| abstract
| - There are many hospitals in Iacon, but none as prestigious and well equipped as Iacon General Hospital. The numerous state of the art facilities housed within the hospital offers around the clock emergency repairs, upgrades, and mundane upkeeps. Iacon General Hospital is staffed by many of the Autobots' brightest minds where the non-combatants can do their part in contributing to the war effort. First Aid Horsepower Small Drone Spanner Blades is not sick, unless one counts sick in the head, and if that's the case, he should have been here a long time ago. No, Blades has just made an appointment to have his coordination checked. He's a bit... dissatisfied. Blades sits in the waiting room, waiting to be called. He has a copy of Jane's pulled up on his datapad, and he peruses an article on flechettes, rather bored, one foot tapping. His rotors itch uncomfortably; these chairs are made for cars. Horsepower is already in the medbay, making sure the assorted pieces of diagnostic equipment that First Aid requested be ready is properly cleaned and calibrated. Wouldn't want to get bad readings because something isn't properly set up, after all. It's not a complicated job that a gumbie nurse couldn't do, just that the big guy prefers to do his own work whenever possible. "...so just apply some cream twice a day and you should be fine, and next time for the love of goodness, Powerglide, /show some restraint/," First Aid says. Having completed his rounds, the Protectobot moves over to see who's in the waiting room, checking his clipboard as he goes. Looking up, he spots- "-Blades?" Aid looks at his clipboard again. "You're not due for another maintenance cycle for another fourteen mega-cycles." Aid glances over at Horsepower, wondering if he shares his suspicions. "Is something wrong? Are you in legal trouble?" Blades makes something of a face, left side scrunching up when he realizes just who is going to be seeing him. He uhs, "I was kind of hoping for -" - someone who doesn't know him so personally, because this is embarrassing - "- nevermind! Yeah! Great to see you!" Horsepower is fine. Horsepower would have been great. Why couldn't First Aid be busy doing a quadruple fuel pump bypass. Blades stands and irritably waves a hand, declaring, "No! I'm not in legal trouble," because no one's caught him yet, "I just... ugh... can we talk about this NOT in the waiting room?" Blades puts his hands out imploringly. He looks left and right. Eavesdrop is sitting right there, eating energon goodies. He sits there all day long, just watching the waiting room, that glitch. Horsepower looks up at First Aid's query and Blades' outburst from the waiting room. "Maybe ya oughta let him in for some more private discussion then, doc." He sets the last of the tools on the tray and gets up to grab a rag to wipe his hands off with. First Aid reaches out and puts his hand on Blades's shoulder, compassion in his optics. "I understand completely, Blades, and we have a cream for it." What luck, Aid hadn't even put it away yet! Aid gives Blades's arm a reassuring squeeze as he looks over at Horsepower, proud that his brother has the courage to come forward with his problems. Nodding to the mechanic, Aid motions for Blades to follow him in out of the waiting room and into the hospital ward watch Commander's office. This is the office that's used by whoever happens to be in command of the hospital at any given time, and changes as each new shift takes over. Blades's right optic twitches, and his expression is decidedly sour as he lets First Aid guide him into the office. He bites out, "I will be real surprised if you've got a cream for this, First Aid." Silently, Blades thinks a, 'Thank you,' at Horsepower. First Aid takes a seat behind the desk, fidgeting with one of those fancy office laser pens as he waits for Blades to sit down. "So, what brings you here, then?" Horsepower politely goes back to work tidying up. He's too nice to try and eavsedrop or anything like that. Though he does make sure the guy NAMED Eavesdrop stays out. Blades spins the chair around and sits on it backwards, sort of tipping it forward. He looks back helplessly at the door. Maybe if he fakes his pager going off and says that there's a Minibot stuck in a trash compactor who needs rescue, Blades can just run out of here and - No, that won't work, First Aid and Horsepower would come along to help. Stupid. Blades lets the chair settles back down onto the floor with /thunk/, and he sighs, "...okay, look... I'm... having some coordination problems. Okay?" He pulls one of the blades off his back, and he tries to balance it on his hand. For a moment, it stays, and then - and then it goes flying and embeds itself in the door with a /shnk/. First Aid leans back in his chair, still fidgeting with his very fancy pen because it makes him look like a professional. It's chrome and has a good heft to it. You could crush a Scraplet with this pen, and the ink? Forget about it. The ink is like Leonardo da Vinci with a paintbrush. Aid watches Blades take the sword off his back and idly taps the palm of one hand with the flat of his pen. When the blade topples and hits the floor, First Aid frowns inwardly and stands up, walking over to inspect the damage done to the door. Eavesdrop probably heard that! "How long has this been going on for?" Don't know about him, but Horsepower certainly did. The mechanica edges the door open just far enough to peer into the office. "What the