NOVEL WEB 30. Visitation Hours
When next I came aware again, it was not with Vox. It made for an incredibly strange sight to be looking into my hospital room, but not through my own eyes. I couldn’t quite see my own body except for a lump under a blanket where my feet ought to be. The room itself was plain; only bare white walls, various medical equipment and a handwashing station were visible to my view aside from the bed.
A doctor stepped into view a few moments later. “Miss Matson, can you hear me? My name is Doctor Mayhew. We have you connected to a direct neural interface device, currently.”
I tried to nod, but realized that such an action was quite impossible. Talking proved to be the only method I could accomplish effectively, though it felt very odd since there was no feeling of my jaw moving with my words.
“I can hear you, Doctor.” The voice that emitted from the apparent interface was robotic and held little tonality. Vox could better emulate human speech. The interface couldn’t translate everything though, it seemed.
The doctor took a seat in a rolling chair and made herself comfortable. “Welcome to Treysana. Do you know what happened to you?”
Flashes of memory. Panels lighting up with critical alerts. Alarms blaring. The pulse of deadly light. Vox’s warning.
“I-Yes. My ship suffered a catastrophic failure while at warp.”
Doctor Mayhew’s eyes watched carefully, flickering between the display it seemed I was coming through and the bed next to me (that I was also in? Dissociation is weird…). “Yes, it is good that your memory is at least mostly intact. Many of us here were worried that you may not survive. It has been two days since the accident. You were initially taken to the emergency ward of D’reth Station. They were able to stabilize you enough for transport and you were then brought here.”
She took a deep breath and looked back to the bed. “Unfortunately, much of your body is badly injured. This interface that you are using was the best way for us to be able to communicate with you. We needed to ask what you wanted, though. Our course of care has stabilized your body and is preventing further injury, but any further action must be consented to.
“As you have no next-of-kin listed on file and no power of attorney established, the hospital ethics committee can step in to make decisions regarding your plan of care, but that is a last resort. In your case, establishing communication through this interface avoids that outcome.”
“How bad is it?” I asked, my computer voice still feeling wrong. “Can I look?”
Her eyes saddened. “I cannot prevent you from doing so, should you wish, Miss Matson, but I would advise against such an action. The dissociation caused by the use of this interface can become very intense when viewing one’s own body. Additionally, the trauma inflicted by seeing it in its current state could disrupt our communications.”
“Just let me see! How can I make an informed decision without knowing exactly what's going on?”
The doctor stared at me for a second, then stood. “Very well.”
My view slowly pivoted to look directly at the bed. If I could have, I would have had to sit down when I saw what lay in that bed. It was terrifying, and yet somehow incredible. The incident had all but destroyed my body, but I was still alive.
Admittedly, my thoughts mostly blurred out what the doctor was saying as she described in rather gruesome detail everything that was wrong with my physical form. Suffice to say, I was nearly as wrecked as my ship was.
“...and that leaves us with a couple options, Miss Matson. Essential service rules can provide you with ample coverage to ensure that all critical areas of the body are repaired to the best of our ability so that you may return home should you wish. Alternatively, bio-identical organs and limbs can be grown in a laboratory nearby and then surgically attached. That will take time and will also incur some significant cost. A further option would be to have the cybernetic prosthesis specialist come in and replace portions of your limbs with implanted technology. It would be a faster process and carries better chances of recovery, but will come with significant monetary requirements.”
I was unable to speak for several minutes as thoughts swirled in my mind like an unhinged galaxy. “And what of a continuity of consciousness vessel transfer?”
Doctor Mayhew nodded slowly. “Yes, that is an option, but not one that the Terran Union health administration will cover. You would be solely responsible for any cost incurred.”
I mentally sighed.
“Of course. Nothing in life is free, huh?”
A solemn shake of her head. “I am afraid not. I fully admit that I do not approve of the medical system as is. My salary is ample, but I would rather see costs come down on some of these life-saving options. Medical technology being where it is, there is no reason why so many people in the outer ring should be dying and being permanently disabled due to the cost of services. I just hope that your ship insurance will cover your expenses.”
It was disheartening to hear. Insurance would take months to pay out. I just wish I knew what had gone wrong. I had put a lot of work into it and even the inspector had approved it. There shouldn't have been anything to go wrong!
