A Scientific Study

Part 3

(Hey, surprise, the story isn't dead! I'm one of those once in a blue moon kind of writers but I was in the mood lately so here you go! It's getting spicier now!)

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Margaret's stomach jumped up into a knot. “C-can you... tell me anything about it?” she pleaded once again.

Dex just shook his head. “Nope, sorry. Don't know myself. Best not put it off any more, though. Come on!” He left the black bag sitting on the table and put his hand around her arm to lead her off again. As they got to the door he pulled a key out of his pocket to unlock it before they continued out into the hall. He took her on the familiar path down the hallway, but kept walking past all 3 examination rooms to open a door that led to a stairwell. They went down the stairs and the air got even chillier as they descended. There was another similar hallway to the one they just left down here and he led her to another frosted glass door labelled “Surgery.” Margaret knew the name didn't necessarily mean that she was going to be operated on, just that this was a room where procedures were done, but the word still made her breath catch in her throat.

The sight she saw when the door was opened did nothing to allay her fears either. Dr. Roberts and Dr. Marks were there as expected, wearing surgical scrubs and masks, and fiddling with all sorts of scary machines and impliments. As scary as that was on its own, she had expected it. What she hadn't expected was for there to be a third person in the room, and the very strange contraption that everything else was centered around.

In the middle it was almost like a normal exam table, except the top of it was much too small for anyone to lay on. On either side of it were metal... railings? They couldn't be railings though, they didn't rise up but went out, parallel from the table. They were curved outwards, and if there had been no breaks at the head and foot of the table they would have formed one giant ring around it. There were various clips and clamps and straps hanging off the metal rails at various points. Margaret had never seen anything like it, and she didn't know what to make of it at all.

If that wasn't enough, standing there wiping the leathery cushioned top of the table down with something that stank of rubbing alcohol was a woman, also in scrubs and mask, her curly red hair tied back in a tight ponytail and her green eyes bright with excitement. It took a moment for Margaret to recognize why she looked familiar but then it came to her. This was Ellen Sorbell. She was a year ahead of Margaret in college, but had taken one of the same classes this semester. Margaret was suddenly furious.

“Why does she get to help and I'm just the guinea pig?” She shouted angrily, pointing at Ellen. Dr. Roberts' head whipped around at that. Apparently he hadn't noticed they had entered until just then.

“You just got here and already you're causing a scene again,” he growled. “Miss Sorbell is more advanced in her studies than you, now get over here and be quiet. Margaret approached, still fuming. Somehow it was even worse knowing that she COULD have gotten a spot as a research assistant, but it went to someone else, rather than simply misinterpreting what the job was. “Mr, Parker, get that gown off and get her into the rotator.”

She felt Dex pull at the strings on her back but didn't fight it. He walked around her to grab the collar of the gown and pulled it down and off, flinging it over a shoulder. He held a hand out politely, indicating for her to approach the table, which she did tenatively. He helped her hop up to sit on the edge of it and then gently said “Lay back.”

“There's not enough- I'll fall!” she protested. And indeed, if she laid back now the top of the table would cut off below even her shoulders.

“I've got you, come on,” he assured her. She slowly did as requested, awkwardly laying over the tiny cushioned table with her head and legs dangling in the air. First Dex squatted down and grabbed her ankles. He very slowly, so as to not startle her, picked them up off the ground and used them to scooch her torso down towards him just enough so her butt was off the edge of the table too. Then he spread her legs apart so she could rest her feet on the ends of the metal bars and quickly moved around to the other side of the table and reached out a hand to support her head. She couldn't see but felt him pull something out from the side of the table underneath her head and then a cushioned headrest was underneath her instead of his hand. She would have been glad of it except for the fact that it had little walls on either side of it to keep her from turning her head or seeing much in her peripheral vision, similar to the setup from yesterday in Dr. Marks' room. Sure enough, next was a strap across her forehead once more and her head was totally immobilized.

