11: Doctor’s Orders

Olivia blinked at the sound of the first voice she’d heard in days beyond her own. She looked around for something to address, eventually settling on the wall in the direction the voice came from. “Yes? Hello?” she called out, struggling to contain the hope in her voice.

“You can understand us, yes?”

“I answered, didn’t I?” I did, right? I’m not going crazy, am I? “Who are you?”

After a small pause, the curt female voice replied, “My name is Dr. Dabrowski. Would you be willing to answer some questions that me and my team have?”

Olivia considered for a moment. “OK.”

“How has the food been that you’ve been served? Do you have any problems with it?”

“No.” Everything actually tasted pretty good. Wait, make a connection, be a person. “I’d never had fish before, but it was good. I really liked the beef, too. I think it was beef.”

“Is there anything else that you would like?”

“Um, donuts?” Olivia asked, perking up. 

“Donuts?” asked Dr. Dabrowski over the speaker.

“Yeah!”

“You’ve had donuts before? They didn’t poison you or cause any adverse effects?”

How do you answer that? “Yeah.” Yes, I had donuts, or yes, they poisoned me? “Um, nothing bad happened. I like them.”

A longer pause. Olivia looked around once more, looking for and failing to find any emotional reaction to gauge. The doctor finally asked, “You are fine. Any kind in particular?” Can she see me? Where are the cameras?

“Any? Oh, anything with cinnamon! Those are good.”

“Why not? We can do that.” Olivia felt a small smile at the corner of her lips. Donuts! “What has your diet been in the past month?” After a brief pause and a small sigh, Dr. Dabrowski added, “Besides donuts.”

“Well,” Olivia began. “It’s kind of whatever we can find. Burgers are really good. We get pizza. Sometimes there’s other stuff. We had Thai food a couple days ago.”

“That sounds like a lot of grains, dairy, and vegetable matter. That didn’t cause any adverse effects? Sorry, that didn’t make you feel bad?”

“If I ate too much not meat my stomach started to hurt. What do you mean by grains and dairy?”

“Grains refer to food like bread and rice,” explained Dr. Dabrowski. “Lots of carnivores generally cannot handle them in large quantities. As for dairy, those are foods derived from milk, which is exclusive to mammals, not reptiles.”

She’s actually answering questions. This is nice. Olivia took a seat on her bed, tail curled up and drooping off the side. “Oh! That makes sense. Meat usually tastes better than anything else. I can eat bread but it tastes really boring.” 

“I’m surprised you asked for donuts if that is the case.”

“Yeah, but they taste good.”

“OK, I see, that’s just the sugar. If you’re not getting bad signals, it sounds like your diet is mostly human. We’ll keep an eye on your diet regardless.”

“Bad signals?” Olivia’s head tilted to the side a few degrees.

“Ferals tend to have very chaotic and inconsistent biological systems.” Dr. Dabrowski paused, long enough for Olivia to give another hesitant look around the cell. Was that a dumb question? “Apologies. Just because something tastes good doesn’t mean it’s good for you. For instance, your tastebuds might be those of a reptilian carnivore, and try to guide you away from, say, bread. Your stomach and intestines, which actually break down and absorb that bread, might be human. Your body might need bread, even if your tastebuds don’t like it. Or the reverse, your tastebuds might be telling you that the melted cheese on a pizza is good, but your stomach might not agree. Does that make sense?” Enthusiasm crept into the doctor’s voice as she explained.

“I think so. How do I know if stuff is good or not?”

“That depends on what your body says to you. If you’re eating pizza and not getting any bad feedback from your stomach, I would hesitantly say you’re not lactose intolerant. In that vein, what have you been drinking?

“Water. Soda. That’s it.”

“Soda? Have they been feeding you nothing but junk food?” With another sigh, she continued. “Sorry. We’ll stick with water for now. Is there anything else you would like for your quarters?”

Quarters? You mean the cell? “I don’t know. Something to do? Like a book. Or books. Yeah.” A door, so I can leave. “Oh, clothes that aren’t full of holes, or bright orange.”

A much longer pause. “Please specify.”

