Unreasonable
Chapter 2: Interruption
By Yumegari and LRH
The road to consciousness was apparently a long and hard one, as he sighed and stirred sluggishly, then fell still again. He made a quiet Mmffh... sound and managed to bring one hand up to the side of his head, but fell still again, the hand resting against his face. The place was silent save for the ticking of a clock somewhere, and so the sound she heard next was disproportionately loud, and yanked her attention to a point behind her, where she was treated to an extreme close-up of a red and black and silver ... thing that spoke cheerfully: "Hey, you already knocked him out for me. Looks like half my job here is done!"
Startled, she spun around, the arms arching to fend off the sudden intruder. "Spider-Man!" she gasped, backing away from the hero, who was hanging upside down from the ceiling. She bumped into the table, and one actuator steadied it before it could teeter and tip.
"The one and only," came the reply as he righted himself, landing soundlessly on the floor. "Though usually that's his line," he continued, straightening and indicating Octavius' sluggishly moving form. "And usually the hostages are a little happier to see me." He shrugged and approached the table, hands cocked to possibly bind the other with webbing. "Still, I'm not gonna look a gift villain in the mouth. Just step aside and I'll tie him up and drag him out of here. Hey, maybe they'll even let you keep those arms as a souvenir."
Octavius' eyes flew open at the sound of his enemy's voice, though in his drugged state, he couldn't focus on its owner no matter how garishly clad the little pipsqueak was. He struggled to rise, breathing hard in an attempt to clear his head, pushing himself up on shaking arms.
Clair turned back to her patient, helping him up to a sitting position. "Careful, now." Almost incidentally, the arms spread out in a loose wall between him and Spider-Man.
This brought the arachnid in question up a little short and he stopped, his loose-spined posture the very picture of blinking confusion. He pointed. "I think you have things a little confused, lady. Your line's Oh, help, save me, Spider-man, and I drag the bad guy, who kidnapped you, in case you forgot, out of here, and you go home."
"Is there no place that's safe from your incessant prattling?!" Octavius demanded, shaking off Clair's hands and fixing a glare on Spider-man.
Clair looked over her shoulder at Spider-Man. "I know this is an odd situation, but we're in the middle of something." She looked around for the sample and found that an actuator was still holding it. "I'm going to get this started. About an hour, and I can complete the procedure. Can we have that much time?"
Apparently that request completely derailed Spider-man's train of thought. One finger in the air, he looked about to say something, but stopped. He looked about to say something else, and stopped. "What're you, his doctor?" he finally asked, all attempts at his usual heroism lost in the confusion.
She considered her answer. "He brought me here to help him with something. He helped me first, I'm helping him." She walked past Spider-Man to take the sample out to the microscope in the lab, getting out the micropipette once more. "And I'm not done yet." She resisted the sudden urge to add "please come back later," and merely giggled instead, slightly hysterical.
This left Spider-man alone in the kitchen of his worst enemy, one hand still up. He turned to look at Octavius. Octavius, who'd come round almost completely by now, grinned an evil grin. "Well," he said, his hands curling round the edge of the table, "If I'm forced to wait for this procedure to be completed, I might as well take care of a few things while I've got the time!" With that he lunged forward, throwing himself bodily toward Spider-man. Spidey, however, would have seen this coming from a mile away, Spider-senses or no, and webbed Octavius, turning and continuing the other man's momentum for him and sending him crashing over the breakfast bar island and against the sink and cupboards, sending the pots and pans that every kitchen seems to grow independently of its owner's habits clattering to the floor around him.
Leaving the sample under the microscope, Clair darted back into the kitchen at the noise and inserted herself between them without thinking. Protect the patient. "I just drilled a hole in his skull!" she growled at Spider-Man. "Could you avoid giving him a concussion?"
"Lady, get out of the way!" Spider-man hollered, just as Octavius roared from behind her, "Stand aside, girl!" A steak knife whipped past her head, missing it by millimeters and flipping her hair upward. Spider-man dodged it and sent a string of webbing darting past her.
She ducked, but the actuators struck out in both directions, blindly. "Stop it!" she screamed at them both.
Spider-man dodged, the actuator never even coming close to hitting him, and Octavius dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding a second hole in his skull. He climbed over the kitchen island and grabbed her from behind, his arms coming up under hers and crossing in front of her chest. "Hold still," he hissed in her ear. "This is the only way I can get my bearings and there's no guarantee it'll even work..."
