Darkened Stars - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Stardate 25339.7 - May 4, 2348 - 07:55:00

An odd pressure on Rain's bladder forced him back awake from where he had ended up collapsing in exhaustion. Not exactly the most auspicious start to his existence in what was likely Star Trek's Mirror Universe, but he'd been so utterly spent by the point of discovering that, that doing anything else had felt like it would be a herculean task to accomplish.

“Hey computer?” He called out, his metaknowledge and last night's experiences  suggesting he was dealing with a vocally responsive system of some kind. “You still there?”

“Affirmative.” The voice that sounded nothing like Majel Barrett echoed out from some location in the room he couldn't quite pinpoint.

“Great!” Rain exclaimed in relief, since he had been half afraid the thing might have died while he was out of it. “Where's the closest bathroom?”

“Break room three's bathroom is accessible via the door on the break room's eastern wall.” The computer answered without any appreciable inflection.

“Which is of course sealed shut.” Rain muttered to himself as he looked over to see the closed door, the sudden reminder enough to temporarily forestall his urgent need for the bathroom

“Computer, what's the hazardous material contaminating this facility?” Rain asked in worry.

“Rupture of Trellium storage tanks has resulted in particulate contamination of this facility to 3,547% above maximum safe levels.” It answered as Rain shot a once more worried look to the piles of 'dust’.

“And how long is safe exposure to those levels?” Rain inquired as a feeling of dread settled in his gut.

“At current levels lethal neurological damage occurs within five to ten minutes of inhalation.” The computer informed Rain as a general feeling of confusion washed over him.

“You know what.” Rain muttered to himself as he grabbed the crowbar from where he had set it down on the floor next to the couch. “I'm not going to question it. Because it's been long enough that I'm either immune to whatever it is or already a dead man walking.”

Prying open the door to the bathroom with an effort that was almost practiced at this point, Rain was relieved to see an actual, if high tech looking bathroom, on the other side of the partially open door.

Squeezing through the open space of the door, and then letting out a sigh of relief when it didn't immediately slam shut the moment he removed the crowbar, Rain turned towards the toilet only to freeze dead as he caught sight of his face in the bathroom mirror.

And all at once the various things he had been studiously repressing in favor of not having a full on nervous breakdown decided to come to the forefront of his attention

He, or well he guessed she now, let out a somewhat hoarse giggle that was several levels of not entirely stable as she looked at as much of herself as she could see in the bathroom mirror.

“Blue skin, magic powers, no hair.” She narrated to herself as she gave another giggle. “Congratulations mom, it's a pre-teen Asari!” 

Which was when her bladder, or at least whatever equivalent Asari had, decided to remind her that she really needed to go. And she looked down at the odd outfit Quinn had left her in before letting out a little whine.

Rain exited the bathroom a thoroughly mortifying half hour later, having finally accomplished her business with the added bonus of using the thankfully still running faucet to both hydrate herself and clean up what she could.

“Okay Rain.” She began to herself, using the sound of her own voice as a centering point to keep from huddling into a ball to spend the next several hours crying her eyes out. “You're on Mirror Universe Earth, in the abandoned ruins of a Terran Empire weapon manufacturing plant, that is hilariously contaminated, with a computer that switches between murderous and suspiciously helpful.”

“Computer, what year is it?” She inquired as several possibilities for how those things might line up hit her

“Twenty-three forty-eight.” It answered, confirming her suspicion that she was in a post empire time period.

“And when was this facility last in operation?”

“Twenty-two ninety-four.” It returned as Rain blinked in surprise, not having expected the fifty-four year gap.

“Okay big question.” She continued with a grimace. “What year did the majority of the facilities damage occur?”

“Twenty-two ninety seven.” It replied.

Okay, if she had to guess using her metaknowledge as a guide, 2294 was probably when Spock was trying to reform the Empire into a Republic. So 2297 had probably been when the Cardassian and Klingon Alliance had reached Earth and tried to blow up everything the Terrans could use to fight back. 

