The Side Effects of Progress (Part 4)

    Yuri travels down the metal hallway, his destination being the maintenance section. Yuri didn’t bother closing doors anymore because he knew exactly where the only other person on the station was. Plus, if the PDA failed and Tochi had to shout, Yuri would be able to hear. Sort of. The walls were rather solid, a dark painted metal lined with even more solid metal pipes and electrical conduits. The floor, however, had a metal grate over it, and sort of helped when it came to absorbing sound due to its shape closely emulating baffle chambers. Yuri didn’t know if the design was on purpose or by coincidence, but it seemed to do a good job of silencing his footsteps. Probably how Tochi was able to get the jump on him earlier.

 

    Traveling up the stairs and into the upper level witch contained everything he generally needed for maintenance, Yuri seeks out the janitorial closet. Sliding the door open, Yuri reaches into the depths of the closet, pulling out a steam cleaner. Yuri takes it with him, bringing it down to the lower level of the station. Exiting the stairwell, Yuri turns on the cleaner, causing it to hiss and gargle, moisture dripping from its end. Yuri bends down and picks up the eight empty casings he had left on the floor. They shined in his hand, some stained with blood and smelling like burnt gunpowder. He slid them into his pocket, causing them to rattle around.

 

    Yuri began cleaning up the spilled blood from the floor. The dried blood started to stink again once the steam cleaner got it wet with hot vapor. Yuri did his best to mop up the mess, the cleaner belching out steam and sucking the filth into one of its reservoirs. The blood came off the metal quite easily, except for the very edges of the puddles which had dried out more and were a bit harder to clean out. All in all, the only thing he wasn’t able to wash up so well was the metal grate. Maybe it didn’t matter enough to warrant the extra effort of cleaning them up by hand.

 

    Yuri searched around for anything else that needed cleaning before he would move back upstairs and put the cleaner up. His ship sitting in docking bay six was clean, just as always from a dust free environment. Yuri then continued to clean up the trail of blood leading to the stairwell door. Yuri cleaned up each individual step as his made his way up, spending a little time for each spot as the blood drops thinned the more he progressed. When Yuri reached the top and started cleaning up the last spots on the mid level, he would lean to the side every now and then, being able to barely see Tochi through the door frame. She sat on the medical table, peacefully sleeping as she slowly recovered from her gunshot wounds. The medication Yuri had given her earlier to speed up the healing process demanded energy in return for its service. A common side effect of the medicine was drowsiness, so it was good indicator that it was working correctly.

 

    After cleaning up the last spot of blood, Yuri turned the steam cleaner off and carried it back to the upper level. Before putting it back in its place in the janitorial closet, he emptied the tainted reservoir into the waste water collector, giving it a quick rinse to keep it clean in storage. There was no noises from the PDA during the entire job duration. Everything was running well, it seemed.

 

    Yuri remembered that he had left something unclean downstairs. He wouldn't need the steam cleaner to clean it up however, so he sort of figured that it would have been the last to clean up anyways. Going down to the lower level, Yuri makes his way over to docking bay four. Opening up the door, Yuri still sees the edged weapon lying on the ground, with some bloody hand prints on it. Yuri picks up the weapon and takes it back up to the mid level with him.

 

    As he walks back to his main quarters, he notices that Tochi is still sound asleep on the medical table. Quickly eyeing the vacuum container, Yuri sees the level has not changed within the last couple of hours. He planned on finishing up the patching process the next day. Yuri takes the weapon into the kitchen and turns on the sink. With a washcloth and some soap, he scrubs the blood off the wooden handle of the weapon, cleaning it of dirt and blood. Taking a look at the shaft, the weapon looked like it was rather old. Cracks in the wood went up and down the shaft, and the wood was a desaturated brown, almost like the color of driftwood.

 

    The same story held true after cleaning up the metal tip. Spots of rust and permanent tarnishing sat in nickle sized spots on the blade. The surface was scratched, and chips were missing along the rolled and dull edge of the blade. The finish was a matte rather than a polished shine, the grain and roughness of the iron was highlighted by manufacturing marks from a crude forging process. Yuri's best guess was that it started out as a cast iron blank with an edge that was forged then honed. The blade has seen some use over the years. After drying it off, Yuri set the long weapon in the corner of his main room, right behind his desk and to the left of the bedroom door opening.

