Body research

Posted on Wed Feb 17th, 2021 @ 3:26pm by Major Naomi Sylan Griffiths & Lieutenant Commander James Trallos MD
Edited on on Wed Mar 10th, 2021 @ 3:24pm

Mission: Season Two - Incidentals
Location: Medical Isolation/Various

[ON]

James stood outside the isolation ward waiting for the Major. He had his hazmat suit most of the way on, without anything being sealed or restricting. He was looking at the body through the forcefields and from what he could see, the body looked different than it was a half-hour ago, but he couldn't figure it out from this distance. He smirked for a moment as he thought to himself oO and here I thought this was going to be a dull cruise on this tour. Oo

Eventually, Griffiths managed to extricate herself from the bridge and she made her way down to Medical and arrived there twenty-Five minutes later Naomi arrives in her duty uniform "hey Doc, where are the Hazmat suits?" she asked as she looked at his unsealed suit.

He looked over and smiled at her. "To your left. Third tall cabinet. I'm glad you could make it. We have our work cut out I believe, at least from what I can observe from here."

She looked over at the surgery table and mentally shuddered her inner voice spoke 'you are having second thoughts I see' her inner voice had a mocking tone, she slightly shook her head "my left, third tall cabinet, got it" Griffiths said and headed over to the indicated locker and quickly got changed. A few minutes later she arrived only thing not on what the helmet, the rest was zipped up tighter than a Ferengi's Platinum pouch "I am a ready doctor" Griffiths said.

"Alright." The doctor said and put his helmet over his head. "Let's see what we are working with. We will enter the decontamination room and after a couple of moments the forcefield for the isolation room will open." He said and smiled at the Major. "Plus side Major is we won't have to deal with the smell." He said sliding his helmet on and checking the com.

Naomi followed suit and put her helmet on and followed the doctor into the isolation room "that is a bonus, no smelling the body" she said holding a thumb up to indicate she could hear him clearly. Walking up to the body she looked at it "okay doc I know it is a dead cadaver, but what am I exactly looking at?" She asked.

James walked around the body slowly. The body had looked like it had been dead only a couple of days on the scanner. That was not the case here. The wrong body might have been beamed aboard, but he thought it had changed in the short while it had been on board, it looked...older than a few days. Completing his lap around the body in silence, he looked up at the Major.

"To be honest, I'm not sure yet." He said and motioned for her to wheel a cart over that was next to her. "This body is in a more advanced state of decay than I thought. The scans did not show the body settling this much." He paused. "This looks like over a week old." He shrugged a moment. "Of course until I run the genome, this may well be normal for this species." He said pulling a different cart over.

Studying the body she listened to what the answer was, she looked closely "it seems older than a week, but then again it could be a species trait, okay what do you need me to do Jim?" Griffiths asked.

James took a medical tricorder and began scanning the top of the head and slowly began to work his way down. He was quiet for a moment as he worked. To his knowledge, that was the first time anyone called him Jim on the ship, which he didn't mind. "On that try is a needle, See if you can find a vein on the arm and draw some blood. We'll get the computer to start sequencing the genome before we open him up. That's where the fun will begin for an autopsy. "

"Needle, needle, oh here it is," she said as she picked it up remembering the way doctors did it in the old programs she had seen, so she aped what she remembered she tapped the centre of the arm at the elbow and realised the blood was not flowing "$%£$%" she quietly cursed in Bajoran "blood is not flowing, so thinking on the general area she put the needle in "hey I beginner luck," she said pleasantly surprised "still give me a rifle any day" she added as she drew blood from the arm.

James looked up. "Nothing wrong with a little luck. It gets the job done. Go ahead and put the blood into the computer over by the corner. When it asks what to do with it, select analysis, all and unknown. It will take a moment but should tell us everything we need about the composition of its blood." He looked at his scans. "Hhmm, near human. Beyond an antimatter detonation in the atmosphere, was there anything indicating the atmosphere was anything other than Class M?" He asked puzzled.

She did as instructed, she was the junior person in this place, not the doctor, she waited a moment as the device scanned the blood sample and input the Analysis and all and unknown and waited. After a moment the readings came up, the blood agrees with you Jim, but there is an anomaly in it, sending the data to your Tricorder" Griffiths said.

He looked at the tricorder and scanned the results. Normal humanoid physiology and general composition that matched most species, at least as far as organic carbon-based humanoids went. The anomaly came with multiple errors in cells analyzed being different from previous cells. He looked up at the Major with a puzzled look on his face. "Weird. Around 30% of the cells scanned are hydrophilic and not phobic, but the other 70% are." He shook his head for a moment. "Sorry. Normal blood cells and the cells that were analyzed should be hydrophobic. Meaning that the cell walls keep water out from flooding the cells and only let a specific amount in. Most of their blood is this way, but some changed and are hydrophilic, meaning they are letting whatever liquid in and causing them to rupture."

"In Federation Standard Jim, please as I am not understanding half of these readings the analyser is giving me!" Griffiths exclaimed and wondered why the doctor had chosen a Medical Nugget to help him out, sound like you are saying this body has become an old type of Terran paper bag!" she added.

James looked up from the scans again. "Sorry. So basically, your cells naturally repel water and only let in what it needs. It's what gives cells their structure. In this case, the cells are not repelling that water but instead absorb it. When the cell gets too full it breaks. This is turning the body basically into Jell-O, which is why the body looks older than it is. It is essentially liquefying."

"Disintegration by liquid! Oh great, what in the name of the Prophets could do this? I have read that sometimes being irradiated by a solar radiation storm can mutate someone's cells, but on a planet, how could that happen?" She asked clearly puzzled as she returned to the table.

