Log Date: 4/30/99 Log Cast: Espra, Tance, Adkinson and Parker (NPC orderlies) Log Intro: It can be argued that Tance Vokrim has been rather lucky as of late, having been able to avoid the Ranges for weeks on the strength of the black crystal claim he'd found, along with some profitable veins of yellow and rose. But eventually, a Singer has to be called back into the Ranges, by the inevitable decline of his credits... and sooner or later, a Singer'll get injured again. This time around, however, it's been nearly fatal for Tance. A particularly nasty stretch of terrain around a thunderous waterfall has led to a vicious fall that has not only dealt him numerous bruises and scrapes and a concussion, not only shattered the bone in his left leg, but also ripped open his middle. With the last of his waning strength, he's made it back to his sled and activated his emergency beacon, forgetting to retrieve his cutter and the empty carton he'd been lugging with him... and bleeding most of his life's blood all over the inside of his craft. At last, his beacon is answered, though he has no way of knowing how much time has passed. Fortunately for him, it's not been _too_ much time.... ---------- After what seems like an eternity of bouncing and clanging around, a loud thump followed by no motion would seem to indicate arrival in the hangar. Espra has arrived. When you stop to relax you can feel a pleasant humming in your body. Broken, bloodsoaked, battered, and bruised -- that's the best way to sum up the crumpled heap of a Singer sprawled on the floor of the sled near the pilot and passenger seats. Tance Vokrim is, in short, a mess, and the floor of the vehicle around him is stained with a disturbingly high amount of scarlet. From the pallor of the man's face, one can only wonder if he has much blood left in him. Espra acks, running her scanner over the Singer and shaking her head at the result. "Tance," she murmurs, mostly to herself. "How do you get yourself in these messes?" Espra presses a button on her wrist unit and speaks into it, summoning a gurney. Gurney 2 has arrived. Tance, it would seem, is not in a position to discuss the matter. The Singer is quite thoroughly unconscious -- and not at all unsurprisingly, given that the man looks like he's fallen down a mountain. Or perhaps had a mountain fall on him. Either way, he's a mess. Espra would agree with that assessment, without even chiding you for making medical judgements. She just shakes her head and, as gently as possible, lifts Tance onto the gurney. Gurney 2 You are on the soft mattress of a medical gurney. It's strong shock absobers prevent you from being jolted much. A big fluffy pillow is beneath your head.. If you want to see where the gurney is, 'look/outside'. You are helped onto the gurney by the medic. [And shortly...] Infirmary(#403RAM) The main infirmary is a bustling place with medics, orderlies and patients constantly moving about. The floor is covered with a sterile-looking white tile, the walls painted with stripes of various colours. A velvet black stripe leads past several medical offices to Long Term Care, while a dark red stripe leads off in the direction of Short Term facilities. At the nearest end to the lifts, a large administration area has been set up, complete with monitors and computer equipment lining the walls behind the long counter. Towards the other end of the room, several examination tables sit quietly amongst movable privacy screens and sterile cabinets. Since the infirmary is so buried so far underground, only the strongest Passover storms produce any sub-vocal resonances. The ever-present smell of medicines and antispetics hangs in the air. The lighting on this level has been set to a steady warm glow for the afternoon hours. Contents: Dr. Bear Catering Unit Obvious exits: Medic Shuttle Private Door Long Term Care Short Term Care Lift Espra walks softly from the lift area. Espra barks orders, to the orderlies, of course. Is that why they're called that? At any rate, they fly to gather the necessary items for the medic's work as she gently but hastily lifts Tance to a biobed. You are helped off the gurney by the medic. Moved, Tance stirs feebly -- a bare twitch of his bloodsoaked and watersoaked head, a slight flutter of his dark eyebrows above eyes squeezed shut in pain. His breath escapes him in a ragged little gasp before he subsides again. Espra slowly runs her medical scanner over Tance's body. You hear a slight hum and lights on the small, black gadget flicker. Two beeps sound, and a red light stabilizes, indicating a medical condition for Tance... The deep gouge in his right leg has been cleaned out and neatly stapled together with grey stitches. Tance looks disoriented, and the bloodied bump the size of a fist on his head is probably the cause. His left leg has been shattered, causing him to limp, favoring the bad leg. Doubled over in pain, it is obvious that Tance has sustained a near fatal injury in his abdominal area. Judging from the blood stains on his lower back, you doubt you want to know