“Could you stop poking at me with a stick, please,” Troy asked for what felt like the tenth time in the last five minutes. He had excused the blasted thing the first few times, thinking it some advanced piece of medical equipment. It was not, in fact, anything truly complicated at all, instead just being a stick that Charlie had stolen off some laboratory in god-knows-where. Maybe it would have been a bit bearable if that man didn't feel the need to use the pointy end! It wasn't incredibly sharp, but it still hurt.

“I will stop the moment you stop squirming around so much,” Charlie informed him, not looking too happy with the ongoing situation. Already, Troy had been lying on that table, having to bear being touched and prodded in an area where he wanted neither of those things. What was so interesting about one injury, which made it all so important that his fingers touched every last part of it?

“How can you expect me to stop moving, when you are wielding that pointy thing,” Troy said accusingly. There was no small bit of irritation present. But, that came with the position.

“Well, you aren't supposed to be feeling anything at all when it comes to the middle of your body. I should have been able to make a few slices with a knife without you even noticing it. Honestly, how do you have such a high resistance to this stuff? This stuff hasn't been allowed for any kind of public use,” the muscular man droned on, pushing the damned stick once again into Troy’s side.

The resistance was not too surprising to hear, that particular issue being present a lot. When it came to a lot of the newer medicine, the body had a habit of swiftly growing immune to it. That was why the industry was booming so much, as they were constantly being forced to develop new variations.

Those new variations were sometimes a little too similar, however. The final product was never actually known before the later phases of development. At that point, hundreds of thousands of dollars would have been put into it. If it would make a person develop resistance to another medicine, they wouldn't legally be able to use it in a professional setting. There were more than a few laws stopping that from happening.

No laws about alternative use, though. Sedatives, painkillers, or just whatever had the potential of messing with the mind a small bit could be sold as recreational products. It wasn't anything the companies would directly sell with their brand, instead just creating a few fake fronts for the distribution. The whole thing had been made legal by a few loopholes, allowing every product made to make a good amount of cash flow back to the creators. Everybody would be happy at the end of the day, in some way or another. Or well, the buyers would be happy until the moment where they find themselves fully immune to medicine that had been specifically designed to not develop resistance.

“You can never trust the government too much. Some batch probably just got sent out due to an error or something,” Troy said, trying his best to ignore the prick from the tip of the rod. It was an annoying little bugger that one. “Wouldn't be the first time they misplaced a few things.”

That was a great thing about the people who ran the country. If it would be more expensive to find a stolen object than it was to make a new one, they would choose to get more, with no long-term planning in the least. It was all case-by-case after all. The events were separated. It wasn't anyone's fault that they couldn't figure out why kids continually ran away from one specific home. It was just troubled kids. It wasn't the home that was at fault.

“Don't go around instigating a revolution, just because you can't see a few new colours,” Charlie murmured, pressing a few buttons on the table. “If one kind doesn't work, then another may have some different effects… maybe I could also increase the dose a small bit.”

“Where am I even getting these doses from? It's not like you have pricked with anything other than that blasted cylinder of yours,” Troy said. It was a genuine question. In the minutes spent lying on the table, the only notable instrument had been the object that the young man hated oh so much.

“While I do have an extraordinary love for rods,” Charlie began, throwing the stick up into the air, and grabbing it before there could be any considerable downwards momentum. “I don't trust it enough to inject you with. That job is done by what you are lying on. I am a little surprised you haven't noticed. Others have shown extreme displeasure at being pricked in the back. I wonder why. The back is so much easier a place than the shoulder.”

Troy likely shouldn't have been too shocked by the news, of the real purpose of laying down at an operating table. It wasn't like one of those used decades ago, where the only real importance of it was to be easily sterilized and cleaned. That particular piece of furniture now boasted in doing nearly all of the tasks needed when operating. The only thing it didn't do was to carry the scalpel, and that was only because laws prevented it. Inside some part of the facility, there was most definitely one of the fully automatic ones, ready to be used in a real emergency.

As his thoughts began to flow by, there was a notice of just how… hard it became to think. The stream felt weak, only his paddling keeping him along the course. If he wasn't actively thinking about it, there would have been a decrease in liveliness. Really, there was only one way to take it.

“Wasn't the effect supposed to be localised to my stomach?” Troy asked, looking down at where Charlie was sitting, presumably in the midst of preparing yet another of his poking adventures. However, the man was not in the planning phases of such an action at all. In fact, Charlie was not even there. How had he moved so quickly, without the young man noticing at all?

“You're awake?” Charlie asked, over at one of the shelves. It was a distance of over ten meters. Within the blink of an eye, the man would have had to have moved faster than anything humanly possible.

“Of course I'm awake. I have been awake this whole time,” Troy said, responding to the question as if the muscular man was some kind of idiot. Yet, it did not take long to realise the titles may have been in the wrong order.

