Medical Deck

The Medical Deck was the hospital and research complex of the USG Ishimura, a large section set amidships toward the ship's dorsal surface. Beyond ordinary medicine it served as the vessel's center for study unrelated to mining, housing biological and chemical research as well as work on the Marker. When Isaac Clarke reached it during the 2508 outbreak it had become one of the goriest sections of the ship, its wards and laboratories given over to the experiments of Challus Mercer and the spread of the Necromorph infection.

Layout#

The Medical Deck was reached by tram, and in its original configuration it had two separate tram stations, an unusual feature thought to allow severe trauma cases to be moved quickly toward the Cryogenics Lab. A Security Station sat at the heart of the deck and routed visitors to its many divisions, sending emergency cases to the clinic and patients needing diagnostic work to Imaging Diagnostics or the Main Lab. From there the deck branched into the clinic, the diagnostics and therapy wards, the cryogenics complex, and the research wing.

The clinic was the catchall name for the deck's general and surgical suites. It opened from a Waiting Room into a large Emergency Room of monitored beds and oxygen refill stations, and two long ER hallways lined with curtained beds led on to the Intensive Care Unit. The ICU consisted of four sealed enclosures behind armored glass, three of them upright cylinders and the fourth an open surgical suite, with elevator access down to the morgue.

The Imaging Diagnostics Wing was a two-story chamber for advanced medical imaging, with adjoining rooms including a consultation room, an observation room, and the Zero-G Therapy ward, a vast cylindrical chamber in which gravity could be switched on and off. Nearby lay the Chemical Research Lab, an armored room holding hazardous and biological materials and two flotation tanks built to hold human occupants. The Cryogenics Lab, set apart from the rest of the deck and close to the Bridge, was capable of flash-freezing living organisms into cylinders of ice to stabilize critically wounded patients.

The Research Wing was the compact heart of the deck's scientific work. Its Main Lab spread over two floors and opened into the offices of Nicole Brennan and Dr. Terrence Kyne, as well as into a Biological Prosthetics Center where amputation patients received new limbs. The prosthetics were grown by cloning the patient, rapidly aging the clone and harvesting the limb, and the center held racks of infant clones suspended in green fluid.

During the outbreak#

The Medical Deck was among the first sections to fall when the infection spread through the Ishimura. The morgue, which held the bodies of crew killed early in the outbreak including Captain Benjamin Mathius, became one of the original points from which the Necromorphs emerged. Security officers under Gabe Weller and Nathan McNeill barricaded the clinic and fled, sealing it off in an attempt to keep the creatures from the rest of the deck.

The deck became the personal laboratory of Dr. Challus Mercer, the ship's second surgical officer and a fervent Unitologist who came to see the Necromorphs as the next step in human evolution. He decorated his office in the ICU with Marker script and the heads of his victims, and he experimented on the crew in an effort to breed stronger forms of the creatures. In the Cryogenics Lab he kept Necromorphs frozen for transport to other worlds, intending to carry the infection beyond the ship.

The Hunter#

The Medical Deck's most infamous creation was the regenerating Necromorph that Mercer named the Hunter. In the Intensive Care Unit, Mercer convinced the patient Brant Harris that he could unlock the secrets of the Marker, then injected him with Necromorph tissue directly into the brain, beginning his transformation. The resulting creature, capable of regrowing severed limbs, was kept dormant in one of the flotation tanks of the Chemical Research Lab. Mercer roused it and set it upon Isaac Clarke, then withdrew through the Cryogenics Lab; Isaac drove the Hunter into the cryogenic chamber and froze it in suspension. As Isaac worked to retrieve a Necromorph tissue sample needed against the Leviathan, Mercer decompressed the entire Medical Deck and locked Kendra Daniels out of the controls in a final attempt to kill him.

Nicole Brennan#

The Medical Deck was the post of Nicole Brennan, the Ishimura's Senior Medical Officer. Her office in the Main Lab held logs of her efforts to treat crew suffering under the Marker's influence and to help patients leave the Church of Unitology without reprisal, along with her frustration at Mercer's interference. A hidden room behind the Emergency Room allowed her to meet with patients away from Unitologist eyes. It was on the Medical Deck that Nicole recorded her last message before taking her own life as the outbreak consumed the ship.