Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dr. Solomon Kane (Research & Development) in R&D Lab - Previously On ‘Weird Days At Work’

Posted by Corinne Dalton (Apparation?) in R&D Lab - Previously On ‘Weird Days At Work’

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dr. Solomon Kane (Research & Development) in R&D Lab - Previously On ‘Weird Days At Work’
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Kane laughed. “I would if you had actually asked anything. But tell you what. We’ll trade. So ask a question, and I’ll give you an answer. Then I go. Then you. Back and forth. Deal? Good. Go.” and he stared at the cube / disembodied voice.

Kane, R&D

A pause. “I did ask, you’re just not listening.” A sigh. “Where am I now? I’m clearly not on the Saracen.”

~Corinne Dalton

“No. You are not on the Saracen.” Kane aswered directly. “As far as I can tell, you haven’t been there in… quite some time. You are currently in a Research and Development Lab that is dedicated to supporting one of the top medical groups in the Federation. And I’ll give you a bonus answer. Right now, and until I decide otherwise, I am the only person that knows you exist here. So play nice.”

Another sigh. “You don’t need to threaten me, but… I understand.” She was essentially held hostage until he said decided she wasn’t a threat.

He thought for a moment and then said “My turn. Tell me how much you remember prior to, well, like an hour ago.”

Kane, R&D

A long drawn out silence ensured, and Kane would be forgiven if he thought she was suddenly gone. “I remember most things about my life- some things more vividly than others. I remember that dark time when I was trapped in a corner of the Saracen’s computer by a Douwd. He made me afraid of being trapped alone. Still am, by the way.” It was good for this man to know that she was a genuine person. “But after that last memory on the Saracen, I don’t remember really anything until now. Just a timeless sort of weightlessness. It’s hard to describe really. And there are… holes in my memory, but I can’t tell if they are simply inaccessible or actually gone. And these holes, these missing pieces hurt, as if you had injured your own body. Not quite as bad as having a bullet rip through your body, but close enough.”

Kane thought for a moment. “Well… if you are an actual consciousness- and I am not saying you are- and you were originally recompiled inside one system and then removed from that… I can see how coding gaps could effect your memory. And cause pain. It your mind trying to reconcile the change.” He thought for a few minutes more. “I might be able to help with that.” and began to, what appeared to be, putter around the lab; picking up bits and things from here and there.

“Who are you?” Corinne asked.

~Corinne Dalton

“Me?” Kane asked back as he pondered if he should answer that directly or not. “Well… I am the guy who they handed your box off too. You can call me Kane. “

Kane, R&D

“Kane… you can call me Cori.” She almost made her usual comment that that was what her friends called her, but he was not her friend, nor did she currently have any.

“You didn’t ask me another question,” she said, her voice lilting a little with amusement. “But I’ll tell you something anyway. I’m a dancer. I did ballet as a child and teenager and I truly did consider making a profession of it, but the pull to Starfleet was stronger. But I still danced here and there. I miss it though, I miss feeling that physical exertion, that way you have to force your body to do things it was not innately designed to do, all for the want of a magical moment of grace that transfixes an audience. It’s not the same anymore and I never did have the opportunity to find my own way of experiencing dance again that wasn’t just sad and lonely.”

“You mentioned medical groups… are we on a planet, base, or ship?”

~Corinne Dalton

“Ok, so we get you a body of some kind.” Kane said as if stating that air is a gas. “A body to house … whatever you are… in and if you play your cards right? I’ll make sure it can dance. And no, I didn’t ask a question. Tell me more about this Royal guy. You said he was a friend. And a Counselor. Would he vouch for you? Know you? Was he more than a friend?” and he waved his hands at the cube. “And no, nothing like that. I just need to know if I tried to find the guy, how o hectare he would be.”

Kane, R&D

“We contemplated a body but like I said, I was scared of losing myself if they tried to extract me from the Saracen. Too late for that worry, now, right?” That he was even contemplating a future for her was positive, wasn’t it? He was possibly on her side? But Cori had been burned by people so many times that it was hard to trust someone she had barely met and for the moment would only tolerate her voice. For the time beign she still would not be seen. Story of her life…

“Royal…” she said softly. “He knows more about me than all but a very select few people. And he believed in me. I’ll ever forget that moment when he sat there doing an eval on me in what he called my transformed state, and he got really excited because I was upset, mourning what could have been, trying to make sense of what my life had come to. And he looked at me and explained that he had read all my psyc evals from my career and and everything he was experiencing from me was an exact match. Yes, I didn’t have a flesh and bone body, but I was still me, not some computer facsimile. Do you know what it like to be truly seen, Kane? To be seen and not found wanting? To have someone want to help you, protect you from the thins you can’t do yourself? To wait for you to find your way and offer kindness and compassion while you do? That is Royal to me. Yes, we were friends and I miss him. But I have no idea what year it is even. For all I know, it’s decades in the future and he’s dead now. I want to ask the year, but to be honest, it terrifies me. I keep losing periods of my life and it’s maddening.”

~Corinne Dalton