Ah, right. Panacea couldn't heal brains. Allegedly. Taylor didn't see any reason why her power wouldn't work on them, but then again, she didn't see any reason why the girl's power required the patient to be "totally alive", either. Expecting powers to work along logic was sometimes folly. Hadn't she just stepped through a literal multi-dimensional portal earlier? Powers weren't scientific.
Taylor needed Panacea to work again, not lose herself to grief, "You've seen my brain. I can do neurosurgery. I can either replace damaged parts of her brain with cybernetics or use nanomachines to heal damaged areas." The last was more of a "want" that she had. She didn't have any way to build nanomachines at present or any good designs for them, but that was how they healed most TBIs in her old world, and it was usually very effective, if expensive.
There it was, that look of desperate hope again. Taylor sighed, "She'll need to be intubated. Get a doctor or an RT in here to RSI her. She's liable to stop breathing if we don't. She's stable for now. You need to help others."
Panacea looked like she didn't give a fuck about others but finally closed her eyes and nodded, "Right."
Most of Brockton Bay was washed away, and yet the heroes were celebrating. It left a bad taste in Taylor's mouth.
The casualties among the responding capes had been less than thirteen per cent, which was one of the lowest on record. People kept trying to thank her and the other healers, but Taylor wasn't feeling it, especially after she found out that her stupid fucking father almost got himself drowned trying to save one of the dockworkers. They were people Taylor didn't care one whit about, but she would fake it because she could tell that her dad did care. But that faking didn't extend to tolerating near-suicidal behaviours on their behalf. Still, he was alive. She just verified that just now, so she sighed, feeling tired.
They had shifted all of the casualties from the MASH-style tent to the actual hospital, which still had electrical power, and Othala followed her there. The woman seemed at a loss, as the Empire was likely defunct. Kaiser, Hookwolf and Kreig were all dead. Kaiser soloed Leviathan in a one-vee-one that was captured on video and already was becoming famous. Taylor rather disliked the man, and even she had to admit that the fight was rather impressive. So much so that it drew Armsmaster in, attempting to save the white supremacist by shoving what she immediately recognised as a cloud of nanomachines hovering at the end of his halberd up Leviathan's poop chute.
The monster didn't like that one bit and whipped around, breaking Armsmaster's suit and ripping both the man's arms off and beating him about the head and neck with them. It made Taylor pause because disarming Armsmaster was something very ironic. Certainly, the Endbringer did that by coincidence, though, right? After that, it had moseyed away, as they were wont to do, not even finishing off Armsmaster.
Her break over, she walked back into the hospital. Well, if anything, she had more work to do now. The fight was over, but the healing was still underway.
May 2011
Brockton Bay
Panacea had been calling her four, sometimes five times a day since the battle and was getting increasingly frantic. Taylor had been designing several neural cybernetics, even prototyping them, that should repair most of the damage, but they would run into the problem of being mostly Tinkertech, which would be periodic maintenance. Then last night, she had a dream visitation from another world.
Hearing from Brockton-Taylor was nice, and her accomplishments were impressive, but her counterpart had a lot more time to work than Taylor did. The transfer of knowledge and data was amazing, and she felt that she got a much better end of the deal, although she had given the other Taylor a lot of confidential Illuminati research, like all of Haywire's files.
Waking up to see the Boss standing above her bed had been harrowing. Absolutely terrifying. The fedoraed woman demanded an immediate debriefing, as the Path was altered significantly, and the changes all centred around Taylor.
That was interesting. Apparently, the Night City universe and all of its technology was an Out-Of-Context problem for the woman, at least until Brockton-Taylor transferred all the files to her deck. Wait, it was the Boss that had approved Taylor's review of Professor Haywire's files. Did she know something in advance?
"No, I didn't... but we'll have to think how we can use all of this. Your importance has increased, and I'll let you know what we decide. You'll need the standard operating system-based neural interface and Mantis blades to get what you want from Armsmaster and the industrial nanomachine designs for Dragon," the scary lady said, pulling a small memory card out of her pocket and tossing it so it landed perfectly in Taylor's open palm, "This is what you'll need for Miss Dallon." She then did a one-eighty and left without another word.