She held still, her feet off the ground. "What are you doing?" she hissed back.
"You don't know how to use these things. I do...." he panted. Indeed, the actuators, now moving seemingly of their own accord, struck out at Spider-man with blinding speed, punching holes in the walls and floor as the blue-and red figure leaped and ducked. Octavius suddenly yanked her to one side as he dodged another stream of webbing.
Startled by the jerk, she extended one arm to catch them. It felt very, very odd to have him controlling them. She could feel it, like a limb gone to sleep. Almost, but not quite, painful. Pulled around like a puppet, she watched the two men fight, covering her head with her arms to protect herself.
Spider-man back-flipped out of the way of another actuator strike, but misjudged the close confines of the room and fetched up against the wall. Another actuator claw caught his ankle and lifted him, slamming him against the wall. He scrabbled for a grip on the metal tentacle and was slammed against the ceiling. Octavius backed up, pulling her with him, and threw his enemy against the floor, the actuator releasing him. Another actuator arrowed toward Spider-man's throat but he rolled out of the way at the last minute. A third cracked against the red-and-black-clad skull. But the fourth missed entirely and Spider-man grabbed it, swinging himself through the air on it even as it whipped through the air in an attempt to dislodge him. A web-line shot at the ceiling corrected Spider-man's course, and he sailed toward them in a flying kick.
Clair threw up her arms, and the upper two actuators, to fend off Spider-Man's kick. She couldn't fight him; he was Spider-Man, the hero. She tried to bring the actuators back under her control, backing her and Octavius into a corner.
As the actuators whipped upward at Clair's instinctive motion, one of them slapped Spider-man out of the air. Octavius tightened his grip on her, his arms almost squeezing the breath from her. "Don't interfere!" he hissed, his breath loud in her ear. It grew even louder and faster as he reasserted his control and the actuators shot forward, picking up the dazed Spider-man and once again slamming him against the floor where he lay still. Octavius laughed, a stringy, wheezing sound, and the actuators rose into the air, presumably for the kill.
"No!" Clair gasped. She concentrated on keeping the actuators away from the downed Spider-Man, focusing on them, digging her fingernails into Octavius's arms. "No, don't!"
The actuators wavered, their claws snapped, and then they curled inward. Octavius twitched, a choked sound escaping him, and his legs apparently went out from under him, as he dropped to the floor, still hanging onto her.
She pressed her advantage, bringing the actuators close enough that she could actually hold onto them with her flesh and blood arms, not daring to even think about anything else. She was breathing almost as hard as he was, she discovered.
His arms slipped from around her and a thump could be heard behind her. Silence descended again in the ruined kitchen, Spider-man's still form crumpled in a corner and chunks of plaster and wood littering the floor and the smashed table. A siren could be heard far away.
She uncurled slowly, letting go of the actuators and stretching them out. Immediately, she turned around to check on Octavius.
He lay in a heap on the floor, pale and still, chest heaving. Giving no indication that he knew she'd turned to look at him, he seemed unconscious. The fact that she'd regained control of the actuators seemed to attest this.
She paled, and then reclaimed some of her composure, moving him into a position where he could breathe easier and propping him up against a chunk of the ex-table before moving over to check on Spider-Man, who was still unconscious. She didn't dare move him, because she had no idea if anything had been broken while Octavius bashed him about. But his pulse was strong, and he was breathing alright.
Octavius stirred, forcing his eyes open. After taking in his surroundings, seeing the girl kneeling over Spider-man, his own actuators curled almost protectively around her, he allowed a sigh to escape him. "You're almost more trouble than you're worth, girl...." he muttered.
Her head shot up, and she smiled in relief to see him awake already. "Are you okay?" she asked, coming back to his side. "I was worried that I'd hurt you, somehow."
Again, he shot her an unreadable look, a puzzled one, maybe. "By wresting control from me like that, you nearly overloaded my synapses." He sighed again and rubbed his head, his hand slipping into his hair and pushing it back. He turned his head away again, as though gathering his thoughts. It looked like more and more of a task to do so every time. A beat, and then he hauled himself to his feet. "Let's get this done and over with," he growled quietly, staggering out of the room and to the laboratory.
She looked back at Spider-Man. "I've got to help him first," she said, hanging back. "You hurt him, and I can't tell if anything's broken or not because I don't know if he's even human or not." She felt very overwhelmed by all of this; superheros and actuators and brain surgery.
