A long night in Toronto....

"Button next to door. How can I help you?"

The intercom inside responded as quickly as he expected, though with a little bit of music blaring out as well. Normally, he wouldn't mind; remote ORs often had that sort of thing, and he'd often heard the odd death metal blare out before being muted. No big deal.

"'Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked iiiin~♪"

Except this one.

"So shame on me no-ow, flew me to places I'd never beeeen~♪"

Cassidy's smirking face, combined with the vocal "assistance" from the famous singer, caused him to swallow hard; his verbal inhibitions were getting difficult to handle. Just get this over with, he told himself. He could be home pretty quickly, and it'd be over, maybe get to wake up at 10. Quick exhale, just press the button.

"Here with the new NCU."

Of course, knocking was really just all the courtesy Daniel was willing to offer as he let himself in and glanced about the room. With the most stoic face he could muster, enduring the music in the room, he popped his briefcase open slightly and took out what he was there for.

The little device then sat in his hand, an artificially intelligent management program in hibernation inside of it.

"Thanks a bunch!" Cassidy glanced over, the grin still on her face. "Whatcha think of the operation so far? I've extracted most of the defunct implant. Does that look like a hack job to you or what?" Her voice cut through the music, which she didn't bother turning down at all, the door sliding shut automatically behind Daniel like a sentence to spend some time with the chatterbox surgeon.

"Did you get a chance to look up who did the previous work for this poor guy? His name is Adrian. Nice abs. Shame about his CNS. And the name." She paused, tilting her head, then flicked her hands sideways, upward, then made a "cut" motion through the air.

You're droooowning~,

The room's lights dimmed slightly, and the holograms froze.

"Alright. I think he's ready. This'll have to go through sterilization and through a 'lock. Put it through there, would you?" Cassidy motioned at what looked like a closed hole in the wall, which irised open.

And then I reeaaalize, the joke is on me- hey!~

"I'll start prepping the procedure to get it in-"

"Adrian Rogers Tremblay is being maintained in his medical stasis."

"Thanks, Mneme. Ah, right. Where are my manners? I'm Cassidy Adler. I run the place. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to stick around after the operation. We have to check to make sure the AI is running properly. Sorry about the inconvenience." Cassidy's voice never deviated from a cheerful, upbeat tone as she continued to flick through operating procedure, not even when apologizing.

So shame on me now~

All Daniel could muster was a single grunt and nod as he tried to block out the annoying music over Cassidy's voice. His head throbbing with physical and mental tiredness, the engineer-turned-technician did as he was told and let the control unit pass into the little hole in the wall.

Till you put me down, oh, I knew you were trouble when you walked in~♪

There's one peppy little shit I won't see again, he tried reassuring himself, as he watched it disappear to be installed to interface with some random stranger's spine. Adrian... what a kind of name to be stuck with.

Now I'm lying on the cold hard grooound, oh~♪

He grumbled at Cassidy's request. "Dan. Do I have to stand around here or what, I'd kinda like a power nap or something if I'm gonna be here longer than right now."

Trouble, trouble, trouble~♪

He massaged his right temple, trying to keep himself both awake and composed. If only that blasted speaker with that awful music would play something else. Something else besides this... thing that was currently hammering at his patience.

"Oh, I don't think you should. Should at least record the presence of the implant to the point where it's embedded in the subject." Cassidy paused, then started moving the instruments once again, humming.

"The implant should be surveyed as part of the proceedings by you, as a representative of Laplace Industries, Daniel Shields. I, Mneme, apologise on behalf of my partner, Cassidy. She is engrossed in her surgical proceeding. Hopefully, this should not take much longer than a few hours."

The music finally switched.

On a dark desert highway-

Cool wind in my hair-

Warm smell of colitas-

"A... few hours," repeated Daniel.

Up ahead in the distance

Restricted from his usual tirade of sailor talk, the sleep-deprived engineer let out the most drawn-out groan he'd groaned that night, and the overtime had given him more than enough.

I saw a shimmering light

Stupid music was also just pretty much lulling him along...

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim

He was about to protest, but all that came out was random murmuring. Leaning against the wall, he tried to fight the lyrics of the song currently trying to cast him off to dreamland.

"Okay so just to lay out the double cores into their respective bits. Mneme, give me some new cutters and get ready to do some suturing with me. Going to need to make these nice and perfect after all that."

