OOM: A Small Error II

[merryeccentricities]

Joly is having a lovely calm day in the Infirmary--running maintenance on a few machines, reading more about the intricacies of engineered retroviral medication from a time his great-grandchildren wouldn't have seen-- when a tall and rather lanky man runs into the room, holding...a goat? A small young goat. Yes. All right!

Joly can guess who he is, from the reports of friends, and Pierre Gringoire--he's even more sure of that when the man begins speaking French-- clearly recognizes him in the same way. "Maitre Joly? You're a friend to Maitre Combeferre, yes? There's been a slight incident." Despite the man's obvious hurry, there's a certain calm to his speech that, yes, does remind Joly a bit of Bossuet, as Prouvaire said.

It's helpful, considering the news. "Yes-- has something's happened to Combeferre? Is he badly hurt?" Joly's already on his feet, ready to gather whatever supplies might be needed.

"No-no, not hurt, at all. In fact some might say he's been given a gift.Only it is a bit surprising. I doubt you'll believe me, if I try to explain it, and I'd rather not leave him and Maitre Segundus alone for too long, given the situation. They're in my room, it's not far at all."

It's not far, indeed. And when the door opens, Joly sees why Gringoire was reluctant to spend time explaining the situation. Oh, Joly would have believed him--but there are any number of gadgets and small tools in evidence, and Combeferre, as he would expect, is already investigating them. Which would not be a problem, except that Combeferre--and what looks like Mister Segundus-- appear to be children, now.

Still, appearances are deceiving! Especially in Milliways! He steps in, a little cautious. "Combeferre? Is that really you?"

(Behind him, he hears Gringoire making polite but audibly urgent apologies for leaving on account of Djali's neccessary animal habits. It's almost certainly just as well; he wouldn't want a young goat in this room, at the moment.)

Comments

[merryeccentricities]

Joly nods. "And you--either of you--you opened no doors, you walked through no gates? Just, suddenly, you were here?"

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Yes," says Sébastien, frowning. "How can that be? Especially if I was already here and older?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly sighs. "That's a very good question. Monsieur Gringoire told me the three of you had been conducting an experiment, which went a bit out of control. It may have caused this. But whether it--deaged your adult selves, or simply switched your places in time, or something else--I really can't say."

He looks between the boys. "Would you be willing to let me examine you both in the Infirmary? Nothing painful, I promise. But I might be able to at least rule some things out, there."

[not_the_second]

"If-- if we must, sir," John says uncertainly. He doesn't really think it safe or right to go with a strange French doctor, but he has also never been the type not to do what he's told. And the longer he stands here, the more he must admit he does feel a bit-- odd, in a way he would be hard-pressed to actually describe.

(But unless Joly's machines can sense a lifelong sensitivity to powerful acts of magic, the feeling can surely be dismissed as merely feeling unsettled in anew place.)

[wings_of_a_swan]

Sébastien is also not completely certain it is right to go with an adult he doesn't know, but obviously M. Joly is a good man.

No, not obviously. It's not good to make assumptions. But the evidence suggests he's a good man. He is kind, he answers questions, he is not suspiciously confident of his answers even when confidence isn't truly called for.

"Very well, monsieur," Sébastien pronounces, after a moment's deliberation. "I think it's important to find out whether the magic made us younger or made us switch places." He smiles. "Do you think grownup me is at school now?"

That's a nice thought. Maybe grownup him could tell the master to stop being so mean and bullying the shyer, slower boys.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles back, sharing at least some of the same thoughts. "If he is, I'm sure it's become a better class than I ever sat through." Not that he went through school as a child, but he's sure Combeferre would have been an amazing lecturer for any time. "Come on--he works with me in the Infirmary, you can see some of what we do."

--

What they do in the Infirmary may not be immediately clear to the younger scholars. Everything is bright lights and shining equipment, and Joly knows it baffled him for long enough. "If you'll both just sit on one of the tables, I'll explain what everything is as I use it?"

[not_the_second]

John climbs obediently up onto one of the tables, eyes wide, and sits in silent wonder. It's all so bright and clean and very, very, strange.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Sébastien, perhaps displaying the traits that got him into this mess in the first place, does not climb up onto one of the tables.

He dashes over to one of the strange, gleaming things on the side, and runs his hand over it. It has buttons and flashing lights, and it takes all Sébastien's self-control not to press all the buttons right away.

That would be impolite. This belongs to M. Joly and pressing the buttons would be like playing with someone else's toys without asking permission, only worse.

So he turns, bright-eyed, to M. Joly, and says, "What does this do?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles, almost as obviously enthusiastic. "It's a monitor. It sees and records so much information! Here-- John, do you mind if I start with you?" Since John is actually sitting down, and all. But Joly can hardly criticize anyone for wanting to run around and see how things work! "See, here are scanners, on the end of these arms-- and I move this here, it will record and examine brain activity, and this here, this will monitor vital organs--" He explains everything,step by step, arranging the scanners and monitors. And then he turns it on, and a half-dozen screens light up with information that would take a doctor hours to collect in their time, and longer to collate.

But something simple first--" See this line? That's your heart activity. John, you can feel your heart beat, how it matches those spikes? And this is blood pressure, here--ah, that's a good number! That's how hard your heart is beating to pump blood out, you see, and that's the pressure to pull it back in."

There's so much to explain! And John is even rather healthy--surprisingly healthy, for a child in the time any of them would call home. Only-- "Listen, when we're done here, you need to go eat, all right? Both of you. I'll talk to Bar, she'll give you as much as you like, anything you like best. So don't skip meals, while you're here." John seems to have both skipped a lot of meals, and had a lot of the wrong thing-- and Joly knows Combeferre never takes attends well to food, unless it's with coffee. But John especially could use some of the healthy food Bar can give so easily. He'll make sure it happens. Children need to eat.

[not_the_second]

"Yes, sir," John says, somewhat unsettled by all the numbers and images and lines.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Sébastien, predictably, is only half paying attention to the talk about food.

But he's listening very eagerly, and watching with wide eyes, as M. Joly talks about the monitor and brain activity and heart activity and blood pressure.

"If you please, M. Joly," he says, after a moment, "if it's no trouble, is there pen and paper somewhere around here?"

He needs to write all this down.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles, because Combeferre is still Combeferre at any age, and because he gets to introduce a friend to one of the simple wonders of Milliways again. He hands over a neat, lined pad of paper, and one of the smooth ballpoint pens. "There you go. Write as much as you like, paper's cheap as anything here."

[wings_of_a_swan]

Sebastien grins and does a little happy bounce. "Thank you!"

Regrettably, he spends the next minute or so clicking the ballpoint pen.