 

    Yuri spent the rest of the day sitting at his desk, browsing the internet through his phone. Next to his computer monitors, were eight empty brass casings from the Makarov he placed there from his pocket, standing on their primers. He didn't use his computer for two reasons. First one being that the communications array was destroyed. The other being, if he routed his computer through is phone, it would most certainly send a report out to the PTMC. A risk he was not willing to take, wanting to leave well enough alone. There was no news about the CEC finding a new planet full of life or the CED busting them for mining on an inhabited one. Officially, humanity was still alone in space. Drake's equation would still have to wait, because as far as Yuri could tell, Tal had no way of transmitting or receiving SETI signals yet if they can't seem to make good by human standards, armor and weapons. They had a long way before they could get to making semiconductors. Which also means he would have to take photo and video evidence to prove existence, if only he knew where the planet was.

 

    Yuri's browsing was interrupted by a loud “Thunk” from the kitchen. Yuri checks the time, it's about dinner time anyways. He gets up from his chair and goes into the kitchen, snatching the package off the counter. He opens it up and adds some water to it. While that one waits in the sink, he grabs another one out of the cabinet and starts working on that one. Yuri turns around and sees Tochi stretching her arms out in the medical room, yawning.

 

    After waiting for a couple of minutes, Yuri drains the hot water form the two bags and takes them with him into the medical room. He sets them down on the table, and pushes it back over the operating table on which Tochi resides on. She rubs her eyes a little and says, “It has been a while since I had three meals in one day.” Yuri empties the bags out in front of her, revealing a burger and fries in one bag, and commissar stroganoff in the other bag.

 

    “Sounds like a rough life on Tal,” says Yuri as he slides the Stroganoff towards Tochi. Looks like Yuri would be having the all American meal for dinner. Before he digs in, he pours Tochi a glass of water, along with a couple of pills for her to accelerate the healing process.

 

    Tochi picks up the cup and pills, “What are these for?” She had been taking them for a while, not really knowing what they were for.

 

    As Yuri pours his ketchup, he answers, “Medicine. Without it, the healing process would take three times as long.” Yuri coats a group of fries as he watches Tochi take the medication. The rest of dinner was rather quiet, aside from the noises of Yuri eating his burger and Tochi eating her beef stroganoff, there was not as much discussion as before. Yuri cleans up the mess, and leaves the medical bay, cutting out the lights as he exited the room. After tossing the remains into the garbage chute, Yuri makes his way to his own room to get some sleep. He tried not to let his thoughts swim as he tried to go to sleep, for they typically kept him up at night. He needed sleep, and the next day would be a long day. Two days to patch up the wounds and heal, another two days to build lung capacity back up with physical therapy. Then he could begin normalizing the situation and get to work on investigating the CEC. He might as well be dead to the PTMC, so he would have plenty of time.

 

    Yuri's eyes slowly open autonomously as he wakes up from sleep. Checking the PDA, Tochi seems to still be alive and at rest. Yuri goes through his morning routine that he usually did the first month he got his job. Search the station. Take a shower. Inspect equipment. Test some subsystems. It felt a bit weird to be back on schedule again. It only took up a couple hours of his day, and he figured he could save time by not doing it for the following months after realizing the station doesn't change much at all. This time, it was only a little bit different due to the damage from the storm, but it was still very much the same.

 

    Yuri checks on Tochi before preparing breakfast for the day. Still sound asleep under the covers, the readout on the pump showed that everything was normal. Yuri though it was rather strange the way he was able to operate on her with great success. The anatomy probably didn't differ between humans and sergals that much if he was making progress. Thinking about that alone would drum up several conspiracy theories in his head, but for now, he wouldn't think much of it. He was more glad that the operation actually worked. The more Yuri thought about her, the more he became attached to her. He wanted to see her get better and bring her justice for some reason, despite having no real reason to do so. He probably wouldn't be compensated for his efforts either.

