The metal cuffs detached themselves from the parsteel chair when the two male Office of Reason agents grabbed Arron by the arms. They drag him out of the room and down a long bright and sterile metal hallway until they reached an underground parking garage that housed several armored flying vehicles with the Office of Reason seals stamped on each side.
The white-suited agents handed Arron off to a new trio of black-suited field agents. They unceremoniously shoved Arron into the back seat of a waiting armored car and glared at Officer Riol, who shoved his way past the three agents and sat down next to Arron.
The two groups of Office of Reason agents silently talked to each other using their visors secure communications explaining their task and how to handle the nosy M1 lawyer.
When the three black suit agents entered the flying car and sat down on the seats across from Arron, they continued to stare at him making sure he did not do anything.
The leader of the group used his wrist datapad to tap in a destination and pressed enter.
The garage ceiling above their heads opened revealing a honeycomb of tunnels. As the flying car started to lift off the ground, the windows of the flying car turned completely black blocking Arron from seeing anything outside.
“The checkup should be simple and quick if they don’t try anything funny. So there is no need to brood about anything,” said Officer Riol loud enough for both Arron and the three agents to hear.
The agents showed no sign of having heard him, their faces remaining blank of any expression.
Arron only nodded as he felt the Flying car continuously rising for several minutes until it straightened out. They flew in a straight line for a good ten minutes not stopping at any checkpoints or any of the traffic lights which all changed automatically allowing them to pass unhindered.
The flying car went into a sudden deep dive causing Arron’s stomach to lurch and settle down as it came to a complete halt.
The three agents exited the flying car first pulling out their weapons and began to use their visors to scan the hospital’s large and brightly lit landing pad for any hostile targets that might try to free the troubled suspect in their custody.
“Get out,” ordered the leader of the black suit agents.
Two of the agents grabbed Arron’s arms as he was exiting the car and roughly pulled him out onto the windy landing pad and started to drag him towards the large entrance of the hospital. The third agent stayed behind the two to keep an eye on officer Riol.
As they passed through the entrance the doors silently shut behind them blocking the bright lights that had nearly half blinded Arron, as well as the howling wind. It took several seconds for Arron’s left eye to adjust to the new dim light of the hospital’s short hallway. His right eye had no problem adjusting to the light differences.
A pair of bored guards were leaning against the wall chatting until they saw who the new arrivals were.
They immediately stood ramrod straight and moved to the side before tapping in the security code on the holo-lock to allow the agents to enter the main building. They did not dare stop the agents to try and scan them for fear of receiving backlash from the Office of Reason.
The secure para-steel doors screeched open slowly revealing the lack of maintenance that they had received.
As Arron shuffled through the doors, he wondered what else the hospital was not kept fully up to date and maintained.
The room they had entered was a large waiting room that had over 1000 well-worn hover-chairs with 90% of them being occupied by people who had varying medical problems ranging from severe injuries and sickness to those with simple unseen problems.
There was no front desk or nurses to talk to. There were only a dozen security bots that floated around on set paths making their way around the large waiting room for the millionth time.
Arron slowed down as he looked around the large room and soon saw a floating ball drone drop down from a hole in the ceiling and float over to a man who had a large bleeding gash on each of his arms and legs.
[Patient #42069. You have just paid the medical fee so follow me and the Robo-doc will decide how to fix you,] ordered the bot.
The patient with murky eyes tried to stand up but due to the pain and weakness from loss of blood fell back onto his chair. The bot seeing this, swooped down and a needle pierced the back of the man’s neck injecting him with an unknown substance.
The murky eyes of the patient slowly cleared up and his irises became pinpoints. When he tried to stand up again he had no trouble walking behind the bot leaving a trail of blood on the grimy metal floor as he was led to a side door.
“Stop trying to stall your inspection,” said one of the agents as he pulled Arron forward to the same door the patient had just entered.
As they neared the door someone stood up and walked over to them.
“So the chief sent you,” said Officer Riol.
“You know as well as I do that this hospital only has Robodocs, guards, and mechanics. If you want something done right a human is better,” said Doc Octy.
“We were not told that anyone else would be joining us,” said the leader of the three agents.
“Well, I am here. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the chief.”
The three agents turned their backs to them and started to talk among themselves to decide what to do.
“Is this your first time in one of the mega hospitals?” asked Doc Octy as he watched Arron looking around curiously.
“Yeah,” was all Arron said.
“There are tens more floors just like this one filled with patients. Although the lower levels are less… pleasant. You’re lucky that the chief intervened otherwise we would be meeting on one of the lower levels.”
