CHAPTER TEN
Despair
Tomoe Tachibana
The victims of the Rosalia Virus cover the lawns of Resurgam First Care, leaving hardly any space for new patients. A cloud of activity surrounds the scene, bringing with it the sounds of people in agony.
Patients of all races, all ages, and all sizes litter the once well-kept rich green grass, now covered with crimson traces of vomited blood. Paramedics run from one patient to another, carrying heaps of tools: a variety of syringes, defibrillators and gauze. More and more patients have black triage tags, all lost to this futile race of life and death.
"We don't have enough spare interferon!" Nurse Emma Wilson cries to one of the other OR nurses. Patients are being carried in for emergency surgery every second, but dozens more are coming in by the minute. Time isn't something one can fight against; you can only attempt to beat it, but you will fail at some point. This is already hard enough to keep up with the amount of patients coming in.
"The hemorrhaging won't stop! I need more gauze!" Hank Freebird yells, kneeling over a bleeding patient, blood already pooling around his area on the grass. His hands work desperately hard to save the man and the other patients assigned to him, but even a hero has his limits. A hero acting on his own only acts in vain, he had once told Maria. But... there are others with him, so why isn't this going the right way?
"Hurry up with the AED! We need to keep this patient alive!" Gabriel Cunningham shouts, trying to stabilize his patient's heart using Maria's way, but failing. Gabe is aging, not as young as Maria and certainly not her strength and will to keep others alive.
"All right! Please transfer one patient out!" Tomoe Tachibana looks worriedly around the scene. How will we survive this? When will the others return? Her eyes flutter closed for one brief second and she takes a deep breath of the summer air tainted with the metallic smell of blood before returning the the half-dozen patients left in her care. I must follow the path of honor... I must follow the path of honor...
A rush of footsteps echo in her ears, and Darnell appears behind the young endoscopic surgeon. "Dr. Tachibana! We're ready to begin the operation!"
"Understood. I'll immediately…" Tomoe stands up quickly, and a wave of dizziness and nausea coats her mind. Having spent hours crouching by patients and watching them slip away, she tries to run after Darnell, but her shoes decide to disobey her commands and they slip together. Tripping over her own feet, the ninja girl falls toward the ground.
Suddenly, a hand grabs her, steady and strong, gripped firmly around her forearm. Tomoe steadies herself and stand up, wide, astonished eyes staring into the face of CR-S01, looking worriedly at her, but his scarlet eyes are intense all the same. His raven black locks are swept apart in the wind, eyes glazing from behind the veil of dark hair.
"I'm sorry! I...!" Tomoe stammers, quickly rising up straight. Shielded from the wind by the criminal doctor, she almost feels a sensation of peace, before swallowing down her stupid thoughts and remembering all the injured people out there.
"Just a little while longer," CR-S01 replies, knowing what is bothering her, but not knowing how to solve it. His eyes slide to the corners and he watches not the scattered patients across the field, but the horizon beyond it, waiting for his comrades to come back. Almost eight years in prison has taught him to be patient and optimistic, and that a savior will come one day.
"Huh?" Tomoe whispers, her face transforming into a completely different expression: one that makes her look several years younger than normal, one that seems softer than she actually is.
"They'll be back any minute now," he says fiercely, saying this for everyone, his words swept away by the wind, but not before Tomoe hears it. His head tilts towards the sky, and he adds perseveringly, "I'm sure of it!"
"Yes," Tomoe smiles, her old form coming back, and she takes a step towards the wide open doors of Resurgam First Care, towards the patients waiting for their turn to be operated on – but whether they live through it or not is something unknown, something to be found out in the future.
"Now, let's do this!" the doctor responds, and with determination in his voice, he follows Tomoe into the hospital.
Into the nightmare.
Inside the OR, CR-S01 stares at the charts in disbelief, shock rippling across his young face. "What? The infection is concentrated in both lungs?"
"It's impossible to tell for certain! We'll have to look!" Tomoe responds quickly, preparing her endoscope as CR-S01 continues to gawk at the charts.
