The notice was succinct and ominous: "We have bad news for you. Please inform us when you are ready to hear it."
Faced with such a clear sign of Doom Incoming, Brynn proceeded with the plan of action she knew to be the most effective, most appropriate, and most practical of them all: she screamed, panicked, wailed, cried, assumed all of the plausible (and some implausible) WCS (Worst Case Scenarios) that could happen—maybe only one, maybe a hodgepodge, nightmarish combination of all of them—and forced Sam to make it all better.
"Oh, Fyora, this can't be happening, this can't be happening!" She wailed, her spinal fluid bubbling violently. "Somebody, please tell me this isn't happening!"
Sam promptly did as she was told. 'It isn't happening.'
"What do you mean it isn't happening?" Brynn spat, "It is happening! I just got an official notice from the Virtupets Medical Bay Staff, and as everybody knows, these guys don't mess around! Why did you tell me it isn't happening when the evidence is to the contrary?"
Indeed, how could she say it in the first place? Sam was a product of her Right Hemisphere—the Logic Center! All her specifics and functions should be leading her to the right conclusion: that this was well and truly happening!
What sort of reason could she possibly have to go against her nature and give her an ironic answer?
'Uh... because you told me to?'
Brynn's anger was quickly extinguished, the raging fire beaten out with the sheer force of Sam's bluntness.
"Oh. Right. Forget I said anything, okay?"
'Yes Boss.'
Somewhere, out there, Brynn felt a group of higher ups striking one for Sam, nil for her. She recovered quickly, though; now was the time to blindly assume the worst and terrify herself with the twisted, unreasonable machinations of her creative mind, not feel the amused scrutiny of the Higher Powers or the sting of being unintentionally one-upped by an infection/program.
"So..." Brynn said, still reeling from her latest failure in communication, "What do you think it is?"
'Hmm... well, given the very vague and universal nature of "Bad News", I'd have to say that maybe you're just in for a delay in getting your body rewired.'
Sam's answer was logical, plausible, and could very well be the Bad News the staff was talking about. After all, the Virtupets Medical Bay Staff were highly trained professionals; their majorly screwing up an operation was a fate left only to the most unlucky of people. But, since she had already had her precious, majorly expensive, golden Flip Side Token stolen from her (by one of the band members no less), COMPLETELY missed out on the concert she had paid so much for (and didn't even get the promised freebies with the Gold Token, to boot), suffered immense psychological and mental trauma from a HURK!BLARGH!-ing, come face-to-face with the Evil Fuzzles, was fondled inappropriately by an all too real figment of her imagination, paralyzed by her own idol, then had her brain stuffed into a jar due to complications from said paralysis, she felt that she was exactly the sort of unlucky Neopian to receive a Major Screw Up from Virtupets Medical Bay.
"That can't be it!" She said, "I'm way too unlucky to just get a short delay. It's something more horrible than that! I can just feel it. But what? What is it? I must know! The suspense is killing me!"
'Then why don't you just inform the staff that you're ready to hear it?'
Brynn was appalled. "Inform them that I'm ready to hear it? Inform them that I'm ready to hear it! Do you really think that I'm just going to go ahead and tell the staff that I'm ready for them to tell me the bad news despite the fact that I'm clearly not ready and am having a mental breakdown, to boot?"
'Yes.'
Brynn, in a split-second, whip-lashed to happiness. "Good! I'm so glad to see that you know me so well~"
With a few clicks, a mental note, and a press of the send button, Brynn's message to the staff was well on it's way.
Now all the two needed to do was wait patiently.
'So, now that we have some time to kill, would you kindly fill me in on how Flip Side deals with the Fan Girls during a crisis like this? Everyone seems to be very tight-lipped about it.'
"Oh, that? Well, that's pretty simple. It's surprisingly controversial once it ends, though."
Elsewhere on Neopia, Hanso "Shadow" Tremaine, Puck John "Pick" McDulley, (no first name given) "Animal" (no last name given), and a few very unfortunate Roadies were sitting at a table in Terror Mountain, gigantic lines of very angry fangirls in front of them.
"Hello... Melissa." Hanso said in his best "I'm really, truly, honestly sorry" voice, "I'm so sorry I had Brynn put on stage without prior notice or your consent." He then pulled the most beautiful puppy-dog eyes he could ever pull, complete with an inexplicable frame of sparkles and rose petals. "Could you ever forgive me?"
Melissa squealed. "Oh, of course I could, Shadow!"
Animal, Pick, and the unlucky Roadies squirmed in their seats as they braced for yet another round of "Why her and not me?" rants from their current fan-girl.
'So they just set up a table like that and they wait for hours in the freezing cold?'
"Yup. They did it after the Make a Wish Foundation episode and when Hanso lost a game of poker, so doubtless, they'll do it again."
'I don't even have actual emotional capabilities and I feel sorry for them... and Hanso just repeats that same script and they never know the difference?'
"Exactly."
'I might not be as logical and discerning as I thought...'
"Don't worry Sam; we fangirls are usually BEYOND all logic."
'I see. Fascinating.'
Pause.
Brynn sighed. "It's talking them an awfully long time to get here..."
'It might be because of the lack of living personnel here. Fragile or controversial news really shouldn't be handled by medical drones.'