the particulars. Minor cuts and bruises cover his body, blood oozing from the larger gashes. Espra mutters, and calls for a scalpel and stapler, stat, and, administering a quick anesthetic, plunges her hands into the abdominal wound on poor Tance to begin cleaning it out. What in the name of seven planets' worth of gods did this man do to himself? And how long ago? Surely it must have been fairly recent, given that most if not all of the blood soaking his ruined clothing seems somewhat fresh. But with the amount of damage done to his body, it's easy to conclude that his symbiont has been working overtime trying to prevent him from dying of blood loss. Blood. Doh. The orderlies deliver the requested items and one hastily sets up an IV to pump precious plasma back into Tance's veins. Es doesn't even ackowledge them as she works, putting the Singer's intestines back together like a squishy jigsaw puzzle. If you listen hard, you can hear crystal resonance coursing gently through your body. Somewhere in the midst of at all, as his clothes are cut free of his prone form -- in fact, the only thing he's wearing that appears to be relatively intact are his boots -- Tance's eyes flutter halfway open. His unfocused brown gaze alights on nothing in particular, though, and it seems to the Singer only that he is floating in the midst of an ill-defined circle of figures. Voices swim in and out of his awareness. Why can't he move? Why can't he think? Where is he? But it's too much work to try to make his mouth shape the questions; it's too much work, even, to try to keep his eyes open. He slides back down into unconsciousness, even as his pulse leaps and skitters erratically, trying to regain a strong rhythm now that vital fluids are being pumped into his system. Now, Espra's never minded the notion of having a nude Tance on her bed, but this is not quite what she had in mind. Her eyes flick occasionally to the monitors, her scowl deepening somewhat as she works. Soft *KA-CHUNK!*'s can be heard as the Singer's innards are carefully stapled back together. While the medic attends to the most serious of the wounds, the orderlies working with her divide up the lesser tasks. One makes sure each and every tool she demands is within her grasp the moment she reaches for it. Another gets to work on patching up the smaller scrapes and gashes along CS Vokrim's abused body, in an effort to make sure that what's left of his blood supply stays where it belongs. Smaller staples take care of the worst of the gashes; for the abrasions and scrapes, delicate layers of gel, just enough to make sure that the skin beneath can heal undisturbed. Eventually Tance's pulse steadies out. Espra breathes out a small sigh of relief, reaching for yet another tool- suction this time- to clean out a few stray bits of what shouldn't be floating around in Tance's gut. "You're going to be just fine, Tance," she murmurs, aware he probably won't hear it. Indeed, he certainly doesn't seem to. The younger of the orderlies, at any rate, looks just a trifle daunted at the sight of this battered form lying before him. The older one, however, reports quickly while carefully cleaning gore away from the Singer's head wound, "Don't like the size of this bump on his head, ma'am, but I think we're getting him stabilized." Espra nods without looking up from her work. "Unless we start losing him, which is doubtful at this point, the concussion can wait. The leg'll have to be taken care of first." Her words are mumbled, as she's concentrating on stapling the skin back together on Tance's abdomen. "You want me to start on it, ma'am?" the older orderly inquires, while the younger gets hold of himself and trades places with her, taking over the simpler task of shaving some of the matted gray-brown hair away from that crack on CS Vokrim's head, the better to assess the actual damage. It's bled worse than it actually is, as head wounds often do, and the relieved orderly takes the time to staple in the tiniest, most delicate of staples useful for scalp injuries. Occasionally, you hear the slightest hint of crystal resonance coursing through your body. Espra glances down toward the leg dubiously, and shakes her head. "I'm done with this." That said, she moves down to gently feel around the shattered leg. "You can get the staples out of the other one though. Those were due to come out." The older orderly bobs her curly head, saying briskly, "I'm on it." She applies herself to that gash on Vokrim's right thigh, checking the healed flesh around each staple carefully before drawing it out. Perhaps surprisingly, given the state of much of the rest of the Singer's body, there's hardly any other damage on that portion of his leg. Espra nods slightly in acknowledgement, reaching for a scalpel again. The leg is simply crushed too badly to set the bones without cutting, and various blood vessels need to be repaired as well. She starts in on the latter first, tying off and rerouting veins and arteries while they're repaired.. What did Vokrim do, have somebody run over