trans_9 | Doctor doctor, gimme the news

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Doctor doctor, gimme the news

After the meeting, and after some bickering with the Emergency Medical Hologram, down at the bottom of the Hub, Brainy is arranging the MedBay to his liking and familiarizing himself with the medical equipment and its functions.

Right now, for instance, as anyone walks in the door, he's wearing some sort of scanning goggles and a rather sinister-looking surgical glove with micro-scalpels, little lasers and surgical saws on the fingertips.

This makes him look like a green-faced Freddy Krueger with mad scientist goggles. For anyone that walks in like he instructed him to at the meeting, this is the first thing they see.

"Hmmmm."

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"Yes. Excuse me, I'm testing the various functions of this surgical glove. I've been interrupted several times now. It should only take a moment."

He nods. "Of course. You were talking about scanning crew members and I thought it'd be better to get that out of the way sooner than regret it later."

Brainy looks bizarrely happy about someone actually listening to his recommendation and not doing it in a grudging 'Best be getting this over with' kinda way, but then people rarely just...do what he says without at least rolling their eyes at it while doing it. Brainy likes when people think what he's suggested is smart.

"Yes, well, I do hope the rest of the crew realizes the wisdom of that," he says, still testing out the glove, even as he talks. He's apparently quite good at multi-tasking, because he doesn't look distracted at all. "I don't think they all quite understand exactly how difficult it is to provide medical attention when your specialization is limited to your own universe's spectrum of sentient species."

"We had some problems on the medical front when another species switched sides to join us in the war where I am from. Neither of us was very good at patching up the other." He likes the fact that the person who will potentially have to put his guts back into order some time seems to have a good handle on things. He's not sure why Brainy's so happy. People that are more qualified than he is talk, and the Chief listens.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Durlans are quite similar in that regard, back home," says Brainy. Either he's finished what he's doing or just finished going through one set of the glove's functions and therefore is at a good stopping point, because he lets it retract into the ceiling and takes the goggles off.

"Shapeshifters--they only minimally interact with the rest of the civilized universe, therefore, medical information on them is difficult to come by. I'm one of the few that has any knowledge of their physiology and only because of treating a Durlan team-mate--one of the few Durlans that's interacted extensively with other species."

He gestures to a circle on the floor. "Please stand on the circle. I'm going to take some scans and then take a blood sample for processing. The sample and all electronic records will be destroyed after processing--as I promised, I'll memorize the results."

Shapeshifters. And the Chief thought the Covenant were strange enough as they were. It's a sort of scary idea, he imagines a Sangheili being able to change shape as he moves to stand on the circle. It's not a pretty thought.

"Alright. I'm ready."

There's a reason they're feared and distrusted in Brainy's universe as well, but then, it isn't exactly fair that this is so when there are some like Reep Daggle.

"Commencing scanning. Try not to move."

The discs of light move up and down Chief's body and then the results start streaming in on a screen as Brainy looks on curiously.

His expression isn't quite a frown, but some of the information he sees is enough for him to deduce certain things about Chief's background. The pellet of human growth hormone catalyst in his thyroid for instance.

"You've been biologically--and artificially--augmented, I see."

"Yes."

There's just a touch of an edge to it, a slight tensing of the jaw. There's a reason why he wants his records quiet, why the whole of the UNSC wants his records quiet. If the details of the Spartan program were to get out, it would destroy whatever morale their existence had created. He watched members of his adopted family die or be handicapped for life, but he regrets nothing. If it were not for the augmentation, he wouldn't be alive. His species wouldn't be alive.

But child abduction is child abduction, risky surgery is risky surgery, death is death, and that is a political firefight the Chief wants nothing to do with if he can possibly help it. People don't understand it his way.

That same tone, neither approving nor disapproving. "Some of these augmentations were done at a very young age."

"All of them. Fourteen years." The Chief replies just as evenly.

"You're lucky that the procedures didn't leave you with debilitating illness. The carbide ceramic ossification could've pulverized your bones during growth spurts. The muscular enhancements could've resulted in cardiac distress or failure..."

Galactic age of consent. They'd had a draft originally, but even when it was overthrown, the Legionnaires decided they were old enough to potentially die for their worlds and for the United Planets.

And over the years, a fair number of them had.

He asks a question that most likely wouldn't ask right off, but he remembers being 14, and he remembers Trom and the Daxamites, and the way his universe was and they way they were needed for the survival of sentient life, time and time again.

"Did you choose this?"

"I know. Believe me, I know."