 

    Yuri walks into the medical room with breakfast in hand, setting it on the table quietly. He slowly turned the lights on with the control panel next to the door so the sudden brightness wouldn't shock Tochi. As Tochi awoke, she observed Yuri going through drawers, retrieving some pain killers, medication, a cup of water, bandages, and a syringe. He sets them on the counter, and places the water and pills on the table in front of Tochi, saying, “Rise and shine Ms. Osiv. Rise and, shine. Not, that I wish, to imply you have been sleeping on, the job.” He wasn't the one to judge because sleeping on the job was something only Yuri could actually get away with and was a repeat offender of.

 

    Tochi nods her head as she yawned, “Yeah.” She was still under her blanket at a comfortable temperature. Tochi clears out her eyes as Yuri slides a tray of bacon and eggs towards her. She asks, “What are we doing today?”.

 

    “Well,” says Yuri before taking a bite of his sandwich, “I am going to remove the tube from your chest, and you are going to walk around and do things to regain lung capacity.”

 

    Tochi feels the tube leaving her chest, “Will it hurt?”

 

    Yuri shows her the pills and water, “It will if you don't take theses.” There were two extra tablets to the mix this time. Tochi takes the medication before going into her breakfast. She had learned that the small white tablets ease her pain in about a half hour after consuming them. The pills, however, had no observable effects that she could perceive, other than making her drowsy.

 

    After breakfast, Yuri cleaned up the place and moved the table back into the kitchen. He takes the blanket back from Tochi, causing her fur to stand up on their ends from the sudden temperature change. Yuri observes the area around the tube, checking to see if anything had changed. Yuri then takes the syringe and removes the cover to the hypodermic needle. He softly pricks the skin around the tube and injects small amounts of the fluid inside. Once the syringe was empty, Yuri set it to the side. Tochi could feel the area around the tube go numb. The drug Yuri had administered to her was a very powerful pain killer. She couldn't feel a thing.

 

    Yuri shuts off the vacuum pump and attaches it to a filtered output nozzle. Turning the pump back on for a short amount of time, the Tochi's lungs collapse again as her chest cavity is filled with clean air in order to prevent the not as clean outside air from being sucked in by her chest. Yuri then prepares an occlusive bandage and puts on a pair of nitrile gloves. He carefully peels at the bandages around the tube, and slowly removes it from her chest. Yuri tells Tochi, “Hold your breath,” then carefully applies the new bandage, sealing up her chest cavity for good. Yuri then takes a new tube with a hypodermic needle at the end, and attaches it to the vacuum pump's intake. Yuri inserts the needle just above the new bandage and turns the pump back on. He adjusts the settings, causing the pump to hum loudly, then slow down completely as Tochi's chest cavity reaches the correct air pressure. As the air leaves her chest, she can feel her lungs expand to their correct size once more, restoring her capacity to what it was at earlier.

 

    Yuri removes the hypodermic needle and seals up the spot with a much smaller bandage the size of a dime. Yuri then tells Tochi, “Don't move for 30 minutes, the bandage will need some time to adhere. Then we can start working.” Yuri then pats Tochi on the head once more before returning to his desk. He looks at the casings on the desk next to his monitors and gets an idea. He walks up to the maintenance upper level and retrieves an electromagnet. Yuri then walks down to the lower level and turns the magnet on. He spends his time sweeping the floor of the hallway with the magnet, picking up the steel cores with it. He collects all eight cores, each still bloody from their use, and slips them into his pocket.

 

    After putting the equipment back up, he heads back to the desk, and sets the cores down besides the casings. Checking the time, Tochi's bandages should be ready, meaning Tochi was ready to start therapy. Yuri gets up from his chair and walks into the medical room, “Ready to start therapy?”

 

    Tochi sits up and asks, “What will it be like?” She gets on her feet, her armored boots clattering as they meet the metal floor. Only armor that was missing was her chest piece and helmet. God knows where her helmet went, it was probably back on Tal. She doesn't exactly recall if she put it on the day she went to investigate. With little time to waste, she walks over to Yuri standing in the other room. Right off the bat, she knew something was different. She could walk, and felt just as strong as earlier, but the walk was exhausting. What seemed like a trivial task left her with shortness of breath.

 

    “Woah there,” says Yuri as he catches her stumble, “Take it easy for now. Remember to breath deeply and breathe often.” Tochi regains control and follows Yuri to the door way that leads into the mid level hallway. “Wait there,” says Yuri as he starts walking. Tochi sees him walk to the other end of the hallway, and stands at the door. Yuri then motions with his hands and shouts, “Now come here.”

