Fortunately, the nurse was able to find the entire concert recorded on a bootleg site within the combined Internet of City 8 and City 10. He immediately started playing it on loop within the patient's room.
The nurse turned his attention to Doctor Norrid and asked, "I've set it to loop enough times to cover 24 hours, but can you explain why you are doing that?"
Doctor Norrid inspected the nurse a little closer and determined he was probably about the same age as him and said, "Neither of us were alive during the Protodeviln incidents, but Macross 8 was able to gather the hospital records from that incident on Macross 7 from decades ago since we were connected to the fold network at the time. Long story short, this resembles those cases. Something about recovering Spiritia and music, specifically Fire Bomber, seemed to work."
"Huh, so now what? Just wait and see?"
Doctor Norrid furrowed his brow in thought, "If we had another patient with the same conditions, I'd like to have them act as a control group so we can verify if it was the music or not. For now, keep the music going and alert me to any changes or if someone else is brought in with identical symptoms. I am going home."
The nurse nodded, then waved to Doctor Norrid when he left the examination room. He noticed the cat had left as well.
Illuzo casually paced behind Doctor Norrid. Thanks to the Spiritia he recovered from the man earlier, he could make himself almost completely unnoticeable. Illuzo followed Doctor Norrid out of the hospital and to his car.
Doctor Norrid sat down in the driver's seat of his car and noticed the black cat from earlier sitting in the passenger's seat now. He instinctively reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose because he was expecting the usual headache he received from either someone else's incompetence or his dissatisfaction with virtually anything.
Surprisingly, the headache never came.
Doctor Norrid and Illuzo stared at each other for a few seconds, until Doctor Norrid just decided not to care and head home with the cat.
Illuzo had looked through the memories of Jack Dawson and the others from before, but he didn't have any memories of his comrades, so he only kept a few of the memories he thought might be of use.
Doctor Norrid heard a vibration from his center console and realized he had forgotten to take his personal communicator with him and muttered, "Probably didn't miss anything important." He would have to check it when he got home since it wasn't safe to check messages while driving.
Illuzo was patient, but that didn't mean he didn't get bored. He knew how to work a radio thanks to the stolen memories, and he wanted to hear that music again. Illuzo reached out towards the console in the car and turned on the radio with his paw.
The radio blared to life, and a late-night podcast played through the car's speakers.
Doctor Norrid jumped and looked to see the black cat pull its paw back from the console, "Hey, don't just go pushing things."
Illuzo's eyes flashed a brief tint of purple as he tried to gently plant his intentions in this human's mind.
Doctor Norrid felt that the black cat wanted to listen to that same song again from the examination room, "Sorry, that was from a live concert, we can ask the nurse to send us the recording when we get home. Try one of the rock stations if you want something close."
Illuzo tapped the seek button on the radio and went to a rock station he had remembered from one of his victims' memories.
Relatively generic rock music started blaring through the speakers.
Illuzo waited for his Spiritia to be stimulated and grow, but as he listened to the various songs, he never got the same feeling as he had from that concert.
"Yeah, it's not the same. Well, it's also extremely early in the morning, so they're not going to play the popular music right now. That band is also on City 10, so we don't have any of their albums here in City 8. Now that our fleets are close, we might exchange some albums, so maybe that will change in the future."
Doctor Norrid finally reached his apartment complex and parked the car in the underground lot. He grabbed his personal communicator and started thumbing through his missed messages.
"Damn it! Wish I saw this sooner." Doctor Norrid had just read that one of the doctors on the Macross 8 had two cases just like the one he had in the hospital on City 8.
Looking at his communicator, Doctor Norrid considered calling the other doctor, but a simple message might be better considering how early it was. "I have a patient, Jack Dawson, with the same symptoms. I am performing an experimental treatment. Delay any treatment until we can work together."
"And send," Doctor Norrid whispered to himself as he sent the doctor aboard the Macross 8 a reply.
Doctor Norrid locked his car, then walked up to his apartment. He didn't run into anyone since it was so early. Doctor Norrid opened the door and set his belongings down in the entryway. He wasn't surprised at all that the black cat was now perched on his sofa and already had the TV on channel surfing.
"Wait what?"
Illuzo's eyes flashed with purple again.
"Oh, try station 4 for news."
Illuzo was looking for news to see if anyone had reported on the people he drained of Spiritia.
"So I guess I have a cat now. I should probably get a litter box and some cat food."
Illuzo didn't know what a litter box was, but he didn't require food. He couldn't keep implanting thoughts and maintaining his concealment endlessly, so he thought this could be a good base for now, since he detected a lot of living creatures with Spiritia nearby he could use as an emergency. Illuzo implanted one last thought into Doctor Norrid for now.
"Oh, alright, just turn it off when you're done. I have work later today and am going to bed," Doctor Norrid said to the black cat as if he were a human. He turned the lights off and saw the yellow glow of the black cat's eyes staring at him through the darkness. Doctor Norrid shook his head and just went to bed.
Later that morning, Dirk woke up and found himself on the couch, still sitting up, in the room where he and his friends turned a quiet meet-and-greet into a party accidentally. His head was throbbing, and he felt a weight on both of his arms. Looking down, Dirk blinked twice and saw that Elise was passed out on his left arm and Rayelle, Miss Rayven, was passed out on his right arm.
If this was not a dream, Dirk didn't dare to move, make a sound, or even think of anything impure so as to interrupt this moment.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dirk saw Roy staring at him with the biggest grin he had ever seen. Next to Roy sat Adam on a stool with his eyes completely bloodshot as if he had stayed in that position with his eyes wide open all night.
Dirk mouthed, "NO!" while slightly shaking his head in their direction. He watched a vein visibly throb on Adam's head.
Dirk recalled the night before, when Rayelle warned him that Adam was quite overprotective of her and acted like an older brother. Adam had sat down with Dirk after a few drinks and apologized for his behavior before. He had realized that Dirk was only interested in their music, not their singer, and had given him a signed copy of their first album as an apology.
Adam was sitting there with a mic stand across his lap, slowly bending it more and more.
Slowly, everyone else started to wake up.
Elise was already awake since she didn't drink much, but she didn't want to leave Dirk's side, so she pretended to be asleep. She also noticed that Rayelle had passed out on Dirk's other side, and she wanted to see who Dirk would brush off first.
Rayelle woke up last. She still had her eyes closed, and whatever she was leaning on was warm and comfortable. She muttered, "Five more minutes," and tried to doze back off. Rayelle felt she was drooling a little and moved her hand to wipe her mouth when she felt her hand hit someone's arm.
Rayelle looked around the room and saw Adam, Lyle, Roy, and Marty staring at her, with Adam looking extremely agitated. She looked down the couch and saw Lisa with her arms folded and a smile on her face. Rayelle finally looked up and noticed that she had wrapped her arms around Dirk and even drooled on him in her sleep. She saw Dirk almost break out into a sweat while Adam bent that mic stand a little more.
Rayelle whispered to Dirk, "Do you want to live?"
Dirk nodded.
"Then do exactly what I tell you."
Dirk nodded harder.
"Look at me and then close your eyes."
Dirk looked at Rayelle. He couldn't help but notice how pretty she was up close. Dirk realized this was a horrible time to be thinking about that, so he closed his eyes obediently.
Rayelle kissed Dirk again; her intrusive thoughts had won.