134 Lesson Learned
The man had a point. Although Altair looked like a child, she had, somehow, managed to deeply wound two trained professionals. Even if her attack was a surprise attack, how did she manage to sever a man's arm from his body? Even if she was completely unarmed, they needed to be even more cautious of her.
But the woman still thought that he was going overboard by now. The taser he was using on her was designed to neutralize a combat experienced adult. On a child as small as Altair, it was greatly overdoing things. It could even cause damage to her body as well.
They only needed to get her into the chair. Since she was already incapacitated, what need was there to continue electrocuting her?
The smell of ammonia spread quickly in the room as Altair ended up soiling herself from the taser. The male doctor didn't seem to care as he continued to glare at her on the ground and the taser continued to make clicking noises. The man didn't fancy himself as brave at all and was terrified of the girl. He didn't want to take any risks.
The female doctor couldn't allow him to continue to use the taser on Altair. While she couldn't stop the other two men in the room from countering her, she was still the senior of the other doctor, so she had the power to stop him.
She quickly walked over to the man and stood before him in an uncharacteristically bold stance. She then stated, "Doctor Higgins, I am reassigning you to taking care of those two men." She pointed towards the two men that were injured. The man with the severed arm had gone pale while the other man was holding his side and picking up the severed arm. They could reattach the arm to the man if they got treated quick enough.
"See to their injuries and have another two guards sent to this room immediately."
Doctor Higgins frowned at her as he knew what she was doing immediately. He knew that she had a soft heart and suspected that she wasn't any good for the Empire Security Forces, or ESF. He couldn't do anything about her though as she was his senior, currently.
He gave her a reluctant look and deliberately waited for a long moment before he finally stopped pulling the trigger on the taser and handed it to her. He then turned to the two men and said, "Come on you two. Let's get you both to the Recovery Room before the damage becomes permanent."
The woman didn't waste time as all of the men started to leave the room. She quickly rolled Altair over and removed the pincers that had stuck into Altair's back. Small droplets of blood oozed out of the tiny holes that were left in their place. She then lifted Altair up gingerly and moved towards the scanning chair.
Altair couldn't feel any of that. Even after the pincers were taken out, it took a while before she could even breathe. Once she was able too, she couldn't stop herself from big gulps of air. Her entire body was so numb she couldn't lift a finger and she couldn't feel the restraints that secured her to the chair. She barely paid any attention to the bowl that was then placed over her head and strapped around her jaw.
As the female doctor went back into the other room, Altair had only one thought on her mind. 'I can't leave bystanders standing in a place like this. Next time I'll be sure to make everyone incapacitated when I attempt to leave.' The only reason she didn't go further with her Magic was because she didn't know how far she had to go with the amount of Mana she had.
That had clearly been a mistake.
The woman in the other room started up the machine. She had secretly begun calibrating it to Altair's age before and that was why it took her some time to notice the disturbance in the other room. The room she was in was completely soundproof from the other side, so the commotion didn't reach her.
Now that the machine was properly calibrated, she didn't need to wait long before she sucked in a gasp as shock hit her.
The machine she was using would connect to a person's mind and print out a series of images onto the network. This would allow them to read through the images and get some idea of what that person saw. Of course, like with most other technology in the Empire, this machine was able to do that because it connected through a person's Spiritual Self.
It would not work at all on Altair.
The woman was completely baffled. She tried multiple times to connect the machine but the words on the Holodisplay before her remained the same: No Target. This made no sense to her at all.
She turned the machine off and on, but the result didn't change.
She checked the cords and even unplugged them and plugged them back in, but the result didn't change.
She had no choice but to call for maintenance to try and fix the problem.
In the meantime, two new overly large men had come into the room and their expressions contorted when the smelled the ammonia in the air. They couldn't leave their post though, so they were forced to stay in the main room with Altair.
Altair still couldn't feel the rest of her body but she could feel a lingering burning sensation. With the little amount of Mana she had left, she decided to check the condition she was in. The results caused her expression to darken, not that anyone in the room noticed.
Her nervous system had been severely damaged. It would take at least three days for her to recover it enough for her to move around properly. There was just a problem with that. Altair didn't feel confident in her knowledge of the nervous system to heal it properly. As such, she would need to take extra time as she healed only enough for her to be able to move a single finger to make sure she was doing it properly.
She had basically figured she would heal her injury through trial and error.
A couple of engineers arrived to the room and their expressions contorted as well at the smell. One of them quickly called for a custodian while the other one went to the woman to find out what the problem was.
Once he entered the other room, the female doctor simply pointed at the Holodisplay and said, "It won't connect to the patient. I tried turning it off and on, unplugging and plugging it back in. None of it works. Fix it so that I can do my job."
The engineer looked at her like he was looking at someone who was a complete idiot. He then sighed and place down the box he was carrying and walked out of the room. He talked with his colleague for a few minutes before they both got to work immediately. One of them was messing with the chair while the other was handling the Holodislay.
They worked efficiently and quickly found nothing wrong with either end. Since they couldn't find anything wrong, they decided to have someone else sit in the seat to see if Altair herself was the problem. As engineers, they didn't think the same way as most people. Since they had an intimate knowledge of everything they had to take care of, then if something went wrong and the machine was in perfect condition while the operator did nothing wrong, that left only one option as the problem: the target of the machine.
Altair was moved out of the chair and was limply laid on the ground. One of the engineers took her spot and the machine connected to him immediately. The engineer then disconnected the machine and turned to the doctor and flatly stated, "The reader won't work on that girl. Don't bother continuing to try. As to the reason, I can only assume that she has some way of concealing or protecting her Spiritual Self, which means that any attempts at using a machine to try and connect to her will be completely pointless." He then bowed respectfully without waiting for her reply, grabbed his box that was on the ground, and left while she stared blankly at the place he just vacated for a long moment.
She was standing there for so long that the two people guarding Altair figured out that something was wrong. They couldn't move to ask her about it in either case because of their job, but they did send questioning gazes towards her.
The woman finally sighed heavily before she returned to the main room. The smell of the room quickly assaulted her and reminded her of Altair's current condition. She looked at Altair as she was laid out on the ground, unmoving, in her soiled clothes and said, "Go get her cleaned up and send her back to her room. I need to go and report this to the Major." She didn't know what the Major would do when he found out that this information but she was sure that he was going to shout at her for it.
The two men saluted sharply before they lifted Altair but her arms once more and pulled her out of the room. As they were leaving, the female doctor sighed heavily.
