Tachypsychia

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Tachypsychia is the phenomenon by which time appears to speed up, or slow down, during stressful situations. Fight or flight kicks in, and time slows to a crawl, or speeds to a blur. There are drugs that exist to artificially induce this response in our brains—various psychedelics, and Rumbledrugs among the most notorious—but they cannot speed up how fast our bodies act in that timeframe. In essence, we may observe events in slow motion, but are still subject to the limits of our bodies.

As I stared down at the frozen husk beneath me, I felt my breathing stretch into infinity. The movement of my hand clutching a scalpel like a pendulum, swinging through molasses. The chill of the cryopod was agony, drawn out for millennia, and the beep of the heart monitor like the warbling klaxon cry of an air raid siren.

The body beneath me lacked a sternum—sliced away in a butcher’s cut. The heart beneath it pulsed twice every minute, and blood began to pool around it in thick, heavy pools, glistening with Cytoprethaline. I focused on it, making a mental note about its state.

“Cardiac system appears functional,” I stated into a recorder taped around my chest. I poked at the heart with a stick and felt it give under the gentle prod. “Muscular walls appear thin. Possible desiccation from growth spurt.”

“Doctor, she’s still losing blood,” someone to my right said. I looked up at her and felt a twinge in my head from four days without sleep, and two without a decent meal. I shook my head to stave off the coming slowness of time, and took a breath.

“If we seal up the hemorrhages,” I said, “and do nothing else, she will die of other conditions,” I looked down at the body—already half dead—and wiped my forehead. Cytoprethaline-infused blood swam on my forehead, and the burn of cold liquid quelled the itching of sweat, replacing it with a new hell.

The surgeon to my right lifted her hand and dabbed a warm cloth onto my head, wiping away the blood. She should’ve done that in the first place, but I was the one at fault.

Again.

I groaned and made a further incision at the base of the abdominal cavity, lifting away the membranous layers. The lungs were obviously crippled, with angry purple bruises and dark patches of necrotic tissue. I looked down at my recorder and wet my lips beneath my mask.

“Subject will require replacement lungs. I am extracting a DNA sample for the biolabs,” I placed the scalpel down and reached for a syringe, placing it at the edge of the healthy lung tissue with a crinckle and snap of ice and bronchial surfactant.

“Doctor, it’s been days,” the voice piped up again, and I shut my eyes, distracted, lifting the needle off of the lung. “Days on this subject alone,” she repeated. “Maybe it’s time to move on to someone else.”

“Not an option,” my head snapped up to her with a glare. “When I joined I told the Admiral I would do all in my power to save these lives,” I pointed to the body of the child—the subject beneath in the cryotube. “And they have not yet been saved.”

“And who will save them if you collapse on the surgery table?” She asked me.

“I am not losing another one, Doctor Shor!” I yelled.

Silence fell on the operating room, and I looked around at the other faces. Doctor Rioge at the head of the pod, cradling the subjects head with two hands while a probe slid into her neck.

Doctor Liene at the foot of the pod, tapping on the keypad to override the wake-up signal, and continue to pump cold air and chemicals through the pod to keep the body chilled.

Both were staring at me, their eyes boring holes into my skull.

“You’ve already saved two lives,” Doctor Shor said, drawing my eyes back to her. “That’s enough, Charles.” She nodded.

Shaking my head, I reached back down and slid the needle into the lung tissue, extracting a sample of a scant few cells. “One life can make all the difference, Cadence,” I looked up and pulled the vial from the back of the hypodermic, setting it beside the subject’s lifeless hand to keep it cool. “You have to let me do this.”

“At what cost to yourself, Doctor?” someone asked. I was too focused to tell who, or if anyone spoke at all, focused as I was.

I gave whoever it was a hollow laugh. “Don’t talk to me about costs, Cadence. We’ve already paid them, everything we’re doing now is just spare change.”

“Whatever we’re doing, we need to do it fast,” Doctor Liene said. “The tube is entering automatic resuscitation.”

“Dammit!” I tossed the syringe away and picked up my instruments, turning to Doctor Rioge. “Have you located the hemorrhages in the brain, yet?”

“Clipping them now,” he said, working the probe deeper into her body, and pressing on the screen attached at his end. “The medical scanner has located two additionals in the main coronary arteries, looks like arterial desiccation.”

I turned to Shor. “Get me a transfusion bag,” I ordered. “And a vial of Cytoprethaline.”

She scurried off to the other end of the room.

“We have two minutes before we need to slam this lid, or she’s going to die,” Liene said.

“More time,” I shook my head, worming my way into the subject’s chest cavity to locate the coronary hemorrhages. “Get me more time.”

“I can’t override the pod’s systems forever!” Liene stated with a pointed tone to his words.

I tilted my head. “Do it, or find me someone who can!”

“Transfusion bag ready,” Shor said, holding up the bag and vial.

I flicked my head. “Hook it up, deposit the Cytoprethaline and prepare for rapid diffusion.”

“Is that wise?” Rioge asked.

Giving a scoff, I shrugged. “None of this is wise, Rioge.” I nodded to Shor. “Do it.”

She turned to the subject and slid one end of the tube into her arm, just below the elbow joint, and the other attached to the bag. She held it up in lieu of a pole to hold it, and pressed the vial of Cytoprethaline to the bag. Both the blood and the chemical raced down the tube, into the subject’s body.

“Sixty seconds,” someone said.

I narrowed my eyes at the arteries beneath my fingers, pressing down on one to clip the leak. “Give me fifteen more.”

“Cerebral hemorrhages clipped.” Rioge put down the screen and started dragging the probe out of the subject with agonising slowness. “Withdrawing the probe.”

“Doctor—”Liene started.

“I know!” I cut him off and pressed the other artery tightly together.

“Seventeen seconds!”

I clipped the artery shut, and the blood flow stopped. I lifted my frigid hands from the body and pulled them away. “I’m done!” I yelled, turning to Rioge. “Drop the bag in there.”

He dumped the half-full transfusion bag, and I reached up to the lid of the pod, slamming it shut as soon as everyone was clear.

The incessant beeping stopped, and the heart monitor slowed, then ceased entirely.

“Condition stable,” Shor said. “She’s stable, spin down cycle running, we’re clear.”

“We did it,” I said, repeating it to myself like a mantra. I let myself drop, all my strength sapped from my knees all at once. “She needs new lungs but we did it! One more life.”

The Doctors began to clap. Shor and Rioge hugged one another, before turning to me.

Shor stooped down to clap me on the shoulder. “Congratulations, Doctor.”

I looked up at her with a smile. “One more life,” I repeated. “That’s all I wanted.”

“You can rest now,” She nodded, slapping my cheek with a light hand, and holding up the sample of lung tissue. “I’ll run the sample down to the lab for flash-cloning.”

She turned to leave, and I felt my eyelids grow heavier than they’d ever been before. Before I slipped off into unconsciousness, I called out to her.

“Thank you, Cadence.”

She turned around at the door and gave me a smile. “Anytime, Charles.”

I pushed my head up against the white surgery wall with a clunk, tore off my mask, and felt myself drift off to sleep.