Prologue - Human Trials (Chapter 3)

Posted on 29 Mar 2023 @ 5:53pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lia Quil & Marcus Mulder
Edited on on 29 Mar 2023 @ 6:05pm

3,966 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Pleiades Cluster, Cold Station 31
Timeline: 2391

Previously, on Breakthrough (Chapter 2)...

Lia was nodding, trying not to get distracted by the fact they had convicts to add to the equation. On the one hand, it was virtually coercion when an offer to participate in trials was given with such an unequal balance of power and status. On the other hand was also the fact that they were a small cohort...versus a group of possibly dangerous convicts in their facility. She tried to focus on Mulder's question instead. "Yes, assistance in screening would be desirable. I will need to assess them thoroughly and group them accordingly. We shall need to work swiftly to advance our testing to more complex samples and subjects to be ready for them in six months. It should be possible, but..." it would mean more long hours, tired staff, strained staff.

"You can use my team," Mulder said quickly, giving her a nod. "They should be capable, if they know what they are meant to be doing. It would double the resources, as we now progress to a stage where Astrophysics may be...less vital, unless everything goes horribly wrong."

"Fine," she replied quietly with a single, controlled now. It was as far as she would likely go in outwardly expressing that something had put her mind to rest. Well, as rested as her mind was able to become. "You will need to be aware of the variables to adjust efficiently as required," she added, firmly pushing away her concerns about having convicts as subjects, locking the information away in a box, with other distractions she didn't need.

"Understood," he said, giving her a nod before he looked down. "It will be heavy going. However, the science is strong. We will make it work." He paused, looking at their director, before he raised an eyebrow. "If we start now, I'd say...?"

Lia gave a firm nod, looking to Barker, eager to get moving. Eager to get control back over the variables of this experiment. It felt like they had already been working to a frenetic extent, but somehow, she had the feeling that they had barely even begun.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

By some miracle, they had advanced enough to do human trials by the time the test subjects arrived. There had been some failures, but most of the issues had been ironed out. Once they arrived, the test subjects had been categorised based on their genetics, to create different groups.

After all, it was important to have accurate data.

There had been a mixture of relief and annoyance at the small group they had of test subjects. With only ten, great care had to be taken into account, both in analysing the DNA, and in the amount of variables.

"It would have been better with a hundred," Mulder had remarked one evening, but it was more thinking aloud than anything that needed commenting on.

In the last three years, there had been transwarp beaming of inorganic and organic material to Cold Station 20, in the Sol system. Now came the time for the first trial with a sentient being.

"We could have started with rats," one of the junior researchers had said, only to receive eyerolls. Rats were difficult because you could grow attached to them, out here.

On what would on Earth have been a chilly morning, but out here on Cold Station 31 was just another day that looked the same, the senior researchers were gathered in the room with Test Subject One. A human female, in her mid fifties, wearing the simple grey jumpsuit that the test subjects wore. The coordinates had been laid in, and they were going over the last system checks.

"Do you feel like you are being watched?" Mulder asked, lightly, as he knelt to check the last of the connections to the console, motioning with his head to the flying drone that was doing recorded scans. It was easier to have another set or readings from the main computer.

The woman designated 'TS-1' dryly answered with a healthy dose of snark. "You have a f'--king bootleg exocomp hovering around me recording holovids. Of course I feel like I'm being watched." Though she wasn't openly agitated, she certainly wasn't the happiest individual in the galaxy. "This isn't going to hurt, is it? Because I didn't sign up for torture."

Mulder let out a soft breath, and stood with a small smile to look at her. "Of course not," he assured her, trying to interject some calm into his voice to reassure her. Although technically, who knew? And honestly, he didn't really care that much except that it would not be a huge success if it hurt. "Once the test is complete, you'll fill out a questionnaire. And you can give us some constructive feedback." He turned his head towards Lia, giving her a nod. "Doctor, are we ready at your end?"

Lia was watching the large panel of controls as she 'fine tuned' the calibrations. In truth, she wasn't changing anything, because if it wasn't correct already, they were all in trouble. No, instead it was a well trodden dance of checks that served to distract her from the reality of the enormity of what they were doing. She didn't feel right, unless she'd gone through a set pattern of checks. She finally looked up to Mulder, ignoring the woman in the middle of the room as she gave him a single, firm nod.

"Alright," Mulder nodded before looking at the test subject. "Just stay still, we will do a count down," he said and walked to Lia, motioning for her to follow him to the observation room. There had been the incident of the exploding apples. He pressed the button, so that the test subject could hear him. "We will start now...computer, initiate transporter sequence, Alpha-One. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged. Commencing in five. Four. Three. Two. One."

