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I arrived back on the ship, so preoccupied with my injury that I didn’t notice the shield and proceeded to step out of the transporter alcove only to bump directly into it. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it didn’t hurt any more than walking into a glass door, but I was annoyed, mostly about being startle, and the pause it gave me to figure out what was going on, which drew my thoughts away from my injury. It kind of had a buzz feeling to it, but nowhere near as attention getting as say grabbing hold of electric fence. If you haven’t grabbed hold of an electric fence, you should try it. And it’s more fun in a group. Hold hands and do it.
“What the heck?”
“Sorry, sir,” transporter tech Namrata Shetty said. She was genuinely upset that I had walked into the field before she could warn me it was up. Her primary uniform color was yellow, distinctly different than the Gold of command. The yellow indicated tech, such as transporter tech, but I suppose computer techs were also in this color scheme. I still needed to learn the new color schemes. “The computer has detected an unidentified organism and implemented an emergency quarantine procedure. The Chief Medical Officer has been notified and should arrive shortly.”
“What kind of organism?” I asked.
Shetty shrugged. “Life science isn’t really my thing,” she said, which explained why the green bar was at its minimum. That meant she probably had enough training to offer first aid. All crew members were trained in first aid, which explained why everyone had a minimum green bar over top whatever their primary color was.
“It’s probably just a bacteria,” I said. “Go ahead and override the safety protocol.”
“Oh, no, Sir, I couldn’t do that,” Shetty said. “I am not authorized to override the safety protocol.”
“I am the Captain, it’ll be alright,” I told her.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but I think only the chief medical officer can override the quarantine safety protocol,” Shetty said. “But if you insist, I will contact my superior and ask her what she thinks.”
“Okay, then,” I said. Good thing I wasn’t bleeding to death. “We will follow protocol.”
Shetty seemed relieved. There was an uncomfortable moment that followed a spell of silence where both of us wondered if we should be saying something.
“So,” we both said simultaneously. I laughed. “You first.”
“I was just going to ask how your day has been so far. Kind of lame, eh?” Shetty asked. “Not at all. Better than what I was going to lead with. I was going to ask you how long it takes medical to respond,” I said.
“I’m not really sure. This is kind of my first emergency,” Shetty said.
“I hardly considered cutting my hand an emergency, but it’s starting to be much more involved than I am wanting,” I said.
“What did you do to your hand?” Shetty asked.
“Don’t laugh,” I prefaced my answer; she really didn’t look like the laughing type. She was a little too serious. “I got bit by a leptoceraptops.”
“A what?”
“Kind of a cousin of a Triceratops,” I said. “Only, like a cute miniature version.”
“Sorry, I don’t know what that is, either,” Shetty said. “Is it like a snake?”
“Um, no,” I said. I was struggling not to ridicule her. How could she not know what a dinosaur was, but then again, my brain knows things that most people don’t need to function. I suspect I was pretty much an idiot to my personal ‘counselors’ and they put up with me, so I should extend this to others.
Shetty pulled her cellphone tricorder from its holster on her belt and called up an image of the creature in question. She seemed concerned. “OMG. A baby dinosaur?”
“No, that’s a full size one,” I said.
“How did that get close enough to bite you? Did you not see it coming? Where’s your phaser?” Shetty asked, even as House was entering the room.
“I tried petting it,” I said.
House looked at the image on her phone and looked at me. “You tried to pet a leptoceraptops?” he asked.
“How do you know what it is?” Shetty asked.
“I read a book,” House said. “Really, John. Your first real Away Team, on our very first planet, and you’re getting injured.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“And where is your phaser?” House asked.
“I didn’t take one,” I said. “I didn’t think it necessary.”
“On a world of dinosaurs?” House asked.
“You really think a phaser on stun is going to slow down a t-rex?” I asked. “How about kill?” House said.
“As long as the Away Team stays in the village, they’re safe,” I said. “And if they wander out?” House asked.
“Why would they do that?” I asked.
“Because, we’re humans and we have a track record of not complying with authority, or staying the garden, even when the Doctor says it’s good for you,” House said.
