50 Shades of Real

Posted on Thu 21st Sep, 2017 @ 1:46am by

467 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Unity Week
Location: CMO's Office
Timeline: Now

Doctor Chlamydia Addams took a seat behind her desk, and her companion, the Zeta Reticulan spider known as Thing, sprang from her shoulder to disappear behind her. "Have a seat, Lieutenant," the Doctor said, indicating those on the other side of her desk. She tapped the surface of her desk, linking to the files generated by the scan she'd performed on the young woman a few minutes prior. She considered the results again, and looked across the desk at the woman. "You believe your arm is defective in some way?"

Lieutenant Gray shook her head. "I don't know how to describe it, Doctor. It's... it's not real. It's not mine.."

"You can touch it with the other hand?" Addams inquired. "You feel what it feels? In what way is it not real, or not yours?"

Lieutenant Gray held up the hand in question, flexing it, turning it. "It exists, yes," she said, quietly. "But... I left my arm, almost to the elbow, on board a burning freighter. This one...." she trailed off.

Addams made a thoughtful sound. "It's been three years since the incident aboard Sato Maru. In that time, the engineered tissues have undergone apoptosis at a natural rate, and been replaced with your autologous tissue. The muscle and bone are assimilating nicely, and the neurons have completely linked with your own nervous system."

"I know all that," the Lieutenant said with a sigh, lowering the arm again. "But I still can't shake this feeling."

Addams nodded. "What you're experiencing is not physical," she observed. "Which does not mean that you are not experiencing it, or that it is not real. It does mean that I am not the right person to help you. I am therefore writing you a referral to my colleague, Dr. Graves."

"A psychiatrist?" Gray asked, sounding unenthusiastic.

"A shrinker of heads," Addams said. She was tapping away on her desk, presumably writing the referral she'd mentioned. She glanced up, at the top shelf of the glass cabinet secured to the bulkhead, at a curio, apparently a ball of leather with some fiber sticking out the top.

Gray followed her gaze, and realized that the thing was a shrunken head. She paled.

"Usually not so literally," Addams said with a ghoulish smile. She tapped the desktop once more, and Lieutenant Gray's PADD vibrated in her pocket. "I'm sure you will find him quite personable, actually. And if not...." She glanced once more at the top shelf.

"Yes, ma'am," the Lieutenant said, getting to her feet and exiting the office quickly.

Addams sat in silence for a minute after the young woman's departure, regarding the shrunken head. "Ah, Thing," she said at last. "What trouble brains cause us."

Thing, for its part, declined to comment.

 

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