Paranoia

Posted on 26 Aug 2015 @ 10:32am by EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D.

1,671 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD02 - 0700hrs

[ON]

Despite it being less than twelve hours since his last visit to Sickbay, Oren woke up feeling unsettled. He'd barely gotten any sleep, constantly fighting an urge to get up and just walk, which he'd done several times. Now, up for what felt like the tenth time, he decided enough was enough and something was definitely wrong. Leaving Landi in Grayson's quarters, the El Aurian laid out for food for her before making his way down one deck.

As he passed through the transparent doors, he found himself cracking his fingers, hoping to alleviate his obvious discomfort.

The EMH, having not needed sleep like her organic counterparts, had spent the night and so far this morning rearranging the shelves in the supply cabinets in order to maximise heir efficiency and storage capacity. Her program, having been alerted to the arrival of a crewman in sickbay, turned to face her visitor.

"Ahh...Lieutenant Idris - what brings you to sickbay this early in the morning? I presume you are in some way unwell?"

"I feel strange. Can you check to see what's wrong with me?" Oren asked, hoping the desperation he was beginning to feel didn't show in his voice.

The hologram furrowed her brow at the lack of medical data being presented by her patient. Her program was built with some of the greatest diagnostic processes in Starfleet Medical, but none of those gigaquads of data included a cause of feeling 'strange'.

Picking up a medical tricorder from her rearranged cabinet she removed the probe and swiftly walked towards the scientist, and began her analysis.

"Hmm...your vitals are stable...blood pressure is normal...brain activity stable....what exactly feels so 'strange' as you put it?"

Oren frowned, looking down at the tricorder as if it had personally offended him. "Just..anxious and jumpy. I feel tense. I also get waves of nausea, but not right now."

"Hmm..." The hologram replied with little to indicate her thoughts or opinions on the matter, her diagnostic routines continuing to run in the back of her program database.

"And does this nausea have a common factor? Perhaps a relevant trigger?"

"Not really. It just comes and goes but I can't say it originates in my stomach. It's more like nausea in my head, making me feel dizzy and sick. Sometimes it's momentary but sometimes it lasts for ten to twenty minutes."

The hologram again examined her medical database to see whethe ror not there was a common denominator in the symptoms. A few options were coming up but primarily they involved parasites generally unseen in the Alpha quadrant and almost always fatal, so there would be little her program could do anyway.

"Well....I am happy to run a more indepth scan if you are willing to position yourself onto biobed two - however...there may be a more...psycological reason for your complaint."

"Psychological?" Oren asked, trying not to sound offended by the tone in the hologram's voice.

"Occam's Razor Lieutenant." The EMH replied, before taking a moment to process that perhaps the organic might not have had access to that particular example.

"I cannot detect anything physically wrong with you...therefore it is unlikely that something is indeed wrong as far as your body is concerned. Perhaps what my tricorder fails to detect is a small bout of....hyperchondria?"

Oren frowned. "I'm not a hypochondriac. I actually feel sick," he argued, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.

The EMH would have felt exasperated if her ability to simulate emotions was anything more than just that; a simulation. There was nothing medically wrong with the patient yet they seemed to believe there was.

"Well...if you feel sick right now there is an experimental treatment I could administer to you...it's purely in the research phase but the opportunity to do a trial would be welcomed?"

"An experimental treatment for what, exactly?" Oren asked, watching her suspiciously as another wave of dizziness hit him and he reached over to grab onto one of the biobeds.

"Complex cases where nausea or dizziness presents where there is no clearly identifiable cause. It acts as if someone has pressed a reset switch on the associated neural pathways."

The hologram had to practice her technique whilst discussing the treatment. Of course this was purely a theoretical treatment, but her program was adept at adapting to new situations, and developing new treatments as necessary.

Oren sighed. She sounded less than convincing to him but he had no way of telling whether she was just trying to assuage his paranoia or if she was actually telling the truth.

"Fine...whatever helps," he said, feeling helpless as he took as step towards the hologram.

The EMH raised an eyebrow but said nothing, instead turning on her photonics heels and reaching for a hypospray and cartridge from the rack against the wall. Priming the dose she injected the compound into the Lieutenant's neck.

