//------------------------------// // Chapter 27: Answers // Story: Bailing Out // by PhillyCh3zSt3ak //------------------------------// A/N: Sorry about the almost month wait for the update on this guys. You know how it is: distractions such as work, running a youtube channel, attempting to get back to school, more work (seriously, I work a lot), and being around the ladyfriend. Now without further ado, chapter 27. I apologize ahead of time for any errors that I may have missed, I finished editing this at 2am (local) while nodding off. Chapter 27: Answers It’s been about three weeks since the visit by the land’s resident princess and crown prince. Since then I regained the full range of motion in my arms and hands, though I can’t lift as much I used to, well at least now. In summary I can move everything above my waist, however using my back muscles tends to leave a nasty jolt of pain behind. As for my memory, nothing has come back to me yet. There had been nights that the nurses say I’ve been waking up at night screaming in pain while grabbing at the bullet wounds that had already healed and the kicker was I wouldn’t remember what I was screaming about. The hospital shrinks said that night terrors were common with PTSD, especially those with injuries like mine. What surprised them, and me, the most was that I wasn’t showing any signs of PTSD outside of these night terrors. They gave me some kind of sleeping pill to take before bed that would make my sleep dreamless. My days were a boring routine. Wake up, eat, get jabbed by a few needles to take some blood samples, more x-rays and CT scans once a week otherwise physical therapy sessions instead, eat lunch, get visited by Spitfire and sometimes the squad, eat dinner, say goodbye, read for the last few hours before ‘lights out’, take the pills, sleep, and then wake up and do it again. There were times when no one was around and I brought out my laptop that I brought for some reason, and for that matter someone had brought it through with them. However I wasn’t going to kick a gift horse in the mouth because I finally had time to go through my Steam library of games. Regrettably I had never gotten around to playing The Stanley Parable, Transistor, or Metro 2033 amongst others and now it looks like I’ll have the chance to do so. “Mr. Briggs?” a woman asked. I hit pause and looked up at the woman and saw that she was a nurse holding my lunch. “I have your lunch.” “Just leave it there on the table, Nurse Redheart,” I replied kindly. She set it on the table and left with a smile. Nice lady. I was amazed how Spitfire was able to get my power adapter to work with their power system. Apparently she and Lang, oddly enough the squad’s unofficial tech expert, were able to Jerry rig a cable compatible using the charger component and what was over simplified as a power transformer. I sort of tuned out the details mainly because as long as it works I really don’t need to know how it works. A few hours later I opened one of the videos from some show I was apparently watching. Right as the opening credits started a pair of hands covered my eyes. “Guess who?” the female voice said. My mind went into panic mode initially, but I knew of only one person that would do this. “Clairece, when did you get here? Have you seen Wanda?” I asked in a faux British accent. “Really?” she deadpanned. “Quoting Fairly Odd Parents?” She removed her hands from my eyes, “Yeah,” she was giving me the look again. “What? Cosmo is a hilarious idiot,” I said with an innocent smile. She gave me a soft kiss on the lips, “You’re lucky I love you.” “That’s good, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this-,” I trailed before playfully tapping her nose with my finger. She sat down in the seat next to the bed and watched the show for a bit before she spoke up again. “So...” “So...?” “Has anything come back to you yet?” she asked hopefully. “No. Nothing new on the Western Front,” I replied. She looked a little sad. Probably because the doc said something along the lines that my memory might start to recover slowly in the following days and weeks. So far nothing has consciously returned. There was a moment of silence, “You know, I’m kind of scared.” “What do you mean?” She had a quizzical look. I paused the episode and sighed, “Well there’s the slight possibility that I won’t like what I was.” She sat next to me in the bed, wrapping her arm around me before laying her head down on my shoulder. “You were and are still a kind man and loving husband. You’d be willing to go through hell and back for me. You even went as far as to hold a loaded gun to the head of a scientist for messing with your niece, and punch your brother-in-law for cheating on your sister. I love you, no matter what,” she said before kissing me again. “Thanks,” I said after breaking the kiss. “But that doesn’t mean I’m still not scared of what is in my memory.” She set her head back in my shoulder again. “Whatever it is,” she said taking my hand. “We’ll get through it together.” We sat there watching several shows until we both drifted off into a midafternoon nap, it probably didn’t help that the sun was shining through warming the room to an optimal napping temperature. I woke up a while later when a tap on my shoulder interrupted a wonderful dream, which for some reason I can’t recall. I looked down to see that Spitfire’s hair had been cut short, like it was when we first met. “Mr. Briggs?” a male voice asked. Standing next to me