"Yeah… but will we make it?" He asks the question on both of their minds, the question on everybody's mind, the question is still ebbing faintly in the unconscious patients' mind. Will we survive this war, or will we die mercilessly at the hands of fate and allow the disease to sweep through the rest of Earth and take whoever is left, throwing all our efforts into futileness?
"To win ninety-nine battles but to lose the one hundredth is not the way of honor!" Tomoe growls harshly, looking up from her set up endoscope. Closing her eyes gently, she whispers under her breath, a lasting prayer and a final message before the battle begins: "Father, I will prove to you the strength of my resolve." Then, her eyes snapping open, she calls, "Beginning the endoscopic surgery… Tachibana style!"
Tomoe inserts her endoscope, taking shallow breaths, forcing herself to calm down as she mutters, "Beginning the operation! Let's save her, no matter what!"
"Thankfully, we'll be able to treat at the bronchiole level using your endoscope." CR-S01 says, looking at the readout displayed clearly the screen. "Move through both lungs and find the areas that have been pathologically changed." His voice takes a more serious turn, fiercer and harsher than before. "Now, listen carefully. The colonies within the organ walls are not fully active yet. Spraying an antiviral drug on the colony before treating it will keep it from bursting. We must finish excising the focus while the antiviral drug is still in effect."
"Understood! We'll need to treat them the moment we find them!" Tomoe repeats like an obedient RONI, already beginning to move the endoscope through the maze of passages in the human body, specifically the lung.
The human body is truly amazing, Tomoe thinks as she navigates the endoscope through the easier parts of the lung. To be able to generate such a complicated system for all these things... but yet so vulnerable.
Almost immediately, they run into a colony, proving Tomoe's thoughts about vulnerability to be rather true.
"Virus colony found! Begin working on the extraction!" CR-S01 directs, mirroring Tomoe's mind.
Tomoe sprays the antiviral drug on the focus with nimble fingers at the controls. "The colony has become dormant! I'm going to begin extraction!"
"All right," says CR-S01, satisfied. "Inject the medicine to begin protuberation."
Tomoe does just that, using the long tube of her endoscope to inject the drug. "Now ready to begin the excision! Using the scalpel to begin detachment."
She slowly and carefully slices the top off the virus colony, which has turned green, almost like a ripe watermelon. "I must finish the detachment while the antiviral drug remains in effect," she murmurs to herself, keeping herself focused on the task at hand. Finally, her scalpel finishes its job. "Detachment complete. Retrieving the virus colony." Using the forceps of her endoscope, the arm snakes out and grabs the colony, retrieving it from the lung. "The colony has been retrieved! I'll begin searching for the next focus."
With CR-S01 by her side in the motionless fight, she moves on through the lung, but then quickly stops, eyes widening in shock. "What the…?"
The virus seems to be creating a series of affected areas, a scarlet path right to its secret lair. A bright red blood pool sticks to the lung, caused by the virus colonies. Tomoe uses her drain to extract it, then looks for the blood pool's source.
Weaving her way through the body with expertise, Tomoe finds an affected area: an ulcer. "Beginning treatment!" Tomoe quickly injects the antiviral drug, and the ulcer is treated, almost seeming to disappear into the unknowns it had come from. "Continuing with the procedure!"
Many blood pools and several ulcers later, Tomoe finally locates the cause of the disease, but by this time, her palms are sweaty, and her brain is foggy. Shaking her head slightly to clear it up, she takes deep breaths before going to treat the actual colony itself.
"It's the virus colony! Use the antiviral drug." CR-S01 directs. Tomoe does so quickly. "It needs to be detached now! Inject it with medicine to cause it to protuberate." Tomoe follows the orders, and the virus colony seems to swell up like a balloon, protuberating into the passageway. She then uses the scalpel to treat it as she did the first colony, repeating the steps in the same way as before, extracting the evil from the body forever.
Tomoe still searches desperately through the lung, using her hemostatic forceps to treat hemorrhaging, and the antiviral drug to treat affected areas. Soon, another colony is found.
"Begin working on the extraction!" Tomoe knows exactly what to do now, but tiredness has swept over her like a plague. Must... keep going...
