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The world was upside down, and his nose stung. From the side he heard the words, “end program.” Then there were hands on him, slowly dragging him upwards. Again, there was the voice. Ed? Ed can you hear me?
Then he snapped out of it. Gordon was talking to him. “Ed? Jeez he’s really out of it. This is bad right?” Then there was another voice. “Yeah that’s definitely not good.” Looking to the other side of him Ed saw John was propping him up with one hand. Why was he doing that? Something dripped onto the ground in front of him. He glanced down -- bad idea. Head pounding, he saw a few drops of blood on the ground. He brought his left hand up to his nose. After pulling it away he saw that there now was blood on his hand as well. All red and rich in its glory. Crazy how that works.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his head. “W-what happened?” he asked.
Gordon smirked, then said, “That asshole kid, Drew, that appeared in the program I made? He threw a ball into your face and then tripped you.”
“Yeah the safety features in the holodeck must have glitched.” Gordon quickly glared at John. Ed was just confused, so LaMarr added, ”...I’ll look into that later.”
“A ball...in my face.” said Ed.
“Yep, but if anyone asks we’ll say we were doing a training simulation instead of my middle school dodgeball program.” said Gordon.
After shaking his head once more, Ed tried to stand but quickly wavered and sank to his knees.
Gordon stabilized him. “Whoa there captain.”
“I’m fine.” said Ed.
“The bloody nose says otherwise. I’m gonna com Claire.”
“No don’t-” interjected the captain. Both Gordon and John looked at him quizzically. “Just-” he took a deep breath to clear his thoughts. “Just walk me there. I’ll be fine.” Before either of the other men could say anything Ed was already picking himself up off the ground again. Gordon and John must have decided to give up convincing him otherwise and resorted to supporting him up. Blood was still pouring down his face and onto his uniform. Remedying the situation, Ed squeezed a hand over his nose in an attempt to stem the blood flow. He winced as he felt a shift in the bone. Definitely not good, but it would have to do for the time being. Seeing as Ed was ready, LaMarr put a hand on the captain’s right arm to get them moving towards the door. Another bad idea as Ed hissed in pain once more.
“Sorry Captain.” Ed gave a nod in acknowledgement. “Must have fallen on it pretty hard then, huh?” Gordon preceded to throw John yet another dirty look. The captain didn’t notice any of this, solely retaining focus on walking forward and out of the simulation room.
Upon arrival into the sickbay, Ed was instantly relieved. It was mainly empty, minus a few beds with unconscious patients on them. He could forgive the unnaturally clean, nauseating smell of it for a second as he knew he could be spared at least some of the humiliation from the crew. There’s a voice to his left.
“What the hell happened to you?” It was Claire that asked.
It was quite a sight to see. Ed stood at the entrance to sick bay with a bloody hand pinching his swollen nose, with John and Gordon on either side of him, looking disheveled and worn out. Ed didn’t quite have the energy to even acknowledge Claire’s inquiry. Lucky for Ed, Gordon answered on his behalf. “Training simulation gone wrong. That’s all.”
Claire rolled her eyes, clearly not having bought the lie, but that was a problem for later. “That’s all?” she asked. Claire rummaged through a nearby drawer and grabbed a few materials. She then proceeded to approach Ed with a pad of gauze. She gently pulled Ed’s hand away from his nose and put the gauze underneath it. She instructed Ed to replace his hand where it was. After this she’s taking out her med scanner and running it over Ed. “He has a broken nose, mild concussion and a broken arm. How would that happen in a simulation?”
“The safeties glitched and turned off...or something” said John. After seeing Claire’s suspicious glare he added, “It was a beta testing. My bad. I’m actually off to fix it now…” John took his own line as a queue to leave. “Feel better Ed!” And like that, he was gone, leaving Gordon, Claire, and Ed standing in the middle of the sick bay.
“Let’s get him onto a bed at the very least.” said Claire. She had noticed Ed wavering on his two feet, as if he would collapse at any minute. This was only supported by the paleness of his skin. The two guided Ed onto the nearest sickbay bed. They sat him on the edge of it and Claire took out a few materials. After removing the previous gauze pad, she shoved two additional small pieces of white gauze into Ed’s nose to stop the bleeding and got to work on his arm. He groaned at the tightness of it. “Shit--that hurts.” Ed’s nasally voice didn’t help his pained exaggerations.
“Quit your whining” said Claire. Ed glares at her. “It’s not gonna get you extra painkillers today, Captain.” He rolls his eyes in response. This is all Kelly’s fault. If she hadn’t told Claire what she had during that first mission he would be high as a kite--which is preferable to having to experience the excruciating reality of having gauze shoved up his nose.
Within minutes, she had repaired the fracture in his arm, fabricating a light, flexible brace for Ed to wear for the next few hours to ensure a smooth healing process. With one run of the dermoscanner over his nose it was fixed. Relief flooded through Ed’s face as the swelling slowly went down and he could think clearly again.
“So…” said Claire. “What was it then?”
Ed, now being able to form intelligent thoughts, had to decide whether or not he wanted Claire to know how he really broke his nose or if he would stick with the training simulation story.
“Like Gordan said. Training simulation accident.”
“Really? What simulation was it?” asked Claire, deadpan.
“Um well…” he looked at Gordon, who shrugged in response.
Claire pops a hand onto her hip and Ed knew he had to give up Gordon’s stupid simulation. Gordon was almost comically shaking his head at this point.
“It was a middle school dodgeball program.” confessed Ed. Claire snorted at this fact, clearly still unbelieving. “No really, it’s that stupid.”
“And this happened because…” Claire gestured at Ed’s face and arm.
“There was this one kid named Drew--He hurdled a ball at my face and then tripped me and so” Ed does a ‘ta-da’ motion with his arms.
“That’s dumb enough to be believable.” Ed didn’t react, thinking about the events that led him into this situation.
“When I was on the ground he called me a ‘fat boy’ too.” Claire audibly laughed at this. “Stop that, it’s not funny.” This did not, in fact, stop her laughing.
“It’s a little funny.” said Gordon. Claire nodded in agreement
“Well maybe you guys should have a one-on-one with Drew. That kid has some emotional issues--he’s projecting!” said Ed.
“Well whatever the case, you’re good to go. Check in in a day or two alright?” asked Claire.
Ed slides off the sick bay bed. “Will do, doc.” Gordon hands him his jacket of which he had been holding onto this entire time. A blood stain stretches down the front of it, almost in line with the zipper. It took him a second to slide the brace through the tight sleeve but he quickly got it. After zipping it up, Claire gave him an informal salute, of which he reciprocated. He left sickbay with Gordon. On one hand he was grateful that Gordon stayed with him, but on the other he was pledging to never agree to do one of Gordon’s homemade simulations again.
After making it back to the holodeck from earlier, John started scanning the panel outside the holodeck. He didn’t think he would actually find anything wrong with it, probably just a technical glitch, and unfortunate glitch at that, especially for Ed. That unlucky bastard. After an audible beep , he looked at the results on his scanner. That can’t be right . He scanned the panel again. Beep. The same results were showing. John shakes his head. Drew isn’t a part of the…
The holodeck doors opened then and a boy wearing size 7 Adidas steps out. It was Drew. The boy looked at John, gives him the finger, then runs down the hall.
For a second, he was stunned. After all, a supposed simulation just ran out of the holodeck. HE recovered quickly. “Hey get back here!” yelled John. He knew the boy wouldn’t listen to him. That’s just common sense. He touched a hand to his com. “LaMarr to Keyali, we have a problem.”