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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 19, 2008 15:57:23 GMT -5
"Ebony can easily round up the children for you to check," said Doc, "She is good with getting them to listen to her. And I managed to catch that show. You all did very well."
He then turned and listened as the letter was being read outloud. "When do you have to leave?"
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 19, 2008 19:03:47 GMT -5
Markus gave a very quiet scoff, "Yeah, it would've been better if that bastard Guy Davidson had shut up during the procedure. God, I was so tempted to suture that guy's mouth shut."
Raine snickered. "Hehe... yeah, I'm sure Val wanted to cram a scalpel down his throat sideways too."
Valerie rolled her eyes. "Ugh...I hope I don't have to put up with him anymore."
Val took another look at the letter. "I'd hate to press my luck, but by the sound of things, we may just have our first Stigma case to operate on during our vacation. This "Ops" we haven't seen before, but hopefully we'll get some advice from Dr. Cromwell from Caduceus.
Markus smirked, "Yeah, if he hopefully doesn't give us some of his long-winded advice like he usually does."
Raine took a look outside and noticed that one of the townsfolk wasn't looking as normal and awake like they usually were. "Hey, what's up with Sarge? He seems rather... off."
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 19, 2008 19:40:39 GMT -5
"I believe it's the remnants of the flu, but being in the Army, Sarge just feels that he should endure it, instead of getting help," sighed Doc, "I have a hard time persuading him to come to the clinic."
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 19, 2008 21:02:30 GMT -5
Markus rose up on his tires before nudging the door open, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bad feeling after reading that letter."
Raine and Val got up as well, "I guess it'll take some convincing to get him the medical help he needs."
Raine followed Markus outside. "We'll be back soon, Dad."
__________
Raine chewed the bottom of her lip as she pulled up into the diner, with Markus taking the lead. She sighed heavily before pulling up in front of Sarge.
"Umm... hello, Sir. Are you okay?" The black Mustang knew how stubborn the old Army Jeep could be when it came to going to the clinic, but she hoped that she wouldn't have to literally drag him over there.
Valerie nervously looked around her, being a little shy of meeting new people, even if she had met them before. Sighing, the maroon Cadillac kept her eye on Markus as he chatted with who appeared to be the town deputy.
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 19, 2008 21:33:02 GMT -5
"See you later, Raine," nodded Doc.
*****
Sarge blinked and looked at the black Mustang that had come right up to him asking if he was okay.
"Of course I'm okay," he replied gruffly, "I'm as health as a combine. There ain't nothing wrong with me."
"Don't believe everything he says, Man," said a pale green WV bus beside him.
"Stay out of this, Hippy," growled the Army jeep.
A black Viper with two children that look like little copies of her in tow pulled into the diner.
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 19, 2008 21:52:46 GMT -5
Markus shook his head before pulling up in front of Sarge. "Sir, you may not be aware. But there's a serious and an even possible chance that you may not be sick with what you may believe is the flu." He showed him his official badge from Caduceus. "You see, we work for Caduceus, the organization under direct control of Homeland Security and CDC. We've been assigned to treat any cases that we suspect could be a deadly man-made pathogen."
Raine turned around and pulled up in front of Ebony. "Ebs! Long time no see!" She gave the Viper a friendly nudge. "How're you and the twins doing?"
Valerie nodded her front in greeting towards Ebony as well. "Hi Ebony. Hey you two." She smiled at the two little cars as she settled on her shocks. "It seems we're already gonna be doing procedures during our vacation." She chuckled.
Raine nodded, "Yeah, we just received this strange letter. Apparently, whoever sent this knows about our activity and whereabouts." She handed Ebony the slip of paper. "And we're trying to get "Sgt. Rock-stuffed-up-his-tailpipe" to go over to the clinic. We're not having much luck though..."
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 19, 2008 22:20:50 GMT -5
Sarge gave Markus a stern look. "Son, I am a retired Army sargeant," he grumped, "I don't need some government sissy to tell me what to do. But if these orders came from the Army, then I will obey the orders."
"Good to see you too, Raine," smiled Ebony, "We're doing just fine and the twins are doing fine in school."
