Anime Hospital episode nine: Ah! My Hospital
Anime Hospital episode nine: Ah! My Hospital
"Are you sure about this?" Heather asked Toni while she, Mike, and Pam all waited by the diminutive receptionist.
"For the fifteenth time, we've got no choice in the matter," Toni snapped back at her.
Heather continued to watch the front glass doors with apprehension. "Maybe if I slapped Stoopenstein around a bit, we could get him to change his mind," she said, looking at Toni.
Mike glowered at her.
"It was just a suggestion," Heather said.
"Well, the sooner this problem gets fixed, the better," Tnoi said. "I don't even know what they're doing here."
Pam nodded. "Our computer system is not sophisticated enough to warrent their presence."
Toni groaned. "I know." She took a swipe at her monitor and said, "But what little computer we do have is completely frozen up while those beasts roam free down our halls. You have no idea how much work is getting mixed up on me."
Heather stuck her tounge out and made a face. "Those things disgust me every time I see them." She shuddered. "Still, do we have to call 'her' to take care of this for us?"
"Of course we have to call 'her.' She's the only one with any experience in dealing with them."
"I see Heather's point, Toni," Mike said. "After all, we all know what kind of trouble usually follows her around."
"We all see Heather's point, Mike. We just have to hope for the best." Before Toni was finished speaking her mind, a very large, vaguely insect like creature ambled into the lobby. It seemed to have a sadistic grin on it's face as it hobbled up to nurses, doctors, and patients, scaring them with loud gurgling sounds.
Without warning, a huge wooden mallet came crashing down on the creature, squashing it flat and making a rather unnerving squishing sound. A young girl with long black hair lifted her weapon off of the mess and smiled with satisfaction. "Chalk up another one, Sis," she called behind her.
The stunned quartet looked beyond the girl to see that five other people had entered through the front glass doors and were moving in to join the girl. Once they were all together, they all approached the desk, where Toni was shaking her head in disgust.
"I hear you have a computer virus," Skuld said, taping her mallet on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but we only serve Animes here. You can visit, but we're not allowed to treat you," Toni said, never looking away from her stack of papers.
"But our appointment was at this hospital," came the protest.
"Of course it was. We still can't treat you." She looked at each of the cartoon motorcycles, covered in bandages at several odd locations. A malicious smile played across her lips as she said, "Hospital policy, you understand. Now beat it."
As the prospective patients turned away, one of them, a little red scooter, started riling the leader, a larger bike wearing a German WW2 helmet. "I toldja, I toldja!" it repeated ceaselessly.
"Oh, shaddup!" it screamed back.
The entire gang was bowled over by a fleeing bug and then tossed in all directions as Skuld cam crashing through them, eyes fixed on her prey.
"You see what I mean?" Heather said, holding out a hand in the direction of the ensuing chaos. "This is what happens when we ask Animes for help." She sidled up to the receptioist's desk and set her elbow on it to rest her chin on her hand. "We're not going to get anything done."
"Since when was that ever a problem with you?" Toni asked, arching her eyebrows.
"It's not the same. Avoiding work's no fun when it's not your fault. Stoopenstein's gonna get it the next time I see him,"
Toni smirked. "Well, I could give you something to deliver..."
Heather turned a fearful eye at the enormous stack of papers sitting on Toni's desk and said, "No thanks!"
"Then why don't you clean some rooms, or make some beds or something?"
"Ha! I leave that to the orderlies."
Toni made a fist and gritted her teeth. "Then just go... organize something, okay? I have more than enough work to make up for your lack of it!"
Heather sighed, but then perked up when she looked at the waiting room across the hall. Seated at different ends were Urd, trouble consultant Kei, and Lufa. "Organize something... Sound's good to me." As she walked away, Toni just sighed and hid her face in her hands.
"She better not blame me when Mike catches her," Toni simply said.
Mike ran down the hall as quickly as he could, fearing that he was already too late. "Kahm! Kahm, put him down!"
The horned girl dropped Tetsuya from her iron grip and looked at Mike with a mixture of anger and confusion. "Why should I?"
