Vampires in Space

New World

Heather sat up suddenly. With her abilities, I guess its a good thing she did not fly up.

I was on ward duty at the time, and the suddenness was a very non-traditional awakening. The readouts went from a deep coma to awake before I could even call anyone. Normally you see a taper up through REM to warn you. Not this time.

Heather looked around the clinic room with wide-awake eyes.

"Hang on Heather. You are still fully wired up for quadraphonic surround sound and 3-d holography. Every sensor Jessicaq and Nakoma have? It's somewhere on you right now." I cautioned her.

Heather looked up at the panel over the bed with her readouts, slightly puzzled. There was no such display. We can generate 3-D images from the data, but the bedside stuff is all 2-D, The outline of her body stepped through depths normally. It was all messed out now since she was not lying down. Some of the range sliders for setting up scanners are 3-D-looking. Very Star Trek.

"Kidding about the 3-D. Sorry. Should not kid around with the newly awakened. Take a sec and look at yourself. You are very connected. I can disconnect you if you like, or I can have a real Doctor up here fast. I know from experience it is zero fun to be piped in."

"You." Heather said simply, if garbled by her feeding tube. She pointed at me to underline her need to be unhooked as soon as possible. I understood that. How I felt when I woke up all those decades ago. Pissed off the night nurse royally when I did it myself. That was a simpler time, medically. Heather had taken so long to turn she had extra stuff on her, not even counting all the remote sensing gear tucked up in the ceiling over the bed.

I have been around this procedure many times. I had no issues stopping the many device recordings, noting the wake-up time in the log. All the standard wakeup protocols. Heather tried not to look impatient as I worked.

I pulled the feeding tube first. That is the most uncomfortable. Also blocks talking.

"Call Nakoma." I said to the room communicator as I worked.

Nakoma was the on-shift Doc, but even without video, she had obviously asleep right before she answered. "Hey, Dad."

"Hey, darling. Heather just snapped awake. I mean that very literally. Went from zero to sitting up in seconds. Never transitioned up through any sleep stages. None of them. Coma to awake. No stopping to dream. I'm unplugging her now. Thought you'd want to know."

"On my way." Nakoma hung up.

I worked on the specially designed by my dad, Vampire edition EEG, EKG, and various other wires around the upper body. Some of the sensor suite is special, to be able to track physical changes from human to Vampire. Especially sensors that look at neural wiring. For other things like the heart, human stuff works fine. The heart gets larger and stronger, same as any other muscle, but how often it beats can be seen just fine with standard gear. As the changes occur, the heart slows. Nothing special about the gear that tracks that. You just want to know what the heart rate is. Besides all of that, the remote sensors look inside, at geometry changes. For some things like eye development, the Doctor's monitor change trajectory with hand-held Vampire edition ophthalmoscopes. It's not nice to have your eyes peeled back by machines all hours of the day and night, even when you are in a coma. Doctors are gentler. It also gives them a chance to be up close to the patient and let their own senses check status.

Heather watched the methodical process of unhooking her with interest. She did not seem to care about her nudity or me touching her skin to peel up the various probes dotting her arms, legs, torso, chest, or head. Our setup is very new with all the finest in remote sensing tech, but we also like the on-skin sensors. We like to collect as much data as we can on all turns, and Heathers was a very special case so she got every connection tech we owned or knew about.