VOYAGERS! - The Voyager Chronicles
REBELLION - BOOK 7
(Sequel to Old Friends, New Beginnings)
By DA Daugherty(VoyagersFan)
December 2011
Previous disclaimers apply

Chapter 3 – DOCTORS AND NURSES AND TESTS… OH MY!

Within minutes, Susan and Bogg had arrived at Voyager Medical. Once inside, two med techs strapped the noticeably shaken up voyager to a gurney and without pause, whisked him through a set of double doors marked "Examination." For the next two hours and much to his chagrin, he would be poked, prodded and visually examined from head to toe by a number of highly trained, specialized medical professionals.

As Bogg lay tethered to a gurney in the exam room unable to escape the clutches of Voyager Medical's best medical team, the door suddenly opened and a tall man in his mid-forties came into the room. He was sporting a crisp white lab coat which was accented by a black stethoscope conveniently draped around his neck like a feather boa.

"Mr. Bogg I presume?"

"Yes, I'm Bogg."

"Mr. Bogg, I'm Doctor Neumann. I understand you are a bit under the weather so to speak."

"Well, I guess you could say that." Bogg quipped.

"Hmmm. It says here in your medical chart that you have experienced an episode of amnesia."

"I don't have amnesia, doc. I've just lost my memory."

Dr Newmann put his hand over his mouth in an attempt to suppress his laughter.

"So, Mr. Bogg, you think you've lost your memory. Do you know how it happened?"

"All I know is my colleague Susan said I had a son and I couldn't even remember his name."

Anticipating that this was going to be a rather involved examination, Dr. Neumann pulled a nearby stool up to the side of the gurney and sat down on it.

"Mr. Bogg, I'm gonna ask you a few questions in hopes that we may get to root cause of your problem."

"Ok, doc."

"First. Have you experienced any sort of head trauma in the last few days?"

"Nope, none that I can remember."

"Have you ever had a concussion?"

"Well…uh…yes." Bogg replied with some hesitation.

"Tell me about it."

"You see, I was with these two beautiful snow bunnies out on the ski slope…"

"Snow bunnies?" Dr. Neumann asked curiously.

"Yea, beautiful ones. Anyway, Jeff got into a bit of trouble, so I took off down the slope to help him."

"Then what happened?" The doctor asked.

"Well, you see…uh…umm… I couldn't stop…and…uh…"

"Let me guess…" The doctor replied. "You ran into something."

"Yea, you could say that…" Bogg said, somewhat embarrassed. "I ran smack dab into a tree."

"Ok… can you tell me how long it's been since that occurred?"

"Oh, I'd say around 5 or 6 months or so."

"I take it you have fully recovered from the incident. Have you noticed anything unusual since it occurred?"

"Nope… I've been just fine up until today."

"Have you been eating well and getting enough rest?"

"Yes sir."

"Have you had any problems with your vision lately?"

"Nope. I can see just fine."

Dr. Newmann quickly held three fingers up in front of Bogg's face.

"How many fingers do you see?"

"Three."

At this point in the examination, Dr. Neumann stood up and leaned over his patient as he took out his penlight and looked at both of Bogg's eyes.

"Hmmm… that looks good."

"Do you have a history of having really bad headaches?"

"Only when my son is around." Bogg replied with a cheesy grin.

"Other than that, do you ever suffer from headaches?"

"Nope, not at all."

"What about nosebleeds? Do you ever have them?"

"No."

The doctor paused for a moment and thumbed through Bogg's medical chart. After turning a few pages, he stopped on the next one and began reading what was written on it.

"Your blood pressure looks good… Temperature is normal. Reflexes are excellent… There's no sign of bruising or trauma… No broken bones or open wounds…"

"So what's the verdict, doc?" Bogg asked.

"I'd say from the looks of it, you are healthy as a horse." Dr. Neumann replied. "But we've still got this little matter of your bout of amnesia to attend to. I think I'll order a full lab series on you as well as a complete brain work-up. The results should give us some idea as to what caused your amnesia and how we should proceed with treatment."

"That sounds like it will hurt." Bogg stated somewhat nervously. "I want you to know, I am highly allergic to needles."

"Mr. Bogg, the scans won't hurt a bit." Dr. Neumann reassured. "Now as for the other tests… well… you just don't worry about those. Ok?"

