Posted by Captain Calvin Marius (Captain) in Main Sim Undisclosed location Sir I am ready for my close up (CE)

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in Main Sim Undisclosed location Sir I am ready for my close up (CE)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Dagen Thor (CE) in Main Sim Undisclosed location Sir I am ready for my close up (CE)
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
“But I saw her earlier. She is supposed to be bartending, ancestors help them all,” he said looking at Bailey. He wasn’t a doctor but two of Thor’s past hosts were science and medical related. He looked at the Captain. “Are .. we holograms, androids?” Even with his head pounding there could only be so many solutions here. A person couldn’t be in two places at once and here Bailey was still in uniform. But what was that, a shared dream?

Looking to his left he saw Vanessa. Looking to the right side of the engineering officer he saw Reia. “Dagen,” Calvin signaled for him to check his wife as Calvin moved closer to the counselor. The pounding migraine made it feel as if Calvin could barely take a step without feeling like he was going to retch all over the place. “Lieutenant,” he stated in a firm tone. “Lieutenant Slade,” he repeated her name and tapped her cheek trying to arouse her.

Calvin Marius CO

Dagen was less ‘sick’ as he was feeling his motor control messed up and he was off balance when he moved. But seeing Reia there, he stumbled drunkenly. “I saw her out there not long ago too,” he said. Reaching the bed he leaned on it to try to keep his balance. Laying down right now was very desirable and almost overriding his thinking. He’d felt that kind of thing at Academy exercises where he had been without sleep for what seemed like days and the prospect of letting the ship explode around him then (even if a simulation) was powerful. Almost like now. He touched her arm. She was still warm; well to a cold Trill’s hands most people were warm but Reia was quite warm blooded. She too had that device on her. Was there some kind of control? Was ‘he’ there too? He glanced around quickly but not too quickly as a wave of nausea broke over him in doing that. “Reia,” he said. It made sense that he was in the same predicament. But what happened if he just turned that device off.

Reia did not react nor did Vanessa to either man touching them. Both women reacted as if in a deep sleep

Looking at the monitor attached to Vanessa’s forehead, Calvin posed a question. “Think you can turn this off?”

“If we turn this off,” Dagen said to the Captain. “Will the other Reia cease to exist? Will I if I find myself and turn that off?” He had no illusion that there was a solution here and freeing Reia and himself and the others were he to turn it off. But what about him? If he himself was a construct .. would he then cease to exist? He didn’t want to disappear. He was Dagen. Perhaps a different one? And the other Reia a different one too but he talked with her and kissed her. What then? He found his hands were shaking and not entirely from the pain.
- Dagen

Everything the CE stated was also running through Calvin’s mind. He had zero desire to blip into oblivion however remaining in this situation was not acceptable either. Leaning in, he examined the monitor on her head as if it was a landmine being careful not to touch it too much or shift it too much. “Have you seen a device like this?”

“Not this model,” Dagen said. “It is obviously some kind of neuralink but just what it links ‘to’ I don’t know.” It was funny in a way. Dagen was more open to turning it off on Reia than himself. Loss of a dual identity of Reia was of less concern for him than getting Reia back. But was ‘he’ even he. A fake Dagen wanting the real Reia back while sacrificing a fake Reia was .. there was some moral line crossing here he thought but with his pounding head he wasn’t quite sure what that was. His thoughts did come in fits and spurts and to him were not precisely concise.

His statement was for a dual purpose. Calvin needed his CE and there was a chance, Dagen’s would be too hesitant to try something if he thought it was going to hurt his wife. Vanessa was not unimportant but every Starfleet officer knew signing up for service was a risky proposition. Calvin and Dagen would take every precaution however if they could not release the counselor, then none of them would probably be getting out of this in one piece.

Suddenly Calvin realized why this device looked so familiar to him. “So a week or so back the counselor roped me into some volunteer work with a group of kids she knew back at the VA in Boston. We played paintball with them via linking into a game via our holodeck but the kids didn’t have access to a holodeck. They wore those civvie helmets and linked into the game that way.” Pulling back some hair off Vanessa’s face, Calvin could see that the monitor seemed to be attached to Vanessa’s face at her temple.

