Upgrade
| Upgrade | |
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| Dates run: | September 2, 2005 - January 16, 2006 |
| Run By: | Erik and Rossi |
| Read the logs: | Upgrade |
Mechanical-Biological Interface: Voltage overload. Unsalvageable. Left Leg: Severed. Remnants damaged. Unsalvageable. Right Leg: Mass deformation trauma. Irreparable. Possibly salvageable. Bone Lacing: 70% intact. Remnants salvageable depending on biological cooperation. Thrust Vector Pack: Offline. Structural damage. Nonfunctional. Irreparable. Unsalvageable. Spinal Interface: Offline. Nonfunctional. Irreparable.
++REPAIRS IMPOSSIBLE. RECOMMEND COMPLETE REBUILD. WILL HE LIVE?
A long pause, then the reply.
++WE DON'T KNOW.
Following his beating at the hands of Omega Red, Haroun's life hangs in the balance and only a medical and technological miracle will save him.
Contents
Cast
Haroun al-Rashid, Alison Blaire, Cain Marko, Moira MacTaggart - Phase 1, Dr. Jean Grey, Henry McCoy, Madelyn Bartlet, Forge, Doug Ramsey, Kitty Pryde, Paige Guthrie, Bobby Drake
Timing
September 2, 2005 - January 16, 2006
Plot Summary
Rushed into medlab in critical condition, suffering serious physical injuries and damage to the cyberware and infected with Omega Red's deathspores, Haroun clung to life as the medlab staff swung into action. Jean and Madelyn put him immediately into isolation, refusing to let new parents Moira and Hank risk themselves to possible contamination. Haroun's injuries were treated as much as possible, but the spore proved to be more difficult to counter, shrugging off every antibiotic thrown at it and forcing Haroun's body temperature to dangerously high levels. Moira and Hank worked to come up with a treatment regime whilst Madelyn and Jane came up with various methods to keep Haroun's temperature down enough to avoid neurological damage, at one stage employing Bobby Drake to keep him encased in a thin layer of ice.
In the meantime, Forge set his mutant gift to work on repairing Haroun's cybernetics. Almost immediately he realised repair was impossible and instead proposed that they design and manufacture an upgrade. Alison, attempting to contact Emma Frost and the branch of Shaw Industries that originally ran the Jetstream project, discovered that she was being blocked from obtaining the parts and software required. Her frustration mounted, until she received a phone call from one Dr. Jonathan Hawksmoor, one of the original designers, directed to her by Harry Leland. With his help, an upgrade became possible. A design team comprised of Forge, Kitty, Doug and Paige set to work immediately.
A mysterious phone call from David North, who had been believed killed in the explosion that reputedly took out Omega Red gave the medical staff the means to kill the spore - a cocktail of drugs followed by irradiation. This meant stripping every piece of artificial substance out of Haroun's body, in order to prevent radioactive contamination and in a marathon surgical session, Jean and Madelyn removed all of the remaining cybernetics. In the course of the surgery, Hawksmoor was shocked to see the damage that Haroun's 'ware, an experimental combat model, had done to his system.
Alison and Cain paid a 'visit' to Shaw Industries and obtained the remaining data they needed by means of potentially exposing Sebastian Shaw as a mutant and thus consolidating his hatred for them. However the data, and the pieces from the Reavers who had attacked the school months before, provided Forge with the last missing pieces, and shortly before Haroun's radiation therapy, he announced the cyberware was almost ready to be installed. The radiation was successful, and after a day's recovery time, Haroun went under the knife again, this time to have his upgrade installed.
Haroun's recovery took several months, and was the source of great frustration to him. The new 'ware caused him less pain and was more sensitive to touch, but the man-machine interface (MMI) was much different to the old system, more intuitive and reactive. It was not until Marius Laverne attacked him in a feeding frenzy did Haroun finally breach the barrier between his conscious mind and the 'ware. Another benefit of the new system was that it had far more normal levels of hormones being pumped into Haroun's system - the old 'ware had been a combat model, and designed to flood his system with testosterone under stress in order to make his responses more aggressive.
Related Links
External Links
Trivia and Meta
Trivia
Forge asked Sam Guthrie to provide him with data on flight, not knowing the long-running animosity between the two men. Sam agreed with no hesitation.
The upgrade also included genitalia, the design of which Alison was consulted upon. With much blushing on Forge's part.
Doug lost the ability to speak for several days, having strained his power to its limits in developing the computer language for the MMI. For several days after that, he was only capable of communicating in quotes or song lyrics.