"I knew it!" Bogg exclaimed. "I told Susan if she brought me here, I'd be harpooned like a whale."

Dr. Neumann began to chuckle. "Mr. Bogg. I hate to disappoint you, but we did away with harpooning our patients a long time ago. We just lost too many patients that way. We'd leave the room to grab the harpoon and by the time we returned, the patient was gone. We determined that treatment was just too effective. We also stopped using leeches, waiving old dried up bones in the air over our patients as well as shaking gourds and chanting. As a matter of fact, our last witch doctor fled the scene many years ago. I believe he now works in Omni R & D."

"Funny doc… You should have been a comedian."

"I knew I missed my true calling." Dr. Neumann teased. "You just try to relax and rest. Someone from the lab will be by in a moment."

Dr. Neumann left the room and a few minutes later a med tech arrived on the scene. He walked into the room, pushing a small cart of supplies.

"Mr. Bogg, I'm from the lab. I need to get some blood from you."

"Oh no, here it comes." Bogg mumbled. "I'll be oozing blubber like a harpooned whale."

The med tech rifled through the myriad of supplies on his cart until he found what he needed.

"Oh, found one…"

He then attached the somewhat intimidating needle to an empty hypodermic syringe and held it up in the air like a trophy. He flipped the needle cap off into the floor and made his way over to his intended victim.

"Mr. Bogg, if you will hold out your arm and make a fist, I'll try to make this as quick and painless as possible."

"How long have you actually been harpooning people?" Bogg asked nervously. "I mean, have you been fully trained in this sort of thing? I just don't want any ol' person poking holes in me."

As the med tech pressed on Bogg's arm in an attempt to find a suitable vein, he laughed a bit and then set the record straight.

"Mr. Bogg, I have been poking people for more years than I can count. I assure you I have been thoroughly and extensively trained in this procedure. Not once have I ever missed my intended target."

"Target?" Bogg exclaimed. "Hey, this is my arm we're talking about… I'm not here for target practice you know."

Suddenly, the med tech forewarned his victim of what was about to take place.

"Ok, Mr. Bogg. You're gonna feel a little stick."

"It better be 'a little stick'" Bogg warned.

"Eeeeooooowwww!" Bogg yelled. "That was far from a little stick! Ouch! That hurts!"

"Mr. Bogg, you need to relax." He urged. "If you tense up, it will make it hurt ten times worse."

"Don't you worry about how relaxed I am!" Bogg exclaimed in a stressed tone. "You just hurry up and get what you need and get outta there."

At that moment, the med tech removed the needle from Bogg's arm. "I'm done. You can have your arm back now."

"Geeze…is there anything left of it. Owwww…that hurt!" Bogg said as he winced in pain.

The med tech gathered his supplies and left the room, pushing his cart in front of him. Once he was out of earshot, Bogg grabbed his arm and moaned in pain. As he continued to cradle his tender arm to relieve his agony, two more med techs appeared at the door and walked inside.

"Mr. Bogg. We are here to take you down to the imaging department for your scans." One of the med techs announced as she pulled up the protective rails on the gurney.

"This is not gonna hurt, is it?" Bogg asked.

"Nope, not at all, Mr. Bogg." The second med tech replied. "They just put you on this table and put a thing over your head that looks like a football helmet and shove you into this long tube. It's a bit dark and claustrophobic, but it doesn't hurt at all."

"Ok, then. As long as there are no needles involved, you can take me." Bogg commanded.

The two rolled the Voyager down to the imaging department. After what seemed like an eternity of feeling like the filling inside of a Twinkie, Bogg returned to the exam room and waited for his next bit of torture.

For the next two hours, Bogg was subjected to things that even he couldn't even imagine. Every five minutes or so, someone was coming into his room, wanting some bit of his mind or body.

"Mr. Bogg, stick out your tongue and say aaaaaahhhhh."

"Wake up Mr. Bogg; we need you to blow into this tube so we can assess your lung function."

"Mr. Bogg, we just need a teensy weensy bit more blood for another lab test."

"Mr. Bogg can we get a urine sample?"

"Mr. Bogg. I'm sorry, but I need to swab of the inside of your nose."

