Welcome to the Medical Clinic on the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Because the Final Affected person Dying: 0

Published in Mar. 2016 (Issue 70) | 2100 phrases
© 2016 by Caroline M. Yoachim. Art Copyright 2016 by Reiko Murakami.
A. You take a shortcut by means of the hydroponics bay in your strategy to work, and see that the tomato vegetation are lined in tiny crawling bugs that seem like miniature beetles. One of the bugs skitters up your leg, so that you attain down and brush it off. It bites your hand. The space across the chew turns purple and swollen.
You run down a protracted steel hallway to the Medical Clinic, grateful for the artificially generated gravity that defies the legal guidelines of physics and but is surprisingly frequent in fictional area stations. The signal on the clinic door says “hours for the reason that final affected person loss of life:” The quantity at present posted on the signal is zero. If you enter the clinic anyway, go to C. If you search medical care elsewhere, go to B.
B. You are in a relay station in orbit midway between Saturn and Uranus. There isn’t any different medical care accessible. Proceed to C.
Why are you continue to studying this? You’re speculated to go to C. Are you certain you gained’t go into the clinic? No? Fine. You return to your quarters and search the station’s database to discover a remedy for the raised purple scabs that are actually spreading up your arm. Most of the database entries advocate amputation. The rash appears to be like fairly critical, and also you most likely must go to C, however in the event you completely refuse to go to the clinic, go to Z and die a horrible, painful loss of life.
C. Inside the clinic, a message performs over the loudspeakers: “Welcome to the Medical Clinic on the Interplanetary Relay Station, please signal your title on the clipboard. Patients will probably be seen within the order that they arrive. If that is an emergency, we’re sorry—you’re most likely screwed. The present wait time is six hours.” The message is on countless repeat, biking by means of dozens of various languages.
The clipboard is roofed in inexperienced mucus, most likely from a Saturnian slug-monkey. They are exceedingly impolite creatures, at all times hungry and very temperamental. You wipe away the slime with the sleeve of your shirt and enter your data. The clipboard chirps in a cheerful voice, “You are quantity 283. If you permit the ready room, you’ll be moved to the tip of the queue. If your physiology is incompatible with lengthy ready room stays, you could request a cellular tracker and wait in one in every of our satellite tv for pc rooms. The present look ahead to a cellular tracker is 4 hours.”
If you determine to attend within the ready room, go to D. If you request a cellular tracker, go to D anyway, as a result of there is no such thing as a likelihood you’ll get one.
D. You hand the clipboard to the affected person behind you, a Tarmandian Spacemite from the mining colonies. As you hand it off, you notice the clipboard is printing a receipt. The sound of the printer triggers the spacemite’s predatory response, and it eats the clipboard.
“Attention sufferers, the clipboard has been misplaced. Patients will probably be seen within the order they arrived. Please line up utilizing the quantity listed in your receipt. If you shouldn’t have a receipt, you will have to attend and check in when a brand new clipboard is assembled.”
If you look ahead to the brand new clipboard, return to C. If you might be good sufficient to acknowledge that going again to C will lead to a loop that doesn’t advance the story, proceed to E.
E. Instead of ready in line, you benefit from the ready room chaos to go to the nurses’ station and demand remedy. There are two nurses on the station, a tired-looking human and a Uranian Doodoo. The Doodoo is roughly twice your dimension, lined in darkish brown fur, and speaks a language that solely incorporates the letters, d, t, b, p, and o. If you discuss to the human nurse, go to F. If you discuss to the massive brown Doodoo from Uranus, go to G. Also, cease snickering. The planet is pronounced “urine iss” not “your anus.”
F. The human nurse sees the nasty purple rash in your arm and calls for that you simply quarantine your self in your quarters. If you settle for this recommendation, return to B. Have you seen all of the loops on this story? The loops simulate the last word futility of making an attempt to get medical care. What are you continue to doing right here? Go again to B. Next time you get to the nurses’ station, bear in mind to select the non-human nurse.
G. You method the Uranian nurse and babble a bunch of phrases that finish in “oo” which is your finest approximation of Doodoo language. Honestly, the try is sort of offensive. The Doodoos are a civilization older than humankind with a nuanced language steeped in a fancy alien tradition. Why would you anticipate a random assortment of phrases ending in “oo” to speak one thing significant?
Thankfully, the nurse doesn’t reply to your blatant mockery of its language, so that you maintain out your arm and level to the purple rash. In a single chew, it eats your total arm, cauterizing the wound with its extremely acidic saliva. The rash is gone. If you take into account your self cured, proceed to Y. If you keep on the clinic in hopes of getting a prosthetic arm, go to H.
H. You method the human nurse and ask concerning the availability of prosthetic limbs. He arms you a stack of twenty-four kinds to fill out. The Doodoo nurse has eaten the hand you often write with. If you fill out all of the kinds along with your remaining hand, go to I. If you fill out solely the highest type and depart the remaining clean, hoping that nobody will discover, go to I.
I. The nurse takes your paperwork and shoves it right into a folder. He leads you down a hallway to an examination room crammed with an assortment of syringes and dissection instruments. “Take off all of your garments and placed on this robe,” the nurse instructs, “and somebody will probably be in to see you quickly.” If you do what the nurse says, go to J. If you retain your garments on, go to Ok.