Beyond a few staff members and a couple of other doctors that were below even her authority, the only other member of the Illuminati that Taylor had contact with was a woman who called herself Doctor Mother, and she was someone that the Boss seemed subservient to. When Taylor was first recruited, this Mother or Doctor had discussed ideas about creating certain powers with Taylor, but what the fuck was Taylor supposed to say to that? The bitch was practising alchemy, not medicine. "Use a bit more of the pink one?"
All she could come up with was a suggestion to do whatever Doctor Mother could to minimise the weird non-biological aberrations. With enough time, Taylor could cure or at least mitigate the damage from most of the others unless their power was one that continuously altered them.
Wait. Taylor frowned. What did she want from Armsmaster? Oh. Yes. His production method for nanomachines. She wanted to create a biosculpt vat, but she would just settle for fabricating some nanomeds right now to get Amy Dallon off her back. There had been a lot of nanites in that cloud at the end of his Halberd, and now that she had a design for medically useful ones, she needed a production method.
She inspected the data on the datashard, or rather data card, and found that it was Victoria Dallon's power testing results. Years old. Why would she need... oh, okay. She nodded and transferred them to her personal system.
The trade with Armsmaster, who was still in hospital, included Taylor installing his newly designed cybernetic arms in a few days. He had turned down healing from Panacea, wanting to proceed with a more cybernetic solution. He was surprised to get approval to trade technology with a non-Protectorate cape such as Taylor, but it had come from the highest levels.
Listening to Dragon chide him, calling his stunt against Leviathan "stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen", caused the man to chuckle in a way that told Taylor it wasn't the first time he heard that from her. Wait... were they dating? They seemed like they were dating. You go, Armless Master.
Although the Boss had said he would want the Mantis blades, Taylor showed him a few other types that Brockton-Taylor had diagrams of, including a set of Gorilla Arms that she thought he would go for instead. Nope. He definitely wanted the Mantis blades, but he intended to put tools and self-designed weapons in them instead of the hardened steel blades that she expected. He also insisted on a modular attachment to his CNS, so that he could design his own set of arms and hot-swap them for various functions. That was fine.
Why did she bother even hawking the other wares? Still, he was incredibly impressed with "my" level of technology, as was Dragon. She got the tech he used to manufacture what he called "nano-thorns" although he wouldn't release the designs of the actual nanomachines themselves, but she didn't need them. "Nano-thorns" were nanites that were much smaller than even the general-purpose neurological medical nanomachines, and their only purpose was to sever molecular bonds. Nasty stuff.
Taylor suffered through two more days of putting up with Panacea's incessant calls before she had a similar system built. Her setup was larger because she would need to manufacture a lot more nanomachines, and it still wouldn't be enough, but she could always just duplicate them. Taylor set the neuro-specialised medical nanites to fabricate and called Panacea.
Amy Dallon had hardly left Victoria Dallon's side, only leaving the ICU to heal people before then returning. Eric Pelham was right next to her, having suffered severe hypoxia-related brain injuries as a result of being drowned for nearly fifteen minutes before being resuscitated by yours truly. There were about ten capes with similar brain injuries, either intubated here in the ICU or downstairs in medsurge for minor deficiencies. She had enough nanomeds for all of them now.
"Alright, I'm going to administer the nanomachines. These are designed to mechanically repair damaged neurons and axons through targeted regrowth of neural cells," Taylor said to Amy.
She nodded, holding the unconscious girl's hand and asked, "How long do you think it will take to repair the damage?"
"Days. But you should see it start to work right away," Taylor said before adding the nanites to the already running bag of NS and adjusting the drip rate on the IV pump. She also grabbed Victoria's chart and scribbled a new order for a medication, propofol.
Right now, Victoria wasn't sedated because she was in a genuine coma, but as the nanomeds worked, she would start to wake up and would need continuing sedation until the course of treatment was complete. She found a nurse and verbally ordered the new medication. Apparently, it was a big hullabaloo to start a new IV on the almost-invulnerable girl, so the nurse was thankful that the propofol could be run simultaneously with the other infusions.