If he answered, she didn't hear it. Octavius stumbled into the lab, forcing himself to walk more steadily, to keep a straighter path. He wasn't going to stagger about. Finding another chair in a far corner of the room, he dropped into it, intent to wait. Suddenly, he found he could muster patience again, though part of his mind reckoned that was simply because he was too tired to be impatient. The chair was an overstuffed leather one, and he could remember sitting in it and maybe reading, a long time ago when the mood to do such things still used to take him. A vague thought wondering when the last time he'd read anything was slid into his mind, but slid out again just as easily as he closed his eyes and waited, listening to the soft, random sounds around him. He wondered if anything about his thinking would change once this neural restorative was injected. He wondered if he'd even notice.
Clair made Spider-Man as comfortable as she could, and then went into the lab. She didn't speak to Octavius as she sat down at the microscope, drew another minuscule amount of serum out of the Zombie Juice vial, and then, with tiny, precise movements of the actuators that took more physical effort than she would have believed possible, delivered the serum into several of the neurons. The change wasn't as drastic as it had been in the dead samples from the school, simply because these neurons hadn't died yet, but there was visible improvement. She sat back from the microscope, leaning unconsciously on one of the actuators. "It's working," she said in his direction.
"Nnnhh..." He forced his eyes open again to look at her. "Is it?" he muttered. He looked at the monitor screen, watching the neurons as they repaired themselves, their dendrites becoming more healthy looking, their colour changing slightly. He left the chair and crossed the room to look at them more closely, leaning over her shoulder, his hair brushing her neck.
She sat very still, distracted by his proximity and his hair on her neck. Which made no sense whatsoever. She found herself remembering suddenly that all she wore above the waist was the harness for his actuators. She shook herself mentally. "It's doing very well," she said, her voice sounding strangely high to her ears. "I want to let the entire sample get . . . infected, is I guess the best word, before I reintroduce it. My theory that a higher initial concentration will mean a greater chance of complete success." She grinned. "I can't believe it's finally working. I've been working on this project for years, straight from theory."
"How long?" he asked, though whether he asked how long she wanted to let the sample sit or how long she'd been slaving away at this project was unclear. He didn't move from his somewhat uncomfortably close position, and kept his attention on the screen. He seemed almost riveted by the image it presented.
"Five years," she murmured. "The basis for it, using a virus-like form to spread the working mechanism of it, was the subject of my Bach. thesis. I got the idea from a science fiction book," she admitted. "Oh. If you meant... I want the sample to wait at least thirty minutes."
"Mmfh," he said. "Five years." He seated himself on the stool and watched the display, almost as though he were ignoring her presence. He was still shirtless and his hair draped over his shoulders, its black colour almost disappearing into the shadows around him as evening darkened the room.
She stretched out one actuator and grabbed her sweater from where it lay under the table, draping it over her shoulders for what little concealment and warmth it provided. "It's not very long, I know, but it's most of my adult life. I was just a kid then, trying to apply fantasy to real life." On screen, the serum continued to spread. She dialed down the magnification so they could see more of the sample. Unprovoked, the thought popped up that, if he hadn't kidnapped her tonight, she'd probably be staring at failure number whatever right about now.
"And it looks as though you've succeeded with a minimum of adverse effect. Feel lucky," He growled softly, his eyes still on the screen. After a beat, however, he shifted his gaze and looked at her, finally taking a moment to take in her appearance.
She grew nervous under his regard, fiddling with the pipette to distract herself. It didn't help that she was so much smaller than him, barely five feet tall in her lab shoes, and bonily slender, due to a tendency to forget to eat during long hours (days) spent at a time in the lab. One accident in her sophomore year had taught her not to snack during experiments, and so she skipped meals more often that not. Her stomach ached now, as a matter of fact. She adjusted her glasses, bent in some incident that she had forgotten, and tried to get her long hair to behave and stay up in its bun. If she kept her hands busy and ignored him, maybe he would go back to ignoring her.
There were probably things he should be doing. Devices to build or research to do for his latest plot, perhaps. But, truth be told, other than this, he had no "latest plot." He'd been lost for as much as an idea as to what to do with himself after he escaped from prison the last time, after that fiasco with the Palestinian Foreign Minister. Days had become aimless and nights sleepless, even when he'd tried it the other way around. He foggily remembered some grand drive to take over the world ... or at least kill Spider-man. The thought that the aforementioned arachnid was still unconscious in his kitchen flickered through his mind. The thought that there was possibly something to drink in the kitchen as well also flickered through his mind. Both thoughts went ignored and he found himself, instead, gazing contemplatively at nothing and wondering why he hadn't that drive to conquer that he used to have.
