Experimental Surgery
As you approach the space lab, you send Dr Arken a hail. When he accepts, you give him the rundown of what your comm officer’s situation is. He invites you to dock and lets you know that some of his robot minions will escort you to his bio lab.
After you dock and disembark from the ship, the crew, accompanied by Merv Arken’s robot minions, wend their way to the bio lab. The air nearly hums with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Dr. Arken stands at the entrance, wearing a white lab coat stained with unidentifiable substances. His third eye in the middle of his forehead is moving back and forth rapidly as if reading something, and the viscous liquid in the dome containing his electrobrain is churning more rapidly then even when you hailed him. He greets the crew with a crooked smile and gestures for them to enter.
The bio lab is a maze of advanced medical equipment, surrounded by screens displaying complex data and diagrams. Dr. Arken takes a seat at his workstation, typing furiously on the keyboard while muttering to himself.
“So let me get this straight. You want me to create a procedure for removing highly specialized nanobots that can regularly cross the blood brain barrier, and because there are no available animal subjects, the first time I attempt this will be on a sentient being.”
You blink a couple of times, “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous, but,” you continue, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“As long as you recognize this for the long shot that it is, then I’ll do it, but I’m asking for 10,000 credits, regardless of the final outcome.”
You long blink at him. There are space vessels that cost less, but you know this is the best course of action.
Dr Arken continues, “If you don’t have the full sum immediately available, I can give you three stands after the procedure to finish procuring the funds. If, however, you don’t manage to pay me back, I’ll put a bounty on your collective heads so large that even the bald man might set the Rep Omen on you.
What do you do?
- Do you decide the cost is too great and just walk your comm officer out an airlock (Story 59)?
- Do you try to get either black market drugs (Story 60) or counterfeit drugs (Story 61)?
- Do you decide to follow through with this experimental procedure? , wait till the beginning of next round, then read/listen to Story 63?