✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part XIX: Complications

          It didn't take long for the group to set up. Gabriel borrowed the other two a few sets of his scrubs, and he closed up the immediate area around the operating table with plastic zippered walls so he could disinfect it properly. He didn't have a full-on decontamination chamber, obviously—but he did have a few canisters of the aerosol used in them, and he sterilized the area with an applicator not unlike a fire extinguisher. The group was also sterilized, and once they were gloved and masked, they went to work.

          Temet was positioned shirtless on her stomach, and the arms of the surgical table were removed so that she could rest her arms comfortably against the floor. A hollow donut-like fixture for her head was installed at the top, and her beak easily rested in the middle of it. Her feathers had since grown back in the past few months, so Julia took a small razor and carefully removed them again.

          "I just want to see if this pulse oximeter will work," Gabriel said as he kneeled down and clipped a small wired oximeter onto one of Temet's fingers. He glanced up to the monitor it was attached to, but it continued to display question marks and zeroes. "Damn it. Let me try on your other fingers here..."

          Nova continued to watch the monitor as he did that, but each time he shifted its position, it remained as it was. "Nope... it's not picking anything up."

          "Ugh... oh well," Gabriel sighed. "Nova, could you find an oxygen mask for me? I need you to cut it so that it'll fit over the top of her beak, where those little holes are."

          "I can do that," Nova said earnestly. He was honestly enthralled to be able to help with the procedure, even if his role was passive and minimal. He'd always been on the other end of the knife, and even though he got to observe the video captured by the overhead light cameras in Project SETI, experiencing it first-hand was something else entirely.

          Julia, in the meantime, laid out the tools she required on a small papered tray situated nearby. There was a scalpel with a large blade, a pair of long thin tweezers, and a mending laser.

          "The diazepam I have here is the injectable form, but it goes in the muscle tissue rather than directly into a blood vessel," Gabriel explained as he drew it up. "I'm going to put it in your upper leg."

          "Okay," Temet mumbled.

          "You'll feel very sedated and sleepy, much like when you had this shitty thing put in," Julia elaborated. "It'll be okay."

          Gabriel parted some feathers on the side of Temet's thigh and warned her before he pushed it through, "alright, you're just going to feel a little poke here..."

          Temet tensed when he inserted the sharp, but she quickly relaxed again. She could feel the needle in her fat and muscle tissues, but for some reason, it didn't hurt this time around. "That... wasn't so bad..."

          "I have to do another in your back now," Gabriel said, still in the same reassuring lilt as before. "It might hurt a little more than that one did."

          Julia pointed to where he needed to insert it when he returned to the table, and he positioned his fingers on either side of the injection site on her bare skin. "Okay, here's number two..."

          Temet shrieked that time—he was right, it did hurt—a lot more. At the same time, the sedating effects of the benzodiazepine had begun to swell, and she could feel herself losing touch with her surroundings.

          "You're doing great, Temet," Gabriel cooed as he finished pushing the potent local anesthetic into her back. He gently ran his free hand to-and-fro over her feathers as he did so. "How's that mask coming along?"