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Hospital - Recovery Rooms
A spacious area, with a dozen beds, separated by flimsy curtains that can be wheeled around. Each bed has a small holo projector with a headphone jack, and a remote to adjust the angle at which the bed lies. Near the door is a supply closet with a lot of wheeled meal trays, hover chairs, and assorted bric-a-brac.
Walking slowly and steadily in his advanced years, Korvas makes his way into the recovery rooms upon hearing a patient had recently arrived. The soft tap of his cane on the tile floor announces his presence before he's actually seen.
James Sterling lies on a simple bed, his hands clasped over his stomach. He's been guided here by a fortunately human nurse, who did little beyond telling him someone would be around to look at his injuries shortly. He looks toward the doorway on hearing a new sound.
Korvas walks around the partition and steps up next to Sterling's bed, pulling over a step stool which he uses to get up high enough to actually see over the bed. "Ah, good evening to you." he says, setting his cane in front of him and leaning on it with both paws. "I'll be your attending physician this evening. My name is Korvas." Oddly, he doesn't grab any of the high tech med gear laying near by at first. Instead, he pulls a worn leather satchel off his shoulder and sets it on the bed, getting out a couple of vials sealed with corks and a couple of sterile sheets of gauze.
James Sterling stares at the diminutive fox-person, his eyes wide. Despite the warnings of the old man, he's far from prepared for a face-to-face encounter with one of the 'walkin', talkin' animals'. "Guh ... er..." he manages to say.
Korvas puts on a bit of a toothy grin. "I'd heard you were a recent arrival through one of the rifts." he says kindly. "I am as well, though by choice, rather than destiny. A portal was discovered to our universe recently... caused a bit of a scandal unfortunately." Uncorking one of the bottles, he dabs the green liquid within on one of the pieces of gauze.
"Please tell me this is still the fever dream," Sterling whispers shakily to himself. He shakes his head. "Look, this -- this is like a bloody movie t'me," he says, his expression a mix of disbelief and fear. "Foxes don't walk an' talk, an' they sure don't doctor..."
"I'm afraid it is no dream." Korvas says, carefully picking out bits of shrapnel from Sterling's legs while dabbing on the green liquid. It doens't sting; in fact, it feels rather cooling. "These are superficial for the most part, but best to prevent infection. I suspect you'd prefer to have both legs to start in this new world."
Sterling's hand reaches toward the fox man as Korvas begins ministering to his wounds, but he takes it back quickly, holding it against his chest. "Er, yeah," he says. "I, er, I get blown up all the time." He stares intently at Korvas, watching the fox man work.
Korvas raises a bushy eyebrow at this. "Soldier?" he inquires, getting the shrapnel bits out and continuing to clean the wounds.
Sterling nods, his gaze locked on the furry hands. "Yeh, I'm a soldier. I expected t'get killed in my line o'work one day, but I guess I never expected t'wind up in ..." He looks up at Korvas' face. "You reckon this is ... I mean, mebbe I'm dead and this is ..." He shudders. "Figured it'd be hotter."
Korvas chuckles. "It isn't the afterlife, I assure you." he says, finishing with the wound cleaning and starting to apply dressings to protect them. "I think the term you're looking for is 'hell'? An interesting concept to be sure, and it does sound rather unpleasant."
Sterling nods emphatically, his eyes wide. "That's th'word," he replies. "An' people keep tellin' me I'm not dead and this ain't a fever dream. By people," he adds, "I mean talkin' spaceships and foxes, which t'me means somethin's really really wrong. Ain't no such thing where I come from. An' by 'where I come from' I mean the real world, not this..." he waves one hand in vague circles. "...this... whatever this place is." The waving hand clenches and he scowls at it.
"I believe the term the locals use is 'Ancient Expanse'." Korvas says. "Granted my world has not been too technologically advanced so I must admit that I was awed by some of the advances I have seen here. Though I still prefer my own two paws to these gadgets they have." he says, indicating the medical scanners.
Sterling frowns. "But there /is/ only one world," he insists, "an' it don't have talkin' spaceships or talkin' foxes in it!"
"Such I thought at one time... and I even thought there was one universe." Korvas says. "Now I have discovered there are infinite universes... clustered together... and here and there holes connect them." he says, finishing the dressings. "My understanding is a rather omnipotent race known as the Kamir meddled with the very fabric of space and time... some universes were completely destroyed. I'm afraid the one that contained the Earth you knew was one of them."
The soldier's jaw drops open for a moment, but he recovers quickly, sitting up abruptly. "Yer tryina tell me," he shouts, his face reddening, "not only am I in another /universe/, but my whole bloody /planet/ is gone?!"
"Let's say the version of it you knew is gone." Korvas says. "Though it is my understanding a rift was discovered that leads to another... 'version' of your world that is in a different universe. An alternate reality, so to speak. I believe the current year is around 2651." He says, stepping down off the stool and climbing up into a chair to sit. "I can not claim to understand all of it myself... I do know it requires a space vessel with a special device to move between them."
"This is insane," Sterling says. "I'm stuck in a sci-fi universe with talking foxes and spaceships and ..." He slides his left leg off the bed, on the side facing away from Korvas. "...and no pants." He sighs, deflating. "Are there /pants/ for me in this universe, oh kindly old fox?" He closes his eyes for a moment, muttering, "I've come unhinged, gotta be."
Korvas gets down out of the chair and heads over to a supply cabinet. Opening it he pulls out a pair of scrub pants. He offers them to Sterling. "Unfortunately this is all we have for the moment. I am a healer, not a tailor I'm afraid."