She took the letter and read through it thoroughly, frowning. "Sounds serious." The Viper looked up at Raine again and smirked a little. "Want me to give a persuasive little poke with my spikes to get him going? It usually works, though he doesn't like it."
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 19, 2008 22:33:41 GMT -5
Raine snickered. "Go right ahead. I guess it's bad enough that poor Markus isn't being taken seriously. I'd hate for him to fly off the handle on the old man."
Markus was seething now. "Listen, Mr. "I'm too good for government orders," you're not taking this seriously enough, so if you continue to be unreasonable, I will yank off those tires and drag you into the clinic myself if I have to!"
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 19, 2008 23:42:56 GMT -5
Ebony grinned, "Excuse me."
Sarge opened his mouth to reply, not noticing that Ebony was creeping up behind him. "I'll have you know -- YEOW!"
"C'mon, Sarge," said the Viper, "You gotta listen to him. Time to go to the clinic and get checked out. This is serious business and, besides, I'm taking my children over there in a little bit too. I wouldn't want them to catch this deadly disease."
"Why should I listen to you?" demanded Sarge, glaring at Ebony.
"Because I said so, now go," she replied, poking him with her spikes.
The Army jeep grumbled, but chose to go to the clinic then having to face Ebony's spikes up close and personal.
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 20, 2008 0:14:01 GMT -5
Raine laughed loudly as she pulled up beside her friend and Sarge. "Looks like you lose this time, old man..."
Markus glanced uneasily at Ebony's spikes. "Hate to be impaled by one of those..."
Val smirked, "Hey, maybe I should get some too in case you start slacking off like you always do."
Markus scowled. "....Shut up."
----------------------------------------
Markus brought out the table where multiple surgical instruments were laid out on top of it. They had already run a few tests and now the team had no choice but to do exploratory surgery.
"Alright Sarge, I'm gonna begin administering the anesthesia..." Raine adjusted the drip line slightly before covering the Jeep's grill with a clear mask for ten seconds until his eyes closed.
"Alright, he's under. Let's get to work."
After Val finished sanitizing the chest and made her incision, the vital numbers decided to settle for seventy-five.
“I see the concentration of cells... is it just me, or is it moving faster...?” the Cadillac murmured. “Raine, I need the drain now...”
“Of course, Val,” Raine nodded, quickly handing her coworker the clear tube. Waiting patiently for the semi-core to appear, Valerie rapidly drained the pieces of the pathogens tissue before they reached the core.
“I've got them,” Valerie announced, quickly grabbing the laser and burning away at the tumors, then splashing antibiotic gel over the burn marks. They quickly healed, and Sarge's vitals stopped falling at sixty-six.
Raine refilled the syringe with the green serum, handing it back to Val before grabbing a new hypodermic needle. Filling the tube with stabilizer, the young surgeon proceeded to inject the life-saving green fluid at the same moment that Markus burned away the core with the laser.
“Val, the drain!” Markus ordered as the tissue shrank, and the main core, larger than usual and a vibrant cerulean, surfaced.
The special laser was in his tires not a second after he asked for it. Markus burned away at the main core as Valerie used the traditional laser and antibiotic gel to treat the new tumors that had formed.
“There...”
Val glanced at the core-- just in time to see it dissolve into nothing.
“...is that it?” she muttered. “That can't be it...”
“It's not,” Markus responded, readying the laser once more. “It's only just begun... Raine, get ready to suture; there may be a lot of--”
A small magenta core suddenly darted out to the edge of the Ops tissue.
Markus quickly focused his laser on it...
It dashed across the organ, leaving behind a large laceration before vanishing.
“What the--”
“Markus, there's more!”
More laceration-causing growths appeared-- but before Markus could so much as blink, they shot out, marring the lung with lacerations.
“Damnit... Val, Raine, quickly! Suture the wounds!”
Valerie immediately seized the sutures, sewing the wounds shut before they could bleed out, as Raine rapidly injected stabilizer to bring Sarge's vitals out of the thirties...
Five small cores, light blue in color, appeared in the remaining Ops tissue, hovering near the edge...
