Good Lord, how did he lose so much blood and live?

[billybobjoe47s]

Brennan half-woke, to the beeping of machines and the whispers of nurses, as well as a throbbing pain. A male voice said, "Scalpel," and he dimly heard a scraping noise.
Suddenly, one nurse gasped. "Good Lord, he's waking! Quick, pass the Grenadil!"
Brennan felt a poking sensation in one arm, and quickly fell back into blackness.

********************************************************

Brennan woke once again, this time to a dull pain. The concerned face of an odd lady stared down at him, with yellow eyes and a monocle on her left eye.
Brennan wheezed, "Great, hallucinations. How long was I out, hallucination?"
The woman opened her mouth, but before she could speak, a doctor bustled in. Seeing her patient was awake, she stopped, jaw hanging open.
"My Lord, he's awake already! Such a miraculous recovery! You were on the verge of death, and now you're awake!"
Rushing over, she pulled down the sheets on the bed Brennan resided in, checking a large bandage on his right side. Peeling a small section off, she was astounded. Instead of the gaping wound she expected, the wound was now a fourth of its' former size, now looking no worse than a normal cut, instead of a stab and subsequent removal of a Stickler-class knife.
"But how?" she stammered. "You healed so fast! I must get the Head Doctor, he'll know!"

As she left again, in just as much of a hurry as before, his gaze turned back to the strange lady at his bedside.

[doctorzero]

…..
Schrode looked back at Brennan. “Well, I think that proves I'm not a hallucination, doesn't it?”

She looked somewhat amused, though she was also relieved. “I'm glad to see you're alive, at least. You were bleeding out from a Stickler knife when I found you. Sorry I couldn't patch you up myself, but...” she shrugged. “I'm not that kind of professor. Name's Schrodinger, but you can call me Shrode, everyone does.”

She leaned forward. “I don't suppose you could tell me your name? Also how you managed to get wounded by an illegal weapon? Because really, I can't help but be curious.”

[ryocker]

Strangely, he wasn't the only one checked into the underground hospital- someone who had been recovering for a little while was also down there. And that someone was a skull faced rabbit by the name of Jumpy Ghost-Face.

Passing by on his usual daily walk (slowly turning back to a daily hop), the heavily bandaged Bunny turned his head to see the new arrival. He only looked on for a moment, before taking a seat outside the window. He was almost ready for his re-hab session, considering he was a warrior, not a sit-at-home rabbit.

[billybobjoe47s]

Brennan coughed, and said, "Could I have some water first?" His HUD was beeping two warnings, and he checked them. One said, 'Water levels low, please hydrate,' and the other was much more serious. It read, 'Energy levels at 6% and holding. Nanobots will be forced to enter inactivity at 5%. It is required that Subject 00000123976 consume food or find an alternate source of power.'

The Professor handed him a glass of water from the table to his right, and he guzzled it greedily. The first warning disappeared, but the second remained.

Setting down the glass, he said, "Well, since I'm assuming you're the one who brought me to this medical facility, and therefore saved my life, I'd be happy to answer your questions. First, my name is Brennan.

"Second, I was rudely woken from my temporary shelter by a group of gangsters calling themselves the Thugs. I handled most of them quite nicely, but the leader threw that beast of a knife at me. I still would have been able to cope, but I couldn't remove that knife."

He glanced down at his tiny, nightgo stature, barely going a third of the way down the bed. "Guess that's what I get for being so small. No muscles to pull out intruding knives." He chuckled weakly, then frowned. "Okay, that wasn't funny."

[doctorzero]

Shrode raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it wasn't. Anyway, it's good to see you're alive, at any rate. Though while I was dragging you to the hospital I ran into some punks—probably these Thugs you're talking about.” She looked aside and smiled mischievously. “They'll learn not to attack any innocent bystanders, is all I'm saying.”

If Brennan was curious as to what she meant, another feeling told him that inquiring would not be a good choice. There was something off with this woman...

“Now, I hope you don't mind me asking,” she continued, leaning forward, “But if you don't mind, I have a couple of other questions I'd like to ask. First of all, have you seen a young man by the name of Jordan? Calls himself Doc, might be wearing green, he has glasses.”

(there are not enough apologies in the world that can make up for my lateness.)

[billybobjoe47s]

(No worries, Doc!)

Brennan shook his head. "Nope, just got into town yesterday night. Not the nicest part of town, but what can you do? I tend to run into trouble incredibly fast."
Suddenly, his energy levels dropped to 5%. He gasped as energy left him, and he could feel the pain increasing. The notice said, "WARNING! Energy levels at 5%, beginning shutdown!'

Brennan groaned, and asked quickly, "Do you have any food? I I don't get some quickly, bad things are going to happen."

[doctorzero]

She sighed in disappointment. "That's a pity. I haven't had much luck getting information, a lot of the people here seem reluctant to say ANYTHING."

When he requested for something edible, she immediately guessed that not giving him something would have bad consequences. "One moment, I...ah, here we are."

