Irideus

[lynzy]

Realizing there were no other takers than Nikolai on refreshments Melissa nodded, turned and floated away. Upon reaching the area close to the cradle she settled to the 'floor' and felt the boots grab and take hold.

She walked into the main area and headed to the kitchen, opened a few cabinets until she found what she was looking for and pulled out two pouches and then turned to another and removed a small box shaped one, looked at the label wrinkled her nose and put it back then repeated the process until she found a sandwich to her tastes. Well, they were labeled 'sandwiches' but in fact they were a sad mockery of meat, cheese and assorted veggies that Lissa had learned to eat long ago. At least they weren't those terrible dehydrated things or even the packets of goo of old days but still, not real food.

Activating the cold capsule at the bottom of the packages by a simple twist and slight pressure, she looked around the empty room. The pilot in her took a deep sigh, then pursed her lips in her cute quirky way and half mumbled to herself, 'Well, if I die today, I die happy enough doing what I always wanted to do.' Melissa opened the sandwich and gobbled it down quickly taking pauses to sip her ice, cold grape juice, then washed it down with the packet of water. Lissa put the empty packets into the disposal, grabbed another pouch from the drink related cabinet and then turned and left the same way she had come.

Floating the last few feet to Nikolai she smiled and handed over the drink, then turned all of her attention to her consoles rechecking them in detail, since who knows what could happen while she was away.

One could look at her like a mothering hen keeping her 'lil' peeps' safe from 'dat big bad ol' fox'... Another reference to the stories her brother use to tell her when she was little. What was going on in her head?? She hadn't thought of him in soooo long and now all of a sudden twice in one day? Melissa shook her head and buried herself into her work.

"Are we okay?"Matthias said and she glanced up and waved, diving back into the job, avoiding all else in the hopes to run the thoughts of family from her mind.

"Two minutes to the Van Allen Threshold, everyone. This is it." Again she heard Matthias call out as her hands flew over her consoles. He said something else but she by this time wasn't listening to the chatter. Didn't matter anyways, it was something about radiation sickness, she smirked at that. If they were hit up here by radiation they would fry like a bug on a hot griddle, no time to care about something as silly as being sick. They would be dust in a matter of minutes, that's what she had heard, anyways.

 

[GeekOut]

Ann clenched her fingers around ends of the armrests. Going back to a dark world had been harder than she had expected. The synth had given her brain data that quickly reassembled into images. It had all been blurs of light and color at first, but as the room had come into focus, her heart had skipped. She tried not to focus on how much she had wanted to stay submerged, floating in a safe haven. She was stronger than that, she had told herself as the connection had powered down. The liquid had run off her body like mercury as the platform lifted. She surfaced without a trace of the gel on her. The technician had helped her to sit up. He connected a module to the port in the base of her skull. It didn't allow even half of the mobility and integration that the tank did, but it would keep her neurons working like hell to interface better with the synth.

Now, hours later, she lay submerged in the goo again, feeling her knuckles go white where the skin stretched taught above the bone."Two minutes to the Van Allen Threshold, everyone. This is it." Matthias' voicecame through the com clearly, and the tension followed just as easily. "Remember, if your vision becomes impaired... if your systems fail... if you feel any kind of adverse reaction... report it immediately..." Ann gave a strained laugh. To no one in particular, she said "Do pre-existing conditions have to be reported?" She leaned her head back against her port. The cool surface of the unit pressed back. As she thought about it, a jolt went through her head. Not as strong, but still painful. Her arm twitched, and somewhere unseen, she felt the synth mimic her movement. It was surreal, almost being in two places at once. She focused on the connection. Practice makes perfect. Deliberately, she turned her head to the left. When she made a conscious effort, there was a strange delay in the reaction time. After a moment, though, the movement was repeated. Ann took a deep breath. She pictured herself opening her eyes again, the way it felt. At least how she remembered it feeling. Her face twitched as she did it again, trying to get the synth to activate sight.

A wave of pain went through Ann. She gasped. The port burned. Unthinking, she tried to reach for it. Her arm barely moved. The burning sensation grew hotter, and stabs of pain radiated away from her neck. "Ma-tthias," she managed to croak. She felt for the com switch, forcing her fingers to crawl along the side of her tank. She found it after what felt like ages, and held it down as she spoke. "Matthias... I've... problem." It was too slow. It wouldn't matter if she could speak to him. They all knew it would either have no effect or kill. She released the switch and waited. So she wouldn't reach the Spires. There was always the great question of life after death.

 

[Quill]

[DASH=brown]
Cho waited, suspended in the endless vastness, and prayed. It was not a spiritual feeling – Cho believed in nothing that she could not calculate – but it was a very dark plea to the world, laying bare all her hope with an almost childlike anticipation, somewhere deep down, that it could make any difference in her fate. She suppressed the chattering sounds of the media back home gorging themselves on the danger, sympathized with EPs on the edge of their seats praying the Shield would fail. The satellites would circle the bright explosion, the flashes of light, the terrible dissipation of life, of the invisible souls, and everywhere cameras would zoom as they had honed in on burning homes in Midwestern wildfires. Layer after layer of humanity peeling away. This would be one of many moments of truth.

