Episode 26
Prologue
In the dead silence of sickbay, Alan Christopher and Erin Keller
stood, contributing to the silence as they watched Sarah Hartman perform the
final phases of Doctor Bentic’s experimental procedure. It had proven to be a long wait—if her
calculations were correct, the last time Erin recalled standing in sickbay was
nearly fifteen hours ago when Hartman had warded them off so she could work
without interruption.
But finally, fifteen hours later one of
Hartman’s nurses contacted Erin and gave her the word—it was almost over. For weeks, they had struggled to keep
Rachael Meyer alive, and now, it seemed as if their struggle was about to come
to an end. The procedure was nearly
complete, and Rachael was still alive.
If she were going to die, it would have happened long before now. But even at this point in the operation, far
past the most critical stages, Erin felt a dizzying array of nauseating
butterflies in the pit of her stomach.
She had no doubt Alan was experiencing the same thing.
Finally, Erin watched Hartman administer the
last of the antibiotics into Rachael’s body, and proceeded to lower the sleek
black walls of the surgical support frame back into the biobed.
The procedure had ended.
Hartman made one final check of Meyer’s
systems to make sure nothing terrible would happen and then, satisfied with the
results, she snapped her tricorder shut, dropped it into the pocket of her
flowing white lab coat, and headed over to greet Erin and Alan.
The look on her face wasn’t a dead giveaway
as to the results. Erin knew the Doctor
wasn’t very emotional, but she could have at least provided a smile…but she did
not. “It went as well as could be
expected,” said the Doctor.
“But if her mesiofrontal lobe hadn’t been so
well developed, it would have been a lot worse. I don’t think I would have been able to adapt the procedure to a
human or a Bolian.”
“Perhaps those telepathic experiences of
hers last year were more beneficial than we thought,” said Alan, referring to
Rachael’s numerous bouts with telepathy, including the Yelss, Species 8472, and
the beginnings of something he didn’t quite understand…
Hartman shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I’d
have to look at other Marians to be sure…but I don’t think I’ll be performing
this procedure again any time soon.”
“Why not?” asked Erin.
The Doctor glanced at the chronometer on the
computer station nearby. “Fifteen hours
might have something to do with it,” she muttered.
“No argument
there,” said one of her nurses.
Alan smiled. “So when can we see her?”
Hartman again referred to the computer
behind her, and looked over Meyer’s bio-readings yet again. She sighed, and then decided, “Everything
looks fine. You can see her as soon as
she wakes up.” She paused, then added,
“If she wakes up.”
“Then we’ll wait,” Christopher decided.
Erin nodded her agreement. There was nobody she would rather spend her
time with. And waiting for Rachael to
recover was definitely a worthy cause.
She smiled, and turned to him. “
Do you want to wait here…or what?”
Alan considered it for a moment. “Here,” he decided. “I want to be here when Rachael wakes up.”
“If
she wakes up,” Hartman stressed once more.
“She will,” said Erin sternly. Hartman’s pessimism—or realism, as the good
doctor described it—was beginning to get on Erin’s nerves.
And so they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Alan paced back and forth between biobeds
counting ceiling tiles. He was convinced there were ninety-seven, but Erin
herself counted eighty-nine, claiming he cheated by counting the half-tiles as
whole. He grumbled, and agreed she was
right.
Brought into submission by his defeat, Alan
retreated to the island in the middle of the facility and alphabetized the
cortical analeptics Hartman had on display.
“From alazine to zetarynaphine,” he proudly proclaimed while Erin hopped
up onto a biobed and engaged herself in an exciting round of Metrix—the
portable version she created after encountering the game on Aurillac VII last
year during the Romulan attack.
After winning six games in a row, Erin
decided to take a head-to-head challenge with Alan. She noted that many of Alan’s tactics involved more than a small
amount of cheating, but out of politeness, Erin remained mute on the
subject. He wasn’t winning in spite of
those extralegal efforts in the first place.
And they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Hah!” exclaimed Christopher. “I beat you!”
Erin tossed the game on the bio bed. “You cheated,” she said firmly, giving him
an evil glare. “I saw you creating blue
cubes before the turbo round.”
“They were spheres,” protested Alan.
“Those were the boxiest spheres I’ve ever
seen!”
Alan looked up at the lights. “Glare.
You saw wrong. It was the glare
from the lights.”
“I’ll show you a glare,” she said,
strengthening her evil gaze on Alan’s face.
He sighed, and turned away in shameful defeat.
And they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until finally, Rachael Meyer blinked for the first time in weeks.