Apriltober 2022 23 Salsa part 4
a/n: Dr. Karen explains thing but Rina is still not getting it.
All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but not these three noodles.
Rina was convinced that Dr. Karen had waited for her to have a mouthful of beer before giving that particular answer. Roo helped mop up the mess, but his pitiful bar napkin wasn't doing much good. Rina had sprayed most of the table like a fire hose and had sent her bottle flying as well. The server swooped over with bar rag to attack the puddle, which gave Roo a chance to thump Rina's back as she coughed and choked. Through it all, Dr. Karen sat serenely, nibbling a chip. She had planned this, Rina was sure, and she was enjoying it.
"Don't do that!" Rina finally sputtered.
"Do what?" Dr. Karen said. She thanked the server, offered another preliminary tip (a large one, just as Rina had taught her), and ordered a fresh round.
"That! Just say things like whatever you just said."
"About me being bad at trivia night?"
"NO." Rina glared at her, eyes still watering from inhaling almost as much beer as she'd spat out.
Dr. Karen laughed finally. "I haven't told you that story?"
"No, you have not. What do you mean: dead? Do you mean you were frozen earlier than the rest of us for some reason?"
Roo had retreated into his beer bottle, peering through the neck with first one eye and then the other. Rina tried to calm down.
"It's fairly simple. I was one of the first people processed as a passenger for the mission. It was a prototype method and I was a guinea pig, not that I realized that at the time. I just thought it was a very all-inclusive spa that came with an MRI."
Rina goggled at her.
"Hair, nails, cucumber slices, complete atomic scan of the body. And exfoliation."
"You're joking."
Dr. Karen laughed again. "I am."
"So you didn't die."
"But I did."
Rina couldn't help but growl. Dr. Karen looked over at Roo, now almost completely ignoring the rest of the table, and sighed. She started to speak gently, positively, like a doctor giving bad but not terminal news. "It was indeed a prototype program. I thought it was an MRI to help diagnose my stress headaches. The scan must have worked because here I am. Unfortunately the headaches turned out to be an embolism and I never made it out of the clinic. At least that's what they told me when they revived me."
Rina shook her head like a confused dog. She glanced at Dr. Karen and couldn't sense that she was pulling her leg. Dr. Karen continued. "That was back in 2043, like I said. They didn't restore me until shortly before the crash."
Rina waved madly at their server. "Can we get our order over here?!"
Dr. Karen looked at her skeptically. "Are you planning to toast the crash?"
Rina felt she needed speak carefully. The previous rounds had left her more than a little dizzy, and she wasn't sure how much she had understood about Dr. Karen's news. "No, you are going to explain how you went from dead to here, and I'm not doing it without another beer."
Roo surfaced long enough to give a fervent nod of agreement.
a/n: Busy weekend, maybe finish this set tomorrow.
Next up: More salsa. Hey, can we get a fresh basket of chips over here?