This isn’t how I imagined prison-lab would be. Why would they shoot me a bunch, then ask what I want? “I was reading the Calvin and Hobbes books before. And clothes, can they not have ‘Prisoner’ stamped on them?” Or fall apart. Some of the things Miya and Amanda got for me fell apart when I cut the wing slits on them. And they were way too short.

“We will have those things for you in the next day or so.” The woman continued, “We would like to perform some basic medical tests tomorrow.”

“OK. Wait, medical?” asked Olivia.

“Yes, to make sure there are no unforeseen medical complications for you brewing further down the line. You are free to turn down anything you may find objectionable.”

“Um, a friend of mine already did that, I think.” Thank you, Miya.

“What do you mean?”

“She checked everything. She said I was kind of weird but fine.”

“How? You didn’t go to a hospital or doctor’s office, did you? What exactly did your friend do?”

“She used magic.”

“OK, I see,” said Dr. Dabrowski with no small amount of dismissal in her voice. What’s wrong with magic? “Your friend will have only noticed any true health concerns relating to her specialty. Regardless, we will have a real medical professional check up on you.”

“Ummm…” I’d rather not get poked and prodded. “What do you mean by checkup?”

“A standard physical. Nothing you wouldn’t see outside of a normal hospital visit. If you are willing we could perform some X-rays, blood testing, and maybe some psychological evaluations.”

Wait a minute, you people shot me a whole bunch. Why do you care about my well-being now? “Why?” asked Olivia.

“Why what?”

“Why do all of that?”

“We are responsible for your well-being. We are also trying to learn more about you, and how you function. You are not the first intelligent feral in this facility, but you are by far the most eloquent and high functioning. There is so much we can learn from you.”

Not the first? Everyone is always so surprised when I can talk. “I don’t know,” replied Olivia. Well, Miya and the others were concerned about health stuff. I don’t know what exactly. It’s been a month and I feel fine. And Miya keeps saying she’s only good with bones, so I guess this wouldn’t hurt.

“Think it over. We will respect your decision either way. Now, we’ll talk again tomorrow.” The speaker went dead, leaving the room silent once more.

***

The next day started much the same as the last. Olivia woke up, ate the meat and donuts provided, paced, and waited for something interesting to happen. They held up the donut promise. That’s a good sign, right? The new clothes almost fit, too! 

Once more, at what Olivia judged to be noon, the speaker crackled to life. “Hello, Olivia,” said the curt voice of Dr. Dabrowski. Before Olivia could respond, she asked, “Have you made a decision?”

I hate talking to a wall. “Hello. Um, how are you?” That’s a good question, right?

After a pause for consideration, the doctor replied in a matter of fact tone, “Average.”

Olivia blinked, at a loss. What am I supposed to do with that? I guess she wants me to answer her own question. “OK. I’m good. Um, what exactly do you want to do today?”

“Today will be a basic medical checkup, by Dr. Ruskov. Unless we find anything problematic, it will be no different than what I would have at my own doctor.”

“I still don’t know. I was, I don’t know. I was trying to avoid this exact kind of place for as long as I can remember.”

Dr. Dabrowki nodded again. “We understand. But we can provide you with answers. They may not be the answers you want, or were looking for, but they are answers. Both your current life and your former life.”

“You can figure out who I was?” I can find out who my family was? What my real name is? Olivia ducked her head down.

“We’re working on it, yes. You can expedite the process. We will need information.”

Olivia’s mouth opened, then closed. Open. Close. “I… um… I… sure.” 

“Good,” said Dr. Dabroski. “Dr. Ruskov will be with you in a few moments.” 

The speaker went dead. Before long, the door opened, unseen engines working hard to move the hefty slabs of reinforced concrete open. She whirled around, and stared at the open doorway as air rushed in. This place smells weird. Really weird. The darker concrete of the hallway beyond seemed to drink in the fluorescent lighting. 

