Prologue - The Rift (Chapter 4) [18+]

Posted on 29 Mar 2023 @ 6:03pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lia Quil & Marcus Mulder

5,153 words; about a 26 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Pleiades Cluster, Cold Station 31
Timeline: 2392

Previously, on Breakthrough (Chapter 3)...

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.

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

The collective mood inside the secretive cold station was turning sour. Frustration from the previous failed experimental attempts with live subjects lingered on the minds of all those involved...especially where humanoid life was concerned. As of the current date and time, Cold Station 20 continued to report no receipt of the men and women who were the first to be beamed across the entirety of Federation space using new transwarp beaming technology. The experiment, so far, was a failure. One which was costing lives.

Despite this, Mulder was in a good mood, whistling, watching the readings. Because despite the Transwarp being seeing as a failure in progress by the Director, Mulder saw the quantum teleportation as a breath away. Well. A breath of the test subjects away. "I think we should try the new configuration on another test subject," he said to Quil, raising an eyebrow. "We should then verify the quantum particles. We have enough data to verify."

Lia glanced up, her jaw tight as she hesitated. She, like Mulder, had started to get carried away with the discovery of quantum particles. She had openly encouraged the exploration regarding their presence. However, they still had to deliver on their transwarp deadlines, and they had, as the humans said, ended up burning the candle at both ends. And then there was the waste of life. She had always been more...distant to other people. On the outside. Finding it harder to understand the relationships people built. But that didn't mean she didn't find the loss of life palatable. And that's what she had to believe it was at this point, as people just disappeared from existence. "We have rats."

"We also have a few useless junior scientists...and a Director..." Mulder said, before he chuckled and nodded. "That was, for the record, a joke. You are right, we start with the rats again." He walked to the cages, picking one up. "Alright, Alpha, you first..." he told the white rat, watching the pink eyes for a moment before he went to put the rat in the cage on the transporter pad.

Lia let out a slight breath at it not becoming an argument or battle of wills. She'd had enough of those on the station to last her a lifetime. Junior scientists were also on her disposable list at this point. "I've matched everything as closely as possible to test Q and checked four times," she confirmed, not wanting another accusation that they'd let mistakes creep in.

"I trust you," he said, and he found that he meant it. It was a rare compliment to any person, because he did trust her mind. He stepped back, taking a deeper breath before he got recording. "Test number 203, subject Rattus norvegicus domestica designated Alpha." He looked at her, giving a small shrug. He thought she'd appreciate the Latin.

Lia's lips quirked at the description, briefly lightening her mood. She reached out. "Lock confirmed..." she said quietly, her fingers moving agilely across the controls. "Energising..." she started the cycle, watching as the rat shimmered out of sight.

Mulder watched before he moved to scan for quantum particles, frowning. "Nothing," he said, his voice neutral, but he felt disappointed. He had thought they had it now, but clearly not. "We did nothing different."

Lia was silent for several long moments, glancing awkwardly to the ground. "Inaccurate. We did one thing differently," she said quietly...because she had veered them in that direction.

"I wonder if the subject even needs to be conscious," Mulder said lightly, before he looked at her. He walked over to her, touching her arm. "It made sense, to try with the rats first. Perhaps it has something to do with the higher brain functions. Rats are intelligent, but they are not as intelligent as...people."

"More complex brains...with more complex bio-neural energy," she said quietly in thought before nodding with a frown. She glanced his way, even if not quite at him. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps the only way we can fully replicate what happened is to use a person again." The word came out without her realising she'd said person rather than subject.

Mulder looked at her, nodding for a moment. "Test subject," he said, firmly, before he pulled away. "We need objectivity. I suppose...we can ask the moral question. Is Transwarp or Quantum teleportation worth what we may do here, in this time?" he asked, glancing her way. "Is it worth the resources available to us, any resource? I believe it is."

"Scientific advancement was built on a bed of sacrifice," she replied matter of factly as she turned her head towards him, but kept a watch on her screen. The words made no comment on the morality of it, or how that might make her feel, only the fact. And it *was* an undeniable fact, no matter how uncomfortable that might be.

He nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Do we really need Barker?" he mused aloud, tilting his head as he looked at her. "Or Williams, or T'Kal?" he gave a shrug, as if saying who knows. "We are running low on compatible resources from the convicts. It may be worth considering less...orthodox approaching. And perhaps some consciousness of destination is required."

Lia held her breath at the words...because horrifically, she saw the sense in them. She covered her mouth in silence, just watching him. Bringing convicts in had sat wrongly with her. It had made her queasy, playing god with real human lives. "Volunteers?" she queried, unsure of the likelihood that anyone would.