was the doctor. I held a finger to my lips then pointed to Spitfire. He nodded in acknowledgement. “Anything wrong doc?” I asked. He looked down for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right words to say. “I’m going to be straight with you. This is one of the few times in my medical career where I don’t know what to say.” “Please just tell me doc.” He took a deep breath in before exhaling slowly. “The good news is that the shard in your spinal column is gone, however an unknown mass of metal has appeared in its place. We would do a MRI scan to see what it is, but it appears to be magnetic so that option is out of the question.” “What else can you do?” “We could attempt an exploratory surgery to see directly what it is. You can have it performed here, but according to a request made by your wife you are going to be transferred to Canterlot General for the remainder of your treatment and rehab. We have ample doctors both here and there. You being the patient you can choose either. I figure you’ll want to discuss it with your wife, let me know what you decide,” he said before leaving the room. That left me with questions I was asking myself such as ‘would this even help them figure out what’s wrong with me?’ and ‘will this work or is this just a waste of time?’ I sighed in both frustration. Apparently my movement must’ve disturbed Spitfire since she woke up. “Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked sleepily. To be honest she’s kind of cute when she’s sleepy. “So when were you going to tell me that you were going to have me transferred?” I asked playfully. “Well I’m going to be transferred back to Canterlot, don’t you want to come with?” she asked. “Of course I do,” I say giving her a kiss on the cheek. “It would have been nice to know ahead of time though.” I proceeded to tell her about the procedure. I could already tell that she had come concerns. “So they pretty much want to slice into your back again and see why the fragment is missing but a structure of some kind has taken its place?” She pretty much summarized it in one sentence. “What do you think?” “Do you think it has anything to do with those nanomachines still in your body?” she asked which I returned with a confused look. “Didn’t Jones and Lang tell you about them?” “No…” She told me of the background concerning my modifications. Nanomachines injected into my bloodstream using a template of her neural structure and musculature as a reference from her DNA then made the correct adjustments to my body in the short span of a week. “So I’ve got these little robits swimming around my body doing God knows what?” “Well from what I know they were just there to build what it needed to. I assume if you were a mage you’d have conduits built along your arms to channel your magic.” “And those channels are…?” “The markings on their arms.” “Ah.” “Each one is unique to each individual mage. They usually look generically wispy until the mage finds their specific field of magic they excel at; then their markings shift slightly to show what that specialty is. They’re usually pretty subtle and you have to look for them. As you saw on Princess Cadence’s arms you may have seen the occasional heart shape in the markings, well that’s because she specializes in Love Magic.” It dawned on me, “That’s why she was able to say that I still loved you back when they first visited without her having a shadow of a doubt.” “Correct. Prince Shining Armor has the occasional old style shield that appears, Princess Luna has stars, there’s this DJ that runs a nightclub in Canterlot that has the occasional sound wave, and of course there are many more that I could mention.” “I feel as though we’ve gotten a little off topic. What do you think I should do?” She sat there with her ‘thinking face’ for a few minutes. “Well if you do it here I’ll have to leave shortly after since I’m needed at the base in Canterlot and you’ll be alone for the most part until you are considered well enough to travel. However if you wait a few days you can have the procedure done at the new hospital where I can visit you in my downtime. I already have an apartment lined up as well. The only downside is that you might have to dodge my somewhat overzealous fan base.” “Overzealous?” I asked curiously. She scratched her head nervously, “Well a few of my more dedicated male fans were extremely displeased.” “They just sound a little butthurt,” I said with a slight chuckle. “Well you’ve heard about celebrity stalkers. That guy that wanted to impress what's-her-name by shooting Regan is no exception to the rule.” She paused for a moment, tightening her grip around my waist. “I guess I’m a little worried that they’ll do something, especially since you’ll be confined to a chair, wheelchair, or bed for a while.” “You forget that I’m a pretty good shot.” “Who hasn’t fired a single shot in almost four months,” she interrupted. “Touché. Plus it’s not like they’d let me out of here anyway to go to a firing range.” We sat there for a little while, she started caressing my arm. “Did you want to go down to the sun room?” I nodded. She slid off the bed and rolled over the chair, oh how I loathe the thing. I swung my legs over the ledge where they dangled with nothing to stop them. I held out my arms. “Carry me,” I joked. “You know that will never happen,” she deadpanned. “It was worth a try,” I joked. “But seriously, can you give me a hand?” She rolled her eyes and let me put my arm around her shoulders