It is a somewhat crowded infirmary ward, full of the ambulatory and bedridden, but stable, patients. Many doctors hustle about, the patients are engaged in a variety of activities such as playing cards with each other and reading books. In spite of the activity, the place is very clean and well-kept, men in overalls are currently sweeping up in one area, others are putting clean sheets on beds in another area. Nurses and Doctors oversee the whole process.
Suddenly there is a loud knock on the door
Curious, an orderly opens the door.
Jacktycoma walks in pushing past the orderly, acting like he owns the place.
Jacktycoma walks up to the head of station behind his desk and sneers “I got a problem, Doc.”
The apparant head of station at this ward glances up at Jack Tycoma, squints a bit at his Badlander gear and replies “You must, you’re in the wrong place, are you a new patient or visiting?”
Ronnie glances up over the edge of his book, curious about the Badlander who has charged into the infirmary ward. A few of the other patients seem quite interested as well.
“Sir, sir are you paying attention? I need to know if you are a new arrival or a visitor, and a little something about the nature of your problem might help too? Sir? Sir?” the doctor is apparantly quite tired of trying to get Jack’s attention and is visibly frustrated.
Jacktycoma’s eyes seem to gloss over a bit and he mutters, “NoNOnONoondnotdoitdontdontdontdontgodont go.”
The head of station’s eyes widen a bit, and he calls two orderlies over “We got one whacked out on something over here, get him restrained, put him over by the nut they promoted for getting himself shot.”
Two orderlies begin to close in on Jack, carefully.
Jack flails around helplessly knocking over chairs and tables he bumps into one doctor and knocks over another doctor who is carrying a tube of some chemical, spilling the vial onto the doctor’s shirt.
Patients look on in fright as the ganger freaks out the orderlies, now convinced this is a dire situation, close in faster, and attempt to restrain Jack forcibly.
“NoNONOOOLIPCANTSUOLGHELLBABDABADMANSTOPSTOPAGGRRRRGGGGG……” Jack says as he starts to swallow his tongue
Jacktycoma’s foot flies at the first ordely, smacking him square on the chin. The orderly goes sailing across the floor into a nearby bed.
Jacktycoma says: “Is.hehehe…jack…gonna.hshshsssss..bearightrightrihgt.”
The second orderly has managed to get behind Jack and place him in the beginnings of a Full Nelson.
Jack’s breathing is quite irregular.
Seeing the trouble, a nurse charges the almost-restrained Jack with a syringe full of a milky white substance.
Jacktycoma gurgles out his words in a nasty thick drawl “Sh..pon….gie…..”
Jacktycoma says “HiisssssssSSsshuSSssss.”
The nurse grabs one of Jack’s flailing arms and half-blindly jabs the needle towards his arm.
Jacktycoma screams in pain as the needle plunges into his arm, flails a bit, then stops moving, minus the occasional twitch.
The remaining orderly drags the morphine-laden Jack Tycoma over to the bed beside Ronnie’s and straps him down.
A few hours have passed, Ronnie is in the bed beside the ganger, presumed to be drug addled and insane, still calmly reading his book. Jack is beginning to wake up.
Jacktycoma moves his head on the pillow with much effort, it bobs a bit.
Ronnie glances over, noting his neighbor is coming around, he folds the book face down on his lap and says “Well, and how are you now? Do you need help with that? The pillow that is?”
A nearby Buck Private being treated for snakebite yells to anyone who will listen, “Hey look, ‘Doctor Davis’” he snickers, “Is talking to that druggie ganger, I’m sure they have a lot in common huh?”
Ronnie glances over at the Private and says, “Shut up, it’s because of wankers like you that Private Gunther is on a slab in the next room.”
“Aaaaauuuughhh….what happened” there is a look of memory in his eyes as his head plops down on the pillow “Damn Shpongie…” he says, failing to notice the other patient trying to talk to him.
Jack looks over noticing the injured person next to him. He speaks “Private…..Gunther?”
Ronnie glances curious at Jack and replies “Yes, Private Gunther, he’s dead now, but what did you say Shpongie earlier?”
Jack stares at the ceiling “Yeah…” he winces “oooooohhhh…my…head…” Jacktycoma groans.