The prototype transwarp transporter array began its activation sequence. The chamber's targeting scanners acquired a coordinate lock on the test subject then commenced the experimental procedure. Bright shimmers of turquoise light engulfed her while the molecular imaging scanners worked in tandem with the primary energizing and phase transition coils to convert the woman into a sub-atomic matter stream. The pattern buffers briefly held the debonded molecules while adjusting for Doppler shift, then moved her non-corporeal existence to the primary emitter array which beamed her out into the depths of space towards the Sol system.

Lia let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding, stunned for a moment, as the realisation of everything having been leading to this moment hit her hard. She suddenly reached for the console, hurriedly sending a message to Cold Station 20, asking for confirmation that the subject had made it. She looked to Barker with dark eyes, knowing it would be 3 hours before they'd get a response. It was too long. She needed to know now.


Three Hours Later...

An incoming audio message from Cold Station 20 finally made its way to Cold Station 31 after several hours of travel along Starfleet's extended subspace relay network. A distinctive communications chime sounded within the laboratory.

Mulder frowned, taking a deeper breath before he hit the button, frowning as he looked at Quil.

A slightly distorted yet prominent Vulcan voice came through to CS-31's personnel. "Cold Station 31, this is Doctor Ranel. We have been standing by in anticipation of your first transporter test. Unfortunately, our sensors have not received any incoming transporter signals. No life form has been detected. Please advise and confirm that your transport was successful within your station."

"Cold Station 20, this is Doctor Mulder. Confirm transport happened successfully. We will follow up here. Cold Station 31 out." He closed the connection, looking around before letting out a long breath. "You know, I miss the exploding apples...can we see what the last vitals were before the subject went missing? Maybe check the brain waves? It's the only thing I can see being different from previous tests, a subject with more advanced brain activity."

Lia Quil didn't respond. She just stared, at nothing in particular, her eyes glazed. Her skin had turned an ashen shade of grey and her hands gripped the edge of the panel. She was holding her breath, for too long. It was as if her brain was shutting down, and in a sense, it was. She couldn't compute the situation. The failure. The person that was there, and now was nowhere.

Mulder frowned, looking at her, about to tell her if she had heard him. He saw her face though, the colour, and walked to her. His hands went to her arms, to gently grip them. "Lia," he said, his voice firm. "Look at me."

Lia's body turned to him with the grip, but her eyes remained focussed on her non existent focus point. "Apples...but the worm...never stops..." she garbled with confusion.

"Lia," Mulder watched her before he shook his head. "Lia, listen to me. The experiment failed. We need to find out why. It's all that matters. It is just data. We now have a new variable we have to account for, if we can get to the bottom of it..." he stopped, before he reached to touch her cheek. "Lia Quil, be quiet and look at me."

She finally looked to him, her mouth snapping shut as she stilled. His words sunk through the shock, the wheels started to turn. She let out a long, shaky breath, her features calm though. "Energy doesn't disappear. It changes."

He nodded encouragingly, watching her for a long moment. "We need to analyse everything," he said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. "The first experiment failed, we need to isolate what went wrong. An energy fluctuation, or the brain chemistry attributing to something. We pick it apart, we put it together again...and we move forward. This is what is expected. We will not succeed in the beginning."

"Like exploding apples..." she said quietly, looking to the window through to the main lab. "We should have been given more time."

"Unfortunately, we do not have it," Mulder frowned as he said it, because he agreed with her. "Let's look over the numbers together. Two brains are better than one, once we believe we have found it, we try again with a new subject."

Lia nodded as she looked back to him, calmer, more herself, even if still a shade or two paler. "I can do that," she confirmed, settling her mind back to work. She knew how to work a problem. Work was her safety zone, and she could wrap herself back up in it. "We can do that."

It took hours to analyse the data and do adjustments. Including the communication back to Cold Station 20. Yet the two scientists worked through it, reconfiguring what needed, adjusting settings and rewiring.


28 Hours Later...

Another apple test followed, with confirmation from Cold Station 20. A night's sleep followed, before Mulder and Quil were back in the room, looking at the newest test subject.

The young Trill man within the experimental transporter chamber - a convict pardoned for early release once his special contract was fulfilled - glanced across his surroundings with a serene demeanor. "What are you testing here?" he plainly asked, not seeming too concerned with the minutiae of detail going into preparatory work. "This looks like some sort of transporter array. Are you sending me home, back to Trill?"

Mulder had a double check over the monitors, to make sure that the sensors attached to the Trill were reading his vitals. "We are just conducting some tweaks to the transporters. And no, not Trill." He stopped and met his eyes. "You will need to be still, and quiet, during this. Understood?"

"Still. Quiet. Buy why?" the subject asked with innocent curiosity. "If you're not beaming me to Trill...then where?"

Mulder sighed, looking at the subject before he shook his head. "Not far. It will only take a moment," he said lightly before looking at Lia. "Are we ready, doctor?"

