Chapter 8
When the door opened without anyone knocking, Wilson expected it to be House again, but to his surprise, Cuddy came into his office.
"We've got six teenage superheroes from the future in the hospital", she informed him as she sat down on the chair by his desk.
Wilson stared at her. "O…kay…"
"I'm serious", Cuddy told him. "You know that albino patient we admitted two days ago?"
"House's patient? – the one with pink eyes?"
"Yeah. It turns out, she's not an albino, and her pink eyes are the result of her alien physiology. She's a telepath from Titan, and her friends are all superheroes in the same group. Plus, an additional teenager – who's green and who was her previous doctor – has just arrived from the 31st century to help out in her case", Cuddy finished.
"Okay…" Wilson said again.
Cuddy shifted her head. "I know you think I'm nuts. This is the sort of story you don't even expect House to come up with. But it's all true."
"Okay." Wilson couldn't seem to think of anything else to say. This was utterly unbelievable. "What – what are you on? Did you drink too much at breakfast or overdose on your birth control pills?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes. "I'm telling you, it's the truth. I don't blame you for not believing, me but I really need you to stop unbelieving me."
"Okay."
"And stop saying okay."
"Ok-all right."
Cuddy stood up and began pacing. "Okay, so they're all from the 31st century…and they've all got superpowers. And now one of them is deathly sick with a mysterious illness that could be anything, and it doesn't help that there are loads of diagnoses we don't know about in the future…"
"Should I be worried?" Wilson inquired. "I mean, this isn't a slow descent to madness, right?"
Cuddy sighed. "Fine. I can see you're not going to believe me till you've seen it for yourself. "Follow me."
"Actually, I can't. I have a patient coming by in twenty minutes, and –"
"Now."
"Um, okay", agreed Wilson, getting up. Cuddy had that look in her eye, and he decided it was better to play along, because something was obviously bothering her. He could always reschedule his appointment, because as every man knows, hell hath no fury like a woman's annoyance.
Kutner held out his hand to Taub and Thirteen. "Pay up", he said with a grin.
Thirteen rolled her eyes and slapped a twenty dollar note into his palm while Taub dug some money out of his pocket and looked first at it, then at Kutner, as if he wasn't going to pay.
"C'mon, give it here", said Kutner. Taub sighed and handed it over.
"It's unbelievable", he grumbled. "The one time House actually enters the MRI room to talk to a patient or someone associated with her, and you call it. How on earth could you have possibly known he would do that?"
"Simple", said Kutner, stowing the money in his wallet. "House likes to know everything. They're from the 31st century. He believes them. What does that give you?"
"Hmph." Taub turned back to the MRI monitors. "Doing an MRI on an unconscious person. I've never heard of it before."
"We've never heard of a lot of things about this case before", pointed out Thirteen. She tapped a few keys. "Starting magnetic resolution."
While the MRI machine whirled around Imra, House looked on and cast sideway glances at Garth, who noticed and looked at him, annoyed.
"Yes?" he inquired.
"Nothing", said House. "I'm just curious. If things in the 31st century are really all you say, why come to the lowly 21st century for a simple diagnosis?"
Garth sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "It was the only option", he said grudgingly. "Brainy couldn't figure out what was wrong with Imra, and if he couldn't do it, with all his intelligence and futuristic equipment at his disposal, then no other doctor would be able to either. We were desperate, so Brainy did some research, and he found your name. Apparently, despite your – er – attitude – you're still known as one of the greatest diagnosticians of all time."
"You don't have to bloat his ego even more, Garth", said Thirteen from the speakers.
"Watch it", House warned. "That ego is all that's preventing me from firing you."
Thirteen rolled her eyes. She was used to House's threats. "Okay, we're done. You can slide her out now."
House did just that, pulling the movable pallet out of the machine. He then picked up his cane and advanced into the observation room – where Taub was waiting for the prints – while Thirteen and Kutner came out to transfer Imra back to her own gurney.
Brainy peered into the microscope with some difficulty. He was not used to this sort of equipment, even though he knew how to operate it – in theory, that is.
"How primitive", he murmured to himself. "They've only got as far as detecting electrons. And one still has to look into the scope!"
He raised his eyes and rubbed them hard. The only thing he could see were protein components – which were always present in spinal fluid – or, as he preferred to call it, CSF. How he wished for a subatomic, electric microscope, capable of detecting the smallest particle within an electron! How in the name of Colu was he supposed to detect a 31st-century quasi-atomic toxin with such a backward piece of technology?
"Bear with me, Imra", he muttered to no one in particular before staring into the microscope again, trying his hardest to detect some sign or clue that would lead him to the correct diagnosis.
Taub slid the MRI prints into the slot and turned on the light. Foreman, Thriteen, Kutner, Cameron, and Chase all squinted at them, neither of them saying anything for a while.
"I don't see anything out of the ordinary", Cameron remarked at last. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her brain."
"No, hold on – there's some swelling around the meninges", said Chase, pointing at the area.
"That's very slight", said Thirteen. "And haven't we already ruled out meningoencephalitis?"
"Still could point to something else", replied Chase.
"Restriction of blood flow to the epidural area?" questioned Kutner.
"No, it's too little", countered Foreman. "There'd have to be considerable swelling to block the dura to such an extent that it results in Imra's symptoms. I don't think the swelling is very significant. She probably just bumped her head."
"Why are you here?" House asked. Foreman looked at him quizzically.
"I work here."
"No, I mean here, in my office", said House. "I thought you were going with Brainiac 5 to the lab to test the spinal fluid."
"He seems to know his way around remarkably well", Foreman responded. "He handles the equipment like a pro."
"Well, he is from the 31st century", said Kutner.
