Light Reading

Posted on Fri Feb 12th, 2021 @ 4:42pm by Oliver Lucas & Meghan Massachusetts (*)

Mission: Mission 12 - Railway
Location: Mess Hall
Timeline: MD 03 22:00
1509 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

Oliver was starting to doze off, a small pile of PADDs stacked up on the table around his head as it rested alongside them. He'd been working for hours on finding out more about the strange mental swaps that had plagued the senior crew - though not all of them, strangely. He was exhausted, a little frustrated, and despondent that they weren't going to find a solution.

He jumped as he felt a presence drift in behind him, and quickly sat up to make out that he hadn't been sleeping but in fact been working. No doubt his ruffled hair and squashed cheek would give him away as much as his slow reaction time.

"Hmm? Oh." He realised it was their passenger, the strange woman he'd not really spoken to despite having seen her around. He wasn't the most sociable, especially with new people, so that wasn't especially a surprise. "Hello." It seemed polite to at least acknowledge her arrival.

Meghan was unable to sleep after nearly 48 hours of sleeping already and turned at the voice smiling. "Hello, Oliver." She greeted with a small smile in his direction not missing the hair and squashed cheek. "Nice nap?" She wondered grinning a little more to ruffle his feathers a little. It never hurt to keep a man on his toes.

"Caught me," he admitted, embarrassed. He motioned to the PADDs. "I forgot how bad I was at research. Need more coffee." He rose from the table and moved to the replicator. "Can I get you anything?" It seemed the polite thing to do.

Meghan smiled and took the talking as an invitation to sit down and join him. It was not often she joined anyone other than Jaxom but seeing she was on the ship with no destination in mind she might as well get to know the crew. "A cherry tea please." It was an acquired taste but it was something she now enjoyed. Watching him walk away she glanced down at what he had been reading.

"Oh, that-" He nearly spilt the tea he'd just poured. "That's just some light reading. Shared collective consciousnesses, brain mapping, that sort of thing. Just ignore that part about full-body swapping...that's definitely not possible," he said, trying without success not to fluster.

Meghan looked at the man and smiled sweetly as she took the tea from his shaking hands. What have the man so suddenly nervous? “Well, that certainly had to be an interesting subject? But I’m not sure Starfleet would like the idea of shared collective consciousness. It sounds a bit too Borg for them.” She said quickly trying to cover for his shyness or maybe it was his guilt of her discovering something.

"I guess that makes me a little 'too Borg' for them too, then," Oliver chuckled awkwardly, motioning to the inert implants still showing near his ear and temple. "It's not for me, it's for..." he caught himself. "Someone else. They have an interest...in...that sort of thing."

Meghan paused and blushed as she had not realised. "I have never met someone who was a former Borg." She admitted softly suddenly wishing to know more about this young man. When you got to her age not much surprised you anymore but this had. So much was throwing her off balance at the moment. "Who might have interest in this type of thing?" She wondered laughing. She had not presumed anyone on this ship would have an interest in such ideas other than the half Vulcan she had met who seemed far smarter than she let on and the Kisongo that she had met on board of all places.

"Nobody." He said it a little too abruptly. "I mean to say...what I mean is it can't be that interesting is all. I'm just looking at it in case it ever happened that a bunch of people all got mixed up at the same time. You know..." he laughed nervously. "Silly. Never happen."

Meghan looked at him being nervous and stuff and smiled. “Of course.” She murmured trying to put him at ease before he got himself in trouble. “So apart from researching concepts that don’t exist what are you up too?”

He slumped in the chair. In all honesty, he was exhausted and feeling a little out of his depth when it came to all this stuff. His expertise, if one could call it that, had been helping surgeons, de-assimilating people. And there weren't that many people needing that help just hanging around these days. He paused as he considered his reply. "If you could be anyone else you wanted - swap with them for a while - who would you pick?"

Megan sipped on her tea thoughtfully and looked At the man. She had never been asked that type of question before. This was the type of question that blew her mind and made her question everything that she had been through. But this mortal hadn’t asked her who she wanted to swap with. It was the type of question that could give away. “The Federation president.” It was an easy answer to give him but could she really say someone who was meant to have lived hundreds of years ago like the Queen of England Elizabeth II or Marie Curie - people she actually met.

"Pfft." Oliver waved a hand at the suggestion with a little chuckle. "Where's the ambition in that? I thought someone like Jayzon Thrax; you know, the zero-gee football legend?"

“Been a very long time since I’ve seen a zero-gee game. But I remember him good 50 years ago wasn’t it?” Meghan mused. Zero-gee had been a passion once upon a time. She had watched the sport progress to becoming one of the top sports in the Federation.

"Almost. That was his hey-day, so they say," Oliver nodded enthusiastically. "Obviously I was too young to ever see him play while he was still around, but...man, to be that guy - to actually be someone else? Just got me curious, you know. What would that be like, especially in a different time period?"

“Let’s hope we never have to know hmm. Especially in a time with very little sanitation and very poor standard of living.” For a moment she was stuck in a moment of a baby crying then silence before she shook herself back to the civilian vessel.

"Uh...okay?" He was a little confused that she thought 50 years ago they might have had those sorts of problems. "Was it that bad where you're from?"

Meghan looked confused for a moment trying to work out what she was meant to say. She shrugged a little, it was not bad where she was from but some of the places she had been. “No, but some of the places I have been too have been.” She hurriedly said.

"Oh. Yeah. You must have been around a lot." Oliver scooped up the PADDs and tried to stack them. In his haste to usher them away from prying eyes, the topmost one - a medical report on his comparative scans of two of the affected crew slipped off the top and clattered to the table in front of Meghan. He froze a fraction, wondering if she'd seen what it was before he quickly slid it back. "For a guy who's trying to be a doctor I have butterfingers," he chuckled awkwardly.

Meghan had seen but she did not comment as he took everything back. He was obviously doing something dodgy but she valued her passenger's spot on the manifest as well as the anonymity it offered her. It was the one thing that kept her safe from people who would do her harm. "Perhaps but you do make a good tea." She assured quickly staring up at him.

"Well, that's one thing I can tick off the list. At least the new doctor is good at his job; someone to learn from." Oliver said, diverting the conversation a little. "What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?"

“Nothing really. I am a Jack of all trades but at the moment I am just traveling to find somewhere I belong.” The woman admitted with a smile. “Sometimes you have to get lost among the stars to find yourself.” Meghan was sure that she would find herself eventually but until then she was content to just go with the flow on the civilian vessel.

"That's deep," he nodded slowly. "Guess that's why we're all out here in some ways. Lost souls all looking for something to call home. No matter who's head you're in." He waved the PADD in his hand.

"I guess it was deep." Meghan laughed a little hoping her age was not showing with her philosophical ways. She smiled seeing that he was trying to escape and she could not blame him for that. "Good night." She said allowing him to leave with what was left of his self-esteem left intact.