as she moved me over to the wheelchair. A minute later she and I were down the hallway. I was still in one of those annoyingly thin, non-insulating patient gowns. Personally I would have settled for a set of scrubs. She eventually got us down to the sunroom. It was sort of a greenhouse-like addition to the hospital. I was taken throughout the hospital over the last few weeks and I saw that the complex had been added on multiple times as they got more funding since I assume that this building was repurposed shortly after that tyrant Somber or whatever his name was banished from existence for a second time. Spitfire stopped right where there was a ray of light coming through the window. It was nice, I have to get back out into the sun again when I get out of here. I look as pale as that albino guy from the Benchwarmers movie from years ago. She pulled up a chair from one of the tables along the windows and sat beside me, leaning on my shoulder with her head. We sat there for a while before the doctor on my case found us. “Ah, there you are I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said walking over in front of me. “Have you decided on what you want to do?” I looked to Spitfire before turning back to the physician, “Yes, sir, I believe I have.” *** Inside the sterile room stood a team of surgeons ready to do what their job dictated. Their hands in the air showing they were covered. A tray contained various instruments and cutting utensils to use; meanwhile the still unconscious form of a male Angel lying on the operating table facedown. “Alright ladies and gents, we’re here to day to find out why this man has a strange formation of metal in his spinal column,” the head surgeon said to the assembled. “Let’s make this quick and clean and this fine gent will be out of here in no time.” He came closer to the patient and held his hand out, “Scalpel.” A nurse complied and handed him one. He slowly brought the nigh monomolecular blade to the patch of skin exposed. “Making first incision.” *** Spitfire woke up for the umpteenth time after drifting off to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. Hours passed as she read old magazines and yesterday’s issue of the Canterlot Sentinel, the local newspaper. There wasn’t anything of interest in it other than a column that stated that she had ‘returned to the city with a mysterious man who she seemed close to.’ It was at this point she was missing the technology from back on Earth, the internet especially. ‘Maybe some of the Crystalline and Air Force scientists that made the trip could come up with it,’ she thought to herself. Eventually she drifted off to sleep again, mainly out of sheer boredom. She dreamt of the honeymoon they had, in the real world anyone near her could see the smile on her face. Eventually her pleasant dreaming was interrupted by a mage in green scrubs. “How’d it go doc?” she asked groggily. “Well I’m not quite sure how to say this...” he started to say with his Scoltish accent while Spitfire’s eyes widened in horror. “But we’re dumbfounded.” “Um... what?” she asked trying to shake off her own confusion, as well as some anger at the doctor for making this more dramatic than it needed to be. He brought out the case folder and opened it to a photo. “As you can see here,” he said showing it to her. “As you can see here, there are what looks like sliver colored filaments connecting the severed spinal column; however as shown in previous x-ray and CT scans, the original metal mass is gone.” Spitfire looked just as confused as the surgeon felt. “That was what my face looked like when I saw it in person.” “Well what is it doing? It isn’t natural in the slightest.” “One of the interns joked that we should attach a voltage meter to these filaments. Just for shits and giggles we allowed one to touch and lo and behold there was a faint charge flowing from the upper portion into the metal, but only continuing both ways on specific ones.” “What does this mean?” she asked, still confused. “It means there is a slim possibility that he might walk again, if all of the signals from the lower portion can be returned back that is.” *** My eyes opened from a drug induced stupor. I quite literally blinked and one moment I was in an operating room with a mask over my face and the next I was in a recovery room lying on my stomach. Apparently they didn’t want me screwing up their sutures, which is fine by me since I like to sleep this way anyway. I could see a red blur sitting right if front of me. I blinked it away and sitting there patiently was Spitfire. “Hey,” I said tiredly. “Hey. How are you feeling?” she asked. “Tired. Sore. Nothing new here.” She gave me a soft kiss on the lips. “I think I’m starting to feel a little better,” I said with a bit of a smile. “Good, because I’ve got some great news,” she said sounding excited. “Hmm?” “I talked to the surgeon after he was done, nice guy. Anyway, he said that there might be a chance that you could walk again.” “But... how?” She proceeded to explain what the doctor said about the mysteriously deemed ‘filaments’ of metal that had spawned out of nowhere and had taken residence in between the two severed parts of my spine. “What do you think caused it?” She thought for a moment with her hand to her chin. “Maybe it has something to do with those nanites that are still in your body? I saw you cut yourself once while replacing something on your motorcycle. By the time you washed it off it was already healed.” “That