Mr. Who?

Posted on 04 Dec 2022 @ 11:47am by Crewman Apprentice Unknown 'Weirdo' & Lieutenant Amelia Warner

2,999 words; about a 15 minute read

A semblance of quiet had returned to sickbay. The wounded had been treated and either sent back to their quarters to rest, declared fit for duty again – those were in the minority – or resting in sickbay itself. Sleeping, healing, recovering.

The strange man who walked through the door now, at the tail-end of a very long and busy day, was escorted by petty officer Jamal, a security officer and someone from the Ops department. "You weren't kidding," the man said, looking around at the sleeping forms in the adjacent room. "Uninvited guests, eh? Not of the friendly kind, by the looks of it." He smiled radiantly at Amelia. "Hi! Sorry for disturbing you, but these people want me to undergo some basic checks. But since your database apparently doesn't know what I am, I think they're going to be very basic indeed." He spread his hands. "So… what do you want me to do?"

The security officer who had brought him here looked tired and exasperated. "He's all yours, Lieutenant." And muttered in an aside to his colleague from Ops: "Does that man ever shut up?"

For the briefest of moments, Doctor Warner wondered if she had pushed herself to the dangerous levels of overworked exhaustion she had been admonishing Commander Petrova for...but she knew that wasn't the case. During high activity/high stress times in sickbay, she made it a point for a nurse to regular go around and scan the others who were at work on patients to make sure they were okay. She had been checked and was fine.

That meant this was actually happening, but she still felt relatively clueless, given that she wasn't able to read any alerts or notices about who was coming in... "W-what?" She blinked owlishly, and found herself a little embarrassed at her blatant confusion, but she couldn't help it. "Who is this? Where did he come from?"

The Ops officer shrugged. "Beats me. We found something drifting out there more or less in the wake of those… things which attacked us earlier. Looked like an escape pod. When we brought it on board and opened it, he came out."

"…And started talking," Lieutenant Sebastian added in a mutter. "And talking and talking…"

"As to who he is, not a clue," the Ops officer continued. "Says he doesn't know."

While they were talking, exhibit A looked around the room and was happily chatting with himself: "So this is sickbay. Fascinating place! Lots of interesting stuff here." He appeared to be looking at the board near where Amelia had been sitting, which monitored the vital signs of the resting occupants in the adjacent rooms. He appeared to be completely oblivious to his own torn, stained and ill-fitting outfit.

Amelia's brain flashed images from when she had been set to babysit younger cousins as a teenager. "Hey now, stop reading that," she said, seeing this...stranger reading the monitor. "If it's not yours and you don't work here, you don't get to know." Yeah, the child care habits came back fast. She turned back to the other officers. "Okay, you--" To the nurse. "--back to your other tasks. For you two--" To the other officers. "--whoever doesn't have to be here for whatever reason can go. I think I'm about to have my hands full again."

"Gladly," the Lieutenant sighed and walked away at a brisk pace, just slightly under outright jogging. The Ops officer left with more reluctance. Jamal slid down in the chair which Amelia had recently vacated, to keep an eye on the patients while she was dealing with… with whoever this strange man was.

The stranger turned back. "Oh, I wasn't interested in the information, it's just… everything is very… Ah well. Anyway." The smile faded and the sea-coloured eyes looked at her with concern. "You look very tired. I hope you can take some rest once we're done."

Amelia couldn't help a faint smile at that, one which rested somewhere with confused and interested. Doctors sleep when we're dead, she thought wryly but didn't voice. "I'm Doctor Warner, and you're now a temporary guest in my sickbay. Would you please lie down on this biobed?" With her initial WTF reaction now tempered, she was able to adopt her professional demeanor once again.

"Of course!" He hopped on the bed, sat for a moment with his long legs and bare feet dangling, then reclined and regarded her while leaning on one elbow. "Bit of a misnomer, though, biobed, it's not alive," he commented casually. "So where's the 'bio' in the bed? Other than me, I suppose, I guess I'm biological but I'm on the bed and not in it, therefore not a part of it…" He waved with his free hand as if to brush away that errant thought and smiled that sunny smile again. "Anyway. Do continue."

"I'm afraid I was not consulted when they created the name," she said, pulling her tricorder from her lab-coat pocket. "However, the bed itself has some functional ability to monitor the bio-signs of the persons using it. I imagine that's where the name came from." She began to run the tricorder probe from his head down toward his toes, watching the small screen as the first results came in.

