Failure?, part II

[littlebean]

Failure?, part II

The door were literally kicked open with a slam. It was a dramatic entrance befitting the situation, a nurse carrying the cold and unmoving body of his patient into the hospital, looking and searching for his master for guidance and direction. If his hands were free and he wasn't carrying Shin in the first place the door would have been opened quietly, Kremnaes didn't like to draw attention to himself.

He hadn't the energy for drama, or to comb through the maze like hallways of the clinic looking for Sturm. Carefully he placed the now slime covered Shin onto the floor, laying on his side and reached for the communicator once more, panting the entire time. Aside from the fact that he was physically out of shape, he suffered from the same dilemma as Shin in a way. Ever since this assignment he'd been running around non stop, without any sleep running errands and carrying Shin all the way back to the hospital. He wasn't going to have a seizure or pass out, but Kremnaes was feeling the exhaustion.

"Master? Master?" He turned on the device and spoke into it again, hoping for a response.

[Nayt]

There was still no answer.

While the first floor had rooms where patients could be kept, they weren't trustworthy. The second floor's rooms were much better. The first floor had lighting trouble; every so often, the lights would flicker, and Sturm had warned the Ersatzshad he had staffed as nurses and would be doctors numerous times that electrical equipment habitually failed on the first floor. Some still used it for whatever reason, but if those two hand-held panels that generated an electric shock were necessary to save a person's life, the first floor wasn't the place to use it.

Most staff stayed away from the first floor by Sturm's suggestion, in any case; Kremnaes likely wasn't going to find any help here, less he decided to climb the stairs to the second floor.

Only one elevator in the facility actually worked, too. That same elevator was at the south entrance, and wasn't big enough to carry a stretcher. Likewise, Kremnaes had come from the north entrance, and would have to make a loop through the entire facility to reach it.

[littlebean]

"Fuck...."

Kremnaes cursed for the first time in a long while when there was no answer from Sturm. The potty mouth would be okay since there was nobody around to offend, and the single word perfectly described his current situation. After all his work he was stranded on the first floor with a comatose patient who wasn't in any condition to care for himself or even carry out simple bodily functions. Machines would be responsible for doing most things for him, but here they were, on the first floor, with no electricity. The elevator was farther than the stairs were and were too tiny for him and a stretcher. Although the stairs were dangerous, they were his only option. When he carried Shin up them he'd just have to be extremely careful not to let him slip out of slimey grip like he did Isac's dishes.

Kremnaes carried Shin up to the second floor and began putting his training to work. It wasn't difficult, considering that the patient was the most cooperative he;d ever be in his given state, but just tedious. Shin would need all sorts of care, ventilators to breathe for him, a catheter to drain his urine, and for his nutrients and liquids to be given to him through an IV. Once Shin woke up, he would be covered in evidence that kremnaes had been more intimately close to him than he would ever want him to be, in a hospital gown and a tube up his...


"Master? Master?" Kremnaes made a second attempt at reaching Sturm, hoping that after taking care of Shin he would be available or that the machine would work again.

[Nayt]

And again, there was no answer . . .

At least, not from Sturm.

"Kremnaes? Is that you?" a voice called from down the hall.

He had been alerted by Kremnaes's calling into a radio, and the static that followed. He had clearly recognized Kremnaes's voice, and judging by the coming footsteps, was approaching him accordingly.

Were Kremnaes to look out into the hall, he'd more than likely recognize the fellow he had alerted. His name was Zeto, a fellow Ersatzshad, and one of the more socially awkward ones. Most could tell who he was just by voice alone. He had a male voice, young and sounding like he was a fifteen year old human, that had a fairly feminine quality to it, just enough to set him in a sort of in-between state of a masculine male voice and a feminine male voice.

He was a short young man, standing at about five feet and five inches tall, and had chin length black hair. He had a young face, and albeit somewhat androgynous, his boyish features gave his gender away. His skin was a somewhat light gray, a little uncommon for Ersatzshad, and he had long, pointed ears that extended out horizontally from his face. As all Ersatzshad had horns somewhat upon their bodies, Zeto had two minute sized horns upon his head: they were asymmetrically off to the right side of his forehead, clustered together closely, and looked like more of a hair-clip than anything else.