"There may be one or two junior researchers we can convince. Whose ambitions outweigh a sense of their own mortality," Mulder said, frowning slightly as he considered their options. "If not, we will have to contain them somehow. We need to continue these experiments, even when we run out of conventional resources."

Lia nodded quietly, swallowing hard as she looked back to the results. "So...we put another...humanoid subject through. Exact same conditions as the last time it produced quantum particles, to see if it replicates the results," she asked, to be sure they were on the same page. Because if the conditions were the same, then the person...the humanoid subject...was certainly not going to rematerialise.

He nodded, holding her eyes for a long moment. "And we monitor, just for quantum particles and increases. For the first subject. Second subject, we take what we have learned and...adjust. If necessary."

Lia hesitated for just a moment before typing the plan of action up, applying her approval to it before offering the PADD to him to do the same. If they were going to do this, she wanted it be logged and validated, even if it was buried under layers of clearances.

He took the PADD from her, looking at it. It had it all written up. The line others wouldn't cross. The moment that history could celebrate or condemn him for. But did he care if history judged him a monster, if the result changed how the universe worked? He pressed his finger to it, authorising it, before offering it back to her as he met her eyes. "We do this, Doctor Quil. And we do it to the best of our abilities."

She nodded firmly, lifting her chin just a little with the decision "I'll make the preparations," she said quietly, moving quickly to start her intricate list of set ups and checks.


48 Hours Later...

It was no doubt a risky proposition to continue Human trials with members of the facility's own research staff. The previous experiments with the designated test subjects had borne little in the way of practical results, yet the observational science had benefited from each attempted transport. New data had been collected, analyzed, then interpreted, meaning there was progress being made despite the slowed pace. Now, however, the stakes were increasing. The lives of research colleagues were at stake as opposed to penal colonists. The distinction shouldn't have existed, but it did.

True to his words days earlier, Mulder had convinced a junior researcher to be a test subject. Since they only had given the researchers numbers, not the whole picture, the subject seemed rather cheery as he stepped onto the pad. "So, I need to focus on where I am going?" he asked, his red hair carefully pulled back from his face.

"Quite," Mulder said with a reassuring smile, moving to fasten some of the monitoring devices on him. "You focus on what you see, of where you are going, where you want to be. It will only be a short hop, you will be back in no time." He pulled back before he met his eyes. "I'll see you in a few minutes." Truthfully, he didn't think so, but he was good at portraying the emotions that reassured others. It was all in a calm and warm smile. He turned and went to the control room, looking over at Quil before he nodded. "We're ready. Start the countdown."

Lia nodded in response, but it was the only interaction she'd given to the whole scene in front of her. She tried to block it out, what was happening, the truth of it versus cold hard facts. She busied herself with running through her careful lists of checks before putting the message through to Dr Ranel at Cold Station 20 to expect a test subject. She didn't detail who.

The time delay resulting from the long-range transmission was significant, but eventually the console chirped with confirmation from the receiving end that all preparations had been made and they were standing by for transport. Would this be the first successful humanoid test involving transwarp transporter technology? Would they finally re-define the entire nature of galactic exploration and make starships obsolete by the end of the next century? The stakes were high. The risks higher. The reward, impalpable.

"And here we go," Marcus said, smiling to himself as he pressed the control, firing up what they had worked on for so long. His eyes were not on the instrument, but the test subject in front of him, separated by forcefields and the thick glass. He could hear the sounds that he usually heard, the computer helpfully recording everything, from the subject's heart rate to brain activity. Everything, all that data, to be analysed.

"Energising," Lia, on the other hand, kept her eyes cast down to her controls, sliding her fingers over them as she heard rather than saw the energy rippling around him before he disappeared. She paused for a moment, glancing to Marcus with anxious features before pressing the panel. "This is Quil to 20, subject has been transported, please confirm arrival?"

The familiar transmission delay from the cold station on the opposite end of the quadrant ensued. Many long minutes passed until the comm channel finally chirped again. "Cold Station 31, we have not received your transporter signal," relayed Doctor Ranel's voice. "Please confirm your transporter protocols and report." Vulcans were rarely purveyors of emotions but subtle hints of frustration were discernible in his tone of voice.

"Understood, 20," Mulder said, his face blank as he considered it. "We will see what we-"

The verbal exchange between the two cold stations was suddenly interrupted by a bizarre and concerning series of computer warnings. There was...an incoming transporter signature detected within the pattern buffers.

