Also known as Mega Man: Under the Knife
Also known as Trauma Center: New Bot
Also known as 超執刀 時空研究所
Also kno- okay, I'll stop.
This gets really blunt and wooden during the surgery, but I guess it gives a medical air to it? I don't know, I just had to get this story out of my system.
Chronos Institute of Time-Space Research, Denver, Colorado
June 8, 20XX+1
"Here's to our Dr. Zaman Light, Time Man, for one year of service at the Institute!" Dr. Kouin raised a glass of cherry-flavored soda water. No one is allowed to be drunk or even buzzed before or while they're on the job.
"To Time Man!" Everyone else raised their glasses.
Time Man had one of the most genuine smiles on his face that he's ever had in his life. To be treated with such warmth and esteem, it filled him with a feeling of euphoria like none other. "Thank you all so much for the support you all gave me over this year. But more importantly, I want to thank you all for your impacts on me.
"To you, Serek Little, for your big heart. To you, Marleen Shire, for how helpful you were during operations. To you, Vanessa Dohman, for stepping up to assist me in operations most other doctors would give up on.
"To you, Maxi Matsumoto, for being a ray of sunshine in my darkest hours. To you, Sharise Najm, for keeping me from panicking when the pressure's put on me. To you, Zevier L'Omar, for showing me the beauty in all of life's creations.
"And lastly, I'd like to extend my thanks to both of the Kouins. To you, Jun Kouin, for learning to open your mind and becoming one of my greatest allies, and to you, Dr. Shou Kouin, for allowing me to join you all and build a better future together."
Time Man sat at his desk and read over the flyer for the Roboticists' Wired Conference. "So, you really do intend to show off the Improved Time Slow you implemented into me yesterday?"
"Imagine, Time Man, the power you hold inside you, made available to every doctor in the U.S., and eventually the world! Think of how many lives all around the country it can save!" Dr. Kouin dressed in his finest suit for the occasion.
"I know how exciting it is to you, doctor… But please make sure it doesn't leak into places it shouldn't. I know more than anyone that the Time Slow can be used for more than just helping. It can also be used to hurt."
"I don't think you should worry, this technology costs an arm and a leg! If President Bellamy didn't have the government put more of its funding into medical care, then most hospitals couldn't even afford it."
"People have their ways." Time Man gave him a serious look. "You didn't forget when Jun-"
"I haven't, Time Man, but I still think that's your cynicism talking. Something like that is less likely to happen again than you think." Dr. Kouin looked at his watch. "Oh, it's high time we leave."
"Are you sure there aren't any important operations I should do?"
"All that we have today is Ness's little brother D'Sean Dohman having an appendectomy, it's nothing that any doctor can't handle-"
"Time Man!" Jun ran into the room. "Y-You have to come quickly!"
"Dr. Kouin, you'll have to go to the RWC without me." Time Man stood up. "What is it, Jun?"
"It's D'Sean, he complained about his stomach-" In the blink of an eye, Time Man ran past the younger Kouin. His Time Slow had activated, racing to the operating room that he was last told D'Sean would have his surgery in.
"Time Man-" Ness was startled by Time Man's almost sudden appearance.
"Whoa, Time Man to the rescue!" Maxi smiled, glad that someone else came to help.
"What happened to D'Sean?!" Time Man's armor disappeared, a mist spraying over his body to disinfect himself.
"He collapsed, his appendix must have ruptured. The worst of it hasn't started but it will if we don't hurry."
"Damn it…" Time Man shook his head. "Let me make an important call. I need to tell my dad and two siblings."
"Make it quick." Ness pulled out a syringe of local anesthesia.
Time Man closed his eyes, sending out an audio call to Dr. Light's phone. He should be driving to the RWC with Rock and Roll. His van could take calls to the speaker so Rock and Roll would know too.
"Hello?" Dr. Light answered.
"Doctor, don't expect me to be there. An emergency just happened." Time Man spoke quickly, his stoic voice on the verge of panic.
"Wait, what's going on?"
"I had a little boy waiting for an appendectomy. Just a minute ago he complained about his stomach hurting before going into shock. His appendix burst!"
"Oh, no…"
"Doctor Kouin is going to be at the conference without me. Rock, Roll, I'm sorry that you won't get to see me there. That's all I need to tell you."
"I injected the anesthesia. You ready?" Ness turned to face Time Man.
"Okay. Let's begin the operation. Hang in there, D'Sean…" And Time Man hung up.
"You should know how to do a laparoscopic appendectomy, you got all that info in your head. But I don't think it'd hurt if we still tell you what to do, would it?" Ness stood on the opposite side of the table as Time Man, rubbing some antibiotic gel on the three spots she injected the local anesthesia.
"Yes, don't worry. I don't make mistakes unless someone was to sabotage me." A scalpel spawned in Time Man's hand before he made an incision in the first disinfected area, about an inch away from the navel. Next, a trocar appeared in his hand, which he inserted into the incision. He placed a scope attached to a video monitor within the trocar to make sure he was getting it through all the layers of the abdominal wall, into the abdominal cavity.
"Insufflation tubing." Time Man spoke simply.
"Here." Maxi inserted it into the trocar. The abdominal cavity began to inflate with gas, keeping it raised above the organs so it didn't get in the way.