Zeto may not have been a doctor or nurse, but most people knew him by name, even if they weren't acquaintances with him. He was, after all, one of the chosen few they watched over the city . . .

[littlebean]

The sudden sound of a voice other than his own startled Kremnaes into a small gasp. "Gah! Wh-who's there?" He spoke out into the nothing. The voice wasn't coming from the communicator, and he hadn't seen anyone in the facility his entire time there, so who could it have possible been? Tense and worried Kremnaes stared at the doorway, waiting to see who it would be, but when he discovered the source of the voice belonged to a fellow Ersatzshad Zeto, he was relieved. Zeto was a kind man, socially awkward like himself.

"Oh hey Zeto! Aha..." There was a nervous chuckle, the eyes on his chest glancing from Zeto, to his work laying unconscious on the hospital bed, and back to Zeto again, unsure of what Zeto would make of what he saw, or if he would say anything. For a moment there was a quietness while he waited for some sort of probing questions or judgement, but shortly after Kremnaes decided he'd break the silence, and maybe not give Zeto the opporunity to ask.

"So uh..." He fished around desperately for something to talk about, he wasn't very interesting, and couldn't find anything past the average small talk which for now would have to do. "H-how're you?"

[Nayt]

Zeto came to a stop when he was in front of the door, where Kremnaes stood between he and Shin. Initially, he had just been curious about Kremnaes's shouts just a moment ago. But now . . .

"I'm doing well, um . . ." Zeto spoke with noticeable confusion in his voice as he looked over Kremnaes's shoulder, ". . . what happened to him?"

. . . he couldn't help but be curious about Shin Shiden. He'd seen the human before, but not up close and personal, nor in a situation like this. It was kind of surreal, actually. He met other humans before, but only in one area of the blue world they called Utopia. The meetings only lasted for a day, too. Beyond that single day in history, Zeto had very little contact with human beings, so it was kind of surreal to see one in need of medical attention.

Zeto knew how to treat other Ersatzshad, but not humans. To his knowledge, they were a completely different brand of biology, and thus required a completely different brand of knowledge.

[littlebean]

"Oh this...uh..." At first Kremnaes tried to play dumb, like he had no idea there was a human creature laying in the bed behind him, but quickly abandoned that idea since it was too obvious that he knew what was going on, since he was the only one in the room with Shin. "It's, it's n-nothing really." He shrugged his shoulders at the subjects, trying his best to act casual and disinterested. "Just a seizure followed by a coma." He muttered quietly to himself sarcastically.

Despite trying to act like it wasn't a big deal he had to remind himself that upon hearing there was a human in the facility, he was just as interested and curious as Zeto was. He was nervous of course, as he was with most things but meeting a human was an opportunity not many had the chance with. At first he just wanted to glimpse at Shin, if only from a safe distance. There were all sorts of things he wanted to find out, what they were like, where they were from, but Kremnaes only had the nerve enough to look.

As soon as he layed eyes on the human he regretted the encounter deeply, and as circumstances would have it he got closer than just a small glimpse. Now because of this he was stuttering over his words, trying hard to think of an answer for Zeto. There wasn't anything he could say.

"Y-yyeah."

[Nayt]

". . . nothing?" Zeto whispered doubtfully.

Zeto felt, for the briefest of moments, the urge to hold his forehead in both palms and let out a deep sigh. It was a fleeting urge, and completely unattended. Instead, he furrowed his brow and continued to look past Kremnaes at the man that was laid out on the table.

This didn't look like nothing.

Unfortunately, Zeto didn't quite hear what Kremnaes mumbled. Zeto could only speculate what happened. Perhaps this man had stumbled and fell on his head? That would cause quite a dilemma for a human being, as far as he knew. Their skulls were very weak. While Zeto looked entirely normal, with a slender, vaguely feminine, and human shaped skull, the bone that made up his cranium was extremely tough, durable like steel. Most of the bones in his body were like that, even. It meant he sunk in pools of water, but so long as he stayed away from those . . .

Yes, yes. It had to have been a blow to his head. But from how? Zeto recalled numerous incidents in the past week or so of Ersatzshad being taken into the hospital to receive emergency treatment for wounds that no eyes in the sky had caught. It was unnerving. Perhaps this was connected.

"Did someone do that to him?" asked Zeto at last.