The head nurse came to a halt in front of the pair, and before he spoke, glanced briefly at Tetsuya trying to regain his breath. "There's been a mix-up in the computer system. We had him paired up with Ranma as a male and we didn't catch the change in enough time to re-assign room." Mike stopped and thought a bit. "Essentially, Ranma's still a guy, so it shouldn't bother you anyway, should it?"
"Ha!" Kahm said. "Tetsuya's just the kinda pervert who'd enjoy it too much anyway."
"I am not a pervert!" the boy finally got enough energy to say.
"Sorry, gotta run," Mike said, and disappeared in a flash.
The head nurse continued down the hall, faster than the teads could carry him, hoping to avert yet another disaster. Suddenly he stopped in mid-step and slowly turned in disbelief. He had just passed Mari from the A-ko Universe and Kenshorio from the North Star Universe, holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes longingly. Mike shuddered and turned away, wishing he hadn't seen it.
"Nabiki! Stop right there!" Mike said when he finally got within earshot of the girl.
She froze guiltilly and turned around. In her hands was one of the computer bugs, and she had been in the middle of tying a leash around it.
"Nabiki, you can't take one of those things home with you so that you can hack into your bank account."
Nabiki made a wounded look. "I just figured that if Akane could have a pig, I should be allowed to have a bug. My motives were purely innocent!"
Mike folded his arms and stared her down. Nabiki put up a good fight, but was distracted when the bug started to squirm in her arms and made a hasty escape.
"I've got him!" a voice from behind said, and before Mike knew what happened, he was smacked on the head by Skuld's mallet of destruction.
He fell in a heap, causing Nabiki to back away in surprise. Skuld looked down and saw what she had just done, and all she could say was, "Oops."
The doctors filed out of the emergency room, and one stopped to look at the three women standing outside. "He should live. This is usually against policy, but I think an exception can be made this time. Go ahead and take a look. It may help bring him out of it."
Toni, Heather, and Pam all entered the room as quickly as they could, Heather nearly tripping over the other two. When they were able to see the condition of it's occupent, they all lowered their heads.
Mike was in a deep coma, and the monitors that had been hooked up to him did not look encouraging. "He's in real bad shape," Toni said with far less than her usual level of sarcastic apathy.
"It's all that Anime's fault!" Heather said. "If it hadn't been for her, he'd still be up and bossing us all around. They know us humans can't take the same level of punishment they can! I swear she'll die the next time I see her!"
"Calm down, red," Toni told the nurse. She looked at Pam and said, "Did you ask?"
Pam nodded grimly. "She cannot help."
Toni scowled. "Figures. I didn't think Belldandy could work her magic on humans. We're gonna just have to hope for the best." She started out the door, saying, "Let's go. There's not much good we can do here."
"I'd like to stay a bit longer, if you don't mind," Heather told the receptionist
"Suit yourself," Toni said, and she and Pam left the room.
Once they were gone, Heather turned and looked at Mike again. Her eyes were showing the first signs of tears, and she seemed to be having trouble breathing. "Mike... Mike, I know you can't hear me, so I can say whatever I want, and you won't ever know."
She paused to take a few breaths. "Mike, you're a real jerk, you know that? A real stick-in-the-mud who needs to learn to loosen up a little. But, I swear, if I lose you, I'll never forgive you, you know why?"
There were tears streaming down her cheeks by the time she moved away from him and placed her hand on the doorknob. "Because... I love you."
The door shut silently behind her, and Mike was left alone in the room. It was then that the wires hooked to him, as well as the few tubes he was injected to, began to glow. The monitors all started to scramble their readouts, and Mike dropped out of the coma and into a peaceful sleep.
"Mike.... Mike...." a voice spoke from nowhere. Mike didn't respond.
The glow finally faded away. "Mike...."
Mike suddenly sighed. "Nurse... Jones," he wheezed.
"Wake up, Michael. Wake up and talk to me."
Mike's eyes opened and he immediately shut them again. "Ah, my head hurts."