brings up another question: if these things can heal me almost instantaneously, why didn’t they finish the job?” “Maybe the damage was too much for them to handle on their own? That cut you had wasn’t very deep to begin with,” she shrugged. “Or maybe they *yawn* ran out of building material in order to replicate to replace everything that was damaged,” I said before yawning again. There must still be some of the anesthetic still in my system. “I think I’ll have a word with the scientists that came with us, maybe even Lang and see if they can shed some light on this.” My eyes started to close right after she yawned too. “In the morning that is,” she said with a slight giggle. She leaned over and gave me a small kiss on the forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Ok,” I said sleepily. “Love you,” was the last thing I said before I slipped yet again in the oblivion of sleep. *** A blast wave from an explosion hit me and made me stumble a few feet back. The ringing in my ears told me that it was close when it detonated. I looked in front of me to see one of the surviving members of the base’s security saying something, but I couldn’t quite read his lips at the speed he was going. My hearing started to come back with what sounded like a lower pitched tea kettle with boiling water rushing out. “Sir, they’re coming from all sides!” he yelled. “How long do you need?” I yelled to a scientist hiding behind a HMVV who held one of the Tokarev’s from the Russians from earlier. It looked like he’s never held a gun before. “At least ten minutes!” he shouted back. I looked around the area we have under our control. Then I spotted it. “Jones!” I yelled and he ducked behind his cover, pausing his firing to look at me. “Drag that Humvee over for the doc to use as cover!” He nodded. “Everyone else, suppressing fire!” *** My eyes snapped open, my breathing shallow and fast. I could hear the EKG rapidly beeping. A nurse was standing over me holding a full syringe of God knows what in it. My breathing started to slow down and she put it down. “Sir, are you alright?” she asked, obviously worried about her charge. “Yes. It was just a bad dream… I think,” I replied. “That was probably a night terror,” the nurse replied calmly. “But I don’t feel terrified, maybe alert, but not terrified. What time is it anyway?” She said it was 9am, so it was a little pointless to go back to sleep, regardless how restless I was. Before she left to finish her morning rounds if she could have some coffee sent up. Sometime during whatever happened the precious night I managed to roll over, since the nurse didn’t roll me back over I assumed that I was fine lying this way. I passed the next few hours until lunch playing more of the games on my laptop, thank God for Pokémon emulations. Those really helped me retain my sanity last the last two weeks since it’s the perfect time killer. It was right when I was in the middle of conquering the Elite Four for the fourth time when Spitfire came in. “Afternoon, sweetie,” she said happily, snapping me out of the ‘zone’ I was in. “Hey. Why are you so happy, did something good happen?” I asked. She took her seat at my bedside, like she always did. “Actually yes, I do. So I was talking to one of the scientists who came with us who has knowledge of nanotechnology, specifically how it can be used in the medical field, he said that he could take a look at the code being used and see why they stopped when they did.” “When did they say they could look at it?” “The one I talked to said next week was the earliest. Apparently she’s working on a TV that works using their technology. Soon we’ll be able to televise all sporting events, especially the Equestrian Games for those who can’t make it.” “That does sound great. By the way, how did those go? I bet you kicked ass,” I asked with amusement. “Well… they didn’t let me compete since I missed the trials since I was still with you back on Earth, however the Princesses allowed me to be one of the coaches for the Cloudsdale team.” “Well that was nice of them. Too bad I missed it though, I bet it was a blast,” I said sounding slightly disappointed. What? I wanted to see how similar the events were to the Olympic Games. “Not necessarily,” she replied. This piqued my interest. “The games that finished were the winter games. The summer games will be taking place closer to June and July.” “Oh, so do you think you’ll try out for that?” “I can’t see why not,” Spitfire replied. “We got a little sidetracked. So how has your day been?” “You know, the usual. Playing Pokémon until I get bored, watch some of the movies that I’ve already watched several times, look back at a dream I had last night.” “Oh really?” she asked with interest, leaning in as if she were a child ready to hear a story being told by a parent. “What was it about?” “I’m not quite sure exactly, I’m pretty sure I don’t have the right context.” “Well tell me anyway, maybe I can. I may not be a psychologist, but I do have this thing called ‘intuition’,” she finished using air quotes to make her point. “Well... I was in a hangar, there was a firefight going on, and for one reason or another I told Jones to drag a humvee over as cover. Crazy, right?” I said with a wry laugh. I looked back over to Spitfire and saw that her jaw dropped and just stared at me. “Uhh... what did I say wrong?” “Andrew, baby, that actually happened,” she said with shock. “Wait, what?” “What I mean to say is that what you ‘dreamt’ was part