Grace stepped forward, extending her hand, “I’m Simone’s wife, Grace Penn. I assume Dr. Jonas didn’t tell you Simone had been stazed?” Grace inclined her head toward the Stade, “She’s in that Stade over there.”
“Oh! Yes, sorry, he did tell us one of our patients had been, um… stazed.” Her eyes turned to lock onto the big Stade. “I’d just lost track of which one. She’s inside the big silver thing?”
“Um-hum,” Grace said, a little disconcerted to have to explain it.
“Can we get her out? I need to examine her and see how she’s feeling. Then I’ll bring Dr. Jonas up to speed and we’ll get him in here.”
“Um…” Grace said, terribly uncomfortable. “I’d really rather not. Simone felt like she was dying when she was stazed. I’m reluctant to bring her out before you guys are ready to treat her if she crashes.”
Dr. Vargas looked startled and concerned, “And how long has she been in the… Stade now?”
“About two months.”
Round eyed with dismay, Vargas said, “She’s been in there two months? Um, what’s she been eating?”
Shit! Grace thought. She has no idea what she’s dealing with here. Trying to stay polite, she said, “Uh, she hasn’t been eating, Time’s stopped inside the Stade.”
“And you think she’s going to be okay when you open it up?” Vargas asked, obviously incredulous, but trying not to show just how crazy she thought Grace was.
“She’ll be very sick. Exactly the same as she was the moment she was stazed. To her, it’ll seem as if no time has passed. She felt like she was dying when she went in stasis and she’ll still feel like she’s dying.”
“Okaay,” Vargas said, drawing out the word and unconsciously showing how dubious she felt. “How about if you let me ask some questions about the status of her symptoms when she was stazed?”
Grace nodded and Vargas drew a brief history from her, learning that Simone had been getting more and more exhausted over the days and weeks before getting stazed. That on the morning she’d been stazed, she’d been so weak Grace had been having to hold her up. That her mind had been clear but she’d been short of breath.
When she was done, Vargas said Simone did sound like she’d been in bad shape. She asked doubtfully, “And you think her symptoms will be unchanged this morning?”
Biting her tongue, Grace nodded.
“Okay. Let me go talk to Dr. Jonas and see how he wants to handle this.”
~~~
It was another fifteen minutes before Dr. Jonas entered, “Sorry!” He shook his head. “It’s been a crazy day.” He nodded at Vargas who’d come in with him. “Ally’s been reminding me of all the symptoms Simone was having right before she was stazed.” He gave a subtle grin and said, “She’s also been making it obvious that I didn’t explain stasis to my team very well this morning.” He glanced at Simone’s Stade and said, “I’m thinking we should be ready to start an IV and draw bloods as soon as Simone comes out of stasis, so I’ve got our nurses getting set up for that.” He frowned, “Have you considered what you’ll do if she’s indeed really sick? Would you want to put her back in stasis?”
Though she felt distraught at the possibility, Grace nodded.
Jonas looked around at the others. “Am I correct that some of these other folks came to bring her out of stasis, and that could they put her back in if necessary?”
Grace nodded and explained how they wanted to lay Simone out on the stasis bag they’d arranged on the infusion chair-bed.
Jonas gave a firm nod. “Okay. Sorry, this is taking so long. I’m going to try to get our other patients taken care of but I’ll be back when the nurses are ready.
~~~
There’d been another wait, then some nurses came in and set up their equipment.
Vargas returned to say they should be ready in 5-10 minutes if the team could get ready to unstaze.
Finally, Jonas returned briskly with Vargas, his fellow, a Dr. Valsic, and two nurses. He said, “Go ahead and unstaze.”
***
Months earlier
Simone sat on the folding chair inside the big cardboard box as the people from Staze folded what looked like shiny plastic around the front of the box. It looked like a heavy version of the Mylar blankets she’d wrapped up in at the end of races.
Though her memories of running 10Ks seem to be from another life and a long time ago.
Gunnar peered in at Simone and said, “It’s gonna be dark in there for a couple minutes until we get everything closed up and can staze you, okay?”
Simone nodded.
She could hear people working on the plastic for a bit. Then she heard Gunnar ask, “How long should we staze her for?”
Grace said, “We’ll just unstaze her when Arvinzamab’s approved, right?”
“Yeah,” Gunnar replied, “but we have to choose a time that she’d come out even if we all got killed and never unstazed her.”
From inside the Mylar and the box, Simone said, “If you guys aren’t around to unstaze me I’m gonna be on my own anyway. So, set it for a century. They’re sure to have a cure by then. I’ll just have to hope someone finds me and helps me get set up for treatment.” She thought, Though, the way I’m feeling, if no one’s right there, I’ll probably die before I can get out of this box and find someone.
Grace said, “Don’t even think that! I will be there next year when we bring you out.”
An electronic whine came from nearby.
Grace’s voice came from just outside the box, “See you soon