Two armed men appeared first. Olivia stopped herself from uncurling her clawed hands. While not in grey MHU fatigues, they carried themselves in much the same way, perfectly at ease with the heavy rifles they carried. They took positions at either side of the door, making no further move towards her. Tattoos covered the tanned forearms of the one on the right. The one on the left wore a pair of dark sunglasses, despite the fact they were completely indoors.

Olivia heard the wheels rolling along the ground, and something metal rattling. A young woman’s head poked around the corner with a nervous smile. “Hello, I’m Katie, Dr. Ruskov’s assistant. Do you mind if I come in?”

What about the guards? “That’s fine,” replied Olivia. 

With a nod, Katie vanished for a brief moment, before pushing in a large metal car covered in various instruments. Behind her followed a pair of lab-coat wearing and clipboard toting scientists. With a clipped walk and tight nod, the woman with iron grey hair revealed herself to be Dr. Dabrowski without a word. With a one word greeting she positioned herself halfway across the room to make way for her companion.

A wiry thin man, over six feet, with short cropped hair, salt and pepper stubble, and a pair of equally thin glasses wheeled in an office chair. He came to a stop by Katie’s cart, the only person within arm’s distance of Olivia, and motioned over his shoulder to her bed, not looking away from his clipboard. “Please, take a seat.” Oh, that was an accent. Don’t know what, but that was a little odd.

Olivia sat on the edge of the bed as the doctor muttered to himself. Katie gave her another smile, slightly less nervous this time around. “Sorry for all the chaos. We weren’t expecting you here on such short notice. They told us one thing a month ago, then told us to cancel, then you showed up with maybe six hours notice!” Showed up? I was shot.

Dr. Ruskov stopped writing and propelled himself backwards, spinning in the chair as it rolled towards her. He came to a stop about a foot from her and stood, adjusting his glasses.

“I am Dr. Peter Ruskov. You are Olivia, yes?” he asked with a brief smile.

Olivia nodded. What do I say? I should say something. 

“Good, good,” he said, pulling a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat. He scribbled something unintelligible. “This won’t be anything invasive. Just a simple physical, make sure nothing is amiss.”

“Physical?” They’re treating it like a thing, rather than a description, so I’m not quite sure what they’re talking about.

“Physical examination. Height, weight, just a visual examination to make sure you aren’t infected with some horrible virus, and so on.”

Olivia nodded. “OK.”

The doctor scribbled something else, then flipped the page. He stared at the next page on the clipboard for a moment, then sighed. Olivia’s brow furrowed as he plopped back into his chair and scribbled furiously.

“Sorry, this will just take a moment,” he said, not looking up.

After what Olivia felt to be an intensely awkward minute, she spoke up. “Um, excuse me?” she asked. You’re not going to get mad at questions, are you?

Both Katie and Ruskov looked up. “Yes?”

“You’re a doctor, right?”

“Yes,” he said, taking the question in stride.

“But isn’t Dr. Dabrowski, you know, a doctor too?”

“Ah, you met the researchers. Well, no, they have doctorates in other things.” He flipped the page, then continued his mad scribbling.

“My doctorate was in xenobiology,” offered Dabrowski.

“So you’re not a researcher?”

“Well, I’m the medical doctor here. Mr. and Mrs. Zheng are the resident zookeepers, but I don’t think you’ll see too much of them. Everyone else is either a guard, scientist, or just a blue collar worker of some kind.” He wrote one final thing on his clipboard, held it up to the screen of the laptop on the cart to double check, then returned to Olivia. I can read all of that stuff on his screen and clipboard, it just makes zero sense.

“Blue collar?” What does the collar have to do with anything?

He tilted his head one way, then the other, eyes on the ceiling. “Well, basically lower end jobs. Janitors, the keepers working under the Zhengs, delivery boys, and so on. Blue collar is just a saying.”

“Oh, OK.”

“Rather inquisitive,” he commented. “OK, ready to begin? Do you know how old you are?”

“I, um, no.” What was it Ben said to Miya? “My friends said I was about fifteen, maybe. I don’t know.”

He nodded and wrote something down real quick. “OK. We’re already operating under, what were their words? ‘Assume human until something isn’t.’” Assume human. That’s positive. Right?

