Becoming Well-Read in Evil

Posted on Mon 24th Dec, 2018 @ 1:19am by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD

383 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Chief Surgeon's Office, Infirmary
Timeline: MD-17, 1900 hours

Dhuro Lanis sat at his desk, nibbling on pizza slices and reading scientific papers that he'd have much preferred to consign to the Fire Caves.

The first on his list was Dr. Jasmine Collins-Keller's report on the two Borg spores that she had studied. Lanis pored over cross-sectional analyses. It still amazed him sometimes that he was able to understand the language of nanotechnology. Even after having been a practicing surgeon for decades and after having earned a doctorate, he still thought of himself as a man who worked with his hands, not as a highly-skilled intellectual.

As the hours passed he rubbed at his eyes more and more, not wanting them to glaze over. He had taken what seemed like a ream of notes, and he had progressed from Dr. Keller's papers to those written by former Admiral Adrian Dobbs.

They ought to be horrifying, he thought. Instead, they were brilliant papers--and perfectly normal, whose fruits were entirely worthy of the praises that their author had earned.

Of course they're perfectly normal, Lanis mocked himself. They'd had to get past the Experimental Research Ethics Board, which was responsible for ensuring that all scientific research carried out on sapient beings in Starfleet would not prove physically or psychologically harmful to the experimental subjects.

Lanis wanted to laugh a bitter laugh at that. He contented himself with a derisive snort at Adrian Dobbs' expense and continued reading and taking notes.

After four hours he decided to call it a night. He still had many more papers to read and a long research trail to follow.

Tomorrow night, Dr. Holly Day, Lanis told himself. Joy.

His computer had become gradually more glitchy, all evening. Now, it refused to click over to the close-out screen.

"Computer--off, for the Prophets' sakes! I'm bloody-damned tired, I'm not happy, and I'd like to go to bed!"

Nothing. Not even a response of "Working" from the computer voice. Just dead silence.

Lanis gave a heartfelt sigh and tapped his communicator. "Operations, this is Dr. Dhuro in Sickbay. I'm having slow-down issues with my computer, and now it's frozen. This has highly sensitive information on it; I can't just leave it. Could you send someone up here, please?"

 

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