"This thing... if you didn't tell me it was a diagnostic instrument, I'd swear Rhodes Island was hiding some kind of bizarre special weapon in here. It looks properly unhinged."
Since she didn't have anything better to do, Jeanne had tagged along to watch the commotion and see just how miraculous Kal'tsit's promised medical examination turned out to be.
Stepping into a secure, heavily shielded room, they found Warfarin and Closure busy calibrating a bulky piece of machinery wired to a heavy metal helmet. The hardware clearly had some years on it, carrying the unmistakable bulk of pre-Catastrophe engineering.
"I thought today was supposed to be my day off. I had my entire schedule planned out, and then you call me up just to drag me back in for overtime."
The moment Kal'tsit walked through the door, Warfarin immediately launched into complaints, eager to chew out the Feline older than her for exploiting young researchers and ruining her carefully laid plans.
"I severely doubt whatever plans you concocted would qualify as anything wholesome. But let me issue a warning: if any more operators—especially Skadi—file a complaint about strange additives in their rations, you'll be spending next month sleeping on the command deck."
Kal'tsit recalled Skadi's recent reports of her water flask occasionally tasting like sulfur, or that one time her afternoon tea magically congealed into gelatin.
While the Abyssal Hunter likely hadn't pieced together what chemical cocktail had been poured into her cup, she had brushed it off because it barely fazed her constitution. But if anyone else had taken a sip of Warfarin's experimental brews, they would have been rushed straight to triage for emergency resuscitation.
"If you don't want me testing things, fine. No need to look so murderous." Realizing her little experiments had been exposed, Warfarin shrank back with a guilty shrug and dropped the subject.
Naturally, Kal'tsit didn't intend to let the matter slide with just a slap on the wrist.
"I acknowledge that Skadi's physiology is a fascinating subject for a scholar of your vintage. But let me make this crystal clear: her body is extraordinarily volatile. You are strictly forbidden from conducting any unauthorized research on her."
For reasons best kept under lock and key, Kal'tsit avoided spelling out the exact nature of Skadi's abnormal biology. Some secrets were far safer left buried in the dark.
Only Jeanne fully grasped the underlying subtext of Kal'tsit's warning. Skadi's physical makeup was a walking catastrophe waiting to happen; Warfarin's tinkering was essentially equivalent to chugging holy water straight from the bottle while standing in an active thunderstorm.
Both options were basically suicide, though a blood-drinking vampire poisoning herself would at least keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Compared to poking an Abyssal Hunter, that sounded remarkably tame.
While the researchers bickered over Skadi's dietary safety, the Doctor had already slipped into the examination chair, expertly fitting the diagnostic helmet over her head. The sheer muscle memory of the process suggested this wasn't her first rodeo.
Seeing the Doctor comply so smoothly brought a faint wave of relief to Kal'tsit. At the very least, the strategist wasn't lying about cooperating with this checkup.
Having been scammed by the Doctor more times than she cared to count, Kal'tsit finally allowed her shoulders to drop a fraction. If amnesia had any silver lining, it was that the trickster had turned considerably more obedient.
Activating the console, Kal'tsit watched as a web of thin green lines began rendering across the monitor, spreading outward like a dense, complex spiderweb.
"What are all these lines? And why are some of them flashing red?!" Jeanne leaned in, her eyes narrowing at the sudden appearance of crimson spikes. As a general rule, red lines on medical readouts meant something was going horribly wrong.
"They map out her current mental architecture. Although she has undergone therapy, it doesn't mean she is entirely out of the woods. The broader pressures of this world still leave an imprint on her psyche," Kal'tsit explained, glancing sideways at Jeanne before diving into a technical breakdown of the scanner's functions, utterly unbothered by corporate secrecy protocols.
"So the red ones represent areas taking strain?" Jeanne muttered, feeling like she was starting to grasp the logic. "Then what are those yellow lines?"
As a sudden surge of bright yellow readouts flooded the screen, Jeanne's intuition whispered that this particular metric was skipping right past science and entering territory best kept private.
