Words That Will Haunt You

Posted on Wed Dec 13th, 2017 @ 3:29am by Lieutenant Commander Kiril Nevin & Ferrofax

1,474 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Mission 0: Everybody Has A Story
Timeline: Roughly 10 days prior to Mission 1

The room was quiet as Nevin was bent over a large device, his face pressed to the opening. His hand slid over a side panel, the digital bar increasing as it followed his fingers over the screen. "Interesting," he said to himself, his other hand picking up a metallic instrument and held it close to the base of the device he was looking into.

Standing, Nevin set down the instrument and picked up a PADD, writing notes to himself. "Computer, make note of time and date as significant. And reduce the temperature in here by 2 degrees."

There was a not insignificant pause in the response. That the pause was best timed using nanoseconds, and thus below the threshold of even the acutest person's perception. But it was there. It was there because something vast, Byzantine, and if he were being humble, 'all knowing' had centred its awareness on a single compartment. Sure that awareness came directed out of a holocam eye in the corner of the ceiling, but there were other means. Internal sensors, structural stressor plates that detected the mild atomic warping of the desk under the shells feet. Even the neutrino wash from the M/AM reactor produced some interesting spallation channels through the shell's molecular structure. Especially through the heart of the shell.

The intelligence observing the shell spent a precious 0.00023 nanoseconds coming up with a suitable response.

"The climate control panel is 4 point 6 inches from your desk. Might I suggest some mild cardiovascular exercise to get up from your seat and set the temperature yourself?"

Nevin sighed. He forgot, as he had for the past month, that the Computer aboard this installation was somewhat sentient. And it had a bad attitude. Both of those combined made for quite an annoying time. You'd have thought Nevin would have no way to forget such a situation. "I could, but I'm quite busy and it's just a bit too warm in here."

The rustle of paper against paper filled the air. Behind Nevin, against the wall, materialised a baroque chair of dark mahogany and padded leather. It was the sort of high backed monstrosity that could be found in any museum of German architecture. Along with the tapestries no doubt. Ferrofax sat within its embrace, one leg crossed over the other with a sheaf of papers in his hands. A pair of Pince-nez glasses rested on his nose, and he looked down them to read the contents of his papers.

"Confidential medical memorandum, in regards to Kirill, N. That's you," Ferrofax's green eyes flicked up, and he pointed his pinky finger at him. "It is the regards of the Chief Medical Officer that, following the replacement of the cardiopulmonary muscle with a Regis series biomedical pump that continued cardiovascular conditioning is not only required but directed as a necessity. Failure to accustom the Regis series biomedical pump to peak bodily performance could lead to...huum...HUUM..."

He flipped through a few pages.

"...and he goes on for a bit here..." the AI mused, before waving a hand at the wall. "Be a mortal shell and turn the tempreature down a smidge?"

"I don't have prosthetic heart," Nevin said, his fingers finding the panel and adjusting the temperature himself.

"Really? Must have got my wires crossed," Ferrofax said, tossing the paper file into the air where it pixelated into digital motes of light. "And to think you were going to trust me with setting the temperature. I could have frozen you to death! Purely by accident. So...what are you playing with? You're not in one of the station's clean rooms so sterility isn't an issue. And you're not using a Waldo or a holographic interface. So cross contamination isn't a factor."

Nevin glanced at the hologram then back to the machine he was looking into. "I've introduced an infected spore to prophyl glucodynamine and I'm cataloguing the stages of degradation."

"A computer model would show more accurate results for a wider range of temperature, humidity, pressure and gravitational variables," Ferrofax mused. "But who am I to stand between a man and his spore?"

"This virus is completely foreign to us," Nevin said without looking up from his machine. "No computer can accurately predict what will happen as I introduce various agents into its environment. But please, feel free to bet the status of this cure on your conjecture."

“Huum. Well for that to happen I would require more data. For instance where in all of the heavens the sample was found? Was it irradiated? From a Class K or L world? Is it carbon or silicon base?” Between Ferrofax’s fingers a cats cradle of molecular bonds began to form, growing spikes of covalent bonds around amino acids. “Also there was a question you should have asked first: does your pet have a taste for red meat? You’re not in a clean room, nor are you following a reasonably robust safety regime. Pardon me whilst I apply some negative pressure to this compartment and seal the door.”

Ferrofax slapped his hands together, squashing the molecular model between them. A light above the door flicked from green to red in response.

“This reminds me of Doctor Trotter, do you know him? I believe he held your posistion before your appointment,” Ferrofax’s eyes creased. “Though given his current medical status I would vouch it safe you’ll join him soon enough.”

"I'm not appointed to this station, merely here to finish my work before I return to my ship," Nevin said. "And stop depressurizing this room. The specimen is completely safe and contained here."

"Huum, wiser men than you have said such in the past. Now they are stern warnings to others of the price of hubris. Remember Nanking when the famed geneticists began their eugenic madness under the torchlight of nuclear fire. Remember Pheobe, a moon of Saturn, a memory now of a time when Starfleet dabbled in unregulated self-replication," Ferrofax tutted. "You will not be the last soul to come here under the pretense you are passing through. We have entire decks of busy work for people who learn that 'truth' has a price. You could join the steno pool, you have the hands of a typist."

Nevin looked up at the hologram, his forehead scrunched in concern. "What do you mean?"

"Certain things, once learned, cannot go back in the box they came from. The fact that you are here means, for the sake of travel beyond the Federation border, we would need to classify you as some sort of planetary defence installation. Your a danger now, your mind full of all the stars that have come right, as the mad philosopher once said," Ferrofax smiled from his chair. "Down in administration, a rather large and bloated section of the org chart, you'll find a Lieutenant Aberthany. Charming fellow plays the clarinet, and has a master degree from the Bolus Science Collegium in computer informatics. He has a talent for it. So much so that one of his computer models began to have physical real-world side effects the moment he started running it. Oh, we had a Theta team on standby for containment, but atherphages do tend to leave a mess of the local fabric of space-time. All that entropy just sliding away into heat death decay. I have the sensor readings from orbit as the oxygen in the atmospheree instantly froze solid if you'd like to see them?"

Ferrofax sighed.

"Bazarine Prime was a nice world before that cretin from HR put it into a Fimbulwinter," Ferrofax wagged a finger at the Bajoran. "But I have hopes for you. The odd's you'll end up loosing the Federation a world are shockingly low for the first two mission, then the odds tend to go skyward in a hurry."

The Bajoran stood there for a moment. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Opening the side of the mounted device, he pulled out a thick clear canister and held it out towards the hologram. "Make sure this specimen is cataloged and put back into cold storage. I'm going to go have a word with Mrazak."

"You know what...this once, it shall be done. But only because, when it finally sets in that you're stuck here for the foreseeable future...you'll realise I make a much better friend than a enemy," Ferrofax grinned, and with a wave of his hand the box on his desk glowed with wrap around security holograms and vanished in a blizzard of transporter energy. "And do go down to HR and meet the mad computational number cruncher who killed a planet. He does a great tour of the complex."

And with a little wave of his fingers the hologram similarly vanished form sight.

Rolling his eyes, Nevin shook his head and walked past the hologram.

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