Mulder looked at it with surprise before he looked over at Quil, a small smile coming to him. "Let's get the forcefields to maximum, and see if we can materialise whoever is in the buffers. Maybe there was a loop we didn't foresee."

Lia glanced to him with wide eyes. She didn't like surprises. Not at all. And this was no exception. Her scientific curiosity won out there and she moved quickly to fulfil his suggestion. "Forcefields up," she glanced down, fingers moving urgently. "I'm trying now..." she looked to the empty chamber in front of them as the familiar swirl of sparkles began.

As the transporter array manifested its new arrival, the silhouette of a humanoid male started to take form. Its height was approximately six feet with a slim yet athletic build, but within a matter of seconds, a true horror realized itself in front of the two researchers. This was the junior assistant they'd just attempted to transport several minutes ago...now barely recognizable. The young man's once-pristine white uniform was torn and soaked in blood from the neck down -- the sleeves were gone as were his pants. The remains of his forearms and hands revealed bare white skeletal bones with loose flaps of ligaments and tendons dangling from each appendage. His legs were emaciated and showed advanced stages of organic decomposition. After the transport was complete, he staggered for a short moment then fell to the ground on his hands and knees. What was left of them. Deep lacerations covered his torso and forced him to wheeze while a stream of thick blood dripped from his bottom lip onto the transporter pad. Then he tilted his head up, to look at Mulder and Quil. His eyeballs were missing and their only remains were thin tendrils of optical nerves dangling from their sockets.

Marcus watched for a moment before he cocked his head to the side. "Fascinating..." he said, to himself, before he pressed the console. "Can you hear me?" he asked the remnants of the man. Curious, to see him standing in this condition. And not screaming.

Lia was also staring, but with sheer horror. Her breath caught in her throat forever, and when she did finally manage to drag air into her chest it came in rasping, rapid gasps. She shuffled to the clear screen between them, her hands absently reaching out to press to them...to keep herself steady in her growing state of shock. The tattered humanoid's head turned to her at the sound of her palms thudding against the screen, making her jump. "What did we do?" she mumbled, reaching up to grip the side of her head at the jumbled mess her Betazoid mind was trying to make sense of. "What is it? What did we do? What is it? What did we do?"

Marcus looked at her, cutting the outgoing audio to walk over to her. He reached out, calmly, to take her hands. "Lia," he said, his voice firm. "Look at me. Focus on me. Focus on what I am feeling, my mind." Because he was calm. Curious. The horror in the other room didn't disturb him, it peaked his interest as to what had happened. And he didn't want her in this state, he wanted her calmed down. Or else he had to send her out, and that wasn't exactly going to be great considering how far they had come together.

Lia's breath shook as she faced him, even if her gaze was lowered. Usually she avoided touch, but now, she was gripping his hands back like a lifeline to sanity. She focussed on his mind, feeling his fascination and order, familiar emotions and thoughts from the stoic scientist. "What did we do?" she finally lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. "I don't understand..."

"We did nothing except follow the science," Mulder said, holding her hands as he watched her eyes. "And whatever happened, it must have happened during the experiment. Now, I am going to see if the subject responds to questions. If not, we are going to euthanise it, then take it apart and find what the science tells us. The transporter buffer is designed to keep matter in a pattern. Whatever has happened...that is not what we sent out. But it is what came back. So, the journey must have had a physical aspect to it, which means...it worked. The destination was just wrong, but we can figure it out. And correct it."

The destination had indeed been wrong. So very wrong. Where this researcher had traveled to and returned from was now the prominent mystery. The eyeless man raised his head toward the Starfleet researcher's voices. Blood continued to drip from his mouth, making speech difficult. "...I..." The pronoun was garbled yet recognizable, "...won't..go...back!" His tonal inflection raised to convey his distress. "...Help me!"

Mulder gave her hands a gentle squeeze and let go, walking over to the monitor. He cleared his throat before he pressed the button, making the audio go out to the room. "Can you describe to us where you went? What you saw?" he asked, his voice calm. Detached, even. He was curious what the subject would say. With these injuries, he wondered how long they'd be able to keep him alive. But he was talking, and standing. So maybe, the best thing would be to take him apart and see if his body could tell them more.

"Help me!!" repeated his cry of anguish. He painstakingly crawled forward toward the scientists until his decrepit body impacted the isolation forcefield, causing it to shimmer. His head faced the source of the voices speaking to him. "It was...Hell..." He wheezed and coughed again, the strength to communicate leaving his soul. "...I won't go back..." The man's chin slowly lifted in a strained yet proud manner. "Tell my wife and children...I love them..."

