Cyber Era Witch -
Chapter 631 - 533 Immunosuppression
Chapter 631: Chapter 533 Immunosuppression
After waking up, Miss Rinne turned her head to see the flower basket on the bedside table.
It was made of colored patterned plastic and looked rather exquisite, filled with greeting cards fashioned in a retro style.
She picked one up with a dazed expression and looked at it; the words were not handwritten but rather machine-scanned and printed out.
"Miss Rinne, you must rest well and I hope you recover soon. And remember to charge on time!" ——Seeking Shadow.
Charge.
Rinne checked her implant panel and indeed, it was only at 16% battery life, almost forgetting this matter. Born of flesh, she would often neglect the number of electronic components inside that needed power.
In haste, she pulled out a charging cable from the wall socket and plugged it into her oval-shaped charging port, located below the back of her neck, between her shoulder blades.
Electricity buzzed through her bionic nerve bundles, providing ample power to the implants scattered throughout her body. At times, she startled herself with thoughts like being electrified to death upon plugging in. Technology could sometimes be quite dangerous.
Her power level rose, and now she was back to life. Rinne heaved a sigh of relief. The functioning of her body’s nerves depended on her brain implant, and with insufficient power supply, it would falter, but now it was restored to normal.
Others’ concern always made Rinne feel guilty. Not just the care from Seeking Shadow, but also from Mr. Web Monitor, who helped her a lot by giving her the rarest of technologies for no cost. She should have been helping him in return, rather than getting herself into such a sorry state and causing him worry.
Her debts to everyone were mounting. Rinne put away Seeking Shadow’s well-wishes and opened the next card.
"Please take good care of yourself, Miss Rinne! I made you a handmade small cake; it’s in the thermal box." ——Chiyuki Sajou.
"Really didn’t expect you to fall ill like a fool, truly disgraceful. Hang in there for your lord!" ——Hosoda Yoshiyuki.
"Dear Miss Rinne. I have undergone many modifications myself, and of course, I am always worried about encountering similar issues. Hearing about what happened to Miss Rinne, I felt both sad and distressed! It felt as though it happened to me. Fate is so cruel, always bringing the worst to the bravest, kindest among us. I hope for your speedy recovery!" ——Nidelaide
"I miss you so much. I still remember how we met in that dingy pool hall, remember what we drank at the bar, remember the things you used to tell me every day, remember us beating up the bad guys in various places ... I really miss you. They wouldn’t tell me what happened to you, but I think, as long as it’s Rinne, you can surely face it with ease! Hang in there! I’ll be waiting for you outside!" ——Lu Jing
Rinne’s eyes reddened; she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, unconsciously letting them fall, never having thought she would receive so much care.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, and Rinne placed the cards back in the basket.
She curled up inside the hospital bed, wrapping herself tightly in the blanket. She was afraid of the doctors, just as she had been of those researchers who had targeted her as a child.
"Feeling better?" a woman’s voice asked.
Following that, Rinne heard her approach the bedside health monitor, expertly manipulating the machine.
"Somewhat better," said Rinne, poking her small head out from under the covers, looking up to see a middle-aged female doctor, about in her 40s, wearing a Nestor Corporation ID with the name "Ban Qingzhu" on it, and the adjacent title: Chief Medical Officer of Witch Neurology at Nestor Corporation.
"There’s been a dramatic spike in your Mental Distress Index," Ban Qingzhu said, sitting beside her, entering data into the small terminal in her hand, "Did something happen yesterday?"
Of course, something had happened. To escape that room, Rinne had once again used her subjective slow-time implant. She bit her lip, wishing she could hack all these health surveillance devices, modify her records to make her appear a perfectly healthy, untroubled witch, and then everything would be settled.
"Nothing," Rinne lied. In front of the doctor, she felt like a pure child. Besides, she didn’t trust doctors; they all claimed to know what was happening to their patients and charged exorbitantly at will.
Ban Qingzhu caught onto Rinne, connecting a data cable to the brain-machine interface behind Rinne’s ear, entering codes into the adjacent health monitor to access historical records from Rinne’s processors. Rinne trembled a few times, wanting to pull out the data cable, but didn’t dare to; now she could only wait for Doctor Ban to coldly announce the findings regarding her condition.
"Did you use a military implant last night?" Ban Qingzhu glanced at Rinne. "That’s suicidal."
"It was an accident," Rinne evaded.
Ban Qingzhu looked at Rinne indifferently.
"It doesn’t matter. Most of the witches I deal with are just like you," Ban Qingzhu pulled out the health monitoring wire from behind Rinne’s ear, "Arrogant and conceited."
"You treat them?" Rinne asked, thinking of Ban Qingzhu’s specialty in Witch Neurology.
"I handle and destroy them," Ban Qingzhu said with an intimidating tone, "With proper medication and therapy, I can make them obedient, turn them into idiots, or slaves, and even send them to more humiliating uses, dooming them to a life as livestock. It all depends on the orders I receive."
"Nestor Corporation does that?" Rinne was startled.
"No, they don’t." Ban Qingzhu flicked the immunosuppressive syringe in her hand, inserting the entire injector into Rinne’s upper arm, as the medicine slowly made its way into Rinne’s body. "Nestor Corporation doesn’t engage in such activities."