“Fair enough, can you do something about my hand?” I asked. “Hand, yes. Stupidity, no. Lower the quarantine shield,” House said.
“Really?” Shetty said. “The computer popped the shield up for a reason? What if it a laid an egg in him and it burst free and takes over the whole ship? We don’t even have hazmat gear on.”
“OMG, you’re right,” House said, dramatically. “We may just have to kill the Captain.”
OMG, I was seriously annoyed with House. And really, if we’re dealing with those Aliens, she thinks a Hazmat suit is going to save her?! And it’s a good thing I am not dreaming, because if it were, now that I was thinking about ‘real’ aliens, this piece of heaven was about to become a nightmare. As it was, this little scene was borderline nightmarish.
“Really?” Shetty asked.
“Maybe you should beam him out into space,” House told her. Shetty looked at him seriously. “It’s the only way to be sure.”
“Really?!” I and Shetty asked at the same time. “I don’t think I should do that,” Shetty continued.
“Oh, thank God,” I and House said simultaneously, confirming she had enough sense not to do that. “Now, lower the damn shield,” House continued.
“I think you have to do it,” Shetty said, stepping back from the console.
“OMG, I thought everyone here knew something about science,” House said, punching in his password. The computer asked for confirmation. “Yes, I am sure. It’s just a damn bacterial infection. Who knows what god forsaken, extinct bacteria lived in the mouths of leptoceraptops.” The shield came down and House came to inspect the wound, first with his eyes, then with his medical tricorder.
“Sit down, please,” House instructed. He moved his tricorder up and down the length of my arm and watched the images on its screen as he continued the scan. He then anchored it over my hand. It was curious watching this device hovering in air, the ‘x-ray’ like image of my hand displayed on the screen, as House manipulated my hand back and forth under it. The computer noted the size and depth of the puncture wound, revealed several broken bones in the fingers.
Without warning me it was going to hurt, he reset my fingers. “Ow!” I said.
“Sorry, I needed to set it before I repair the fracture,” House said, retrieving another device from his med kit. “Use the pain as reminder not to pet dinosaurs. Do I need to send you for another psych eval?”
“No,” I said. “It was inside the village, so I assumed it was a pet.”
Loxy arrived. “Sorry I was late. I was attending to another matter. OMG, what the hell did you do?”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” I said.
“Oh, don’t give me that Monty Python macho crap dialogue,” Loxy said. “What the hell did you do?”
“He was trying to be the first dinosaur whisperer,” House said. “That’ll do. Go get a shower. Don’t be surprise if you get a fever. Let me know if last longer than 24 hours.”
“That’s it? You’re not giving me an antibiotic,” I asked.
“The computer may not have a record of this particular bacteria, but your body remembers it, and it’s doing its job,” House said. “Let it. Drink some water, take an aspirin if you must, naps are always good. And, I am highly recommending you have an apple a day, cause I am already tired of treating you.”
“So we’re all going to be okay?” Shetty asked. “You were injured, too?” Loxy asked.
“No, Shetty, we’re not. We’re all going to die,” House said.
“We are?” Shetty asked. (I would later learn Shetty was a sound engineer in her previous world line, as well as an x-ray technician as her day job. The sound job may have come with a few too many drinks and drugs.)
“Someday,” House said. “Really, John. Isn’t there like a minimum IQ for being a transporter tech.”
“How many x-ray techs do you allow to decipher their scans?”
“Good point,” House said. “I’m sure you know where to find me.”
House left.
“Was he making fun of me?” Shetty asked.
“It’s a sign of affection,” I told her. “It means he likes you.”
“Oh,” Shetty said. She seemed perplexed. “I don’t really like him. He seems kind of mean.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Giving her a hand signal that we would keep that our secret. Loxy followed me out into corridor. “Is she okay?” Loxy asked.
“Is any of us?” I asked.
“Fair enough,” Loxy said. “Are you going back down?”
“No, I think they got it. They’re taking land surveys and doing math and discussing the wall we’re going to build,” I said. “The wall?” Loxy asked.