Next Dex went around to each of her arms and secured her wrists into rubber cuffs attached to the metal rail, causing her to keep her arms outstretched to either side and slightly above her shoulders like she was to be making a snow angel. Her legs were next. The ankles went into similar cuffs and another, more solid ring was clasped around each leg, just under the knee, connected to the rail by a smaller pole. After being scooched down, the top edge of the table was under her shoulders and the bottom edge ended at her tailbone. Last to be put in place was two pieces that were brought out to go over top of her collarbone and neck, and the other to cover her abdomen. They connected to the edges of the table and locked in place. Now she was well and truly helpless.

“What is this thing?” she whispered to Dex as he double checked all the locks and straps.

“Nothing terrible, I think it can just move you into whatever position they need,” he replied in a low voice.

Great, Margaret thought. I'm sure every position will be mortifying as well. She had almost gotten used to the Doctors and Dex seeing her naked all the time, but now she had to deal with the embarassment of a classmate witnessing it as well.

“All right, no more time to waste, let's begin,” said Dr. Roberts.

“Let me fill Miss Lee in, first,” protested Dr. Marks.

Dr Roberts tutted. “Fine, let's make it quick though, we've got a lot of work to get through.”

Dr Marks nodded and turned to Margaret, looking down at her with a smile. “Are you doing all right, today? You look in better spirits.”

She sighed. “I don't know about better... just tell me what's going on, please?”

“Well, the purpose of our work today is to make a sort of... map of your body. We have the technology to use microscopic nanomachines to transmit... almost any kind of data to our computers and track any changes in real time. It's quite advanced.”

It did sound interesting, if she didn't have to be a test subject to experience it. As it was, she saved her enthusiasm until after she learned what that was going to mean for her, in practice.

“The only thing we're doing today is getting those into you, so we can connect to them and use them.”

“How... do you get them in?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“There are several ways we'll be inserting them. We have created a liquid that they are suspended in, so we will be using that to spread them through your body. As the liquid moves around inside you, they'll cling to the walls of your organs and remain there after the liquid is drained.”

Margaret's brow knitted.

“I know it might sound a little intimidating. Some parts may be a bit uncomfortable, but we won't hurt you, I promise.” Dr. Marks gave her a comforting smile.

“All right, that's enough coddling, let's go,” barked Dr. Roberts, typing something into a computer that was behind Margaret's head. Immediately the contraption she was strapped into began to move, rotating 90 degrees until she was upright, not stainding but suspended in the almost-ring shape. She made a noise of alarm as it moved but nothing else seemed to happen. Now that she was up, though she could see better. She saw Dex, back in the corner of the room by the door, arms folded, watching silently. She saw the doctors and their student assistant all pull their surgical masks up over their mouth and nose. She knew it was standard protocall for any sort of medical procedure, no matter how serious, but it was still an intimidating sight. Dr. Marks began to stick nodes to her chest which had wires attached to the same rails as her limbs were, and soon she heard the beeping of a heart monitor begin.

“We'll start with the lungs, so we can administer the relaxant at the same time,” Dr. Roberts announced. “Sorbell?” Ellen wheeled a small anesthesia machine into view and detached a plastic mask, reaching up to bring the elastic around Margaret's shower-capped head so the mask was securely over her mouth and nose. She smiled as she met Margaret's eyes, but it seemed more as though she were enjoying Margaret's predicament than that she was being comforting. But maybe she was biased.

Margaret wanted to ask what sort of gas they were going to give her, but couldn't speak clearly enough to be heard from under the mask. She had a feeling that the original explanation from Dr. Marks was all she was going to get.

Dr. Marks pressed some buttons on the machine and she felt air start to blow into her mask. She was expecting to drift out of consciousness, but that didn't happen. Instead she felt most of her muscles loosen and she slumped a bit in her constraints. She wiggled her fingers, testing her movement. She could still move but it was slow and she had a bit less control.She was disappointed. She didn't seem to be numbed or knocked out, which would've at least meant she didn't have to feel or expeience the procedure. Instead she was just robbed of even more control over herself, but otherwise just as present.