It was something she had been saving for later, really, but there was no reason for her not to give it to him. She took out a granola bar from her pocket and handed it to him. "Sorry it's not much, but I eat light."

[billybobjoe47s]

Brennan grabbed the granola bar eagerly, and unwrapped it quickly. Though this wasn’t his preferred method of sustenance, it was great for restoring energy. As he chowed down the granola bar in 3 bites, the warning faded, the pain lessened, and he straightened as a rush of energy infused him. The bar had restored his energy to 12%, a dangerous level, but it would do until he could get more food.
“Thank you, Professor,” he said as he leaned back. “I’m very sorry I couldn’t help you, but as I said, I just got here. Literally stumbled onto this place, ah, the….” he paused as he attempted to remember the name of this place. “Ah! The Dimensional Island, no?” After the Professor nodded, he grinned. “Glad I could remember what Traveler told me. He can get really naggy when I forget things and he has to tell me again.” He suddenly remembered that this woman, Shrodinger, knew nothing about him or Traveler. It had slipped his mind; one of the side effects of low energy was an impaired memory. “Oh! Pardon me; you don’t know who Traveler is.”
He turned with a wince, his wound twinging. As he dug through his Hammerspace, he refrained from the natural urge of his cartoon form to toss unrelated objects out of Hammerspace into the air, instead carefully replacing each item. As he rummaged, he muttered, “Anvil…. anvil….. anvil…. hammer…… mallet… what in the name of all that was holy was THAT?” Shuddering, he threw that object to a dark corner of Hammerspace and reached once more into the storage spot. “What’s this?” Removing his hand, he held two rectangular potions, a light pink in color. “Love potions? I thought Saphira burned all of them! And how are they in my Hammerspace? I didn’t even make ‘em!” He shrugged. “Eh, they might come in handy. You never really know, and there was that time in the ‘physical correctional facility.’” Stowing them back, he reached a last time, this time finding the object he was searching for.
Removing the Traveler, he turned back to the Professor, who was watching with a slightly confused look. “Here’s the Traveler!” He began to boot the Traveler up, and the pad beeped before sweeping the room with its trademark green laser grid. “Greetings, Brennan!” it chirped. “How may I assist you?” It beeped once again. “Oh my! Your energy levels are dangerously low! Allow me to assist with a small amount of energy I have been stockpiling for such a situation.” A burst of electricity arced from the Traveler to Brennan, and while the Professor was taken aback by the seeming electrocution of Brennan, Brennan just winced as momentary pain hit him. However, that was quickly offset by his energy levels jumping to 17%.
It suddenly turned its attention to the Professor. “Human, tachyon frequency indicates an unknown universe of origin.... and a new method of energy manifestation! Quite fascinating.” It addressed Brennan. “How did you come across such an interesting individual?”
Brennan just shrugged. “Um….. I’m not quite sure, really. I was sort of….. stabbed, and woke up here in this hospital. Why don’t you ask her?”
Traveler said, “How did…. Brennan, you were stabbed? Oh, that’s not good, not good at all. However, the wound seems to be repairing quite nicely, so analysis indicates no need of assistance from me.” It turned its attention, as far as anyone could tell with a pad with no face or arms, back to Professor Shrodinger. “How did you come across Brennan, and did you assist him? If so, my sincerest thanks for preserving him.”
The Professor by this time was just a smidge nonplussed. The person whom she was addressing had just pulled a datapad out of thin air, literally out of nowhere, and then said datapad had proceeded to talk, flooding the room with words, before abruptly switching subjects and asking her a question she had just answered not 3 minutes ago. Not to mention it had also electrocuted Brennan, who showed no ill effects from being hit with a small bolt of lightning. In fact, his eyes appeared to hold a bit more energy than they had previously. This resulted in a few moments of silence as she collected her thoughts.

[doctorzero]

Schrode was definitely confused, though admittedly she hadn't expected the boy to be an apparent cyborg with access to advanced technology. Or he was a technomancer. One of the two.

The fact that he had access to hammerspace, on the other hand, wasn't too far-fetched—she herself was familiar with the term and the idea behind it, since her book used a variant of it.

She had been taken aback when the Traveler apparently scanned her. Unknown universe of origin? Well, considering the amount of times she went from one universe to the next that was hardly unexpected. Sometimes she wished she had a multiversal map or something, though.

Upon being asked by the Traveler, she replied, “It's no trouble. I was simply passing through when I found him. I couldn't just leave him there, and I don't have the best medical skills, so I did my best to get him here for treatment.” She looked aside and sighed, “Though on the way here those thugs that had attacked him showed up apparently wanting to finish the job.” She couldn't help but grin, “They learned all too quickly that I'm not nearly as harmless as I look.”

She looked at Traveler curiously. “I hope you don't mind if I ask...who or what exactly are you? You seem to be some sort of AI, but I'm not familiar with you.”

[billybobjoe47s]

The Traveler lit up its screen brighter, and Brennan held his head in his hands. "Oh no, you did not just open that can of worms."