Lia nodded with a slight frown, looking up from her screen. She'd meticulously gone through her checking routine, following the exact same order as usual, not that the ritual had given much luck last time. "It's analysed him successfully and calibrated," she confirmed. They'd had to work on a function that was able to adjust the settings to the bioelectric variables of the individual. It was still a clunky interface that added a lot more time to preparing to beam, but they could work on how to better integrate it if it worked. If it worked.

A perplexed expression formed on the Trill subject's face after listening to the scientists' verbal exchange. "...Analyzed? Calibrated?" His calm features shifted to a state of concern. Transporters shouldn't need to be reconfigured. "What are you going to do to me?" If they weren't beaming him back to his homeworld, then...

"We're transporting you to another location on the base. It's new tweaks, to make them better. Now be quiet," Mulder said, looking at the subject for a moment. He then gave a small, reassuring smile. "Please. It won't take long. Indulge us."

The subject sighed and rolled his eyes. "That is why I'm here, it appears. To 'indulge' your experiments," he retorted. "It's the condition for my early release, yes? Do as you must." There was hint of resignation in the man's voice, an outward admission that he ultimately couldn't control his destiny until this experiment was fulfilled.

Mulder nodded, before heading to the observation room. He looked at Lia, giving her a small smile. "Let's see if this time it works better," he said, moving to the console. "Computer, initiate transporter sequence, Alpha-One. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged. Commencing in five. Four. Three. Two. One."

Marcus watched the readouts rather than than the test subject. It was the data that was interesting, not seeing someone fidget on the spot.

Once more, the prototype transwarp transporter array commenced its operations. Targeting scanners acquired a coordinate lock on the Trill test subject, then luminescent blue transporter shimmers surrounded him. The finely-calibrated molecular imaging scanners and primary energizing phase transition coils disassembled the man into his sub-atomic elements. Readings from the pattern buffer showed nominal variations before transferring the organic particles to the primary emitter array and out into space. The spotted man shimmered from existence, on his way to the Sol system like the subject before him.

Marcus let out a breath before waited a few more seconds. No. No re-emergence or exploding body parts. "Cold Station 20, this is Cold Station 31. Please confirm status on subject two?" he looked at Quil, before glancing at the time. With the delay, there wasn't much do to. "How about some food?"

Lia glanced to the time with a frown, letting out a long, tense breath. She wasn't hungry, not really. Her stomach was a knot of butterflies. She was too queasy. "Fine," she pushed away from the console. Pushing food around her plate was preferable to waiting here with bated breath.


Three Hours Later...

A new long-range incoming transmission chirped within the research facility's experimentation chamber. The time delay between the two cold stations -- each on opposite sides of the quadrants -- made communication between them tedious.

Mulder let out a breath before he started the transmission, glancing over at Quil. The waiting for things was the most frustrating part of it all.

A familiar, pointed Vulcan voice came through the channel with slight subspace distortion in his message. "Cold Station 31, this is Doctor...-anel again. We acknowledge your message of transport. However, similar to your previous attempt, we have not received any incoming transporter signals. Signatures of biomolecular matter are negative. Please advise again and confirm that...your trans--ort was successful within your facility."

Lia looked to Mulder, her eyes slightly wider than usual. Again? Again? She was overwhelmed with unfamiliar emotion again, but this time it was different. This time, she was angry. Because it didn't make sense. "I want a full report from them. We need to make sure their set up is exactly as we instructed."

He nodded, taking a deeper breath. "Cold Station 20, we confirm it was successful at our end. Please send through all configurations and schematics from your end. We will verify. Cold Station 31 out." He sent the message, looking at Lia for a long moment. "Now this is an annoyance. We should take these hours to sleep, then when we get the the information we will go through it. And then compare."

Lia nodded, moving away to the door to follow instructions without thinking. She stopped at the doorway, shaking her head with a frown as she turned back, watching the ground somewhere close to his feet. "I can't sleep," she declared, the cuff of her jumper tucked into her hand as she lifted it, biting the edge of her thumb. "The interface should have been enough..."

He nodded and walked to her, his eyes on her. "Okay. Let's go together and get something to eat. We can talk through it. I agree, the interface should have been enough. We can't expect everywhere to have a receiver, for this to truly be successful, we need to be able to transport anywhere." He touched her arm, a light and gentle touch.

She nodded at that, calm descending as she moved alongside him towards the small dining room. Eating and analysing she could do. "We take it apart, piece by piece. Every step. Every variable..."

"All of it," he said, giving a nod of approval. He liked Quil's ability to go over things again and again. He approved of it. "And only once we are satisfied will we try again." He walked with her to the dining room, smiling weakly as they both got a meal and sat down. He looked at her before he started to eat. "We should dismantle it too, if we can't find anything on the diagnostics."