Memories. Fhajad, wheelchaired, unable to control his constantly trembling body. Renee, suspended in a tank with an unrecognizably twisted skeletal structure. Others blind, others destroyed, others dead, jettisoned into space with ceremony for their surviving siblings. But it all had a purpose, a good purpose, the best purpose, and though that hollow space still aches there was a reason. And that's what makes it... not okay, but acceptable. All of them had agreed, every last one. All the risks laid out in front of them, and no one had stood down.

He directs his gaze at the instruments on the walls, not at Brainy. There's a sort of wistfulness to him, he doesn't think about this much for a reason.

"Yes. I did. And I would again."

"Sit down on the medical bed and let me take the blood sample," he says, retrieving another instrument.

As he does, he says, slightly absently, "I won't pry, but I must admit I'm curious as to the 'why'--but then why I'm curious is partly because I'm fairly certain I already understand it."

Edited 2009-02-09 01:36 (UTC)

The Chief does as instructed.

He exhales. "I am what I need to be." Cryptic, yes, but it's about as much as Brainy's going to get out of him. He's closing the discussion.

"You understand why this is confidential?"

"Some of us must be."

It's not hard to put it all together. He'd said there was a war, he said he'd chosen, and even if he'd chosen young, the young sometimes know where they're needed, why they're needed, and why that overrides all else.

He's likely not catching that 'change the subject' cue very well, but he doesn't take any social cues very well.

"I would imagine this was the result of some sort of confidential governmental project, so yes, I do understand. Knowledge of these augmentations can't be allowed to be exploited by anyone else--especially if one of your enemies is in stasis. The nature of your augmentations and the age that you received them would likely also generate controversy if the knowledge of it somehow reached your home universe, as most civilized planets firmly condemn the exploitation of children."

He takes his sample.

That last line likely sounds like a condemnation of Chief's Earth for creating the Spartans. He doesn't mean for it to. He's condemning something else.

The Spartan tenses just a little, almost imperceptibly, but it has nothing to do with the sample. It's just the discomfort of it. John hates questionable ethics, they make it harder to rest easy than any battle ever has.

Stealing children is wrong. He knows that, but it is almost an insult to the memory of the others to call it exploitation. Sam died on their first mission against the Covenant, not long after the augmentation. To even insinuate that he had fought just because a bunch of adults had conditioned him as a child to do it cheapens his courage, and all the Spartans' courage, and everything they had given of themselves for the sake of the rest of humanity. Even if it's true. It just brings down sympathy or pity or one of their cousins on him, and it's something he does not want or need.

"Permission to end discussion?" He takes refuge in formality, and hopes this will be enough to kill the spoken speculation.

The barest of glances over, and there is a nearly imperceptible shift in Brainy's demeanor. It grows a little colder again, closed off, as it'd been before the conversation started.

"In my universe, the galactic age of consent is fourteen, and the Legion, my team, often faces deadly peril to protect the United Planets, even though it's our choice." He goes on, "You have my apologies. I didn't intend for what I said to sound like a criticism of your home culture. It's just that when a world is such that certain situations must be hidden, or the result would be controversy, I find it--I suppose the word is 'novel.' My homeworld is different. Certain...situations are publicly known and widely supported, rather than condemned or needing to be clandestine."

Even if they're to be ignored back home when they harp on the ages of the Legion, it's nice that they care enough to do it, and it's usually the Earthers that do it the most. Colu could typically care less.

He adds, "In situations such as the one we're in right now, one often looks for...commonalities between oneself and others. That was all I was trying to do."

And that's all he'll say. It's a pretty wordy response to "can we end this discussion?" but then he can't ever do anything without talking too much first, not even stop talking.

Well, maybe he was a little harsh. That explains a lot there, but he really has to wonder what kind of universe it is where such things can be spoken about openly.

"No harm done," he says. "Unless there's anything else you need, I'll leave you to your work. Some of the others were talking about running some kind of practice in the Sensoriums."

Not the universe. The planet. Colu = planet of the dicks. There's a reason he's an exile.

"All information will be deleted after I memorize the results and the blood sample will be destroyed. I'll only disclose information to another if I have your express permission, and the only instance I'd ask would be in the unlikely chance I needed to consult another doctor."

His word is his vow. Despite the mad scientist tendencies, he's going to do exactly as promised.

But the Chief doesn't know that. And he'd feel hypocritical asking about it.

"Thankyou. Again, I appreciate this." He gets up and starts on his way out, though he pauses half way. "And, er, good luck."

And with that, off he goes ~~to totally go fight robots.~~

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Doctor doctor, gimme the news

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