glumshoe:

glumshoe:

Dr. 1: “hey since when did we have a robot nurse.”
Dr. 2: “oh he started last week.”
Dr. 1: “I see. what’s he doing to that patient?”
Dr. 2: “he’s just taking a blood sample. he’s got testing equipment inside of him where a stomach should be. measures all sorts of useful things.”
Dr. 1: “hmm. he uh… sure seems to be taking a lot of blood…”
Dr. 2: “it’s fine he knows what he’s doing.”
Dr. 1: “I don’t know, doc, that patient isn’t looking so good…”
Dr. 2: “I promise it’s fine, he’s just—oh.”
Dr. 1: “my god… what have you done?! you’ve exsanguinated him!”
Robot nurse: “sure, but his cholesterol levels are very healthy! would you like a print off of the results?”
Dr. 2: “YOU HAVE TO STOP DOING THIS!”
Dr. 1: “you mean this isn’t the first person he’s drained?!”
Dr. 2: “it’s the sixth! we tried to return him but we lost the receipt and admin told us to make the best of it.”

“Bad news and good news,” said Dr. Hinkle. “Bad news is, I still can’t find the receipt.”

“And the good news?” asked Dr. Surloch.

“I found the box he came in. It’s still got the instruction manual inside.”

Dr. Surloch brightened. The last two weeks had just about wrecked his nerves. His hands had begun to tremble, whether from sleep deprivation, over-caffination, or terror, he was not sure. He hadn’t had a good night’s rest since the previous Monday – every time he closed his eyes, he saw that robot‘s surgical steel face looking up at him, fresh blood dribbling from its lamprey-like mouth. Why had they given it rows of razor-sharp teeth?! One day, he thought, he’d track down those Silicon Valley freaks responsible for putting that thing on the market and show them a few of the anatomical skills he’d picked up while earning his doctorate.

“Well? How do we deactivate it?”

Dr. Hinkle’s smile faltered. “That’s the other bad news. We can’t.”

“Who the fuck builds a robot you can’t turn off?! Who builds a robot that drinks blood—“

“Wait a minute!” interjected Dr. Hinkle. “We can let it power down naturally. That shouldn’t be too hard. We just have to keep it out of direct sunlight for three days and prevent it from switching to auxiliary power cells.”

Dr. Surloch groaned. “Three days?! It’s already exsanguinated thirteen people! Leonard, we can’t let it kill any more.“

“I know.” Dr. Hinkle looked away and scuffed his shoe against the floor. “I wish we could destroy it, but corporate won’t allow us. The malpractice lawsuits are cheaper than the price tag.”

“This is not a very good hospital,” said Dr. Surloch.

The other doctor grimaced and nodded. “No, it’s not,” he said softly. “But we are good doctors. Maybe it’s time to add a new clause to the Hippocratic Oath: I swear to kick some robot ass.”

Dr. Surloch chewed his lip. “I like the sentiment behind it, but I think it needs workshopping. Do you have a plan?”

“Yes. But you won’t like it.”

As a matter of fact, he did not like it. Dr. Surloch had no problem with needles when they were piercing someone else’s skin, but the sight of a transfusion needle sticking out of his own arm made him queezy. Not that it mattered – the plan didn’t require him to be conscious. All he had to do was lie quietly while Dr. Hinkle and a few trusted nurses set the trap.

The robot – Vlad, as they had dubbed him – was to be lured into a basement storage room under the pretense of being needed for blood sugar analysis. Dr. Surloch would be waiting for him in a cot, face covered to obscure his identity in case the robot grew suspicious. Once Vlad had latched on, Dr. Hinkle would begin the continuous transfusion.

It was a risky operation. The calculated rate of blood removal was approximate – no one had had the opportinity to measure Vlad’s suction. If the calculation was too low, Dr. Surloch would be slowly exsanguinated before the robot’s power ran out. If it was too high, his blood vessels would burst from the volume and pressure within them.

They had appropriated almost the entire supply of stock from the blood bank. Dr. Surloch has been chosen for this role because he was type AB+ and able to receive any kind of blood they had on hand. If this didn’t work, the hospital would lose its entire blood supply, a good doctor, and its only chance of defeating an unstoppable automaton vampire. If it did work, they’d have a lot of explaining to do.

Dr. Surloch wasn’t sure how much blood Vlad could consume. He seemed capable of draining an entire adult human in one sitting – about five liters. Nobody knew what happened to the blood once his internal testing apparatuses finished analyzing it. Perhaps he discarded it somewhere in private, or incinerated it using an internal autoclave. That was Dr. Hinkle’s theory. Dr. Surloch imagined he kept it all stored inside like a giant metal tick.

The plan had come from a rumor Dr. Hinkle had heard on the playground when he was a child. That was a lousy and questionable origin for any plan, but it was all they had. “I heard that if you flex your muscles while a mosquito is feeding on you, its proboscis will get stuck in your skin and it’ll keep sucking until it pops,” Dr. Hinkle had said. “I don’t know if it’s true for insects, but maybe it works for robots. If he doesn’t pop, hopefully we’ll just keep him occupied with constant suction and analysis for three days until his batteries run down and he shuts off.”

It would be far simpler just to take a crowbar to Vlad’s delicate electronics, but that would require vandalizing expensive hospital property. Besides, the robot was made of titanium and steel. They were doctors, dammit, not action heroes.