I am sure Loxy remembers that the ‘Sumerians’ from our college days at ‘Safe Haven,’ so I didn’t rehash it, but I am going to assume some of you need the highlights: Summer’s people don’t build habitats like humans do. They live in the wild, in the rain, under the canopy of trees, and or most favorably, out in the open on a hill top where they can see things coming and live under the stars. The males tend to live alone, whereas the adult females forage in groups of no less than three. The village is a gathering place near the Cave of Hatchlings, where all are free to gather, but still they don’t build habitats, and the males still tend to avoid each other. They have a very interesting life style, collecting artifacts in the wild, like crystals, rocks, bones, wood, and they bring it to the shaman, or simply hold onto them and meditate over them until they have left mental impression in the object. They hatch wild, depart the caves at night, solitary creatures, about the size of a feral cat, and about as wild as one, and they aren’t seen again until after puberty. No, specifically, the females aren’t seen again till puberty, and usually the only reason they are returning is to lay their first egg in the cave. Sometimes the males don’t come back at all. Of those males who do, they are usually old, injured, or are participating in some sort of spiritual work. Walking through the village itself, you might just think it a patch of grass at the foot of an extinct volcano, but it is much more. There is an invisible barrier through which not one insect passes, and no other dinosaurs. A T-Rex might up to the barrier, tilt its head like it forgot something, and then head off in another direction. The exception is small herbivore, which are like pets, but they do get eaten, and Sinocodons, which were abundant, and frequently just picked up and eaten whole.
And that’s all most people can see. On the Astral Plane, there is a use city here, and it is considered a school and a temple and beings from all over the Universe visit on this level. I am one of them, and was apprenticed to Summer, and was there when her world was wiped out by the ‘asteroid.’ And now that I was thinking about it, I was wondering, did they know about this back and then, and that’s why it played out the way it did?
“The engineers want to build a wall to protect the Stargate and any visitors that come from stray dinosaurs. And they want the wall to be something that will last a good million years or so,” I said. I guess they want the Stargate to be accessible even if Summer’s people weren’t here. Surely this world won’t be destroyed by fire the way it was for them back on Origin.
“Big enough to keep out dinosaurs?” Loxy asked.
“That’s going to be huge!”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It could take weeks!” Loxy said.
“Nah,” I said. “Using the transporter to cut and move stones from nearby quarries, I am told they could have a wall completed in under 72 hours.”
“Nice,” Loxy said. “Okay, so what’s you plans for the rest of the day?”
“I am going to get a shower, change, and possibly take a nap,” I said. “Want some help?” It was an offer to play.
“Showering, changing, napping? Sure,” I said. Then I remembered she had announced that she had been attending to something. “What were you doing earlier?”
“Oh, someone went nuts in Xanadu, and injured a couple people before he was subdued.
He is now sedated in the psych ward,” Loxy said. “Okay, so maybe no nap,” I said.
“We can have a quickie,” Loxy said.
“I got bit. I could be infected with a deadly contagion,” I said.
“Oh, well. We all got to die somehow,” Loxy said.
“Let’s postpone till tonight,” I said. “I should really try and be the good Captain.”
“How is a quickie not being a good Captain?” Loxy asked.
I failed to come up with a good response. Loxy tapped my cheek. “Go on, then. We’ll catch up later.” Why is everyone hitting my cheek? I am not a child. And I am not that old. What the hell kind of affection is that?
The Psych ward had layered levels of security the further you went in. I found Jung and Dr. Aditi Shankardass, a neuroscientist, discussing a patient that was out cold on the bed. There was also a psych nurse present, looking fairly preoccupied with something that looked like work, but clearly available if the doctors needed her.
“Ah, there you are, my boy,” Jung said. “How was your first Away Team?”
“Uneventful,” I said. “And your day.”
“Surprisingly eventful,” Jung said. “I really thought the psych staff would be under employed, but maybe space sickness is a real thing.”
“It’s not space sickness,” Shankardass said.
