Ensign Roy Bancroft - Dr. Crashcart (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Nanoparticles)

[Carter Schimpff]

((Makeshift Command Operations Building – Kobyar Capital, Galaris IV))

Imril: Got it! Hijack virus ready to go. I just need the biological data for it to work with.

MacKenzie: Dr. Bancroft?

Oolwi: Response

Bancroft: ::tapping furiously at his PADD:: I’m triangulating resonance points. Frequencies are messy – but I’m drip-feeding what I’ve got to your console, Imril. Check your inbox, you’ve got mail.

Oolwi: That was Defence Service Command. I’ve got our half of the satellites. Now we need the Grunden half. ::To the Quartermaster:: Master Sergeant! Set General Kexxin here up with a long-range communication rig! And don’t make me say it twice!

Oolwi: ::to Kexxin:: I’ve spent most of my service around communication technology. I can work the rig for you if you don’t know how.

Kexxin: Uh, I think I’ve got it. Shouldn’t be too terribly hard right?

Imril: Response

Oolwi: Kobyari satellites are standing by for our commands.

Kexxin nodded at the Major.

MacKenzie: Whenever Dr. Bancroft and Ensign Imril give the word.

Oolwi/Imril: Response

Bancroft: ::to himself:: It’s the different EM resonance frequencies in the tissues…

Bancroft: Every part of the body hums its own little tune, electromagnetically speaking. Hit the right tissue with the right frequency, and it starts calling to these particles like a siren, magnetically. Retinas, brains, cochlea – they’re all just bells waiting to be rung.

Oolwi: Could someone scan General Kexxin and I for signs of those particles? And the bunker staff, as well. We don’t know yet, just how far this poisoning scheme goes. Or if your transporter biofilters may have neutralized it in the two of us.

(Scans Kexxin first)

Bancroft: Clean, General, you’re not carrying any.

(Scans Oolwi next)

Bancroft: ::frowning:: You’re clean too, Major. No passengers.

(Scans Technician)

Bancroft: ::murmuring:: Just need a representative sample…

Bancroft: ::gently, holding the device out in the palm of his hand:: This is called a hypospray. It’s used to deliver medicines subdermally, and also to take blood samples for analysis. It is absolutely painless. May I have your consent to take a blood sample?

The Kobyar hesitated, but then gave a nod.

Bancroft: ::softly, to himself:: That’ll do. 

Once the doctor had finished with his equipment, he looked around the room at everyone.

Bancroft: There’s only one way I can think of to test my plan with so little time, and it has to be someone who fully understands the risk. Someone who can truly consent. ::a long pause:: I’ll do it.

Richards: That’s very… Bold of you.

Imril/Oolwi: Response

Kexxin: ::Furrowing his brow and looking at Bancroft:: Are you sure?

The Grunden general looked extraordinarily uneasy at the notion.

Bancroft: I’m the one who suggested this – and if I’m wrong, I have to be the one to suffer the consequences. ::holding up the hypospray:: I’ve extracted and isolated the particles in a saline solution.

Bancroft: Imril, Dr. Richards–

Roy looked at the two from his crew.

Bancroft: – think you can whip up an EM containment field for this test? Something to prevent the risk of this test affecting anyone else in the room?

Richards: Yeah. ::Nodding and looking at Imril:: I think we can handle that.

Imril: Response

Roy turned to Captain MacKenzie.

Bancroft: Captain Mackenzie – I know you’re wearing about twelve hats right now, but I need you to dust off your stethoscope for one more. I’d feel a hell of a lot better with Doctor MacKenzie administering this test and watching my vitals.

MacKenzie: Let’s proceed, Doctor. There isn’t much time.

Kexxin: Good luck Musta– Doctor.

Roy nodded at the Grunden General. Although they'd only known each other for, what, a day? He felt a certain sense of kinship and mutual understanding.

Imril/Oolwi: Response

Richards: Let’s do this.

Imril: Response

MacKenzie: I’m pretty sure I can figure out how to monitor your vital signs, but you’re going have to tell me what I’m watching for to know what these readings actually mean…

Bancroft: ::earnestly:: Thank you. If this goes correctly, you should start seeing readings that look consistent with a rush of platelets heading through my body and into my eyes. Unless something goes wrong, I’ll be able to communicate what I’m experiencing with you. The biggest risks as I see them are if I’ve gotten the necessary frequency wrong – if I have, either nothing will happen, or you’ll start seeing readings consistent with stroke, thrombus, infarction…

Imril/Oolwi: Response

The Captain nodded to the two of her officers.

MacKenzie: Go.

The room was too quiet.

Not serene – just waiting. The kind of quiet that pressed on the eardrums and made people suddenly aware of their own breathing. 

Roy stood alone, away from the others, hypospray in one hand. His other hand hovered just over his wrist, feeling a pulse that he knew without examination was racing.

He wasn’t shaking, not outwardly.