"Oohh, that tickles!" The man giggled, but to his credit he did his best to remain still until the tricorder made its pass. "That's an intricate little device, though," he added, watching it with interest. "Very buzzy, too." He sat up again and looked from the tricorder to himself, the torn and stained clothes and the unblemished skin underneath. "Tell me, doctor, will I live?" he asked with twinkling eyes. Then, realising that in her present state she might not appreciate the joke much, he added: "Kidding, just kidding. Found anything interesting?"

"Many things," she replied before really thinking about it, but then she shook her head and smiled a little. "Definitely, very not human, even though you look it. I gather you don't remember much about yourself or how you got here?" At least, that was the impression she'd gotten, though it may have been an assumption too.

The man sat up as Amelia talked, figuring that if she needed him to lie down again she would make that quite clear. At her question he became very still, the smile faded and he closed his eyes, concentrating on something deep within. When he opened his eyes again, they were dark blue, the colour of the deep sea. "No," he answered quietly. "The first thing I remember, actually remember, is that my… capsule? Whatever the thing is I was in, it opened and your people were looking in. Before that? Just a sense that something had gone terribly wrong…" He looked at his clothes again, shrugged and life flooded back in his face and in his movements, the dark blue slowly changed back to its earlier blue/green colour. He poked a finger through one of the burned holes and looked at it with mild curiousity. "It certainly did for my clothes," he added blandly.

Amelia nodded thoughtfully. "Since I don't have a baseline for your physical condition yet, I'll use these scans to start building them. From what I can recognize and see, there are no serious physical issues. The clothing, of course, we can help with. We'll have you speak with counseling as well, as they may be able to help with the memory issues while I study your neurological output to find if there is something at work there that may be blocking your recall."

"The clothing help would be appreciated," the man said. "It's kinda drafty. As far as the rest is concerned, I seem to be in working order. No bits sticking out where they shouldn't, nothing's dripping…" He studied himself once, thoroughly, then gave a satisfied nod. "The memory will solve itself, or it won't," he added with a shrug. "We'll see. So… what's next?"

He was certainly a bit more...easygoing about his situation than she imagined she would've been herself, but...to each their own, she supposed. "I'm going to keep you here for the night, just for observation to make sure there are no surprises. However, we'll get you the new clothes and some food, and anything else you think you might need to make the night pass more easily." Fortunately for this plan, there weren't many patients requiring the private rooms off main sickbay right then so they had some space available.

"Excellent," the man said briskly. "I do believe I am rather peckish. Though I hope you have something to read. I just woke up, so I'm not at all sleepy. How long are your nights here, anyway? There are places where nights last years… I really hope I didn't end up in one of those. Which reminds me, other than 'this is a space ship and you've just had some close encounters of the unfriendly kind' I have no idea where I am. Anything you want to tell me?" He shook his head and did the handwave thing again. "Never mind that, you ought to be in bed. Hope you're not supposed to sleep for an entire twelve-year night… Maybe there's someone else who can fill me in on that."

Amelia blinked a few times. "As we are on a starship, night is a bit...flexible, but humans sleep six to eight hours at a time and consider that close. We can offer any number of reading materials. I'll have someone bring you a PADD enabled with literary library access." Her brain caught up with his long trail of words. "Oh, you are on the USS Odin, which is a vessel that is part of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets."

The man swung his long legs over the edge of the bed and swung his bare feet, musing out loud. "Starfleet… A fleet of stars? That must be an impressive sight… Or a fleet of ships amongst the stars? Well, of course, that sounds more logical, doesn't it? Yeah, that's probably it." He looked at Amelia again, his eyes bright. "And am I expected to stay in this bed while I stay here? I have no idea how this works…" He patted the edge of the biobed and said quietly: "It's really doesn't matter that you're not alive, dear, people appreciate you all the same."

The doctor didn't know what was happening in her life anymore. "We'll provide you with a room," she said with a faint smile. "You don't have to stay out here in the middle of the bay. Nurse Veyo?" she called the other woman over. "Please show our guest to room three, and make sure he's provided with new clothes, food, and a PADD with entertainment media access."

"Of course, Doctor," Veyo said with a nod, having missed most of the strange encounter. She turned to the stranger, who was clearly ambulatory. "If you'll follow me?"

"Thank you very much!" the man said, smiling that radiant smile again. "And you take care now. Get some rest. Eat something. Sleep. 'Doctors sleep when they're dead' is not really the best attitude to have once the immediate crisis is over. Meet your own needs first now, before tending to others again." He was suddenly serious again, switching between moods like sun and shades alternated on a semi-clouded day. He hopped off the bed and turned to Veyo with a small, courteous bow. "Lead the way."

