What Fire?

Posted on Wed 10th Apr, 2019 @ 7:43pm by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD & Lieutenant Commander Alora Baro

1,434 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Infirmary, Chief Surgeon's Office
Timeline: MD-2, 1900 hours

Dhuro Lanis didn't usually curse in front of ladies--and certainly not in gutter Bajoran in front of Bajoran ladies--but he was on a tear now. He called his computer every foul Bajoran word in the book--of which 'collaborator' was the kindest--and added a few in Cardassian.

"This is not the screen image I saw when I asked you to come here," he said to Lt. Baro as his computer displayed a perfectly normal text image of Adm. Adrian Dobbs' peer-reviewed paper on using biosynthetics in the construction of prosthetic limbs. "This is what the image should have looked like. This is what the image did look like for about half a second, before it went all crazy, looking as if it were having a buffer problem, and then burst into figurative flames."

"Maybe the file's corrupt?" She asked trying to open the diagnostician screen again, "does it do this with any other files?" It didn't when she tested his system on her secure server. She bounced around different files but didn't get a chance to finish her analysis when she'd gotten another call for the Doctor's Mystery Machine. Her voice didn't hold out much hope as nothing had come up virused or corrupted in previous tests, though again admittedly incomplete.

Lanis let out a breath. "That's the bizarre thing. My computer only seems to go crazy when I'm here after hours, working on this particular project. But all I'm doing is reading and taking notes. I'm not programming, entering formulas, or doing anything executable that would cause this kind of abnormal machine behavior. It's distracting because it presents a mystery, and I love a mystery." He glared at his computer. "Except for this mystery. This mystery is pissing me off." He gave Alora a sheepish look. "I do apologize for my language a moment ago. It was heartfelt but unbecoming."

Alora smiled, "I've heard worse. You've not listened to me when I get zapped by a stubborn repair." She checked the readouts on the diagnostic program. "It's telling me there's no corruption in your file or any malware..." She brought out her own independent device and continued checking. "I once had a person smuggle in malware encoded in someones' DNA so that when a medical device scanned it, it got into the medical computer and proceeded to try to replicate and copy everything in sight. That was a tricky bastard..." She looked at her device as it beeped an all clear. "Much like this one...".

Lanis blinked. "That's ingenious. Vile, but ingenious."

Alora noddd, "That's what I thought. I can't tell you more; Intel slapped a security rating on it but trust me it was some of the most elegant coding I'd ever seen." She finished making some adjustments, "Ok here's what I'd like to try. You do other things for a bit, and I will monitor everything your computer does with my computer here..." She nodded at the test system computer she'd hooked up. "Everything your computer does will show up here, just do other things and after awhile drift back here, then maybe we can see where the issue is?"

"That sounds as good as any idea I've come up with, and better than all of them. I'm going to have a drink while we wait. Do you want anything? My treat." He directed his replicator to produce his favorite Earth coffee drink--something called a mocha latte. The computer automatically deducted the charge from the coffee shop he had ordered it from, and the replicator produced the beverage.

"Raktajino would be fine. Thanks," She said finalizing the set up. Every whirr, beep, electronic blip or movement would be tracked by this system. If anything changed from its baseline she would see it if it was detectable by her equipment. "If this doesn't work I'm down to getting you a new computer and taking this one to my lab."

"I can approve supply requests and read monthly statistical reports," Lanis said. "Pretty much everything else is likely to have some element of confidentiality." He retrieved his mocha latte and Baro's raktajino from the replicator and handed Baro her drink.

He sat back down at his desk and opened his desktop file that contained SRs. "Well, this isn't exactly the way I'd have chosen to try to spend time with a woman from home, but I suppose it's better than most." Lanis sipped from his latte. He approved the first SR in his queue and forwarded it to Materials Processing so the items in the request could be replicated. "So what do you do when you aren't on duty?"

Alora thanked him and took a sip of the rich, dark liquid. It immediately had some effect, clearing out some of the cobwebs in her brain. She put down the Klingon Coffee and focused on her computer. "Everything seems normal so far..." Then she caught up with the rest of his question, "Oh I play on the Station's Springball team, go cave diving, bit of this and that..." She said slightly distractedly as she monitored every blip and beep. "You?" she asked the Doctor as she continued to work.

"I like to read quite a bit," Lanis said as he glanced at the next service requisition. "Making up for lost time, I suspect. I go to the gym and run most afternoons. There's a gym that a lot of the marines use, and I tend to go there." He approved that SR and started on the next one. "I like to explore the station. I used to have an exploration plan I'd worked out, where I calculated I could visit every deck of 109 within a standard year. Then work happened, and I haven't kept up with it. Where do you go cave diving? Is that a holodeck thing, or do you only do it in real caves?"

Alora continued to watch, rubbed her eyes and drank more coffee, "Both, I'm not picky, real is best but holodeck works especially for places I can't get to because of my assignments." She smiled as a thought occurred, "Exploration plan makes me feel like I should grab a backpack, a walking stick and go on an adventure around the station..." she said amused by the thought of considering the station part of some epic journey.

Lanis laughed. "I thought it must be awfully boring of me. What kind of explorer sits down and plots where they're going to go and has a timetable? I plan to get back to it as soon as I can--after I finish my research."

Unnoticed by Lanis, his computer screen flickered for a microsecond before returning to normal as he said "research."

Alora sat up straighter at her own console, "Hold on I just got a blip..." She reviewed the electronic output from when the blip occurred. "Just when you said 'research' your computer lost full pixel graphic resolution for like a nanosecond but everything seems to be working normally now..." She pointed to her screen with the readouts but wasn't sure how much the Doctor would understand.

Lanis glanced at Alora's screen and shook his head. "Bad monitor, do you think?" Lanis said. He shrugged, lifting his hands to show his palms. "Don't answer that. Speculation without facts is stupid--and it doesn't look like any monitor failure I ever saw. But the way the bizarre images just vanish makes me wonder if I'm seeing things. I've never been able to get a screen capture of what I've seen."

"I'm going to have it to do a check on the visual components..." She talked as she tapped a few keys, "And while it's doing that I've been recording so we can review second by second." She recalled the moment in time, it was working normally then it flickered then went back to normal. It took a few moments of fiddling but she managed to pause it right at the moment of flicker.

"What is that?" Lanis asked as the image on Alora's monitor screen changed. "It's like an aurora--kind of." The screen was entirely black, save for wavy streams of soft, blue-green light that swerved across the screen, with a starburst effect in the center.

Alora shrugged her confusion, "Prettiest hack I ever saw..." She replied as she attempted to analyze it.

"Could you make an image of that for me?" Lanis asked. "I have no idea how or if this relates to my flaming document image, but it's at least an indication of something."

Alora nodded and bent again to her work.

 

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