Bio filter Part 1

Posted on Fri Nov 12th, 2021 @ 4:39pm by Nollel Livaam (*) & Captain Rueben Gregnol & Ships Doctor Hiram Maitland M.D. & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD -09 14:00
2104 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

“We will figure all of this out and if we cannot like I said we will find someone who can,” Gregnol promised wishing Jeassaho had come along instead of sneaking off with the parting shot that she would keep an eye on Engineering to allow the man to be where he needed to be. He knew she was where she was needed but approaching sickbay with a concerned partner in tow was not exactly how Gregnol enjoyed spending his afternoon, but it was the hand he had been dealt and there was nowhere else he would be. He supported his crew when they needed and wanted it.

"Thanks." The response was sincere, but in Burnie's head there was a quiet 'we better' because if there was no answer and Nollel was getting worse, he was going to call in favors of his own even if it meant loading her in a shuttle and dropping into Stafleet Medical HQ uninvited.

As they stepped inside sickbay they saw the new medical personnel that they had acquired back on Freecloud stood there as if waiting for them when in fact he was most likely just scanning through the PADDs that were there. “Perfect. Maitland right?” Gregnol greeted not overly knowing if he was correct. They seemed to have more crew now than they had in the last year and it was bad that he felt like he might be losing track and who was who.

The light-haired individual clad in blue scrubs turned to greet them, clipping the stylus pen he'd been using to write along the translucent PADD in his hand back to its spot along the inside of his large breast pocket. He tipped his chin up at Gregnol, his lips parting in an easy smile as he set the PADD aside. "That's correct, Captain. How can I help you today?" he asked with the easy and mellifluous tones of a particularly chipper customer service representative.

“You have a patient here that is sick but the doctor could not find anything wrong other than a chemical in her brain that was incorrect so we have gone off to look at stuff. But the bio filters are way out of our league.” Gregnol said calmly as he spotted Nollel sound asleep on one of the bio beds.

"I have the data here," Burnie said, proffering an isolinear chip. "There are a few things out of standard bounds, but this is an old ship so that's not unusual. I just have no idea how to work out what if anything here might be affecting Nollel."

Hiram side-stepped and shimmied his way past a bio-bed to come face-to-face with the captain and retrieved a small isolinear data rod from his pocket, presenting it to him. "I've started generating a neural wave map to pinpoint clusters of unusual synaptic activation in Ms. Livaam's brain. We should be able to use that to enhance pattern recognition; it'll help train the bio-filters in what to look for more accurately." He waved the rod in his hand.

Wow, a doctor who could speak engineer. Burnie half-smiled. "Send me the output and I'll set up a machine learning program."

The younger man gave Burnie a grin, eyebrows bouncing playfully. "Will do. I'd be interested to track your progress with that, if you need an extra set of hands. Two neural nets are better than one?" Hiram flashed a pair of double finger-guns, because he was the worst.

...and there went the positive first impression. "Uh, sure." Burnie nodded, telling himself just because the new doc suddenly reminded him of a frat-boy didn't mean he wasn't a good doctor. "I can set up a direct feed to relay everything to medbay."

If Hiram was aware of this shift, he didn't seem daunted, his demeanor entirely unchanged. "Perfect. I'll continue amalgamating the data from Ms. Livaam's scans. This includes a program that's able to track these changes in real-time which should make things run more smoothly from your end. The more familiar we get with these aberrant readings, the more likely we'll be able to pick up on discrepancies in the future." He swiveled to hold out the isolinear rod to Burnie instead. "I have a back-up of that as well if you require it, Captain." He tipped his chin upward.

“I will leave this to people who know what they are doing,” Gregnol said simply glancing around for Isaac but could not see him. He had hoped to catch up but it seemed that they had Hiram helping and he seemed to be doing a good job. Burnie had not given him a look that signified he was unhappy or anything.

Burnie's jaw had clenched at the idea of this recurring in the future, but what the doctor said made sense technically. So he focused on the fact that future discrepancies could affect anyone and gave Gregnol a short nod. There was no need for the Captain to be stuck here after all. "If I knew enough I'd have solved it, but at least we have a way forward."

"We'll get it done, together," Hiram assured Burnie and the captain both, his tone sympathetic. He didn't plan for anything less than a good outcome for the patient in front of him, regardless of whether he slept in the near future or not.

"We will. I am going to look in on Nollel and see the doctor. Excuse me a moment." Gregnol said politely as The Captain nodded and moved further into sickbay to quickly check on Nollel before he moved off to find out why Isaac was not around for this conversation.

Burnie nearly took a step to follow. He wanted to look in on Nollel so badly, but he didn't want her feel like he was mother henning again and the focus had to be on finding a way to make her well. "Okay." He rubbed his hands to together, turning attention to the problem and that data that should lead to a solution. "I flagged the values that are out of nominal range and cross-referenced with the last full scan since Nollel joined crew."