"Welcome back, Michael,"
"Hm?" Mike opened his eyes again and looked around. "Who... who's there?"
"It's me, Michael," the voice said. The voice was very hard to distinguish, and it could not even be certain what the gender of it was. "I'm the hospital."
Begin Commercial Break
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Voice: Do you sometimes wish people would stop "enhancing" the good things in life?
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End Commercial Break
"What?" Mike said, half rising, but realizing that it wouldn't be very wise just in the nick of time. "What kind of a sick joke..?"
"It is no joke," the voice assured him. "Michael Jones, I am the very hospital you walk through every day. I see you everywhere you go. I see everything you do. I hear everything you say. I know everything about you and everyone else who are a part of me."
"This can't be real," Mike said. "I must be dying, and this is some kind of nightmare before I go."
"Michael. Will you not listen to me, now that I can speak to you at last?" The voice seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Mike simply sighed and said, "All right. Talk. It's not like I can stop you."
"Heather loves you."
Mike jerked as if he'd just been shot with electricity. "All right, now I know this is some kind of joke."
"It is no joke. She said so just before she left this room."
Mike blushed. "No, I just can't believe it. Why are you telling me something like this?"
"Because it is the truth. I want you to know the truth that I know."
"All right. Prove to me that you're telling me the truth," Mike said.
"Would you like a detailed account of all the love letters you dictated to Madoka, and Nene, and Ukyou, and any of a dozen other Anime girls when you thought no one was watching, but that you never got the courage to-"
"All right! I'm convinced. Well, if Heather wanted to let me know that she loved me, why didn't she tell me herself?" Mike's eyes widened with sudden realization, and before the Hospital could answer he said, "Because she didn't want me to know!"
Just then, Mike heard the sounds of an argument breaking out just outside his door, and he said to the hospital, "What's going on outside?"
"I am letting everyone know the truth that I know."
Mike bit back the curse that jumped to his lips, and simply gritted his teeth as he started to reach for one of the needles injected in him.
Belldandy, Keiichi, Urd, Skuld, Megumi, and Sayoko were all watching the hospital staff with confused looks on their faces. "Skuld?" Belldandy said.
"Yes, sister?" the young, raven-haired girl said.
"Are you certain all the bugs have disappeared?" she was watching all the doctors and nurses with growing concern.
"Oh, they're still here. I can tell. I just can't find them anymore. Who knows what kind of trouble they're getting into?" She looked at everyone around and giggled. "You'd almost think they've never heard of a talking building before. Don't they know that all buildings have sprits of their own?"
"Um, Skuld?" Keiichi said.
"What?"
"Neither did I until I met your sister."
Skuld looked up and said, "Really? I thought that was just because you're naturally thick-skulled. Oh, well. Guess I can't be right about everything."
Keiichi gave her an annoyed look.
Megumi suddenly said, "It's really scary the way they're all having such intense conversations, isn't it?"
Everyone else said, "Uh-huh."
Just then Pam walked up to them. Behind her, the walls almost seemed to be saying, "Pam, Pam, why won't you talk to me? I have so many things I want to tell you."
Pam ignored the voice and simply walked up to Skuld. When she was standing right in front of her she simply look Skuld right in the face and said nothing. Skuld, too, did not seem to have anything to say, until, after a while, she nodded.
Pam nodded back and turned to leave. "Bye, guys," Skuld told the others. "Nurse Kaburi and I are going to do a little investigating."
"Do you have any idea what just went on?" Sayako asked everyone else.
"Not a thing," Keiichi said. "I've heard some things about that nurse, but with the people in this hospital, you really never can tell."
"Oh no!" Belldandy said then. "Those two doctors are arguing with each other!"
"You see?"
"It was you!" one doctor said to another. "The hospital told me that it was you who stole my favorite stethescope!"
"Hey, it wasn't like that at all! I just borrowed it, and then I lost it, and weh I saw how upset you were, I-"
"Shut up and just give me my stethescope back!"
"All right, you two, cut it out!" Toni said from behind. "This is a hospital, not a courthouse."