tarnation was that? Sounded like a Metroplex sized dart board bein' used in he..." And it sort of trails off when he spots the fumbled sword stuck in a surface. "... Please tell me that was an accident." Elsewhere, Eavesdrop giggles and jots down an update on gossip blog. Blades looks down at the mess he has made, and he grimaces. He picks the blade back up and stows it back on his back, and he kind of tries to buff the floor out with hand, though it's not really working. Blades looks up at Horsepower with an automatic 'I didn't do it' expression on his face, and he says, "I just kind of... dropped it, you know. Could happen to anyone." Then he sighs again and explains to First Aid, "I... guess it's been going on a pretty long time. I've just not really noticed it. I get so excited in combat, that I don't really pay much attention, and if I'm not in combat, I have more time to focus on what I'm doing, and it just doesn't come up. What really made me stop to think was, uh..." First Aid turns away from the damage and back towards Blades, holding his pen out. It makes him look like a mech of action. "That sounds like a problem." He taps the pen against his surgical faceplate, increasing his Thoughtfulness by +20. "We'd better take a look. With some luck this could be just be a misalignment. Maybe your targeting systems need a reboot." First Aid points at the exit of the office with his pen, creating a sense of urgency. This exit leads to the main medical bay and rather the waiting room, but no doubt Horsepower might have reason to head there as well. Well isn't it just convenient he got done recalibrating the diagnostic hardware. "Ah'll meet ya in there," Horsepower replies, shutting the door and going to collect the equipment cart he was working at before also heading for the main bay. "Triggerhappy said I couldn't shoot for slag, and I just ignored him, because Decepticon jetslag, am I right? But then I kinda... missed a... truck. Uh. Yeah. So I dunno." Blades stops futilely trying to rub the blade-marks out of the floor. He gets up and heads off to the main medical bay, still explaining, "I mean, maybe that work I did while undercover kind of messed up some of my systems? I had a lot of Decepticon parts jammed in me, and I don't know how compatible they were? But I think the problem might actually go back farther than that, if you look at tapes of the last Olympics..." "Thanks Horsepower," First Aid says. "Fire up a full systems diagnostic." The medic move around the medical bay and attaches a single cable from the bed to Blades's forehead, a la Afterdeath!. First Aid glances at the readings, "Diagnostic is running. Lets not panic about knifing innocents just yet." First Aid looks to Horsepower since he's closer to the monitor with the diagnostic output. Horsepower taps in a few commands on the console. Let's it run for a bit. "Hmmm..." Though some of the more elaborate readings are a bit beyond his scope, he's still more a mechanic and engineer than medic. So he pulls the monitor up on its adjustable support and turns it towards First Aid so the expert can see for himself. There is nothing wrong with Blades. With his physical systems, anyway. He's running just fine. "...who said I was talking about innocents?" First Aid leans across, rolling his pen between his hands to show contemplation and playfulness. "Huh. What do you think, Horsepower? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Then, to Blades, "Well I just assumed. How else could one be bad at knifing?" Horsepower shrugs his broad shoulders a bit. "Maybe ya gotta dig deeper? Everythin' else looks like it's runnin' smoothly, maybe ya gotta start pokin' at what actually makes 'im tick? Even if ya removed all the odd bits he had from that mission like ya said, don't mean it didn't muck with what's up here first..." Raps a fingertip against his temple. Blades exclaims, "It's bad knifing when the knife does not end up in the Decepticons trying to kill me! And they're basically all guilty as slag." He looks imploringly over at Horsepower. Back a mech up here? First Aid raps his pen against his temple, which looks way more professional than rapping his fingertip against his temple would be. To his fellow Protectobot he says, "Well alright, fair enough. I guess that wouldn't be great either." The medic looks back at Horsepower, "Maybe we should at least update his drivers to the latest version. That sometimes clears out his cache and might reset any settings that got changed." "Ah'd be darn right surprised if any of 'em were guilty of nuttin' at all." Well that's sort of supportive right? Horsepower nods his head at First Aid's assessment. "Might as well. Good if it works, and if it don't we've got something to extrap'late off of farther, right?" "Ok, go to Google and type in 'Brawler Class Melee Targeting System," First Aid says. "Grab the latest stable release. Don't go for any beta versions. I don't want to do any testing here." Blades leans back in the chair, rattling the leads attached to his head. "Ugh, a driver update? I guess if you both think so." Those are always a pain. He pulls out his datapad and pulls up the requested targeting system. Then he plugs himself into the pad. "When was the last time you updated your OS? You aren't just clicking 'Later' whenever it pops up, are you?" First Aid asks. His accusation is strengthened as he holds his fancy pen tight. Horsepower gives First Aid a bit of a funny look, more at that he told Blades to