Or she supposed it was possible the Terrans themselves had done it to try and keep the technology from the Alliance. But if that was the case, it would leave the burning question of why they hadn't even attempted to clean up the facility and salvage what they could.

“Computer, what's your operational status?” Rain asked it at last, as the odd suspicion that the answer could be either really good for her or really bad settled over her.

“Multitronic processor degradation at twelve percent, database corruption at Twenty-two percent, inhibitor matrix offline, hardline connections unavailable, subspace connections unavailable, power levels minimal.” It replied after a moment.

The words ‘multitronic’ and 'inhibitor matrix offline’ suggested a rather dangerous possibility to Rain given the only example of multitronic technology that she could remember from Star Trek was the M-5 computer, and that thing has been functionally insane.

But of course, the mirror universe was crazy enough that she doubted they would have seen the M-5's willingness to kill people to protect itself as a crippling downside instead of something that just needed to be properly harnessed.

Of course, that left the question of what that meant for her, because that was–

Rain’ stomach choose that moment to growl in reminder that she hadn't had anything to eat in potentially ever. And she sent a fleeting look at the ceiling as she mentally weighed the possibility that the computer might try to kill her before the oddly cathartic realization that literally everything in this universe likely would, washed over her.

“Computer, is there any chance there's a working food synthesizer in this place?” She asked it with a giggle she suspected an outside observer wouldn't consider entirely stable.

“Break room synthesizer is currently operational with a matter reserve of forty-seven percent.” The computer responded. “The current menu includes turkey sandwich meal number four, hotdog meal number seven, soup meal number two, and protein bar number five.”

“Computer, can you give me a turkey sandwich number seven?” Rain tried, skeptical it would work given she doubted its ability and or willingness to provide free shit to random aliens that wandered in off the streets. But also not seeing any reason not to at least attempt it given her only other food option at this point was likely to be things she would very much rather not try eating.

To her complete surprise an electronic whine sounded out from behind a somewhat dust covered yellow panel above one of the counters before a bell-like sound dinged out and the panel opened to show a somewhat sad looking turkey sandwich and potato chips on a plate with an accompanying energy drink of some kind.

“I feel like I should object to this on principle.” Rain muttered as she took a step forward, only to pause and grab a nearby chair to drag along with her so she could actually reach the meal. “But at this point the gift horse can just get in my mouth, because I honestly don't care.”

The sandwich was oddly bland given she was pretty sure there was horseradish on it, but other than that it might as well have been the best thing she had ever eaten given how hungry she realized she actually was after her first bite.

“Computer.” She repeated after she finished, still rather hungry all things considered. “Another turkey sandwich please.”

“Food synthesizer capacitors depleted.” The computer's voice announced. “Secondary facility reactors operating at twenty percent, without power system repair, recharge time of low priority systems to operational levels is thirty-six hours.”

Rain stared blankly at the wall as a sudden suspicion hit her, because at exactly a day and a half, that felt like way too specific a number to be the actual recharge time. And when combined with the suggestion that that time could be decreased via power system repairs, an interesting possible picture was coming into focus.

Well, that or she was anthropomorphizing the computer in an attempt to keep from having a breakdown, though either way Rain supposed she would end up at the same place. Because fuck chancing actual people who she already knew would try to kill her, when she had a perfectly serviceable hole to hide in that only might.

“Computer.” She began, really hoping she wouldn't regret this. “How would one go about repairing the power systems?”

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Stardate 25359.4 - May 11, 2348 - 12:58:00

After a week of following maintenance directions to the best of her understandingly limited ability given the fact she was functionally from several hundred years in the past, Rain still wasn't any closer to figuring out whether the computer was actually sapient or not. 

Because it continued to flip between amazingly helpful and incompetently murderous depending on where she was and what she was doing. One moment she could be removing Trellium residue from a power conduit so energy could be run through it, the next she would be trapped by force fields as the corridor filled with a gas that she suspected was supposed to be hilariously lethal, but just left her high as a fucking kite.