J. The examination room is chilly and the robe is three sizes too small and paper skinny. You sit down, solely to note that the tissue paper that covers the examination desk hasn’t been modified and is roofed in tiny crawling bugs that seem like miniature beetles. Sitting down is a choice that has actually come again to chew you within the ass. If you leap up screaming and brush the bugs off your naked pores and skin, go to L. If you calmly brush the bugs away after which yell for somebody to return in and clear the room, go to L.
Ok. Three hours later, the physician arrives. You are relieved to see that she is human. You ask her if she will be able to subject you a prosthetic limb. She says no, mumbles one thing about useful resource allocation kinds, and leaves. If you settle for her refusal and determine to contemplate your self cured, go to Y. If you scream down the corridor on the departing physician that you need to have a brand new arm, go to L.
L. A safety officer comes, attracted by the sound of your screams. Clinic safety is dealt with by a six-foot-tall Tarmandian Spacemite with toxic venom, sharp enamel, and a keenness for US tax regulation. If you run, go to M. If you might be secretly a educated warrior and determine to kill the Tarmandian Spacemite along with your naked arms so you may eat its head, go to N. If you sit very nonetheless and hope the Tarmandian Spacemite goes away, go to O.
M. Running triggers the predatory instincts of the Tarmandian Spacemite. Go to Z.
N. You use your fully unforeshadowed (however helpful!) preventing expertise to overpower the safety officer. The head of the Tarmandian Spacemite is a scrumptious delicacy, salty and crunchy and stuffed with pleasant worms that squiggle all the way in which down your throat. Unfortunately, you forgot to take away the venomous fangs. Go to Z.
O. You sit completely nonetheless on the examination desk, and tiny bugs that resemble miniature beetles crawl into your pants and chew you repeatedly, leaving a clump of purple bumps that look suspiciously just like the scabby rash you had in your arm while you arrived on the clinic. When you’re certain the Tarmandian Spacemite is gone, go to P.
P. You have misplaced an arm and the decrease half of your torso is roofed in a purple rash. If you determine to chop your losses and take into account your self cured, go to R. If you rummage by means of the cupboards within the examination room, go to S.
Q. There is nothing within the story that directs you to this part, so if you’re studying this, you’ve gotten did not observe directions. Go on to Z and die your horrible, painful loss of life. Or skip to some other place, because you clearly aren’t taking part in by the foundations anyway.
R. You sneak out of the clinic and return to your quarters. You search the station database for therapies in your beetle-induced purple rash. There isn’t any recognized remedy, though some sufferers have had luck with amputation of the affected areas. Sadly, you might be incapable of amputating your personal ass. Even in the event you return to the clinic, the rash is now too widespread to be handled. Go to Z. Or, if you wish to see what would have occurred in the event you’d opted to look by means of the examination room cupboards, go to S. But bear in mind, going to S is barely to see what hypothetically would have occurred. Your true destiny is Z.
S. You rummage by means of the cupboards and discover an assortment of ointments and lotions. If you learn the directions on all of the bottles, go to T. If you choose a number of bottles at random and slather them in your rash, go to T. Have you seen how usually you find yourself in the identical place it doesn’t matter what you selected? In the clinic, as in life, selections that appear vital are sometimes finally meaningless. In the tip, all of us will die and none of it will matter. Now significantly, go to T.
T. None of the ointments or lotions do something in your rash. The Uranian nurse is available in to wash the room and discovers you. If you faux to work on the clinic, go to U. If you ask for assist along with your rash, go to V. If you run away, go to W.
(There isn’t any U, a lot as there is no such thing as a hope for sufferers of the clinic. The nurse would have acknowledged you anyway. Go to V.)
V. The Doodoo from Uranus (significantly, are you in third grade? Stop saying the planet as “your anus”) examines your rash and amputates the affected areas by consuming them, neatly cauterizing the wound with the acid in its saliva. You are actually a head with roughly half a torso. If you take into account your self cured, go to X. Otherwise, go to Z.
W. You flee from the Uranian nurse however slip on a puddle of slimy inexperienced mucus excreted by one other affected person, most likely that fool slug-monkey that slimed the clipboard. You crash into the wall, and earlier than you may get again up, the Uranian nurse amputates the areas affected by the rash by consuming them, neatly cauterizing the wound with the acid in its saliva. You are actually a head with roughly half a torso. If you take into account your self cured, go to X. Otherwise go to Z.
X. You aren’t cured. You are a head with half a torso, and lacking a number of inner organs. Go to Z.
Y. Congratulations, you’ve gotten survived your journey to the Medical Clinic on the Interplanetary Relay Station! All you must do now could be fill out your discharge papers. You begin filling out the kinds along with your one remaining hand, however you by accident drop the pen onto the oozing foot of the Saturnian slug-monkey ready in line behind you. This is undoubtedly the fool that slimed the sign-in clipboard. You cuss the slug-monkey out with some alternative phrases in French. Choice phrases as a result of it was impolite to depart slime everywhere in the clipboard. French as a result of you recognize higher than to make a slug-monkey indignant. You’ve watched sufficient training vids to know that slug-monkeys are at all times hungry, which makes them temperamental.
Unfortunately for you, Saturnian slug-monkeys are much better educated than boastful people give them credit score for. This one is fluent in a number of languages, together with French. It eats you. Go to Z.
Z. You die a horrible, painful loss of life. But at the least you gained’t must cope with your insurance coverage firm!
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