sick, ill and radical
Simplified depictions of human beings from old Earth media often reduced the eye area (socket, brow, visible portion of the ball) to a matter of three concentric circles framed by a handful of off-kilter lines. Pigment cells freckling themselves in out of place were rarely represented (or rather, captured) in such images. Indeed, they seemed fairly true to life, if reference images were considered.
Mimeosome eyes, however, were not that way. Maybe it was something to do with the replication of sensory input faculties. Maybe fiber-optic nerve endings eschewed the privacy of being disguised. Or maybe it really was just cosmetic.
These attractive nevi, no matter the bearing personality, rarely found themselves so animated as those within the eyes of Mirabilis's current charge, an Interceptor wearing a too-bright white hoodie over their chest and a fresh deposit of vomit on their valiant sakuraba shoes. (It was, if you'll pardon the vivid description, curiously- cookies-and-cream -colored.)
The patterns arrayed atop iris and conjuctiva flickered so swiftly that it was impossible to tell if the star shapes, buried among whites that bled out into the surrounding mole-pocked skin, were wholly real or merely imagined. Here flutters. There flashes. Now and again, glimmer-shimmer and glow.
Somebody had to have brought them here, right? They appeared to be weak-kneed, groggy. They had no weapons, but stank vaguely of something like blatta (and, also, the other thing). But no one lingered in the doorway, nor caught the absent gaze of the BLADE. Were there more messes to be made, out in/on the concourse?
Gingerly, Mirabilis reached out with a pristine gloved hand to straighten the person's chin and bring their field of vision back to center.
"You feel sick," she said. It wasn't a question, because it couldn't be. The patient gave a lopsided smirk, their eyes - unfortunately - rolling back as they appreciated some debatable humor in the observation. Some might act this way when rhetorically accused of being drunk; there was a sort of proudly unwise pride to the gesture.
(And it was a stupid question, of course. Without visible injury or coherent panic, it had to be illness. Right? Why else would one end up here?)
"This happens frequently?" Mentally, she chided herself: be specific! How many times in the last day, three days, week? And what is this - what sickness, exactly? What symptom, what aspect? What scintillating new-planet disease?
But the patient appeared ignorant to any and all ideal specificity coming from the nurse. They simply replied, with infinite eloquence, "Uh, maybe? Do you wanna find out?"
Mirabilis pursed her lips, tartly. "Suppose it recurs frequently." She gave the patient - Seren Sirius, height 150cm, weight 85.25kg, age unknown - an opportunity to consider this supposition while she waited for battle data from nearby Primordia sites to stream in.
Praying that her gravitas would hold, she took a moment to circle the intake bay on careful-but-cloppy heels.
No weapon. No weapon.
No weapon big enough to see? No weapon small enough to bring!
No weapon...but a raygun strap hiding under the hood of the sweatshirt.
Low level. New to her. New to physical sensation, maybe. Probably had a recent BLADE join-up date somewhere in their chart. And who was friendly to new recruits? Doug, that was who.
Taking the chance that Seren wouldn't snap at her, given that they hadn't when she'd touched their face, Mirabilis reached down and shrugged up the cuffs of the hoodie, just so far as the wristbones. And there, indeed, thermochemical burns akin to the rash of photophobia. Well, not that basic beam-based weapons actually had such an effect, in all literality and technicality, but synthetic bodies did much of chameleonry to cope with their difference from the flesh of the original model and form.
Maybe that wasn't true. Still. Wasn't it so much more exciting this way?
Doug. Blattas. Lack of identity. Lust for learning. A certain je-ne-care-quois. It all pointed to...
"Suppose it recurs frequently," Mirabilis repeated, this time almost triumphant. Oh, yes.
"It's triggered by particularly flashy combat moves, yes?"
(Those of a variety that proved more and more alluring with every passing day that she spent without much more than a standard-issue knife and pistol to hand.)
A squint that betrayed alternately confusion and abject disorientation was her most immediate answer. Then, "You know, now that you say it--" (and they paused, reeled)
"You experience vertigo-induced nausea." Say, benign, paroxysmal and positional. Not syncopal. "Obviously."
"Looks like..." they pronounced weakly, then added with a groan of some finality, "...LOL."
Eleonora had given Mirabilis gentle but strict training on the proper bedside manner for patients entered into the MMC: always cheery, no-nonsense despite the smile, and only just appropriately realistic. There was no need to declare national emergency over a wound as yet undiscovered. It was best for all parties to keep tensions down via the controlled flow of information. And where the hippocratic oath came into it, none could say.
Well. Anyway. Nowhere in the guidelines was it expressly permitted for nurses to speak freely with their admittees, and get socially or even scientifically sassy.
Mirabilis disregarded her beloved training, directly, when responding in the affrontative, "I'm sure you're not supposed to say it out loud."
The blue-haired person gestured lackadaisically over their mimetic facsimile of a digestive tract, esophagus and all. "Well, but I did."
Mirabilis let her frown pitch her head the other way. Okay, Seren. Lay it on me.
"Lots of Lunch."
...or maybe don't?