LT JG Imril - Cycles, But Not The Fun Kind With Motors And Headlights
Chris Taylor
((Intensive Care Unit - Primary Sickbay - Deck 07 - USS Artemis-A))
Lorana: My research and treatment is based on Genetic Targeted Therapy. Essentially, we locate the corrupted DNA at a micro cellular level and we replace it. That's a very simplified explanation.
Jaran: Doctor, that's a huge task. Do we even have the time for that sort of process, if we're going to stay ahead of the changes?
Bancroft: ::under his breath at Lorana:: Brilliant.
Imril couldn't help but notice that no one was saying how to perform such a replacement. Engineer that they were, their thoughts went to nanites.
Meyers: It is somewhere to start. And I presume the Boraxian crystal sample should be able to help with that?
Lorana: Yes, but that's only the first step. Once we've detected the corrupted cells we use healthy genetic coding from, in this case, another Bactrican or if we have a sample of Imril's DNA that is viable?
Meyers: I will cross-reference Imril’s medical documentation. Otherwise, the transporter logs should have full copies on file.
Jaran: Is it safe to assume a scan of myself won't be needed at this point? I'm pretty sure I don't have a fun crystal shield in my brain.
Roy gave Jaran a lopsided, half-teasing smile.
Bancroft: Only one way to find that out for sure, Doctor.
Imril: ::To Jaran:: Anything we learn from me is going to have to be modified for Bajoran physiology. So you’re getting the full scan sooner or later.
Lorana: The issue is, the treatment method needs to be adapted :: Luxa moves to the console and swipes several times :: You'll see that it's specifically used to target DNA or Sencha Wave radiation and Soliton Particles :: sad :: And that took almost a year of daily research :: looks to Commander Munro :: I don't think we have a year.
Meyers: We do not. At most, I’d say we have three weeks, and that is in the optimistic range.
It might as well have been a countdown to warp core failure, delivered with all the tact of a targ in heat.
Roy frowned slightly at the statement.
Jaran: ::quietly:: Three weeks. Optimistically.
Roy clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.
Bancroft: ::pointedly:: Three weeks is a projection, not prophecy. We have time enough to work, and more importantly, we have minds in this room more than capable of making very good use of it.
That was how you delivered bad timetables to a patient. Imril nodded thankfully to Roy.
Lorana: Response
Meyers: If time is our main concern, it seems obvious that we must divide our efforts to speed the process up. Our two primary tasks are to separate out the mutating DNA codes contained within Imril and the others, and isolate them in a way that will allow us to replace them one by one, while also figured out how to isolate the component of the Boraxian crystals that has made certain elements of Imril’s physique resistant to the Callisian mutations.
Jaran: I believe my experience with the Boraxian crystals would be of most use with that team.
Bancroft nodded.
Bancroft: Makes sense to me. I’ll assist Madam Lorana with identifying and isolating the mutated DNA strands. ::casting a glance at Lorana:: Provided you agree, ma’am.
Lorana: Response
Meyers: As a Pharmacologist, my skillset lends best to working with the crystal components.
Jaran: Go team.
Roy cast a sidelong glance at Jaran, radiating internal commentary on Meyers loud enough that Imril was surprised they weren’t picking it up through the telepathic web.
Bancroft: ::to Lorana:: If I may make a case for borrowing our patient – Lieutenant Imril’s firsthand experience with the crystal would certainly benefit the other team, but their value here may be even greater. Their ability with code and systems logic translates rather beautifully to the sort of pattern recognition this work will require.
Imril: Thanks for the vote of confidence, Roy. I’ll do my best not to let the team down.
Lorana: Response
Jaran: So what's the first step, sir?
(OOC: Keeping the note about Looping in Lorana to these tags)
Imril kept mum as the medics picked their teams. Being unqualified to offer an opinion.
Meyers/Lorana: Response
Jira nodded and set to work. They placed the crystal that Meyers had retrieved on a small scanning platform and calibrated the sensors.
Jaran: It's been a bit since I've had any contact with these crystals. The ritual to activate them seemed pretty complex, but, just in case, no one... think too hard at it.
There was an early warning system in place for when or if someone did just that.
Imril: The crystal Valhjeahn used warmed as the ritual, as their concentration on it, continued.