“That’s not even a real thing. You can’t just throw ‘space’ in front of something to make it ‘a’ something.”
“What is it then?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Jung said seriously.
“We have witness reports, and security footage of what occurred, but there is no apparent trigger.”
I observed the man on the bed. I recognized him.
“Astrophysics.”
“Yeah. Doctor Aryk Flesher,” Dr. X said.
“You know him?”
“Um, met him. It may not mean anything, but at the time he seemed a little disgruntled, if not a bit paranoid,” I said.
“Paranoia is a bit high,” Jung said. “But then, we have been gathered here under the most peculiar of circumstances and the preconditioning knowledge sets that were given us could be more fragile than we imagined.”
“Great,” I said. “So, you’re saying anyone of us could go bonkers at any moment?”
“I didn’t say that,” Jung said. “And I would never use the word ‘bonkers.’ Technically, all human beings live on a precarious edge, one crisis away from an emotional breakdown. We all have our own strengths and limitations, and we all cope in our own ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a great deal of suppression and avoidance being utilized to deal with our present circumstances. Most of us have made the transition to our new lives like passing from one dream to the next without question, but a few of us are resisting at a fundamental level.
We’re still functional, but resisting.”
“Doctors, he’s waking,” the nurse said.
Jung directed me outside the perimeter line marked on the floor. Aryk woke, as if from a nap, clearly disoriented, but then a leg cramp drove him quickly off the bed to his feet. He sighed relief as the pain went away.
“How are you feeling, son?” Jung asked.
“I am not your son!” he snapped, going from reasonably peaceful to instant rage. He lunged at Jung, and I automatically stepped in between Jung and Aryk, my hands coming up to execute a ‘SAMA’ move. SAMA is the self-defense training they give at the hospitals that is supposed to minimize the injury of patients acting badly. We’re not supposed to cause pain, or use joint locks, but I personally have found pain can be a great motivator for getting compliance and de-escalating situations. If you have never been in a joint lock before, well, just ask Chan to demonstrate.
Apparently, my readiness to respond to the physical threat was unnecessary. A phaser burst, set for stun, popped Aryk in the back and he fell forwards. I caught him as he was going down. Shankardass and the Nurse helped me put him back on the bed. Shankardass began doing scans of the Aryk’s brain, while the nurse took vitals.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“Psych is a very special floor. The computer will not allow anyone to hurt themselves or others,” Jung said. “Any act of aggression towards self or others results in a stun being administered.”
“Sweet,” I said. I wish I had had that tech available at the hospital.
Shankardass sent her reading to the big screen. “I still see nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Did you check his back for a parasite?” I asked.
“What?” Shankardass and Jung both asked.
“Operation Annihilate,” the Nurse said. She went up from just being a background nurse in my fantasy world to VIP status: Letty Hernandez explained, “TOS episode #29, season one finale. A parasite has taken over an entire colony which makes everyone aggressive. But though their bodies were hijacked, they were able to communicate they were acting against their will, so it’s not really fitting this scenario.”
“True enough,” I agreed with her. Funny how the brain works. She was suddenly way more attractive than I had noticed earlier. She pushed her hair back over her ear and smiled, realizing I was seeing her in a new light or for the first time.
“We aren’t going to be diagnosis people based on old episodes of Trek,” Shankardass said.
“We’re on a starship exploring worlds where fiction and history are colliding,” I said.
“It could be relevant.”
“I became a nurse because of my family watched Star Trek,” Hernandez said. “Wow,” I said. “Well, I became a Captain.”
Hernandez laughed.
“Are you two flirting?” Shankardass asked. “This is a serious medical situation.”
I tried to be more serious. “I assure you, Doctor,” I said. “I am taking this matter seriously. Does the stun have any adverse effects on the human body?”
“According to the literature, too many of them could disrupt the hearts regularity,” Jung said. “Though it does takes a while for the neurons to reset their energy potential, there is no known long term research on the matter.”
“In other words, we don’t know,” Shankardass said. “Better and faster than dosing him,” Jung said.
“I would prefer to prescribe Haldol,” Shankardass said.