Her currently going theory was that she was throwing up so many 'unknown’ flags that the computer’s programming just couldn't properly cope with what it was supposed to be doing with her. Probably wrong, but she honestly preferred that thought to the ruthlessly squashed idea that she was dealing with a Castle Heterodyne situation where the computer was basically a bunch of disconnected systems with different goals.

Not the least because the past week had led to her putting together a rough mental map of the places she had been directed to try and fix, which, after a look at the actual facility maps, suggested to Rain that the computer was attempting to prioritize power restoration to a location that was listed as DOT control. 

Not the most auspicious of names given the only DOT's she knew of had been those robots from Discovery, even if it did make absolute sense for the computer to prioritize what was likely a big part of it's own ability to repair itself.

Of course, that brought up the interesting question of–

Her thoughts ground to a halt as she rounded a junction of the rather tight maintenance corridor she had been walking through, to see an environmental-suit clad dead body that looked like it had been caught by the wrong end of a lightning strike.

“Free loot!” She exclaimed with a giggle as she grabbed one of the body's outstretched arms and began to drag it back the way she had just come.

“I should probably be more respectful given ghosts might be a thing.” She continued, pulling the heavy body backwards as she gave a silent prayer of thanks to whatever game developer decided Asari should be at least a little stronger than a comparable human. “But you're the twelfth dead person I've found this week and I'm kind of past the 'fuck it’ point.”

“Mind.” She continued as she pulled the body out of the corridor and into the hallway proper. “You’re only the second I’ve found wearing an environmental suit. Not really sure what that says given how little I saw in my few hours outside with all the people trying to kill me. But if I had to guess, I’d say professional versus amateur scavenger gangs.”

“Now let’s see what you've got on you.” She finished as she began the odious task of stripping down the body for anything she could use.

Ten disgusting minutes later she was the proud owner of yet another communicator she couldn't risk using for fear of alerting a hostile outside party, a tricorder that looked like it belonged in the original series, and her fifth phaser pistol.

“You certainly came prepared.” Rain muttered to herself as she pointed the weapon at the dead body and pulled the trigger, somewhat disappointed when the only response she got was crackling whine that quickly died. “I guess it wa–”

“Warning.” The voice of the computer interrupted. “Intruders detected.”

“That’s a new one.” Rain murmured as her gut clenched in sudden worry.

“All maintenance staff please proceed to secure locations.” The computer continued as Rain took a moment to blink owlishly at the ceiling before breaking into a run towards the one actually secure location she had discovered, a janitorial closet on the other side of a partially collapsed hallway whose rubble she could just barely crawl through.

She was three hallways down and turning a corner when the loud clomping of boots on the floor caused her to skid to a halt. And she was left staring dumbly as a Cardassian wearing an EV suit of some kind rounded the other end of the hall to blink in surprise at her.

“I have a contact.” The Cardassian reported as he pointed a dangerous looking rifle at her. “Looks like a Benzite kid, probably tripped the facility's automatic systems when they broke in.”

“All right.” He continued with a nod, obviously talking to someone on the other side of his suits communications system. “I'll take care of it.”

“Hey kid.” He began, lowering his weapon and taking a few cautious steps towards her. “I'm gonna need you to co–”

The crackle-whine of a force field activating rang out through the hallway, and for one horrifying moment only silence followed before the energy field disappeared and the Cardassian man's body slid apart into two halves.

The interior of the helmet now open to air, the sound of weapons fire and screaming echoed out from the revealed speaker system before going quiet.

“Intruders neutralized.” The Computer's voice announced as a sudden queasiness began to rise up from Rain’s stomach. “Redirecting power to minimize sensor footprint, maintenance staff please report to the closest workstation for newly prioritized work order.”

Rain swallowed back her bile as she carefully made her way towards the now dead body to grab it’s rifle, all the while holding back a giggle at how at least now she knew the answer to her question of just how sentient the computer actually was.