Blood Drive: You Can (Not) Donate Blood

In light of recent events, The Burrowgatory Hospital’s blood inventory has been wiped clean. Leaving its higher-ups no choice but to conduct an Emergency Blood Drive. 

The surroundings of the hospital were relatively crowded for the most part. Undergoing a blood drive was no sweat for most buns, the same cannot be said for those who are simply afraid of needles or because they would simply need to rest, not being able to on with their regular lives for a while.

Among the medical staff and volunteers, Primrose was among them, although he only worked with Cherubuns. He was willing to let a Succubun assist him in operating the apheresis machine while he worked with inserting the needles into the veins of the donors.

Everything was going smoothly for him for the past couple of days until one of the apheresis machines stopped working. Thankfully a cherubun did have have a needle placed in them yet. 

“What’s the holdup?” Primrose asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

“No clue, I was only trained in operating the machine, not looking into its externals, we could get help from the maintenance personnel here.”

“Sigh… Alright, but please make it quick!”

The main issue however was that the maintenance personnel already had their hands tied with the hospital freezers equipment needed for surgeries. Another machine would soon stop working as well. In seven minutes, at least four apheresis devices stopped working. This was no good at all. The main hospital staff took notice of the current situation. Primrose had to think of something until he was left with no other option than to have Beanny contact, Maxwell.

Not long after, Maxwell would soon arrive via truck, with as many tools as she had with a few changes. Primrose was just by the entrance of the hospital, waiting for the leek-haired bun who had given him quite the headache back at the Embassy Gardens. She was, much to Primrose's reluctance, the best option he could think of.

“I got here as soon as I could…”

Before she continued, Primrose wasted no time to give a rundown of the current situation the hospital was in.

“I already have the machines inside a sterilized room, if you’re going to work with these you—”

“Better Sterilize the tools? What do you take me for? A cave bun? Anyhow, before that, I’ll need to look into the models of the apheresis machines being used here and look into their internals before I can start working on them.”

Maxwell takes a few tools with her from her truck before Primrose leads her to one of the rooms with the broken apheresis machines. Maxwell goes over the manuals of the said machines. Two of them happened to be the same model, the other two were completely different and a little bit outdated. Primrose left the room to leave Maxwell to her work. He was somewhat worried that Maxwell might end up risking the lives of any of the buns within the hospital, especially his fellow kin cherubuns. He continued to contemplate whether getting Maxwell to fix the machines was the right call or not. He thought something like this was outside Maxwell’s robotics-focused field but he remembered Beanny bringing up the succubun’s ridiculous number of hard science PhDs.

While he was contemplating his decision, Maxwell walked up to him. It was relatively quick, considering the complexity of the apheresis machines. She spared no time to urgently tell Primrose her findings.

“The pumps started to wear out, considering the amount people and days spent on its continuous usage. The plasma separation mechanisms in it also lost their lubrication. One of them even malfunctioned due to a blood leakage, Call off the Blood Drive for today, we need to have the rest checked up ASAP”

Primrose, upon noticing a shift in Maxwell’s tone of voice, could almost tell she was being serious. In an instant, He informed all donors, doctors, nurses, and operators nearby to cease the blood drive for the day.

A few hours had passed, and Maxwell had already checked on the rest of the apheresis machines and her hunch was right, while most of the equipment was new, they were this close to wear and internal malfunction. Some have been in the hospital for a while now, from five to ten years at most.

Maxwell already figured the maintenance personnel had their hands tied, but fortunately, they already had everything sorted out. Much to her surprise, there were only about five within the personnel. She directed them with each having the apheresis parts and internals fixed while fixing some of them herself. It was her first time working with hospital equipment but fortunately, the fundamentals of the internals translate well with her line of work, so she had no issues with the repairs so far.

Primrose by the corner was observing Maxwell by the corner. He didn’t want to admit it but the green-haired succubun seemed to be doing her job pretty well. It was also his first time seeing her work as he was initially skeptical of her when Beanny told him about Maxwell fixing the coffee machine in less than the intended time.

About 12 hours had already passed and most of the apheresis machines have already been fixed and maintained. Maxwell handed down some notes on some maintenance tips to the equipment maintenance personnel before packing up her equipment. 

“Whew… Glad that’s over…”

Maxwell turned to Primrose with a smug face, the serious side of her had already subsided. It looked like she wanted to rub it in on Primrose about how useful she was with helping out at the hospital, along with an envelope of a large sum of carats, seemingly from the staff as payment for her services.

That smug look on her face, however, was shifted to a face of shock when  Primrose led her to one of the chairs next to the apheresis machines.

“H-hey now… I just worked my ass on them… I already contributed enough…”

“just sit back and relax, this will hurt for a bit… Besides, we need to make sure the machines are would work without fail”

Primrose, with a grin, gestures to an operator to assist him as he prepares the needles and a rubber tourniquet. Maxwell had to remove her coat and roll up her jacket’s sleeve as Primrose placed the tourniquet on her upper arm. Maxwell was still shaking at this point. It was already obvious that she did not like needles at all, and for some reason, she managed to keep still as the tourniquet tightened on her arm. With the veins now visible, Primrose proceeded to insert the needle into one of her veins while she looks away.

The operator assistant, then, was given a go to get the machine started. It didn’t take too long until Primrose was finished with collecting a pint of Maxwell’s blood. As soon as he pulls the needle out, he places a bandaid on where the needle was as he places the used one in the disposal bin.

“Sigh… I hate to admit this but, you’re alright in some way or another… damn that coffee-huffing loon… Since you had your blood taken, you can’t drive for a while for a day. I recommend calling a friend to drive for you when you get home.”

“Heh… first time being concerned for a succubun?”

“Not in a million years! You’re simply too useful for your own good, for someone obsessed with the most ridiculous machinations”

“I’ll take that as a compliment”

“Anyhow, the equipment personnel will see to it that they will abide to the maintenance routine you provided, just leave …"

With that, Maxwell carefully left. As she picks up her phone to call someone to come to the hospital and drive for her.