11.12.2020

Khan never liked his personal doctor. It wasn't anything that the man-Dr. Jittender Watwe from the Punjab province-had done himself; Khan just hated his doctors on principal because they generally treated him like a laboratory experiment.

Not that he wasn't one. He just would have liked them to have put a little effort into deceiving him.

Unfortunately, when one falls from a height of 40 meters, there is no getting around the fact that the first person he will see upon waking up will (probably) be his doctor. Even more unfortunate is the fact that a man who is recovering from such a fall will not have the patience to accept this justification of his situation and would resent the presence of any man he disliked regardless of the letters at the end of his name.

"What are you doing here?" Khan hissed. Dr. Watwe looked up suddenly, startled.

"Ah, you're awake," the man said, his Punjabi accent waving through his words like a stream over a riverbed. "You took quite a fall."

"Obviously."

"You are very lucky, Cadet, that your fall only caused superficial damage." Superficial damage? What the blazes was the man talking about? The fall had knocked Khan unconscious, and while his tolerance might be lower than that of the other Augments, it took a lot to knock out any Augment-even a sub-par one. He was no doctor, but Khan was fairly certain that his loss of consciousness indicated severe brain trauma.

And yet, he realized with a start, his thought processes were not hampered in the least. He felt completely normal, a few aches and pains notwithstanding.

"It wasn't superficial," Khan said mostly to himself, "I just heal quickly." Watwe shook his head.

"No, your wounds weren't very severe at all. It looked pretty bad because you got a nasty scratch on your head and had a lot of bleeding, but when we actually took a look at you we saw you were, on the whole, just fine. Probably just fainted from the exertion and shock, is all. Understandable, given how hard you pushed yourself." Now Khan was angry-partially because he knew he had been worse off than Watwe was letting on, partially because he knew he was right about pushing himself too hard. Khan was weak, and he knew it, but the very human Dr. Watwe was not someone he would take that from.

"I didn't faint," Khan growled, his eyes stinging with angry tears he was determined would not fall. "I was knocked unconscious. I've always been a fast healer; never had to spend a day in the medcenter in my life until today." Dr. Watwe looked around the room, as though afraid, and then hurried to the door. Khan smirked in satisfaction: he had frightened away the coward. Just as Khan was congratulating himself on his ability as a bully, though, Watwe did not leave: he only closed the door, then hurried to the window and shut the windows.

"Let's suppose, hypothetically, that what you say is true," Dr. Watwe said in a low voice in a tone that suggested Khan should shut up. "Let's suppose, hypothetically, that you came in with a broken hip, a cracked skull, a punctured lung, and a broken spine that should have left you a quadriplegic. Hypothetically, within a minute of my making that assessment, you were wiggling your toes and breathing perfectly normally." Watwe held Khan's gaze steadily. "Such an incident is impossible, though; other augments in the program have sustained lesser injuries and were disabled for at least two days. If, hypothetically, this was the case, I would be required to withdraw my affirmation of your medical fitness to be deployed, and you would spend the next few years-possibly the rest of your life-as a lab rat, being poked and prodded until scientists could figure out how to transmit this characteristic to subsequent generations of Augments. Hypothetically, if I know you at all from being your doctor for the last few years, Cadet, I know that you hate being treated like a lab rat even more than you hate being molded into a soldier." Khan swallowed hard. Suddenly, Watwe smiled. "Lucky for you, you only fainted from over-exertion. We'll be deployed for integration into the regular army next week."

"'We?'" Khan repeated.

"In light of this incident, the higher ups have decided it would be best for your emotional well-being to be around familiar faces."

"Emotional wellbeing-I'm not suicidal!" Khan exploded. "It was an accident."

"Of course it was. It doesn't change the fact that I've been assigned to your division as the field medic. If I'm not mistaken, your drill sergeant has just been reassigned to join us, as well."

"Who, Guthrapoli?"

"No, the English one; Gregors? Gregson?"

"Gregory," Khan answered. This was an interesting turn of events. While he was grateful to have Gregory by his side-he would have missed the old man-he wasn't sure how much he wanted an untrained science nerd following him across the battlefield, demanding to take his blood pressure and asking such asinine questions as "how are you feeling, Khan?"

But there was something in Dr. Watwe's bearing that gave him pause. The straightness of his back, or the purpose in his walk, or perhaps his ability to hold Khan's gaze without wavering (none of the other doctors could do that).

"You were an army doctor before," Khan surmised.

"Yeah." Khan mulled over this for a moment.

"Seen a lot of injuries, then? Violent deaths?"

"Well, yes, of course," Watwe answered, furrowing his brow. "Enough for a lifetime. Far too much." Khan wasn't buying it. It was too rehearsed; it flowed too easily off the tongue. to be true.

"Ready to see some more?" Khan pressed. Watwe didn't answer; he would rather the answer be kept hidden. As his eyes flickered disdainfully across the room in what should have been a hospital but what was a biomedical laboratory instead, though, his true feelings on the matter bled through.

Oh, gods, yes.

Khan could grow to like his doctor.

Watwe turned to leave the room.

"Get some rest, Cadet. You've got a long life ahead of you."

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Khan called suddenly. Watwe stopped and turned.

"What was that?"

"Last I heard I was either going to be deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq. Where are we going?" Watwe smiled bitterly.

"Doesn't really matter, does it? We'll be away from here."

Yes, Khan did like his doctor.