Her stomach began to claim more and more of her attention as she watched Octavius and the neurons, and she found herself counting on her fingers how many hours it had been since the last time she'd eaten. She'd been too nervous before her lab evaluation yesterday morning, and she couldn't really remember if she'd done anything other than fall face first into bed once she got home last night. This morning she'd been in a hurry . . . Her stomach growled, making the whole endeavor academic. She was hungry. She blushed again, embarrassed, and busied herself tidying the medical cabinet that she'd gotten the supplies out of.
"Did you say something?" Octavius muttered disinterestedly, watching the display again. His eyes flicked to where she stood by the cabinet. Those actuators looked far too large for her and he considered reclaiming them if for no other reason than to spare himself such a ridiculous sight.
"No," she said, but her stomach repeated itself. "I'm just, ah, hungry." She slipped around him and out into the kitchen, where Spider-Man still hadn't moved. What were left of the cabinets yielded nothing, and she leaned back into the lab. "Do you have any food?"
Octavius spluttered for a moment, his attention torn from the microscope display. "Do I have any what?!"
"Food," she said, staying by the door. "I haven't eaten in two days. Do you have any? You do eat, right?"
"No, I'm some kind of a demon that lives off sheer malevolence and gum agar," he replied, standing and only briefly steadying himself against the table. "Of course I eat, you ridiculous girl." With that, he approached the doorway between laboratory and kitchen.
She backed up to let him past. "Stupid question, right. I just couldn't find anything. It's distracting, being this hungry, and I thought that you'd appreciate me not being distracted while I finish the procedure."
He walked into the kitchen, ignoring the unconscious superhero on the floor, and started opening cabinets and cupboards. He finally opened the refrigerator. He stopped, looking between all the open and decidedly option-less receptacles. The refrigerator held a jar of mayonnaise and a jar of pickles of the kind that every refrigerator grows independently of its owner's habits, and several bottles of water. The freezer yielded a few different kinds of meat of uncertain age and several bottles of alcohol.
"Do any of those look safe to eat to you?" she asked judiciously. "I'd rather drink the Zombie Juice." She picked up the jar of pickles carefully, checked the date on the lid, and took one out, sniffing it inconspicuously. She hated pickles.
One brow rose over the rim of his goggles. "You're the one who asked me if I had food. I should think you wouldn't be so picky." He went back to plundering the shelves and the cupboards.
She took a bite of the pickle and grimaced. "Which is why I'm eating this." She actually ate three, despite the fact that they were dill, which was worse than just being pickles. Her stomach appeased slightly, she looked back into the lab, at the monitor. "I think it's ready."
Octavius stopped and looked up, a can of soup in his hand. "You are a fickle one."
"I was starving," she defended herself, putting the jar back in the fridge.
He made an odd sort of harrumphing sound and tossed the can of soup in her direction. "It's all I can find apart from those pickles," he said, walking past her and stopping to stand over Spider-man's still unconscious form.
Clair picked up the can with an actuator and hunted around for a can opener, keeping an eye on Octavius. She was still worried about Spider-Man; he shouldn't have been unconscious for this long, unless the damage was serious, but she couldn't do anything for him that didn't involve simply picking him up and running from the building. She considered that, but the actuators that she was wearing were still a mostly unknown variable. For all she knew, he had a way to recall them or make them self-destruct or something.
He contemplated dumping Spider-man out the door, but he knew he'd just come right back in again. He'd tie him up, but there wasn't anything strong enough about the place to keep him bound. His gaze made its way back to Clair, and he watched her as she stood over his stove, preparing soup. It suddenly struck him that he vaguely remembered things like these, and that such a sight had always stirred up something positive, but it was so long ago. Too long ago.
Clair's mind wandered as she stirred the soup, and she looked over her shoulder at Octavius to find him watching her. She nodded slightly and touched her temple. "It doesn't hurt, does it? The drill point, I mean. It shouldn't, but I've never done it before, so..."
"Yes. But it's easily ignored," he replied. Saying that almost seemed to ... enervate him somewhat. As though simply stating his superiority served to remind him of it. He looked back down at Spider-man's still unconscious form again, then appeared to come to a decision, as he left the room, only to come back a moment later with another length of that same pliable cord and set to binding the other's hands and feet.