The klaxons erupted in an unrelenting howl. Cho's knuckles were white as they dug into the arm of her chair. Almost at once she was gripped with a nauseating physical pain. She opened her mouth to cry out, all senses in total panic, unwilling to believe that this was happening, when her lungs heaved and air rushed in, and as her muscles finally relaxed she realized she had held her breath so long it hurt. Her breathing was fast and shallow, and every part of her body seemed tender like a newborn babe. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable. She found herself hopelessly cursing Matthias Green. This was impossible. Man defying the laws of physics? He was a fatalistic, fanatic egomaniac on his personal suicide trip and it would drive them all into oblivion.

But as her breathing slowed it seemed as if her eyes were clearing. No flashes of light. No nauseous feelings. No fire and no ice. Anger seemed to dissipate from her like heat and she became absurdly jubilant. Hysterical gasps of laughter came out as, wide-eyed, Cho Ionis floated in a spacecraft ripping through the toxic slash of the Van Allen Belt unscathed. It was a moment that defied memory and became a parallel timeline belonging to another. The magnitude of the odds defied comprehension, her very basic perception. To think that in ninth grade, her friend Susan had said she was stupid for becoming an astronaut because they ate crap food. There was nothing around her but impenetrable black, and yet Cho felt as if she was hurtling at unimaginable speed away from the past and into the future. It was so exhilarating defying the boundaries of billions of years of evolution that a part of her desired nothing more than to never turn back.

The glamor of the experience was offended by the wail of the klaxons. They had passed through the danger zone and she had hardly felt the threat. Now was the moment: either they were dead, or alive. She reached for the intercom and pushed the rec button. "I'm alive," she said, embarrassed by the shudder in her voice. "I'm fine!" Suddenly a terrible thought gripped her. As I set down these thoughts on paper … I am obsessed by the thought … that I may be the last living man on Earth… "Rachella?" Her voice was high and panicked. "Ann? Matthias? Nikolai? Everyone?"

[/DASH]

 

[Spammy]

It was strange. Clark had hoped and prayed and written and dreamed of this moment, of this day, but when it had come... Not a moment let him savor the experience. It wasn't that he wasn't excited, he was. But, well, there was so much that could go wrong when ascending in to space and so much that needed to be done to keep something from going wrong. He was busy busying over the controls and readouts and keeping things neat and proper and all in working order. They left the bonds of Earth's gravity, and he didn't have a chance to savor true weightlessness, he just tightened the straps of his seat and kept his focus directly ahead of him.

He was too absorbed in his work to do much to respond to the others, instead focusing on their altitude, the numbers growing steadily higher and higher, passing layers of atmosphere until the atmosphere was gone, and then there were the numbers rolling downwards to the Van Allen Belt.

His breath caught in his throat, he couldn't move, speak or think of anything but the test of the ship, the test of all their plans and all their mettle.

His brain caught in a loop as they reached the belt. Zero meters... zero meters... zero meters...

Then he realized that thinking at all meant that they were still alive, that the ship had held.

"I'm still alive. I think we're all still alive." He swiveled his chair around to look at the bridge, unable to restrain a sudden laughter and wild grin, "Haha, I think we're all in space!"

 

[Asmodeus]

Clark's elation found no echo. Above and behind him Matthias slumped over the intercom on his arm-rest, nursing it like some injured bird. Anxiety held his features, perhaps all the more animated for the knowledge that he was alive - that even in crisis they had not been burned like Icarus. His fingers trembled as he worked the channels.

"Ann? Say again! Wha..." There was a crackle as Cho's voice came through, shrill and panicked. "Cho, clear the line! Ann!"

He keyed more routines, shutting off one woman and picking up the gasps of another. "Ann!" Then another channel. "Nikolai! Eli! Ann's in trouble. Get to the Cradle!"

For an instant one might have seen the billionaire's legs twitch, like a single jolt of helplessness through his atrophied flesh. He half-wheeled from his console before coming back, settling himself, composing his nerves. His place was here with the pilots.

Ann would be okay... she was a survivor.

The seconds yawned as they waited for an update from Nikolai. Matthias had to break the silence; bring the bridge crew back on task. "Alright, miles to lunar orbit, one-eight-seven-four-six-two. Richard, we should start the ion cycling now. Clark, you have the helm for this one. Melissa will take over for orbital manoeuvrings. Current estimate is fifty-seven hours, give or take."

The Irideus shifted, a feel of its hull crunching as the ion propulsion was brought online.

Then a disembodied voice startled Matthias. "Control to Irideus: what's going on up there? We've lost the synth feed."

"It's fine, Gene."

"Don't brush me off, Matthias!" The Flight Director's voice was crisp, shooting up from Earth like a father's admonishment. "I want full reports of all protocol breaches."

"It's just a synching glitch. The doctor is checking on her."

"We're still at the abort threshold..."

"NO!" Matthias's voice boomed back as clearly as the Flight Director's. "Ann will be fine. Everything is FINE. We've crossed the Belt, Gene. We're further than any human has ever travelled."

"You have two minutes. I want Ann's full status reported to me in two minutes."

The transmission ended and left the bridge in tentative silence. Right now they were all between two imagined hands - the hand of God that would swat them from the heavens, and the hand of Mission Control which would pull them back to Earth should anything else go wrong. A part of Matthias longed to be beyond their reach - so far out that they could not turn back, no matter the fortunes that assailed them.

And yet, now that he was up here, he was afraid. Two days away, on the dark side of the Moon, the First Spire awaited, alien and unknowable, a sentinel of the killing night.

"Keep us steady, Clark."

