"No, this is all conjured new. If you want to direct me to somebody who's missing a limb and doesn't want a cyborg replacement, say..."

He lets his head hit the desk. "You need my boss. Maybe my boss's boss. That's one nasty can of worms. I can't imagine who'd want to kidnap you, I can't imagine who wouldn't- Christ."

"Yeah, I was sort of hoping to use this hospital as less a permanent workplace and more a way to get a native guide who wants to point me at the pockets of greatest need. I'm slightly hard to kidnap but it's probably not impossible."

"We're here to help and if you can help us help more it'll be worth it but eugh. Can you make something that can't possibly have been prepared just for this as proof. So I don't look like an idiot when I interrupt Maxim."

"Name it."

"Uh, shit... Now I can't think of anything. Limited edition toys or comics maybe, he's into that stuff."

"You'll have to specify, we probably have different ones in my universe."

"......Leroy Softworks Last Golden Phoenix: Fall of an Empire iridium collector's box? They made ten."

Box.

He compares it to a phone picture. "...Yeah this is probably good enough to interrupt Maxim with. Be right back."

He takes the box. The woman from desk three glances over curiously but goes back to her paperwork. A couple of nurses come in from the hall and head towards One.

The guy reappears from an office and waves Cam over.

Over strolls Cam.

Desk Five guy and some other guy, a mousey-looking fellow with hexagonal glowing irises, are inside.

"Close the door! And let's not write anything down about this until we figure it out! Situation: You can make stuff, even pretty specific stuff. Like say, refills for the Serisse nanite tanks that they charge three arms and two legs for. You're really not from around here. You want to do good and do more good later. And I'm not sure how we can verify much of that besides the 'make stuff' bit."

"Are you the kind of person who will be reassured if I point out that I could be easily doing bad things if that was what I wanted to do things?"

"A bit, but just a bit. Because 'some kind of long con' or 'wants an alibi' or 'wants some kind of patsy' or any number of other things are also options. Not that that will stop us from working with you? It just means some basic reasonable forethought, so please try to take in in that light? Call it cautious optimism?"

"No, yeah, totally understandable."

"So I'm thinking I can give you the tests for free and shuffle the paperwork along, just make sure you study the course materials first so it's not a waste. I'm head of accreditation and testing, mostly don't see patients anymore, but I know who to talk to in warehouse about large anonymous donations."

"I love the sound of large anonymous donations!"

"We'll fill a few dozen tractor-trailers, how about, then mark most of it as waste so it can go to independent operations or junk dealers who resell it dirt cheap."

"That wasn't what I was envisioning but as long as it gets to patients in the end it's all good."

"It's a massive insurance scam," He says, deadpan. "But we use it to our advantage. Bill, why don't you get the cheat sheets ready for Cam?"

"Sure, boss."

"Okay, I want to talk about medtech. Making stuff would change things. We use a lot of nanotechnology systems here, to get at deep damage without the trauma of surgery when we can."

"Yeah, my universe is light on the nanotech - in addition to folks like me there are two other kinds and one of them can just change stuff on the spot, cleaner than surgery, though you want one like me for specifically transplant or dismemberment cases."

"Okay, there's actually quite a lot, nanotech-wise, uh... The biggest thing is that excessive doses of nanomeds are contraindicated pretty much no matter what the individual interactions are, until the body naturally breaks down or expels some of them, the test for that is called a nanite load assay and we can do it with a one-milliliter blood sample or a tissue biopsy. What do you think about a shift as an orderly observing to go with the practice software Bill's loading up for you?"

"Sounds brilliant. - I'm not limited to medical applications, incidentally, like I'm fine for that but when I'm oriented enough to scale up I'll probably want to be doing infrastructure and supply."

"Not my expertise. Nobody will complain if you fix the roads, I'm sure. Well. Few enough that it'll probably be an improvement, anyway."

"I noticed some enterprising fellows doing that! It was relatively cheering.

"Do you have... a model of why the economy is like this?"