"Mr. Bogg. I need to palpate your feet to look for any swelling."

"Mr. Bogg. We need to do an EKG. That chest hair will have to go.

Even as taxing and irritating as these things were, nothing had prepared him for what was yet to come. As Bogg began to doze off from sheer exhaustion, another med tech came walking through the door. Once inside, he looked around the room and then closed the door behind him.

"Mr. Bogg. Wake up!"

Bogg moaned and then opened his eyes.

"Ok, now what? More blood? A strand of hair? No…let me guess, you want me to stand on my head while you take my blood pressure." Bogg quipped sarcastically.

"No, nothing like that. I'm here to do a DRE on you." The med tech announced confidently.

"A DRE? What's that?" Bogg asked curiously.

"A digital rectal exam of course." The med tech replied. "The doctor wants your prostate checked."

"Wait a minute…I've lost my memory. What's my prostate got to do with it?" Bogg asked as he suddenly flinched at the thought.

"I don't know but I'm not the doctor here. I just do what I'm told and I was told to come and do the exam. Now, if you'll quit asking silly questions, we'll get on with this. If you would, please I need you to drop your trousers and roll over on your side." The med tech barked as he quickly snapped a glove over his right hand and pointed his finger toward the ceiling."

"Oh no! No…no…noooooo!" Bogg exclaimed as he slowly nodded his head in disagreement. "You people have poked me, bled me, hammered me, squeezed me, swabbed me, plucked me and if that wasn't enough you've grilled me for information. And up 'till now, I've been very cooperative in light of all the pain I've had to endure. But this! I don't think so… I really don't think so."

"So Mr. Bogg, you are refusing to submit to this exam?" The med tech asked impatiently.

"You got that right!" Bogg exclaimed. "Nothing personal, but your finger ain't goin' nowhere near where the sun don't shine! Got it! If the doctor wants to check out that part of my body; he'll just have to take a picture."

"Ok, have it your way. I'll let Dr. Neumann know." The med tech replied as he removed his glove and left the room.

"You be sure and do that." Bogg mumbled to himself.

With the first round of tests having been completed, Bogg, who was left totally exhausted from the whole ordeal, had been transferred from the exam room into his own private room. Within minutes of his arrival, he was lying comfortably in his bed and had fallen fast asleep. In the hallway just outside his room, Susan had met up with Dr. Neumann and had all but started an inquisition of her own.

"Doctor, do you know what's happened to Phineas?" Susan whispered as she peeped inside to see if Bogg was still sleeping.

"Well, yes and no. At this point, the findings are pretty much preliminary. However, I can tell you this. Mr. Bogg here is healthy as a horse. I can't find anything physically wrong with him. But mentally, that's a different story."

"What do you mean?"

"It seems as though your colleague has suffered from some form of acute memory loss. We've ran several brain scans on him and the preliminary findings confirm this. It's as if certain memories from his past have just been lifted from his brain.

"Lifted?" Susan asked curiously. "I don't understand."

"Lifted is one term for it. One can just as easily use the term 'erased' as well."

"Erased? How could that happen?" Susan asked.

"In most circumstances, memory loss can be attributed to some sort of blunt force trauma to the skull. That is not the case here. There's no sign of trauma anywhere on Mr. Bogg's person."

"Ok, so if he's not been physically hurt, how could his memories have just disappeared?"

"Memory loss can be caused by other factors." Dr. Neumann replied. "Occasionally, some medications can cause a person to lose their memory."

"Phineas hasn't been on any medications." Susan said pointedly. "Matter of fact, he really doesn't like going to doctors at all."

"It must be their bedside manner." Dr. Neumann mumbled to himself.

A puzzled look came over Susan's face. "Excuse me. I didn't quite get that."

"I said it must be their bedside manner." He repeated as his cheeks took on a rosy glow. "I'm sorry, I was going for a bit of humor there."

"Oh, umm…ok." Susan acknowledged.

"Has he recently experienced any sort of traumatic loss? Usually when a traumatic event occurs in one's life, this can cause the brain to literally shutdown and block the memories associated with the event."

"He has had nothing like that happen to him." Susan responded. "So if it wasn't caused by any of this, then what has caused his loss of memory?"