"It means her brain needs a thorough power-washing. Has this idiot's head turned into a vat of pure hormones ever since she woke up?" Kal'tsit's expression darkened into a scowl, her gaze snapping toward the chair with open hostility.
"Oh~"
Realization dawning across her face, Jeanne turned an intensely knowing look toward the Doctor. The strategist had already buried her hooded head deep into her chest out of sheer mortification.
On the monitor, the multicolored wave patterns continued to dance, but the golden-yellow spikes remained the dominant, aggressively thriving majority, stubbornly multiplying by the second.
Jeanne and Kal'tsit exchanged identical expressions of profound speechlessness: ??????
Though they couldn't read the exact thoughts bouncing around in that helmet right now, the pure, unadulterated horniness radiating from those yellow readouts confirmed that nothing wholesome was happening in there.
"Erase whatever inappropriate nonsense you're currently fantasizing about! We're running a medical examination here, not hosting a public meltdown!"
Furious enough to consider taking off her high-heeled boot and slamming it directly against the Doctor's helmet, Kal'tsit caught Closure and Warfarin watching with wide, scandalized eyes and abruptly reined in her temper.
Leaving Warfarin aside, Closure operated as Rhodes Island's premier black-market merchant and chief gossip broker. Kal'tsit could already picture the exact headlines that would circulate by evening.
Instead of violence, she balled up a piece of scrap paper and hurled it straight at the Doctor's head, hoping to shock the strategist back into a professional mindset.
Fortunately, the Doctor still possessed a shred of self-preservation. Sensing Kal'tsit's murderous aura, she scrambled to clear her thoughts, desperately slamming the brakes on her runaway imagination and forcing her brainwaves back into a semblance of discipline.
Prompted by the mental reset, the chaotic waveforms on the screen gradually stabilized, resolving into a sea of green oscillations anchored by a few lingering red threads, forming an orderly circle.
"It appears her condition hasn't degraded. If anything, her baseline stability is remarkably high today—almost healthier than it was before the incident."
Reviewing the final metrics, Kal'tsit felt a quiet weight lift from her chest. At least she wouldn't have to lose any more sleep over the strategist's immediate neurological health.
Yet, alongside the relief came a lingering doubt. This level of sudden improvement completely defied her expectations. What factor was keeping the Doctor from deteriorating under the usual mental strains?
Especially given recent weeks, when subtle, ambient ripples from those colossal entities out in the wasteland should have triggered fresh psychological strain...
Kal'tsit furrowed her brows in a classic, unreadable feline frown.
"What's wrong? Are those red lines actually dangerous?" Jeanne asked, noticing the silence. Kal'tsit still hadn't fully clarified the function of the red readouts, sparking her curiosity.
"A minor amount of red is normal. This instrument scans neural states to check for any signs of 'contamination' from anomalous entities. But the sensor is hypersensitive; if you pull a couple of all-nighters without proper rest, you'll trigger similar red threads."
Jeanne's casual inquiry interrupted Kal'tsit's train of thought, reminding her to finish explaining the baseline parameters.
Even so, the underlying puzzle remained locked in Kal'tsit's mind. She cast a sidelong glance at Jeanne, who stood beside her looking utterly carefree—completely immune to the invisible pressures that required specialized protective gear for anyone else.
"Jeanne, have you experienced any sensation of... being watched lately?"
With no other variables to analyze, Kal'tsit was forced to consult the sole human in the room—and the only remaining variable who might occasionally perceive anomalies in the fabric of reality.
"A gaze? Watching me? Nope, not a single trace of one." Jeanne shook her head, thoroughly confident in her denial.
What on earth was going on here? Having monitored those anomalous entities for an indeterminate age, Kal'tsit found this unexpected deviation deeply frustrating.
Did something shift the fundamental rules governing the Doctor's condition?
"If there's any entity out there watching me that I can't perceive, the only one left on the list is probably the Almighty," Jeanne chuckled, scratching the back of her head with a lighthearted shrug.
Kal'tsit remained entirely silent.