"'Terminal' is a pretty imprecise term, Mr. Perry," Dr. Russell said. "In the long run, we're all terminal cases. In the case of this examination, what we're really looking to do is to stabilize any recruits who are in imminent danger, so we know they'll make it through the next few days. The case of your unfortunate roommate Mr. Deak isn't all that unusual. We have a lot of recruits who make it to this point just to die before assessment. That's not good for any of us."
Dr. Russell consulted his PDA. "Now, in the case of Mr. Deak, who died of a heart attack, what we probably would have done would be to remove the plaque buildup from his arteries and provide him with an arterial wall-strengthening compound to prevent ruptures. That's our most common treatment. Most seventy-five-year-old arteries can use some propping up. In your case, if you had had advanced stage cancer, we would have trimmed back the tumors to a point where they didn't pose an imminent threat to your vital functions, and shored up the affected regions to make sure you wouldn't have any problems over the next few days."
"Why wouldn't you cure it?" I asked. "If you can 'shore up' an affected region, it sounds like you could probably fix it completely if you wanted to."
"We can, but it's not necessary," Dr. Russell said. "You'll be getting a more comprehensive overhaul in a couple of days. We just need to keep you going until then."
"What does 'comprehensive overhaul' mean, anyway?" I said.
"It means that when it's done, you'll wonder why you ever worried about a spot of cancer on your testicle," he said. "That's a promise. Now, there's one more thing we need to do here. Bring your head forward, please."
I did. Dr. Russell reached up and brought the feared arm cup down directly on the top of my head. "During the next couple of days, it's going to be important for us to get a good picture of your brain activity," he said, moving back. "So to do this, I'm going to implant a sensor array into your skull." As he said this, he tapped the screen on his PDA, an action I was learning to mistrust. There was a slight sucking noise as the cup adhered to my skull.
"How do you do that?" I asked.
"Well, right now, you can probably feel a little tickle on your scalp and down the back of your neck," Dr. Russell said, and I could. "Those are the injectors positioning themselves. They're like little hypodermic needles that will insert the sensors. The sensors themselves are very small, but there's a lot of them. About twenty thousand, more or less. Don't worry, they're self-sterilizing."
"Is this going to hurt?" I asked.
"Not so much," he said, and tapped his PDA screen. Twenty thousand microsensors slammed themselves into my skull like four ax handles simultaneously whacking my skull.
"God damn it!" I grabbed my head, banging my hands against the crèche door as I did so. "You son of a bitch," I yelled at Dr. Russell. "You said it wouldn't hurt!"
"I said 'not so much,'" Dr. Russell said.
"Not so much as what? Having your head stepped on by an elephant?"
"Not so much as when the sensors connect to each other," Dr. Russell said. "The good news is that as soon as they're connected, the pain stops. Now hold still, this will only take a minute." He tapped the PDA again. Eighty thousand needles shot out in every direction in my skull.
I have never wanted to punch a doctor so much in my life.
"I don't know," Harry was saying. "I think it's an interesting look." And with this, Harry rubbed his head, which like all our heads was now a dusty speckled gray where twenty thousand subcutaneous sensors sat, measuring brain activity.
The breakfast crew had reconvened again at lunchtime, this time with Jesse and her roommate Maggie joining the crowd. Harry had declared that we now constituted an official clique, branded us the "Old Farts," and demanded we begin a food fight with the next table over. He was voted down, in no small part due to Thomas noting that any food we threw we wouldn't get to eat, and lunch was even better than breakfast, if that was possible.
"And a damned good thing, too," Thomas said. "After this morning's little brain injection, I was almost too pissed off to eat."
"I can't imagine that," Susan said.
"Notice how I said 'almost,'" Thomas said. "But I'll tell you what. I wish I'd had one of those crèches back home. Would have cut my appointment times by eighty percent. More time for golfing."
"Your devotion to your patients is overwhelming," Jesse said.
"Fah," Thomas said. "I played golf with most of them. They would have been all for it. And as much as it pains me to say it, it helped my doctor make a much better assessment than I ever could have. That thing is a diagnostician's dream. It caught a microscopic tumor on my pancreas. There's no way I could have caught that back home until it was a hell of a lot larger or a patient started showing symptoms. Did anyone else have anything surprising?"
"Lung cancer," Harry said. "Little spots."
"Ovarian cysts," Jesse said. Maggie seconded.
"Incipient rheumatoid arthritis," said Alan.
"Testicular cancer," I said.
Every man at the table winced. "Ouch," said Thomas.
"They tell me I'll live," I said.
"You'll just be lopsided when you walk," said Susan.