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

"Nikolai! Eli! Ann's in trouble. Get to the Cradle!"

The words that sounded in Nikolai's headset were late as the man had already begun his accent along the catwalks of the weightless craft. Countless runs of practice in free falling aside, the doctor couldn't get over the odd sensation had in having a complete lack of control in one's movement. The slightest motion or leverage was the difference between the right or wrong direction. Unbuckling himself from his spot on the bridge, Sevlanka's hands stretched out unceremoniously to take hold of the walls of the ship. Using them as a loose road map of leverage, the Russian moved a head. Slow, but ahead all the same.

As he moved, the Doctor could hear the trail of conversation between the Project lead and the Flight Director. Could they even turn around at this point? Was that an empty threat? Sevlanka wasn't sure. Anything that happened breaching the belt line would likely double it's effect passing through it a second time. Making that call on the grounds of safety was a far fetched one, even if it did sport good intentions. No, they were too far down the rabbit hole. Turning back would only get further parties stuck in the mix. Even if the order was given, It'd likely get ignored. After all, who'd come out to enforce it? The police? The government? God?

Then again, the later might yet present itself a possibility.

The pre-assessment procedure flashed along the Doctor's mind as he considered the environment he was about to enter. If the Van Allen Belts had lead to Ann's call for help, It was very possible there had been a breach in the hull of some sort and Radiation had leaked into the ship. If that was the case, the Cradle needed to be quarantined until an appropriate method of retrieval was considered. Sevlanka's line of thought continued until his weightlessness brought on a disturbing revelation. He was in space, trapped with a handful of others in a pod the size of a house. They were quarantined, and if a radiation breach had already taken place the lot of them would be dead within the hour. A depressing progression of thought, but one that greatly decreased the process needed to extract Ann. All the same through, he might as well attempt to take some matter of precaution. The Doctor closed the face shield of his environmental suit and sealed the air supply. "Matthias, I need a reading on radiation levels and other environmental status changes within the Cradle. I need to know what I'm getting into."

Nikolai didn't wait for the reading to be read back to him, a half cocked move but one that as mentioned before wouldn't really change anything. The bulkhead into Ann's chamber was sealed like the door of a Submarine. A lingering thought sat in the doctor's mind a moment as he pondered briefly on how much of the ship was designed off long term underwater craft. The thought was dismissed almost during conception as Nik gripped the mechanism of the door, turning it with a grind of steel against steel. The dim lights of the Cradle filtered into the Maintenance tunnel as the passage was opened. Still waiting for the word back on the reading, Sevlanka pulled himself through the door.

"Ann? If you can hear me call ba- Blyat..." The Doctor's native tongue slipped as he glanced upon the ship's linguistic's expert.

 

[ThE_DeAd]

Pulling himself up out of his seat, climbing his way through the bowels of the ship to the nearest emergency station. Eli felt the familiar tingle of the blood vessels in his arms an legs swelling and that brief head rush just before everything becomes so clear. After an adrenaline dump, your brain switches gears, the pre-frontal cortex shuts down and all your left with are instinctive behaviours and your muscle memory. The key to being able to function in this state was practice procedures over and over again until they're hard wired into you. This was where those hundreds of hours of ERU drills really paid off.
Eli pulled the medical bag from the wall along with a collapsible gurney and slung both over his shoulder before continuing his climb. Propelling himself around corners and through the empty corridors when possible to save time. He'd reached the cradle just in time to see The Doctor unsealing the bulkhead door to Ann's sanctuary.

"Ann? If you can hear me call ba- Blyat..."

Thing's didn't sound good. Its a bad sign when the most stoic, focused man on the ship is shouting expletives in frustration. Eli shook off this thought and dropped himself down into the maintenance tunnel. Digging through the medical bag, he removed a set of potassium iodine injectors and set them down within the reach of Nikolai. If they had been exposed they wouldn't have long before the thyroid had begun to soak up the radioactive particles. The cocktail in the injectors would help to gather up those particles before any serious damage could be done.

"Who ever initializing that synth shut it down, now!" he barked through the comms.

He then moved to a panel nearby and pulled up a live feed of Anne's vital signs. Heart rate, breathing neural activity. Everything had spiked, typical reactions to trauma, but what was wrong? Best to let the expert make that call. Laying out the more tools from the trauma kit on the table near by he called out to Nikolai, who's back was turned to him, attending to their comrade.

"Just tell me where you need me doctor."

 

[GeekOut]

Pain kept Ann hovering at the edge of consciousness. Spreading out from the central fire on her neck were what felt like lightning bolts crackling along her skin. Each spark caused muscles to spasm, sending her body into convulsions. The softly molded constraints didn't stop her from slamming into the walls of her tank. Something cracked horribly, but she couldn't tell new pains apart. Her jaw was clamped tightly, as she tried to force words, a scream, something out. She could taste blood. Damn! Her oxygen mask felt like it was suffocating her. She-

-was under water. It was warm, and felt heavy, thick. It was so peaceful. After some time, she realized she was breathing. Strange dream... she thought. She slowly opened her eyes. She was resting in some sort of giant fishbowl. An array of tubes were connected to her body, and a mask fit over her face. She reached to feel its edges. That explains the breathing. Strange, but pretty relaxing. Half expecting to see a talking fish, she turned to look around. Her breath caught as she stared into a face both terrifyingly familiar and almost unrecognizable.