“That should do it,” said Dr. Marks, winking at Margaret over his mask in what he probably thought was a reassuring way. He pushed more buttons and the airflow stopped, but they didn't remove the mask. Instead, Dr. Roberts walked into view with a bag of bluish liquid, which he attached to a nozzle on the anesthesia machine.

“All right, let's switch to the nano-liquid,” he said, walking back to resume his post at the computer. Margaret started to feel a little uneasy. Sureley they couldn't fill her lungs with liquid, she would drown! But Dr. Marks pushed some more buttons and then the air flow began again. It was being converted to a gas form that she was breathing in. Much preferable to being drowned, but the more she breathed in, the more it stung. It felt like hundreds of tiny pinpricks in her lungs. She made a loud noise of displeasure and her body attempted to curl up, but was unable to. She began coughing and couldn't stop, but nobody around made a move to help. Finally, when she felt like she was about to pop a lung from coughing so hard, she heard Dr. Roberts say “That should do it,” and the flow of the gas stopped. Soon after, the mask was taken off of her and she desperately gasped in lungfulls of fresh air, still coughing for a short while until her body was satisfied that it wasn't being poisoned any more.

“Establishing a connection to the nanomachines… ah! It looks like that has worked beautifully. The map is coming in clear” came Dr. Roberts’ voice from behind her. “Let’s continue with the facial cavities.” Margaret was hoping for a moment to recover but predictably, she didn’t get it. The contraption rotated her back, still spread-eagle, to a dentist chair angle, and Ellen began to approach her with an eye-dropper in hand. “You can go ahead and administer the drops, Sorbell. Twenty to each eye.”

“Yes, got it,” came Ellen’s voice, sounding eager. Margaret was still attempting to clear her throat to get rid of that itch to cough when the lids of her left eye were pried apart by a gloved hand and her eye was drenched in more of the blue liquid. Luckily this wasn’t quite as unpleasant, although it made her eyes tingle a little and she wished she could reach up and rub them. Ellen repeated the procedure on the other eye, and then it was Dr. Mark’s turn to bring a bulb full of the blue stuff and squirt it into her ears. The sound of the rushing liquid was loud, but similarly tolerable. after each new cavity was filled with the liquid and drained, Dr Roberts at his computer confirmed that the nanomachines were online and transmitting information.

Margaret assumed that the gas had taken care of her nose and mouth, which was correct, but she wasn’t expecting them to be quite as thorough as they were until Dr. Marks began to measure a length of plastic tubing from her nose to her ear and downward. Margaret whined in protest. She knew what that meant and would’ve been a lot happier if she hadn’t. Dr. Marks chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’ll live,” he said brightly as he marked a spot on the length of tubing and dipped the tip of it in a packet of lubrication. “All right, swallow for me, now.” He began running the tube up her nose and down into her stomach as she attempted to swallow and help it along but there was just as much gagging involved as anything. She winced and moaned her discomfort but it made no difference to anyone there.

Once the tubing was fully in place, more of that horrible blue liquid was pushed through it and into her stomach, until she was so full it started to hurt. “Oww,” she grumbled. It felt like she had eaten way too much at Thanksgiving dinner, but Dr Marks thankfully let up on the nanoliquid just then and clamped off the end of the tube, taping it to the side of her face.

“Commence rotation,” he said in a more businesslike tone than when he spoke to her. Before Margaret had time to wonder what that meant, the contraption that held her immobile began to move again. Very slowly, it laid her back until she was completely parallel to the ground again, but it didn’t stop there. It continued going, slowly, until she was upside-down and then brought her back around and up the other side. Margaret was immensely grateful for its slow pace or she would surely have vomited up all that blue stuff along the way. When she was straight up again, it came to a stop and then promptly began turning her the other way, as though she was performing a very slow cartwheel. Margaret assumed this unpleasantness was to get the liquid to cover all the sides of her stomach, so the nanomachines could coat them properly. Dr. Marks and Ellen circled around her all this time, watching closely and taking down notes on a clipboard. She was really starting to feel like she herself was a science experiment.