"Your guest, Daniel Shields appears to be falling asleep. Shall I wake him?"

"No, leave it. We need to focus, anyhow." Cassidy posed her hands, beginning surgery once again on Art's back, which looked as if the upper half and his neck had been flayed. The skin, removed entirely, portions of muscle and bone lifted out in virtual holographic squares, looked at, examined, then put to one side or the other. The cores were inserted without complications, and began a diagnostic check.

Cassidy didn't show a single sign of worry, beginning to sew up her patient already, creating micro-sutures through the flesh made of bio-artificial replacement. There was a slight spray misting over the barely visible stitched up wound, limiting both swelling and creating an artificial covering for Adrian's still-sensitive "replacements".

The heaviness in Daniel's eyes gave out after about five seconds or so, and he disappeared...

"Wha--"

Daniel jerked awake to some unknown stimuli, and shook his head. The HUD on his glasses indicated that it was... about a three-hour nap against some wall. Damn, how'd he nod off so quickly. Glancing over at Cassidy, he murmured, "Done yet?"

"I've been done for ah- two hours? Two hours, six minutes now. Just waiting for you to wake up while going over the documents I'll have to read. His previous implants were quite a hack-job. It's almost like they used a mishmash of unshielded tech. Kind of like cobbling together a car out of other cars. Not good cars, either. Sure, it'll run, but it's like an accident waiting to happen. I actually had to go in and extract some of the "artificial nerves" that were branching out onto other nerves." Cassidy rapped the holo-sheet the room had projected into her hand.

"The Dice-111 on the other hand is much better. Almost even affordable. Much less destructive, much less of a mechanical monstrosity but needs an AI-level intelligence to monitor and compensate, otherwise there'll be significant delay, making it all kinds of useless. Wonderfully shielded, also subcutaneous. Could have subvocalized commands to the AI as well, or would specific muscle group movements be easier? Depends. Some more efficient in other areas. Er. Sorry, talking about irrelevant things. I apologize." Her voice cheerful, indicating no sense of remorse whatsoever as she offered a hand to Daniel Shields.

"Mneme is currently tending to Adrian's vitals and the AI within. I believe you have to activate it? We should go to the recovery room to do that. Then there's forms I-35b and c, and the Therapeutic Specialty Care form. I imagine you can get them done within an hour or two, at least."

Exhaling audibly, he jabbed a couple of fingers at his eyelids to try and jerk himself awake a little more, cursing himself that he didn't wake up at least a little earlier. Sleeping while standing did not do well for his joints. Waving off Cassidy, he gave her no response except a murmured "All right." He was glad to be having even a small walk, at least, doing a light stretching.

"If you could put your stuff on those forms so I could go over 'em in the other room, that'd be killer, then."

Afterwards, opening the door, Daniel was about to let himself out, before realizing he didn't know where they were going. Not in his current state, anyway.

"Ladies first," he gruffly stated, offering the exit to Cassidy with a half-awake look.

"Why thank you, Mister Shields, for your courteous gesture." Cassidy said earnestly, leading the way but continuing to talk. "Can't suggest sleeping upright for too long. It makes you shorter because of the discs in your back. Compression. Also bad for circulation. Could cause a tophus, gout, miscellaneous other issues."

She passed through a couple of doors, sliding her card through two sets of doors, one set of double-doors and then into a recovery room. "He's stable."

"Sounds great," said Daniel, as he lumbered inside, and decided to get straight to work. If he could at least get Cassidy's blathering out of his head, that would be peachy. Getting right to work, he yanked his laptop out of his briefcase, and authorized his access to the Dice-111. The systems check that was executed upon his entry took less than a minute, and soon he was booting up the hibernated AI.

"Transfer me the forms while I still have this thing in my hand?"

Come to think of it, who did I pick for the AI again? he thought, as the progress circle filled up for the initial boot.

Meanwhile....

---- Sunnybrook Medical Science Center; Toronto; Friday, February 2nd 3:35 AM....

One Detective Kale has just been treated for his wounds by a tired looking nurse... "There you go. You can leave at any time." The tired nurse turned away and started putting her equipment away, leaving Kale to his own devices.

"Thank you," Kale said, nodding to the nurse and standing up. He tried moving his arm, finding that it was stiff and couldn't move very well, but wasn't in much pain. That would almost certainly no longer be the case once he'd finally managed to get some sleep. For the moment at least, it wouldn't get in the way of whatever work he could still get done tonight.

