Wake up, Lieutenant

Posted on 10 Dec 2017 @ 8:36pm by Lieutenant JG Manuel Lucero

2,145 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco, Starfleet Medical HQ
Timeline: MD 73, 0652 hrs

[ON]



What seest thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time?



"Get him out-..." A deep voice sounded before dissolving back into absolute nothingness.


Who is that? That voice... Was that Shakespeare?


"Cadet, initiate termination procedures for the suspension module."

"Yes, Commander. Sensors read that homeostasis is self-sustained, enzymes normal, neuralgia are fully-conductive, and all biochemical pathwa-"


Why can't I move? Something's not right... I can't move!!!


"...Sir... Um, There's an increase in sensory input and encephalography shows hyperactivity in the motor-kinetic spaces. He's coming out fighting. D-Do I restrain him?"

"No." The voice laughed. "Just set a pulse to interrupt voluntary motor control to the PNS for a few minutes, but keep occulomotor neurons open. And give him some acetylcholine to bring him out of that fog. He's probably just scar-..." The voice faded out once again.


Agh. This isn't good at all. I have to get out of he-... Wait... I can see something...



The charm dissolves apace, and as the morning steals upon the night, melting the darkness, so their rising senses begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle their clearer reason.




"Wake up, Lieutenant."

Lieutenant, junior grade, Manuel Robert Lucero, V, had opened his eyes for the first time in what must have been a long while, because even the subdued light of the private medical suite was far too bright.

A blurry blue visage suddenly came into focus as it got closer to the Lieutenant's squinting face. An andorian wearing the rank of commander with the color of science piped around it, almost matching the tone of his skin, was the owner the unmistakably deep voice.

"Lieutenant Lucero." The commander smiled. "In a second you should be able to speak, then I want you to tell me how you're feeling?"

A blurry figure next to a terminal spoke. "Sir, terminating all artificial neural interceptions... Now."

Manuel sat up quicker than he ever had in his entire life. The speed of the movement and the force of suddenly stopping made his head throb so much that he dropped back onto the biobed, now completely supine.

"Whoa. Slow down there."

Lucero was annoyed. About what, he didn't know. But his newfound migraine wasn't helping and the doctor's casual attitude didn't help either.

"I'm fine. Just tell me who the hell you are, where the hell I am, and why, for the love of Earth, am I laying in a biobed." He felt as though his words may have been slurring a bit, but it could have been an illusion. His thoughts were still running thicker than squill syrup.

"Well, at least you didn't ask who you are. I am a bit concerned that you don't remember me though, Manny."

"What are you talki-...?" Lucero waited as he processed the informal use of his first name. His heart sped up as he thought of his father, the only one to ever call him 'Manny'. This was not his father, but then it couldn't be coincidence. The andorian's voice was so vaguely familiar. It seemed as though several threads were subtly twitching in the back of his memory and every time he grasped for it, it was like reaching into a quantum singularity. An uncaring and all-consuming point in spacetime, constantly collapsing on its own gravity into some inconceivable oblivion.

Deductive reasoning would have to suffice.

"You knew my father." The Lieutenant sat up, slowly this time, and looked down.

The Commander's smile faded.

"Yes... I was there when you were a child. I brought you to Starfleet when your father went... Well..." He paused as his eyes seemed to water. "You really don't remember, do you? It's me... Gonzalo."



O' good Gonzalo. My true preserver and a loyal sir... Both in word and deed.



A memory flashed of his graduation from the academy and the andorian congratulating him as he prepared for his first real tour. The memory left as soon as it came. Lucero found himself feeling somewhat distraught from the feeling the memory left in its departure.

"Why can't I remember?" His head was still down as he spoke softly.

"There was an accident when you-."

"Sir! We can't-!" The cadet behind the terminal near shouted.

Manuel looked to the cadet then back to Gonzalo, who looked as though tears would shed at any moment. Lucero turned back to the cadet who he could now see was a blonde human male, a senior. His voice had picked up more strength and clarity, so he tried to speak with an authority that he wasn't entirely sure he held in his current state. "Can't what, Cadet?"

"I-I... Sir, I'm not allow-... Commander?"

The doctor was silent for a moment longer before saying in a voice that was almost imperceptible.

"We can't say. Not that I don't want to, Manny. It comes from someone who ranks higher than me, anyway. They had dropped some names that I can't possibly risk crossing. I'm sorry. I really am."

"What kind of crap is that?!" His voice had now lost all authority and just dripped with a primal anger. Lucero's face had turned scarlet and venous distention was evident along the surfaces of his skin while the terminal where the cadet was standing beeped quickly to indicate a sudden increase in vital signs.

"I can only tell you that you suffered a serious head injury. There was trauma and tissue damage. I was the attending at the Starbase when they brought you in and told my residents that I'd take you for myself once I realized it was you. I won't lie, it looked bad. Really bad. I was going to call it quits. I tried so much. At least 21 types of cortical analeptics with alkysine. None of it was working completely. But I was finally able to put together a CPK enzymatic therapy protocol. It was the last thing I could try. I was so close to giving up." A tear finally fell from the Commander's face.



Holy Gonzalo, honorable man, mine eyes, ev'n sociable to the show of thine, fall fellowly drops.



Manuel stared blankly for a second. Then something came to him rather quickly.