“You have most certainly not been awake. I can assure you of that, my friend. That sedative was used was not as localised as I had hoped, but it didn't seem to cause any problems at all. You are hereby free from any lasting conditions if you ignore a bit of a loose tongue. If this was official in any capacity, I would be giving you a clean bill of health,” Charlie said, the man taking a glance at the clock above the door. “You still have ten minutes before you need to leave. In that time, how about you get some food inside that stomach of yours? Shouldn't cause any pain now, I hope.”

Taking hold of one of the shelves and pulling it outwards, the muscular man revealed the secret compartment behind. While there were a few weirdly glowing gadgets hidden within, most of the space inside was filled up by a vast amount of food products. They weren't even close to the level of the food that the cafeteria had to offer, being wrapped up in neat plastic packaging. The things had been made to last, being called rations at the best of times. There was even a few MRE's inside it for whatever reason. Troy wondered why the man had prepared such things but felt an equally strong wonder if it was for the best of his mental health to ask. Don't ask the one bringing the money, for one does not need to know how it was gotten. Ignorance could be good sometimes. The young man sometimes cursed the ones who ripped off that band-aid, which had no need to be taken off.

Gently getting up from his position on the table, Troy prepared himself for the pain that was to come. Though, in a direct contradiction to his expectations, there was not a single thing felt. Examining his abdomen, there weren't even any coloured marks left. Poking the area with his figure did nothing in the way of being painful, only the pressure being felt from it. There was nothing wrong with that part of his body anymore.

“How?” was all Troy could get out, not truly trusting what his eyes were telling him. It had to be one of the dreaded side-effects of the medicine, it made his delusion grow to the point of insanity. There was no way that there were no ill effects from this.

“That is something best left for another to answer. It's way too complicated for that pea you call your brain,” Charlie answered, having already grabbed himself a chocolate bun for himself, the packet of them already in his hand. Troy responded to these words by doing his best impression of Dr Hale’s glare. It might have been a mix of his delusional mind and a large bit of being completely done with bullshit for the day, but the older man seemingly relented after a single second. “... Okay, I’ll tell you if you get something inside that mouth of yours. Can't have you fainting after visiting my lab. It would bring about a couple of wrong ideas that I don't want circulating as well.”

With the prospect of getting more information and that bit of hunger which had been left unattended, Troy catched the chocolate bun thrown his way. It was stale, without much taste, and the greatest thing he could have ever imagined. It might just have been the minor starvation talking, but he was feeling up to the task of emptying the bag. And Charlie was having no complaints, passing the bag by the third consumed. The man was clearly not against any of it, likely having more than enough of the things stashed away. While doing so, he similarly sat down in one of the chairs close to the operation table. Troy was using the table itself as his chair, not having felt the need for getting up fully. The shirt he had dropped on the ground had repositioned itself to be next to him, making it easy to get it on.

“Where do I even start with this?” Charlie said as Troy listened on dutifully, enraptured slightly by the sugary goodness that was his unhealthy lunch. He had been expecting less when the promise of food had been made, so getting something that was incredibly disgusting was a win in his book.

“At the beginning, if that would be possible,” Troy suggested from the side, wanting that thoughtful face to be replaced with one that explained it. Waiting around was fine when one had the time, but he was still only on a temporary break from work. This perfectly reasonable comeback did cause a minor look from the muscular man, but it was not commented on further than that.

“I guess that would work,” Charlie said, getting himself into a comfy position on his chair. “The technology for it is something neither of us will likely ever be told. Not that it would change the end result in any way, really. Even those specialised in the field have a lot of hardships when it comes to understanding just how it all works. If I have to explain it in a way that doesn't really work, what I used was able to materialize a fake object inside your body.”

It took less than a moment before Troy was catching on to what had just been saying. Technology that could materialise physical, interactable, and fully fletched forms. It was hard not to recognize the concept, seeing as he had been in an environment where it was used constantly. He knew more than the average person, one could say. The man also knew about some of the limits, though.

“And what did you use it for?” Troy asked, bringing on the subject further.

“Basically what I would have done if I would have been to cut you open. I found out where the bleeding was coming from, checked for any other potential damage, and then I sealed it shut using some fancy tampering. It wasn't the cleanest of cases, but I also can't say that I'm not proud of my work.”

“... I think you skipped over some parts there.”

“Oh?” Charlie said, his voice nearly as innocent as his face. “What did I miss?”

“Pretty much the entirety of the details. If you weren't able to bring any tools inside, other than those that would disappear upon completion, how did you stop the bleeding permanently?” Troy questioned, not finding the story told all to complete. “Mind giving me a few more details?”

“How about you get some more to eat, and we’ll see if I am in the mood?”

Troy could already guess how it would turn out.