Chapter IX: 1-UP
1312hrs, 8 June 2013, "Top Secret" Medical Facility, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.
"Wanna swoop in your white charger and save the day? Stop the nightmares, the phantom limb pains? Restore what's lost? Well you can't! Nobody can. Nobody will." Emi Ibarazaki, Katawa Shoujo
"Okay, bring it in here!" Kawasaki was directing a plethora of orderlies bring in all sorts of equipment. He was in the basement of the facility, where more operation rooms were located.
"What's going on?" Lita asked.
Amy, Lita and Mina had just finished lunch and had heard all the commotion in the basement. They had poked around here a couple of times, but there really wasn't much to see.
"Ah, girls," Kawasaki said, looking over his shoulder. He was trying to get the orderlies to move a very big tank, kind of like those dunking things that you throw baseballs at. "I was just about to send Nurse Kuroi to get you."
"Uh…what is it?" Mina asked.
"Follow me please." Kawasaki walked down the hall to a large room. There was an observation room to the left of it. "In here." He held the door open.
"Okay…"
Everyone walked into the room. There was a big one-way glass window looking into the room, along with some TV monitors, computers, and other assorted material lining the walls. Mina could see that the tank was being set up and filled with a clear, goopy fluid. Technicians were plugging in equipment, making sure that everything was cleaned and ready go, checking the tubes feeding the liquid into the tank from big oil-drum like containers.
"What is that stuff?" Amy asked.
Dr. Kawasaki beamed when she asked that question. "I'll explain in just a moment." He reached for the PA system microphone and spoke into it.
"Are we almost ready?"
"Yeah, we're finished here," was the reply from one of the technicians.
"Good, prepare to bring down our first patient."
The girls looked at each other.
"Who…?" Mina was getting really nervous now. Every day seemed to get stranger ever since the PM's visit.
"You'll see."
Ten minutes later, a bed was rolled into the room.
"Serena!" Everyone pressed their faces against the window. They hadn't been allowed to see Serena since they arrived there.
"Oh God…" Lita covered her mouth. Serena still looked really bad, even though she had been covered head to toe with bandages.
"Normally," Dr. Kawasaki interrupted their staring at Serena, "Ms. Serena there would be in hospital for months…years maybe. Her injuries are very extensive."
"So…what's this tank have to do with it?" Amy asked.
"The tank is being filled with a special fluid that was developed by some of our researchers a couple of years ago, but has only as of late come into low-level production."
"And what does this 'fluid' do?" Mina was looking at the orderlies, who were hooking up tubes to Serena in all sorts of places. Nurse Kuroi was also down there, directing them.
"Well, it helps to heal the body, basically."
"How long will it take?" This was very fascinating to Amy. A fluid that could help treat injuries? Amazing. It was almost like that Bacta stuff in Star Wars.
"Serena has severe burns. When left to heal normally, they will scar and leave her outward appearance in a deformed state. The fluid treatment will repair the skin in thirty seconds."
The girls looked at him.
"Thirty seconds?!" Mina asked.
"Why didn't we get this treatment?" Amy said, now cross.
"We didn't have enough of it made two weeks ago. But we got a company to help make some more, and now we are going to start helping all of you now."
The Nakanishi Group really got this stuff produced fast, Kawasaki thought to himself. Didn't think they would do it. And Kobayashi thinks they're crap. Well, guess who's laughing now?
"Serena and Raye are injured the most out of all you, so we have to get them treated first."
Amy looked back down at Serena. She was being prepped to be lowered into the tank now. The bandages were being stripped away…god. Serena's skin was all red and in some places, it was apparent the burns had gone very, very deep. She didn't look human anymore.
She forgot her anger and reminded herself that they were worse off and that her treatment could wait. Amy still had some burn marks on her body and arms, and while they hurt, she knew that they were nothing compared to Serena in front of them, Raye, or even Lita, who sometimes swore in pain when she walked.
"Dr. Kawasaki," Kuroi said over the intercom. "We're ready on this end."
"Affirmative. Please place Ms. Tsukino i into the solution please."
Serena was semi-conscious when she had been moved earlier that day. She knew that she was being moved around, and that she still was in pain.
"Hi Serena." Kuroi's voice had really been her only source of human contact for the last couple of weeks.
Nurse Kuroi squeezed her bandaged hand. "Today, everything will be better," she told her.
They strapped her into something, there were tubes going in and out of her…it was a weird sensation, but there was nothing she could do about it. Then they lifted her up and place her in a harness.
What's going on? What are they doing to me? Serena hadn't felt this panicked since she had first been brought in this place. She felt the bandages being taken off and she groaned in pain. Talking still hadn't really come back, but at least she could grunt.
"It's okay, it's okay," Kuroi reassured her. "We are going to place you in some very special fluid that will heal you. It's completely safe, I give you my word." Kuroi placed a rebreather over her mouth.
"Dr. Kawasaki," Serena heard Kuroi talking into an intercom. "We're ready on this end."
"Affirmative. Please place Ms. Tsukino into the solution please."