"There....that should do the job just fine."

Frowning, Oren rubbed the spot slowly, hoping to feel better. As nothing happened, he figured it might take time. "How long before it begins to take effect?" he asked hopefully.

"Just a few moments hopefully." The hologram replied as she accessed her program's internal chronometer. Her theory so far had held true, and at least this medication would allow her to get an accurate diagnosis of the problem. If her subroutines were correct, she could move onto the next stage of treatment.

Oren stood there, rocking gently back and forth on the balls of his feet, waiting. Eventually, as he felt no improvement, he looked at the hologram. "Nothing is happening."

The hologram looked concerned as she performed a simple visual examination using her optical subroutines. It appeared her initial diagnosis of simple paranoia was going to be a little more difficult to prove; in fact right now all she was doing was disproving it.

"In which case I will need to conduct further tests. With your permission I would like to extract a blood sample? It will take some time however to grow the necessary cultures."

"A blood sample?" Oren repeated, feeling nervous at the idea of having his blood drawn. It wasn't that common of a procedure for him to endure. In fact, he'd never had his blood drawn at all, he realised. After all, it wasn't like he was sick often, or at all. "Will it hurt?" he asked, kicking himself for how childish he sounded the minute it passed his lips.

"No more than a regular hypospray injection - just think of it in reverse." The hologram chimed in as she disappeared to retrieve a different hypospray and a new cartridge. Inserting the blank she tapped a few commands on the back of the hypospray head to set the extraction dose before holding it ready.

"Do you consent?"

Eyeing the hypo warily, Oren's gaze traveled up the hologram's arm to her face. "This...you're just going to use my blood to find why I'm sick, right? You're not going to keep it and use it for anything else?"

"No I'm going to use it to make myself an army of organic slaves to begin my army of conquest over this quadrant." The hologram replied as she prepped the dosage meter to extract the necessary sample from her patient.

"I'm a doctor not a horror movie - your blood will be used for examination purposes only and then disposed of. My program doesn't allow for me to violate patient confidentiality."

"Oh...right." Feeling foolish, Oren regretted even coming to Sickbay. "Pity it doesn't include better bedside manner subroutines," he muttered, tilting his head to the side and consenting to the procedure.

The EMH raised an eyebrow, something that her program had done even before she had been upgraded into her current avatar. Her bedside manner was designed to be functional and expedite the level of patient care. Strange...it seemed many of the crew had been giving her the same response.

"If you would hold up your left arm please Lieutenant?" The hologram asked, shaking the hypospray from side to side as if to indicate her intention.

""Oh..." Shaking his head at himself, Oren pulled his sleeve up and held his arm out.

"There we go...." she replied, touching the tip of the instrument against her patient's arm and depressing the keypad to begin extracting the sample. After a few moments she stopped, release the controls and stepped back, ejecting the cartridge and shaking it from side to side to ensure that the anticoagulant within had evenly distributed throughout the sample to avoid clotting.

"Excellent....it shouldn't take too long for me to run some preliminary testing. Perhaps you would like to come back tomorrow?"

Tomorrow?! I could be dead by then, Oren thought in a moment of panic, eyes widening. Blinking, he nodded with his mind still reeling. "Uh...okay," he said in a small voice, reluctantly hopping off the biobed.

"Any special time I should show up?"

"As soon as you wish." She replied, dropping the sample into a tube rack along with the other routine tests her internal chronometer had assigned active time to complete.

"upside of being a hologram - I'm always available." She replied with a smile, trying to see if she could augment her supposedly cold bedside manner.

But Oren appeared distracted, staring at his blood sample. When he'd watched the liquid tissue pool into the contained, he'd fought off nausea he knew had nothing to do with his illness. Even having training as a nurse hadn't desensitized Oren to the sight and he still felt lightheaded every time.

Finally, he managed to break his gaze away from the cartridges and looked at the EMH.

"Alright," he just said, having completely missed whatever she'd said. "I'll keep in touch then. Thank you, doctor."

[OFF]

Lieutenant JG Oren Idris
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

EMH Mk X-b
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo
[PNPC Holliday]

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