Day 51: Lunch

[sanguinario]

Edward was glad to wake up to a period of respite. While he had been conscious during breakfast, he'd requested to remain in his room for extra "sleep", which had consisted waiting until the room was vacated to ingest the vial of Venom's blood. The vampire had lost his chance last night, but that might have been for the better; this way he wasn't

Comments

[war_wounds]

"Sounds messy," Ratchet said, beginning to lose interest in the woes of some random organic state. "I'm no politician, but the Autobot Commonwealth keeps a closed border. Seems to serve well enough." Not that the Elite Guard didn't burn through a lot of energy and funding on border patrols (and there was an awfully long border to cover), but all crime in the Commonwealth was domestic, so that was something. Possibly.

Ratchet remained doubtful. At least the guy wasn't claiming to be a literal god, but the full explanation wasn't much better. "I'll have to take your word for it," he said, as diplomatic as he ever got. "No such things as gods where I'm from." The Church of Primus most assuredly did not count. Every species had its population of lunatic doomsayers-- didn't make the nonsense they spouted true.

"Oh." Well, there went that idea. The man sounded more like one of Black's experimental subjects. "Never mind, then." He didn't bother to hide his dissapointment. If he'd learned a bit more about the interplay of organic tissue and circuitry this extended nightmare at least would have had some point to it, but no such luck.

[tartaros_avatar]

"Incredibly so." If everything else failed, Nemesis would always be plotting something. Even when his best agents reported zero activity, someone would say that was proof there was a Nemesis plot going on. There was always the distinct possibility that Landel's itself was a Nemesis plot, but really, he hoped not. That ancient Prussian automaton maker was insufferable.

"Just as I have to take your word that you are a robot," Recluse retorted, leaning back in his chair. He really didn't care whether he was believed or not. It was still the truth, regardless. "Speaking of which, I've failed to make introductions." They weren't necessary, but a name was always an excellent way to keep track of someone here. "I am Recluse."

"And as I said, a large portion of my armed forces are cyborg: Part machine, part organic," he explained, not entirely sure the term has been understood. "If you have some curiosity about the concept that I could answer...?"

[war_wounds]

"Hmph. As if I needed a reminder," Ratchet snapped as he got ready to force down another leaf. "I don't know how you people can stand to live like this." He hadn't thought to introduce himself, nor did he really see the need. "Ratchet," he said flatly, wondering how long he'd remember this Recluse fellow's name. Not long, probably.

"I have a young friend with a uniquie physiology," he ventured, nervous about discussing Sari in much detail. Still, if there were ever a time to do so, it was here and now with a person who didn't have access to her. "She's a human with fully integrated Cybertronian circuitry, and I have no baseline to work from if she develops any medical problems." After all, if he didn't know what was normal for Sari, how was he supposed to help her when something was abnormal? The wiring bypass he'd done on her last stellar cycle had been complete guesswork. He'd kept his misgivings to himself, but in all honestly she'd been lucky to survive that operation.

[tartaros_avatar]

"I haven't. Not for the past ninety years, an entire lifetime as far as humans are concerned." The greatest insult of this place really was to have to be reminded constantly of what he had been.

And... Ratchet. He remembered that name from the board, when Scourge had still been one of his followers. And if the handwriting had stayed relatively consistent... "I think we've actually conversed before. Were you the one who asked about the Geneva Conventions?"

How interesting. Yet another thing his scientists would kill to get a chance to examine. "Without further information, I cannot say much with certainty. However, she will most likely be susceptible to diseases that target humans. There are always treatments for those, but you would have to ask a human in your home dimension. Since you seem to have no metahumans, it is likely that medical technology is vastly different between my Earth and yours." Recluse was likely never going to be able to do anything with this information he was collecting, but really, nothing could ever be ruled out. "How long has she had these Cybertronian parts?"

[war_wounds]

Ninety stellar cycles was a comparatively short time to Ratchet, though it did remind him exactly how short-lived humans were. He had to make allowances for a species whose members died just when they were getting the hang of things.

"Yes I was, as a matter of fact." Well, it was a small insane asylum after all.

Sari had already demonstrated her ability to catch human disease during the crew's second winter on Earth. "She's already had influenza." Complete with one instance of late-night vomiting, and guess who'd gotten to clean that up? "And I don't know of any human doctors I'd trust far enough to have a look at her. Or other Cybertronian medibots, for that matter." His thoughts drifted to the Science Guild and his lip curled in an involuntary snarl. No, none of them were coming anywhere near Sari.