The technicians lowered the harness down into the fluid. Immediately Serena felt a cooling sensation over her entire body. Her burns began to heal at an astounding rate. In thirty seconds, her burns had all but disappeared, healed permanently. The internal injuries however, would take more treatments and nothing could bring back her missing legs and fingers.
The technicians brought her back out again. The green liquid had now turned clear and foamy. Serena was loaded onto a stretcher and carted off.
"Why does it turn clear and foam like that?" Mina asked Dr. Kawasaki.
"It does that because it becomes inert after one use. It can't be reused after someone has been in it for more than thirty seconds, tops."
"And this is because…?" Amy smelled something fishy here, like everything else that was going on. But she was just playing along, biding her time.
"Amy, I really don't know the science behind that," Kawasaki replied, dodging the question quite skillfully (in his mind).
"Uh-huh."
"Really, I don't." There was a slight pause before Kawasaki got them moving again.
"But thirty seconds was more than enough time for Serena to heal. I think maybe you should go talk to her now. She'll be in the hallway."
The girls quickly scurried out of the observation room, leaving Kawasaki standing there. He then got on the phone and started calling upstairs to get the next patient ready for treatment in a couple of hours.
"Serena!"
She hadn't heard those voices in forever. Right after her healing, Kuroi had just told her the news about her family situation and she had disbelieved it at first.
"But…but…"
"Serena, your friends have accepted this situation, and have been living with it for the last couple of weeks. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Talk to them if you want to know any more." She wheeled her out into the hallway. Serena pushed the conversation out of her mind. It's not true.
"Hi guys!" I can talk again! To real people, not that stupid nurse. Goddamn, this feels great!
Amy, Lita and Mina had surrounded Serena in the hallway. She was in a wheelchair now, pushed by Nurse Kuroi and flanked by Dr. Kobayashi, with no hair but looking better than ever.
"It feels so weird not to have any hair," she jokingly complained. "But I see I'm not alone in that."
Mina rolled her eyes. "It's gonna grow back."
Serena's stomach growled. "Oh god, I'm so hungry. Um, hey, doctor person."
That was Kobayashi. "Can I eat something now? Like, something that's not from a tube?"
He gave a small smile. "I think you should be okay, but just have a little because your body can't handle that much food right now. I'll have Nurse Kuroi take you upstairs to the cafeteria."
"No, I'll take her up there!" Mina said. She pushed Kuroi out of the way and started rolling Serena down the hall to the elevator at top speed.
"Hey, careful!" Kuroi yelled, but Amy and Lita were already in hot pursuit, yelling and laughing all the while. They all piled into the elevator and were gone.
"It's good to see them have fun," Kobayashi said. "I think it will definitely help them and the SAILOR program."
"I certainly hope so," Kuroi replied sadly. "I certainly hope so."
Serena had piled a moderate amount of food in front of her; it was Japanese food today. Doughnuts would be soon in coming, but not for this meal. Omurice, sashimi, rice, nori, miso soup and tea filled the tray in front of her. The other girls sat on the other side of the table from her.
"God, it's so difficult," she complained. Like Lita, she was using a fork since the missing fingers on her right hand made it difficult to eat and she wasn't used to eating with the left.
"Tell me about it," Lita said. "You'll get used to it. I think."
"What have you been up to while I…" Serena trailed off. She didn't want to think about all that time lying there, in pain. Her legs missing didn't make it better.
Sensing this, Mina quickly butted in. "We're going to be doing something totally cool for the government."
Amy glared at Mina. Not yet you idiot! Mina's eyes shot back. Sorry.
"And what type of work is this…?" Serena put down her fork. The conversation she had earlier with Kuroi was coming back.
"Serena," Lita said, but Amy interrupted.
"We weren't going to tell you this until later," she said, looking down at the cup of tea she was drinking, "But we are going to work for the government to do some…unsavory things."
"Savory? You mean like how meat tastes?"
Everyone had to stifle a giggle at that statement.
"No dumbass," Lita snickered. She returned to a more serious tone. "We are going to basically going to be a special operations team, going around the world and…'protecting' Japanese interests."
Serena got the meaning that statement; even a complete dumbass could see behind that rhetoric.
"And you three agreed to it?" Serena was getting irritated. "What about college? What about my family?" Nurse Kuroi's words came back to her. "I can't go back to my family?"
Lita, Amy and Mina shook their heads. "None of can. Even Raye knows that by now."
Serena sighed. Fucking hell.
"Look, they gave us all of this stuff," Mina said. "Our families will be set for life if we do this."
"But we can't see them again?"
"Never again. That's the price of all this," Amy replied. "I don't like it either. But my mother is a smart lady. And she would not give me up unless she had a goddamn good reason to do so."
Lita and Mina agreed with her.
Serena looked down. This wasn't right at all, but what she could do?
Amy leaned over to her and whispered in her ear.
"Serena, we can follow this wherever this goes," she said. "They need us, and we can probably get some more information in the future. But for now, we need to play along. I believe in what this program is doing, but I want more information too."
She sighed, and sat back.
Serena looked at everyone at the table.
"Okay. I'm in."
Everyone smiled. "I'll toast to that," Lita said.
They all raised their tea glasses.
"To our new future," she said.
"With Serena, finally," Mina added.
That got a laugh.