Thirty four more seconds.
Robert had two IVs hooked up, one to each arm. He was counting the seconds until they were removed, because he knew exactly how long they had to stay in. He knew, because he'd been doing the procedure once every hour for the last two days.
It was his own choice of punishment, really. As soon as they'd started to ween him off of the anesthetic that had kept him bedridden and immobile for so many days he'd lost count - the inevitable happened. Robert tried to get up and walk. His body wasn't ready for the switch to vertical, and several things went wrong inside of him. He didn't want to hear the specifics - they all sounded really gross - but a good long surgery later, he was bedridden again. They'd given him the use of his arms, but that was it. And they knew that the moment they took him off the anesthetic.. he'd try something stupid again.
So the compromise was simple. Robert had been given a wheelchair. He was allowed to use the wheelchair, instead of lying in bed, as long as he remained numb from the chest down, so as not to give him any chance at attempting to walk. His body was too tender, and needed as much immobility as possible - but the brute was stubborn, and bored, and to be quite honest, the Life technicians were
sick of him. So this was their compromise. Give him mobility, without compromising his lower body with the strain of walking - in return... get rid of Robert for most of the day.
They felt like they were getting the better end of the deal. Even if he did have to return to the infirmary at the top of each hour, just to receive another dose of anesthetic.
Someone made an offhand comment about just knocking him out for a week. He made an offhand reply about knocking them out for a month.
"MIMSY!!!" He screamed, waving his tube-connected arms wildly. "Mimsy come here, check out my sweet riiiide. I'm thinkin' about getting some spinning rims. What do you think?"
The technician pulled Robert's IVs out - hard.
"OW! <******** YOU TOO a*****e!"
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