"The more antiviral drug you spray, the longer it will remain in effect," CR-S01 advises, by her side until the final minute, whenever that will come, probably soon. "Look at the condition of the affected area and judge how much you'll need." As he says it, he alternates from glancing at the screen to shadows of other surgeons, wondering how they are doing.
First the antiviral spray, then the scalpel, then the forceps, and the virus colony is gone for good. "I will save her. I'm going to save her!" Tomoe tells herself, heaving a sigh of mixed agitation and relief. Then, louder, "The right lung has been treated! Moving on to the left lung."
Tomoe navigates her way back through the maze of passages, working her way over to the left lung.
"Ngh! Affected areas here, too!" CR-S01 groans, but stays with her. "Begin treating them immediately."
Tomoe follows the same procedure as before, and the bleeding soon stops, treated by the endoscope.
"The hemorrhaging's been stopped! Move on to the next treatment!" Tomoe calls.
As she finds her way through the left lung, she continually has to stop again and again to treat affected area after affected area. Blood pools, ulcers, all leading up to the thing they were looking for, and now…
"It's the virus colony! Use the antiviral drug!" Tomoe sprays the colony with the drug.
"It needs to be detached now! Inject it with medicine to cause it to protuberate!" CR-S01 tells her, but Tomoe is already ahead of him.
She quickly disposes of the virus colony. "No affected areas remain!" Here, at least, both doctors think grimly. "Moving on to the next area!"
Tomoe moves through the passages, and, many blood pools, several ulcers, and a few virus colonies later, feels that she is finally getting closer to the end of the operation, but guts alone won't save lives. "The colony extraction is going well. Hopefully, it'll continue to be this way."
"Right! Let's keep looking for any remaining colonies." CR-S01 replies evenly.
Tomoe backs the endoscope through the tunnels, and into one she hasn't been in yet, looking at the radar and the screen for affected areas. It's impossible to miss the next object that pops up, one so foreign and out of place, one no doctor has seen or treated yet...
"What? This…" Tomoe gasps, eyes glazing at the screen.
A ring of five virus colonies, each one black and red, protuberates into the lung. One single colony on its own is something everyone has gotten used to, but five is unheard of. How can something like this even exist? Tomoe and CR-S01 stare at the colony for a few solid seconds, unable to determine what to do with it.
"We'd gotten careless." CR-S01 growls, trying not to waste time. "I didn't even think such a blight could exist."
"Doctor, we should change this operation to a surgical procedure!" Tomoe cries. "If we can extract it whole, along with the surrounding tissue…"
"No!" CR-S01 interrupts, shaking his head to emphasize his point. "The endoscope is the best tool for precise treatment while avoiding stimulating the focus! A surgical procedure may cause it and the other colonies to all burst together!"
Tomoe sighs, gearing up for the intense operation ahead. "It may be hopeless, but we have no choice! Let's begin by spraying the antiviral drug."
Tomoe sprays the deactivator all around the virus colonies, then begins to inject an equal amount of antiviral spray into each. But as she injects the drug, the other colonies begin to protuberate, as well.
"Is the injection affecting the colonies nearby!" she asks, worried.
"It seems that they're connected within the wall of the organ." CR-S01 says. "If we don't take care with how much we inject, we could cause multiple bursts!"
Tomoe slowly and carefully injects the drug into the virus colony. The colony turns green, like the previous ones, but then, along with the other colonies, begins to change color… from green to red to black, and back to green again.
"What the? The colony's changing color?" CR-S01 exclaims. "Keep going, but be careful."
Tomoe carefully injects the drug, draining and injecting to balance out between the five colonies.
"It'll take a large dose of the medicine to make the entire colony rise up." CR-S01 instructs. "But the medicine affects the area around it as well. We'll have to estimate how much medicine to inject at any given time."
Tomoe gives the colony one last squeeze of drug. But then…
"This isn't good… the colony burst!" CR-S01 says urgently. The black liquid from inside the virus colony has spread throughout the inside of the tunnel. "Treat the affected areas that have formed, quickly!"
