So Much For Supper

Keto had, rather flustered after his 'friendly chat' with Coffee,
accidentally walked into his office rather than, as he had expected,
the corridor to go get some supper. Once inside, however, he had
spotted a clean, brand new envelope lying on the desk. It looked
like a bill, but Keto opened it anyway. Couldn't let the paperwork
build up.
He heard some voices outside the office, and then one that sounded
surprised. A few moments later, Tara entered his office. Keto
looked up.
"Yes?"
> "Urm..Well you know ointment 66.6? Well.. I.. er.. kinda gave it to
Jay Chrysler to use on his bruised shins, but it does look like the
anti-bruise ointment!"
Tara cowered, awaiting the wrath she was sure was going to appear.
Appear it did, but not directed at her.
"WHAT?!" screamed Keto, staring at a sheet of paper held in his
hand, "Wh...wh...WHAT!?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't realise..." began Tara.
"HE'S BILLED IT ALL TO THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT!?"
Tara blinked, then suddenly realised that Keto didn't appear to
have heard what she just said. On the other hand, she HAD informed
him, so officially she didn't have to do anything else...
Breathing a sigh of relief, Tara left Keto's office. Just before
she reached the door, however, Keto said, without looking up, "And
I'll deal with your little case of utter incompetance shortly."
Tara sighed. She'd known it was too good to be true.
Keto rose to his feet, glaring at the bill for fourteen top-of-the-
line mental-oscilloscope-analysers, twelve cranial scanners, ten
electro-tracers, eight psychiatric armchairs, six psychiatric
couches, four Patented Patient Progress Predictors, two Electro-Shock
Super Deluxe packs and, he was even more irritated to note, a
partridge in a pear tree. Admittedly, that last one looked like it
had been written on as a very tacky joke (OOC: sorry ;) ), but even
so...
"Don't they have their own damn billing section?" growled Keto.
Holly, monitoring this, popped up on the screen beside him.
"Actually, they don't ha..."
"THEN THEY SHOULD *MAKE* ONE!"
"I don't think you can just make a..."
"I don't care," snapped Keto, rising to his feet, "I'm going to go
and sort this out!"
As he headed for the door, he heard the sound of whispered warnings
and rapid footsteps out in the main medibay. He stepped out to see
Wildflower inside the quarantine room, and Coffey and Cleavage
sitting nonchalantly around, the Big Pink Tree motionless in the
corner. Keto's eyes narrowed.
"You haven't touched that quarantine door, have you?"
"No," said Coffey, innocently.
"No," said Cleavage, truthfully.
*Rustle* said the Tree, surprisingly. Keto glared at it.
"I do hope you meant that as a pathetic attempt at humour."
*Rustle.*
"Good. Now...much as I fear to say this...look after the medibay
while I'm gone!"
With that, he marched out the door and headed up the levels towards
the psychiatric block.
"Billing my department," growled Keto, "I'll teach them that a
subset of my department doesn't come under the billing heading of my
department, no matter what the regulations, law, crewmembers,
officials, department heads and everyone else says!"
As he stormed upwards, Keto unconsciously checked his inside
pocket. Yes, the bag was still there. He'd have to check up on just
who that crew quarters belonged to - and why exactly they'd had a
large quantity of G.O.D. on board.
Still, their loss, his incredibly-wealthy gain. If they left the
money, he'd take it and be done with the drug. If not...well, he
might take it to the captain...or he might see just how potent an
ointment it would make...
Even so, even with the prospect of that much wealth, Keto still
felt marginally irritated at the fact that he'd missed his supper...
=================
OOC: Ye gods, what a time for BT to bust on me. I never knew it
could take me two hours to catch up on BD posts (hey, Yahoo was slow,
okay?). Ho-hum, where do I begin...thanks for the SoTM award,
thrilled about it (and congrats to all you others who sought to rival
my glory, bwa-haa-haa...but I digress...). Sorry I haven't been
around to be my annoying old self but what the hell, you probably
never even missed me. :) I'm back now, the curse that is BT having
been reinstated, and so you'd all better beware the temper of Keto
once again...
And for now, he's repressing what he's been told about Wildflower's
affections for him. :) Hmm, repression is a bad thing, maybe he
should go see a psychiatrist...oh, yeah...
- Chris (JHXMT)