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Chapter 72[]
Can you tell me where can start over?[]
Hue Advanced Medical Laboratory
Hue City, Jade Falcon Enclave
Kowloon, Lyran Alliance
February 11th, 3067
"..can you stand, Elizabeth Ngo?" the man asking looked like he never missed a meal, which is really an accomplishment for a Homeworld Clanner, both because of the general obsession with fitness, and because of the near constant shortage of food.
Etienne, aka 'Balzac' was not a thin man, and in his career, never missed a meal.
"FU...I think the cure might be worse than the disease!" Elizabeth huffed, after coughing up oxygenated fluids and vomiting. Two aides helped her out of the tank. "How..how long was I in?"
"Thirty five days." Etienne stated, "For all intents and purposes, the genetic surgery is complete. We will need to keep you under observation for the next ninety days, but...if this took you may never have to live with the danger of further seizures. The cure is not worse than the disease."
Aides and orderlies examined her. "SO...thirty five days this time, thirty days last time, and twenty seven days the time before." she counted off, "I've been in and out of that tank for three months."
"About three months, yes."
"You think the retrovirals took this time?"
"Well, we are about to find out. Please lay on the couch, Miss Ngo."
Falcon assistants and student scientists applied the restraints, and changed the IV hookups, before sliding her into the imager. The first time, had been excruciating, because fragments of bullet were pulled through flesh requiring surgery to repair.
Liz had no more shrapnel under her skin now. It had been extracted, the scars had been reduced with customized stem-cell treatments.
"How does it look?" she asked.
"Hold still, Miss Ngo...oh, this is very nice..." Etienne said
The table slid out of the scanner, and Etienne himself brought over the displays on a flexible arm. "This, is after your first treatment. We saw a ten percent reduction in lesions, and the beginning of nerve cell reconstruction. Your second treatment squared the amount of restored cell structure and reduced the lesions by forty percent...and this is your nervous system today, after the third series."
"What am I looking at?" she asked
"No more lesions or dead tissue in your brain for one thing." he told her, "Effectively the damage has been reversed, though you may experience some traumatic stress symptoms due to the extreme pain you experienced while in the tank, it could not be helped." He smiled, "I knew we were on to something when you went into shock-at the phase of Stage Two you were in, you would not have been able to pass out if the treatments had not worked. the restoration of your brain's ability to lose consciousness, and the restoration of your endorphin receptors, enabling you to 'forget' sensations, the regrowth of tissues in your Amygdala, and the correction of your body's immune response to acknowledge nervous tissue as native, instead of foreign...we are looking at a triumph of modern advanced medicine."
"So this means I'll have to watch it, because I really can get high now?" she asked.
"Yes." He frowned. "Do not do that, at least not until we are sure that the full treatment has completely worked."