None of that mattered now, though. My body was broken and confined to a hospital bed. My ship was destroyed. If I couldn’t get myself fixed, I wouldn’t even be able to work for the Ericksons. In the span of thirty seconds, I had gone from the top of the mountain to staring into the abyss.
“I can give you some time to think it over, if you’d like.” The doctor seemed sympathetic, it wasn’t much, but it helped to blunt the knife of depression that was piercing my heart.
“Can you at least get me to the point where I can be conscious again, physically?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. The first series of operations we did were to clean up damage around your leg, arm and head. Our next step will be patching up your lungs as best we can. With luck, you’ll be able to breathe on your own, albeit with some help, afterwards. That is scheduled for tomorrow.”
For a moment, I felt a sense of loss. I was almost expecting that sense of dread to settle in my stomach, but it was hard to feel such things when I was only tangentially connected to my body for the moment. I’d experienced episodes of dissociation before, but this was an entirely different level.
“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll… I’ll give the other stuff some thought. Just keep me alive, please.”
“That is our goal,” she said wryly.
True to her word, early the next morning I was taken out of the intensive care ward and into the surgery theater once again. Due to my state of liminal awareness, I wasn’t fully aware of the passage of time, but I was certainly aware when I began straying closer to the waking world once more.
Pain. So much pain.
But that wasn’t all.
The pain served well to highlight the feeling of air entering my lungs in steady intervals. I was also vaguely aware of the hose that poked up my nose, supplying the life giving oxygen to my lungs. This was no longer simulated feelings, against all odds, I was alive.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Matson.” I couldn’t really move my neck since it was restrained, but I was able to spot Doctor Mayhew in my peripheral vision.
“Don’t try to move too much. We still have your neck in a stabilizing brace.”
It made for a truly bizarre feeling, or lack thereof, to realize that some things were giving either incredibly subdued sensations or none at all. Even the distribution of weight through my body felt wrong. In a way, it made me glad that I couldn’t turn my head to see myself. I wasn’t sure my mental state could handle it.
“H-hello, doc.” Talking took significant effort and came with a lot of pain.
“How are you feeling? The procedure this morning went well. I would estimate that we have your lungs functioning at around twenty percent of their former capacity. That could go up as you recover, but it may not. What we did was only a patch job, though. I would recommend a full transplant when possible.”
I let the information sink in for a moment. In a halting voice, I responded. “It hurts… a lot.”
“Understandable. We can give you some medication for that. In the meantime, though, against my wishes, there are some people here to see you, including two officers. They’d like to talk to you about your incident.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
A nurse came in from behind the doctor and I was able to watch as she added a vial of what I assumed was painkillers to my IV. A cold sensation flooded down the side of my neck from where the line must have been inserted and within a few seconds, the pain began to fade to more manageable levels.
“Feels… better.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, if the pain starts coming back or you get overwhelmed, the room’s assistant VI will respond to your commands and can summon someone from the nurse’s station.” Her voice carried an edge to it and I could tell that she really was unhappy to be letting these people in.
“If you don’t request one first, I’ll have one of the nurses check on you after they leave.”
To the best of my ability, I nodded. The doctor seemed to get the point and huffed before turning on her heel and walking out.
I was left wondering who these guests were that were coming to visit me. It was my guess that the officers were just investigating the accident as mandated by system authorities. The others were a mystery, though.
Luckily, I wasn’t left alone for long. In fact, soon enough, my room felt crowded with five people coming in. One of them was easily recognizable as Captain Erickson, though the man in a well tailored suit was unfamiliar. Two more were obviously the officers the doctor had noted, easily marked as such by their uniforms. The last was a vaguely familiar face wearing a worker's uniform from D’reth Station. I couldn’t even begin to guess why he was here.
Marcus was the first to speak. “Adresta, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Last time I actually saw you, we were handing you off to the medics on the station after we picked you up in the Hrafn. Allow me to introduce you to Beverly Yates of the Sisko and Yates legal firm. He is here to represent you in all of this.”
“Why do I need a lawyer? It was just an equipment failure as far as I know.”
The captain’s face was grave. “Perhaps it would be best if I allow these officers to say their piece first. We can field questions after.”