Time Man placed the scope back in, moving the trocar around to adjust where in the abdomen he was looking. "There's already quite a bit of inflammation in the right lower quadrant."
"That's no good…" Ness took a scalpel from a tray, making two more incisions. "We'll need two more trocars for the tools."
"Alright, hold the scope then." Time Man spawned the trocars in his hands and inserted them into the incisions.
"You'll need to cut the omentum out of the way." Maxi turned the monitor in Time Man's direction so he could see what he was doing in there.
"Easy enough." In each hand, Time Man held a grasper. Inserting them into the two trocars, he carefully lifted some of the large intestines to the side with one grasper, lightly tearing at the fatty omentum covering the appendix with the other.
"There, the tip of the appendix is coming into view, just a little more!"
Time Man proceeded with dissecting out the appendix, pushing it to the right as he peeled off more and more of that fatty layer. His eyes caught something on the monitor just then.
"There's murky fluid right where the liver is…" Time Man picked up the pace with sweeping the omentum off.
"This infection was more serious than I thought. But worry about the fluid after we get the appendix out." Ness turned the scope around so Time Man would pay attention to the objective at hand.
Time Man obliged, still worried about what it's going to look like underneath the apron of fat as he swept it to the right.
It was just as bad as he thought. There was a lot of pus around the base of the appendix. Sweeping it over to the left, he lifted it with the grasper in his left hand before removing the grasper in his right hand.
"You can see where it burst right there," Maxi pointed to a red spot just under Time Man's grasper, "Along with the where the tissue's gone necrotic from the infection." Maxi pointed to the blackened tissue.
Time Man's hand spawned a stapling device, bringing it through the trocar to divide the appendix from the colon. This wasn't your ordinary stapler. Whenever it fired, it left a whole row of staples, more practical than stapling it one at a time. The staples allowed for the appendix to be torn away from the colon without incident. Another firing of the stapler divided the blood supply to the appendix, which allowed Time Man to pull it off completely.
"That's it!" Ness handed the extraction tool to Time Man. Temporarily removing the grasper, he inserted the bag into one of the trocars.
"Let's set the appendix to the side for now. We'll remove it from the body after the case." Time Man placed the appendix into the specimen retrieval bag and closed it tightly before removing the extraction tool, leaving just the strings to pull it out after the operation. The stapler disappeared from his hand before he was handed a drain by Maxi to suck out any blood and loosened staples from the staple line, as well as any pus that had been ejected from the rupture.
"Don't forget about the murky fluid. It might have developed in the pelvis as well." Maxi watched the monitor as the scope's position changed to the second trocar on the bottom.
"Yeah, right down there, past the small intestines…" Ness swiveled the scope to face the affected area.
"Maxi, go get a draining tube in case of any future buildup." Time Man picked his grasper back up to move the small intestines out of his way to drain the murky fluid and pus from the pelvis.
"Right behind you!" They handed one end of the tube to Time Man, who removed the drain and handed it to Maxi before he brought the tube through the trocar, pulling it down into the pelvis using the grasper.
"Alright, now to pull the strings of the bag out of one of the trocars and we can pull the appendix out." This operation was just about finished. Maxi twisted a plastic bulb onto the end of the tube that was sticking out of D'Sean's skin, squeezing it as it slowly filled back up and sucked out whatever built up in his pelvis.
After the trocars were removed, Ness pulled on the strings that stuck out of one of the incisions, pulling the appendix out in its little bag.
"D'Sean will have to stay here for four more days, but he'll make a full recovery." A needle and thread appeared in Time Man's hand as he sutured, disinfected, and bandaged the incisions. "Operation complete!"
"Thank you so much, Time Man. I'm sure D'Sean will be thankful to you as well." Ness removed her gloves and her mask, smiling warmly.
"It's what I do." Time Man's surgical scrubs disappeared. He had a smile of his own, one of pride.
"God bless your soul, Dr. Zaman!" Ness's mother, Ninette Dohman, gave Time Man a big hug, using the civilian name he introduced himself with.
"As soon as I heard I had to get there as fast as I could." He blushed.
"You're like a guardian angel coming in to save my baby, Ness is blessed to be working with you-" Ninette started to ramble on, holding onto Time Man tighter and tighter, he was starting to get warmer.
"I c-can't breathe…" He was beginning to overheat.
"Mama, let the poor man go." Ness laughed and unwrapped Time Man from the death grip her mother had on him.
"Oh, I'm sorry deary!"
Just then, Jun stuck her head in. "Dr. Zaman Light? Dr. Shou Kouin is still in the car, you still have time to-"
"I'm glad that I was able to get the surgery done this quick, but I'm still going to have to decline for now. A disaster could happen at any moment and I wouldn't want to leave you all short-staffed." Time Man started to walk out the door.
"That's what I expected you to say." Jun patted him on the back. "What're you going to do then?"
"Perhaps… meditate until I have another job to do." Time Man shrugged. "Don't be afraid to interrupt me."
Time Man sat down at his desk, looking at the picture that he and his colleagues took earlier during his brief anniversary party.
It's been one year working at the Institute already? Time flies like an arrow, huh? And so much happened during just that one year that it was uncanny.
Time Man looked at a peculiar object he kept in a glass case. The Time Stop that Wily implemented into him. Still broken, but they're finding a way to fix it.
His mind began to wander, back to those old days, back to how it all started, and everything that happened along the way…