Sickbay Intrigue

Posted on Tue Apr 26th, 2022 @ 4:53am by Petty Officer, 1st Class Christian Tremblay & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Crewman Finn Jones

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Sickbay - E Deck
Timeline: Day 295 1830 hrs
1423 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Christian felt a brightness against his eyelids as he started to come to. He furrowed his brow as his eyes fluttered open revealing a bright white ceiling above him. As he started to get his bearings, he realized he was lying on an elevated surface. Looking around slowly, he saw a familiar face standing next to him. He smiled sheepishly as Finn stepped closer to him. "Hey," he said to the man rather hoarsely as he started to sit up but felt dizzy and laid back down.

Finn pushed him back down with a frown. “Do not move,” Finn instructed before the doctor could even speak up. He had been the one who declared a medical emergency, got medical down to hydroponics and dealt with the stress of not knowing what was going on.

Christian registered the worry on Finn's face with some alarm. He laid back on the bed and gave him a puzzled look. "What happened," he asked Finn before Dr. Avira stepped into view on the other side of the bed. He felt her rest a hand on his shoulder which made him relax some.

"Please keep laying down." Avira reinforced what Finn had said earlier about him not moving. She pulled her hand back and looked over the readings on the medical scanner. "Crewman Jones indicated that you seemed to be in pain before you collapsed. Do you remember anything about what happened?"

"I just remember getting a massive headache all of the sudden. It was...weird. I've had migraines before, but the last time was ten years ago. This time it was much worse. Then it just went away," Christain answered trying to remember more clearly. "Then I noticed I got a nose bleed," he remembered.

The readings that Avira had taken earlier indicated a huge spike in brain activity, across all the different sectors of his brain. As if he was dreaming, learning and working creatively all at the same time. "You were in the hydroponics bay when this happened. Do you know if you have any allergies?"

"No, I've never had a problem with that," he said shaking his head. Growing up in Canada, he had always been around forests and the seasonal changes that came with it. As far back as he could remember he had never had a problem with allergies of any kind. "The last thing I remember was feeling really dizzy and lightheaded. I reached out to steady myself, but then I just remember hitting the deck and then I woke up here," he said before looking at both of them.

Avira nodded along with the explanation, she had a strange sense of recognition from it, sans the nosebleed. "If it's alright with you, I'd still want to do a test to make sure."

Finn was staying very quiet. He was trying to ignore the indignant voice that was going to comment on the fact he was growing food, not killer crops. “It is just food in the hydroponics bay, ma’am.” He finally spoke up in a steady voice. He really did not see how that could cause the event that had happened that day.

With straightened out antennae Avira turned to Jones, before they relaxed a bit, "There's a great number of foods that humans can be allergic to, Crewman. And it's just good medicine to cross off any obvious and easy to check ailments first. Especially if the symptoms are as generalistic and mundane as reported in this instance." There could be any number of reasons for a nosebleed and loss of balance, everyone always jumped to the worst possible conclusions but the great majority of those cases it was simply fatigue or stress. She turned back toward Tremblay to ask, "have you been experiencing any other symptoms leading up to today?"

Christian looked over at Finn and gave him a reassuring look before he nodded towards Avira, "Feel free to run any test you want doctor. As far as other symptoms, no I haven't felt any different. As I said before, the last time I had a migraine was about ten years ago. This one was much more intense though."

“He has been there plenty… helping me.” Finn said lamely before something came to him. “Someone came in just before it all happened. We called out but did not get a reply.” It had not seemed important then but now after it did.

Christian reached out and squeezed Finns hand before looking back at him in recognition, "That's right, I remember that. Someone came in and all of the sudden I got this massive headache." He looked over at Avira, not sure what this would mean if anything.

Avira frowned at that, she didn't know of any instances where someone's proximity triggered the type of reaction detailed by the two men. She also knew that it was a severe response to something allergenic, but it was her only working theory at the moment. "Perhaps it's good to check the logs and see if they brought anything into the room with them."

Finn sighed and moved over to one of the console and started the process of bringing up the log entries for the door into hydroponics. “It says no one entered.” He said abruptly before turning back to the pair an almost blank expression on his face.

Christian furrowed his brow, but the act caused him to wince slightly. This didn't make any sense. He was sure he had heard someone enter the bay, and Finn had also heard and reacted as well. "There must be some mistake with the logs," he said looking at them both.

That was even weirder, if such a thing was possible. "It's not uncommon for false memories to occur during times of high stress." Avira gave a small shrug before turning back to her scans. Checking someone against all possible allergies took quite a lot out of the system, and even then it took a significant amount of time.

“Someone certainly came in.” The hydroponics operator said simply. He could be a lot of things but he had no imagined someone coming into the bay. “The temperature dropped. I am fully aware of the conditions of the ship and everything about it at all times. .

"I agree. We both heard someone enter the room with us. Unless your suggesting we both have the same false memory, but that's far too much of a coincidence," Christian said back to Avira. He knew she was subtly implying both men had imagined the incident, but Christian refused to believe that both he and Finn had imagined the same scenario at the same time. The odds were so remote, he didn't think it was even randomly possible.

Still not convinced that it couldn't have been anything other than a person entering the room Avira gave a simple nod, getting into a discussion with these two didn't seem productive and the ship's sensors didn't lie. "Perhaps it is a good idea, then, to have a look around the bay and see if you can find any new or unaccounted for plants." She suggested, at least that would give Finn something productive to do in an environment where he felt safe and familiar.

Finn bit his lip and nodded. He knew when he was not welcome somewhere and right then and there it was obvious he was not needed. “Okay ma’am.” The crewman said shooting Christian a look before he turned on his heel and left the sickbay to go and investigate.

Christian watched Finn go before looking back towards Avira. "What kind of tests do you want to run," he asked a tinge of worry in his voice. It wasn't that being in sickbay worried him, but with the implication he might have been hallucinating fresh in his mind, he was concerned. Perhaps the samples from the asteroid had some kind of effect on him.

"Just a couple of standard allergy tests, nothing to be worried about." Avira prepared some other tests as well to check his cognitive function, as both the men had indicating seeing someone but the computer logs not corroborating their story. It was just a matter of throwing things at a wall and seeing what stuck at this point. In the end she imagined it would come to a general conclusion of fatigue and stress. "You might feel a little pinch." She said as she made some preparations for the cognitive tests, also testing his central nervous system for reflexes and feedback.