 

    Like last time, Tochi starts walking again. The first few steps were easy, but exhaustion kicks in before she makes it to the first docking bay door, which is about a quarter of the way. Getting to the door was even harder, the most tiring steps she had ever taken. Her muscles were not sore, they felt fine. Tochi just lacked the energy to move quickly. Determined to recover quickly, she keeps on moving, breathing heavily along the way. It was hard to operate on what felt like one lung, starving her blood and muscles of precious oxygen she often took for granted.

 

    The walk was long and hard for her, but she was resolved to never stop, taking no breaks along the way, dragging her feet as she moved slowly. Getting shot really messed her up, making her wish she would have just dropped her weapon when she first confronted Yuri.

 

    After walking what felt like a mile, which was really just 100 yards, however, the hardest 100 yards she has ever walked, she plants her rear down on the ground, sitting next to Yuri. She leaned against the wall and took a break so she could catch her breath. She then sees Yuri walk back to the other end of the hall and gesture for her to walk back. Tochi lets out a depressed sigh and gets back up after concluding her break. She starts walking again, however, she was able to make it to the third docking bay door before growing exhausted. After that, it was back to the tiresome business of walking. Compared to her survival training back in the desert on Tal, this easily beat being malnourished for a day.

 

    The only thing that drove her forwards was the anger and frustration that was welling up in her heart. Yuri wasn't making her angry by walking with ease, it was the fact that she was failing at walking. She knew she was better than her current state. When she got back to the other end of the hallway, she immediately went on break. When she saw Yuri walk back down the hallway, she hoped that he would at least walk a little slower. He didn't, and soon enough, he was back at the other end of the hall, waving his hands once more.

 

    Tochi had a change of plans when she got back up. She walked much slower than she normally did, as if she was carefully browsing stocked stalls at the market. Taking her time, she was able to make it up to the second docking bay door without growing exhausted. In fact, she was able to go on a little further before making it to the third docking bay door. Then, she grew tired again, just as expected.

 

    When she made it to the end of the hallway, she was panting heavily. Tochi sat back down, only to watch Yuri casually stroll to the other end of the hallway. As expected, Yuri started waving his hands yet again. She gets back up, and does her best to make it back to the other end of the hall. She noticed she was recovering rather quickly. However, her mood was quickly shot down by Yuri walking back to the stairwell. She took a short rest then walked back to the other end yet again. Once she got there, Yuri gave her a pat on the shoulder and said, “Get back soon this time, and I'll give you a reward.”

 

    Tochi wagged her tail in excitement as she strutted with confidence behind Yuri, not even bothering to take a break this time around. Yuri noticed her improved mood, and gave her a smile as he walked. Mercifully, she made it to the end without getting tired at all this time. Tochi waited as Yuri disappeared into the room, only to come out and crush Tochi's hope. Yuri held the missing armor he had taken off of Tochi earlier, which was also the heaviest part thanks to the iron plating she had installed on it. He started strapping it back on to Tochi, the weight was now an extra burden for Tochi to lug around. Yuri opened his mouth, the stench of strong alcohol came out his mouth as he said, “You'll be so god damned fucking tired every time you get to the end of the hall, you'll won't be struttin' that ass.” Yuri then does his best impression of Tochi, saying, “You'll be huhh~ huhh~” Yuri then walks back to the stairwell end of the hall and awaits for Tochi to start walking again.

 

    Tochi starts walking back to the end of the hallway yet again. About half way through, the truth from Yuri's drunken banter starts to show through as she grew tired again. Her feet were dragging the rest of the way to the end of the hallway. The chest plate was heavy, and it was on tight, compressing her chest tightly, making it harder to get a full lung of air. There was simply no way Yuri was going to make this easy on her. In fact, when Tochi made it to the end, Yuri started walking again. Rather than going back, he went into the stairwell, muttering, “When you start walking my friend, and you get ten fifteen steps up this stairwell, you won't be struttin' that ass. You'll be half dead by the time you get here!” Tochi ended her rest and took her first step up. She now knew that gravity would be working double time against her.