Psychiatric Arguments

Who: Patrick Cerebrum
Where: Psychiatric Division
When: A while after Schweeble left, shortly after Dr Keto receives
the bill
Cerebrum, in order to deal with the number of patients, had allocted
three minutes to each one, and had the appendix take half of them.
The appendix worked remarkably well. The delusionals ran screaming
when they saw it, which cut the workload by about thirty percent. He
was just finishing up the last patient in the group he had choosen
for today. The equipment that he had ordered was coming in on the
next shuttle, so until it arrived, he would be unable to actually
treat people.
"I have determined you to be a completely insane megalomaniac who is
only happy when killing people. What was your position again?"
"I'm a security officer."
"You're completely normal. You can go now."
As the final patient (for the day left the room, Cerebrum placed the
psych-profil folder onto the pile on the floor (having already filled
up the file-drawer, the top of the file drawer, the desk and the
chair).
"Holly," Cerebrum said while pushing the folders off his chair and
sitting in it.
"Yes madman?"
"First I want you to stop looking a my psychological portfolio, then
I need your assisstance."
"Yes?"
"My new equipment I ordered won't be arriving for another few days,
and until then I won't be able to treat any patients. So I need to
build some new equipment and use that to treat my patients. The
problem is that it would be unethical to test it on my patients. So I
need you to announce that I need a volunteer for psychiatric
experiments and that I would be willing to pay large amounts of cash."
"I've read about your experiments. No way."
"You do know what happens to senile computers, don't you Holly?"
"Yes, they get wiped then replaced."
"You do know who determines what computers get classified as senile,
don't you Holly?"
"Yes, the ship's chief psychiatrist," there was a brief pause as
Holly put together the facts, "I'll make your announcement right
away."
"Good, I'm glad we understand each other."
Holly's face disappeared from the viewscreen, and Cerebrum took out a
copy of the Psychiatric Monthly and started reading an article about
the usage of blunt objects in the treatment of delusions (apply club
to middle forehead repeatedly until patient no longer thinks he is
Napoleon). Then Dr Keto burst in through the door, waving a bill of
some kind and shouting.
Cerebrum looked up, "Yes, may I help you? You can make appointments
with the Appendix."
"Explain this!" he said and thrust the bill at Cerebrum.
Cerebrum took the bill and scanned it. "Everything seems to be in
order. Wait, wait. Thanks for pointing this out. They're only sending
us three neural synchronisers, we need seven. I'll call them right
away and get it fixed."
"THEY COST TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARPOUNDS EACH!!!"
"Yes, well, it's cutting edge technology, you know, it doesn't come
cheap. But how can you possibly put a price tag on furthering the
understanding of the human mind and brain. This is vital equipment
for my experiments. I'm close to a breakthrough in determining how
much electricity the brain can absorb from a Van de Graf (OOC: not
sure how it's spelled) generator without a person losing the ability
to talk normally. Surely you must agree that this research is well
worth the money, don't you?"
<Your turn Keto>