“I think if we allow him to work it out, he’ll come through this better than if we dose him,” Jung said. “He has actually de-escalated, compared to the first time he woke.”
“How many times has he been zapped?” I asked.
“That was his third time since he was brought to the ward,” Shankardass said. “He was stunned in Xandu by security.”
“So, why aren’t we restraining him?” I asked.
“How barbaric,” Jung said. “Even in 2017, psych wards don’t use physical restraints, and chemical restraints are only used as last resort, and besides, unlike the movies, it takes a while for a chemical restraint to knock someone out. Trust me. He is learning. Each time he wakes up, he’s a little calmer than the last time. This is the recommended procedure for dealing with aggressive patients.”
I don’t think Shankardass agreed.
“But who recommended this procedure?” I asked. “We could chase that forever,” Jung said.
I looked to Shankardass. “I feel an internal conflict, which is likely due to the fact this is not how we did things in my world line on Origin,” she said. “But the science here is sound, and I intuitively trust Jung.”
“Most of your conflict comes from the fact you are in essence a materialist, and you’ve spent your whole life looking for molecular explanations for functioning. We have access to better tech here than we ever did on Origin, better than any fMRI or real time brain imaging or virtual recreations, and we still can’t produce a viable connectome. On origin, we couldn’t even make a virtual functioning copy of a MOS 6502 processor,” Jung said.
“You mean the Atari chip?” I asked.
“You know about this stuff?” Shankardass asked.
“I read an article somewhere,” I said, blowing it off as inconsequential. If you’re curious you can google articles about connectomes, scientist trying to make virtual copies of the brain, and even the Atari chip. They thought if they could make a virtual image of this chip they could play a virtual game of Donkey Kong, because we know which gates opened and closed to make that game happen. Fail. But a good fail. It taught us more. “But I want to make sure I understand. You can map out the brain in its entirety here, even make a backup copy…
“Record your dreams and play them back, and we can even predict what you will do or say before you even consciously know you’re going to do or say them,” Jung said.
Okay, that last bit intrigued me and bothered me, but that, too, was already known on origin due to consciousness studies where people were given choices to make while their brains were being scanned. “But you still can’t figure out where consciousness is coming from? Isn’t that in itself significant?” I said.
“It doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Shankardass said,
“How do you know what I think it means, much less that it doesn’t mean what I think it means, when I don’t even really know what I mean,” I said.
“You’re clearly in the Jungian camp of metaphysical modalities, the supernatural, collective unconscious worthy of Lucas calling it the Force. I want hard science,” Shankardass said.
“How is what we want an expression of science?” I asked.
“That is a valid point,” Shankardass said, reluctantly. “But just because we haven’t got an answer yet, doesn’t mean we start making up supernatural explanations. Physicists just found five new particles, stuff they should have intuited from the math, but they’re not going around saying we found evidence for souls in a matrix.”
“But I am sensing a conflict, and so if you’re bothered by something, doesn’t that mean your expectations or predictions are not matching up with the data?” I asked.
“No, what I am wanting is more data,” Shankardass said. “Okay, so let’s scan my brain,” I said.
“There’s no need to,” Shankardass said.
“Why, because it’s abby normal?” I asked. That never gets old. “The procedure is non- invasive, right? Will it hurt to make a recording of my brain to have for comparative analysis?”
“Computer, show Garcia’s brain scan on bed screen three,” Jung said.
A virtual image of my brain came up on designated screen. It was a fairly normal looking brain scan. There were no specific artifacts that suggested impairment or even advanced functionality. Jung walked me through what we were looking at it, suggesting the increased interaction pattern between hemispheres and increased coherence of overlapping multiple brain frequencies was due to the brain’s level of engagement at the time of recording. It was a 22 minutes brain scan, and at first glance, there was indications the brain was in REM sleep, except for there being way too much Alph; they ruled out lucid dreaming. Apparently that has a specific signature, too. There was also evidence for Beta and Gamma waves being present, which they explained wasn’t too unusual, as there is never no evidence that any one frequency ever goes completely away, but rarely was there this level of coherence. From just this recording, they could conclude some sort of entrainment modality was being employed. I had no clue what they meant by that, and asked, and the answer was sound technology like Hemisync, or binaural beats and isochronic tones, neurofeedback, or some type of light-tech induced altered state.