What happened next was unsettling. Without waiting for a reply from the cold station's scientists, he brought one of his hands to his throat. The skin around his fingers were gone and only the bare cream-and-blood-soaked bones of his digits were visible. The junior scientist pressed them deep into his neck's tissue, penetrating the skin with the jagged edges of his nails and exposed bones. Once they were two knuckles deep, he turned his wrist to the appropriate angle then ripped out his own larynx and esophagus in one swift and forceful motion.

Through the transporter containment field's speakers, Mulder and Quil could hear the sound of attempted gargling and failing lung oscillations. The man now held his own voice box in his hand which made speech impossible, and the gore within his now-exposed neck was a disturbing sight. Several seconds passed while he started to bleed out through his major neck arteries. Then he fell forward on his face without moving. Still. Calm.

Lia dropped into a crouch as the air left her body, clutching the sides of her head with both hands, as if that could keep his horror out of her betazoid mind. She felt every second of it, her fingers turning a whiter shade of pale with how tight they gripped her hair. "Just die..." she suddenly whispered, as the seconds dragged on through the ordeal, needing it to stop. "Just die!" she shouted...until the calm came. She tried to get breath back into her lungs, struggling with it, her chest so tight she thought it might break.

"Now that is unfortunate," Mulder said, watching the collapsed corpse for a moment with some annoyance at the turn of events before he registered Lia's distress. Anyone else he may have snapped at, but they had worked together long enough for him to know her. He turned and walked over to her, reaching for her hands. "Come here," he ordered, pulling her close, his hand going between her shoulder blades to rub. "Slowly in...hold...and out again. It's down now, you can focus again. Slowly in...hold...and out again. Breathe, Quil. Your body remembers how."

She followed his orders easily, because it was easier to have someone else think for her while she recovered her senses. Her breathing slowed and her mind found his. His order. His singlemindedness. "He went to hell," she breathed before finally looking to him. "He truly believed he went to hell."

"The brain has a way of needing to attribute experiences to something," Mulder said before he nodded gently. "But we can find out where he was transported to, if anywhere. So...here is what we will do. I am going to go out there, take samples, then I will do an autopsy as well as...securing tissue samples. We will trace everything to try and pinpoint what happened. I need you to run the samples. I am not expecting you there for the autopsy, I can handle it myself. Did a rotation years ago and the computer can walk me through some things." He gave her a reassuring smile, touching her cheek. "But we now treat that room as a hot zone. So. Environmental suits at all times. If there is a pathogen, I do not want you in contact with it."

She nodded, following his train of logic, desperate to cling to it. And it calmed her. It brought her own scientific drive back. Her own compulsion to investigate and understand. "I will perform it with you," she finally said, but firmly. "I am the xenobiologist. But you should be there too."

"Naturally," he said with a small smile, giving a nod. "I'll set it all up. I suggest you get a little sleep beforehand. Come back in two hours."

Lia frowned at the suggestion. Sleep? How could she possibly sleep? She wasn't sure she could ever sleep again. She nodded all the same, knowing he would insist. Not for her health, of course, but to ensure high quality results.

======

It had taken hours of painstaking examination, but they finally had a full autopsy report to sift through. Data. Cold, hard data to deal with, not wild claims and nightmarish visions. They were back to the facts, and that was something they could deal with. That's what Lia hoped and expected at least.

"Are you seeing this?" Mulder asked before taking a bite of his sandwich, motioning with his free hand to the screen. He had been hungry after all they had done, and thirsty. As tempting as something stronger than water to drink had been, he had decided to settle for something that wouldn't dull his mind.

"What is it?" she asked quietly at the readings, tapping the screen at the abnormal find. She shook her head, starting another analysis of the traces, barely enough to register, but they were there. "This doesn't make sense..."

"If you think about it, there's documented evidence of alternative realities," he said quietly, frowning as he considered it. "This is very different though. Look at the traces in the cell signature. The radiation there, it's...not something I have ever seen before. Something new. But is it the transporter, or the environment the subject visited?"

She tilted her head to him, watching as if he was talking Greek for a moment. The reality of what he was suggesting was...outrageous. She glanced to the console as it beeped, confirming the first analysis. There was undeniable traces of subatomic tau neutrino particles. Faint, but there. She straightened up, letting out a soft breath, considering what he was proposing in the light of the evidence. "So we are accepting that he did indeed transport somewhere else, and it was not in his mind."

