent forms and make updated medical histories. At least a few of you have unaddressed concerns, I just know it. The average person comes to see the doctor when it’s too late! Though we cannot die here, there is no reason to suffer unduly.

And if you are otherwise healthy, perhaps think of it as helping me out. In the event of an outbreak, it is far more helpful to have complete clinical pictures of the inhabitants. Especially, as I understand it, there are many biological differences in this population.

Please come visit me during my clinic hours, every day from 10am to 6pm.


[What Daniil really wants is to meet more of the unusual inhabitants of Etraya more quickly as well as conduct casual interviews of the sort of people who are slated to save the universe. But he can’t just say that completely outright.]

Comments

[definecat]

Your loss. I can literally rewrite proteins and the like when I put some effort into it. Like, say, converting the RH factors of blood for better compatibility. Sadly, creating entire organs is out because that degree of mimicry would require more invasive efforts that I prefer to avoid.

You need only ask a telepath to know how badly people react to not being alone in their heads.

[thantagonist]

[This all just sounds like the ravings of a madman to Daniil.]

[Telepaths? Why don’t I check with a fortune teller next. Haven’t had my palm read in a while.]

Is there a mental hospital somewhere you could check into? I’m not really equipped for emotional problems and hallucinations that aren’t otherwise accompanied by some sort of fever.

Video

[definecat]

[Sleeper switches to video, the flicking of their tail showing mild annoyance.]

Dude. Not all of us are human. I'm sure some of the other science nerds could vouch for my usefulness in a lab. Someone even tried to patent a few of my accidental secretions when I was younger. My parent was not pleased.

[thantagonist]

[And then Daniil sees. Whatever this is. But it is actually quite terrifying.]

Is that so? Well, as I said, I’m looking for patients, not drug compounders. If you’d allow me to take some samples, however…

[definecat]

I really doubt you have the context to understand my substance. Unless you have a lot of experience with alien life forms?

[As an example, they allow the cat-shape to relax a little, turning into more of a puddle with an extended head-shape holding their sensory organs above the main mass.]

I am the true liquid cat, after all.

[thantagonist]

I don’t have the patience for this. I have let a lot of things into my lab, including animals, but never without a handler. And I’m not going to allow anything into my lab that won’t submit to blood or… whatever that ichor-all-is test. You seem contagious, somehow.

[definecat]

I haven't infected a single person in my entire time here. I've even restricted any predatory activities to non-sapient creatures despite the inferior nutritional values. Nor have I reproduced, in any fashion.

[Now the cat looks really upset, ears back and body stiff.]

You don't see me making derogatory conclusions about you devoid of any facts.

[thantagonist]

Aha. But you don’t deny the ability to spread parasites or disease.

Sorry. What are you trying to convince me to do here now?

[definecat]

So could you, doctor. What is a vaccine, after all, but a presumably inert version of a disease? Anyone can be a vector in the wrong situation.

[thantagonist]

Yes, and vaccines prevent disease. I’m not sure you have the minimum knowledge required for this work. And I’m not the one failing to deny that he is potentially a dangerous and infectious predator that hasn’t reproduced lately. It didn’t slip by me that you used to eat sapient life, by the way, but have since renounced this apparently.

What do you want from me?

[definecat]

I don't see the point in denying that if, purely in defense of my own life, I chose not to waste a reasonable food source that had been trying to exterminate my kind for no reason other than fear of what we might do.

And I grew up in the pharmeceuticals industry. Dr. Stephen really liked to talk while he worked. But since you clearly have decided to be just as short-sighted as most humans, it hardly seems to matteer.

Also, I am not a "he." Gender is a construct that only species that require sexual reproduction to procreate find useful. I have no use for such, and my pronouns are they/them.

[thantagonist]

What do you want from me?