Time for another entry. I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty boring details of the time spent working my way up the ladder at the make shift hospital.
Most of my coworkers seemed incompetent. It didn’t take me long as a paramedic to prove that I had a knack with saving lives. I had the highest percentage of patients that would be alive when they arrived at the hospital and a higher percentage of them would make it. And I went out of my way to get the patients that were least likely to make it.
So when they lost a doctor to a zombie attack, they chose me to start interning. They gave me a research journal each day that they had unearthed from the old research doctors from before the apocalypse. Told me to read the journal each day and use what knowledge I learned from that to help patients survive. Wasn’t too hard to do so.
I even started putting aside basic hygiene tips and put them in the newspaper each week. Hoshi’s Healthy Habits. See if I can’t reduce the illnesses running around the place. It’s not safe yet to go to the hospital if one does get sick so prevention is key.
I wasn’t surprised when I was quickly promoted up to Resident. It meant I was on call. And I was a high priority option since I only lived a couple doors down. I could get to the hospital pretty quickly to assist. I was still given the research journals and I soon learned that everyone got them. Only real way to get the knowledge that others had already learned. No sense reinventing the wheel.
My quick pick up of the knowledge in the journals led me to introduce several new practices at work and for the newspaper articles. I then suggested we specialize. The journals mentioned surgeons and all sorts of other specialties. We would ahve better success if our doctors didn’t try to specialize in everything. I quickly positioned myself as a Trauma Surgeon and the ranks were adjusted by the end of the week.
And the week going by meant another mob payment. This week it was $1,017. Not too high, I had plenty of money to cover it and to continue adding on to my house.
A couple of days after becoming a Trauma Surgeon, there was a horrible accident over in the Genetic department and the roles were reevaluated. The Boss transferred me to being a gene therapist. Which meant finding out new ways to use genes to fight disorders. Which was a clever way of saying: please try to solve the zombie problem.
A few days later and an epidemic of a flu like illness cropped up. So those of us in non-surgery fields got shifted over to researching that. So I became an Infectious Disease Researcher. It took less than a day with all the increased people to figure out the solution, but they liked me in this position enough that I was not transferred back to the genetic department.
By then the week was over again and mob payment was $1,053.
The day after mob payments were due I went in to work and the head neurosurgeon wasn’t in. And there were a few critical brain surgeries scheduled for that day. I volunteered to go to the neurosurgeon’s house to see why he didn’t come in. Normally not coming in was an offense that was fired immediately. He’d likely get fired after the surgeries, but he was the best. And I didn’t think the patients had to suffer due to those stupid laws. I got to the house to find the military and police there. They quickly informed me that the Neurosurgeon’s wife had zombified the previous night and killed everyone in the house. Which would explain why the Neurosurgeon didn’t show. Can’t show up if you’re dead.
I go back and tell the rest of the hospital. They decide to put me in as the new head Neurosurgeon. I then learned that the old head neurosurgeon was the only one. Which answered my question of why me. I take a few hours and read up on brain surgery and then tackled the surgeries. One made it, the other other did not.
I spent the next day, a day off for me, pouring over every single neurosurgery journal and procedural information I could. Thursday rolls around and the Boss wants to retire. At the end of my shift, the Boss called me into his office and told me that I was his replacement.
It didn’t take me long to implement a whole series of new changes based on what I had learned. The local water system was quickly purified. I had everyone come in on Saturday and Sunday to clean up the water treatment facilities and get them hooked up to generators. Once that was done, it wasn’t too hard to get the water turned back on for people. I passed on the job to someone else Sunday evening. The reason coming up below.
I took early Thursday evening to build up a relationship to a high degree with James Doe. He aged up that night and he was married in on Friday. We quickly decide to start the next generation. Senility has not been solved for the elder population and I’m not getting any younger. And our trying paid off. I was soon pregnant and showing. Which is why I had to quit. I did however tell them to give me a call or stop buy and yell down the hole if they needed a consultation. At least as long as I was still young enough to not be senile. And senility is rapid progression.
Ignore the paparazzi in the background. Hoshi’s a level 2 Celebrity. Somehow James is not even a level 1 celebrity.
Monday rolls around and it’s protection payment day. This week the payment was higher since we had bought a double bed. It was $1,391. Noon comes and I go into labor. I gave birth to twins, Alex and Amelia. Neither have my skin tone. It looks like Amelia may have my ears but it’s hard to tell at this age.
It did not take long for James to find work. He got work down at the Science Lab, after I gave a recommendation. He needed one. He was on the dramatic side and he was one of the few who had regular panic attacks due to the numerous zombie attacks and every other problem that the apocalypse has caused. He did treatments at the hospital a few times, but mostly he just breathes into a bag. But despite those traits, he’s very dependable and doesn’t blow things out of proportion. And he had some knowledge about gardening. And the Science community was really working on a way to get new food growing. The old reserves are not going to last forever.
It did not take long for our babies to reach toddler years. And Amelia does indeed have my ears. I plopped down all of the toddler books I had bought weeks ago and the two began a reading spree. We soon tried for another child, and I was soon showing.
Decided to try the whole no crib strategy. Not a huge deal so far.
Job wise, James progressed at a fast pace due to his knowledge of gardening coming in. By the end of the week he was already a fertilizer analyst. He said he had been promoted three times already. And soon it was time to pay protection again. This time it was $1,568.
Here is what the basement levels look like at this time.
And that is it for this update. Until next time,
Hoshi Tortall
Seera's Apocalypse Tales 