He followed with a battery of questions, only half of which she understood. Why is everyone so concerned with what I eat? Then he had her stand on a scale from the bottom shelf of the cart, and pulled up a metal thing attached to the back.

“Six foot ten, two hundred and eighty seven pounds,” he murmured to himself.

Back at the bed, he pulled out a small flat wooden stick. “Open wide, stick out your tongue.” Olivia eyed the stick. “It’s a tongue depressor, let’s me see,” he clarified. She complied after a moment. “Hmmm. Split tongue, serrated teeth. Everything else seems human, nothing is swollen or off color. Good,” muttered the doctor. This is weird, isn’t it?

After disposing with the stick, Dr. Ruskov grabbed a small box of latex gloves and some syringes and placed them on the counter, then left them there. Um, I don’t think I like that. 

“This is a lot easier,” murmured Dr. Ruskov

“Um,” began Olivia. What?

“Hm?” he said, looking up from his clipboard. He realized she’d heard him. “Oh, well, ferals are sedated before we give them medical checkups, so you can’t ask them questions or tell them ‘keep your mouth open’ or something. It’s that or I’m patching up guards after ferals try to get out before the ambulances get here. This is much easier. Now, ears.”

“They’ve been ringing a lot.”

“Ah. Tinnitus?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s take a look.”

After sticking some cone thing in her ears, he said, “Your ears are visually fine. No buildup of wax or fluids. I heard you got… roughed up on the way in here.”

“Yeah. I heal fast, I think,” replied Olivia. Roughed up? Is that what you call it?

“Hm,” he said, nodding “Any problems hearing?”

“No problems, but it’s all kind of, I don’t know, lessened. Not as clear.”

“I see,” he responded. 

After some more quality clipboard time, he ran her through a few more basic tests. You can just feel someone’s pulse? Why does that matter?

“Now, stay there,” he said as he walked around behind her. She started to track him, until he said, “Please don’t twist around. Your wings. Are they functional?”

“Um, yeah, I fly around and stuff.”

That elicited furious scribbling from Dr. Dabrowski. The two of them quizzed Olivia on exactly how. I just flap my wings. Like a bird. It’s not that complicated.

“No back pain? It’s not straining your spine?”

“No. Other than the tinnitus, I guess my feet hurt if I stand around for more than, I don’t know, fifteen minutes or so. I feel fine. Having a tail and stuff is weird, but I guess I’m getting used to it.”

Dr. Ruskov leaned over to take a look at her feet. “That makes sense. Those aren’t made for walking. That’s all I have. Do you have any questions?”

“Was there anything, you know, weird? Weirder.” I know, I’m weird.

“Well, your teeth are more shark-like than anything else, which is a bit odd.”

“Why?” Why am I weird? Dumb question.

Dabrowski spoke up, “Those teeth are almost indistinguishable from shark teeth, at least visually. Sharks are fish, not reptiles. Perhaps a dragon is what results when a shark climbs onto land, instead of a fish.” 

“Does it matter?”

Dr. Ruskov did his head tilting thing again. “How do you chew?”

She stared at him for a moment. “I move my jaw up and down?”

With a laugh, he replied, “Fair enough. Chewing is supposed to mash up food to make it easier to digest, though. Do yours?”

“Mash. I dunno, everything gets cut up. Sometimes stuff gets caught in between my teeth.”

“If it works it works, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m not a dentist, so I don’t know for certain. Though I am curious as to whether you have wisdom teeth.”

“Oh. OK.”

“Your heart rate is a lot slower than I would have expected, but blood pressure and everything else seems to be in order, so no worries there. Other than those, nothing out of the ordinary.” Olivia nodded. I guess that could have been worse. I learned stuff! The doctor continued, “So far as I can tell, you are perfectly healthy, but there are still a couple concerns. Sometimes the bacteria in your digestive system don’t make the jump, but if you haven’t had any problems in the last month, you should be fine for now. The two big concerns we have for you right now are diseases and cancer.”

“Aren’t those concerns for everyone?” asked Olivia. Ask about the bacteria later.