Arron didn’t know how much worse it could get from what he was seeing right now.
Seeing Arron’s doubt Doc Octy explained in greater detail, “The entire lower floors are all one large waiting room that can hold tens of thousands of patients. The Robo-Docs perform the ‘Medical treatments’ right there in the waiting room. Seeing such things can be quite scarring for some.”
Arron looked at Doc Octy with horror. “What about privacy?”
“Too troublesome with the number of patients they need to take care of. I have to admit that the Robo-Docs are good at what they do when it comes to taking care of the mass waves of patients. They only take a few seconds to diagnose the problems, and a few minutes to take care of the problem before sending them a document with a prescription, booting them out the building, and quickly moving to the next patient.”
“Don’t they need to stay to get their prescription filled?” asked Arron.
“No, hospitals like this do not carry such… medicine. Only the Robo-Docs and the floating bots carry liquid Ethylene or ‘other’ things to numb the pain. The prescription buildings are controlled by the Office of Reason to stop the gangs and drug addicts from robbing the hospitals,” said Doc Octy, making sure he didn’t say anything that would agitate the nearby agents.
The three agents turned to Doc Octy interrupting the conversation, “You can follow behind us and stay next to Officer Riol.”
With that, they continued to drag Arron through a side door into a hallway that had several other cheap paper-thin metal doors.
As they walked down the hall Arron could hear the conversations inside each of the rooms that they passed.
[Your government medical plan does not cover the operation. We’ll have to cut it off,] said a robotic voice.
“But.. but… I paid…” the man’s voice was drowned out as the loud whirring of an electric bone saw was turned on.
[You only paid to be seen by me privately. Now stay still, this won’t hurt.]
BZZZZZZ!
“AHHH!!!”
Some of the doors that they passed were silent, but they were few and far between.
[You have been diagnosed with Sluggish Schizophrenia. Take this dose of medicine and wait here for the Office of Reason to pick you up to cure your ailment.]
“What? I only complained about working so hard only for inflation to make everything cost even more!”
[Quit resisting Normalization!]
Similar things could be heard as they walked down the long hallway.
When they reached the room that the agents were looking for, Arron’s face had lost all color from the many horrors he had heard.
They entered the small room that only had a small para-steel operating bed and a white para-steel pillar that hung from the ceiling.
As Arron was dragged forward, an optical lens on the white pillar swiveled around and looked at the room’s new occupants.
[Patient?] asked the Robo-Doc.
The leader of the three agents was silent and only tapped on a few options on his Wrist-datapad, sending over documents, videos, and detailed orders from the Office of Reason. The Robo-Doc took a few seconds to sort through the new data.
“Looks like it’s fully functioning and not going to malfunction like some of those horror stories you hear on the news,” said Doc Octy after inspecting the Robo-Doc.
This did not help calm Arron down as he was now remembering all the horror stories he had heard on the news.
[Orders received. Initiating mental and physical evaluation protocols,] said the Robo-Doc as the white pillar moved forward and stopped right in front of Arron.
Several medical scanners and tools popped out of the pillar and began to take detailed scans of both his inner and outer body as the pillar slowly rotated around Arron.
While the scanning was taking place Arron was forced to answer several questions while his brain waves, breathing, heart rate, and sweat glands were monitored.
Ten minutes of poking, prodding, and questioning finally ended. The Robo-Doc moved away from Arron and stayed silent for several seconds.
[Analyst complete.]
“What are the results?” asked the lead Office of Reason agent.
“The troubled patient suffers no mental ailments. The wounds both internal and external are non-life threatening and were inflicted by blunt force that is impossible for someone to do to themselves. Warning! Trouble patients NerViz has been severely damaged! Suggested that immediate surgery take place to repair damage and stop any adverse effects from happening!]
“How sure are you?” asked the agent.
[99%.]
“What is the 1%?”
[The troubled patient lied about his height.]
“How damaged is his NerViz implant?”
[80%. Its main functions should still work but everything else is questionable.]
The three agents looked at Arron with interest and then quietly started a call with the Office of Reason HQ.
A minute passed by before the agent asked Arron, “What Special M1 unit did you say you are from?”
Arron looked to Officer Riol who nodded to him.
“ERF unit 3.”
“That’s perfect! The research branch has been looking for someone to test out the newest NerViz prototype!”
With a flick of his hand, he sent new orders to the Robo-Doc.
[Orders received! Waiting for new materials to begin surgery!]