"Her entire life. Eight or nine stellar cycles-- like I said, she's young." And Recluse didn't seem to quite understand what a technoorganism implied. "She isn't a human that happens to have Cybertronian parts. The two systems can't be separated, as far as I can see. She's somewhere halfway between our two species." Which was bizarre in itself, as they should have been completely incompatible on any level.

[tartaros_avatar]

"Well then. You already know how I stand in relation to the Decepticons." Wishing that the useful one would come back, actually. Scourge had made an excellent minion. And he'd actually become interested when Megatron was there. It had been weeks since he'd dealt with another evil mastermind, and he'd been looking forward to the challenge. Still, he wasn't about to let Ratchet know that.

"Then I'd check human medical databanks yourself. Information on symptoms of common diseases should be easy to find," Recluse watched Ratchet's expression with interest. "But generally, there is an easy distinction that can be made between different types of human diseases: bacterial, viral and fungal. Depending on which of those categories the infection falls under, you chose from a broad category of drugs specifically designed to combat one or more types." Recluse hadn't gotten sick in almost a century, but when your country produced a staggering amount of illegal weapons, chemical, biological and nuclear, you tended to at least keep a general knowledge of the especially deadly end of disease.

"Interesting." Recluse would have commented further, had a loud voice suddenly made him turn to search for the source. "Oh gods, not another one." He hated heroic inspirational speeches. They were always so trite. Standing on the table, even. All they needed was a flag flapping in the background and the man would have hit every single cliche possible.

He waited until all of the shouting was done before giving the man the most sarcastic slow clap he could manage, although he wasn't sure if a man so completely without subtlety would be able to detect something so nuanced as a facial expression.

"I've heard far too many of those speeches," Recluse turned back to Ratchet, looking infinitely more irritated than he had before he was interrupted, "I've never liked them."

[war_wounds]

"Yeah," Ratchet said cautiously. "Well, it's not like you're the first 'Con sympathizer I've run into in here." And frankly, so far the Decepticons weren't proving themselves much of a concern. They were probably occupied with trying to find their frames, much like Ratchet was. As long as they were keeping their heads down, he had no reason to stir up a fight. He wasn't much good with diplomacy, but he understood the importance of not going out looking for trouble.

Mildly irritated, Ratchet rubbed at his temple. "Well, gee, professor, I never realized it was that simple. And here I was worrying about what foreign chemicals or coding would do to a system they were never meant to be used with." Spark, but he hated armchair physicians. They looked through a few data files and read a few medical journals and thought they knew everything. Slagging annoying.

Ratchet, too, was distracted by the human doing a reasonable impression of Prime in one of his Great Autobot Machine moods. "What in the world does that human think he's doing?" If he hadn't been working on a processor ache before, he certainly was now.

"This happen often?" Recluse wasn't alone in his irritation. Ratchet had had more than his fill of pep talks for one lifetime, and he'd lived a very long time.

[tartaros_avatar]

"I am not, actually. As I mentioned, my only real interaction with them involved breaking Lugnut." The idiot had deserved it for such a sloppy attack. "We were then separated, and I have not interacted with him since." Once again, leaving out the matter of Scourge.

"I am merely saying that the most common diseases generally have generic cures. Influenza responds best to a preventative vaccination, but after that, there is little beyond the simplest of medicines that I can be sure translate over to your dimension." Diseases could be monstrously hard to cure. His scientists often made sure of that. "Since you likely do not have the reclaimator systems standard in Rogue Isles hospitals since the Rikti War." First Rikti War, if what Statesman had said was true. "Serious cases requiring attention are simply teleported to the hospital, where the reclaimator automatically heals most ailments." Well, among those who were useful enough to warrant a teleport beacon.

"And frankly, I don't know how much you're aware of human physiology. I was attempting to give pertinent information, not simply useless data." In another life, he'd been the only person caring for a slowly dying Marcus Cole. He'd learned quite a lot about the sort of problems a body so compromised could encounter. If he'd been able to admit to himself then that Marcus was ruining his life, he would have just let the bastard die.

"And given what I know from the upkeep needed for military cyborgs, their human tissues still respond to drugs designed for normal humans. Beyond that, the only medical knowledge I personally have is a basic amount of battlefield treatment of wounds, diseases, and chemical poisoning." The last time he'd used those skills had been when he'd been a soldier of fortune after World War I. After that, there had been only one death that he'd have wanted to prevent, and by the time he got there, it was too late.

"He thinks we're the proverbial huddled masses, and he is Hero material," Recluse noted, somehow managing to make the capital 'H' evident in his speech. "I've been subjected to it multiple times. I had a friend who was prone to it." That, and insufferable rambling.