Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 279- Riley


Clarice was nearly autonomous by this point. I'd had to upgrade her so many times that she was just inches shy of violating Rule Four and creating intelligent life. Her brain stem functioned, she even had neural patterns that let her learn and adapt, in a limited sort of way. More like programmable instincts than true intelligence. But what, really, was intelligence if not programmable instincts?


I went to my next patient. She was an older lady, mid sixties was my first glance guess. I glanced at the chart. Lacerations from broken glass, possibly debris left in injuries. Broken arm. Patient lucid when found. Pollen and peanut allergies reported. There was then a list of medications the woman was taking. Including the usual suspects of blood thinners and vitamin supplements that made her a priority case instead of ones that normal doctors and nurses were dealing with.


The healing chambers did not play well with pharmaceuticals, which left me, Emma and Rey as the only ones qualified to adjust the pods' functions for those medications. And, of course, Amelia. Big Sister could simply clean out the drugs and heal without the need for the pods.


"Goodness, you seem awful young to be doing this kind of work," the woman spoke as I read her chart.


"It's my powers, Mrs. Gardner," I told her. "I'm super smart about some stuff. Medicine's one of those things."


"I see," the woman relaxed a little. Signs of shock, blood loss, possible internal bleeding, obvious adrenaline and endorphine withdrawal. None of which were any kind of surprise under the circumstances.


"It's up to you, would you like me to get someone else to do the surgery?" I offered. It had happened a few times, today, where I'd have to ask for a doctor to come in and handle things instead. Which mostly consisted of me telling the doctor what to do.


"No, no, that's fine," she answered. "Am I hurt enough to need parahuman help?"


"Don't know," I half lied. The more I looked at her, the more I concluded she needed expert help. The part that was true is that I didn't know if there was a non parahuman here that was qualified for the job. I pulled out one of the med capsules. "But we're not going to take any chances."


"Am I going to have to swallow that?" she looked at the capsule unhappily.


"No," I replied, sitting next to her. I pressed the thing against her arm. It recognized what it was suppose to do, and fused itself into her skin, the equivalent of ten thousand flea mouths, injecting instead of sucking.


"That's the nicest injection I've ever had," the woman smiled. The drugs were hitting her system, now. All the pain numbing powers of heroin with none of the side effects, mental or physical. Plus a cocktail of other tinker designed medications to let us perform the surgeries with minimal risk and improve the effectiveness of the healing pods.


"Thanks," I replied. Oops, probably shouldn't have said that. She didn't seem to catch the implication. "We're hoping to get it approved for general use in the next five years." The scalpel function in my armor sliced through the woman's bandages, exposing the injuries. I went to work carefully pulling nearly microscopic fragments of glass and other debris. Some of it was irrelevant- wood and dirt, anything even semiorganic, would be easily dealt with by the pods. I removed it anyway.


"That's something to look forward to," she replied, almost happily watching as I opened her wounds to clean inside them, followed by a spritzing of an artificial stem cell substance that would quickly rebuild the interior damage. "Think those vampires that do my blood work will use it?"


"Maybe," I answered. "Do you have anywhere to go? After you're all better?"


"I think so," she sighed. "My grandson has a nice place in Boston I can stay at for a while, until the insurance comes in for my shop." I could tell she wasn't sure about that. Nervousness may be dulled by the medication, but the whole point of it not being a mind altering substance is that it didn't alter the mind, so she was still able to worry. And there were many problems to worry about right now.


"What kind of shop?" I asked.


"A clothing boutique," she answered. "I was in it when everything happened. As old as I am, I couldn't get to a shelter in time. I hid behind the counter. After Stanly died, it was all I have left." It was obvious by the way she spoke that the death wasn't recent.


Clothing? Wait, Missy kept her clothes at home. Plus some in the Embassy. Either way, it was all destroyed. "I'll buy them," I offered.


"Excuse me?" the woman replied.


"You have clothes small enough for someone my age, right?" I asked. Meanwhile, I had moved on to her arm. Obvious break near the shoulder, less obvious break in the wrist. She fell on it hard.


"Some," she agreed. "Do you want them?"


"I want all of it," I told her. "The whole inventory of clothing. Maybe some other stuff, but definitely all the clothing."


"Oh, dear, you don't have to do that," she argued.


"We lost our homes, too," I told her. "Or most of us on the team did. Most of us don't have more than one change of outfits left, so we're going to have to buy more no matter what. And there are lots of others in the city who've lost everything they own, so we can give away anything we don't need. It makes sense."


"I wouldn't want to take advantage," she argued. "You're so young."


"Money's not a problem, if that's what you're worried about," I insisted. It really wasn't. I may not have gotten a cut from the bounties on the Simurgh or any of the more profitable villains we've stopped, but I made plenty from the tech sold to Dragon, and the beginnings of an income from the most simplistic medical technology I had designed. Plus I had my share from my contributions to Rey, Emma, and Trevor's work. I was set for the next seven or eight hundred years at the moment, depending on inflation.


She hesitated. I could imagine what was going through her head. She didn't want to impose on me, but my argument made sense and she did need the money to save her shop. If not its actual, physical, location, then at least that she had a business at all. Offloading the bulk of her merchandise gave her money to stay afloat. She had probably resigned herself to hoping insurance would cover the damages and the inevitable looting that would come later.


"If you're really that worried, you can give me a discount for buying in bulk," I prompted. I liked her. She's what I imagined my grandma might have been like, in the briefest bits of memories I had that could have been about her. Of course, as unreliable as my memory was before I improved it, I could easily be wrong.


"Okay," she relented. "You've talked me into it."


"Thank you," I smiled, having moved my prodding down to her side, looking for any signs of internal injuries. There was clearly plenty of bruising, but the preliminaries didn't reveal anything significant. Nothing the healing pod wouldn't handle. "We'll have to wait until you recover before we figure out all the details. I think there are ethics laws against a doctor making a business deal with a drugged patient while performing surgery on them. If not then there probably should be."


She laughed, or at least tried to. The muscle relaxants in the drug mixture prevented sudden, jerking, muscle movements like laughter. Also good for sneezing, hiccups, and at least reducing the risk of self injury during seizures. "Probably," she agreed. "How long will it take to recover?"


"Three or four hours at the most," I answered. "But I'll be extra nice and put you down for a full night." It wasn't just me being 'nice', her internal injuries required attention, and her age would slow the process as the mineral and nutrient infusions would be demanded by other parts of her body. Someone younger could have walked away after an hour or two. She really would require six hours, seven to be certain. It's just that the training I'd downloaded suggested trying to make patients feel like they were getting special treatment, but not too special.


"That fast?" she marveled. "I remember they kept Stanly in the hospital for two weeks after his first heart attack."


"That fast," I confirmed. I pulled out my pad and started jotting down information. "If you'll excuse me for a second." I stepped up and moved toward the exit of the curtain, peaking out and flagging one of the nurses. He started walking over. They knew the drill, now. "I've done what I can for you, now you just need rest. The nurse will take you to one of the pods."


The man arrived, he was 'just' another nurse, with pretty bog standard education. He did understand directions, at least. I handed him the piece of paper and a couple pellets. All the instructions he needed, and the drugs he was to put in her pod after she was inside. Frankly, it was less complex than doing laundry.


"I understand," she smiled at me. "There are others who need help."


"Thank you for understanding," I smiled, then turned and left. The next priority case would be only about ten feet away.


"Such a delightful girl," Mrs Gardner said to the nurse, I only caught it thanks to the armor's enhancements. I smiled even wider.


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A/N- Don't worry, I think I'm done with the 'immediate aftermath' chapters and can move on now.