The first doctor looked at Toni and said, "But he stole my-"
"Because the hospital told you so, right?" Toni said.
"Uh- yeah,"
Toni pulled out a couple of slips of paper and handed one to each doctor. "You know the proper procedure for filing complaints. Now why don't you wait to discuss the when the hospital stops talking to you?" The doctors only gave each other confused and defeated looks as Toni walked away, but they were no longer arguing.
As she continued down the hall, Heather joined her from where she was waiting. "Has it been like this long?"
"Almost from the moment the place started talking," Toni said. "It's been rattling off all of our secrets, and most of them aren't things we want anyone else to know. If this keeps up, we're going to be in a lot of trouble."
"So, we've been in it deep before,"
"Yes, but it's never been our own fault. Even if we do manage to keep everyone from trying to kill each other, the nasty thing about the truth is that it stays with you for a long time. The effects of this could last for years. We may never recover."
Heather shuddered. "I hope Mike's still in a coma."
"What!" Toni said, spinning on her heel to face the redheaded nurse.
"Because I wouldn't want him to have to see all this," Heather quickly supplied. "It would worry him too much."
"That's true," Toni said. "I- oh, no. Not now."
"What?" Heather asked, looking ahead. "Oh, I see what you mean."
Dr Stoopenstien quickly approached the two ladies once he noticed them, and he seemed very worried about what was going on. "Ah, Nurse Farly. Ms. Li. I am so glad that I found you. I was in my lab when the most incredible thing happened."
"The hospital started talking to you?" Toni asked flatly.
Karl looked surprised. "Eh? How did you know that?"
"It's talking to everybody, you twit," Heather said.
"It is? Oh, that's right, it is! Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. It seems that some of the things that have been said are a bit destructive to the staff's morale, and I was hoping to get you two to help out with the problem."
Heather and Toni looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
"Well, I mean, it's not as if the things it mentions are really all that important," Karl continued. "I mean, for example, is it really significant that you sometimes still suck your thumb, Ms. Li?"
Toni's eyes grew wide with terror, and try as she might, Heather could not help but giggle at the image.
"The problem is," Karl said, not even noticing Toni and Heather anymore, "Everyone just seems to be taking these things too seriously, so I've been asking everyone to assemble in the lobby, and-"
"You did what!" Toni and Heather both said in disbelief. The statement had apparently been enough to break them both free of the effects of Karl's earlier revelation.
"Well, I just thought it would be a good place to-" Karl began, but before he was even halfway through, he was speaking to empty space as Toni and Heather started running full speed for the lobby.
By the time Heather and Toni got there, it was too late. The hundreds of doctors, nurses, and orderlies who worked at the hospital had all gathered in the immense front lobby, and the effect had been like adding fuel to a fire. What could only be described as the mother of all brawls had broken out, and dozens of Animes were fleeing for cover in the ensuing confusion.
"You were saying something about 'long term effects'," Heather commented.
"I forgot to account for the Stoopenstein factor."
"So what do we do?" Heather asked.
"Now? Pray, and make sure none of them notice us."
"Heather," the hospital said, suddenly. "Toni. Will you talk to me now? Please. I'm so lonely without someone to talk to."
"No," Toni said quickly.
"But, why?"
"Because you're not the hospital," Toni said. This statement surprised even Heather.
"I am the hospital. Haven't I proven that to you?"
"You've proven that you know everything about us that the hospital would know, but you're not the hospital. If the hospital could really talk, it wouldn't cause this," Toni gestured at the fight that was going on. "This, for a hospital, would be suicide. You can't be the hospital."
"No, please. You must believe me. I am the hospital. Shall I tell you about-"
Heather's eyes lit up suddenly. "Toni, I think you're on to something, here."
"I hope so. I just hope there's something that can be done about it. For now, we need to ignore this bogus voice and concentrate on finding a way to shut it up." Toni looked back at the fight that was going on, and she paused. "Eh? I wonder what's happening now?"