Ann couldn't look away from the scarred and broken body in the tank beside hers. She knew who it was, but she didn't want to believe it. The water in her twisted double's tank was turning dark with blood. It didn't hide the raised flesh that took the place of where her eyes should have been. I'm dreaming, this is a nightmare- but something in the back of her mind was crying quietly against the truth. I don't want to remember. Ann forced her eyes shut. That's not me. It's not. She was fine. As long as she didn't think about it, it hadn't happened. She was going to fly to the Spires soon, regardless of anything. Even coffee mugs. She-

-heard a voice come through dully.

"Ann? If you can hear me call ba- Blyat..."

Who was calling her? Nikolai? She couldn't move, couldn't speak. Help me.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

I need you to pray...

He didn't say it, but the words were on the forefront of his mind. The Van Allen Belts had disrupted the sync between Ann's synthetic form and her Biological point of origin. The disconnect there in had caused the woman's body to convulse violently from the isolation of her tank. The seizures must have caused an instinctual fight or flight response from within the tank as the woman's figure battered herself against the confines of the glass chamber. Blood and other fluids clouded the waters that churned about Ann's form, creating a vivid scene that slowly seemed to fade out the linguist's silhouette. In short, Ann was having the unique experience of watching herself go into shock.

For the first time since medical school, the doctor stood before his patient without an inkling of how to address the problem. In order for anything to be done, Ann had to be removed from the holding tank. There was no way around it. Would the removal further sever the link to the Linguist's avatar? Would it break it completely? If it did, would the abrupt trauma had in the transfer from a functioning synthetic body cause irrevocable damage? If the body died, or in turn was reduced to a vegetable state,would the connection be lost? Would the Ann be trapped forever in her synthetic? Would her body even react appropriately to treatment due to the distance of cognitive function?

Questions swarmed Nikolai's brain as he stood before the pair of holding tanks. One thing was certain though, if something wasn't done Ann would go into shock. If that happened, It was extremely unlikely she'd survive. It was in this, that the Doctor's training kicked in and everything around him slowed down into functional problems which could be addressed in sequence. Stop any and all Hemorrhages, open the airway, Maintain breathing, insure circulation. It was no different than any other patient,. There just happened to be more variables in this situation to keep in mind.

Months of surgical training in weightless environments had been carried out over the past few months. The Irideus project seemed to have a love for using living pigs as simulations for trauma patients. Four minutes of free falling with hogs sporting a split jugular. Four minutes to keep the patient alive, all the while keeping it from shock or outward infection. It took months to get the knack of it down. The medium might have been different but the basic procedures never changed. All and all, this was no different.

"We have to get her out of that tank immediately." The Russian barked, finding himself in his element in spite of the odds stacked against him, "There should be a Mylar blanket in that bag with a heating coil mesh. Prep it and prepare to wrap it around the patient. If her core body temperature drops, she'll fall into shock."

Patient? Was that all it took? One simple accident and all of a sudden the months of training hand in beside the lass dissolved? There was a trick to working in medicine. Anyone could memorize countless journals or get down the muscle memory required to carry out procedure, but the real trick was learning how to turn off your emotions and address the problem at hand. Ann or no, the woman before the doctor was just another body.

Sevlanka rushed forward and unclasped the top of the holding tank as quickly as he could. The chamber hissed out a billow of steam as it opened, readjusting to the outward pressure of the room. As the cylinder slowly shifted, Nikolai removed a pair of latex gloves and set them over the outline of his suited hands. Space or no, base infection was still something that could make or break an operation. As soon as the lid of the chamber parted, Sevlanka reached into the pool of blood and stasis fluid and pulled the woman out from her shoulders. "Keep eyes on her connections, Do not knock or alter them in any way. I do -not- want cognitive feedback here." The doctor's voice was louder than usual, but it didn't seem to strain or show a sign of emotional duress. Thankfully, the lack of gravity in the sealed environment made it easy to pull a full sized woman out of a body of water. On earth, this would not have been a two man job.

As the woman's figure slipped out from the clouded fluid, a clearer picture of the damage done was more apparent. The doctor's mind operated like a computer, isolating damage and archiving it in level of importance.

Split brow due to blunt force trauma, likely against the glass face. Dark colored, slow, oozing blood: Trivial.

Compound external fracture of the right arm at the radius. Bright gushing blood secreting from the wound. Potential sever of the brachial artery: Hemorage, needs immediate attention.

Shallow breathing with signs of wheezing: Collapsed airway, open with NPA. Conduct tracheotomy if NPA doesn't work. Secondary.

Pale, clammy skin: Blood loss. Temperature will continue to fall, increasing risk of shock. Immediate IVs required of O- blood and saline. Delegate to Eli.

Initial assessment complete: Execute order.

"Eli, When she's wrapped I need you to get her on a drip of Saline in her left arm. Prep a second IV of blood as soon as your done but don't connect it. Soon as I've stopped the bleeding we'll run an external Jugular line."

 

[Asmodeus]

"Whooooo, shit!"

They were the first words ever uttered by a Jamaican in space. Biloxi arrived in the doorway of the Synth Lab, looking first at the two men preparing IVs for Ann, then at the globules of water over her synch-chamber. In pulling Ann from the containment field a steady-blossoming cluster of liquid had formed and was heading now for the vents and circuitry.

"Dis is not good, mon."

