It wasn’t a hospital, at least not any kind of hospital Dave had ever seen. He was in a hospital bed and the appropriate equipment surrounded him including a heart monitor and I.V. but that’s where the similarity ended. Beakers and Bunsen burners crowded steel topped counters along with an assortment of gears, tools and bits of articulated metal that could be gauntlets.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Dave jerked. Pain lanced through his entire body. A vague image of a wild haired dwarfish man appeared at Dave’s elbow plunging a syringe into Dave’s I.V. The pain ebbed.
“Where am I?” the question came out as more of a croak than actual words. Dave wasn’t sure the doctor understood what he’d said.
“Hmm, what an interesting query,” the man, (his nametag identified him as Doc D), shined a light into Dave’s eyes. “I suppose it all hinges on your perception. In one sense we are all present in a metaphysical state that we commonly believe to truly exist. In another sense we are tied to a physical location named time and again by consensus of individuals who of themselves fade into memory then obscurity as does the names they create. Can you lift your arm?”
Dave cringed but complied. “This isn’t the hospital then?”
“Indeed it is a type of hospital, but here we are at an impasse of meaning as you clearly-“
“Doc, knock it off.” Weasel’s horse voice was a welcome relief to Dave’s ears. The accountant twisted his head. His skull pulsed with a dull ache as pain laced up his neck but his new position afforded him a view of the bed tucked next to a work bench covered with metal parts and gears. Weasel’s eyebrows were gone making him look more like a naked-mole-rat than a weasel. “No one understands that mumbo jumbo stuff you spout. Just tell it to him straight.”
“Fine.” The doctor cleared his throat. “Mr. Ranger I am Doctor Nedriel Donovan Dreadful, PhD, EMT, MD, DDS, MFA, MBA, and D&D DM.” He started in a flat tone that became more animated with each successive accolade. “And this is my laboratory.” He swept his hands about and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Why am I here?”
“Has your cerebral contusion produced an amnesiatic state? You were in an incident of the vehicular-”
“You were in a car crash,” Weasel cut in. “We both were. I have some burns, lacerations and a broken rib and from your moaning over there I’d say you have some souvenirs from our dance with the lamp post too.”
“Thank you We- Steve. I know we were in an accident. I’m simply wondering why we are in a secret laboratory rather than at, I don’t know, a competent medical facility.”
“Relax Dave, you have nothing to worry about. Doc is a wiz with fixing people up. I’ll bet you and I are out of this bunker and back to work by tomorrow.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“You just wait my friend you’ll see that Doc D is the best. If you’re lucky he might even replace that cast on your foot with a mechanical one.”
“A mechanical cast?”
“Of course not,” Weasel laughed. “A mechanical foot.”
Dave stared at his exposed, purply toes sticking out of the end of a white encasement of what he guessed was a layer of ace bandages and cotton coated in plaster-of-paris. The white expanse must have been mistaken for a canvas as someone had drawn a series of lines and dashes with little notes here and there that Dave couldn’t understand. His heart thudded. “I think I like my foot just the way it is, thank you.”
Weasel shrugged. “Your loss.” He closed his eyes. Soon wheezing snores emanated from that corner of the room.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure I could produce a proper cyborg appendage,” Doc. D. admitted in a low whisper. “Though I’d be willing to try.”
“No really that’s alright. I’m rather attached to my current appendages.”
“Alright.” The doctor sat staring at Dave his eyes drifting in and out of focus.
“Is there something else?”
“No.”
“Then why are you hovering over me?”
“You suffered a cerebral contusion. I am ensuring that you do not fall asleep.”
“By staring at me?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have something better to do?”
“Yes.”
“Go do that then and I promise I won’t fall asleep.”
The doctor’s eyes lit up. “An excellent idea.” He shuffled away.
Dave let himself relax for the first time since the doctor popped up beside him. The injured man’s eyes began to droop. Maybe if he just rested them for a minute.
PLOP!
Dave jolted and said a word his mother would have washed his mouth out with soap for back in the day. The top few leather-bound books would have tumbled off Dave’s bed had Doc. D. not rescued them and stacked them back on the teetering pile. Dave picked one up and riffled through it. “Are these expense ledgers?”
The doctor grinned. “Yes.”
“And what do you want me to do with them?”
The doctor pulled out a notebook, a pencil and a calculator from the recesses of his lab coat. “You’re an accountant, aren’t you?”
Dave’s shoulders slumped. “Yes I am.”