"Hey," she protested, then backed down. She remembered that Octavius had tried to kill Spider-Man only half an hour ago, but he didn't seem to be making another attempt now. "Be careful, at least. I don't think he has anything broken, but he really should have woken up by now."
"Hmph," was his reply as he tightened the binding. "He's bounced back from worse." He finished tying up his enemy and stood, smoothing his trousers and only then did he remember he was shirtless. He left the room again and returned, having already pulled his shirt over one arm, now tugging it onto the other. He stopped and leaned against the kitchen island, buttoning it.
She poured the soup into two only-slightly-chipped bowls and found two spoons, pushing one across the island to Octavius. "It's hot," she warned, waving her spoonful in the air to cool it. "It's a little burned, sorry. I haven't cooked anything more complicated than a pop tart in a long time."
Octavius eyed the bowl of soup for a moment before picking it up and swirling the spoon in it. He watched her blow on her spoonful and pop it in her mouth. Returning his attention to the broth and vegetables and little bits of meat, he slowly lifted a spoonful into his own mouth and wondered briefly when the last time he'd eaten had been. Silence descended over the room again.
She finished her soup quickly, scraping the bowl clean and handing it to an actuator to put it in the sink. She wasn't used to them, not by a long shot, but as long as she thought of them as very attentive and intuitive lab assistants, she could disassociate them from the needles in her back and make good use of them. He wasn't done with his soup yet, so she went back into the lab, checking the monitor. Every neuron that she could see was whole and healthy, and some were even sparking randomly, as healthy neurons do. She smiled broadly in the light of the screen.
He followed after her, still slurping contemplatively at the soup. Even now, food still held something of a comfort, however distant and unremarkable that comfort may be. He raised the bowl to his lips and drank, blinking over the rim at the microscope display.
Clair looked up at him, still smiling. "It's almost ahundred percentrevitalization rate. I never even imagined that it would work this well. This is, oh, this is incredible. I can't wait until Dr. Mitchells sees this."
Octavius put down the bowl of soup and looked at her. "What on earth makes you think he's going to see it?"
She froze, her smile fading. "When I go back..." She trailed off. She hadn't thought about this end of the situation at all. What would happen to her when he no longer needed her?
"Neither you nor this ... discovery will leave here. Did you honestly think I was going to simply let you go when this was finished?" he demanded, towering over her. His gaze flickered to the actuators, but he knew she wouldn't' be able to use them well enough to attack him.
She shrank back, fighting back a wave of hysteria that threatened everything. "I, I," she stuttered, but she couldn't think of anything to say. The world narrowed to one fact; she was going to die. "No," she whispered.
Octavius leaned forward and into her space. "Yes," he replied. "You've been quite useful, but once the procedure is finished, your usefulness will come to an end. You cannot leave here knowing what you know."
"No," she repeated, her head spinning. She couldn't think, or breathe. "No!" Shoving him aside with an actuator, she bolted for the door, flight her only option now. She wasn't going to die here, when she'd just succeeded. She couldn't.
With a growl, he lunged, his hands grasping for her, aiming to stop her. The actuators may have been strong, but she was still small and light enough for him to catch.
She screamed as his hands caught her leg. She couldn't concentrate well enough to use the actuators against him, but she kicked her free leg at him and tried to yank free. She fought desperately, trying to get away, get out.
He grabbed one of the actuators and pulled mightily, his other arm swinging round to wrap around her torso again, but her kicking overbalanced the both of them and he fell, bringing her down with him and landing atop her.
She struggled futilely, but he was too much larger then her. She stilled, breathing fast in panic.
His hands caught her wrists and pressed them against the floor, his snarling face only inches from hers. "Are you as slow as you appear?" he demanded. "Your first escape attempt was just as futile--one would think you'd have learnt from it!" As he lay atop her, immobilizing her, she could feel the intense heat he radiated.
She stared at him, panting. "I, I don't want to die," she breathed, only a step from crying. Her back hurt where the actuators pressed into it, and his weight was making it hard for her to breathe.
"No-one wants to die," he growled quietly, his gaze boring into her, even from behind the goggles. "The only difference is one's reason."
She was shaking, and she knew he'd be able to feel it. "I just reached it, the goal, succeeded," she babbled, hysteria breaking down the barriers. "I just did, just won, and you helped me, and now you're going to kill me? And no one will know I did it." The last was said quietly as she fought to bring her breathing back under control, fought not to just break down and cry.