go to the internet for that. But the doctor knows best. Blades squirms a bit and admits, "...oh come on, everyone does that! Besides, I hate how the new versions have all these rounded edges. I like right angles, okay?" First Aid puts his hands on his hips, holding his pen against his side. "/You can change the theme, Blades/," he scolds. "Horsepower, get that patch ready. Blades, we're probably going to have to reboot you like half a dozen times just to apply all these. Hold still." Blades throws his hands in the air and pouts, "It's not that easy!" It's totally that easy. Blades does not hold still during the rebootings. Blades squirms and squeaks and tries to elbow Horsepower and step on First Aid's foot at least twice. Horsepower grunts. "Iffen ya'd just let it get done it'd be over with sooner!" Despite getting a smack or elbow now and then Horsepower grapples with Blades to hold him down, having the advantage of size and mass over the Protectobot at least. "And iffen ya weren't slackin' off on keepin' up we wouldn't have t'do this the hard way in the first place." "Blades. /Blades/. Blades? ...blades... Blades!!" First Aid says as he wrestles with Blades, trying to keep him pinned down so he can initiate the reboots like a parent trying to make sure their kid takes their medicine. "Horsepower, try grabbing hi-oof!" Aid takes a step back. Finally he gives up and pulls his trump card. He pulls out and points with the pen. "Blades you stop this right this instant!" Blades whines, "But it's so annoying! I don't wanna!" However, Horsepower easily holds him down. His optics flicker madly as he reboots half a dozen times. "Ok... I... got... you!" First Aid says, flipping the switch to reboot Blades. Once, twice, three... TWELVE times! That's how many OS upgrades and patches it ends up taking, not to mention that original driver patch. "I think ya need to make a new reminder brochure 'bout such proceeders if everyones neglectin' it," Horsepower asides to First Aid while holding. Blades does not pay as much attention to his personal care as he should. Then again, he's the type who thinks that walking off a serious head wound is acceptable. This takes forever, or at least, it feels that way to him. Just when he thinks it is done... he finds out that he has to reboot four more times, making it sixteen. When it's done, he feels like he's been put through a washing machine. He says weakly, "...holy Matrix, McGuffin of Prime. I... bluh." Blades slumps in the chair. "Oh they never listen to me," First Aid says somewhere between reboot three and reboot seven. "I keep telling them but..." Aid shakes his head. Then somewhere around reboot nine he gets an idea and points his pen at Horsepower. "Maybe you'd have better luck." Then comes reboot twelve, and Aid looks back at Blades. "Well, wakey wakey, sunshine. How do you feel?" Blades wobbles in the chair, and mumbles, "I feel like I'm gonna -" - then he doubles over, covering his mouth. A muddy pink leaks out between his fingers, between blurbling noises. "- Pit, it's just so /rounded/ and /colourful/, I can't handle this -" - Blades continues hacking up, and when he's done, he looks at his hands, which now contain a paperweight from Ultra Magnus's office, a straight razor, and a half-used power cell for his photon pistol - "- oh huh, that's where I put those things, I was starting to wonder." First Aid quickly grabs one of the nearby vomit buckets and holds it under Blades's mouth in case there's a repeat. No it isn't weird that they have enough vomit buckets for one to be nearby. "There there. Let it all out. That many upgrades at once must have been pretty tough. Normally I might spread it out over a couple days but somehow I imagined you wouldn't want to be confined to the hospital ward for that long." P.S. his pen is in his other, non-bucket hand. Horsepower just shakes his head a bit and turns to tromp over to a closet. "Ah'll get the cleanin' supplies." Just not gonna ask about some of those things... Blades stares at First Aid, and he admits, "Yeah, I'd probably stab /myself/ if I had to be cooped up so long. So... I can go now? And you'll just keep a watch on this coordination problem I've been having?" Please don't tell Blades he has to come for a follow-up visit for recalibration. "Yep, so long as you're feeling well you're free to go," First Aid confirms. He sets the bucket aside and grabs his clipboard. Then he presses the pen to his clipboard. "Oh, just be sure to come back for a follow-up visit for recalibration." Blades clutches his fuel tank and gives First Aid a very wounded, betrayed look. Then he heaves himself up, a little unsteady. He grumbles, "Yeah. Great. Thanks. I'll be /sure/ to do that." He sort of hobbles out, leaning against the wall. =================================== Rumors =================================== Message: 8/6 Posted Author Eavesdropping Wed Jul 03 Anonymous ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There is a blog post about all the EXCITING going-ons at Iacon General Hospital. Choice updates include: * Recall is in to have his parts recalled. Again. * Lemon is also in to have his parts recalled. * Blades is in for some mystery problem that involved loud thumps, snkts, and hollering. * Headcase claims that Torque's hands have been replaced with smaller hands when no one was looking. ==============================================================================
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