"So it was a previous one," Rinne wondered, feeling strangely at ease as the medication entered her body, mending her fractured spirit, her consciousness clearing, "The previous one, Xisheng?"
"Xisheng," Ban Qingzhu nodded, finishing up the injection, placing the empty syringe in the nearby medical waste bin, then entered a report about Rinne on the terminal in her hand while conversing, "Yes, Xisheng would process, destroy, recycle, and invalidate 650 witches each year through neuroscience. Turning a fighter into a bitch requires just a few pills, and sometimes these disposal methods are for the personal amusement of one or two department executives. If they fancy a beautiful witch, they would take special care of her. Keeping witches in the company is akin to having humanoid livestock; when happy, they stroke their hair, and when displeased, they put them down."
"Disgusting," Rinne glared at Ban Qingzhu, "You were in charge of those surgeries?... You should also be punished."
"My crimes are lesser. Most of the time, I was just an onlooker. My sins are not unto death," Ban Qingzhu finished entering Rinne’s report, "I was in Nestor Corporation’s prison before this; you’re the first patient I took care of. The other fifteen doctors in my department will have to wait another ten years before they’re released, and the three ringleaders have been shot. It’s regrettable that I didn’t get to watch them die. Each time I saw the ’treatment methods’ they used on the Witches, I wondered if I was living in a living nightmare, unable to see their deaths and end such a nightmare."
I’m the same, Rinne thought silently. If I can’t witness the destruction of a major company, my fears will not go away.
"I’m feeling better," Rinne said, "When can I leave?"
"It’s still too soon," Ban Qingzhu glanced at the report in his hand, "At least a week."
"I have things to do," Rinne stressed, "Lots of things."
"I promised them that I would heal every patient, and that’s why they let me join Nestor Corporation. I can’t let you leave casually. You could have left in two days, but yesterday’s early morning ’accident’ tripled that time. So, keep your head down, understand?"
"Understood," Rinne said obediently, but was dissatisfied with the additional bed rest time, "... No, you’re treating me as a tool to complete your performance targets."
"Even if it is a tool, it’s one for atonement," Ban Qingzhu glanced at Rinne and left with her things, "I’m the unwitting accomplice to a series of structured murders. The only comfort left for me in this life is to treat Witches like you. Cyber mental illness is a complex ailment; you, stay compliant."
Rinne complied; she lived a life of eating and sleeping and, before sleep, she always had to relax as a substitute for meals.
She savored the details in real life, the taste in every bite of cake, enjoyed porridge for breakfast, fried pork cutlet for lunch, and sushi for dinner. She focused her vision on the comics in her hand, running her brain processor at low power, pretending to be someone who had never been modified.
She had purchased the printed manga volumes one and two of "Siphon," with six episodes in each volume. The buildings, robots, fleets, spell casters, and monsters in the comics were all beautifully drawn, but what she really wanted to see were the lovey-dovey parts between the characters Seiyuu and Princely Heir; only beautifully drawn girls could lift her spirits when she felt down.
Yamano Sanae would come every day; she was the highest-rated nurse Witch in the medical center, possessing astonishing caregiving skills.
Whenever Yamano Sanae came, Rinne would pretend to be unable to move, and Sanae would support her, gently helping her with cleaning and changing, which was usually the happiest time of Rinne’s day.
"Do you take care of others too?" Rinne asked.
"Many people," Yamano Sanae nodded with a smile, "Children like in the Blanket Fortress, like Xiao Chengzi, and many other Witches."
"Mr. Web Monitor?"
"Him too," Yamano Sanae nodded, "The Mr. Web Monitor you mentioned once came back from the bloodiest battlefields, covered in blood."
It’s amazing, Rinne nodded. It was no wonder he was extraordinarily strong, having been a special forces commando.
Perhaps because she had fallen for the life in the ward, her recovery took longer than expected.
During a routine check-up five days later, Ban Qingzhu administered an immune suppressant to Rinne to reduce the rejection reaction caused by her implants, helping to reverse her process of neural disjunction.
"Is working at Nestor Corporation happier than at Xisheng?" Rinne asked idly.
"It gives my conscience some peace, that’s all," Ban Qingzhu finished the injection, "For the rest, ask yourself. You must have joined from some desolate wasteland out there."
Rinne pondered.
Five more days passed, and Ban Qingzhu performed the final check-up on Rinne.
"... You can be discharged," Ban Qingzhu said, "Your condition is stable; for a cyber mental illness patient, it’s considered ’cured’."
A joy surged within Rinne.
"Curing me is also a kind of spiritual release for you, isn’t it?" Rinne looked at Ban Qingzhu, "Can you forgive yourself now? You harmed people with your neural therapy at Xisheng, but now you’ve reversed it."
"I don’t have the right to forgive myself. That would be too arrogant," Ban Qingzhu snorted coldly. She turned her head and extracted data from the health monitor, "Your mental differential has dropped to 1.5%."
Rinne’s eyes widened.
"It’s gone down by another 0.5%?" Rinne was both shocked and delighted, "Doesn’t that mean it can be cured?"
"You’re still young, with high cell activity; there’s a chance for you to turn things around. However, with your lifestyle, I’m sure I’ll see you back here sooner or later," Ban Qingzhu turned to leave, "But for now, you’re fully recovered."
Rinne shouted with excitement and jumped down from the bedside.
Life is so beautiful.
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.
Report