Come to Chlamydia Moment

Posted on Mon 27th May, 2019 @ 8:21pm by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD

1,326 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Chief Medical Officer's office
Timeline: MD-5, 1400 hours

The distance between his office and Chlamydia's was not long enough for considered thought, Lanis mused as he approached the CMO's office door, PADD in hand, and knocked, just in time for the appointment he'd scheduled with her. Perhaps that was a good thing, Lanis decided. Too little time to think made for more honest dealings, and this was a meeting whose purpose required honestly of him. He was tired of dithering, tired of anxiety and fear; they weren't serving him well. Time to get to the bottom of it--whatever 'it' was.

For a change, Chlamydia was actually seated at her desk, her attention on something visible only to her, displayed on the monitor set down into the top of the sturdy furniture. "Enter freely, and of your own will," she said absently, then glanced up. "Ah, Lanis! Is it that time already? Have a seat, and tell me what is causing that darling little wrinkle between your eyebrows."

"Old age," Lanis said succinctly and then grinned as the door hissed shut behind him. It faded as he took a seat. "Thank you for setting aside the time, Chlamydia. I've been worrying with something for a little over a week, and it's past time I brought it to you. Maybe you can make more sense of it than I or Lt. Baro have been able to." He paused. "I suppose you noticed that I took my name off the surgery rotation for a few days."

Addams quirked an eyebrow. "I did notice, but didn't think much of it. You are the chief of surgery; it's your right to take yourself out or any other surgeon out of the rota as you see fit."

"Well, I saw fit to take myself out--because I wasn't sure if I was having vision problems or outright hallucinations," Lanis said. "I should have gone to you first, but I was too much of a coward to, Chlamydia. I suppose a lot of my sense of self lies in being a surgeon--or at least a doctor. I've done medicine literally for as long as I can remember. And if I was going to have to lose that, I didn't want it to be in front of you. So I went and saw Dr. s'Siedhri down in Tivoli Gardens." Lanis tapped his PADD and transferred a neurological examination report to Dr. Addams' inbox. "He assessed my health as satisfactory for someone of my age--which is fine, but it doesn't explain why I am seeing bizarre things on my computer monitor."

Chlamydia nodded, looking thoughtful. She reached for a skull-shaped teacup, took a sip, made a face when she found it tepid. "A distant ancestor of mine is reputed to have opined that when one eliminates the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." She stood and walked to the replicator with her teacup. She set the cup on the pad and touched the recycle button. "I have no reason to believe that Dr. s'Siedhri is anything but competent, though I will of course review his report later."

Lanis nodded. "He's a fine physician--you should meet him. I have no concerns there. Chlamydia, the odd thing about all this is that I'm seeing the bizarre visual anomalies only under a very narrow range of conditions--only when I'm here after hours, researching one particular thing: Adrian Dobbs' scientific papers. The moment I start to read anything with Dobbs' name on it, my computer starts to misbehave. And another thing--the severity of the misbehavior seems to be in direct correlation with the papers' publication dates. The earlier papers--not much of a problem--some slowness here and there. But his later ones? Anything concerning cellular manipulation, and I get--well, not this; this was from a momentary blip, but it's the only thing we've caught. Lt. Baro did a scan on my computer while I was using it and caught this image."

Lanis danced his fingers over his PADD screen and brought up a different image--lines of glowing blue light streaking across a black background, ending in a starburst of light near the screen's center.

"I have no idea what this is, and neither does Lt. Baro, but it's certainly prettier than the image of a burning journal article that prompted me to call the help desk."

"By definition," Chlamydia said, using the replicator's menu surface to request a new cup of tea without interrupting what she was saying, "a hallucination is a sensory experience which one person has, but which is not experienced by others." She collected her tea in its remade skull teacup and returned to her desk. She glanced at Lanis' PADD and the image displayed there, continuing her train of thought, "the solitary nature of that experience, however, does not mean that it is 'unreal'."

Addams took a sip of tea, and ruminated for a moment. "We have eliminated structural causes arising from neural dysfunction." She tapped her monitor, indicating the report from Dr. s'Siedhri. "So that leaves us... what? influence from non-corporeal entities." She had long ago found that phrasing it that way brought fewer snickers her way than references to 'ghosts' or 'spirts,' while meaning essentially the same thing. "Certainly, we have seen evidence of that sort of thing in the last year. We could hold a seance to determine if that is the case, or you might consult a priest of your own faith for whatever the Bajoran equivalent of an exorcism, a casting out of malevolent energy beings. Or, should a priest not be available, I believe Great-Grandmama Addams still provides that service for a nominal fee."

The darling little wrinkle between Lanis' eyebrows became a deeper furrow. "Am I understanding the translator correctly? You're talking about a spirit, correct? Like that murder victim from--" Lanis broke off, and a horrified look came over his face as he stared at Chlamydia. "Please tell me you're not talking about Lt. Commander Breaux, that his consciousness might have somehow transferred into our computer systems. If it did, we can't involve your grandmother or a ranjen. We were both sworn to secrecy about the entire Dobbs mess."

Chlamydia held up a calming hand. "Lanis, I am only examining possibilities. As it happens, I don't think that's the most likely of the list. We know that Dobbs was a nasty piece of work. Likely continues to be, unless you've heard news I haven't?" She raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

Lanis shook his head. "Wherever the guy is, he's gone to ground. I've heard nothing. So what do you think is the most likely possibility? Because I have no--well, almost no--experience with non-corporeal entities. I deal with the here and now, not with the hereafter."

"I think the most likely possibility is that you are the victim of psychological warfare. Your examination of the past work of Dobbs may have triggered software hooks in the system, alerting the man, or his associates, or pre-set routines designed to intimidate you away from the topic." Chlamydia took another sip of her tea. Dobbs' chamber of horrors had included several Humans reconfigured to serve as computational engines, re-purposing their brains for his own nefarious purposes. "He had access to the hardware and software of the station for decades, after all. I think it far more likely that we are dealing with a ghost in the machine than the enduring remnants of personality from a man functionally dead long before his official passing."

Lanis rolled his eyes. "I should have thought of something like that, myself; it's much less fanciful. I just remembered that face in the crystal ball during your seance--but I also remember that Lt. Commander Breaux never appeared that night, which would lead one to presume he went on to a well-deserved peaceful afterlife of whatever sort--or just faded away. That's my hope, anyway. All right, then." He leaned back in his chair. "Resolving this issue will require some delicacy, then."

 

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