"I promise," Combeferre said, offering a warm smile to the stranger. Almost immediately, this vow proved more difficult than expected. The machine's monitor glowed faintly with a strange image, its controls varied and strange. Childish as he knew it was, some part of him wanted to press every button, just to see what would happen.

Keeping his giddiness in check (a feeling that, admittedly, had to do with much more than hospital technology), he settled for studying the machine from afar. "When would a patient need to be studied like this?"