The cameraman muttered as he pulled off his flight-jacket and, with a deft kick, sent himself floating over Nikolai and Eli's heads. His years as a submariner had taught Biloxi the many ways a man could die from water; but tackling the mother-fluid in zero gravity was a whole new ball game. Twisting in slow-dance, the man began gathering the water streams against his jacket and soaking up the globules.

And in his writhing shadow the medics worked.

"Careful with dem needles, now. Else we'll meet our Maker way too early."

"Doctor, this is Matthias. There's nothing. We're not reading...

...anything! The filters are clean. S-Pod One and Two report no environmental changes! As far as Irideus is concerned, radiation levels are normal!"

Matthias's finger slipped from the intercom as frustration filled him. There would be no mistaking the tension in his voice. It was what he had always feared - that there were things beyond the Van Allen Belt that Man, with all his gadgetry, could not perceive. Another type of radiation; forces outside the Standard Model. Something had got through the Gallahad shield and severed the infinitesimal line of a synthetic neural plug.

In that moment the Mission Leader felt the absurdity. They had strapped themselves to a piece of metal powered by explosions, and wired a burnt woman to a puppet of stem-cells and modified pig organs. And now, like flies, they had hit the first windscreen and were flailing.

He chided his dramatics. Slumping forward, the billionaire put his head in his hands and waited for the next report from Nikolai. In the kitchenette beyond the bridge, Richard and Melissa were rehydrating, while ahead of him Clark remained at the helm. His old friend was laying in the course for the moon-shot, but in the tilt of his head Matthias could tell the co-pilot was aware of his every vibe.

"I can't turn back, Clark," he muttered to his friend. "Even if Ann dies... I can't turn back now. We can't end it like this."

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

"You do not have to."

Nikolai's voice bit back against the ship wide transmission that rang out along the system's intercom. It wasn't the usual down to business vocal pattern of the slightly irate doctor. Quite the contrary, this was a clearly irate, Russian man wrist deep in blood with an aggravated tone on the tip of his tongue. As the harsh voice echoed in the confines of the Cradle, Nikolai continued to mount the external JV of blood into the linguist's neck. "Ann's condition lies in a feedback issue, not in a leak of radiation. If such was the case, we'd all be dead. I know it, you know it. You knew it before we even breached the damned orbit." Sevlanka paused his speech for a moment as he connected the catheter to the blood bag. Ann's initial hemorrhage along the radius had been stopped with a tourniquet, quick clot and an Israeli pressure dressing. The splint, while temporary had bound the arm to the woman's chest in a V. It wasn't a permanent fix but considering the number of hands the doctor had on staff, it'd have to do until he could get the lass to the ship's medical bay. Besides, there was more important matters that were required at the moment, the least of which wasn't dealing with the project lead's shift of character.

"But that doesn't matter now." The doctor's voice bit back into the ship's intercom, as he moved to correct the woman's collapsed airway. "What matters is the fact that we're here. We've come farther and stronger than anyone ever has in the history of the world. Do you really want to end it like this? Sputtering from a failure that can yet be recovered from? Have some faith in the damned crew you've beaten into submission the past few months and get a hold of yourself. Each of us followed you up here in spite of clear and present danger because we admired the strength of will you displayed in the face of all obstacles. In spite of death and pain and personal injury. This isn't just a pipe dream anymore. This is bigger than you. Bigger than all of us. Eli, that's good enough, get a reading on the woman's vitals stat. I need to know her status." The doctor broke his speech to the project lead to bark an order at his makeshift assistant.

"You have an entire world below you that's watching in awe of what's been done here. What will continue to be done here." The Doctor's words continued to ring forth as he inserted the NPA into the woman's airway. Shortly following he broke his speech a moment to listen to the woman's breathing pattern. If it was still poor, the tracheotomy would have to follow. "A world that deserves better than to watch you beat yourself down on a trial that no one could have foreseen. So let the lot of us do the jobs you pay us for and prep for the moon. Let me worry about Ann."

For a moment the Doctor's focus had a chance to completely center itself of the patient. A refreshing opportunity considering the light of the situation. Sevlanka almost found himself back into his element until the light of the camera beside him caused him to squint. He glared at the Jamaican and barked back into the ship's intercom once more. "And get this God damned camera out of my face." These words were even more agitated than the previous ones, "If the Jamaican really wants to be helpful in a time like this he can do something useful like hold C spine prevention."

 

[Spammy]

Clark's expression and shoulders fell as no one returned his excitement and the possibilities of what had just happened to Ann sunk in. Quite the inappropriate time for any show of enthusiasm like that. He swiveled back around to face the console and kept his eyes on the controls, all the while kicking himself.

He wasn't deaf to what was going on around him. Not just Ann's condition but the fact that they might be pulled back, that the people still on Earth might try to recall them. It struck him as absurd though, that they could come this far only to be recalled. Would he listen? What could the ground crew do to them at this point? The ship was geared out for this mission and on its way, would they have any reason to turn back if ordered?

He bit his tongue on that thought though, instead tucking it away in the back of his mind.

"We aren't turning back and we won't let it end like this," Clark said to Matthias with a determination in his voice that surprised him. "We all knew that this might be a one way trip, that we might not even make it this far." His knuckles tightened briefly as he gripped the edge of the console, hunching forward. "Even if Ann doesn't make it we're going to continue on and complete this mission as best we can."