"Good point... wait, why didn't they just send Xandra to tell me that? Surely she could process that into something less blunt than a drone's monotone!"
'She could be busy, Boss.'
"With what, exactly?"
In the private visitor's lounge bathroom outside Brynn's room, Xandra was lying down in an empty bathtub, a giant bowl of jelly-beans within arms-reach, GooTooth in her ear, mouthfuls of jelly beans in her mouth, drool coming out the sides of said mouth, and a very, very angry This Other Kingdom Records investor on the other side of the line.
"Whu?" Xandra said while munching vigorously on a handful of jelly-beans. "Eatin'? Wry vud I du shuch an unprufeshunal ving ash eatin'?" She continued munching, then swallowed. "My GuTutsh jus gamaged..." More munching, "Ja, I jropped it in a shake or shunthin... I can' rill rererber..." She swallowed and wiped off some of the trails of drool at the sides of her mouth. She then shoved another handful of jelly-beans into her mouth. "Shurry, conekshun drapped an' shtuff..." She munched on the new batch.
"Whu? Replaysche dis? Shurry, TOK Recurdsh doshint want chu pay afturr Vrynn's shurgury and shtuff..."
"... Or she could be busy on her knees, begging for forgiveness for me. Man, that would be horrible."
'Would they really have that sort of authority to sway her like that?'
"It's money, Sam, and they have lots of it. As a matter of fact, lots of it would probably be a big understatement."
'True, true...'
Both paused yet again.
"So, how long has it been since we've sent the notice?"
'Well, given the amount of time we've been talking, the brief pauses in between, and those two bizarre cut-offs to our conversations that suddenly pick-up way later into it after a certain period of time... five minutes, forty-seven seconds.'
Brynn was simultaneously amazed and annoyed. "Five minutes? What are we, in a TV drama where nothing interesting happens to us so they can justifiably cut-off to more interesting bits?"
Before Sam could reply, a third voice pitched in. "Could be! You never really know what could happen here on the Station."
Sam's visual sensors and Brynn's jar turned to face the source of the third voice: a bulky, male human of Mexican descent, dressed in a lab coat, beige slacks, and penny loafers. He was clutching a manila folder.
"Greetings! My name is Dr. Marco James Martilyo, and I will be your bringer of bad news today. So, would you like to receive the news now or would you like some reassuring words of comfort to soften the blow?"
Brynn thought for a moment. On one hand, she could just receive the bad news because her dying need to know what the bad news was was reawakened by Dr. Martilyo's arrival. She would know what the bad news was and her need would finally be sated, but she might suffer more if the bad news turned out to be quite horrible. On the other hand, she could get some cushioning and foreshadowing to what the bad news might be. Her dying need to know might be whipped up even more, but then, she could suffer less if the news turned out to be quite horrible.
She then decided that she'd rather know right now than be kept waiting any longer.
"Give me the bad news, Doc."
Dr. Martilyo nodded, opened the manila file, pulled out two sets of X-rays and two sets of muscle scans, then, true to his namesake, was incredibly blunt and straightforward with his answer: "Your body's seriously worn-out. Not injured, not tired from whatever you were doing before you were paralyzed, not damaged from disease, just plain crappy." He showed the ladies the first X-ray. "This is an X-ray of your front side. As you can see from all the parts we've circled in red and made comments on, they are all black, hardened, clumped up in disgusting masses, seriously degraded or are suffering a combination of any of those. The worst parts would be your knees, as they're all damaged and stiff from under-use. If you hadn't been able to dance for a really long time, this is the culprit." He put down the first and pulled out the second. "This is an X-ray of your back area. The damage and the comments are all pretty much the same as the front. The worst parts here would happen to be your spine, which, aside from the paralyzed neurons we've highlighted in electric blue, is damaged and out of focus from really bad posture, bad furniture, extreme lack of good nutrition, or as we all suspect, a combination of all three. Surprisingly, your butt-bones in pretty bad shape, too, despite it having obviously received a lot of cushioning and lack of stress." He put down the last of the X-rays and went to first of the muscle scans. "This is your front area. As you can see here, the only healthy parts here would be your mammary region. The rest is stressed, have too much fat, are ripped apart and unable to heal, or are suffering a combination of all three." He put down the first of the muscle scans and showed them the last. "This is your back area. Pretty much everything is horrible, most especially with your posterior area and their huge build-up of useless fat." He shoved all four files back into their manila file. "Under the moral and practical standards we have for surgeries and procedures of this nature, we can't put your brain, the upper region of your spine, and your eyeballs back into your body."
If Brynn had eyelids and a functioning neck, she would have blinked and tilted her head to the side.
"Wait, what?"
Dr. Martilyo prepared to open the manila file again. "Do you want me to repeat my explanations?"
"No!" Brynn yelled, "I want an explanation that I can understand! Namely, a slower moving explanation with terms I can understand!"
'I understood all of that...'
Brynn let out an annoyed sigh. "Not the point! I am not letting you leave till you give me a simple explanation in less than ten words!"
Dr. Martilyo gave himself five seconds to think of his answer.
The answer was exactly ten words, brief, and was easily understandable: "Your body is junk. We're not putting you back in."