Ronnie’s brow furrows a bit and he looks even more intently at Jack, “What’s this about Shpongie, and your head? You know it was Shpongie that shot me, oddly enough. I don’t hold it against him though, coulda happened to anyone.”
Jacktycoma continues to look at the cieling “We got in a fight. he hit me in the head….” he winces “It’s hurt ever since…”
Jacktycoma closes his eyes and tries to point at his temple “Here….”
A lightbulb seems to appear over Ronnie’s head, but then fades a bit. He grabs the book he was reading and furiously turns to the index in the back, then towards the front, listening to Jack. He grabs a pen from his leg rig and begins scribbling here and there in the book and yelling “Nurse! Nurse!” while punching his call button. He glances back over at Jack, and says “Don’t worry, err, at least I think don’t worry. I’m quite new to this really, medicine that is. Well anyway, as long as they stop giving you narcotics when you have seizures we may can get this cleared up.”
A nurse walks very deliberately over towards the pair, frowning a bit at Ronnie and says “Yes, yes just what is so important, Specialist Ronnie? Oh I see our little problem child has woke back up, is whatever you were high on wearing off now son?”
Ronnie waves his arms furiously, still holding the large textbook and the pen, pointing furiously at one with the other and garbling his words together and he tries to explain it all at once “Head injury from Shpongie, who shot me you know, bapped him in the head, drugs no! Concussion! Seizures! Right here see it says he can use a neu-ro-lep-tic or something like that, who can pronounce these things anyway and it’ll stop his seizures, but X-ray his head too because over here” Ronnie flips pages in the book like a man possessed “it says a skull fracture could cause…” and Ronnie just keeps on babbling, the nurse interrupts “What? He’s high on neuroleptics? What are you talking about Specialist? Oh forget it, I’ll get Doctor Richardson.”
The nurse walks off down the hall and hangs a left into an office, and soon emerges pointing towards the pair, with a man in a long white coat who then walks towards Ronnie and Jack, his nameplate reads “Doctor Richardson.”
The Doctor looks at the restrained ganger and then over at Ronnie, who is trying to get out of bed, very painfully, and show Dr. Richardson lots of scribblings in his medical textbooks while explaining the entire book and the situation with Jack and Shpongie. Ronnie only manages to get halfway sitting on the bed and points with his pen at the scribblings while rambling on about gangers who’ve been hit in the head.
Jacktycoma glances at Ronnie, then stares at the ceiling. “Seizures, Doc”
Dr. Richardson looks curiously at the ganger, who until now was believed to be quite incoherent, and replies “And when did you start having seizures?”
Jack looks at Doctor Richardson “a few days ago..” he swallows “got hit in the head”
Dr. Richardson’s eyebrows arch a bit, “Seizures brought on by some kind of head trauma? Well we should do some X-rays to make sure your skull isn’t fractured and I’ll write you a prescription for a neuroleptic, which should help you control the seizures…” Ronnie hobbles to his feet, still waving pen and textbook, he says “Yeah, that’s what I said, but the nurses wouldn’t listen to me cuz they think I’m crazy too! It says here in this book exactly what to do-” Dr. Richardson looks at Ronnie, says to him “Shut up Specialist.” and summons two orderlies to release Jack, then asks Jack to follow him for some X-rays, after which he’ll be given a prescription to stop the seizures.
Jacktycoma gets out of bed very slowly and fumbles after Dr. Richardson.
Jack is subjected to a battery of head x-rays, which reveal no major or permanent head injury, confirming suspicious that the problem is merely complications from an untreated concussion. He writes Jack a prescription for a neuroletpic, gabapentin, and sends him back to the infirmary to talk to Robert Aage to get the prescription filled.
Jacktycoma stumbles out of the X-ray room and plops down on his bed next to Ronnie.
Ronnie glances back up from the book he’d returned to READING, instead of flailing wildly while gibbering and looks at Jack. Finally he says, “Well? Your skull broke or what?”
Panting and wheezing Jack asks “You know a guy named Robert Aage?”
Ronnie points over to the guy at the pharmacy counter and says “So they hooked you up huh? With some neuroleptic just like I said? Bah, see they think I don’t know about this stuff but I do! Anyway, the X-rays man, the X-rays! Is your skull ok?”
Jacktycoma looks down “Yeah”
Jacktycoma says “I’m ok.”
