Experimental Setup

Posted on 30 Sep 2024 @ 9:28pm by Ensign Avery Macario
Edited on on 01 Oct 2024 @ 6:33pm

Mission: M4 - Falling Out
Location: Macario's Lab.
904 words - 1.8 OF Standard Post Measure

A physical notebook lay beside Avery as she sketched and set up a test cycle. Lips cracking as she chewed her lips deep in concentration. The abused lower lip split with the pressure of her teeth, directing a course of blood down her chin. The sharp pain startled her away from the task she was focused on.

"Ow. ". The slightly puzzled tone of her voice showed how long she's been focused when the pain of her body broke her concentration cycle.

Her desk held several empty cups of various stimulants. Coffee, tea and an energy mix that she found in the replicator called Celsius. That one shed returned to a number of times today as the flavors tickled her tongue in a pleasing manner. Just enough bite to tingle and just enough sweet to soothe. The focus she received from the consumption was enough for her body to relax into the work she was doing. Racing heart slowed and tight muscles quivered as she relaxed.

Almost feverishly bright eyes shone in her thin face as she worked on the substrates she needed for her next round of experiments. That face showed the dehydration she was suffering from after so long a time in the lab. Her hair was lank, and her skin was dry and flaking in places. She felt...like a husk that might blow away in the wind. There's no wind here in the science lab. Idiot.

The young scientist was creating, individual containers that would allow her to track the way electric transmission worked in a neurobiological substrate. Her eyes flickered to the left and found the 18 hollowed out containers that would eventually be individual microbiomes.

She'd spread a glittering layer of obsidian sand down as the base of the micro polymer matrix she was creating. Obsidian sand was an excellent conductor and the edges were sharp no matter how they were chipped away. On a vibrating plate, it could tear up a fingertip if one were so careless as to insert it into the beautiful sand. The glass glittered and shone in ebony rippled, like edges could grind to the bone. .

Avery knew that from painful experience. It was one of her most vivid memories from her youth. She thought it was her first break from reality, when she'd been maybe 17. She'd been setting up a similar experiment for her admissions assignment into Starfleet Academy. The safety protocols had been in place, as she'd been meticulous in setting it up. It was one of the habits that had never left her, no matter how broken her mind was- that safety protocols were not to be overlooked.

She'd known she should not touch the glittering mass of blackness but the compulsion she'd experienced at the time had been totally overpowering. The battle of wills with the demons had her wanting to throw herself into it and allow her whole self to be enveloped into the void she knew was waiting for her. Yet, she'd resisted. Fought with every iota of energy her mind had.

They didn't know that was the first time your creatures tried to end your miserable existence. They thought it was an accident, as it was timed with the shutdown of the labs. They knew you wouldn't touch it on purpose. You didn't. You even tried to tell them. Lot of good it did.

She still had a scar, Avery in her lucid moments kept it to remind herself of what happened when the compulsions won. When the creatures from the darkest dredges of her psyche came to haunt her or play with her and she tried frequently to flee from them. The disaster that was her quarters was proof enough of that.

Scarlet drops fell to her open palm, and blue eyes followed the motion until the tiny puddle materialized into something regarding sense. That was blood. Scarlet and hot, fresh blood. She wasn't experimenting on blood, so how had it gotten there? Pain flared again, in her lip. Her lip. It was still bleeding. Muttering curses under her breath, she walked to her cleaning station to wash her hands.

Watching the sticky scarlet away, she looked at her face and grimaced. That was going to need sickbays attention. It wasn't going to be an easy heal with a type 1 dermal, like the one she kept in her quarters. Wetting a cloth with icy water, she cleaned the blood off her face and then pressed the blue cloth to her lip.

"Place stasis fields on fields 1-18."

The computer beeped agreeably and there were flickers of sound as the force fields snapped into place allowing for the field to be completely sanitized before she began her true experiment. This lab had no living things in it because of the specific reagents she was using and needed to keep separate. She would get the biological agents when the time came for it. Her living lab, was in the botany wing of the stations bio-labs. All of her beloved plants were there.

"Begin specialty sanitation cycle- Bio1. Run for 1 hour and then hold entire lab in stasis."

"Countdown time?"

"Five minutes."

"Beginning cycle Bio-1 in 5 minutes."

A chirp sounded and Avery walked out of the lab, palming the light as she exited. She could go to sickbay today....there was nothing haunting her today. Following her, yes...but not menacing her and her very soul.