REAL WORLD: PART THREE Homeward Bound ... - Whoa is (Not)

Ted swung his legs over to the side of the bed. He tested his weight on his right foot, decided it could take
it, then stood up fully and changed his mind. Wincing, he hobbled around a bit then gave up and dropped
back down onto the bed.
Bogus, he thought mournfully.
Neo moved to the side of the room and carried the pair of crutches there over to Ted. “Do you want these,
or would you prefer to stuff yourself with painkillers” he offered. “It doesn’t really matter either way because
the doctor said you should be able to walk by tomorrow.”
Ted looked doubtfully at the crutches.
Neo pulled out a drawer on the bedside table to reveal it to be stocked with cool-looking little futuristic
syringe-thingies filled with some futuristic painkiller. Neo wasn’t particularly concerned with what the syringe
thingies contained; he was more concerned with the fact that they looked like something out of Star Trek
and he longed to operate one of them.
“The painkillers are cheaper,” Neo said pointedly.
“You mean the hospital just lets you take as many as you want” Ted asked, staring at the open drawer.
“Usually they don’t, but Dr. Brown knows someone here and got us a special deal usually reserved for
certain customers. They don’t ask any questions other than what’s necessary, and they let you do whatever
you want, but if you die or anything bad happens as a result they’re not responsible.”
“Did they ask what happened”
“Yeah.”
“What did you tell them”
“Dr. Brown told them the truth. But these guys are used to this sort of thing. They occasionally get people in
here who claim that little green men operated on them in their spaceships and didn’t finish the job properly.”
Neo took the fact that Ted hadn’t answered his question to mean that he agreed to the painkiller option. He
poked around the drawer, looking for the most shiny syringe-thingy. “And at least two nurses asked me how
I was related to you. I told them to mind their own business. Give me your leg.” Neo held up the syringething
in a way that unsuccessfully hid his eagerness to emulate a certain Dr. McCoy.
“Dude, are you sure that’s a good idea” Ted asked, looking at the syringe-thing. Being from an enlightened
era of scientific advancement, the syringe had no needle and relied instead on the forceful expulsion of its
contents to drive said contents into the patient’s vein, sort of like in Star Trek.
Neo raised an eyebrow, then pressed the syringe-thing against Ted’s leg and happily shot the painkillers in.
Ted felt the vague pain in his leg slowly ebb away into nothing. He stood up and felt no pain. It unnerved
him.
“Come on,” Neo said, chucking the empty syringe-thing into a dustbin and shutting the drawer. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going”
“We checked into a hotel room for the night because we weren’t sure how long you’d take. It’s just a block
away.”
The two of them exited the room and left the hospital, Ted walking with a purposeful limp knowing that just
because he couldn’t feel any pain didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
**
8 th November 2030, Sunday
Room 31-02B, Lone Pine Hotel
Hill Valley, California