Post by Yorick on May 30, 2016 5:58:13 GMT
Rachel Rowles found herself crouched in the corner of the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary, where she was getting some work study done for her Pre-Veterinary Medicine degree. She’d found herself there more often than not since that fateful day where her family’s comfortable routine was irrevocably shattered.
Stoically trying to keep a torrent of tears from breaking their dam, Rachel reflected on what brought her here, crouched alongside an agreeably pudgy raccoon that she’d helped raise from an infant and was set to release into the wild just a few weeks from now.
She’d just been coming into the home after a difficult morning of classes when another angry shout from the house and the slamming of a cupboard door instinctively hunched her shoulders, and she retreated, driving the half hour over to Green bay in a haze of shuddering breaths and moist eyes.
‘David, why’d you have to go and do this now, make this happen?’ she queried in the safety of her thoughts. ‘It just wasn’t fair!’
It certainly wasn’t. It also, if she were to be completely honest with herself, wasn’t David’s fault. The honest fact of the matter was that their family had been going off the rails slowly but surely for quite some time. They had no reason to blame her brother. Derek’s situation had just been the tipping point.
Sure, her father was working additional shifts at the local emergency room to gather extra spending money and didn’t have much time for the family. Both she and David had suspicions that the family wasn’t well off, despite the fact that there were two doctors in the family. The number of different treatments, medicines, appointments, MRIs, and other expenses that went into ensuring her brother had some semblance of a normal life had certainly not helped any debts that may have remained from their parent’s college loans. Harold certainly had been vocal enough about the fact that he blamed the recent NerveGear purchase for many of those hours, despite the fact that he was just as guilty of using the money for his own pleasure.
Sure, her mother Melanie blamed herself for buying the machine that even now held her son hostage. If she’d not had several appointments scheduled for that day that could have been put off another week, she would have been the victim of Kayaba’s scheme and not her son.
It had quickly become far too obvious to ignore that the two of them were barreling towards a divorce. Melanie had drastically cut down her work hours to care for David, which meant that Harold was working longer and longer hours of ER work and becoming fed up with things. It also meant that if Rachel wanted her family to be there and whole for David when he woke up, she would have to be the one trying to hold things together.
She laid a gimlet eye on Stinker the raccoon as he fished a squirming crawdad out of the brook running through his enclosure and cracked through its carapace with undisguised relish. He wasn’t bothered overmuch by the morbid thoughts of her parent’s dying marriage. She shouldn’t be either. They were due to move him today, and the last thing that she should be doing is hiding here.
***
Melanie Rowles barely bit back a wordless snarl even as she checked the IV and the other medical equipment keeping her only son alive. ’That man is so damned infuriating! Why in the hell does he think that his family is such a burden to him? I fail to see how he could be so resentful about his son being alive! As if it was somehow David’s decision for him to sign up for another shift the very day that he’s being moved!’
Of course, her angry litany of mental words was nowhere near enough to distract her from the seriousness of what was soon to occur. Her child, who had one of Kayaba’s EMP grenades latched onto his head, would be moved from the local hospital to Marshfield Medical Center. She was not too proud to admit that she was frightened practically out of her mind at the prospect. The relaxed wilderness and farmlands of Brown County were relatively rural area, despite the proximity of Green Bay. This also meant that the best major medical center was a little over two hours away via car. Thankfully, they would be transporting him by Medevac, which meant that the normal transit time was cut drastically, but there were a few areas of lower than ideal cell phone coverage along the route.
Her daughter came in with an uncharacteristic subtlety, and approached her with a worried look on her face and a subdued demeanor that had become all too familiar in the recent months. A subconscious twining of fingers held for a few seconds before she drew her daughter into a hug, placing her forehead against her taller daughter's back as the two of them focused on the only other family member in the room.
Three unkempt technicians consulted a thick compendium of procedures, information, and diagrams, methodically going about securing several pieces of supplemental boosting technology to the NerveGear. She knew they were some of the best electronics minds in the world, and knew that they were part of the multinational team that had been working day and night to not only work out the kinks of this procedure, but to make sure it was well practiced, and implementable for everyone at risk, but couldn’t they have made at least some effort to appear more professional, for the state of mind of the families involved?
After all, the reason that several of these minds were working on his system and that she was going along for the ride was the fact that her son had a non-specified seizure disorder. It would be nothing short of catastrophic should he suffer through a tonic-clonic seizure in the aircraft, and in addition to being a neurologist, she was intimately familiar with her son’s condition. The very least they could do was to put a little effort into their own physical appearance to calm some of her nerves!
***
Harold fought to keep the frown off his face as he discussed the symptoms that one of the local hypochondriacs was dealing with this time. ’His family,’ he had concluded, ‘had gone and blown a few comments he had made all out of proportion.’