Tomoe quickly drains the blood and removes the ulcers, all the while cursing herself for her stupidity. "We've dealt with the first wave. Continuing the treatment!"
There seems to be no end to the wave of ulcers and blood spills, but Tomoe deals with them all, wielding her endoscope like the expert that she is. Soon, all the damage has been dealt with. "The new affected areas have been treated! I'll continue treating the large colony!"
Tomoe resprays the antiviral spray, then begins the puzzle of injecting the exact amount of drug into the colonies. Going more carefully this time, she slowly expands all of them until they protrude from the tunnel just enough to extract them. Then, she notices something.
"It seems that the medicine isn't wearing off when applied to this colony…"
But she has no time to find the answer to that question. Vitals are steadily dropping, and within minutes, she has finished the balancing act for the colonies.
"All right, the medicine's evenly distributed. Let's begin the excision!" CR-S01 says.
Tomoe carefully cuts around the virus colony, trying to avoid the tissue beneath. Finally, she succeeds with one. "It's been detached! I can't believe how large it is…" She continues her work, finally saying "I'm going to begin detaching the large colony! We have to be aware of the antiviral drug's effect." She continues cutting with her scalpel. "We're halfway through…we can't afford to make any mistakes." She tells herself, concentrating on the task at hand.
Thankfully, nothing else goes wrong when detaching the colony, and Tomoe soon says, "Excision complete! Retrieving the detached focus…"
She uses her forceps to individually snatch away each of the five foci, efficiently removing them from the tissue.
"Treatment complete!" CR-S01 says. "Did we do it?"
But he spoke too soon. Immediately, the walls of the lung begin to shake, almost dislodging the endoscope. "This…!" Tomoe cries. "Wait, something's coming!"
Then, she gasps. Her purple eyes open wide, taking in the awful scene before her. The entire tunnel seems to explode with the black liquid from the colonies. The walls are coated with it, and it leaves all sorts of cuts and ulcers in its wake.
"It's a chain reaction! Colonies are exploding everywhere!" CR-S01 calls.
"No!" Tomoe responds. "We can still do this! Prepare the antiviral drug!"
"Damn… this isn't good!" CR-S01 swears, trying to think of best case and worst case scenarios... neither are very good. "If this keeps up…"
"No, we can still do this!" Tomoe insists, eyes glazing wide at the screen, refusing to give up. I am a daughter of Tachibana... it's better to die fighting on my feet than to die powerless on my knees! "I'm not giving up!"
"Yeah… you're absolutely right. We must save her!" The doctor concedes.
Tomoe and CR-S01 stand side by side, anxiously watching the endoscope's progress. The handmade machine whirrs as it treats the colonies and ulcers.
"Ngh… please switch out the snare! Watch out for hemorrhaging!" Tomoe commands, hands briskly controlling the endoscope, tiring fast as the affected areas just come in by the dozens.
"Administer interferon! Watch the vitals!" CR-S01 directs, watching the endoscope's screen.
Tomoe stares down at the scene before her. A feeling of despair washes over her. How can we stop this?
"Please… Maria, Miss Kimishima. Please come back…" she whispers a silent prayer, unable to think of a future at a patient's side every minute...
Unheard by any, a phone inside the hospital begins to beep. A loud, insisting tone, it continues to ring until the answering machine picks up. A red light blinks urgently on the receiver. A voice comes through the speakers: "This is Maria Torres! Come in, over!"
Then comes silence, the eerie muted sound that was once a slender thread of hope but now discarded away.
I'M SORRY! I can't help it... Ayanna gave me a total of 109 words for the CR/Tomoe scene (YES WHOLE THING WRITTEN BY AYA, I JUST EDITED) and I just... um... booted it up a little bit. :) SORRY! You guys all know I worship Little Guy/Naomi, right? Well, I worship CR/Tomoe and CR/Maria as my crack pairings. (hey, count yourself thankful it's not something ridiculous like Esha/Sartre).
YAY WE REACHED THE DOUBLE DIGITS FOR PATIENT ZERO!
Word count: 3123. Fun.
~fk