[littlebean]

"Oh nononono." Kremnaes dismissed Zeto's suggestion right away. He doubted there were many people in the city that could leave Shin in a coma, he seemed so powerful. "No don't worry it's nothing like th-that." He did his best to reassure Zeto that violence was not involved (at least not towards Shin) and that nothing happened beyond the gaze of his watchful eyes.

"He's not i-injured, j-just ssssick. I just...can't figure out what's wrong with him."

He tried to keep a straight face with Zeto. His head was facing towards him, but with his eyes not located there in the first place, it hardly meant he was keeping eye contact with the man at all. In fact the eyes on his chest were gazing elsewhere, at the unconscious figure of Shin laying on the bed with a frown on his face. It was true that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Any story about his eyes was only a fictional illness meant to keep him within the city, any word about him being sent to monitor this mysterious condition was only an excuse for Kremnaes to be near the man. When he first encountered Shin his antennae didn't predict any illness and he didn't display any symptoms. The man seemed to have seized and passed out for completely no reason, or at least none he could detect.

The frown wasn't for the state of his patient, but for what his inability to help the patient meant about his performance. If anything it was a blow to his pride above all things. Inwardly Kremnaes held the tiniest speck of pride for his ability, and allowed himself to feel even the slightest bit useful. Now without it not only did he feel it lessened his worth as a person (if you could call him that) but it lessened his usefulness as a nurse altogether. What if Sturm didn't need him at the clinic anymore, why couldn't he find the cause of the illness?

After a faint sigh Kremnaes realized his behaviour may have seemed off and forced a smile for Zeto. "Aha...so. Ya."

[Nayt]

Sick? Weird. Zeto couldn't remember any Ersatzshad getting that sick before. But hey, maybe humans did that. Maybe they got sick so bad sometimes that they'd die without medical treatment. Well, it was better than being mugged or beaten to near death, but that was still unfortunate.

Incidentally, the Ersatzshad would die without treatment, too--but it wasn't medical, nor was it an illness. In fact, few really understood it, only that they'd die without the medication Sturm regulated for them.

"What are his symptoms . . .?" Zeto asked after a long time of thought.

Zeto wasn't a doctor or nurse by any means. In fact, excepting Sturm, there were no doctors here. Sturm was a trained professional when it came to medical practices, and when it came to Ersatzshad, having been their maker, he knew them inside out, and how to fix any of their problems. Zeto imagined that it was the same with human beings. But nonetheless, while Zeto wasn't a nurse, personally, he knew many of them, and he'd talked to Sturm on several occasions about what he did, and a lot of knowledge rubbed off on him. In fact, he could easily take care of a wounded person by this point, though not quite a sick person.

[littlebean]

"What are his symptoms . . .?"

It was an innocent and honest question that, regrettably Kremnaes didn't have an answer for. Anyone in the room would have asked that question, and Zeto had done nothing wrong by asking. In fact Kremnaes was certain he was just trying to help. But with a frown and shake of his head it would be obvious that the slug wished Zeto hadn't have asked. "Th-that's the- there weren't-" his sentence was cut short by a loong deep yawn that only stretched out the moment longer than it needed to be. The eyes on his chest watered."any symptoms. He just seized suddenly for no reason. I'm sorry."

Whether or not there really weren't any symptoms was a mystery, and Kremnaes could be lying to Zeto by saying that there weren't any. For all he knew there could be symptoms and the cause of the illness could be right in front of his face, but he just couldn't find it. If this was true, then he should probably be a bit more honest about the situation. Zeto didn't deserve to be lied to, and he'd hate to see what would happen if someone found out he was lying, a mistake could easily cost Shin his life. Admitting it to Zeto would be the first step, because eventually he'd have to tell Sturm sooner or later.

"Actually there could be symptoms, I just couldn't find them, he just had a seizure for no reason and.." he paused." I should probably get some medication for that."


(I was real high on painkillers when I wrote this nonsense I ams so sorry.)

[Nayt]

Offtopic: And I'm drunk while writing this!

Zeto looked at Kremnaes quizzically. Rather suddenly, he experienced a strange curiosity of sorts. He felt ten kinds of dumb for venting this curiosity, though.

"Do we even have any medicine for humans?" Zeto asked, unsure.