He made his way back toward the waiting room. There wasn't much else he could do but wait for the moment, at least not until Mr. Adrian T was able to be seen.

Kale makes his way back to the waiting room he left Elizabeth sitting in. It was just down the hall from room 119, where Adrian was having his operation done. The furnishing in this room was very cushy, probably because the hospital expected the people in this room to be here for many, many hours. There were a few couches, and many comfortable (bears saying again, as most waiting room furniture sucks to sit in) chairs arranged around the room. They even provided a TV and convenient access to a (currently closed) gift shop. There were food and drink vending machines just down the hall near the restrooms, as well.

There was one entrance into the room from the main hall leading back out of the hospital, and one exit leading back into the surgery wing behind him. Kale, himself, had been treated at the nurses' station in the surgery wing where he could keep an eye on things. Such as one Elizabeth who really wanted to go home as much as he did.... when she wasn't trying to hack his phone.

Oddly enough however, Liz seems remotely... happy. Not that she was showing much expression, or even motion for that matter minus the furious tapping of her fingers. Home at this point was a far off goal, one that Liz knew she had no hope of reaching for the rest of the night. Knowing when to admit defeat, she realized she could at least enjoy herself from the simple waiting room with what she had on her.

By now Liz was buried deep in focus on her laptop, absorbed in one of her many games as the machine was plugged into a nearby wall to keep its power up. A pair of headphones kept out any of the unnecessary interruptions, in an attempt to optimize the enjoyment of the game and drowning out that thing known as reality. After all, the reality of tonight was sucking something fierce. With her setup, she didn't even notice kale's existence in the room, nor anyone else.

Kale walked into the waiting room, taking note of one gaming Elizabeth in the room as he did so. He made his way over to a chair sitting in the middle of the room, yet still directly across from her, and sat down quietly. He tried not to wince a time or two as he settled into the comfortable chair, and closed his eyes to think for a bit. He mulled over the events of the evening for a while, allowing a god half an hour or so to pass, before coming to a decision and clearing his throat. He then asked: "What was your name, again?"

Liz seemed unphased by the remark, mostly because she didn't hear it in the slightest. The game she was absorbed in was one that required the utmost concentration to play, since the slightest move would cause death instantly. Not only that, but the music of these stages was absolutely phenomenal. There was simply no reason to not focus 100% on the screen and listen only to the sweet sounds through her headphones.


Though someone else may have been stirred by the sound, not catching it all the first time Keena assumed Liz was just mumbling to herself. She often did when her games got difficult.

Kale realized, while waiting for a moment for a response that wasn't coming, that the young woman had her headphones on. She clearly couldn't hear him. "Ehh... figures." Kale muttered to himself as he leaned back in the cushy chair and closed his eyes. There would be time to ask questions later, when he felt less like crap than he did now. The young woman couldn't go anywhere, and one Adrian T. wasn't in any danger of wandering off either. Maybe a nap was in order....

"Mayflower, motion sensor mode." Kale said as he placed his phone on the table next to his chair with one hand.

"Got it," Mayflower replied as a tiny amber light began blinking on the phone.

After about forty-five minutes of grueling bullet dodging, and a somewhat rough stage five, Liz finally looked up from the screen feeling a bit drained. It now was beginning to dawn on her that she hadn't eaten in a long while and was a bit parched to boot. With a brief stretch she detached the headphones and got up from her seat, heading towards the vending machines. She had no idea what they had to offer, so she couldn't make a decision until she looked them over first.

A beeping in Kale's ear prompted him to crack his eyes open, and peer sideways to see the witness leaving in the direction of the vending machines and restrooms he'd passed by on his way here. He didn't move from his current sitting position. Moving hurt. So, instead, he said aloud: "If you're heading past the vending machines, mind stopping to pick up a can of something caffeinated for me? I'll reimburse you." If nothing else, simply asking the question served to remind the young lady that he existed, and maybe he could ask her the questions he'd been mulling over since the incident in the subway station. If it resulted in her returning with something to drink, all the better, but his focus remained on his work. Especially considering he'd been shot in going about his duties tonight... twice. A point his ribs and shoulder were keen to remind him whenever he took a breath or shifted about.