"I'm not sure yet. Whatever it is, is working fast." He said and moved over next to her looking at the computer readout. "No radiation detected, at least on that order." He thought for a moment. "Some bacteria naturally do this, but on a significantly smaller scale and generally only as reproduction." He thought again. "Computer, scanning the sample for any microbial life that would not normally have cohabitation with a humanoid species known to us."

The computer processed for a few moments and then began displaying a list of items that state "unknown" next to them. "Computer, of the unknown results, list next to it anything similar in comparison that is in the library." Another moment and a list of names showed up to filter through. Halfway down, a name rang a bell. "That may be it. This right here is similar to a known virus that does the same thing only exponentially less aggressive. Some of that antiproton radiation must have warped the viral DNA somehow."

Looking quizzical at Trallos "the only thing I understood there was Antiproton radiation, warped, DNA Antiproton Radiation is very bad ain't it Jim?" she asked

James set his tricorder down and looked over at her. "Depends on your field. Engineering, its good to an extent since the warp core makes energy with it. Medically, in very small and controlled doses, it can be used as a treatment for specific diseases. In this case, however, uncontrolled is very bad." He thought for a moment. "Best guess, the radiation took a virus that previously was of no concern to them and through chance, turned it into a horrible plague." He paused. "Computer, run a gene sequence on virus 19 on this list and then calculate a new sequence that would equate to a retrovirus." The computer chimed and began to work.

James looked back at the Major. "Well, this is going to take some time. Are you ready to go through decontamination and get these suits off?"

"Oh you bet Jim, how in the Prophets do you medical types stand these things anyway?" She said heading towards decon area, she was going to be glad to get out of this bio-hazard suit it was hot in it.

He smirked a little and followed her into decon. "I did say to dress comfortably. Just pretend we're back on Tabula Risa and this is the beach. If you do that well enough, you won't be as surprised when you see my Hawaiian board shorts when we get out of this."

"Well, you will see my Marine issue G. I undergarments *pauses* Hawaiian Board Shorts! Oh, brother" she said as she entered decon and when the doors had closed she pressed the start decon button and braced herself "So how many of such cadavers you normally get to examine Jim?" She asked.

He thought for a moment. "That required full hazmat protocols? Only one other time. As far as doing an autopsy, that makes over 30." He paused moving his arms up so scanners and various sprays could clean the suit. "The one good thing about doing autopsies as they usually don't complain about anything."

Griffith's laughed "that is always a plus, but while I am grateful for this, I did not feel right in Medical still it was educational and as First Officer, I have to try something at least once," she said lifting her arms for the second to do its work.

"It's not bad work." He said turning around slowly. "It's like being a detective only less gunplay." He put his arms down as decontamination finished and moved out of the chamber into the equipment room. "The hazmat stuff isn't so bad though. Let's have some good alone time. The only people around are the ones you want."

Not quite sure on what he was getting at "excuse me, Jim, what are you getting at?" she asked as she stood there in her G.I undergarments and walked over to the lockers, her figure was trim and fit, muscles where there should be, she opened the door and pulled out her bottoms and started to put one leg in.

James had an eyebrow raise a little surprise at how comfortable she was down to her GI basics, but then reminded himself, her bikini was less coverage and being a Marine, any embarrassment had probably been drilled put off her. He reminded himself to say something and not ogle. "Well, I need someone to help me there. Sure I could have used any of my staff, but this was an unknown pathogen with unknown pathology. I need to make sure if that body sat up in there, someone could put a phaser beam through its head without hitting me. You know, Safety first."

Turning her head to look at him with a smile "I see, you needed a hangman, logical and very human" she said doing her trousers up and putting on her undershirt and zipping it up and tucking the shirt into her waistband, before turning to face the small mirror as she untied her hair and began brushing it as she reminded herself that she would need to have a shower later due to the sweaty environmental suit she wore, she did not take too long on her hair and tied it back in a long ponytail and pulled out her jacket and put it on pausing only to pull her hair out from under the tunic, she looked at the doctor as she sat to put the shoes on. "So what is next Jim, body-wise that is?" she asked indicating the corpse they had just autopsied.

He laughed. "I suppose I did need one. I've seen a lot of crazy things on our half of the galaxy. This side of creation seems to be even crazier. I wouldn't put it past anything that it could happen." He said pealing off his hazmat suit, exposing his excessively bright Hawaiian board shorts. He turned back to the hazard room. "For the moment, I will let it rot in there. The computer is collecting data as this progresses. After another couple of hours, it will get beamed into a hazmat disposal area and incinerated."

"OoH Flame-Grilled I see!" she commented "speaking of flame Grilled I could go for a nice flame-grilled steak about now!" she said and then her inner voice spoke to her 'too soon! Or was that a joke, if it was it was a bad one, have you no respect for the dead?' her inner voice asked her she mentally told it to shut up and decided to ignore her inner voice, but she did wonder if she was going crazy as her inner monologue voice was becoming louder, most disconcerting.

James smirked. "Yeah, a steak sounds good about now. I haven't lost my appetite for these things in years. Plus, the suits filter put the smell, so that helps a lot. A cold beer sounds good too." He said double-checking his suit was hanging right and then opened his locker. "Want to meet in the lounge around 1800?" He asked.

Gives a bemused smile "sure, I could do with a stiff drink, the problem is will the bar tender allow us the real stuff or will we have to drink that synthetic rubbish!" She mused then her inner voice spoke up 'you know he is just as bad as you with the grim humour' it said Naomi simply ignored her inner voice and finished getting dressed and when done she exited the hazmat changing room and looked back "see you at 1800 hours Jim" she said with a coy smile and left before he had time to respond.

[OFF]

Major NS Griffiths
First Officer

Lieutenant James Trallos MD
Chief Medical Officer