Just then Cuddy and Wilson entered the glass door. House exhaled. "Great." He stomped over to the two. "What do you want?" he asked.
Cuddy pushed Wilson in front. "Prove to this nonbeliever here that we really do have a group of super-powered teens in the hospital."
House observed his best friend's helpless, hey-it's-Cuddy look and decided that if he wanted to talk to Wilson about this case later on, he'd have to get him to believe it. He was just debating the best way to do that when Brainiac 5 slid in with his results.
Brainy shoved a few high-definition, colored prints into House's hand. "This is all I managed to get with the available equipment."
Wilson stared at the newcomer. To him, Brainy was blond-haired, tan-skinned, and short, but what was he doing here?
"House?" asked Wilson.
House sighed. "Yes, Wilson, everything Cuddy's told you is true. I was right about my pink-eyed patient being an alien – she's actually a native of Titan and she and the rest of her friends are from the 31st century, as is this young man here, who is also a twelfth level intellect."
Brainy slapped his forehead. Their secret was seemingly being told to everyone in the hospital. Why hadn't he thought of bringing a memory modifier with him? Oh, well. Maybe Imra would be able to do it, once they'd cured her of whatever she had.
Wilson gaped, looking first at House, then at Brainy, then at Cuddy. "Wh-what?" he managed to say. "Are you in on this too? Are you both trying to drive me nuts?"
Brainy sighed. Now they would waste more time getting this idiot to believe them. Unless there was a shortcut…
He brought his hand near his mouth and spoke into the Legion ring. "Garth, get two Legionnaires to come to House's office – and I don't mean two Trips."
Then he calmly and smoothly removed his holo-ring and stood before Wilson, still blond, but taller, green, and with three white circles on his forehead.
At this Wilson collapsed into a chair.
"Now do you believe me?" asked Cuddy smugly.
Just then Tinya and Chuck came running in.
"Hey", said Tinya, panting slightly, "We got your message. What's up?"
"Sorry. False alarm. My mistake." Brainy put his holo-ring back on before anyone else could see him. "Dr. Cuddy and Dr. House decided to let this doctor in on our secret. Rather than have him delay our efforts by denials and disbelieving questions, I decided to force the truth into his head and save us all the time."
"You certainly did that", said Wilson, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of superhero teens from the future walking the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro.
House, meanwhile, had been observing the prints from Brainy, and then he compared them to the MRI prints on the wall. Then he got out Imra's medical file and reviewed the blood panel sheet he had taken from Taub two days earlier.
"You see something?" inquired Foreman.
House didn't reply. He was too busy examining the three sets of prints.
"House?" asked Thirteen.
"There's swelling", he said at last.
"Yeeahh…" said Kutner. "But we ruled that out because it wasn't severe enough to cause her symptoms."
"Yeah, but what if it's not a diagnosis?" said House.
"It isn't", said Taub.
"And what if it isn't a coincidence either?"
"So she bumped her head", said Cameron. "What does that have to do with her case?"
Wilson, glad to have something he understood, leaned over to Cuddy and mentioned, "I think he's going to have a sudden brainwave and solve the case." Cuddy nodded.
House kept staring intently at the various prints while Brainy, Tinya, and Chuck looked on hopefully. Was he finally going to figure out the correct diagnosis?
"What if", began House, "it's a symptom?"
His employees' faces remained blank.
"Come on", he said. "Pretend the heart attack isn't a symptom. That leaves multiple seizures, loss of consciousness, thrombocytosis, and swelling around the meninges. What does that give you?"
"A…toxin?" Cameron guessed hesitantly.
"Right", said House.
"There are too many toxins that could be causing Imra's illness", protested Brainy.
"You had a theory that the heart attack was a severe reaction to the laser that injured her", House said.
"I did", Brainy affirmed, wondering where this was going.
"What if it was? What if that laser wound that caused her heart attack also activated a toxin that's been lying dormant in her for some time?"
"The fight in the warehouse with the Dark Circle!" exclaimed Chuck.
"At a stage of illness this advanced, there would have been some sign of the toxin in Imra's blood work", said Brainy.
"There was", answered House. "The platelets. Our blood panel machine mistook the toxin's molecular structure to be some sort of protein. We thought that was from the drug you gave her for her lung."
"I did give her an amino acid solution", admitted Brainy. "But we have no way to determine if those proteins really are toxin molecules."
"Yes, we do." House held the sheet with the CSF test results in front of Brainy's face. "Those same proteins are also present in her spinal fluid, and in her meninges." He pointed to the MRI print. "Now, normally, proteins in the blood, CSF, and meninges are not all the same. But I'll bet that in this case, they all have the same molecular structure."
Realization slowly dawned on Brainy. "There's only one toxin that fits everything. Oonocytropis, produced by oonoptic bacteria, which are commonly found in uninhabited buildings."
"I've never heard of oonoptics or their toxin, but yeah, great, whatever. We've got our diagnosis. Now we can treat her, and she'll be good as new." House sounded very pleased with himself. He had just solved a case that even a twelfth-level super-genius from the 31st century hadn't been able to figure out.
Brainy, however, looked sorrowful and grave. "I'm afraid it's not that simple", he said in a low voice, with a serious tone that quite frightened Tinya and Chuck. "Oonocytropia is fatal to Titanians."
A/N: (Gasp!) Uh-oh! What are they going to do now? Find out in the final chapter, coming tomorrow! Thanks to Devilbunnyxox, TheEclipse93, leath, and The Violet Rose for reviewing! (By the way, if you guys can't figure out the answers to your questions - which I gave you hints about in the last chapter - you have to tell me before I post tomorrow, so I can answer them directly for you.)
Disclaimer: Oh, don't I wish.