Dr. Ruskov chuckled. “True, but for you especially.” His easy smile vanished. “We don’t know how well your immune system adapts. If you catch strep throat, you could shrug it off in a day, or be put in the emergency room. We don’t know what the pathogens from your other half are like and we don’t know how you will react to the ones here. Vaccinations will be very risky. As for cancer, well, do you know what that is?”

“Bad?” Olivia guessed. It certainly doesn’t sound good, from what I’ve picked up.

He nodded, scratching his chin, then continued, “In layman’s terms, cancer is the uncontrolled division, the reproduction, of cells. Your cells got a bit wonky? Yes, wonky in the jump. Wings are not standard issue for people. All that added mass got there somehow.”

“Um,” began Olivia, scratching the back of her head. “That’s, um, that’s bad.”

He nodded. “The sample size of ferals is very small, but cancer has a disproportionately large occurrence rate. You appear to be very naturally resilient, so this shouldn’t be too big an issue, but you should be aware. Don’t stress about it, stress is never healthy.”

Olivia sighed. “Sure.”

“Don’t take this as a cancer diagnosis. You just need to be aware of the risks.”

“OK.” That’s still terrifying.

“Any other questions?”

Olivia shook her head.

“Alright. We just need a blood sample and we will be done here. Dr. Dabrowski may have questions for you, but the majority of those will probably wait until after it gets through the bloodworks.” He walked over to the counter.

“Bloodworks?” I’m not being stupid, am I?

“Hrm? Oh, that’s just the big analytical machine we use for getting almost anything you could want from a single sample of blood. Some crazy techie contraption, very expensive, but it’s damn accurate,” he said as he put on some blue latex gloves and prepped a syringe.

He held up the empty syringe, then stopped, taking a look at a faded bullet bruise on her upper arm. “This little thing isn’t going to work, is it?” he asked. Olivia shook her head. He scratched his head. “I don’t know what will.” 

“Wait, they said they had a knockout drug administered via drip. How…” he trailed off. He set the needle aside on the tray and pulled off his latex gloves, throwing them in a red trash can with a bunch of almost finished circles arranged on it. He hurried over to his computer. “Oh, those fucking idiots!”

Olivia sighed. “What?” she asked.

“Those idiot police just taped a needle in a bullet hole,” he said, anger creeping into his voice. “I don’t care how advanced their techie was, that’s,” he muttered to himself, his speech shifting to a different language.

Needle? “They put a mask on me with gas,” said Olivia.

Both doctors raised their eyebrows at that. Ruskov sighed and stood upright. “Then they’re lying about something and we’ll have to go through their reports with a fine tooth comb. I’ll assume you don’t want to get shot, so we can’t do the same thing. I’ll think on it. I’ll also find a good ENT doctor to check your ears out. And consult a dentist.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He nodded and picked up his clipboard for the nth time. “We are done, unless Dr. Dabrowski wishes to speak to you?” He shot a questioning look at the woman as Katie packed up the cart.

She shook her head. “No, you’ve given us a lot to think about. Thank you, Olivia. Would you be willing to undergo some light X-ray scans tomorrow?”

“What does that mean? What’s an X-ray?”

Dr. Dabrowski froze stock still for a second, mouth slightly opened. Olivia glanced at Katie and Ruskov, utterly unfazed. Finally, she explained, “An X-ray allows us to see your bones. You will just have to stand in front of a machine. It’s like taking a picture.”

“Oh, that’s fine. My friend, she’s good with bones.” One of the guards coughed. “With her magic.”

“What school did your friend go to?”

“I don’t know. She never mentioned one,” said Olivia.

“I strongly suspect your friend is a hedge mage who has no,” Dr. Dabrowski trailed off, frozen again. “Who may not have the expertise needed to accurately diagnose you,” she said carefully.

“An X-ray would be helpful,” added Ruskov. “There is only so much I can see from the surface. We, and you, could learn from what we see.”

“Oh, OK, that sounds fine, then. And thank you. For, um, telling me stuff.” Well, they did promise answers I might not have liked.

“Of course. If you are ever feeling unwell, let me know. Stay healthy, and good luck.”