From: Shawn _ (alamo_nate_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 04 2008 - 17:12:26 PDT
=Getting Your Head Straight=
(cont'd from "Test Drive")
LOCATION: GATEWAY Station
SCENE: Sickbay
STARDATE: [2.8]0904.1710
Crichton's convulsions had stopped, but his vital signs were still fluctuating. Cade Foster (or rather, his mirror) frowned at the screen displaying the results of a recent brain-scan.
"Whatever it is, it's definitely focused in the brain," he said.
"And the other symptoms?" Grace asked. "The heart rate?"
"I think he's trying to fight it," Cade said, glancing down at Crichton's unconscious body. "It's stressing his entire nervous system."
"Look at this," Grace said, pointing to a screen displaying an image of Crichton's brain. "Parts of the brain are going haywire."
"Specifically, the parts that control sensory input and memory," Foster said, glancing at the screen over her shoulder. "Hmm. I'm obviously not an expert on how things work in this universe, but if I had to guess, I'd say its something is feeding information directly into his brain."
"Information about what?" Grace asked.
"Dunno'," Fosster shrugged. "But the good news is there's nothing here to diagnose. The problem is external."
"We have to find the source of the signal and shut it off," Grace said.
"Might kill him," Foster said. "Although, *not* doing anything might kill him too. Decisions decisions, right?"
"I hope Lt. Varn is making progress with those samples," Grace said. "If the source is external, I'm willing to bet it has something to do with them."
----------------------------------------------------
LOCATION: Crichton's Mind
SCENE: Abyss
Things felt more under control now. His mind was no longer burning so much as smoldering. Crichton (**yes,** he realized, **my name is Crichton**) was trying to impose some kind of order on everything, and was having some limited success. The images still wracked his mind, but they seemed more distinct now.
He could remember standing atop a large mountain of black earth, staring down at a moonlit cityscape. The material the city was made of seemed distantly familiar to him.
**Samples,** he realized. He remembered the samples. In the lab. A thousand years ago.
A light.
He remembered a light. Bright green. And suddenly, the light was all he could see- the city was consumed in a blinding flash of green. The mountain disappeared beneath him, and he was floating in an abyss, unable to see or hear or feel anything.
And then there was a voice.
It was speaking a language Crichton didn't understand, but he knew it was speaking to *him*. And it's tone was urgent.
"I don't understand," Crichton said, and realized suddenly that he could talk.
The voice went on as if it had not heard him. Crichton stretched out with his will, tried to banish the abyss, and slowly, an image coalesced in front of him.
It was blurry, formless, and dark. But it looked humanoid. Especially when it stretched an arm out towards him.
========================================================================
Shawn Putnam
a.k.a.
Jacob Crichton, Lieutenant
Chief of Engineering
GATEWAY Station, GS-2
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 19 2008 - 03:10:57 PST