LT Toxin Arlill: Noooo why him, why! why! what a cruel world.
Erik Johnson
He wasn’t sure why he felt this was a good time to reignite his conversation about Nilsen with Herrick but Toxin couldn’t let it keep eating at him. He was just grateful that Josh was opening up, even a little to him. He felt like there was unlikely that Lhandon would make the first move without bringing some of his defensive feelings to the table. Toxin’s hope was that his broaching the topic would begin to unearth the unsettled tensions between the two.
Arlill: Oh wow, I didn’t know, he’s had a rough run, I think he’s always cautious of people he’s not comfortable with yet.
Herrick: Yeah, he seems like a good enough guy; I think we got off on the wrong foot. ::looking at his tricorder, then the hexagons, then to Arlill:: Do you want to try and interface with it?
Arlill: Yeah (beat) no problem.
Toxin switched over to the interface program and initiated the protocols to identify the interface language and open a communications port. While he worked Toxin continued thinking about their conversation and their past one and began wondering if he should have just kept himself out of all this. oO How could I not get involved, Lhando seems so broken. Oo
Herrick: If I get the chance, I’ll see what I can do with Nilsen. Kovacs is another guy I’ve been meaning to get to, he’s on a short rotation in ops and I think he’s…
Listening to Josh, thinking about Nilsen, Toxin didn’t consciously register the warning icon on his tricorder of the sudden onslaught of data the interface was overloading the device with. He quickly tried turning off the interface protocol but the tricorder was starting to heat up to the point where it was almost too hard to hold. oO No no no no no, this is my favorite tricorder, no no no Oo
Arlill: Crap, this is getting hot!
Herrick: What do you mean it’s getting hot?
Toxin tried holding on a bit longer, tried stopping it from overheating, but with the smell of burned flesh and searing pain he finally found his threshold and dropped it to the ground. The tricorder began releasing it’s manufacturer installed smoke and then, after a few snap, crackles, and pops the entire device split open and a lava like substance, which must have once been it’s internal components slowly seeped out.
Toxin felt sometime, but what was it, was it anger, no, was it frustration, no, this feeling was more unique, a feeling he hadn’t felt since his grandmother passed, not this was grief, he’d lost his favorite tricorder, one he’d completely redesigned for his operations purposes. To Toxin it was like losing a pet suddenly. His heart sank.
Arlill: Damn, that (beat) ::holding back a single tear:: that sucks.
Herrick: (empathetic) I have a spanner I don’t lend it to anyone; I totally get how you feel. Seems like this guy ::nodding to the wall panels:: has a bit of a temper. What do you think of trying to give it instruction sets to solve while we try another route at the same time… attempt to distract it?
Arlill: That’s a (beat) a good idea. Probably should have tried that the first time.
Herrick: Response
Pulling out his science tricorder he had to take a few minutes to reprogram the interface. Toxin liked carrying two tricorders because he could have two different style interfaces available at a moment’s notice. Most non-medical tricorders could cover engineering, ops, and science operations, so it was a matter of pulling up the device library and calling up the operations interface. As he did he took a moment to glance down at the melted heap of hull-grade duranium foam which once was one of his favorite accessories.
Arlill: Ok, so I’ve programmed a sequence of impossible mathematic equations from the Starfleet mathematician database and sent it over, that should be eno…
Toxin watched as the results of the equations was returned only a few seconds later in the form of complex equation based answers with some symbols the tricoder couldn’t process and returned with “?” placeholders.
Herrick: Response
Arlill: Yeah, that didn’t work, let me try one more option. (beat) ::working his sci-corder:: I’m programming the interface to request a bit by bit verification of this system ::sweeping his arm across the room:: (beat) that should delay it a little. Tell me when you’re ready.
Herrick: Response
As Josh triggered the interface from his tricorder Toxin triggered the interface request, the entire room’s ominous glow grew brighter as his tricorder indicate the number of bits under review, according to the interface feedback.
Arlill: Wow, according to this, (beat) this system has over one times ten to the 15th bytes of data storage, that’s over a goopbyte, not even a starbase has that level or capability of storage. This is amazing.
Herrick: Response
TBC / Tags!
LTJG Toxin Arlill
Helm, Operations, & Communications Officer
USS 'Oumuamua NCC-81226
Writer ID.: O239910TA4