"Gangrene, Connor? [i]Really?[/i] Drama much?" Abby rolled her eyes, her lips a thin line of disapproval, and the march toward Major Lane's office remained relentless.

But Connor's words didn't really fall on deaf ears, even if they rang of the vaguely paranoid. Most everyone knew of the NI-techs, knew that someone somewhere had violated every biomedical ethic known to mankind to bring them into existence. The [i]Copernicus[/i] needed the minds of these men and women to negotiate the folded spaces that would actually make a journey of untold light-years, into a 'mere' 15 year sojourn.

But not even here, at the very end of their world, could anyone square the ethical circle of what had been done to NI-techs - well, not anyone with a functioning conscience, that is. Abby really did understand Connor's genuine concern, even paranoia, in the face of reality.

"Look Connor, just listen, please - well, give me a chance at least?" Abby said softly, her voice gentle and conciliatory as she looked up into those genuinely frightened brown eyes. "Major Lane is a nurse - just a nurse. She's not some part of the military medical complex... Circus.... Thing. She's this short little Indian woman who, in all likelihood... " 

She stopped to look Connor up and down, and then shrugged her shoulders with a grin. "Yeah, you've got at least a foot on her. I'd lay money on it, that you could take her."

Abby pulled up before a door that looked like so many others on the [i]Copernicus,[/i] only the small clear plastic plaque attached outside labeling the place in large black block letters "INFIRMARY" 

She pressed the intercom quickly, smiled into the keypad camera for a moment before looking back up to Connor. "And if it helps at all? I'll stay with you the whole time in her office - in her definitely [i]not[/i] sterile-white or scary infirmary. If I remember Major Lane, I bet she has her watercolors up by now, just like at the Mountain. All kinds of lovely landscapes, all the seasons, all hand-painted. Now really, what kind of amoral evil men-in-black brain doctor paints watercolors, I ask you?"

In truth, Abby was not pleased at all to hear anyone should be performing imaging scans on Connor's brain when, of course, there seemed to be absolutely no good reason to do so. She resolved in the back of her thoughts, to bring this up to Gavin when she saw him again later. 

"But if she does Connor? If she makes a single move toward your brilliant blue head, and not your arm?" The soldier patted the sidearm snugly fit into her hip holster with a wink, a lift of the eyebrows and a knowing grin. "Yeah, I got you covered Connor. Not on [i]my[/i] watch," she whispered.

As if on cue, the metal door slid open, revealing an infirmary that, at first glance, didn't appear to be much more than a glorified doctor's office. A small slender woman looked up to Abby and Connor with a tentative smile. "First Sergeant, good to see you. And you must be... Well, we didn't catch names, did we? Well 'gentleman with the extensive laceration,' I'm Devika. Come in, come in... " Devika turned on her heel, to the long examining table where she pulled from a roll of paper, covering it's plastic cushioned surface before patting it, looking up at Connor expectantly. 

"Let me wash my hands here, get some gloves, and I guess we'll see what we'll see there... "