Given that this was Veyo's first actual taste of the man's...loquacious nature, the nurse looked back at Amelia with a questioning expression. To that, the doctor just shrugged and then made a "shoo" gesture with her hands. Veyo nodded once and turn to lead the man to the room. "I think I heard that you don't remember anything, so I don't suppose you have a name you'd like us to call you?"

Just before the doors of the main sickbay closed, the man turned back briefly and gave a quick wave – whether to Amelia, the biobed he'd just vacated or both was unclear. Then he followed Veyo, his bare feet making no noise on the floor. He moved with an easy, fluid grace. "I don't suppose I have a name, no…" he answered after a brief moment. "Possibly I had one, but that belongs to the past with the rest of my memories, I guess. So, I don't know. What would you like to call me?"

"Patient seems a bit cold," Veyo said. It took only a few moments to reach the room, and she gestured him inside. "But I've only ever named a goldfish, and that doesn't really seem comparable."

"Well. Ah." The man entered the room and looked around, as if to find inspiration. "I don't have really know any names, so that makes it kind of hard. But I'll answer to 'hey you' too, I guess, so if you don't come up with anything we have that at least to fall back on."

Veyo didn't like the idea of him not having a name, so she thought about it for a few moments. "How about Tychon?" she asked. "It's a pretty old name from Earth, but from my ancestry. As I recall, it's supposed to mean luck or fortune. It seems being you've got some luck ending up here instead of remaining wherever you were."

The man grinned delightedly and gave Veyo a quick bow. "Then I'll be Tychon to you," he declared. Despite the grin, his tone was solemn. "Thank you for sharing it with me. And yes, I have been lucky… It's a big universe out there and the thing I was in is just a very small craft. Pod. Thingie."

Once again he took in the room, which was relatively bare like most sickbay rooms: a bed, monitoring equipment, small closet which held mainly supplies. "So… the doctor mentioned something about clothes?" He wriggled his bare toes.

"Yes, give me just a moment," Veyo said with a nod and a smile. Sickbay rooms, for a few reasons, were not equipped with replicators of their own so she had to go to one to get clothes. She looked him up and down, trying to assess his size. "Are you hungry or thirsty? I can also get you something to eat or drink."

"Oh yes, lovely. I do think I could do with both. I have no idea how long it's been since I ate something, but…" he gives a casual shrug, "considering I've been probably been drifting around there for awhile, I think a good meal is long overdue."

Veyo nodded once and then left. It took about ten minutes before she returned with an armful of stuff, which she brought in and set on the bed. There was a simple set of clothes, a PADD, and plate with simple Earth fare and a cup of water. "I didn't know what you'd like, and figured you didn't either, so I played it safe. These should fit, and this device--" She held up the PADD. "--gives you access to entertainment media." She put it down and pointed at an orange button recessed in the wall. "Press that if you need help or to talk to someone." She thought it over and figured she had explained it all. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Oh yes, thanks! And yes. Something which gives me some basic information about this ship, Starfleet, the United Federation of Planets and whatever else is out there," the man replied promptly. He began to undress, raised an eyebrow when he encountered the pockets of what used to be his pants and stuck his hands in them. "Hmm… What's all this stuff then? A pretty rock…" He pulled something which looked like an alien version of a datacrystal out of his pocket, held it up to the light to see the rainbow prisms, then set it down. "Something sticky. No idea what this is." It looked like some odd, half-molten candy. He licked the sticky residue off his fingers before he continued his explorations. "Hm, not bad. What else is there? Oh…" He held up a mechanical device which looked like some kind of stick, or rather half of one, the top half appeared to have burned or maybe shot off. He had no idea what the thing was, or once had been, yet the sight made him inexplicably sad.

He sighed. Empying the other pocket yielded a necklace with a pendant made of what looked like interlocking circles. Though this didn't evoke such an emotional response, he fastened it around his neck. Then he quickly changed into the new clothes which were provided for him. The 'pretty rock' he stuck back in a pocket, the half-stick he held in his hand and looked at it as if it was the key to unlocking his memories. With his other hand he picked some food from the plate and began to eat absentmindedly.

Finally, with a shrug, he stuck the broken device in his other pocket and the melancholy mood vanished as if he'd flipped a switch.

Veyo really wasn't sure what to do with this fellow. He was certainly interesting, she thought again. While he changed, she took the PADD and made sure it had guest-level access to the information he requested. While she was doing this, she missed the pockets search and attending reactions. His mood was the same again by the time she looked up and put the PADD back on the table. "You should be all set. Eat up and get some rest. Give us a shout if you need anything," she said with a nod of farewell.

"Will do!" The newcomer gave a friendly wave before the doors closed and picked up the PADD. Moments later he sat cross-legged on the table (despite the existence of a good bed and a chair), engrossed in his reading.

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