The words felt heavy as he spoke him, and he felt like he needed to do something less downbeat. He looked over his shoulder at Matthias with a small grin and added, "If you want though I can try to shave off a few minutes of the time before we cross the abort threshold."

 

[lynzy]

Lissa reached over and patted Clark's hand after his last speech, with a small wink in his direction she added, " I wont tell if you all wont!" Then noting that it didn't seem to help Matthias' mood any, she went back to her controls. After that she kept her head down and focused on her work too. She never had been that close to the linguist, just a smile here or a nod and greeting there. Even so she would never think her ill or speak poorly of her and she hoped only for her to survive and thrive after this, not because of the mission ether. Sure she wanted to continue, but it would be better if everyone made it.

 

[unanun]

Idiots. He didn't say this, of course, just sipped at whatever vitamin-enriched water packet he had drawn from the ship's pantry and returned to his post in front of the holographic globe, where a ghostly translucent Irideus sat in the center of a dense mish-mash of blinking dots. Richard was supremely disinterested as the ship passed through the radiation belt, the vaguely shaded area that popped in on one side of the shimmering holograph and slowly moved toward the ship. As the belt passed through Irideus, his face was illuminated by a dazzling display of sparks that danced in reflection on his face. Each was an ionization event on the shield coating the ship, and their colour meant that the penetration depth hardly even scratched the surface.

Science worked. The numbers were triple checked and given a triple buffer, and that was the iron-clad result the equations gave. There was absolutely no reason to worry, whatsoever.

Still, his heart quickened, but stilled quicker so as Irideus floated through the first moat in space without incident. He reached into the hologram; Irideus magnified, the space view shuttled to the lower corner, and with a swipe initiated the ion thrust sequence. The ship responded with silence as the chemical thrusters deadened, the dull roar fading away to the crushing emptiness of space. Inside the engine room, valves disconnected and reconnected, pathways opened and shut, and a high frequency hum pierced the room (but completely stopped by acoustic shielding). The rapidly oscillating field accelerated the xenon ions down the pathway, and a faint blue glow began to emit from Irideus' once flaring, violent engine ports.

~​

​

With another twitch of his finger he activated the white noise systems in Irideus. The air circulation ports were specifically designed to emit harmless, wide-band noise to offset the silence of the ion thrusters. Research had shown that sensory deprivation eventually resulted in hallucinations, and even though he was the chief engineer, Richard was in part responsible for the psychological well-being of the crew. He pressed down the intercom, his mouth opening: We have switched to --- and was interrupted by the brief exchange, excited chit-chat as one of their crew seemed to be suffering from synth desynchronization.​

​

He rose from his chair, the hand-held x-ray device slung on his hip, ship interface strapped to his forearm, and floated to the exit. This wasn't his problem. Cold as it may have sounded, he left the problem to the experts, and instead made sure he was doing his own job properly. Devices in hand, he made his way to the synth room, pausing for random checks on the integrity of the ship.​

 

[DotCom]

Rachaella Consuelo

There was time now. There was all the time I needed...​

​

In her chair, behind her eyelids, Rachaella Consuelo saw shapes. She was too practical to believe the shapes she saw, spinning through space in an eerie ballet to the tune she kept humming, were coincidence. Earth now seemed a million miles and another million years away, but for whatever reason, when she heard Cho's voice over the intercom, she could not keep her mind from returning to old black-and-white episodes of the Twilight Zone she'd watched with her mother as a child. One in particular.

Twenty some-odd years ago, a young Rachel had laughed at Henry Bemis. She remembered turning to her mother, gesturing grandly at the television set, as though she had not, just the night before, woken from a nightmare in which she was lost, alone, in a shopping mall.

"Por qué está llorando, Mamí?" she'd demanded. He'd broken his glasses. Her best friend, Ernesto, did that all the time, and he never cried. Her mother had explained it had less to do with glasses, and more to do with irony, but the young reporter had los interest by then.

Now, though, she was curious. What would it mean to be the last man on earth? And what would it mean to be the last man in space?

When the burst of static came from over the 'com, Rachel made herself let go of the morbidity and lurched sickly to her feet. For having survived more than anyone had before her, she felt remarkably...vulnerable. It was new for her.

But duty called. The woman she had so respected, and even feared for once, was in danger again. And Rachel had vowed to bring earth the biting reality of space. She grabbed her camera, in case Cho and Biloxi were disposed, and made her way toward the med bay, reporting as she ran.

"Rachaella Consuelo here. Day one of exploration with Raquia Industries. I'm here not an hour after launch, and just minutes after having passed through the previously impregnable Van Allen Belt. Matthias Green's ship has survived, and the crew is largely intact--save for one Ms. Ann Whittles, who appears to have been afected by the Belt's radiation."

Without stopping, Rachel scrawled a quick note to herself, recorded in the mini-com on her wrist: Callback to Whittles' attack. Side story? Launch investigation as time allows.

 

[GeekOut]

The doctor's words floated through a fog. Ann was only half aware of his presence. She was tired. Her body felt like it was held down by huge weights. With a determined effort, she managed to grasp feebly at air with her left arm. Her right was a useless mass of pain. Forgetting, in the moment, she tried to open her eyes. Her panic rose, and her breath caught as she remembered that there was no way for her to even see what was wrong. Stupid. She needed to know. "How bad?" She tried to say, but if she made a sound, Ann couldn't tell. Her chest felt like she was drowning.


