Unsettling Discoveries

Posted on Sun Dec 4th, 2022 @ 11:05pm by Lieutenant Commander Ezrin Ezee & Doctor Teagan Ceja
Edited on on Sun Dec 4th, 2022 @ 11:11pm

1,102 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Duty Logs
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: A little after the events of Star Baby

“This technology is utterly fascinating,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Everett McKennon declared, not for the first time as he examined the ‘body’ of what, until recently, had been Ezrin Ezee. “The body alone is enough to keep us busy for weeks, but the gist of it is that it’s a synthetic carbon-based endoskeleton--and the only reason I know it’s synthetic is because it’s been grown from Lt Ezee’s own cells, but it’s degrading at a rate that simply is not possible for an Armellian’s corpse. Their bone structure is too dense for that. Still, as far as our sensors are concerned, this *is* Ezee’s skeleton.” McKennon informed both Doctor Ceja and Commander James.

“Not only that, but the bio matter we were able to retrieve was… fascinating. Also grown from Ezee in some manner,” Ceja added. She reached up and pulled down a piece of scanning equipment from where it floated overhead, and lined up the screen with a portion of the body. “It’s not far off what we do when we’re growing body parts for someone, but was done with a technology I’ve not seen before.”

Commander Tamarra James uncrossed her arms, and sighed. She pursed her lips. Sighed again. “Despite the fact that both of you sound utterly enthralled with this, which is deeply unsettling, what have you found that we can use?”

McKennon pulled up an image of one of the organs, which seemed to have been made from clockwork. “This is, as near as I can tell, one of the three stomachs that Lt Ezee, or their facsimile, had. The inside of the organ was made from Ezee’s own cells; I imagine it's so that whatever food the facsimile ingested could be absorbed and used by it as a power source, but the outside? It’s powered by clockwork, simulating the churning our own stomachs do, and the gears are made of some type of wood. The only people I know of who use wood in this kind of situation are Armellians, and the type of wood is consistent with their technology. If the real Ezee is not on Armellia, we at least know they got the materials from there.”

“Anyone asked them who they trade with?” TJ asked. “I’ve been to that world, nobody sneaks onto it easily without being eaten.”

“The melding of biological and mechanical reminds me of something. There are a few worlds who meld both together in remarkable ways. Augmentation is normal on those worlds, and maybe the person who kidnapped Ezee is from one of those worlds.” Ceja mused, and idly tapped the screen in front of her. She paused, tapped again and leaned in.

“Doctor?” TJ nudged her slightly and looked at the screen. She flicked her fingers across the image, which sprang from the surface to hover in mid-air. “What’s so interesting?”

“I’m not completely sure,” Ceja began. “But this one molecule here? It’s got the same signature as Jones’s cellular makeup. It’s from the other dimension. I need more with the same baseline information to be certain.”

“Ah,” TJ said. “So it’s time for me to chop off my hair again so people know it’s me? Great. I only just got it to a decent length.”

“Sirs? I did investigate a little further, and Armellians almost exclusively only trade with members of their own race. Which means anyone trading with them who is *not* an Armellian is likely to stand out to the merchants.” McKennon broke in, choosing to ignore the conversation about the other dimension.

TJ nodded. It made sense overall, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was not as easy as that. It was never as easy as that. “Alright,” she said eventually, “Hit me with the rest of it. What else have you found?”

“Unlike the body, the brain is fully synthetic,” McKennon informed her, “and it's nothing like what I’ve read about synthetic neural nets. There’s minimal connections, little autonomous power, stripped down functions...barely enough to keep a facsimile breathing on its own, let alone walking around and talking. What there *is*,” he pulled up a scan of the brain in question, “is a telepathic relay with two independent power sources, one of which charges itself with power generated from the movement in the facsimile’s leg-cogs while the other is in use. This system could keep itself running indefinitely, if left to its own functions, so I can draw two conclusions from it: one, it's piloted by a living brain remotely, through telepathy. Two, it was *designed* to fail after a certain amount of time. Based on the level of degradation in the wooden components, I would say this automaton is likely about three weeks old.”

“That makes sense,” Ceja murmured. “Thirty six more hours? Thirty nine? I forget exactly, but there was a mention of that when the body fell apart.”

She moved the floating screen, and positioned it over the brain area from her side of the head. “Telepathic markers are similar to the ones found in our dimension, with some subtle differences. If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I would have missed them entirely. TJ, we need to invoke the Jonesy protocol.”

TJ’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “Everyone?”

“Everyone,” Ceja confirmed. “Starting with me. We already know my alternate is still alive.” She looked at McKennon, over the table and equipment. “John Jones was my Assistant Chief Medical Officer for some time, many years ago. He was also, it turned out, from another dimension. The Jonesy Protocol is specific to this ship, and means that everyone on the ship must be scanned at a deep molecular level to see if they carry any of the specific indicators that they came from there.”

TJ, meanwhile, was busy informing Warp of the new developments. And did not sound happy at all about them.

McKennon nodded, slowly, seriously. “Anything I can do to help?” He glanced at the automaton on the bio bed. “Lieutenant Ezee got me out of a position I kind of hated in engineering and put me to work in their lab, simply because they thought I'd like it better there. They were right. I...want to find them.”

TJ finished her conversation and turned back to regard both of them with the sort of expression that made a lot of admiralty give her anything she wanted. “Ezee is part of our family. We will find them, and we will bring them home.”

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