"There is…one other cause that I haven't mentioned." Dr. Neumann said as he rubbed his chin. "His memory loss could have been caused by changes in his timeline."

"Timeline changes?" Susan said in disbelief. "That means…"

"Someone, specifically someone with an omni has gone back to some point in Mr. Bogg's past and made unauthorized changes to his timeline."

Susan touched her lip with her finger, a bit shaken up by the obvious.

"Someone like… that devious Drake." She mumbled to herself.

"What?" The doctor asked.

"Oh, sorry! I was just thinking out loud." Susan replied.

At this point, Dr. Neumann reached over and grabbed Bogg's medical chart from the wall. After thumbing through its pages for a time, he came upon the results of the brain scans that had been performed earlier. For a moment, he skimmed through the data hoping to further confirm his suspicions.

"Hmm… there are some indications of temporal flux here."

"Temporal flux?" Susan asked curiously. "What's that?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Temporal flux is the technical term for it. Let's just say there are indications of timeline changes in the memory patterns of Mr. Bogg's brain.

"So doctor, if in fact someone has made changes to his timeline, causing his original memories to be erased and/or rewritten, why is it that he can still recall bits and pieces of some of those memories?"

"It's like this. The human brain is a very complex organ. We as clinicians have a pretty good understanding of how it functions, but there are some aspects of it that are still unknown. The problem is, just when you think you've figured out the basics of how it functions, someone throws in the time travel piece and things really get interesting."

"Ok, I understand that the ability to change the timeline introduces a whole new set of rules when dealing with the brain, but doctor, I still don't understand. How is he able to remember bits of those erased memories?"

"I'm sorry. I got off track there for a moment. You see, sometimes, when a person suffers from memory loss due to a change in their timeline, some of the memories are not totally erased or replaced with new ones. There are some areas of the brain that are only partially lifted or erased. In these cases, the person can, with some prompting, recall some of the memories which existed before the change. These are called phantom memories. It's like when you go somewhere for the first time and then feel as if you've been there before."

"Déjà vu." Susan prompted.

"Yes, now you grasp it." Dr. Neumann acknowledged.

"So doctor, where do we go from here?"

"For now, Mr. Bogg needs to rest and regain his strength."

"What can I do to help?" She asked eagerly.

"The best thing you can do for him at this point is to try and figure out what caused the changes to his timeline." Once you determine that, we'll be one step closer to resolving Mr. Bogg's memory loss."

"I don't have any idea where to start with this one. This is a mystery without many clues."

"Well, maybe I can help you there." He reassured. "You know, the entire time that Mr. Bogg has been here, he's been repeating this one name over and over."

"Jeffrey?" Susan asked.

Dr. Neumann was stunned. "Yes, how did you know?"

"Jeffrey is his son." Susan explained. "He is also a Voyager and Phineas' partner. They went everywhere together. But when I met Phineas at the elevator at Voyager Headquarters, he was not with him. Not only that, but he had all but forgotten about him."

"Let that be your first clue." Dr. Neumann acknowledged. "Find Jeffrey and I'd say you'll be one step closer to solving this mystery."

"But what about Phineas?" Susan asked with a note of concern in her voice. "I can't just leave him here."

"Susan, Mr. Bogg will be fine." He reassured. "As I said, he needs to rest and regain his strength. The shock of all this has been way too much for him. The staff here will watch over him and see to his needs. You just need to concentrate on finding Jeffrey."

"Thank you doctor." She replied. "I think I'll check on him before I go. If that's ok."

"Sure, go ahead. If I can help you in any way, you know where to look me up."

Susan turned and walked slowly through the door to Bogg's room, her eyes firmly affixed on her former love as she made her way ever closer to him. Upon arriving at his bedside, she reached down and affectionately clasped his hand in her own.

"Phineas, don't you worry about Jeffrey." She whispered. "You just rest and get your strength back. I'll find him and figure out what's happened."

After touching the corner of her eye briefly with her knuckle, she leaned over and lightly kissed Bogg on the forehead. With this, she lowered his hand and placed it on the bed at his side.

As she started to leave the room, her mind was already working at top speed attempting to figure out what to do next.

"Hmmmm…" She whispered to herself. "From the looks of things, I'd say I'm gonna need some help with this one and I know just the person to talk to.