Ann watched through the glass as Nikolai bound the arm on the limp body. His efficiency reassured her, even as she watched the drama unfold. A part of her mind screamed, but it was distant. Something had happened to the synth, or the connection, maybe. It didn't really matter. She felt no link to the body that the doctor worked on. It had been hers, but now...


It occurred to her that she should tell Nikolai that he could stop. Whatever had happened, she was fine now. Better than fine. She could see. Sure, her new body was a lab concoction, but she would adjust. A wave of headiness swept through her. She wondered idly if she was lucid. Brushing that aside, Ann grasped the edge of her tank. She hauled herself out with very little effort, then pulled the air mask free. Water ran down her body as she stepped towards the bloody scene.

"It's dead." She was a bit surprised by her own statement. It didn't feel like her voice, her words. "It's dead." She heard herself repeat.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

Watching a person die in your hands is never something you quite get used to. There's something inherently primal about the whole experience whether it happens one time or a thousand. The act becomes easier to handle and your stomach learns not to buckle against the sight, but the feeling never goes away. A light switch of sorts, one moment you're holding a living human being, the next a corpse.

The doctor had seen the progression coming, to the point that he shouldn't have turned his attention to the conversation. Even though he continued his work, the act of redirecting his thought process might have shaved precious seconds off his reaction time. Then again, this turn out was a matter of showing late to a scene that had already played out it's climax. It took no time for the blood loss to lead into shock, even in the face of the preventative measures put into effect. Shock, mixed along with the already strained airway lead to all together lack of breathing entirely. Lack of oxygen to the lungs in turn cut the heart off from the fuel it needed to pump crimson to the appendages that were quickly bleeding out. Without blood, cardiac arrest was inevitable. There wasn't much that could have been done outside of never letting the lass on the ship in the first place. There was just too many things that went wrong at once.

All the same, instinct fell into play as soon as the woman's pulse stopped. Nikolai immediately moved from his focus and began compressions on the woman's chest. The advance of medical science had come a long way since he'd started but some basic things remained the same. When CPR is initiated, it's continued until the patient becomes stable or can be passed off to the ICU. An interesting juggling act considering in this situation, Nikolai was the first response and the Intensive care provider. He had to get her to the medical bay if he were to do anything, something that wouldn't be possible with two men who'd already be occupied with CPR and a misdirected cameraman. "4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Eli prepare oxygen on 20.... 15, 16, 17, 18..." Nikolai's voice strained as he realized this was becoming an uphill battle with grim predictions. Not even a day into the expedition and the pacing of the event hardly boded well.

"It's dead... It's dead."

"Ann not now... Biloxi, camera down. I need you to set up the stretcher and prepare for..." Nikolai's words froze in time along with his compressions. A veil of confusion crossed over his expression as he slowly turned to the synth that stood above her own corpse, still very much alive. "Ann?"

Every coherent thought process demanded that the death of the linguist's body would have leveled the connection between the two. Without active feedback from the woman's brain, the avatar should not function. Yet in spite of decades in attempts uploading of conscious thought into artificial constructs, she was alive. Relatively speaking at least. This was unprecedented, the first recorded success of transhumanism and it had occurred completely by accident. The scientific implications of this alone would revolutionize... everything. Prosthetic capabilities would be completely turned upside down, human capabilities in inhospitable climates of great pressure, vacuums, off world labor, preserving soldiers on the battlefield, debilitating illness like ALS. This had the potential to be the greatest medical discovery since penicillin. This would change -everything-.

"Ann..." Nikolai began, his gloved hands still covered in blood from the woman's now very dead body. "This must be extremely strange for you right now, but I need you to focus. Can you walk down to the medical bay?"

END OF CHAPTER TWO​

 

[Asmodeus]

CHAPTER THREE: THE LUNAR SPIRE​

In the spinning cradle of the Irideus, six appendages had been bound by centrifugal forces to the inner hull for the better part of an hour.

Two feet... two wheels... and two synthetic limbs.

Matthias Green sat back in his wheelchair and looked up at Nikolai. The doctor and the captain were on the other side of the plexiglass door that sealed the medical bay. And inside... was something... something they had yet to name or fully conceive of.

Ann Whittles... the synthetic proxy... the one inside the other... No single description could suffice. And it stared back at them in mutual study. For all the talk of alien spires and powers beyond the heavens, the strangest twist of all had come from inside their pressurized hull, from within their own ranks and beneath the human flesh. At the start of their journey an event most alien and most miraculous had unfolded... and Matthias had no words to speak. He felt himself caught in a momentum and hurtling towards the moon with only surreality in the vacuum around him.

Like falling through the folds of a Bosch painting.

"It had to be the radiation." His own words came unexpectedly. The billionaire rested his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair, his chin upon his fist. "The Van Allen Belt must have charged the neural uplink. I..." The sound died just as briskly. He didn't even attempt to end the sentence, such was the folly of lending reason to this puzzle. He had hoped the doctor would give an answer, a simple resolution to the creature before them. But Nikolai had been likewise laconic.

Five minutes passed and he settled on something honest. "I don't know whether to mourn her, Doctor. Ann was my friend, all these years, and there should be an emptiness. When my father died I felt hollowed out. But now..."

The synthetic's stare caught his eye. Matthias turned from her and faced his wheelchair to the doctor. "You have to tell me she's dead, Nikolai. I need to hear it..."

