Debriefing and a Weird Discovery

Posted on Wed 31st Jul, 2019 @ 2:02pm by Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Damion Ildaran & Lieutenant Commander Andrew Eberstark & Lieutenant Adam Keller

1,113 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Observation Room 12, Intelligence Department
Timeline: MD-2, checking on time

The smart ones ask when they don't know--and sometimes, when they do. --Malcolm Forbes

Damion walked into Observation Room 12 feeling as drained as Zelda Alegari--or Morrigan Endrade--had looked. It seemed the more they delved into her past, the deeper and darker things got.

He set the secured container holding Zelda's poison ring down on the table. "I figured out what's bugging me about this thing," he said. "The ring's not moving. I thought 'twould be rolling around loose in there, but it isn't."

He sighed and took a seat. "So, what do you lot think?"

"I'm just a crime scene analyst, not a real detective," Langston said as she reached into one of the pouches her subordinates teasingly called her utility belt. "But that story is so fishy, I smell mercury."

"Good," Damion said. "I like having another pair of--" He paused, glancing at Langston. "--more eyes to look at the problem."

Muffet grinned at the Intel officer's slip of the tongue. She drew out a pair of Cushing forceps, long and angled. "So we've got this Aenar -- who are, by the bye, supposed to be extinct -- who never talks of anything of substance, but delivers her orders. 'Your mission, Ms. Whoeveryouare, should you choose to accept it...'." Muffet went through the process of opening the evidence container.

"You'll need my thumbprint to open it," Damion said. He leaned over and pressed his thumb against the small scanner on the lid. The little line of blue light went up and down, and then the container clicked open.

"Thanks," Muffet said, sounding distracted. She looked around. "Nobody put your face over this, please."

Observing the Lieutenant open the container, Andrew chimed in, "I agree parts of her story are suspect at best. This "person" has certainly done a lot of talking and giving us information, useful or otherwise. She's done just enough to hold our attention and get us thinking we could extract something useful from her," pausing, looking at Damion, "I tend to agree with you, Lieutenant. I find it hard to believe, given what we know of them, that an Aenar would not be aware of distinctive personalities in a person. I think he knew he would have a harder time getting through to this one than the others. We need to try to bring out another personality, in my opinion."

"I suspect the one most likely to tell us the truth--Zelda--is the one who remembers the least," Damion said to Andrew. "Destiny--She might talk, but she's a trickster and a charmer. We'd never know how much of her talk we could believe. Tanith could perhaps be reasoned with, but she's of a similar vein to Morrigan. That's why I concluded the best way to get through to them all is to earn Morrigan's trust. The problem is, if she can be believed, her memory's been tampered with. We've no way of knowing if it was real tampering or simply another personality taking over." Damion glanced at Adam Keller and Lt. Commander Graves. "Could either of you tell how truthful she was being?"

"I felt that she was being mostly truthful," Paul said. "As for the ring placement--No, that felt like real lack of memory, not just a shift. In a shift, the memories are still there, but the personality can't access them. It doesn't even need to have been caused by telepathy--in fact, that's somewhat difficult to do. Perhaps she was given a twilight sedative while the ring was implanted--except this doesn't feel like that. With a twilight drug, there's nothing there; no memories could form. What I felt was a blank spot where there ought to be an image." Graves frowned. "Morrigan holds the worst of the memories; I could--feel them, feel how sickened they made her feel." He looked back at them all. "I was hoping to get a sense of the other personalities' feelings, but Morrigan kept firm control."

"She's definitely the protector. She knows the ugly stuff." Adam confirmed. "Whether she can't remember or chooses not to remember, she was being sincere."

Muffet pulled an inspection mirror out of another pocket, telescoped the pole, and slid it over the edge of the now-open box. She turned it this way and that, looking at the ring. "Seriously, is no one else weirded out that the Aenar are supposed to have been absorbed completely into the general Andoran population, their genes too dilute to produce any more -- but we seem to have one on our hands? That's..." she shook her head, unable to find the right words.

"I am interested in that," Damion said. "Honestly, I'd forgotten they're supposed to be extinct. I find that puzzling, in this day and age, that a way couldn't be found to keep them alive. It makes me wonder if they refused attempts to preserve their gene pool, or if the Andorians we're familiar with chose not to save them. But it also begs the question of where the bloke who met Zelda in Orchids & Jazz came from."

Muffet nodded absently, and reached into the crate with her angled forceps, watching in the mirror as the tips came closer to the ring. "Three possibilities occur to me: either rumors of Aenar extinction are greatly exaggerated; or this individual is simply disguised as one; or he was cloned, or genetically engineered, from previous Aenar tissue stocks."

"Aye, that makes sense," Damion agreed.

Her forceps made contact with the ring, and Langston frowned. "Huh. It won't budge. It's attached to the crate, somehow."

"It's not supposed to be," Damion said. "As I understand it, the ring was beamed directly into that container in Sickbay. Secured containers don't have hooks or anything inside them, do they?"

Muffet tilted the mirror that way and this, and probed at the ring with her forceps. "Cilia. Or... root hairs? Tiny, hair-like growths extending from the ring to box, or vice-versa. I wasn't able to see them until I focused all six of my detail eyes."

Damion blinked. "it didn't have anything like that when I first found it on Miss Alegari's finger. They must be hellaciously strong if you can't budge the ring."

Muffet made a non-committal noise and withdrew her tools. "I'd like to take this back to my lab for further study. I don't want to risk setting off any traps in a room full of other people."

"Sounds wise," Damion said with a nod. "I'd like to know what that thing is doing." He looked at Muffet. "Destiny said that thing was death, and I believe her. I'm glad you've sense enough to only handle it with tools."

 

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