Meyers/Lorana: Response
Jaran: It's looking almost exactly like what I would have expected. The structure in and around Lieutenant Imril's hypothalamus has a nearly identical crystalline structure to the Boraxian crystal.
Roy moved to a nearby console and called up something that Imril could recognize as DNA analysis. The color-coding for the display was the first clue that distinctions were being made between that which was originally part of their genome and what wasn’t. Imril rolled over onto their side to get a better look.
Bancroft: I don’t know about you – but this doesn’t look like simple genomic damage to me. Damage is random… chaotic. This looks almost… intentional.
(OOC: Leaving the note about Leaving tags joined until someone more responsible than me decides how/if teams are split)
Imril: As though the results of the teleportation weren’t really accidental? But guided by deliberate design?
There had been many incidents over the centuries of nefarious individuals trying to covertly weaponize transporters one way or another. Most failed, were investigated, and engineered against in subsequent generations of the technology. The Borg, of course, had been one of the successful malefactors. Infecting countless cadets and young officers with Vox’s poison two years prior.
Then there were the urban legends. A man makes himself a transporter clone and sends it off to murder a romantic rival while they live out an ironclad alibi… only to be killed by the clone who then takes off with his lover. A vain woman uses her villa’s transporter as a fountain of youth, beaming herself match pattern logs of herself as a younger woman over and over… only to overdo it and end up as an old crone too feeble to reach the controls before she breathes her last. A nameless and low-ranking politician rigs a neutrino-spitting probability matrix into a transporter and beams themself into an alternate reality where they rule supreme… only to end up Emperor of the Terran Empire, a hundred rivals waiting to slit their throat, with no hope of escaping into anonymity.
My, there certainly were a lot of dead people in tall tales about transporters. It was almost as though a noteworthy proportion of Federation citizens found the whole prospect of being atomically disabled and reassembled somewhere else inherently terrifying. Go figure.
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran: Response
Roy nodded, calling up two random strands of Imril’s (partially) affected DNA.
Bancroft: We’re edging into terrain where my expertise grows a touch less authoritative – but unless I’m misreading this, there do appear to be synthetic commonalities here. ::indicating the screen:: Would you agree?
Imril: Commonalities like the repetitious molecular sequences in replicated food? A replicated apple doesn’t taste as good as naturally grown one because they’re ‘the same’ everywhere. A natural apple has subtle changes in texture, sugar content, moisture. It keeps your tongue guessing, on a molecular level.
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran: Response
Roy took a step back from the console, crossing his arms and frowning at the screen.
Bancroft: If that holds true – and I rather suspect it does – then this may be our way in. A means of systematizing the search, and with it, the isolation of the affected strands.
Imril listened to the professionals talk, but internally they were forming an expansion to their own hypothesis.
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran: Response
Imril: No one ever checked to see if the Callisian transporters had a component similar to our pattern buffers. There was too much going on, too much to risk experimenting with the system. Assuming they do have buffers, we may have been cycled through them repeatedly. Dozens or more times in a single second, faster than anyone could have noticed. And in each cycle, we got ‘zapped’ with the same mutative factor, over and over. Hence the systemic commonalities.
Montgomery Scott had survived for decades as a ball of energy circling around inside of a pattern buffer. Running someone through the same process for but a few instants had to be a far easier feat to pull off.
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran/Bancroft: Response
Imril’s hypothesis regarding pattern buffers, if even close to being correct, could potentially rule out Roy’s suggestion of harmful intent.
Imril: If that’s just how those transporters work, like their version of a biofilter, the resulting damage needn’t have been deliberate. A genuine error could have been repeated enough times to appear intentional.
Imril was beginning to get the impression that Meyers didn’t care for their speaking in terms of "may bes" and "could haves". But that was the core of the scientific method: you can’t say anything for certain until you can prove it. Plenty of folks came into each and every situation thinking they already had everything figured out, and the Quadrants were worse off for it.
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran/Bancroft: Response
As the discussion continued, Imril’s mind cycled back to something they’d heard Jaran say while they were looking at the DNA readout.
Imril: Wait, wait, wait! Back up! ::To Jaran:: Structure in and around my hypothalamus? As in something other than and distinct from my hypothalamus?
Meyers/Lorana/Jaran/Bancroft: Response
TAG/TBC!
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Lieutenant JG Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12