Beyond Nikolai's shoulder, a single viewing window rotated on the spinning hull. It was like a blinking eye as it orbited the direction of travel, dipping into darkness and between two light sources. At intervals it would gleam with the blue-green hue of the ever-shrinking Earth.... then next illuminate with a starker glow.

The moon was getting closer, filling more and more of the window each time it spun.

 

[CosmicWeinerDog]

"Death is... relative." Nikolai replied, his eyes never leaving a cluttered book of notes that sat within the
folds of his palm. "Besides, I do not believe Ann would appreciate you referencing her in the past tense. It's rude."

The doctor found himself seated against a sealed crate of saline. Several lengths of the ship were void of the comforts of gravity, and while weightlessness was a freeing in the sense of the practical, there were aspects of nostalgia to be had in lounging with the weight one was born with. Sevlanka flipped a page, holding it between two fingers as he continued to scan over his chicken scratching. "This is unprescidented." He began with a somber tone to his voice that felt far more detached than it might should have been. As if the pair were discussing the ins and outs of a broken vehicle, "Transhumanism is a concept often reserved to matters of science fiction. There's been a number of attempts to try and localize human sentient thought to a construct but it's never been successful. Usually this sort of thing results in the death or serious injury of the test subject. More often than not injuries sustained involve large portions of neural synapses and the patient never entirely recovers... To be honest, I believe your right. It has to have been something to do with the Van Allen Belt and how it effected Whittle's sync. How that happened though..."

Nikolai gave a single laugh that was neither joyous nor sarcastic. A sort of bullet to define how alien all of this was. Slowly the man returned the first page of his note book and glanced over at the project lead, pausing for a moment to search for the words. "You... you do understand what this could mean right? This needs to be pursued, it changes everything. I mean the implications it has to the possibility of replacement prosthetics is obvious but that's only the tip of the iceberg. We're dealing with the very real possibility of surpassing the prospect of death itself. Theoretically speaking, so long as Ann's synth is properly maintenance and the sync doesn't falter... she's going to have a much greater span of life than any of the rest of us." The doctor paused a moment in order to let the weight of the statement sit as he glanced out to the slowly approaching moon, "Beyond that. Matthias... We could give you back your legs."

Nikolai ran a hand through his stubble, letting it rest at the base of his scalp as he danced into careful territory. "More than that, we could theoretically remove any further risk you might have of your illness further breaking down your physical and mental faculties. There's... a lot of work to be done before any of that is even on the table but... there's something here that we have an obligation to look into. This is a discovery that puts the Rosetta Stone to shame. Do you..."

The doctor stopped himself and closed his eyes to take a breath as his excitement began to catch the better of him. "We need to report this back to ground control, but even if the word isn't given to pursue the development, I still say we go ahead with it. Hell even if the backing isn't there from corporate, there's too much on the field that -dozens- of backers would front. I mean even if every ounce of the Irideus project dried up tomorrow you could present Ann's condition alone to DoD and you'd have bottomless funding for as long as it'd take to produce a working model. I mean automated infantry? You'd completely change the scope of warfare. Innocent men and women would no longer die in the service of national squabbles."

"There's... so much we could do..."

The doctor was becoming overwhelmed. He had fallen onto the greatest discovery of his time and it's prospects burned in his mind. In short, Sevlanka had stumbled on his grail. The question would remain weather or not he would be consumed as Galahad was. Judging by the hunger in his voice, the prospect was very much on the table.

 

[unanun]

"Don't be silly."

When did Richard even approach the two, and how long had he been listening? He had both his hands on his hips and was giving the Doctor a bit of an exasperated look, the x-ray device hanging off his belt.

"There were zero breach events when we crossed the Belt. Explaining an unknown with another unknown will get you nowhere. The obvious first places to look will be the machinery and .. " his nose wrinkled slightly, "her mental state."

When the Doctor mentioned publicizing such an preliminary result. "Don't", was his only answer to that, although what he was saying this in reference to he did not bother clarifying. His eyes, first transfixed on the synthetic beyond the glass partition, swiveled to gaze balefully at the Doctor. "Don't even think about it. There is too much we don't know, and publishing it will lead nowhere." A million fingers would want to have their own warm hole in the pie; the bureaucracy would pile on, the government would smother them in regulations, and the original, 'pure' intent would always be tainted by other motives. "File the technical details of this incident away and we'll come back to this later. This is my word as chief authority of engineering on this ship. If you want to make something good come out of this, can we at least release" - and he jabbed a finger at Ann - "her so she can resume her duties?"

Richard had more to say, but he glanced at the device dangling off his belt and fingered his collar flap, where a microphone was presumably sewed in. "Entering Phase A of Moon orbit."

He returned his attention to the duo in front of him. "The details for this expedition have included every contingency for our crew and the ship. There is no need to derail the mission to pursue something else."

~

Outside - in space, that is, Irideus began the automated protocol for momentum reduction. To preserve fuel it relied on a clever trick: falling into the Moon's gravity, but also attempting to escape it. Like a ball thrown up that is eventually drawn back to the ground, Irideus began to skim the Moon's atmosphere, a giant metal whale skipping along the gravitational wave. The operation was carried out in complete silence with no assistance from Engineering, for the trajectory and its special properties were worked out years in advance, and Irideus merely danced in the gossamer, tachyon thread, a puppet to a plot devised a long time ago by humans and computers.