When they were finally done sloshing her around, Dr. Marks pulled some of the excess liquid out through the tube with a syringe. “The rest can make its way through the small intestine, it’s perfectly safe,” he said. Margaret wondered if that was supposed to be for her benefit. It wasn’t like she had a choice. She was distracted by this thought as Dr. Marks began to pull the tube out of her nose causing her to gag once again.

“All right, stomach is online. Let’s do the duct injection next. Prepare the subject accordingly,” came Dr. Roberts’ voice before the tube was even all the way out of her. Couldn’t the man give her three seconds of rest?

Apparently not. As soon as Dr. Marks stepped away to dispose of the tube she was once again on the move, rotated until she was back to her laying down position, flat on her back. Ellen approached her with a bottle of disinfectant, which she began to swab onto Margaret’s breasts. Margaret began to get nervous. “What’s that for?” She asked quietly.

“It’s just disinfectant,” came the unhelpful reply.

“I know but-“ Before she could say any more Ellen hurried off again and instead Dr. Roberts was there, his attention focused on preparing a syringe with a very long, thin needle. Margaret began to shake. “What are you doing?” she managed to squeak out.

“Ductography. Keep still,” he replied curtly. Margaret did her best to comply but it was hard to stop shaking with that intimidating sight in view. “Kent, will you help me steady the injection site?” he asked, after seeing the shaking wasn’t subsiding.

“Of course,” said Dr. Marks, approaching from her opposite side and clamping her left breast in his warm, steady hand. He gave her a small smile as Dr. Roberts began filling the needle with blue liquid. She squeezed her eyes shut. The combination of embarrassment and terror was heady. She couldn’t bear to watch any more. She squeezed her eyes shut as the needle approached, but it didn’t stop the sharp bite as the needle entered her nipple. She couldn’t help letting a wimper escape.

Then the burn of the injected liquid began, not as painful as the needle but much longer lasting. She gritted her teeth to endure it. “Okay, now the right,” came Dr. Roberts’ voice again. She squeezed her eyes even tighter as she felt the touch shift to the other side. One tear still escaped and dripped down to wet the edge of her ear. The sharp pain seemed worse on this side, when it came, but the burn that followed was easier to take. Once she heard Dr. Roberts confirm that everything looked right on his screen, she opened her eyes back up and blinked away the wetness. “Next position,” came the order. Suddenly the band below her knees began to rise and the ones around her ankles widened. She had known in the back of her mind this must have been coming, but since the damn had broken at the pain of the needle, the tears just continued to flow, silently. She heard Dr. Roberts make a grunt like he had noticed something unusual, and then her shame was made complete. “Subject’s tear ducts are activating. The nanos in the eye are reporting perfectly.”

She felt a gloved hand touch her shoulder and Dr. Marks’ sympathetic face came into view above her. She was sick of looking at it. If he wasn’t going to help, then his sympathy was only pity, and it only made her feel more pitiful. He lifted one of her eyelids with a thumb and shone a small light in first one eye, then the other. “Everything looks fine,” he reported, giving her a pat on the shoulder as he retreated again. She had never in her life wanted to spit on anybody until that moment.

“Nanos do not appear to be washing out. We can continue,” Roberts said in reply, before he grabbed something that sounded like crinkly plastic. “Next we will be inserting the catheter.” Margaret gasped and groaned loudly. The only spot left they hadn’t poked something into, and she was losing that too. “Please disinfect the area.”

Margaret was staring straight at the ceiling. She had no wish to watch any of these people interact with her poor bare vagina. She felt a hand push apart her labia and something cold wipe up and down the length of her exposed slit. She shivered at the sensation. She sucked in her breath as she felt something push into the entrance of her urethra, but it didn’t advance any further. Instead, it just injected more coldness inside of her and retreated. After that she heard the footsteps of the doctors rearranging position and then the long tube began its invasion. She winced and the tears kept flowing, but this at least didn’t hurt her much. A slight burning right at the entrance, maybe. At one point it stopped its progress and she got the order to “Relax,” barked at her sharply by Dr. Roberts. She did her best and it must have been enough. The tube continued its journey until it was all the way inside her bladder. “Inflating the balloon,” came another curt narration and then he tugged it back in place and it was done. She felt like she was urinating with no control over it, and she tried to squirm in reflex but her bonds didn’t allow it. They waited a moment, presumably for her bladder to empty, before Dr. Roberts announced they would begin inserting the nano solution.

