These Lips Were Made For Pathogens

Posted on 14 Oct 2014 @ 9:49am by Commander Norvi Stace & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

1,583 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Science Laboratory 4A
Timeline: MD07: 0900 hrs

ON:

"Seriously, Mott. If you don't stay still then I'll have restrain you again."

The tone in Norvi's voice was now a little impatient. She'd been trying for almost fifteen minutes to take an interphasic scan of his entire body but without success. "This is a very delicate, and minute piece of equipment. You lolloping around on the table isn't helping me. And if you can't help me then I can't help you. And subsequently you'll have lost the Patient of the Year accolade I had intended on awarding you." She paused for a breath and then raised both eyebrows, pursing her lips. "There would have been a seven course banquet but I'm not even sure you deserve the trophy."

Olsam had been trying to remain still, of course...while turning over to see what Norvi was doing at the computer console. He just didn't like the idea of an interphasic scan. Sure, there was nothing inherently dangerous about it. But just the idea that someone was going to be seeing his body in such high detail didn't set well with him. What if she sold the data to some unscrupulous and seedy corporation that incorporated his likeness into some tasteless pornographic once-you-go-blue-pink-just-won't-do holosuite program?

"Sorry," he said meekly, trying to lay as stiff as a board. For the most part, he was successful, but his eyes kept darting around as if some part of him had to keep moving. "Can I talk? Maybe I shouldn't talk. What if they're hiding my lips? What if it's a lip pathogen and I'm talking and the scanner doesn't get a very good scan of my lips so we think I don't have something but it turns out that I do? And what if I kiss someone and pass it along! What if I start a pandemic all because I couldn't stop talking?"

"Then talking," she sighed, stopping what she was doing and returning back to the biobed, "isn't going to help you, is it?" She placed a hand on his shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Just one more minute and then I'm done, I promise." She turned back to the computer terminal and quickly completed the scan. Looking quickly at the results, she sighed. "Um, do you want the good news or the bad news?"

Olsam hated bad news. Frankly, as far as he was concerned, he didn't even need to hear it. "Good news. Definitely the good news."

She flicked the wisp of hair that had fallen about eyes, having come loose from its grip at the back. "Well, for your patience, I will award you the accolade of Patient of the Year 2390. It couldn't have gone to a more deserving man. I might even dedicate an entire course just to eggs. However, the bad news is that you do have an interphasic pathogen within your blood stream." She knew that she could have delivered the line with a little more finesse but with the doctor you sometimes had to shoot from the hip and hope that through his ramblings the information got through.

So wrapped up in the thought of a veritable feast was he that Olsam almost didn't hear the bit about being infected with an interphasic pathogen. His mind was on a seemingly endless banquet table lined with egg dishes: deviled eggs, caviar, Eskarian eggs, Jibalian seven-spice omelettes, scrambled eggs, Taspar eggs, egg drop soup, Porakan eggs, Senarian egg broth, Regova eggs, Ktarian eggs...

"Huh? What?" he asked, blinking at her. Playing back what she'd said in his mind caused his mouth to form into a perfect O-shape. His wide eyes were unblinking and he didn't move a muscle, much as he should have done moments ago during the scan. He was speechless. Quiet. So still and silent that he might be...dead? "Really? But... Those things don't exist!" Nope, not dead, yet. "Are you sure? Maybe the scan of my lips was wrong. Let's do it again. C'mon, turn that thing back on. I won't move this time. Let's go. Go, go, go."

Olsam could feel his chest tightening as he flopped himself back down on the biobed. Some detached part of his mind, the cold and methodically medical portion, began to race. Symptoms? Shortness of breath. Elevated heart rate. Dizziness, chest pain, sweating, hot flashes. Trembling, choking sensation, nausea and numbness. Diagnosis: acute onset panic attack.

"Doctor," Norvi's clear voice cut through. "If you don't calm down then I'll sedate you myself. And, in this onset of panicking, I might do it wrong and you might die!" She couldn't help herself, but sometimes Olsam needed a firm and controlling hand. Mostly with the threat of death or witholding food. The latter sometimes causing the more desired reaction. She sighed and then placed a hand on his shoulder. "Better to know and treat this than to carry on allowing you to think everything is fine and letting this get worse."

She cleared her throat and then returned to the computer screen to view the results more clearly. "Listen," she said, not looking at him. "At least we now know that you're infected. It's lucky that we even have an interphasic scanner onboard. But this means that we can move forward with sorting this out for you."

Olsam nodded his head, over and over again. Too many times, really. He nodded so much you'd think he was dizzy from it, but it didn't seem to affect him. "Okay, yes, you're right, of course. We know I'm infected with an unknown interphasic pathogen, and that's the first...step...." His breathing grew ragged as he teetered on the edge of a panic attack again, but closing his eyes and calling to mind the egg buffet seemed to help. "Um. Okay. Epidemiological protocol...let's see... Is it contagious? Is it harming my bodily functions? Do I need to be quarantined again? Killed? Are you going to kill me, Norvi? Just say you killed me and give me an escape pod and a rendezvous with an Orion freighter. Let me disappear into the Beta Quadrant. I swear I'll never infect another soul..."

"Whereas that would be easier for us all," Stace sighed, a lilt of honesty clipping her words, "it's not going to help either of our careers." She paused and then scrunched up her nose. "We're scientists, Doctor. Medical or not. And this is the kind of challenge we should live for. This, and that egg buffet I'm still promising. But with this pathogen in your mouth and labia labium lip, you ain't gonna be eating much unless we work together to sort this.

"After our last encounter, I did some more research in the area of interphasic science, and it turns out that Starfleet have encountered interphasic creatures before. Only these were much more advanced. Fully formed organisms as opposed to just a pathogen. The USS Enterprise twenty years ago used an interphasic pulse to rid their entire crew of them. But they had access to a positronic processor to do this. We just have to think outside the box a little."

Normally, Olsam lived outside the box. There wasn't a box big enough or boxy enough to contain him. But he was still on the verge of a panic attack and he didn't have a clue what an interphasic pulse or a positronic processor were. They sounded like some kind of engineering things. Wasn't a processor a computer thing?

"Okay, so... I need to steal a positronic processor from engineering. Do you know how to do the pulse? I've got some drugs that'll make a person susceptible to suggestion if we need to kidnap an engineer to do it. I was never very good at wiping memory engrams, though, so we'd better take someone expendable." Something about the look on her face told him he wasn't generating good ideas thus far so he fell into a moment of silent contemplation. "Hmm, well, can't we use the main computer? It's a processor! What do we do to make it positronic?"

"I don't know," Stace replied genuinely. "But then again, I'm not an engineer. Nor do I know whether we need to make it positronic for the procedure to work." She sighed and then rubbed her forehead with her palm. "But I do think that that's the next step. Only without the drugging and coercion. There's no need for that. Asahi is a pretty reliable guy. And he's nice too. He'll help us, I'm sure."

"Hmm," Olsam said, looking entirely unconvinced. Norvi was the chief scientist aboard the ship, so he figured she probably had a better idea about these things than he did. He'd never really spent much time with Asahi, so he couldn't say for sure whether it was better to sedate him in a dark corridor or just go ask him for help. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, sounds good to me."

Stace could see the dark twinkle in his eye. She narrowed hers on him and then cocked her head to side. "Whatever you're thinking, Olsam, DON'T!" She inhaled and then shook her head. "In fact, I don't trust you. Let's go and see Lieutenant Kita together. Last thing he needs is waking up in a Jeffries tube with three days missing. Come on!"


[ OFF ]

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

AND

Lieutenant Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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