Ronnie smiles a bit and says “Well that’s good, hey don’t hold the orderlies and the deal with them shooting you full of morphine against them though, they are trying, and you did seem to be pretty out of your gourd there for a second. Haha, so why’d Shpongie clonk you? He shot me, and I’m on his side, you’re lucky to be alive on the whole I’d say, look how he treats his friends after all!” Ronnie breaks into a big grin. It’s obvious he doesn’t really hold a grudge with Shpongie, but it is a good joke.
Jacktycoma sneers “I could take him…”
Ronnie grins a bit more, “Ok that said, why did he hit you in the head? That’s gotta be a funny story. Did he hit you with his new M4A1 or his broken G11? I was there when he broke the G11 you know. Happened right after he shot me with it.”
“We got in a dissagreement, and rather than blow each other away, we made a bet,” Jack says angrily.
Jack Tycoma sneers.
Jack Tycoma says “A fight, whoever won, won the argument.”
Ronnie grins even wider, “Ooooh man, that sounds like it could’ve gotten someone hurt.” Then his brown furrows a bit, and he says “Oh yeah, it did, err, I’m sorry.”
“He got hurt too,” Jack says spitting on the polished floor, “He elbowed me in the head.”
Ronnie frowns worridly, “Where is he, how hurt is he?!”
“It was a lucky shot, anyone could’ve done it” Jack sneers at Ronnie “He ain’t hurt bad enough.”
Jacktycoma looks at the ground “He ran away.”
Jacktycoma coughs out a forced laugh then says “I’m not hurt bad at all, ‘cept my head”
Ronnie’s face twists a bit as he thinks everything over, and he asks “Well, do you know where he is? Where’d all this happen at, shit I better get outside, he may be radioing me.” Ronnie begins strapping on his gear, rebuffing nurses who try to stop him and at one point swearing he’ll punch out two orderlies who try to get involved. He looks back at Jack, “Well if you aren’t hurt bad, let’s go, we can find him and help him.”
Jacktycoma tries to get up, but falls back down, sprawling all over the floor.
The orderlies, giving up on Ronnie, decide to try to help Jack, maybe they gave him a little too much morphine earlier…
As the orderlies help him up Jack shrugs them off “I can do it.”
Jacktycoma limps toward the door.
Ronnie shuffles along behind, still strapping on gear and loading his shotgun.
Jacktycoma yells at Ronnie “Hey, I gotta get my percription filled, soldier.”
Ronnie looks at Jack, and suddenly feels very stupid. “Oh yeah, forgot about that, sorry, I’ll wait for ya.”
Jacktycoma hands the prescription to the pharmacist. The pharmacist reads the prescription for a moment and dissapears behind the counter towards a back room of the pharmacy.
He comes back with a little orange bottle full of pills, hands them to Jack and says “90 doses of 500mg gabapentin, take these as needed to stop seizures. Come back when you need a refill. Oddly enough we don’t seem to use much of our stock of neuroleptics.”
Jacktycoma limps after Ronnie.
The pair hobble outside, where the radio reception will be better, Ronnie holds down the transmit button and asks hurridly, “Shpongie, this is Ronnie, come back please, Shpongie this is Ronnie, come back” and releases the button.
“Dude he’s not hurt that bad” Jack says, finally catching up to Ronnie.
Ronnie glaces at Jack and says “I suppose you’d have said that too before these seizures started.”
A heavy wave of static comes over ronnie’s radio followed by a faint reply, “What..man?”
Ronnie pushes down the transmit button, “Hey, you ok? Heard you got in a fistfight with a ganger, and you ain’t shown up here at base for days….”
The static continues to all but drown out Shpongie’s reply “I’m fine man, just busy.”
Ronnie presses down the button again, a look of relief on his face, “Well you could come see a brother in the hospital some time, haha, nevermind, just a misunderstanding. I’ll tell you when you get back to base and you’ll laugh at me.”
Jack Tycoma says, “He’ll laugh at me.”
Ronnie glances back over to Jack, “That too probably.”
The radio crackles to life again “Alright, man over and out.”
Ronnie clicks his radio button again, “Affirmative big guy.”
Ronnie coughs a bit and says “Whew, well they’ll probably be sore at me in the infirmary for a while, I think I should find a new place to rest for a while.”
“Later Soldier” Jack yells back as he hobbles off into the wastes.