Sterling accepts the scrub pants, his expression one of resignation. "Thanks." He slips into the pants, sliding them carefully over the dressings, then gets slowly to his feet, testing his weight on his right leg. He gazes at Korvas. "I just wanna go home again," he says quietly. "Th' lads'n' me were in a pitched battle with the Rax... those guys're deadly. They'll need me. They need every hand they c'n get."
"I'm afraid they no longer exist... it is likely you would not exist either, if the rift had not grabbed you." Korvas says. "You are not the first... it is the same story all over."
"But I lived earlier than ... what'd you say ... twenny-six hun'red somethin'?" Sterling comes around the foot of the bed toward the fox man, his expression pleading. "We'd'a lived out our lives, long as they'd be, long before these aliens went an' wrecked ever'thin'!"
"Indeed... but in another reality... a reality that is closed forever as I understand it." Korvas says. "These Kamir I understand are not very popular because of it."
Sterling takes an unsteady step toward Korvas and reaches out a hand to steady himself against the bed. "Another reality..." he breathes, shaking his head. "It's just too mad," he concludes, sitting down on the corner of the mattress. "It's the stuff of stories, of make-believe." He looks around the room as if in search of something. "It can't be real."
"It is a valid question, to be sure. What is real? And what is fantasy?" Korvas says. "Reality is in the eye of the beholder... but reality is also where one finds one's self."
"Now yer startin' t'sound like a Buddhist or somethin'," Sterling says sourly. "Reality's what y'c'n touch and feel, what y'c'n take in yer hand and do somethin' with. An' I hate t'break it to ya, 'cos y'been so nice t'me, but talkin' foxes ain't what's real."
Korvas grins a bit. "Indeed.. just a short while ago, I didn't think humans could be real."
"Y'didn't --" Sterling stares, mouth agape, at the talking fox man. "But ... we ... an' you, with the ..." He groans, letting his face fall into his hands.
"Indeed... in my world, there were no humans... just Kirvir, like myself. The Idarans... the Myini." Korvas says.
Sterling lifts his head enough to keep his voice from being muffled. "Yer world's gone, too?" he asks quietly.
"Ah.. it is still there. Just across a rift, in another universe." Korvas says.
Sterling grunts, looking over at Korvas. "Yer lucky, then, eh?" He sits up straight. "There's gotta be a way to get back t'my home," he says. "I got here, didn't I? Assumin', o'course, that this is all really happenin', got to be a ... I dunno, a portal goin' th'other way? Some smart science guy'll know how t'send me home, right?"
"Depends on if the universe is still intact..." Korvas says. "My understanding is the one most have come from of your kind.. it is not."
"How can it not be intact if I came from there?" Sterling's brow furrows. "Okay, this portal thing grabs me from Brussels, 2012, and spits me out on a spaceship in ... whatever year this is. Someone can put me back where I came from, even if the place is gone /now/, 'cos it was not gone /then/." He squints his eyes shut. "I'm gettin' a headache."
"There are others who can explain it better than I..." Korvas says. "But many have tried, and have yet to find a solution."
Sterling nods slowly. He gets to his feet again. "I guess the best thing t'do for the minute is t'treat this place like it's real." He smiles faintly at Korvas. "Y'been real good t'me, an' I appreciate that. If I'm gonna find my way home, I better get t'talkin' t'somebody who knows all that geeky science stuff. D'ya know where I oughta start lookin'?"
"Perhaps Comorro, it is where many congregate." Korvas says. "I stopped there briefly during my travels."
"Comorro." Sterling repeats the name to familiarise himself with it. He walks back around the bed and picks up his ammo belt and sidearm, and begins buckling them back on. "How do I get there?" He remembers he's wearing scrub pants instead of his uniform trousers. "And do they sell trousers?"
"There is a shuttle you can hire from the field outside the city. It goes to most worlds." Korvas says. "And I belive there are quite a few tailor shops there."
"A word of caution, however, about Comorro. She forbids violence while aboard... she eats those who do not comply." Korvas adds.
"Shuttle, okay," Sterling nods absently. "What'm I gonna do for money?" he wonders aloud. "Waitaminute, who eats people?"
"Comorro is a living being." Korvas explains. "A very large living space ship."
Sterling's lips purse, as if he's about to ask, "What?" for what seems to him like the thousandth time. He pauses. "Living space ship," he repeats flatly. "Well, the old man said he was a space ship." He shakes his head. "Sterling, yer goin' mad again."
"I am sure that you may find employment." Korvas says. "Comorro is the best place to start."
Sterling arches an eyebrow. "The space ship that's gonna eat me, y'mean."
Korvas grins. "Only if you violate her laws." he says.
"Okay, assumin' I'm okay with getting aboard a live space ship," Sterling replies, "which is damn creepy for a fella from my neck o' th'woods, an' assumin' these laws're posted where a body c'n see 'em easy, that's ... that's a plan." He frowns. "It costs t'hire the shuttle, though, yeah?" He collects his wallet from the stand that also held his ammo belt and opens it. He holds up a ten Euro bill. "Don't suppose this is legal tender here, eh?"
"Ah, it is free to use." Korvas says. "Though that currency may find value to someone... I would try the bazaar."
Sterling's eyes widen in surprise. "Free? Heh, there's a perk." He replaces the bill and tucks his wallet in his shirt pocket. "You sure this Comorro don't just eat people at random?"
"I'm fairly sure." Korvas says with a smile.
Sterling walks back around the bed toward Korvas and extends his hand. "Thanks," he says simply.
Korvas takes the offered hand in his paw to give it a shake. "You are welcome. Should you have any issues with your wounds, do not hesitate to return."