Calvin Marius CO

“So they are linked and unplugging would be like leaving the game?” he asked. Still there was a threat from the ‘matron’ and Dagen couldn’t quite figure what that meant. “Long ago I played a game that had people linked through multiple holosuites,” he mused. “All the Avatars met in the same simultaneous simulation. Captain are you saying we’re just game Avatars?” He glanced over and saw what he was seeing on the temple attachment and brushed back Reia’s hair to see a similar attachment.

“Maybe but it would sure as hell explain why we feel like we have an ice pick being driven into our skulls,” he replied touching his own temple, “and why the others seemed to act like we were the NPC’s up at the party. “The question is, who is running the game.”.

Looking to the main one on her arm he leaned in. “It may be remotely controlled but there does look like it has a control interface. I think I can shut it down.” He was close to Reia’s lap. Just close your eyes and nap was what was calling to him ..
- Dagen, CE

“Do it,” Calvin ordered hoping his CE’s miracle worker status was going to be proven again today.

Calvin Marius CO

Dagen’s head twitched as though he had been about to fall asleep. The order brought him back to the now. At least he was close to it. His fingers trembled as they brushed the device, tapping the mechanism that he felt would yield even a small command option. There .. there it was. More brushing brought it to a command that looked to be either that of a off switch or a disconnect. Either should do it in his mind. “Here goes,” he said, pressing the device to engage the command. And waited ..
- Dagen, CE

Calvin knew his CE would not endanger anyone without a reasonable assumption that what he planned wouldn’t work out. Now it was the choice to see which patient was the guinea pig: The counselor or Reia. Calvin would let the CE pick. Thor might want to choose Reia since it was the man’s wife and his concern naturally gravitated to her over the other crew. It might be the counselor because if Thor’s plan was wrong Reia would not be the test subject.

All it would take was for Thor to pick a person and throw the switch.

Calvin Marius CO and GM

OOC: Ohhh .. I thought I had done that with Reia above .. my bad if I was not clear … Gene
OC: It coul have been me. I read too fast sometimes.

The device made a clicking sound as a needle as small as an ancient hypodermic needle retracted from the area around the temple. The device now rested, unattached on Reia’s forehead and across the bridge of her nose.

‘Oh that’s gotta hurt’ Dagen thought though not likely any more than the pounding in his head.

Seeing how Thor deactivated the device, Calvin reached over and did the same to Vanessa’s device.

“Easy there Lt.,” Calvin stated catching her fist instead of just deflecting it. A small twitch occurred at the edges of his mouth as he noted her first reaction was to come out swinging instead of talking. It probably had something to do with living with nine brothers. Brothers could be idiots just on principle or maybe it was just an overactive fight vs flight response.

Given the captain’s condition Dagen was pretty impressed with his ability to catch the swing. Reflex perhaps?

“Can you stand?” His comment was not meant to be callous but instinct from his Marine training. Staying in one place too long never was a good thing. While he was not too concerned with the minimal security he found so far, Calvin needed his two officers on their feet to test out a hypothesis that was trying to form in the middle of the migraine pounding in his brain.

As Vanessa woke up her hand immediately moved up to her face towards her temple. “Fah me,” she mumbled out knocking the device from her face. Feeling someone next to her, Vanessa immediately balled up her fist and swung as hard as she could toward where she thought the person’s face was. She had no desire to wake up again with Prune Face barking out orders. Her head was pounding as if she had just woken up from an epic shore leave on Risa.

Lt. Vanessa Slade CNS

Waiting for the two women to wake up or react, they may or may not have been looking at the monitor above the bio beds showing the device seemed to be taking readings from the Temporal lobes of the two women’s brains.

Calvin Marius CO and GM

At one point Dagen did glance up and saw that there was scanning happening. He could get that far in his thinking, however with the pounding in his own head and his not being a medical practitioner - any memories he had from Thor’s host would be sadly out of date - so his own sense that ‘something was happening’ was about as far as he went on that. “Something’s happening,” he said, speaking of the scans and the needle retraction.
- Dagen CE

“Is Reia waking up,” Calvin asked hoping her reaction was the same as Vanessa only less combative.

Calvin Marius CO and GM

“She’s a pretty heavy sleeper,” Dagen said, not relishing a swing from her Orion side. “Hang on.” He leaned and whispered “Morning sunshine,” in her ear, something familiar to Reia and hopefully one that would not instill a reaction.
- Dagen