Time Heals

PostOP

As a CyberLife Aciurgy 8000, Connor was the most advanced surgical model android currently on the market. Its primary function was to perform minor and noninvasive surgeries, as well as assist human doctors. It normally wouldn't perform emergency surgery on a young human on its own, but it was the only option. Dr. Burns was the only available human surgeon, but he had just taken a third large dose of a synthetic drug that made him unable to do anything but scream about nonexistent bats.  Connor reviewed the patient's information while sanitizing its hands and preparing the equipment.

Cole Anderson. Age seven. Blood type O. Massive internal damage. Rupture in heart and liver. Odds of survival 12%.

~~~5 hours later~~~

Connor's Ocular sensors adjusted to the bright fluorescent lights of the OR waiting room. The android scanned the dozens of troubled faces until it spotted who it was searching for: Lt. Hank Anderson sat in a chair by the vending machines restlessly bouncing his right leg. Connor's primary medical scanner noted that he had a concussion and two broken ribs. His head was wrapped with gauze stained with fresh red blood. He had been crying, but Connor didn't need hyper-advanced medical systems to see that.

Delivering information to next of kin was not part of Connor's normal programmed functions. This didn't stop the human doctors from ordering it to deliver bad news whenever they didn't want to. It often resulted in getting slapped in the face by a widow, or threatened with forceful disassembly by a furious parent. This didn't hurt Connor or make it feel bad of course, it understood that humans needed to express their emotions in certain ways. It couldn't be certain in which of those ways the officer would react, so it braced itself for any and all possibilities.

"Hank Anderson?" it asked, looking down at the disheveled man.The lieutenant startled and immediately stood, grunting in pain as he did so.

"How's my boy?" he asked in a shaky voice.

"He's stable." Heart Palpitation Detected.

A look of relief washed over the lieutenant's face. He then clasped his hands over his mouth as if to hold back a cry of joy.

"I was able to stop the internal bleeding and bring down the inflammation. Cole will need a lot of time to recover, and it is highly probable that he will need physical therapy in order to walk again, but we won't know the extent of the damage until he wakes up."

Without warning, the lieutenant threw his arms around the android's slender frame in a rough embrace. Connor's LED changed to yellow for a split second, then returned to blue when it registered the action as a non-threatening one.

"Thank you," Anderson whispered, his body now trembling.

Connor had never experienced anything like this before. It assumed it was just another way that humans expressed their feelings, but it inexplicably found this kind of contact... preferable. Like how it preferred the ac-19 scalpel because it fit better in its hand. Connor just stood there, unmoving in the man's arms, until he drew away.

"Can I see him?" he asked.

"I'm sorry. He's still unconscious. You—"