He had been one of the primary bread-winners of the family for almost the entire marriage. Despite Melanie’s more specialized degree, or perhaps because of it, her neurology practice had quite a bit of business. Of course, compared to the number of people with simple illnesses and physical issues, a ‘big business’ neurology clinic couldn’t bring anywhere near the amount of money necessary to combat their debt.
He’d been downright generous about things – his wife had needed extra time for her doctorate, and got back into it after the birth of Rachel, and her early childhood. He’d supported her. Never mind the fact that the time between the years of study her medical school abrogated the full ride scholarship she’d been working with.
He'd made sure she was able to follow her dream. He just wanted to have the opportunity to enjoy some of the family's success.
When David had come along, things had only gotten worse. The medical costs had catapulted them into debt, combined with the college loans they still had to deal with. He’d been working his ever-loving ass off trying to keep the family solvent, and the fact was Melanie had been focused more on the kids than making sure that those same kids had a home to return to at the end of the day.
Did she even realize that part of the reason he'd been so short tempered today was the fact that it was his son, his blood that was being risked right now? He'd never been coherent when he was angry! She should know this. She should know!
***
They’d reached the hospital, and David was being wheeled into his room for the foreseeable future. Melanie let out a breathy gasp of breath that she hadn’t known she’d been holding all this time. What they’d all feared had actually occurred. A seizure had struck her son while they were finishing transferring him to the portable systems.
The high pitched keening shriek that presaged the air ripping out of his lungs, the blood seemingly draining from his face and leaving him gray, his clawed hands clenching at his chest, twitching spasmodically, even as he curled up on his left side and his eyes under the NerveGear’s visor rolled uncontrolled… She’d seen them all before. She was prepared to deal with them, and deal with the aftermath of those seizures.
Never, however, had the danger been quite as pronounced.
There were numerous suppositions about what would trigger the EMP that would be produced when a person was removed from the system, and one of the many had been that it was a change in the motor systems of the brain, allowing the body to freely move instead of funneling those impulses into the NerveGear.
‘Thank the Lord that hadn’t been the case.’
Melanie had never been one to engage in prayer, but she would today. Whichever higher power was watching out for her son deserved her heartfelt eternal gratitude. She would continue to pray for her son, his continued survival, and his safe return from Aincrad. Above all, she prayed that despite them not being able to perform any of the cognitive checks done for recovering seizure victims, that his brilliant mind remained whole.
Stoically trying to keep a torrent of tears from breaking their dam, Rachel reflected on what brought her here, crouched alongside an agreeably pudgy raccoon that she’d helped raise from an infant and was set to release into the wild just a few weeks from now.
She’d just been coming into the home after a difficult morning of classes when another angry shout from the house and the slamming of a cupboard door instinctively hunched her shoulders, and she retreated, driving the half hour over to Green bay in a haze of shuddering breaths and moist eyes.
‘David, why’d you have to go and do this now, make this happen?’ she queried in the safety of her thoughts. ‘It just wasn’t fair!’
It certainly wasn’t. It also, if she were to be completely honest with herself, wasn’t David’s fault. The honest fact of the matter was that their family had been going off the rails slowly but surely for quite some time. They had no reason to blame her brother. Derek’s situation had just been the tipping point.
Sure, her father was working additional shifts at the local emergency room to gather extra spending money and didn’t have much time for the family. Both she and David had suspicions that the family wasn’t well off, despite the fact that there were two doctors in the family. The number of different treatments, medicines, appointments, MRIs, and other expenses that went into ensuring her brother had some semblance of a normal life had certainly not helped any debts that may have remained from their parent’s college loans. Harold certainly had been vocal enough about the fact that he blamed the recent NerveGear purchase for many of those hours, despite the fact that he was just as guilty of using the money for his own pleasure.
Sure, her mother Melanie blamed herself for buying the machine that even now held her son hostage. If she’d not had several appointments scheduled for that day that could have been put off another week, she would have been the victim of Kayaba’s scheme and not her son.
It had quickly become far too obvious to ignore that the two of them were barreling towards a divorce. Melanie had drastically cut down her work hours to care for David, which meant that Harold was working longer and longer hours of ER work and becoming fed up with things. It also meant that if Rachel wanted her family to be there and whole for David when he woke up, she would have to be the one trying to hold things together.
She laid a gimlet eye on Stinker the raccoon as he fished a squirming crawdad out of the brook running through his enclosure and cracked through its carapace with undisguised relish. He wasn’t bothered overmuch by the morbid thoughts of her parent’s dying marriage. She shouldn’t be either. They were due to move him today, and the last thing that she should be doing is hiding here.
