EOD INFIRMARY
After the attack the Infirmary became a paramount asset to the mansion. As a result it needed to be expanded. A wall was knocked down to allow for a few extra beds and cabinets to hold extra supplies. A few of the original automated first aid machines from the X-mens past are still functional while most were thrown away after they fell into a state hopeless repair, their parts salvaged and stored away. Without Danger, however, the more advanced surgery and medical equipment is not functional so the Company keeps a few medics on staff. Doctor Maya Lawrence, company agent, doctor and scientist, and her staff can usually be found here during the day, and at the barracks at night.
X-Men EoD Time
Wednesday, August 13th
"Doctor Lawrence?" came
Vlad's questing bass, the accent lightly tilting at the vowels of his words but otherwise almost undetectable after so many years in America. He walked into the room, quite familiar with the infirmary and the doctor that ran it most of the time. Respectfully, he passed a nurse with a nod as he sought out the top doctor on staff, the one who would have his test results after his tests with the specialist that The Company had arranged after a particularly successful mission. Finally, after passing the dormant remains of the auto-docs, on which his eyes momentarily lingered, he found what he thought to be the back of the woman physician he was searching for. "Doctor Lawrence?" he repeated, a bit of sweat on his brow as he both craved and dreaded the information she might give.
Maya Lawrence was a woman in her late 30's or early 40's who had been a student under Xavier during her teenage years, back when the Professor taught some courses at NYU during his youth. The Doctor had come to the mansion mostly out of old loyalty for her teacher and because her area of expertise had been mutant physiology. In fact, she'd been one of Dr. McCoy's most trusted consultants before everything went to hell. Now she worked for the company, trying to keep any experimentation on mutants as humane as possible while finding new and amazing information on them. The woman herself was short but graceful, with tan skin and curly, very dark brown hair. She wore a dark grey pencil skirt and off white shirt along a long, white doctor's coat. As Vlad was walking in, she turned to him for a second, looking at the man with dark green eyes. "Mr. Shostakovich..." she said, looking over a chart she had on her hand. "...Vlad." she added, a bit more warmly. "I'm afraid it doesn't look good..."
His jaw tightened, a muscle flaring in his neck as he nodded curtly. He'd been afraid of that. Still, he outwardly expressed nothing but a gravely stoic resignation that somehow made his eyes darken, the bags under them deepening with shadows from his wild bangs. "How much time?" he grilled through clenched teeth. For a moment, with his eyes in shadow, the curly brown hair of the short woman doctor reminded him poignantly of Korvka, but he blinked and the vision was gone, leaving him here instead with a human who was no less determined to pump him full of poison. "Did Doctor Donahue ship over the new stuff?" he asked after a short sigh, lifting his head so that the overhead lights hit his face, no longer brooding in the dark.
"It's hard to tell..." replied the woman. "If we're lucky, it could be years... if we're unlucky, it could be months." The woman was no stranger to giving people bad news, specially mutants, but every time felt like the first time when you were telling someone he was going to die."He did..." said Dr.Lawrence with a sigh as she retrieve a neatly wrapped package, about the size of a child's lunchbox. "That is very strong. Vlad. You don't have to use it... there's.. there's other way." she said with a sympathetic tilt of her head. "I've seen plenty of what the physiology of mutants can achieve, trust me. It's not all pretty but some of it can give you hope... we could try laparoscopic surgery again. It went ok last time... I know it came back but still. We could also try to get a message out... contact Rook.. have a real surgery... actual chemo, with injections... not something toxic enough to survive being in your stomach..."
After a pause, an answer came through from Elizabeth on Vlad's communicator. "Don't think we'll need it, but won't turn one down just in case. And two handguns and an extra clip for both, if you can spare them."
