Flat Tire Read online

  Chapter Six

  “Well your physiology appears to be the same as ours…”

  “EXACTLY like yours.” Aleena shot back. “I AM human, doctor, I assure you. Doctor, Ohh, I, I'm beginning to feel disoriented; very disoriented.” Aleena slurred a little more.

  “Oh, ok right. I’m sorry; I can see that you are human. You’re also definitely under the influence of some potent drug. It’s just that I have never treated an extraterrestrial before, and you are unquestionably not the like the aliens generally portrayed. ” David said with a humorous, concerned tone.

  “I have a practice where I work with expecting women and some of these women are addicted to various drugs. I have a test kit that will determine what drug you are on, provided of course it is a drug similar to one here on Earth, and I have some counter agents to counteract the effects of most of the common drugs sold on the streets. All I need is to draw a little blood to test.”

  “Doctor, you have my consent to draw as much blood as you need for your tests if you feel that you can help my condition. I need to get off this planet as soon as possible before I am detected by your government.” replied Aleena very matter-of-factly as she exposed here left arm.

  “Ok, great. If I can identify the drug, I can inject you with a counter drug and I can have you up and going in just a few minutes. Was this the first time you have used a recreational drug?” asked David poised for an answer.

  “Recreational? Oh, uh, yes, yes. I do not and never have used any 'recreation' drugs prior to this personal experiment,” she said adamantly and furrowed her brow.

  “I am not accustomed to getting my pleasures from chemicals. I was just getting so bored on these routine flights, and my saucer is mostly automatic, that I did not think it would cause such a problem and would possible help to pass he time.”

  “But when the interstellar gyro compass began to malfunction, I had to land my craft at the first planet. Since I have been here, though, and the compass has not been needed, and the ship has had the time to correct the malfunction and reconfigure the redundant systems of the gyro.”

  “Self healing space ships, eh?” said David as he placed his black case on a circular surface that appeared to be a table of some kind. His thoughts turned to his job of healing.

  David opened his black case and withdrew the syringe for drawing blood samples. He opened a small foil package containing a wet, alcohol swab, rolled up her sleeve up a little more and swabbed Aleena on the front forearm right below the elbow. He then stuck her with the needle, and drew up some very normal looking red blood.

  He removed the needle and placed a small square of white gauze on the puncture site, and instructed Aleena to hold the patch tight against here arm to seal the puncture.

  He was amazed at the fabric of her suit. It was very soft and it rolled up easily. He had never felt a fabric like it before.

  “Doctor, I have heard about your ancient medical practices of having to “draw blood” from a patient’s arm for testing, and I thought it would be more painful. We have not used intrusive diagnostic procedures in centuries.” Aleena said weakly.

  David mumbled “Really?” as he took out the drug test package. There were twenty-five little bubbles five by five on the drug testing card. It was much like hard bubble wrap plastic glued to a cardboard backing, except each bubble had an exact mix of testing chemicals geared for the detection of a specific street drug.

  David quickly injected the small amount of blood from the syringe into the little reservoir on the top of the card that fed each of the little bubbles on the test card. As he pushed the syringe, and an exact amount of blood filled each of the 25 bubbles from the reservoir for testing. He waited for the results, which would take only a few moments.

  Only one bubble turned a bright blue color indicating a reaction to the drug in Aleena’s blood. David was amazed that he got a reaction at all. How could two different worlds hundreds of millions, or billions of miles apart, have the same recreational drugs?

  David looked at the label beneath the bubble. It read ecstasy, an LSD derivative.

  “This drug was largely found in dance clubs mostly during the 1980s and 1990s of the previous century, but pockets of diehard users existed today.” explained David as his hands rummaged through his bag as he talked.

  He stopped rummaging through his bag, pulled his hands up and said, “I have a counteragent for this drug in my bag. Ecstasy is still widely used among college night clubbers, and inner city poor. Not as widely as it once was used, though.”

  “I do volunteer work at some of the inner city medical centers on the weekends, and usually carried a small amount of counteragents with me. It only takes a few minutes for the counteragent to totally nullify the effects of the drug.”

  “Do you always give the history lesson of the drugs that you help your patients overcome?” she said and pursed her lips.

  “Uh, well, yes, sorry, I guess I do. I try to educate my patients on what the history of the drug they are using and the damaging effects it can have on their bodies if used continually. Some people have been known to die from only one ecstasy tab ingestion. And I am also a little nervous at this moment so I am probably rambling a little.” he said a little color showed on his ears and neck.

  “This is some very dangerous stuff, and its effects can be unpredictable. Most of these drugs are not made under the most sanitary or laboratory standards, well at least on our planet. Every time someone takes one of these pills, they are putting their life in danger.”

  David reached into his bag and took out a small hypodermic and a bottle of the counteragent for ecstasy. He filled the small syringe with 2ccs of the medicine and easily rolled up the sleeve on her arm to right below the shoulder. He then he swabbed her and injected the serum into the muscle. She winced a little and he withdrew the needle, swabbed the area with another alcohol swab, and placed a folded piece of gauze on the injection site and put a small piece of white medical tape to hold the patch in position. He instructed Aleena to just to sit still and relax for a few moments until the counter agent took effect.