"OK," the doctor nodded, vivid eyes transfixed on the numbers. He overlaid a laminated, see-through paper momentarily and scrutinized the structures of Nollel's brain in comparison with the points of reference, tapping his finger over an aberrant spike.

"So we can see these values aren't lining up, but the scanners aren't registering the difference-moreover, biological filters ordinarily identify anomalies with ease, even if they don't recognize the compounds." After all, they were in space. Most of what they encountered was anomalous. "Either there's some kind of interference-"

Hiram's eyes rhythmically tracked back and forth as he spoke, as if speed-reading something invisible in front of him, oddly soothing in its jerkish nystagmus but somewhat distracting to his facial features. "Or this is so foreign to the system that it triggered a readable malfunction."

Burnie pinched the bridge of his nose. "Great. So we have no idea what it is."

“She is awake and grumpy about being here until we have some answers.” Gregnol said as he finally returned, a small frown playing on his lips. “Anything?” He asked hopefully.

"Once we can get a proper pattern established I'll be able to narrow down the chemical structure of the interference and extrapolate from there." Hiram pulled out an isolinear rod from the computer terminal. "This should be enough to get a deep learning program up and running," he handed it to Burnie. "It may take a little while before we start to see the pattern, but I'm confident it's there. My best estimate," he addressed the captain, "without knowing for certain-is that the bio-filters are failing to scrub out an environmental pathogen that is toxic to Ardanans."

He didn't like hearing the words 'pathogen' or 'toxic' associated Nollel in any way, but denial wouldn't solve the problem, so he took the chip and began assembling a program. "You know, there has to be a list of known factors that affect Ardanans. If took that and filtered out everything affecting humans and vulcanoids, we might cut the search field down considerably."

"Do it. Take what processor speeds you need. You have access." Gregnol assured quickly already moving to the sickbay comms unit to let the bridge know that sickbay would be taking on more process power.

Hiram nodded, waving his hand over the large touch-screen overlay in front of him, his focus lasered in. "Agreed, that is an excellent starting point." Even still, that left trillions of possibilities, so the extra processing power would be invaluable. "Keep in mind, we may be dealing with something novel," Hiram added, his tone gentle. "It would explain why the bio-filters haven't picked up on the discrepancy-and why it's having the effect it's having on her."

After setting up the program, Burnie looked at the inputs - garbage in, garbage out was something he checked almost by reflex, but it was definitely something he would not risk with Nollel's health on the line. "The files on Ardanans in our database are really old. I think we need to send for recent information to be sure we don't miss anything."

"Already ahead of you," Hiram nodded. "I've put in a communique to my contacts at the Federation Council, they should be sending back a packet within the next few hours."

"So can Nollel leave sickbay until it comes in?" Gregnol asked seeing no sense in her staying now that everyone was aware of what was going on. Everything was out in the open now.

"I'd be more comfortable if she stayed, since we don't know how this will progress, but we can fit her with a vistat monitor and release her on restrictive duties," Hiram said, not wishing to keep a stable patient confined to a bed unless it was truly necessary, but recognizing that they really didn't know if that stability would be enduring.

"If we're going to have to wait a bit, maybe I can go check in on her," Burnie suggested hopefully.

“Up to the doctor but I am not issues. She did ask if you were mad at her.” Gregnol admitted offerinn a sympathetic smile.

Burnie blinked. "Mad at her? Why would I be..." It hit him that he'd been avoiding her because he thought she was annoyed with him for 'hovering'. Dammit. Why couldn't people be as easy to understand an engines? Turning on his heel, he headed back into medbay until he saw her. "Nollel? How are you?"

Nollel looked up from where she had been staring off into space and smiled at him. “Hi?” She questioned sitting up on the bio bed crossing her legs. “Been better but I guess you already know that.”

"Yeah..." Burnie glanced down - she was expecting an 'I told you so' and he wasn't going to let her see even a hint of it his eyes because that would be a really crappy thing to say, or think, except he couldn't help the thoughts that just cropped up. He came over and took her hand. "But we're doing everything we can to find out why and fix it."

The woman offered a nodded and squeezed his hand gently. “I am sorry.” She finally whispered feeling terrible. She was stubborn and used to bring the only one she couldn’t rely on.

Burnie shook his head. "Don't be. No one likes to admit being under the weather. Well, except hypochondriacs maybe, but they usually won't admit to that, so..." Stopping that runaway train of thought, he gave her a crooked smile. "Anyway, I'm the one who should be apologizing. Apparently the parent I'm going to turn into when I grow up is my mother."

“It isn’t such a bad thing.” The blonde replied. “You worry cause you care and I was being stubborn. I have only ever had myself to rely on and I…” she let the thought trail off with a sad smile and shrug.

"Did fine. I know," Burnie said, putting an arm around her. "But you don't have to rely on only yourself or put up a front to hide anything that's wrong now."

Nollel nodded slowly and looked up to see Gregnol and the new doctor watching her and for a moment looked confused before she remembered what was going on. She was in the sickbay due to confusing thoughts. She was going to get better. “Go on you do what you need to. I am not going anywhere promise.”