Ensign Imril - Highscores & Headspaces
Chris Taylor
((USS Artemis, Deck 2,Holodeck 1))
The scores on the pinball machine’s title board ticked ever higher. But not as high as Imril might have liked, and with too few balls left to play. Their head was in two places. Any time their mind sank entirely into the game, a sudden thought of their upcoming appointment would throw off their reflexes. And the inexorable wait for the appointment was why they’d come to kill time in the arcade program to begin with.
On the board, two faces stared back at them. A man and a woman, spies both. Keepers of secrets, exposers of truth. The steel ball shot across one side of the board to the next. A name sequentially lit up on the playfield, letter by letter, as targets were unlocked amid the blaze and blare of the table’s assorted whizbangs and an earworm soundtrack.
The chirp of their communicator told them it was time to stop. It was the second alarm of two they had set. Just then, Imril locked another ‘missile’; a ball that when let loose with the others would kick the game into a higher gear. If they kept going, just a little longer, they might just set a new highscore.
It would be so easy to keep playing. They could always reschedule.
And then what?
Imril: Computer, end program.
((Counselor’s Office - Deck 7, USS Artemis-A))
The music of the arcade followed Imril down to Deck 7. They got to the proper junction a little early, and waited out the final few minutes from a little row of chairs situated to one side of a nearby corridor. There, they re-rehearsed the words they’d planned to address their concerns with. Trying to better define how they saw the problem for their own benefit, as well as Counselor Vhysa’lia’s.
They knew from past experience in therapy sessions that something would inevitably be said to take Imril down a path of thought that they hadn’t anticipated or even known to consider. Which was great! If Imril had all the answers to the problem which was shadowing them, they wouldn't have a problem to talk through with a counselor, would they?
The ensign came to her office precisely on time. The closed door stood before them as plain and unassuming as any other. They straightened their uniform and tapped the ‘doorbell’ panel. In their head, they heard the default tone, which in reality was only playing on the other side of the bulkhead.
Vhysa’lia: response
Imril stepped into a room that looked cozy, but not too cozy. A room built and furnished to encourage free conversation, but conversation with a distinct goal. Maybe that was over-analyzing things. Maybe they couldn’t help doing that. They were an engineer, after all.
Imril: Hello… Counsellor?
Vhysa’lia: response
Imril took the indicated seat -- the only available seat -- and settled in.
Imril: I hope I’m not keeping you from Risa. Or some other shore leave destination.
Vhysa’lia: response
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Ensign Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12