“When did you guys take that?” I asked.
“We didn’t,” Shankardass said. “This was a download given us by the Brains.”
“You don’t remember making this?,” Jung asked. “Computer, extrapolate interaction
patterns and project a holographic image of activity over bed three.”
Above bed three an image appeared. It was Midori. She seemed to be in a library, and then I remembered it. My memory was accompanied by a flood of emotions and I am sure I blushed and I felt an urge to run away. This was my experience with her in the virtual landscape, presented from a first person view, which made sense; this was my experience though the lens of me, so it wouldn’t be in second or third person like a movie. TV episodes where they just rehash old footage and call it a flashback scene irritate me, because it’s not really a person reliving their experience. This was my experience from my eyes and senses, and so, I was not visible. I was singing, and it sounded like my voice the way it sounded to me, as opposed to what I sound like when I listen to myself on a tape recorder. Midori’s face grew closer to me and we kissed. Our eyes remained open, and I was so transfixed on her eyes that hardly noticed the background twirling away, fading, and was replaced with a whiteness.
“Okay, wow, um,” I said. “You guys have been watching, I mean, studying this?”
“You’re the Captain,” Jung said. “Naturally we have been reading the files the Brains have collected concerning you.”
“And you have all this and we can’t figure out awareness?” I asked.
“This is a virtual copy of what the brain was experiencing at the time of recording,” Shankardass said. “Recording signals and replaying them is easy enough. We were starting to do that on Origin with fMRIs. This tech is so good, utilizing a Halo, a person can experience everything you were experiencing. We could share each other’s dreams directly. We could interface with computer generated virtual worlds directly. Or we can study it like we are here and can even isolate background information and tease out things that were in the periphery of your conscious awareness, like desires and background thoughts. For example, we know you were kissing her, but thinking about Loxy and someone name Jenny, and were suppressing guilt.”
“Like a hologram, every moment of you gives us access to all of you, and people are complex,” Jung said.
Yeah, I remember having all sorts of conflicting feelings in that kiss, but hadn’t realized all of that had been transmitted, which made the dynamic tension between me and Midori suddenly more pronounced, because she was also carrying that and her own wants and desires and conflicts. Oh, what a world was Midori! “I think you have just made youtube obsolete,” I said, thinking the drama of being me could suddenly become entertainment. OMG, no more hiding from ourselves! A therapist could know everything! “I mean, why watch theonlyluca, when you can download stuff like this? Oh, wait. No way. I wouldn’t want to tap into her brain at all. I would rather watch her than know her thoughts, which clearly says something about me, but also is a reflection of her own videos, cause clearly she’s not pursuing introspective discussion of Shakespeare as much as going for direct titillation and so like, if she knew how I was responding to her, would she continue to provide that sort of stimuli, or would she shut it down, and it’s not just me, she’s provoking that in all her viewers and how much of that energy can a person take back… Wait, wait, wait… What happens if I use Halo-Tech to re-experience an experience I already had? Did you not see Brainstorm with Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood? That was Natalie’s last movie. Oh, or better, Being John Malkovich! If I watch myself I am not going to go all John Malkovich, am I?”
“Malkovich?” Hernandez said.
Exactly! “Malkovich,” I answered her, and she and I shared a laugh, where the two Doctor’s didn’t get it.
“Really? Neither of you saw that movie?” I asked.
“We’re Doctors, we don’t have time for fluff,” Shankardass said.
“Oh, there is always time for fluff,” I said. “I mean, did you know I passed anatomy and physiology recalling episodes of Star Trek and Mash. Like, there’s 24 bones in the human hand.” I had so much energy I felt like I was on the verge of being manic.
“28,” Hernandez corrected before Jung or Shankardass could.
“I know, I got that wrong becau