Markus barely finished lasering away one of the cores before the tissue expanded across the lung, then contracted. The cores followed, each one leaving four tumors in its wake.
“Vitals went from sixty-four to fifty-one...!”
“Treat the tumors!”
Raine exchanged the needle and thread for her laser and antibiotic gel. Quickly, she burned away the excrescences, pouring the gel over the wounds to heal them.
“Ah!” Raine cried out suddenly.
“What, Raine?”
“The syringe broke...!”
“Well, his vitals are stable at eighty-eight... quick, grab another one--”
“Markus, what are those?”
Markus glanced down at the Stigma core--
“Hurry, Val!”
Maruks' laser focused on the cores that were spinning wildly around the central body. As the cores disintegrated, Sarge's vitals plummeted rapidly...
“There!” He sighed as the final spinning core vanished.
“...unbelievable,” Val gasped in shock. “His vitals went to forty-one in... oh God...”
Valerie's dark brown eyes glanced confusedly at Markus, his light brown orbs hidden behind glasses as his piercing gaze never left the Ops core.
“I'm injecting more stabilizer!”
“Val, the core!”
She growled, swiftly focusing the special laser's intense beam onto the cerulean body, burning away at it as the aquamarine star flashed in front of her eyes...
If it thinks it's going to beat us and kill him, it's got another thing coming! Valerie thought as her Healing Touch activated.
As the Ops core gave out to the incinerating beam, it sent out more neon pink cores, desperate to claim its host's life...
The first one survived long enough to slice the lung; the other five fell to the laser.
Val wasted no time; she grabbed the sutures, quickly closing the wound.
“Vitals are at fifty-seven, Raine...”
“Ah!” Val cried, quickly treating the eight small growths that had appeared on Sarge's lung, put there by the two remaining tan cores that she had failed to destroy.
They quickly encountered the same fate as their counterparts.
The main core surfaced; Val wasted no time focusing the laser onto it, watching it tremble beneath the beam before it collapsed once again, sliding beneath the pathogen's tissue.
“How long does this take?” Val growled, picking up the sutures, anticipating the return of the magenta cores.
“Sometimes it takes more than ten laserings to destroy this one...”
“You have to be kidding--”
Magenta cores flashed across the lung, tearing apart the organ once again.
“Is this--”
“It's moving... much faster...”
Raine's tense voice caught Markus and Val's attention.
“Val?”
“C'mon... I have to focus!”
Her brown eyes narrowed to thin slits; her motions became a blur as her Healing Touch was renewed.
“...oh, this is just--”
Raine fought the urge to curse, instead reaching for a new syringe to replace the broken one.
A ring of cores surrounded the main one; Va; quickly burned them away, but not before the vitals dropped from seventy to forty-four...
“Finally...!”
Raine had found a new syringe; the first thing she did was inject stabilizer into Sarge until his vitals climbed to seventy-five.
The main core sent out more small cynosures; only one was able to excrete four tumors...
Markus grimaced.
“Markus...?”
Val put the antibiotic gel back down long enough to shoot Markus a concerned look.
“...n-need to... f--”
“Markus, stop!”
His focus shattered; he gasped for breath, air flooding into his lungs...
“Markus, you can't use it anymore!” Raine cried. “Just try destroying the core!”
“R-right...!” Markus murmured, clearing his mind as he scorched the central core with his laser...
He never even saw the magenta nuclei; only the deep lacerations they caused left any sign of their existence.
“Sunuva...!”
Val's tires immediately went to work; the six lacerations were sutured shut...
“Damn, not again--!”
Markus' laser focused on the halo of cores that flew around the focus of the Ops tissue; eventually they vanished...
“Not again!”
Raine's wail caught Val's attention.
“What is it...?”
“I pulled the plunger out of the syringe!”
“What!”
Quickly, her dark brown eyes glanced up to check on Sarge's vitals...
“No! They can't-- he won't--”
“More mini-cores!”
Val glanced back down; the tissue had begun to expand--
No!
The magenta star flashed before her eyes.
I won't let you take him...!
Sarge's lung became littered with tumors...