He grew still at that, his hands still holding her wrists against the floor, but he no longer pushed her against it, no longer snarled. His face had grown expressionless again, and she could feel the actuators moving slowly under her, waving, snakelike, conveying the movement that he himself had somehow stilled. He looked at her, a long hard look as though seeing her in a new light.
She closed her eyes, turning her face away from his. "Dr. Mitchell will figure it out eventually, if he ever looks at the myelin," she said, mostly to herself. "But no one will know that it was mine, and I did it. My discoveries, and they worked. I did it." She clenched her fists, then released them, going completely limp.
He'd done it once: he'd afforded someone else the chance he'd never had. The chance to continue, unchanged. The chance to earn recognition for hard-won discoveries. He'd done it before and had been imprisoned for his trouble. Vilified. Yet... every attempt was a new one. Probability reset itself, never factored in the past when it came to success or failure. Mightn't this time... be different? Mightn't this time show Otto Octavius to the world instead of Doctor Octopus? Mightn't the simple fact that Spider-man hadn't meddled maybe alter the probable outcome? As absurd as it may sound, things had already followed a different course than usual now that they progressed without his influence. Perhaps they'd end differently, too.
He sat up, releasing her wrists, and stood slowly, his gaze never leaving her. "What would you do if I freed you?" he asked.
She sat up awkwardly, watching him to see if he was mocking her. But she couldn't read the goggles. "I'd run very far away, as fast as I could," she said honestly, rubbing her wrists.
"That much is obvious," he growled, walking away and approaching the microscope array again. "I mean after that. What would you do with what you knew? With what has happened here today?"
She got stiffly to her feet, but stayed where she was. Keeping her voice neutral despite the hope she felt, she said, "I'd recreate the experiment again, in a proper lab. Test it again, document all of it, and then I'd publish it."
"Mmm," he said, nodding. He leaned one hand against the table and turned slightly to look at her, though he said nothing. After a beat, he pushed a hand through his hair, as though in an attempt to bring its wild flowing strands under some kind of control.
"You're a scientist," she said, straightening. "You must know what I mean. It's all that matters. Discovery and recognition."
He turned to look at her fully now. "I can't decide whether you're mocking me or trying to curry favour," he said. "Neither is a very wise course of action."
"I'm doing neither," she said. Her glasses had fallen off at some point in the course of the failed escape, and her grey eyes were earnest. "You asked me what I would do. That's what, and why."
He remained still, staring into the distance. The initial adrenaline rush had worn off and he found himself struggling to push words to the fore of his mind again. Concepts flowed about, yet nothing crystallized. Nothing made itself coherent. He scowled heavily and turned to look at the display again. "Let's finish this. Then..." his voice dropped and he almost seemed to have to force the words out. "And then... you may go."
She smiled slightly in relief, and nodded a thank you. "I'll set up," she said, and headed out into the kitchen, finding the anesthesia pump and righting it, checking that nothing was broken. She set it up next to the kitchen counter, since the table was in pieces, then went back in and took the sample from under the microscope. "This is the easy part," she said, not looking at him. "I just have to reintroduce these."
He seemed not to look at her, either. "Very well," he said. "Just tell me where you plan on doing this now that the table's been destroyed."
She looked around, spotting the overstuffed chair that he'd been in earlier. 'The chair, there, would work. All I need is for your head to hold absolutely still. This one will be very fast, I promise."
He looked at her, then walked over to the chair and sat, watching her, waiting.
She got the anesthetic pump and set it up next to him, handing him the mask to put on for himself rather than touch him. "Lean back," she cautioned, drawing the tiny sample into the syringe, fresh from the autoclave. "And count back from ten." She looked up from her hands at him, smiling slightly.
He nodded and settled in, the mask over his face, and closed his eyes again. This time she could see that even more clearly as the angle of the light near her hit the goggles at a lateral angle, lighting underneath the lens somewhat. An ever-so-slightly curved line of black. "Ten..." he mumbled. "Nine... eight ... seven... six ... five ... ... four...." he trailed off after that, falling silent and still.
Pulling the lamp closer with an actuator, she pulled the band-aid off the original site. She handed the syringe off to the upper-right actuator while the upper left steadied his head carefully. Checked his pulse, and kept her fingers on his wrist while the actuator eased the needle into his skull, deposited its microscopic cargo, and withdrew. Less than a minute after he had gone under, she dialed down the anesthetic and sat back to wait for him to wake up.