As Brandish did not survive the battle, Taylor already got her father's approval to use an experimental Tinkertech remedy on his daughter after the PRT did some abbreviated tests on rats. Poor rats, but your sacrifices were for Science. She had the approval to treat all of the TBI patients, in fact.
It didn't take long before Amy gasped, "I think I can see them working."
Taylor nodded and said, "Alright. As promised, come with me." Amy didn't look like she wanted to leave Glory Girl's side, but Taylor just glowered at her until she followed her into an unused conference room.
Taylor started the slide show and asked, "What is this?"
Amy rolled her eyes, "A 3D fMRI or something. If you're asking what area is being activated, it is one of the brain's reward centres."
Taylor nodded. Although Amy didn't have the same medical education she did, Amy did have an intuitive understanding of an organism's biology just as soon as she touched them, and that was, in effect, equivalent or even superior.
"Now, pretend this is happening in a pubescent child, over and over during puberty, when they approach in proximity to a particular person. What do you expect might be the result?" Taylor asked gently.
Amy frowned, "Nothing good. Why are you showing me this, and why are you asking me these questions?" She started to get suspicious, which Taylor took to mean that she might have subconsciously guessed what had happened to her.
Taylor sighed, "This isn't just a random brain scan. This scan was taken from your sister's initial power testing when she got her powers. This is the effect of her 'aura' on a willing volunteer... I'm not only the best doctor in the world but also the best psychiatrist... I couldn't help but notice, but Amy, you have to understand... that this is nobody's fault, and I am not judging you..."
Taylor quietly readied the super-fast-acting sedative-laced dart gun she recently installed in her index finger just in case Amy snapped. She would not let the girl touch her.
Taylor had been lying; although she had the skills of the best psychiatrist in the world, the truth was she didn't have the empathy to actually do the job. Still, she wasn't heartless. Thankfully, Amy Dallon didn't try to murder her for "discovering her secret", but she did break down, and it was difficult to deal with. The less she remembered the incident, the better.
Taylor had been feeling pretty good about herself and had even agreed to a request from the supervillain Coil to help a monstrous cape. That was pretty much one of her full-time jobs, so she accepted, given the payment that he was offering. How stupid.
Coil was doing the smart thing and leaving town, and he left her his secret underground base as part of the payment. Taylor had thought it generous, as it was still completely intact until she saw her "patient." Still, she wasn't one to run away from a challenge, but all of them-these Travelers-had the stink of dangerous secrets about them. She knew it.
She had decided to confront the leader in her office. "What secret are you keeping from me? I need to know. I'm likely going to have to bring in assistance to help Noelle, and I need to know whether or not this is going to bite me in the ass, depending on whom I ask."
There was something off about Trickster's brain too. Taylor had gotten a good scan of it earlier, and it was like he had received targetted brain damage, laser-precise, to cause him to be less inhibited, more paranoid, more spontaneous, less rational and more obsessed. It wouldn't express itself too often in his everyday life, but in a high-stress situation, he was likely to be a fuck-up waiting to happen.
Sitting in Coil's office, in his chair, was a bit odd, even after Taylor removed all of the traps, cameras and microphones and disconnected the three caches of high-explosives attached to load-bearing members inside the base. Who had a literal self-destruct system for their secret base? It was ridiculous.
At first, Trickster denied keeping any secrets from her, but after repeated pressing, he finally admitted the origins of his troupe. From Madison, Wisconsin. And not Earth Bet's, either.
Just how prescient was the Smirugh, anyway? Would Taylor be considered an Out-Of-Context problem to the mind job she inflicted on him and his friends? Possibly. Probably, even. Ziz did all of this way before Taylor arrived in this universe.
She readied her go-to-sleep finger and nodded, "You'll probably want me to repair all of the brain damage you have, then." She then went to explain exactly what she saw, showing him images of his brain that she had taken. She used a number of psychological tricks, using his increased paranoia to get her way, by implying that he was the least "Smirugh-bombed" of his friends and that she would need his help to fix the rest of them. And that she would need to do this to help Noelle, who he was obsessed with.