his leg with his own sled? The medical scan having reported in a troubling number of fragments of bone in what's left of his limb, the task of putting it to rights is indeed quite daunting. The two orderlies look on, the younger one once more passing tools to Espra as they're needed, the older one keeping vigil on the monitor readouts and once taking the time to inject an anti-shock agent into the injured man's system. Tance's pulse picks up a little strength, his symbiont seeming to latch upon the efforts to put him back together, if those readings are any indication. Espra will admit one thing, if absently- "Good ole Tance. Always brings up the most interesting medical problems." Her fingers can barely be seen to move, as the work they perform is quite delicate, not to mention they're buried inside his leg. "He does this a lot?" mumbles the younger orderly, sounding a bit shaken. And as if somehow sensing that he's being discussed, the Singer lets out a little rasping groan. One of his hands comes up, fumbling unseeingly at the air, and the older of the two orderlies lets out a little squeak of alarm. She swiftly intercepts that hand before it can knock into anything, while reporting to Espra, "We've got some signs of life here, ma'am. Shall I knock him out?" Espra nods, casting a quick glance toward Tance's face. "And fast. He gets feisty, and we don't need that any more than he needs to be feeling this, anesthetic or no." Her movements increase a bit as she eases the bones in the Singer's leg back to where they're supposed to be. Pain and dismay flicker for a moment across Tance Vokrim's weathered countenance, as a faint, distant mumble escapes him. "I don't know nothin' about namin' no bears..." The words trail off, though, as the orderly promptly shoots a sedative into the Singer's arm. It takes only microseconds for the stuff to take effect, and Tance then slumps again, dropping back down into deep grey slumber. You sense crystal sliding softly along your nerves. Now those words get a blink from Espra, and a flash of humor, before she pins the leg together. "Hmmm." She snatches a cast at random from the choices available, slipping it over the injured limb. As it hardens, she steps back to take a breath, glancing over the Singer as if taking count. It's official; Tance is out cold. Lines of tension and pain vanish as his face relaxes, and if it weren't for the tinges of gray in his hair, he might almost be a small boy, sleeping. The curly-haired orderly stifles a giggle, laying Vokrim's now slack hand down at his side, avoiding his now heavily-stapled middle. 'Bear?' she mouths at Espra, looking charmed, and nodding over towards the ever-watchful doctor bear perched on a chair across the room. Espra gestures vaguely, stepping over to check the staple job on poor Tance's head. "I'm guessing he's talking about the one in his sled, but there's no way to know for sure. I think it's related to Rosa's Bear," Hear the capital letters? "Somehow." "Should we bandage that up, ma'am?" the younger orderly asks anxiously. "There's a fair bit of swelling there." The older orderly ohs, chalking this up to another data point in the information she's been gathering about the babblings of unconscious Singers ever since her own adaptation. And Tance, carried off by the sedative now in his system, sleeps. The medical readouts dutifully report that his heartbeat is now strong and regular. Espra shakes her head, murmuring approval of the stapling job. "Naw. It'll be gone in a few hours, more than likely. And if it isn't, well, I'll be keeping an eye on him. Okay, let's get him back onto the gurney and into STC. Oh," her mouth quirks, "Somebody get a robe on him." "I'll leave that to you, Parker," the younger orderly coughs out. The older one allows herself to giggle now, tearing open a packet of sterile towelettes to clean her hands, and then darting off to fetch a robe out of the medical stores. She comes back, observing playfully to Espra, "Poor guy looks like he's taken a whole lot of damage in his life, huh? It's a shame... looks like he'd be cute if he didn't look like he'd fallen down a lift shaft. Help me get this on him?" Espra arches an eyebrow. "I'm a medic, not an orderly." Dammit, Jim. "Yeah, he /has/ taken a lot of damage. That happens after a few hundred years. Treat him nice, y'hear?" Taking this as the mild chiding he deserves, the younger orderly hrmphs a little, but does step over to help Parker out. Between them, Parker and Adkinson do manage to lift up portions of the unconscious Singer, enough to get the robe onto him and lightly tied about his bandaged waist. And with a slightly petulant look to his youthful face, Adkinson demands of Parker, "'Cute'? I didn't know you were into fossils!" "I have an appreciation of older men, is all," Parker says loftily, and then she winks at Espra. "We'll be good to him, ma'am." One corner of Espra's mouth lifts in a faint, weary smile, but she does come over to help lift Tance back onto the gurney. "Have some peach ice cream ready when he wakes