of a memory you lost. Quick, does anything else come to mind?” she stammered the question out quickly. I thought for a moment before giving up from the migraine starting to form. “Sorry, there’s still a large gap in between when I returned home and that little flashback,” I replied dejectedly. “That’s ok,” she replied reassuringly with a sad smile. “I’m just glad that something came back rather than nothing.” “I just wish it was something-.” “Happier?” she finished for me. I nodded. “As do I, baby. As do I,” she said while caressing my hand. She helped me scoot over a little and she sat down next to me, leaning on me gently as not to irritate the recently sewn together flesh. “You know what?” I asked after a moment of tender silence. “Hmm?” Spitfire practically hummed. “I didn’t make one Motley Crue joke when Dr. Feelgood was around,” I said slightly amused. *** The hours passed and eventually the married duo fell asleep on the hospital bed. Due to it being the cold season, the sun set at an earlier time than at the Summer Solstice. Eventually one of these two’s slumber was interrupted by a well-placed tapping of the shoulder. Spitfire woke up from her nap to see her husband sleeping peacefully from exhaustion. She looked over towards where she was roused from her slumber. “Mrs. Briggs,” he said quietly. “If you could please step outside for a moment.” She slowly moved off of the bed, making sure not to wake her loved one. She stepped outside the room, where the soundproofing for the room ended and she could hear the controlled chaos of the hospital. She let the door close as quietly as she could. She turned to face the doctor. “You needed something?” He adjusted his glasses before speaking. “Yes, it’s concerning our medical Mages borderline inability to speed up the recovery. As you may have noticed, usually we would have a case like this fixed within a week or so, taking out the time it would take for the therapy to restore full functionality of the body. However for some odd reason the magic based treatments aren’t taking effect while the more traditional methods are.” “Doctor, that’s a little hard to believe. The medic on Andrew’s three man team, Corporal Lang, was able to use her limited use of magic to suppress the internal bleeding as well as one of the bullet wounds,” Spitfire replied in disbelief. “That is what is confusing my staff and I the most. Before he enters the coma: susceptible to magic, awakens from coma: borderline immune.” “Borderline immune?” one passing in the hall could see the confused look on her face. “Perhaps I should have started with that first, my apologies. What I meant to say was that the magic treatments CAN work, it just takes an obscene amount of magic being used by the healer in order to fix a minor cut that may need conventional stitches.” “Well what do you think is going on?” He sighed and cleaned his glasses off with the shirt part of his scrubs. “I talked to several healers and non-healer mages alike. I even talked to one of the airmen that came with you when he came in for a physical the other day, and they all agreed on one thing: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred.” “The Laws of Conservation of Mass?” she asked. The doctor looked confused at that phrase. “Sorry, that’s what they call it back on Earth.” “No need for apologies,” he waved his hand. “But if this Law is the same as it works with the Laws of Exchange in reference to energy, then yes, it is the same. Ma’am, this is one of the most unique cases that I have ever worked on in my twenty-five years of medicine, I have no idea what is going on to be honest.” Spitfire looked worried at the mention of that shortcoming, “However do not worry, I will look into any and every possibility.” She walked back into the room and gasped when she saw the unexpected, the doctor walked in as well and his jaw dropped when he saw the same. While inside looked normal, the occupant didn’t. The arms on his unconscious body were glowing a blue-green, identical to Andrew’s eye color; floating near his body was a tray that was used earlier had an aura of the same coloring floating around him as if he were a planet and it were a moon or satellite. She moved quickly to his side and shook him awake. As his eyes opened the generic mage marking on his arms disappeared, as did the aura around them and the tray, allowing it to clatter to floor. “Intriguing indeed,” the doctor muttered as he left the two to an attending nurse who heard the noise. *** I woke up to a gentle shaking rocking my body and a slight tingling in my fingertips. I looked up to see the worried face of my wife. “Hey, is it morning already?” I asked groggily. I looked and saw that it was dark outside. “Either I’ve slept in or I’ve taken a nap. What’s up?” “Andrew, do you know what just happened?” Spitfire asked quickly with worry. Had she been speaking any faster she would have sounded like a video going at 2x speed. “The hospital’s run out of jello?” I replied half-assed since I have no idea where this is going. She shook her head ‘no.’ “It was something else. Andrew, what were you dreaming about a few minutes ago?” “That I was a Jedi kicking ass and taking names, minus a sweet lightsaber of course.” “So, you really don’t know what just happened?” “I have no clue what you’re referring to.” “Andrew, just before you woke up there was a tray being telekinetically controlled. You were the one doing it,” she stated while enunciating the ‘you.’ “Wait… what?!?”