The cold feeling so far inside her was a bit startling and intense. She once again attempted to shift her weight, subconsciously trying to mitigate the discomfort, but of course was foiled again by the immovable stability of the restraints, so she just let out a small moan of frustration instead. Once her bladder was so full she began to feel like she would burst at any second, the pressure was released again, draining her bladder once more. She barely had time to sigh in relief before the balloon was drained as well and the tube began to slide back out of her. This was an even more intense feeling of uncontrollable urination, but she gritted her teeth and got through it.

Dr. Roberts checked his monitors again, confirming that these nanos too were connecting fine. Then Margaret heard the now familiar clanking sound of a metal speculum being prepared and finally looked down the length of her body, between her legs in alarm, to see Dr. Marks standing there spreading lube on the dreaded tool. She quickly returned her gaze to the ceiling but couldn’t erase the image from her brain. She began shaking again and the tears flowed faster. She could hear the steady beeping of the heart monitor speed up a little, giving her anxiety away. She felt Dr. Marks’ hand on her thigh.

“It’ll be all right, Margaret, I need you to remain calm. Remember last time, how it was eaiser once you were calm?”

Margaret did remember last time, but she didn’t remember it being easier. She remembered being lulled into a false sense of security and then having a huge instrument shoved inside her very suddenly. She took a few deep breaths, attempting to follow directions, but it didn’t help. She saw Dr. Roberts pass by her on his way to join Dr. Marks and it made her tense up even more.

“I can take care of this procedure, Doctor, if that would be easier on your constitution,” she heard Dr. Roberts say in a slightly sarcastic tone. She didn’t hear Dr. Marks reply, but soon she saw him again in her peripheral vision, and she knew he’d surrendered his spot between her legs. She choked back a sob so as not to let Dr. Roberts hear it. She was sure this was about to be her worst nightmare.

Without any warning, the cold and the pressure began. She grunted, and was told “Relax your muscles,” sharply by Dr. Roberts. She did not see how she could be expected to do so on command, but still she tried. Nothing seemed to happen.

She heard Dr. Marks attempt to interject. “Like I told you before, she is smaller than-”

“It’s fine,” Dr. Roberts’ voice interrupted. “That shouldn’t be much of a problem, the patient simply needs to stop being difficult.” He punctuated the last word with another shove, and Margaret shouted in surprise. Dr. Roberts growled in annoyance. “Sorbell, please gag the patient. I can’t have loud distractions during such a delicate procedure.”

“N-no please-” Margaret began to protest in a small voice as Ellen approached her. Ellen simply pushed the piece of rubber into her mouth as she opened it to speak.

“Bite down,” she instructed, emotionless, even as she cupped Margaret’s chin with one hand and began to force her to. Margaret’s teeth fell into slots in the rubber and the part inside her mouth pressed down on her tongue uncomfortably. Then some kind of strap was secured around her head and any further noises she could make were very muffled and there was no way she could form words. She tried to make a noise and beg Ellen with her eyes but was completely ignored as Ellen disappeared from view once again.

“Much better,” said Dr. Roberts, redoubling his efforts to shove the speculum into her. It was beginning to really hurt, and she tried to scream but it was so muffled she could barely be heard at all. Finally something gave and the instrument slid in quickly, hitting her cervix and causing her to again let out a silent scream. “Finally,” the doctor muttered, unconcerned. Then the dreaded thing was opening her wider and wider, once again stretching her beyond what she felt like she could bear. Her gutteral growl of pain was heard by nobody but her. “Syringe,” she heard the doctor say. All of a sudden she was cramping as her cervix was being pushed into. More noises of anguish were muffled by the gag. They continued with the procedure regardless, slowly rotating the speculum to access all sides of her vaginal walls as they used a long tool with a spray nozzle on the end to coat it all in the nano liquid.