"That's what's wrong with it then. The pharmacokinetics of the analeptics with the enzyme therapy had restored neuronic structures to their previous shape by reverse-translating ribosomal anticodon transcriptions within the surrounding undamaged neurons. But neuroplasticity wasn't totally restored in the regions where shape actually is the most important. Memory and recall."

Gonzalo laughed back a subtle sob. "Well, at least we know that your academics haven't left you." At that he paused. His face became serious and composed, taking a deep breath. He looked up into Lucero's stare and his eyes quickly flashed to the cadet who was silently watching on before returning back to the Lieutenant. A movement so subtle that it was unlikely that the cadet noticed it at all.

"It was only a small portion of those regions that were damaged. With that being said, the effects of your long term memory loss are likely to only surround traumatic or emotionally dense points. This is due to the fact that those events have a tendency to be based on complex neural network pathways, and thusly, more complex structures that are difficult to restore with only a baseline neuroplastic factor that inheres in restored neurons."

Lucero felt insulted by the Gonzalo's unnecessary commentary on the relationship between memory and neuroplasticity, as though the mechanics of his memory loss weren't obvious to him, and wondered for a moment whether the doctor really knew him at all. But then he realized that something clandestine was going on. The Commander wasn't giving that lecture for Manuel's benefit. It was for show.

"Cadet, I need you to go retrieve Lieutenant Commander F'Jilk in in-patient records and tell him that I am discharging the Lieutenant here as fit for reinstatement. I need to discuss something with F'Jilk in person once I get to that Klingon patient in X7."

"Yes, Sir." The cadet gathered his PaDD and began to walk out of the room.

"I need that done statim, Cadet. That Klingon is dying."

"O-oh. Aye aye, Sir!" The blond boy's eyes went wide as he ran out into the corridor.

Gonzalo stepped away from the biobed and looked at the door until it sighed closed again. The doctor then practically ran to grab his PaDD and walked up to the medical replicator near the bed.

"What was that all about, Gonzalo?"

"I'm discharging you. You're fit for assignment. You'll just need to find a position and apply, then I want you to continue your career. I want you to do everything you can to get to the top." The Commander spoke quickly and with finality as he turned from the custom replicator and stepped closer to the biobed, providing Manuel with a capsule.

"Um. What?"

"It's Desegranine. A cardassian pharmacophore used to-."

"To restore memory loss." Lucero completed.

"Yes." Gonzalo smiled. "Yes, to restore memory. Its against regulation to prescribe since its reserved for special purposes and could be abused by certain undesirables to get information... It should only take a few hours to start to take effect, nonetheless it might take a few days to completely recover everything... But you know that, I'm sure." He chuckled. The kid had always blown him away. Such potential. He'll have to keep an eye on him for the future to make sure that that potential wasn't getting wasted.

Lucero took the capsule, then frowned at the taste without anything to wash it down. He looked up at the doctor while he sat himself up completely and stepped off the biobed.

"There's a uniform for you in the compartment there." He pointed briefly to the wall on the opposite side of the bed before returning to his PaDD and briskly moving to the terminal where the cadet once stood, clearing some data from the screen with a few swift taps and swipes. Manuel moved to the indicated wall, but kept his eyes on the white-haired doctor the whole time.

"But, what about your orders?"

Gonzalo stopped and looked at Lucero. He smiled and looked down to his PaDD and made a final swipe before returning to Manuel's gaze.

"If anyone asks then say that your memory returned on its own. A medical miracle... I'm sorry that I almost gave up on you, Manny. I've had a good career. You need a chance to actually have yours. So, please, if a difficulty ever comes your way... Ever in your time with Starfleet, at least... Promise me that you won't give up."

The Commander waited.

"... I promise."

Gonzalo looked as though his eyes were watering again.

"Good. I'm glad. Maybe I'll be able to keep my promise to your mother after all." His voice shook.

A memory flashed of his mother's funeral. Dark. Sad. Anger at father. Dead.

"I'll try to get a hold of you sometime. Good luck." The doctor went in for an embrace. It surprised Manuel, but he succumbed to it nonetheless, something he knew he would never have done otherwise. Once he let go, Gonzalo took a deep breath and walked quickly out of the room and into the corridor, wiping his eyes quickly with his sleeve.

This left Lucero alone as the door slid in a huff to its shut position. He felt as though the situation demanded that he should probably leave ASAP.

He quickly fit himself into the uniform. It seems to be one he'd had for some time as it was moderately worn in some places.

He moved cautiously to the door and it opened at his presence. He took a brief look both ways in the huge but busy corridor. Bigger than one in any starbase he'd seen. Now that he thought about it, the cadet's uniform had lacked any patches indicating what ship or station he was serving on. So it must be San Francisco itself. Manuel wasn't on a starbase at all; they were on Earth. Then again Gonzalo did refer to the starbase they were on in the past tense. He must've missed that detail during the conversation.

The Lieutenant let out a large breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding. He had a lot to figure out while he recovered from this amnesia over the next few days. He was a slave to the disadvantage of his faulty memory until the Desegranine kicked-in.

He stepped out into the corridor.



Thou shalt ere long be free.



[OFF]

--

LT(j.g.) Manuel Robert Lucero, V
Science Officer

CMDR Gonzalo Th'chaarhoq, M.D.
Medical Officer
Starfleet Medical HQ
[NPC]

RSS Feed

Comments (1)