Painted Faces

“Calling C-1 Overseer Cobalt to the front office! Again, C-1 Overseer Cobalt to front office!” the PA system crackled through the darkened control room in a harsh whisper.

“I will be back soon Doctor Subzero, it probably isn’t anything too important at this hour.”

“I’ll see you then Overseer, but I would hurry. Despite the hour, Bleeding Heart seems unusually distressed. My ears are still ringing,” the now Acting Overseer casually replied.

“You’d better. Wouldn’t want any marks against our practice,” Cobalt said as he walked out the door. Without stopping his march to the reception, he quickly swung the door closed with his tail. He nodded to the receptionist for the cryo department as he went by and took a left to the elevator up to the transport bank.

Two minutes later Cobalt found himself walking into the entry hall and waiting room at the main entrance to Fraqa General Hospital. The large decorative fireplace was burning off to the left, swirls of red-orange carpeting fanned outwards from it as if trying to spread the warmth just a little further. On the carpet were several faux-leather couches and armchairs, but he couldn’t see anyone over there from his position coming up behind the curved front desk.

“Administrative Assistant Heart, you called?”

“I did. There is a researcher here from some branch of the governmental services. Combat oriented. She wants to talk to you about a patient that came in yesterday. She’s waiting over on a couch over there.” Bleeding gestured towards the fireplace with a hoof.

“So what’s the rush then?”

“Supposedly, ‘Rapidity is of paramount importance.’”

“Like that?”

“Basically, now go. I’ve work to do and you aren’t helping.” The mare then turned away and ignored him as if he’d suddenly gone from being a person to being the world’s most uninteresting pile of sand.

“Okay. See you later!” Cobalt called back while making his way over to the now revealed thestral-unicorn. Doing a quick once-over, he saw that she was rather unremarkable. She wore a pristine white labcoat that covered a soft body of pale green scales which smelled like the thestral covered in them only ever washed herself in formaldehyde. Wrinkling his snout as he came near, Cobalt extended a talon to the seated thestral. “Hello miss, I am the Overseer for Cryo-one. You wished to speak with me about a patient that recently came into my care?”

“Oh! Yes, can we get going? We may converse on the way. Senior Laboratory Assistant Petri Plate by the way,” The mare said while accepting his greeting shake.

“We may. And thank you for your name Assistant Plate. Now which patient are you interested in? There’s only a few recent ones under my purview.” Cobalt pressed the elevator call button. “Also, what specifically are you interested in them for? Despite our continued efforts, there’s only so much that can be done to remedy the conditions of those in the vault.”

“Well, doctor,” Petri replied while rushing the first door to open, “I’ll answer your questions in order. We’re here looking for the survivor from last night’s fire in the third refinery district. Specifically though, the most badly burnt one.”

The assistant didn’t seem to mince her words much, which was great for Cobalt. It was reaching midday, and the only reason he was awake enough for this nonsense was the stash of stim juice hidden in the back of the control room’s mini fridge. He just needed to last two more hours and he could be done for the day. Instead of voicing his unprofessional thoughts, though, Cobalt replied with a measured, “The child?”

“Yes, that one. I’m told one of the first responders called her ‘living charcoal.’”

Charcoal was a bit of an overstatement of the child’s condition in his humble opinion, but it wasn’t too far off either. After all, most of the organs were still somewhat salvageable. Still, if the paramedics had arrived any later there wouldn’t have been much left of her skeleton to save, and restoring her body to any functional state would’ve been impossible even for the ritualists.

“What do you plan to do after seeing my patient? I can’t imagine there are many military applications for a permanently crippled foal.”

“Ah! You see, we intend to fix her. New body. Cut out the flesh and replace it with metal. Move the soul to a more stable vessel. She’ll be better than new if the procedure works out.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Cobalt replied with skepticism dripping from his snout. “What you’re suggesting sounds very experimental, dangerous. Have you even contacted the family about this yet?”

“There is only one member of the direct family with a claim to custody. They have renounced it because of what they called, ‘future health concerns,’” Petri snorted while stepping out of the elevator and down the hall, “Clearly they are afraid of a repeat performance. As for the procedure; It has been performed several times before to varying degrees of success. The only difference here is that the subject is far more damaged than usual and the equipment to be used is of a new model. She would be subject seventeen.”

