"The bad news is …Well I'm baffled commander."
"In other words, you don't know the cause?" the Commander stated plainly with a scowl.
"At the moment no. Not any more than you know what she was up to in the middle of the night." The Doc cut back. "But we'll keep her under observation and do everything we can. That's all we can do at present. Yes, we don't know what's wrong with her. Or what happened. So, for now we can only treat the symptoms not the cause; And try and make her as comfortable as possible."
"What symptoms?" Troy asked.
"Well again, we're not sure." The Doctor said. there was a groan about the room. "I'm aware of how that sounds. but we have many contradicting ones. For example, in any other person with some of Marina's symptoms I'd say one thing they would be suffering from would be severe dehydration."
"Dehydration?" Atlanta echoed in a scoff. Then something awful clicked into place. "You don't think-?"
"No. That can't be right." Phones agreed, shaking his head.
"if I may finish?" the doctor tried.
"But she drinks plenty of water? And goes swimming a lot." Troy frowned. "Marina's told us before about what her folks and other sea people think about being on land and the crazy superstitions they have about drying out? She's real careful there. And what about the thing with her bathroom-?!"
"crazy as it sounds, Marina is on paper displaying classic dehydration signs." the doctor insisted. "But again, as you point out, given the circumstances she was found in. Lieutenant Fisher, is it?"
Fisher's head snapped up at the sound of his name. He'd sunk his head in his hands again.
"Lieutenant, may I ask you to confirm again what you told my colleagues?" the doctor asked.
"err- the thing about her waking up? All hot and cold?" He tried. Normally the level-headed very dependable guy, Fisher (in this instance of being put on the spot) looked so much like a still wet behind the ear's cadet, that Troy wanted to cuff him around the head. Phones gave him an encouraging nudge instead.
"no. can you repeat what you told the medic at the scene, if you can recall?" the doctor asked. not unkindly, but not exactly warm or reassuring either.
Fisher frowned hard, as if trying to pull up a memory from years ago rather than hours.
"I said… she's coughing up water." Fisher replied. "'Marina coughed up water. It was like she was drowning there.' That's what I said… Then they put her on the stretcher."
"Drowning?!" Troy spluttered. The others were equally stunned.
"Are you joking?!" The commander barked, thumping his chair panel. "That girl can breathe equally a thousand leagues under the sea as she can wandering the base!"
"This is no joke commander. She is showing distress, marks of an inflamed airway, and difficulty breathing. All classic signs; except for having water on her lungs."
"No water? none at all?" Atlanta frowned.
"so, it didn't just go down the wrong way?" Phones asked. the doc should his head.
"No. Or at least, Marina has no water in her lungs in the way the auto-nurse reads on a human. As well as the previously stated dehydration. I do need you all to remain calm and listen carefully to this next part." The doctor warned. Troy's leg jitters became instantly worse despite how tense he'd made his legs go.
"The worst thing Marina is facing however is the fever." The doctor explained. "This 'hot and cold all over' as the Lieutenant put it. She's weak and has very dry lips, a high temperature almost on par with heat stroke with often very flushed cheeks and clammy skin."
He continued.
"But then there's the shivering. And the nurse has observed that suddenly Marina's skin is bone dry and Her lips are occasionally blue. Sometimes at the same time as her cheeks being red which even isn't a much-documented phenomenon. Her temperature is fluctuating very dangerously."
This, all of it, drew a little strangled gasp from Atlanta. Phones ran a hand through his hair agitated.
"Drowning and dehydration. Heat stroke and hypothermia." The commander clarified, almost angrily. "Marina's all contrary wise."