It didn't take long to find out. Bit by bit, fighting amongst the staff broke off, to be replaced by whispering, which resulted in more cease-fires and more whispering. Finally the cause of it all was made clear as Mike came limping into the center of the assembled staff. He looked to be in even worse shape than before, with fresh bandages on his head that were stained with blood, but the large man was making a fantastic show of self-control as he began to speak.
"Look at all of you," Mike said, sternly, and many of the doctors and nurses lowered their heads in shame. "Isn't this supposed to be a hospital? Aren't we all supposed to be professionals around here? Haven't we learned from our experiences with our patients to be a bit more open-minded. Can't any of you see that you've been had?"
At the last part, everyone started talking, mostly voicing questions to no one in particular, or to Mike, asking what in the world he was talking about.
"Quiet!" Mike said, and everyone was instantly silent. "I've just gotten done talking with Nurse Kaburi. You know those bugs that had infested the hospital? They weren't after the computer system at all. They were feeding on the soul of the hospital. And you all let yourselves get infected right along with it."
Everyone gasped in surprise, and the hospital was trying weakly to protest, but everyone was listening to Mike. "Aren't we supposed to be a medical crew?" Mike continued. "It's our job to cure infections, not fall victem to them ourselves. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a virus loose in the hospital, and it is our sworn duty to eliminate it. Now are you going to help us do it?"
"Yes!" Came the thundering response, as everyone lifted their hands in unision.
"The get on out there!" Mike ordered. "Pam and Skuld need all the help they can get!"
With a loud cheer, the lobby cleared as everyone went running in different directions, all of them in search of the bugs. Skuld's voice started speaking over the intercom, listing off instructions on how to find and eliminate the little beasts.
When all was quiet in the lobby again, Mike sighed and looked around. He saw Heather standing next to Toni, a look of paranoid terror on her face. He quickly assumed his stiffest posture and said, "Nurse Farley! What are you doing just standing there! Go and help out!"
Heather visibly relaxed, ans started running down the south wing, mumbling, "Big, dumb jerk."
Once she was gone, Mike started to sink, to the ground, but Toni caught him and lifted him up. "We've got to get you back to your room. That was really stupid of you, leaving in your condition."
"It had to be done."
"I know that, and good job."
Soon the hospital was no longer speaking localized, but was making universal screams heard throughout the entire length of it. At breakneck speed it rattled off little facts about all the doctors and nurses, hoping to distract them from what they were doing to it. It wasn't working.
"And Pam is really a-" it started to say, but broke off, as apparently the last bug was killed. There was a collective groan as everyone had perked up their ears, hoping to hear a revelation about the mysterious nurse.
"That sticks!" one of the nurses said. "Who was it that killed the last one?"
"I believe the problem has been eliminated," Pam said as she walked by, carrying the body of a dead bug in her hand.
"Figures," the doctor next to the upset nurse said.
"Are you sure you're going to be all right, Mike?" Toni said as the three women stood next to his hospital bed.
"I'll be fine. Just leave the curing the sick and mangled to the doctors," Mike smiled at them. "Just make sure you don't take advantage of my absence to goof off, Nurse Farley," he added with a stern voice.
"Since when have I needed you to be halfway to your deathbed to do that?" Heather returned.
Pam simply smiled at Mike and said, "It is good to see that you will be well."
"Thanks, Nurse Kaburi. Well, don't all of you keep hanging around here when there's work to be done. Go on, get back to work. There'll be more than enough time to visit me when the day's over."
"Stick in the mud," Heather grumbled as she left with the other two.
Mike watched them leave and smiled. Turning his head, he looked up at the ceiling and began to count off his fingers. "Now let's see. 'Dear Nurse Farley...'"
Preview of Next Week's Episode
The ancient Japanese Legends return, and they accuse the Animes of trying to bury them in obscurity! When Myth collides with Fantasy, only hilarity can result. The cast of Greenwood, Maison Ikkoku, Video Girl Ai, and more Japanese Legends than you can shake a stick at all guest star in next week's episode: "Taking Things Literally"!