He was pretty sure they did not. Sturm was the only human being that was here to use medicines like that, after all--and he always made his own brand of medication, just like he did for the Ersatzshad. In Zeto's time here, he hadn't seen any traditional human medications. At least not the kind he imagined. They were all weird colored injections that Sturm used on himself. The closest thing to a traditional medication was this weird dosage of medication that every Ersatzshad had to take once every week.

And it wasn't like the Gartel, Brenden or otherwise, took regular medicine, either. They were borderline dead already. Traditional medication just didn't work on them, as they lacked a number of normal bodily functions--such as a need to eat and drink. To do so was entirely optional, and provided no nutritional value for them, regardless of what it was. As such, medication for them was exceptionally strange.

Indeed, Zeto hadn't ever seen traditional human medicine during his entire life here in the City of Shadows.

[littlebean]

At the rate things were going Kremnaes was about to ask Zeto to take over for him, because he was doing a much better job at being or even thinking like a nurse than Kremnaes was. Shin was human, aside from the Gartel and Sturm he was probably the only human around, why would they have human medication?

There was such a hush to go and get the job done that he was just flying through all the important details. If he was doing anything other than looking for medication that probably didn't exist he could have hurt someone. It was clear that Zeto's mind was much sharper than his, he seemed to be doing much more clear thinking that he was. Kremnaes's thinking was muddled and hazy from exhaustion, and it was affecting his performance greatly. Ever since this assignment he was pretty sure he wasn't successful in anything he tried, even in the facility. Without finding any symptoms and looking for invisible meds, he wondered what else he could have done wrong in the day.

Again his eyes followed Shin nervously, hoping to god he didn't make a mistake hooking him up to everything, then quickly snapped back to Zeto. "Actually I-i-i'm not sure. I'm sorry." He apologized for his mistake and sighed, remembering that Sturm requested for "sometime soonish" for Kremnaes to be alone so he could reach him. "I-i should go look anyway."

[Nayt]

"Yeah. Worth a try," Zeto nodded.

He looked back into the room again. He didn't feel particularly compelled to help this man--not Kremnaes, but the human he was caring for. It was weird, but Zeto felt that sometimes. Sometimes, he could tell by just looking at someone if he should hang around them or not.

And for the most part, he concluded that he shouldn't. This man wasn't any different. Kremnaes was; Kremnaes, in actuality, was someone that really meant well with everything he did. Around him, there was to be no fear that he'd stab you in the back or something. Well, of course, as far as other Ersatzshad went. Not many Ersatzshad had any love for humans, and thus reasons to feel obligated to benefiting their survival. Granted, had Kremnaes been ordered to kill Shin Shiden, he might not have had the heart to do it, but to an extent, the man could inconvenience him without guilt.

Zeto looked away from Shin. He folded his arms over his chest and thought to himself for a brief moment. He felt put off by Shin's very existence, which, in turn, also made him curious about.

"Do you want me to stay and watch him while you're out?" Zeto asked.

He really didn't have much else to do, anyways.

[littlebean]

"Y-you'd do that?"

He turned around looking at Zeto, almost baffled by the idea, not because he thought Zeto couldn't do the task of keeping an eye on a comatose patient, but by the belief that as soon as he left, something bad may happen. The offer in itself was incredibly generous. Shin was, as far as Kremnaes was concerned, a huge pain in the ass and wouldn't want to give anyone else the burden of having to babysit, but with Zeto keeping an eye on Shin (he kept an eye on everything else anyway) he could definitely leave to get some work done. He'd have to run his errands as fast as he could, because if anything happened, it would be all his own fault.

" I mean, sure, b-but you don't have to. All he does is lay there so it shouldn't be a problem anyway."

Given their social awkwardness both Zeto and Kremnaes didn't really run into eachother too often. Kremnaes was often preoccupied with his job as a nurse, and was sure Zeto had his hands full being the city's eyes as well, in between there wasn't a lot of time for social activities if they ever desired it. They just didn't seem to have the time or opportunity to be friends, and were sofar just aquaintances. For Zeto to offer his help was real nice, and after he cleaned up Isac's house and bought him a new dish, he'd have to be sure to pay back Zeto in some way as well.

He sat up with a small grunt, grabbing his bag. Before heading out the door he looked back at Zeto one last time. "I-is this okay?"