Lt Rivka Brzezinski+: A Farewell to Alarms

[Avander Promontory]

((Science Lab 7 [neuroscience], Deck 10, USS Octavia E Butler))

 

Rivka Brzezinski was, as usual, working in her neuroscience lab and had been for some time.

 

She had all but given up on trying to reestablish a link to the High Council of Brains, but she kept a few experiments on nth-dimensional neuro-branes running in the background, even as she turned her focus to her other lines of research.

 

In fact, the recent visit to another reality suggested a few intriguing possibilities for her efforts to better understand the phenomenon she had experienced at Alpha Brenkelvi II. This was really cutting edge stuff—the extension of neurological activity through subspace and (perhaps) across dimensions.

 

Rivka surveys the blinking and beeping instruments around her lab, nothing too exciting there. There was a stack of PADDs on the desk full of “revise and resubmit” notes on a dozen articles she had submitted in the last year. Normally, she would have attacked the stacks with zeal, but after the events of the past few months, rewriting technical reports seemed… mundane.

 

Was this all there was? Perhaps she had been focusing too much on work over the last few years. Maybe she needed to get out of the lab.

 

Now there was a thought she rarely had!

 

oO Huh. Oo

 

But what else was there?

 

Iliac had invited her to a holoprogram called “Dungeons and Dragons.” Rivka wasn’t so sure. The sorceress image Iliac had sent over was intriguing, but Rivka wasn’t sure about engaging with other people.

 

Maybe she could go back to Alpha Centauri and become a Babushka, just puttering around Mount Ephriam talking to herself about axions and axons…

 

One of her long-range psychical energy sensors started blaring. That was odd. They shouldn’t be encountering anything that would set that off, given their mission parameters. One bio-gel pack turned a sickly shade of green.

 

Rivka went to investigate, but was stopped by a rumble that shook the whole lab. It was accompanied by a cacophony of sounds of every pitch and tone. Every device shuttered in place—kept from falling on top of Rivka only because they had been so securely anchored to the wall.

 

One thing in the lab, however, wasn’t anchored to anything—Rivka herself.

 

She stumbled over a chair and twisted, her head coming down on the corner of the desk. Her heads-up display cracked and a portion of her FOIL hat ripped off, taking a chunk of hair and skin with it. The lights flickered, another alert sounded, and then everything went dark.

 

And stayed dark.

 

Rivka couldn’t wake up. She couldn’t even tell if she was sleeping or awake. She couldn't tell if her eyes were open or not—nothing was changing. It was just all black and all quiet.

 

Then, a voice in her mind.

 

Brzezinski2: Oh, there you are!

 

Brzezinski14: Welcome back!

 

Brzezinski5: Oh, I don’t think she’s fully with us. (beat) Best I can tell from my readings, she’s sustained a significant head injury.

 

Brzezinski17: As a precaution, let’s take her consciousness to the interdimensional space. Just in case.

 

Brzezinski3: It will leave her home body catatonic.

 

Brzezinski2: Given the risks, I say we do it. I mean, it’s what I’d want done for me in the same situation.

 

Brzezinskis3-21: Me too!

Brzezinskis23-26: (simultaneously) Same here!

 

Brzezinski22: Yeah.

 

Brzezinski2: It’s settled then. Do it.

 

[END for Rivka Brzezinski]

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Rivka Brzezinskis 2-24 and others and

Lt. Rivka Brzezinski

Neuroscience Officer

USS Octavia E Butler

O239910AP4