"Just because it was a different place, doesn't mean it was actual hell..." he said with a small smile, looking over at her. "But imagine, transporting to a different reality? Imagine what we could learn from it. And what technology they might have."

She watched him with awe for a long moment, shaking her head slowly as she tried to fathom it. "Quantum particles...exist in more than one place at the same time...all of them at the same time...until observed."

He nodded encouragingly as he watched her, a small smile coming to him. "And we can observe. So...I have an idea. Another subject, with monitoring equipment. We record it all."

Lia glanced slowly to him, her arms folding. Because despite herself, and despite what had happened to the test subjects so far, her curiosity was piqued. "That kind of data could be invaluable..."

He nodded, taking a deeper breath before he smiled. "Let's see what equipment we might need to strap onto our next subject. I want to know more. Once we have gathered that information, we can...make decisions, with adequate data."

"Decisions..." Lia said softly, looking away for a long moment, shaking her head slowly. "There is no decision. The only way to justify the means is to get results," she replied with a steely resolve.

He nodded as he watched her, the smile still there. "Exactly my thoughts. So. I will round up another volunteer. Perhaps...what about Aguni? Strong, acts more like he belongs in security. He may do well. Or there is always Weir, he might volunteer even if we show him the data we have so far."

"Aguni," she replied, quickly, the easiest way to talk about such things. "Weir is the better scientist," she added to justify the choice. Because it was coming down to that. Keeping the brightest to work and letting the others...go.

"Agreed," he said before he nodded, watching her before he looked down. "Okay. You get the equipment ready. I will get Aguni. We'll do this again, get the readings, take it from there. Get the data we need."

She hesitated for a moment, her hand lifting for a moment, as if she were mid thought. "Should we give him a weapon?" she finally asked.

He considered it before he gave a small smile. "I do not wish to cloud anything with the data. No," he said, but firmly. "A phaser discharge could give us inaccurate readings."

"A knife at least?" she reached to him, but didn't quite touch his sleeve. "That place...that nightmare...we want him back alive if at all possible. We should give him a better chance."

He looked at her, for a moment confused before he suddenly smiled. "Of course. A knife...I did not even consider such weapons. Yes, of course. We want him to...stand a chance, as they say."

Lia nodded, content with the compromise as she turned logged the results of the post mortem, but under an anonymous number. "I will be ready for Aguni in an hour," she was keen to keep moving. She didn't want to sleep. Her mind was all over the place and she needed to get this out of her system.

"I will go speak with him," he said, straightening his shirt with a slight frown. "It will be interesting to see what he thinks of this." And more, for Marcus to work on the right approach to make the man welcome this chance. Easier when the lamb brought to slaughter wasn't aware of it.

======

Lia gripped the edge of the console she stood over, every part of her tense. She physically winced at the ticking of the chronometer, a subtle sound that sounded like a thumping in her head with how tense she was. "Do you think it's been long enough?" she asked Mulder quietly, frowning as she checked how long it had been since they'd beamed Aguni away.

Mulder looked over at her for a moment before he took a deeper breath. "Yes," he finally said. "Let's get him back, see what readings we're going to get." He looked at her, studying her face and the tension. "Quil...just focus on me if it gets too much. Great sacrifices have always been done for science. This is no different."

She nodded firmly, repeating the words silently in her head before prepping for transport. She took a slight breath, an unsettled reaction to what might be about to happen. "Energising," she said softly, bracing herself.

There was a moment before the lights shimmered. A form seemed to build up, from skeleton, to nerve endings, organs and layers of fat and muscle. The moment the vocal cords materialised, an angry shout before Aguni stood there, knife in hand, breathing hard. He was bloodied, clothes torn, his eyes wide and bright and his hair matted with blood and some black liquid. "At last..." he breathed before he opened his mouth and the resonance changed.

There were pulses coming from it and Mulder's eyes widened as he watched the transwarp transporter power up. Past safety. Beyond the red, becoming a pulsing thing.

Warning, Transwarp transport exceeded maximum capacity. Warning, partial lock on all lifesigns. Warning, initiating...

"Shit..." he said before he grabbed Quil, throwing her on the ground with him seconds before the screen shattered.

Lia clamped her hands over her ears, pain etched into her features with the crushing noise that was like nails dragging down her chest. "He's fracturing..." she shook her head, her eyes screwed shut.

The walls seemed to melt around them, black goo covering it and revealing rusted, worn bulkheads. It shimmered for a moment before all the lights went out, and the only sound was the deep-throated laugh of Aguni.

[OFF]

--

Dr. Ranel
Classified Assignment
Cold Station 20
[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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