Inwardly, however, was a different story.

He tried not to think of the neural scans he’d taken on the holodeck. The look on Captain MacKenzie’s face when he’d asked – offered – to be the test subject.

The way the hypospray felt heavier than it should. Not physically… existentially.

Imril: Response

Richards: Let’s hope this works…

Kexxin: It has to. If it doesn’t… I don’t know what else we can do.

Bancroft: Alright, then. Imril, 1.1 terahertz… hit it.

He brought the hypospray to his upper arm, thumbed the release – and nothing. No hiss. No pressure.

Frowning, he smacked the base once, hard.

Still nothing.

He glared at it, jiggled the cartridge like a bad vending machine, then tried again. A loud hiss erupted from the device.

Bancroft: ::grimacing:: That was unnecessarily overdramatic. 

The effect was almost immediate. A prickling warmth shot up his arm and across his chest. A metallic tang flooded his mouth, bitter and electric. He steadied himself on a nearby table as a wave of heat surged up his neck and into his scalp – a bit like standing too close to a warp manifold.

Imril/MacKenzie/Oolwi: Response

Kexxin: Is… Is he okay?

Bancroft: ::calm, clinical:: Injection site nominal. Systemic response kicking in – slight elevation in pulse. Vision holding–

A sudden blaring alarm cut him off.

Roy’s own Tricorder, open on a table next to him, screamed in protest. “BIOHAZARD CONTAMINANT DETECTED” flashed on the screen, angry and red.

Imril/MacKenzie/Oolwi/Kexxin/Richards: Response

Roy’s heart hammered – for half a second, the thought the EM isolation field must have failed. He looked wildly around the room, half-expecting to see the Kobyar officers and technicians scattered throughout the room convulsing. Then he caught sight of the culprit: a foil-wrapped ration abandoned next to his Tricorder. 

He tossed the ration outside the invisible barrier of the EM isolation field and the alarm silenced immediately.

Bancroft: ::deadpan:: Death by Ration Pack Number 5. I knew it would get me one of these days.

The room seemed to relax slightly, but the tightness in Roy’s chest didn’t ease. His fingertips were tingling now. His vision seemed… hyperreal, as though every color had been slightly oversaturated. Even the shadows in the room looked loud. 

He was having a considerably hard time differentiating which of his symptoms were the product of natural anxiety, and which were medically relevant to the test. 

Not for the first time, he was grateful that come what may, he had the ultra-competent forces of Imril, Richards, and MacKenzie looking after him.

Bancroft: Latency window’s longer than expected. No vision changes yet… ::pauses:: Unless I just injected myself with saline. That’d be awkward.

And then, just behind his eyes, came the pressure.

It wasn’t painful. Not yet. Just… present. Like the universe was pushing gently against the back of his retinas.

He knew what would come next.

Bancroft: ::softly, voice tightening:: Light visual distortion. Peripheral drift… and here we go.

The world vanished.

No fade. No warning. Just light – then nothing.

Bancroft: Total vision loss. Imril, Dr. Richards, Major Oolwi, General Kexxin – is everyone else in the room alright?

Imril/Richards/Oolwi/Kexxin: Response

MacKenzie: Response

Inside, Roy’s heart slammed against his ribs. No undo button. No trial run. If his frequency calculation was wrong – or the particles behaved in a way he hadn't anticipated – then he hadn’t just tested a theory. He’d maimed himself. And for what? Because he'd believed medicine had to at least try. That was something, he supposed.

Bancroft: Captain MacKenzie, aside from the obvious physiological responses to being blinded – I imagine my pulse and blood pressure are off the charts right now – how does everything else look? I assume I still have a mustache?

MacKenzie: Response

Imril/Richards/Oolwi/Kexxin: Responses?

Bancroft: Alright, quick test. ::looking around aimlessly, pointing at a decorative shrub:: Dr. Richards is presently recoiling, for reasons undetermined, at being called ‘Dr. Richards’. ::swiveling to point at an empty equipment rack:: Imril, you’re… eating the ration pack I threw? Really, at a time like this?

Imril/Richards/Oolwi/Kexxin/MacKenzie: Response

Bancroft: Excellent. ::grinning faintly:: I think that’s the first time I’ve failed a test and can call it a resounding success. No residual vision at all.

Inside, his nerves were still screaming. Part of him begged to panic. Wanted to grab someone’s arm, beg them to undo it, to make it stop.

But instead, he straightened his shoulders and fell back on training.

Bancroft: Pupillary response untestable without a mirror, but I’m assuming I still look sensational. ::beat:: Someone please laugh, I can’t see the awkward silence but I can still feel it. ::beat:: Imril, kill the signal if you please. The nanoparticles should begin dispersing back through my bloodstream, slowly – hopefully – restoring my eyesight.

Imril/Richards/Oolwi/Kexxin/MacKenzie: Response

TAG/TBC!

===

Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A

A240205RB1