Bestial Planet

Chapter 35: Testing

Since I got back the day before, I'd been under constant observation. Heart rate monitor, ekg, eeg and other 3-letter testing apparatuses were hooked up to me since then. Now however, I'm standing in a nifty MRI. A few people protested to it because of my tail, I did also, but the thing with receiving medical aid from hyper advanced civilizations is, they've figured out things like that. Intergalactic regulations kept us from having anyone else process the information for us, they get very touchy when it comes to medical knowledge. Those who were medical doctors before the 3 year nap found their degrees were still valuable. Although when you're dealing with things that were considered fiction, you can only learn so fast. We were still limited by our knowledge.

"It's almost like - more theories are emerging and dying every day now than we've ever had in the history of Humanity. Why can't they just give us the information we need and let us figure it out instead of just watching us smash our primitive minds into the figurative wall!"

One of the doctors on the verge of a mental breakdown. I'd explained the day before, along with the other Ambassadors about the "We have to come up with the technology on our own" thing... No one was happy to hear that response, considering that before all this happened we were about 500 years minimum away from joining the inter-galactic community on our own. Those were the estimates we were told anyway. Even mentioning the reasoning behind that "law" was to prevent another "Halgred situation" didn't help. No one wanted to hear that either.

"We didn't do this to ourselves!"

"It's their fault we're like this!"

"I'd bet they're not even looking for a cure!"

There was no shortage of anger or shouts of conspiracy at or to the council's we established but at this moment there was only one thing on my mind, the soothing hum of the MRI quieting down.

"Ok Ambassador, you're done."

"Please, just call me Panzer."

"Oh I couldn't do that. Everyone respects you Seven too much to be that formal."

I exhaled slowly as I was set down by the field that was holding me up. The rings retracted into the walls and the door opened as I walked towards it. I turned around quickly and waved goodbye to Johann, an Ape/Bear hybrid whom was one of the lead doctors tasked with understanding our new anatomy. I walked down the hall, turned the corner and came upon two other doctors. One was a bull and the other an over sized salamander with shimmering scales. It sounded like they were having an intense conversation but when we locked eyes they immediately stopped and gave me stares of admiration. To be honest I loved and hated when people looked at me like that. I smiled, waved and tripped, not yet used to my bi-pedal form. They continued on and as the distance between us increased they started saying words that I'd never heard before then, hypothalamus, lymph-node... they might as well have been speaking an alien language.

After being poked and prodded for the day I went to what had rather quickly turned into a gym. One of the people who was issued an aid bot helped me set up what was essentially a physical therapy/rehab center. When talking with the other six yesterday, Jaina had the idea to set up centers for when everyone else made the change. I'd spent as much time as I could on those parallel bars you see in the movies with people who are learning to use a prosthetic leg or get used to their own again. My hunger didn't seem to have decreased by that much despite changing. My body still felt sore but I'd been in pain before so I powered through it because whether I liked it or not, people looked to me for strength.

Like port towns from days of old, the area around Section 6 was more lively than it had ever been. We'd been left a few utility drones that were ferrying the broken and shattered remnants of the old world to a recycling facility that had been erected soon after Andromedian aid came to Earth. I could see the smaller ones following people around and sifting through buildings for trash. This close to Section 6 quite a few buildings had become hazardous, the ones that didn't collapse when the shockwave hit that is. It wasn't uncommon to hear something falling in on itself in the distance.