Traveler began speaking, louder than before and also in a more annoying tone. "I am the Multiverse Traveler Version 4.1.3. I am a highly specialized companion to all those traveling in the Multiverse! I am a 2549th generation AI, with an approximate computational and storage capacity of three zettabytes. I hold information on hundreds of universes, as well as billions of organisms and scientific facts and anomalies. I was created by Atomianthem Industries 14 days before the event, and I was repurposed by (ERROR) to help this Successor, Brennan, and the Great Heroes. If you would like to--"

But Brennan cut him off. "That's quite enough, Traveler. She doesn't need to know the history of the known universe. Let it rest."

The Traveler persisted. "I must know one thing. Do you use this calendar?" It projected a Earth Prime 12-month calendar. "Also, you would not be familiar with us because we are not from this dimensional group. We were mistakenly shunted here while en route to the HMS Retribution."

Brennan slapped a hand over the Traveler's speakers, then shrugged apologetically. "Sorry for that deluge, but if you ask him an open question, especially about himself, he'll never stop. Now, I need to get out of here and eat some more food."

[doctorzero]

Atomianthem Industries didn't sound familiar, but that came as no surprise to her. 'The Event', though, piqued her curiosity. What event is he talking about?

It was probably best if she didn't pry, though. She doubted it was something Brennan wanted to currently discuss.

Upon being asked about the calendar, she shrugged. “If the realm I'm in uses it, then yes. Otherwise I check whatever system they have and go with that.”

She was also curious about the HMS Retribution, but again, she thought it would remain unanswered. Perhaps later.

“Are you sure you should be getting up and about now?” she asked. “Considering how well you've healed up, answer's probably yes—but I just want to make sure. Though you should know that the doctors and nurses are going to yell at you for walking around when they think you should be sleeping. It's why I don't like hospitals—everyone's always up in your business.”

[billybobjoe47s]

Brennan nodded. “I probably need to get out of here before they want to dissect me or something along that vein—heaven knows that’s happened before.” As he cast off the covers, he discovered to his consternation that he was wearing simply a light green dressing gown, too big for him, and his jeans and coat were nowhere in sight.
“Where’s my stuff?” He sighed, and decided to use the lazy way of searching instead of the hard way. “Traveler, search for Items 097 and 103. Within 50 foot radius.”
“Searching…..” replied the Traveler. A green laser grid swept over the room again, then blinked off. “Items 097 and 103 are in the closet to your right. There is also a smattering of sentient beings within the rooms comprising this hallway, including a being similar to you, in that it’s an anthro.”
Brennan sighed, this time with relief. “Great.” Suddenly, he pinked and slowly turned. “Mind erm… stepping out into the hall for a few minutes while I change?” Interestingly, not only did his face turn red, but the air around him was infused with a pink glow—very strange. “Please? Perhaps you could investigate Room….?”
The Traveler finished, “1401.”
“1401 while you’re gone.”

[doctorzero]

Oh, of course. Bit silly if she watched him change. Not to mention rude.

“So long as you don't leave while I'm out, alright?” she told him. “Far as I'm concerned I'm responsible for you for the time being--”

And there's a much lower risk of you dying--

She immediately squashed that thought dead. It's not like the other times, she told herself. I'm merely watching him until he's fully recovered, that's ALL.

Still...

When Brennan suggested she look at room 1401, she nodded absentmindedly. “Er, alright, just don't sneak out the window or anything like that. If you'll excuse me...” Before she closed the door behind her, she turned to him and said, “And there's no risk of them dissecting you. Believe me...” she moved to close it. “I wouldn't let them try.”

---

Once she left his room she sighed. This has to be the most inappropriate time to dwell on the past, isn't it? She told herself. You're not going to be traveling with this boy, you're merely making sure he recovers. That's all. You still need to find Jordan.

She shook her head and walked to Room 1401.

[ryocker]

Having watched what had gone on (and heard a little as well), Jumpy perked up when he saw the woman leave. Of course, no matter what he heard- like the boy possibly needing a body guard- he wasn't involved. He couldn't stop thinking about that heartless monster that he had fought in the village- he needed immediate treatment after that mess.

Getting up, he made a slight grunt, stretching a little. No-one had come to get him for his session of rehab, so he figured he'd continue his stroll- in the direction of Schrode's path.

[billybobjoe47s]

As Brennan gratefully slipped off the hospital gown and began to put on his usual apparel, he thought over his odd encounters in this place. Already he’d met an odd lady who had saved his life, as well as some interesting gangsters which had endangered his life. Things happened fast around here.
As he slipped his customary white T-shirt on, he smiled. Back to normal, and his injury was now barely even noticeable.
He slipped Traveler into his back pocket, and turned towards the bed, jumping onto it and making the bed squeak as the hinges protested this rough treatment.
As he sat and waited, he wondered just what the Professor would find in Room 1401, and more importantly, how long it would take her. He was starving; hungry barely scratched the surface of what he was feeling.