Two Hours Later...

Mulder sighed as he looked over the results, picking up his mug of coffee to sip, before grimacing and putting it down. He reached for a small packet, putting the contents in before he sipped it. He gave Quil a small smile. "Salt and minerals. Helps the bad coffee."

"Salt and..." Lia leant over the table to look into his cup with disbelief, shaking her head with bemusement. "That makes no sense, this project has finally broken your brain..."

"Oh, it certainly broke my taste buds," he said and offered the cup to her. "You are free to try it. The salt dampens the bitterness of burned coffee, brings out the sweetness a bit."

She hesitated for a long moment. But if she was learning anything working here, it was to push boundaries. She sniffed carefully before taking a sip. Her brow creased with confusion before she looked at the liquid, perplexed. "That shouldn't work..."

"And yet it does," he said, smiling warmly as he let out a breath. "It is amazing what can be added to...change the flavour. Bringing out the best."

Lia was silent for a long moment, considering his words, mulling them over, but in a different context. "Maybe it is not the base that is wrong, maybe it is what we have added..." she murmured, bringing up the files of each and every constituent part.

The multitude of different diagnostic reports and transporter data the small team had to sift through was intimidating. It would take weeks with a full dedicated staff aboard a starbase, which was a luxury the small cold station didn't have. Each component of the modified transporter assembly needed to be scrutinized alongside comparative analysis between their operational parameters and the actual test results. A proverbial needle in a matter-stream stack.

Fortunately for CS-31's researchers, preliminary diagnostics reported an immediate discrepancy within the primary and secondary phase inverters. They were vital components of the emitter array whose function during a transporter sequence was to facilitate incoming and outgoing biomolecular signals during transports which didn't have a clear signal path to a nearby transporter receiver. These most often included site-to-site beamings but, in rare cases, encompassed long-range transport endeavors.

"How did this happen?" Lia shook her head with confusion, checking again to be sure. It was such a basic mistake, and they had gone through pre-beaming checks every time. She motioned Mulder over, moving slightly to let him see for himself. "How could we even have missed it?"

"This is what happens when we are given unrealistic deadlines," Mulder said darkly, frowning as he watched it. "We looked it over, but trusted the other researchers to do this bit...as it was seen as a task any Operations officer was capable of."

Lia sighed heavily, rubbing the side of her face with frustration. "This is just going to put us even more behind," she shook her head, frowning as she scrolled through the results of the diagnostics to try and get into the details. "Quantum particles..." she murmured before glancing sideways to Mulder. "Are you seeing this?"

"I am," Mulder said with some confusion, shaking his head. "These looks like bosons. I am getting nightmares to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle here." He pushed back, rubbing his face for a moment, considering it. "The readings are inconsistent with what is expected for a subject being transported. It...makes no sense to me."

"Makes no sense? That's an understatement," Lia frowned as she looked back to the results. She bit her lowerlip, her teeth worrying it as her fingertips tapped anxiously against the edge of the console. "It has nothing to do with what we're trying to achieve. Transwarp and Quantum teleportation are two entirely different theories."

Mulder nodded grimly, thinking about it for a long moment. "Quantum teleportation is a whole other...planet than Transwarp. And all we have done, every theory, every tweak, has been for Transwarp. We made it work. This? This is nothing like that, and it is impossible."

Lia fell silent for a long moment, as if processing the information. She glanced across to him, the look in her eye having changed. She hesitated, looking back to the readouts, her lips parting. "But it's happened," she whispered. "And...and it would be a sorely missed opportunity if we didn't investigate it fully..." she glanced back his way, trying to sound casual.

Mulder looked conflicted for a moment, drawn between the mystery of it, and what they had been told to do. And then he smiled. "I agree. Let us...look into it properly. This, this is far more exciting than Transwarp."

The slightest of smiles pulled at her lips as she knelt down to get in closer to the console, isolating the test results that showed the quantum particles. "So we know that trying to scan or measure quantum particles is...challenging. I would suggest we repeat the experiment without any changes to the equipment, but with basic organic matter again. See if we can duplicate it."

"There is the lab rats as well," Mulder said, thoughtfully, before he nodded. "Let's replicate it, see what we can gather."

Lia gave a nod of satisfaction, pleased with the agreement, even if it wouldn't be obvious to look at her. If they had somehow caused this to happen, she wanted to find out how. It would be a ground breaking discovery. Transwarp was useful to Starfleet...but Quantum teleportation could rewrite scientific theory.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Test Subject One
Classified Assignment
Cold Station 31
[PNPC Saalm]

Dr. Marcus Mulder
Classified Assignment
Cold Station 31
[PNPC Rice]

Dr. Lia Quil
Classified Assignment
Cold Station 31
[PNPC Blake]

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