Even as Val burned away at the excrescences, Sarge's vitals remained stable at nine.
“It shouldn't take much more--”
More hot-pink cynosures shot out over the lung.
Focus! Val growled to herself as she sutured the lacerations. It can't be that much longer...!
“It's resurfaced again-- it's almost over--!”
“Wh-what the--?”
The ring of cores spun wildly, then suddenly shot out across the organ, leaving tumors in their wake...
“This attack is--”
“Raine, get it-- my Healing Touch is...!”
“Understood!” Raine nodded, focusing the laser on the swollen core--
Come on... Val's inner voice egged her on. Just a little more... at least until the damage is taken care of...
“Ah...!”
There was a small flash at the core...
The Stigma tissue expanded, flashing sporadically, the lights accompanied by a faint popping sound...
...before the tissue vanished, leaving only a few small tumors as a reminder of the long battle.
Markus heaved a sigh of relief.
“Finally... let's treat these tumors and close him up...”
Valerie burned away the small tumors, healing them with the antibiotic gel... _____________________________________________________________
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 20, 2008 17:25:33 GMT -5
Doc watched the procedure intensely, taking careful, thorough notes on what Raine, Valerie, and Markus were doing. He was also concerned for Sarge's life, seeing as how deadly the Stigma was to the old Army jeep.
*****
In the meantime, Ebony and her children, as well as the rest of the residents of Radiator Springs were waiting outside the clinic, hoping that Sarge was going to be okay. The Viper was closest to the double doors. Her empathic senses were picking up very intense emotions inside the clinic and she was wondering if everything was alright in there.
(((((OOC: Had to drive my grandmother to a doctor's appointment today.)))))
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 20, 2008 18:19:02 GMT -5
(((OOC: that's perfectly alright. I was pretty busy at school ))) Raine, Valerie, and Markus had finally finished the procedure, suturing the final inscision before each of them breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that was certainly unexpected... the pathogen's mobility was even faster then the previous strains of Stigma we dealt with." Valerie leaned back on her shocks in fatigue. "Well I hope that's the last we have to see of that thing." Raine muttered. Markus, on the other hand, was a bit more concerned. "You know, what's more disturbing was that an Army official was infected... I wonder if he had any injuries that required the use of medical implants or artificial blood?" "Yeah, seeing how Stigma only needs the most miniscule amount of culurium to become active..." Raine looked over the medical history. "Looks like they had to use synthetic fluids as well, Q-heme blood to be more exact. Only Humani produces medical products containing culurium." "It does make sense in a way, seeing how every patient that was infected had either some sort of implant or artificial blood in their system..." Val nodded. "We should notify Director Quatro as soon as possible, but for now, we need to rest a bit. All the pathogens were successfully removed, so our patient should be fine." Markus took off his surgical mask and threw it away. Raine glanced over at her father. "You alright back there? You seem kinda freaked out..."
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 20, 2008 19:20:41 GMT -5
"I was worried about Sarge," said Doc, "He's going to be alright, isn't he?"
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DoubleEdgeSword
Adolescent
I don't care if Markus is 34, he's still hot! :3
Posts: 53
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Post by DoubleEdgeSword on Mar 20, 2008 20:41:42 GMT -5
Markus nodded, "His lungs are funtioning normally, and I don't see any other problems with the results of the testing. Fortunately, for you guys, Stigma hasn't been shown to be a contagious pathogen. But the means of transmission are still a bit uncertain. So we've got Dr. Robert Cromwell and Cynthia Kazokov doing all the heavy research."
Raine nudged open the door and looked at Ebony and everyone else. "He'll be fine after he gets some rest. But we'll discuss our current situation to you all later."
Val started putting away the tools for sterilizing. "Dr. Hudson, we're very grateful for letting us use your clinic. Sarge will be back to his grumpy old self in no time."
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Post by ebonyviper on Mar 20, 2008 22:27:10 GMT -5
"Okay," Ebony nodded and, with Sally's help, shooed the other townfolk away from the clinic. She had been worried, but was relieved to hear that Sarge was going to be okay.
*****
Doc nodded, "My pleasure. Glad to help."
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