“How many of the previous sixteen survived?”

“Over eighty percent.”

“Hmph, and you are not concerned about another thaumatic incident? Especially with this phylactery?

"Anyways, you have the paperwork for the transfer prepared, then? If you don't, I'm afraid you’ll only be able to see the patient and not… acquire her.” And that was the rub wasn’t it? Nobody wanted to keep the child around except some military research cabal because of the danger she posed.

As far as he could tell, the only reason the youngster wasn’t executed was because it wasn’t expressly her fault that the building burned down. And apparently there were interested parties involved. He’d be a little torn up if she died, but if the papers were good he’d wash his hands of it and move on.

“Indeed, I have the documents here,” The assistant said while handing over a data slate with a magical flourish from a concealed inner pocket of her labcoat.

Cobalt swiped the screen from her vibrant emerald aura to hide the half step he missed and scanned through the document for errors and unfilled spaces, absentmindedly checking them into the cryo wing. The only page of true interest to him was the special twenty-third page for beings adopted for business purposes. “Everything seems in order. If I may ask, It says here you’re a part of the Combat Enhancements Lab. What do you do there? It’s not everyday I meet people from the Complex.”

“Oh me? I oversee the junior researchers in the preservation department. I make sure that what’s alive stays that way and what’s dead is properly stored and disposed of. I also occasionally aid in various experiments with the specimens.”

“Well that would explain the smell at least.” An awkward pause ensued for a moment before he clarified, “you smell like carcinogens.”

“… Nobody has put it to me quite like that before, but it’s just about the only downside to working at the department. I thought it’d fade away since I’ve been working to prepare a new surgical theater for preserved persons, but alas. It seems I am forever cursed to get the side eye from concerned citizens.” The thestral dramatically held one of her forehooves to her barrel in jest to complete the act.

“I suppose that would spread pretty fast over the neuralweave if you got out often. Anyways, we’re here,” Cobalt said while opening the storage vault door. He desperately hoped that would diverge the conversation to somewhere less awkward. He wasn’t much of a thestrals thestral except around those he knew. Hopefully the darkened rows of stasis tubes would distract her.

“Doctor Subzero, please open the view shield on casket 3-16.” Turning to the mare he asked, “Are you prepared to move the casket?”

“Yes, we have transport waiting for the subject and I on the roof. Your foresight is commendable”

“and prepare it for transport.”

Seconds later they turned into the second walking path illuminated only by the light spread by monitor panels and the tanks themselves. Already the plate covering the eighth tank on the right was rising up, spilling red light across the floor and scattering through the fog rolling off the tank in waves. Inside a small silhouette could be seen only by the backlight, he thought he could see a flash of yellow on the unburned flank but not much else.

“Here we are, patient 4-12-0513. Will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you. Your expediency has been much appreciated.”

“And yours as well, Senior Assistant Plate. I must be off.” He made it halfway down the aisle before realizing he had just left the mare alone to move the cryo casket. While recent advancements in computing technology had lowered the weight by almost a quarter the bloody things still weighed almost nine tonnes a piece. Turning around to go help, he was met with the astonishing sight of the mare making a good attempt to lift the whole apparatus in her magical aura. The casket had closed since he’d turned away, but the yellow light cast by the mare’s telekinetic field was more than enough to cast sharp shadows across the mare’s already perspiring body.

“Assistant Plate? I believe you may find more success using the freight elevator at the back of the room than the halls we took. It’ll take you to the roof hangar with no delay.” After that his pace increased somewhat. He couldn’t be sure if it was because he wanted to get away from the thestral or because staring at instruments behind a blast shield sounded like a great way to spend the rest of the shift after that display of magical might. At this point he didn’t care, so long as he escaped fast enough to avoid a thaumatically induced headache. He didn’t even have a horn and he could feel one coming on!

Cobalt reached the control room door only to steal one last frightened look back towards Petri Plate before exiting the banks. “Make sure she has something of a family unit at the lab when you finish… Fixing her, she’s barely eight.”

“Don’t worry doctor, she’s in good hooves with us,” The Assistant panted as the elevator closed between them.