***
Melanie Rowles barely bit back a wordless snarl even as she checked the IV and the other medical equipment keeping her only son alive. ’That man is so damned infuriating! Why in the hell does he think that his family is such a burden to him? I fail to see how he could be so resentful about his son being alive! As if it was somehow David’s decision for him to sign up for another shift the very day that he’s being moved!’
Of course, her angry litany of mental words was nowhere near enough to distract her from the seriousness of what was soon to occur. Her child, who had one of Kayaba’s EMP grenades latched onto his head, would be moved from the local hospital to Marshfield Medical Center. She was not too proud to admit that she was frightened practically out of her mind at the prospect. The relaxed wilderness and farmlands of Brown County were relatively rural area, despite the proximity of Green Bay. This also meant that the best major medical center was a little over two hours away via car. Thankfully, they would be transporting him by Medevac, which meant that the normal transit time was cut drastically, but there were a few areas of lower than ideal cell phone coverage along the route.
Her daughter came in with an uncharacteristic subtlety, and approached her with a worried look on her face and a subdued demeanor that had become all too familiar in the recent months. A subconscious twining of fingers held for a few seconds before she drew her daughter into a hug, placing her forehead against her taller daughter's back as the two of them focused on the only other family member in the room.
Three unkempt technicians consulted a thick compendium of procedures, information, and diagrams, methodically going about securing several pieces of supplemental boosting technology to the NerveGear. She knew they were some of the best electronics minds in the world, and knew that they were part of the multinational team that had been working day and night to not only work out the kinks of this procedure, but to make sure it was well practiced, and implementable for everyone at risk, but couldn’t they have made at least some effort to appear more professional, for the state of mind of the families involved?
After all, the reason that several of these minds were working on his system and that she was going along for the ride was the fact that her son had a non-specified seizure disorder. It would be nothing short of catastrophic should he suffer through a tonic-clonic seizure in the aircraft, and in addition to being a neurologist, she was intimately familiar with her son’s condition. The very least they could do was to put a little effort into their own physical appearance to calm some of her nerves!
***
Harold fought to keep the frown off his face as he discussed the symptoms that one of the local hypochondriacs was dealing with this time. ’His family,’ he had concluded, ‘had gone and blown a few comments he had made all out of proportion.’
He had been one of the primary bread-winners of the family for almost the entire marriage. Despite Melanie’s more specialized degree, or perhaps because of it, her neurology practice had quite a bit of business. Of course, compared to the number of people with simple illnesses and physical issues, a ‘big business’ neurology clinic couldn’t bring anywhere near the amount of money necessary to combat their debt.
He’d been downright generous about things – his wife had needed extra time for her doctorate, and got back into it after the birth of Rachel, and her early childhood. He’d supported her. Never mind the fact that the time between the years of study her medical school abrogated the full ride scholarship she’d been working with.
He'd made sure she was able to follow her dream. He just wanted to have the opportunity to enjoy some of the family's success.
When David had come along, things had only gotten worse. The medical costs had catapulted them into debt, combined with the college loans they still had to deal with. He’d been working his ever-loving ass off trying to keep the family solvent, and the fact was Melanie had been focused more on the kids than making sure that those same kids had a home to return to at the end of the day.
Did she even realize that part of the reason he'd been so short tempered today was the fact that it was his son, his blood that was being risked right now? He'd never been coherent when he was angry! She should know this. She should know!
***
They’d reached the hospital, and David was being wheeled into his room for the foreseeable future. Melanie let out a breathy gasp of breath that she hadn’t known she’d been holding all this time. What they’d all feared had actually occurred. A seizure had struck her son while they were finishing transferring him to the portable systems.
The high pitched keening shriek that presaged the air ripping out of his lungs, the blood seemingly draining from his face and leaving him gray, his clawed hands clenching at his chest, twitching spasmodically, even as he curled up on his left side and his eyes under the NerveGear’s visor rolled uncontrolled… She’d seen them all before. She was prepared to deal with them, and deal with the aftermath of those seizures.
Never, however, had the danger been quite as pronounced.
There were numerous suppositions about what would trigger the EMP that would be produced when a person was removed from the system, and one of the many had been that it was a change in the motor systems of the brain, allowing the body to freely move instead of funneling those impulses into the NerveGear.
‘Thank the Lord that hadn’t been the case.’
Melanie had never been one to engage in prayer, but she would today. Whichever higher power was watching out for her son deserved her heartfelt eternal gratitude. She would continue to pray for her son, his continued survival, and his safe return from Aincrad. Above all, she prayed that despite them not being able to perform any of the cognitive checks done for recovering seizure victims, that his brilliant mind remained whole.