744 474 Lab Tests
Nico and the team were eagerly awaiting their arrival at the labs and had an observation pod ready for them as soon as they arrived.
“This will monitor your brain activity. We will also monitor how your body reacts to the medicine. The simulations say that it should be safe with a one hundred percent rate of survival, but we don’t know how well it will work on your minds.” The lead medical technician, a Huntress in a long white lab coat, informed them.
“Got it. Do you think it will work on the kids too?” One of them asked. They were all so similarly built that Max would have to read their minds or ask to tell which were male and female, but he was starting to get the hang of it by the way they dressed.
Four of them liked beads in their wings, pressed around the base of the feathers to add a layer of shimmering colours when the light hit them, and the other four were plainer in their fashion. The shimmering ones were the males, and they had chosen the colours by the ones that their mates liked best.
“Alright, this is the first medication. It is a form of chemical that the brain secretes when it is stressed. That might alert your minds to store all the memories, and not just the most important ones.” She explained.
Two of the Harpia were given that medicine, and then she turned back to her counter and picked up another bottle. “This one is an advanced nanotechnology medicine that humans have developed that will cause your brain to create new memory pathways. It is a bit more risky than the first one, so I will ask for volunteers.”
All of them, including the two who took the first medicine, put up their hands, and the Huntress shook her head. “A Harpia is always so eager to please. But if we give everything to everyone the first day, we won’t know what worked.”
Nico nodded. “The two closest to me will get this treatment. Then the ones closest to the lead Doctor, and then the last pair. Is that fine by you all?”
The Harpia looked between each other, then nodded. “Got it, boss.”
Max resisted the urge to facepalm. They weren’t deciding if the idea was a good one. They were wondering if it was important enough for them to remember it or if someone else would take care of that for them. It seemed that half the issue wasn’t even their capability. They had just gotten used to living in the moment and not worrying about memorizing things.
Nico administered the medicine, and then the Doctor gave another pair of more traditional ADHD medicine from the human supplies, and then Nico gave the last pair an injection to the upper neck that Max identified as a nanotech memory implant.
If all else failed, it would remember everything for them, and once it finished linking itself to their memory pathways, they should be able to remember much more. The implant was originally designed for precision work, where even the most minute details were important to recall perfectly.
They were banned from almost all human competitions, but they were standard treatments for short-term memory loss in veterans.
“Now, we will ask you all a series of questions to see how quickly the medicine has begun to work.” The Doctor informed the eight dancers, who looked incredibly out of place in a research lab in their skimpy uniforms.
“What did you have for breakfast the day before yesterday?” Nico asked the group who had gotten the memory implants.
“Number thirty-seven on the breakfast menu. A bowl of stuff with crunchy bread.” The Harpia replied.
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“What was your uniform on the third day you were at work?” The Doctor asked the group who had gotten the first treatment, and they simply shrugged.
Stress would help you remember things, but it usually wouldn’t help you remember things you forgot, so the treatment wasn’t going to do much right now, in Max’s opinion. The question was important, though, as it helped give them a baseline to go by.
“It was the cute black dresses. The same ones we are supposed to wear tomorrow.” The male of the pair who had gotten the nanotech medicine blurted out.
“Oh, that was neat. It just popped into my mind like it actually mattered. I wonder where that dress is. It is cute.” He continued.
“It’s in the closet, next to the other clean stuff. The big guy with one eye arranged the closet last weekend to help us pick the right stuff by putting it in daily order.” His mate replied.
“It was in order? Oh, that was a great idea. I’ve just been grabbing what looked cute for the day.” The ones who had gotten the ADHD medicine laughed.
This was utter Chaos, Max decided. They were starting to remember things already, but most of what they were recalling were things that they had gotten in trouble for forgetting. He put a note about that in the research logs, where both Nico and the Doctor could see it, and saw the Huntress’s eyes gleam as she made the connection.
They were beginning to remember, based on cues, from the most important events backward.
A small light blinked, and the assistants in the room frowned. “Doctor, two of the medicines have been processed through their bloodstreams already. Absorption was very close to zero.”
An alarm went off, and all four of them turned to look at the door. “That alarm means it’s time for the guy to come tell us that we need to go or we will be late for work.”
Max smirked as he realized that they had long since given up on being on time. They just set the alarm to go to work with the guy who came to tell them they were going to be late.
He looked at the eight Harpia and decided to speed the process up a bit. “Since the two absorbed medications are an immediate failure, thanks to the digestive system of the Harpia, how about we give both of the successful treatments to all eight volunteers, and then we will go with them to work and see how things go for them?”