This whole ordeal had taken barely five minutes, but it felt like an eternity before they were done inserting the liquid and had removed everything from inside her. By that time she was taking shuddering breaths. It was getting hard to breathe with her nose running from crying and the gag blocking her mouth. At a ping from the data screen, Dr. Roberts’ attention was called to the issue as her lungs began to complain.

“Kent, will you get the aspirator and clear the airways please,” he sighed, as though annoyed that her misery was inconveniencing him. An alarming few moments passed as, through the haze of tears, Margaret watched Dr. Marks approach her face with a suction rod and suddenly all the mucus and air both were being sucked from one nostril at a time, but at least afterward she could breathe again.

As usual, there was no time to bask in the relief. The table began to move again. Her legs were kept in the same position as she herself was flipped forward until the was upside-down, facing the floor, tilted downwards at a slight angle, and then her bent knees were forced even closer to her chest. It wasn’t hard to guess what was coming next. As the tears continued to flow, they dripped onto the tile floor and she sincerely hoped one of the doctors would slip on them.

Just as expected, Margaret felt an intruder worm its way in to dispense lubrication from the inside. Once that was done a small rubbery tube replaced it, and she gasped suddenly as a balloon filled with air just inside the ring of muscle to keep it in place. Then the tube began to quickly fill her up with the nano liquid. She began to cramp almost immediately and the crying turned to moans of anguish, still muffled by the gag. The tube continued to fill her until the cramps were accompanied by both a violent need to go, and the raw burning sensation that seemed to be caused by the nanobots attaching, but even if she wanted to expel, she couldn’t with the balloon thoroughly plugging up the exit, so all she could do was vaguely jiggle the restraints in futile protest until it was over and the liquid was being drained away again.

As the doctors conferred over the monitor screen, making sure the bots were connecting as intended, Margaret was once again rotated until she was flat on her back, and her legs were mercifully straightened out as well, and her arms rotated to being angled downward instead of above her head.

Dr. Roberts seemed uncharacteristically cheerful as he turned away from the screen to face her. “This is going better than I had hoped,” she heard him remark to his companion. “Prepare the last phase of injection, both of you.”

Ellen wheeled a cart closer from the back of the room and Margaret would’ve sworn her heart stopped if she hadn’t actually heard the steady beeping of the heart monitor speed up. Layed out in perfect symmetry on a tray atop the cart were three enormous syringes, pre-filled almost to the maximum with the blue nano-liquid, and three sterile packages with long, thick needles that her three tormenters were already tearing open and attaching to the syringes. Margaret began to thrash around to the best of her ability, trying in desperation to escape this fate, but nothing seemed to give. She was helpless to stop them as they surrounded her.

“Relax, Margaret, you’re going to be fine,” came Dr. Mark’s voice. At one time she might have described his voice as relaxing, but now it was only contemptible to her.

Dr. Roberts was beside her head now, the other two flanking her at her sides. Gloved hands pressed down on her arms and under her chin. cold alcohol pads swabed her neck and the crooks of her elbows. Margaret tried to squeeze a hail Mary plea out around her gag but it was unintelligible and she suspected it wouldn’t have mattered either way. She began to shake as she saw the needles approaching her skin. The bite of the three of them piercing her simultaneously was worse than any injection she’d ever had, but then it was drowned out by the overwhelming burning as the solution was pumped into her, ever so slowly.

There was so much of it to inject that it seemed to take eons, and the burning only got worse as it went along. Margaret began to hyperventilate and somewhere in the background she heard the beeping of the nanos in her lungs alerting the doctor. She felt Dr. Marks pause on her left side. “Something’s wrong…” he muttered.

“It’s just the subject’s anxiety, keep going,” Dr. Roberts barked, and the burning continued, rising and washing over her like ocean waves. Her chest was heaving with the short, shallow breaths she was taking and she heard the beeping intensify. Dr. Marks’ voice rose, saying something about white blood cells but Margaret felt like she was too deep underwater to understand. Then her eyes rolled back and she lost consciousness.

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