A nod followed Dr. Lawrence's initial reply, his expression neither excited nor downtrodden at the prospect of either estimation but rather taking the information in as
Vlad's eyes shifted down towards the communicator on his shoulder as his beloved wife's voice came from the other side. He immediately felt a stab of guilt stitching its way between his ribs as her voice poignantly reminded him that he'd been keeping all of this a secret from everyone except for The Company staff and the government, who so graciously kept his secret, he presumed, since they couldn't possibly care less. "What's the difference?" he asked the doctor, looking at the package and then to the curly-haired woman as she warned him about the new drugs, though as soon as she mentioned trying to contact Rook, the Russian developed a wry smile, one filled with sarcastic grit. "The next time I see Rook is going to be the last time I see Rook," he promised with a shake of his head as he dismissed the final suggestion she threw out. "All of the old crew has turned and now want me and mine dead. They'd be jumping for joy to know something was doing it for them and then my wife and son turn into easier targets." He stopped explaining, and then picked up the small square package. "What are the side effects?"
"Regular Chemo we can target..." said Maya with a sigh, knowing full well it was impossible to give Vlad a course of injections necessary without a way to neutralize his powers and make his skin pierce-able, something they couldn't do without Rook's help. "This is like carpet bombing." added the old woman pointing at the package, a bit frustrated with the intransigence of the X-men and the MLA. If the mutants in the sprawl would but fall in line, the Company and the MAO would surely let them into the fold, but the X-Men leadership seemed very resilient to so much as offer an olive branch. "It's basically poison.... we just hope the troublesome tissue dies before the healthy one does... it's a massive gamble."
Vlad listened to the doctor in complete silence, paying very close attention to what she was saying as he idly started to open the carefully packaged round of what Dr. Lawrence assured him was no more than poison. "Great. The old ones don't work and the new ones will eat me from the inside," he said, tossing the package gently onto her desk, as if he'd heard enough about the contents to have made a choice. "And if I were to stop taking everything?" he asked, eyebrows raising as he drilled into the doctor's green eyes with an expectant expression. He admittedly didn't know much about pathology but he knew that everyone had these cells in their body, but that his mutant genes were probably enhancing the replication of them, narrowing his window of time to a guaranteed but vaguely estimated close. "Look, I know I'm dying," he said, reaching into the neck of his impressive armor and then pulling out a small amber phial filled with Combat Drugs. His eyes flickered to hers to read her reaction as he then set the bottle on the desk in front of him, assuming she'd probably know what was inside the phial. "I just need to know the best way to keep this old heap together until that happens."
"You seem to be doing remarkably well so far." replied Maya, trying her best to give the man a sympathetic smile. "And nothing is certain. There's a ton of mutants out there whose abilities could help and I'm trying to pull some strings with the company but..." Maya didn't say anything else, but what she meant was obvious. The government, the big hospitals, the research organizations. They weren't going to go into a War Zone, or risk bringing Vlad out of it, for whatever possible treatments they could attempt. After all, these would probably be months long and bringing in all the equipment and professionals with the MLA lurking around was too much to ask even if the company or the Mutants Affairs Office DID want to help. On the other hand, whatever mutants COULD help Vlad were probably in the MLA camp, or they would have been called already, and they certainly were not helping while the war was going on. "In any case. It can be very manageable with pain medication. Orally ingested ones... You'll have many of the common side effects of chemo... but your powers will help with the pain too."
Since it seemed that Dr. Lawrence had no obvious objections to his intended use of the Combat Drugs and how they might interact with the medicines he was already on,
Vlad simply tucked them away the same way that he had retrieved them, and then nodded, running his fingers through his disobedient locks. "I think I'd like to stick with that then, Doctor," he replied with a definitive nod. "Could you put in another prescription for me? I took my last pills this morning," he explained as he then stood up quite straight, obviously in a hurry as he postured himself towards the door as a gentle implication of haste.
"Will do." replied Maya with a slight nod. "Take care of yourself out there. Your state of mind plays no small role in how your body reacts to medicine and illness." said the woman as she waved to the man, if a bit weakly.
"Thank you, Doctor Lawrence,"
Vlad said sincerely, nodding his head as a clear goodbye as he then turned and walked by the dormant auto-docs again on his way out the door into
EoD Complex Hall.
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