up. He's going to want to leave, and that's about the only thing that stands a chance of keeping him in STC long enough to keep him from complicating his injuries. Gimme a yell if that doesn't work." Parker and Adkinson nod, and get Short Term Care's newest patient transported off to be checked in. Curly-haired Parker can be heard to muse aloud as she goes, "Ice cream, huh? I could get to like this man...!" You require the immediate assistance of a medic and enter the emergency room. Short Term Care This area is dedicated to fixing minor emergencies, such as broken bones and severed fingers. Medical cabinets on the walls are filled with bandages, ointments and medicines. The gleaming white walls help to sooth anxious nerves while providing medics with bright light to work by. The room has a sterile, antiseptic smell. Movable gurneys can be used to transport an injured Guild member from place to place. There is a button next to each bed that can be used to summon medical help. Drim is checked into bed one, and Noone is checked into bed two. Obvious exits: Infirmary Espra walks into Short Term Care looking for medical assistance. Espra has arrived. If you listen hard, you can hear crystal resonance coursing gently through your body. Espra uses her computer access to check Tance into bed two. Espra follows, hanging Tance's chart at the end of his bed. "Well, at least Riggs'll have some company now. This should be amusing." "Do they know one another?" asks Adkinson, looking speculatively from Riggs' sleeping form to that of Vokrim as he and Parker get Tance settled into Bed 2. "Probably not," surmises Parker. "If this one's got a couple of centuries, I bet he's got memory problems. And even if he didn't, that crack on the head'll probably have scrambled up his brains pretty good." Espra shakes her head, smirking slightly. "Right," she nods to Parker. "And Riggs is one of the Singers out of the last class, and I doubt Tance has had much contact with them." Not quite grokking why this'll make the two Singers in the same room 'interesting' -- especially if they're both unconscious -- Adkinson squints dubiously at the patients, and then philosophically shrugs. "Enh well. Need us for anything else, ma'am?" This last, clearly, is for Espra's benefit. Parker takes a moment to make sure Tance's pillow is settled to best advantage underneath his head, and then draws a sheet and blanket up over his prone form. "Shall we keep an IV on him?" Espra shakes her head, swiftly switching to a nod for Parker. "Yeah. If his blood pressure's reached a decent level, you can switch from plasma to a nutrient drip. His system's not going to be able to handle anything really solid for a while. I'll make an exception for the peach ice cream," she adds wryly. Adkinson takes his leave, but not without another exaggerated pout at his fellow orderly, and a mock mutter of "_Cute_?" With that, though, the young man is gone, scurrying off to snatch a few off-duty moments and a cup of coffee. Parker giggles softly as Adkinson takes off, but is entirely business otherwise as she sets up an IV drip for the ward's newest resident, getting it secured into Vokrim's upper left arm. "He tries to leave a lot, huh, ma'am?" she asks. "Think we'll have to keep him on sedatives?" Espra shakes her head, folding her arms as she leans back against the doorjamb. "I hope not. It has been necessary before, but that was a completely different situation. At least he's not ressed /too/ badly this time." "Sounds like he's quite a handful," Parker pipes, straightening up again, and surveying her handiwork critically to make sure she hasn't missed anything before she turns a hopeful eye upon the supervising medic, to make sure _she_ hasn't noticed something she's missed. Espra grins faintly, nodding as she straightens up with a creaking of joints. "Tance is... unique. Whatever you do, don't mention Jade, and you'll be just fine. And yelling at him just makes things worse when he's agitated." Her eyes flick over the Singer, and she nods once more. "Looks like he's set." Perky and pert, the orderly veritably beams at Espra's approval. Finished up, she comes over to join the older woman, ready for her next task, though she does also cast a bemused glance back at their patient. "'Jade?'" she echoes, blinking her big brown eyes curiously. Occasionally, you hear the slightest hint of crystal resonance coursing through your body. Espra nods slightly, her smile fading a bit. "The woman he loved. She died a short while back. Still bothers him." Parker's fresh young face visibly falls, her eyes turning a little dewy. "Awww... well, ma'am, I'll be careful!" She shoots the sleeping Singer a musing glance, then giggles, very softly. "Don't tell Tommy" -- and she bobs her curly head in the direction Adkinson had vanished -- "I said so, but this guy _is_ kind of cute, isn't he?" Espra's eyebrows rise, and she grins an agreement. "Yeah, he is. And don't tell Tance I said so." With a wink, she slips out. Espra leaves the busy emergency room. Espra has left. [End log.]