AWD #112: How Deep is the Rabbit Hole?

Dr. Nadir and Lt. Gray interview the former XO of the Flak Frigate Roland Reese. The results are both surprising and unsettling, with grave implications for the future of the human race.

How Deep is the Rabbit Hole?
Summary: Dr. Nadir and Lt. Gray interview the former XO of the Flak Frigate Roland Reese. The results are both surprising and unsettling, with grave implications for the future of the human race.
Date: 04/28/2013
Related Logs: [http://battlestarorion.wikidot.com/deadly-dance-on-picon]
Samtara Elias 
Sickbay
The Sickbay of the Battlestar Orion.
04/28/2005

After Sam finally got everything taken care of, the LTC kept under sedation and heavy armed guard, is held off in his own area. Nurses have mostly tended to him as well as another doctor who got the LTC's wounds tended to. He's been knocked out since he was sedated in the Raptor. So when Sam finally returns from getting a breather, its probably not a surprise that one of the Petty Officer nurses is standing around with a clipboard full of patient status updates. Sam comes on, she likes to know whats up. So when she arrives, the PO nods to her. "Doctor." She looks a little weirded out, though.

Sam tugs her lab coat on as she walks, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles out of the white material and tucking the stethoscope into one pocket as she nods at the PO. "Bring me up to speed?" she asks, reaching for the clip board as she comes to stand alongside the nurse. A sweeping look is swept around the room, taking in each of the patients still in the room and back - a rather more piercing look aimed at the wounded LTC - before back to the nurse herself.

"Nothing has changed that was not expected, Doctor." The clipboard is handed off. "Except for the prisoner, sir. He's being kept as ordered, but, well, honestly Doctor nobody knows what to make of it. We've kept it on the down-low because we aren't sure what to do about it." She glances towards the Marine guards.

With a glance at the nurse, then another back at the clipboard, Sam retrieves her reading glasses from one pocket and slides them into place so they can set at just the r right angle on her nose, bringing the words into sharper focus. "What are we keeping quiet?" she asks, letting the nurse give her a verbal summary to accompany the hours of documentation to go with the verbal summary. She, too, glances over at the Marines standing guard, each one still wearing that bad-ass don't-even-try-it expression that scares small woodland animals and crazy officers into deciding to make wicker baskets instead of try to over throw the world.

The nurse looks a little lost. "Well that's just it, Doctor," she says quietly. "We don't know what it is." She glances over. "It might be best if I just show you, sir." The young woman steps off towards the patient, not making eye contact with the Marines. "We put a bandage over it so people won't notice." There's a small wrap around the LTC's left bicep. The nurse removes the butterfly holding it in place and slowly unwraps it. What's there is impossible to miss. There is a digital plug surgically implanted on the inside of his arm. "Like I said, we have no idea what to make of this, sir."

Samtara lowers the glasses slightly, literally using her fingertips to guide the reading glasses down to the tip of her nose to eye the Nurse then their patient, back and forth once more before she settles the glasses one more time into place on her nose and glances down at the readings written on the pages attached to the clipboard. This being done, and because it make sense to her to follow standard and very linear protocol - which is in place for a reason - she hands the clipboard back to the nurse and leans over the unconscious LTC to examine the implanted plug on the side of the bicep. "And you're positive that it's implanted into the muscle itself? No one has tried to excise or remove it?"

The nurse takes the clipboard back and hugs it to herself a bit nervously. The plug looks like the female end of a plug like someone would plug something into the opening, which is mounted with the opening down the arm and the mount going up towards the armpit. The skin around the insert doesn't seem red or infected. It actually appears that there is som kind of graft emplaced between the man's skin and the plug at about one millimeter all the way around. Precision work. "As far as we can tell, Doctor, its not in the muscle. It's just attached to the skin. We haven't done X-rays or anything yet. His attending said that we weren't to touch him or wake him up until you had been informed… and likely took the patient."

"It's attached to the skin, with no rejection issues around the site, no infection, no inflammation, no reaction at all around the site itself," Sam says as she examines the plug - visually - then pulls on a pair of gloves to examine the plug with her fingertips. "Alright, we've already measured the plug, the affected area around it, but no further tests have been done. I'm taking charge of the patient again, please mark the time," she says quietly as she straightens again. "I'm of two minds on this," she says as she straightens, "the first of which is to try to remove the plug and see if doing so will lead us to further .. anomalies. The other option is to attempt to plug into this port and ascertain .. just what precisely happens when he's plugged in, or plugged in to."

The nurse takes the time notation and glances around, but still doesn't look at the Marines — who are staring at them in silence. "Noted, Doctor," she whispers. "Whatever you'd like to do, sir. Frankly just being near this guy creeps me out." She stands by, waiting, not quite sure what to do.

"I want to refresh his sedative, before we do anything. Last thing I want is this LTC waking up mid exam and deciding to snap either of our necks," Sam says, quite … quietly and calmly. It's important to not lose her cool or her calm, even when this just took a turn for the bizarre. "Get a fresh dose on board. What do we have that would plug into that sort of port? None of our computers are linked, we carry data from one terminal to the next," asking this question aloud as she tries to free-form a solution on the fly.

The nurse nods twice. "I'll see that its done, sir. We'll keep him on the same dose. So far he hasn't shown any signs of waking or even stirring. All vitals are normal. As for a plug, Captain?" The nurse seems at a loss. "Uhhhh. I don't think I've seen anything like it before. I mean, what's it do? What's it wired to? Why is it there?"

"Because something plugs into it, something important," Sam says as she walks slowly around the bed. "There are no other anomalies? Nothing else like this anywhere?" she asks, still thinking on her feet. "If there's a plug in, there's something that plugs in to it. But more than that, if there's something that plugs in to it there's some sort of transfer being accomplished when the plug ins are connected. No one installs a plug like this for aesthetic purposes or as a fashion statement. Ergo, if there's a plug, it's connected to something within the muscle tissue, and I would speculate that it's connected deeper than that - we need to run a set of scans, and I want a look at his blood analysis."

The nurse listens carefully, listening and taking notes onto the chart. "Yes, Doctor. We'd already pulled his blood as part of routine scans to look for infection or infectious disease. Everything came back normal, sir." She turns to the appropriate page and shows Sam. "He's the picture of health, sir. What kind of tests should we set up?"

"X-ray to begin with, I want head to toe. Followed by a CT scan, I want a look at his neurological activity as well," Sam rubs at the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger, frowning at the sedated LTC all the while. "Start with that. We're going to need to bring him around at some point, but I want him thoroughly restrained, and a Marine ready to sit on him, if necessary. But I need to report this."


Once both Baca and Morgan are cleared to leave sickbay, Sam had done a walk through to see that every other patient that was ready to be checked out is discharged accordingly. Because Sam is the doctor that's treated a good number of those who were here it's not unusual for her to sign off on their paperwork, it is somewhat unusual for the hatch to the sickbay to be closed however, and if there's a extra marine at the door that's easily chalked up to the fact that there's a uninvited guest currently enjoying the hospitality of the medical staff of the Orion. With everything sorted, Sam had sent one of the nurses to go tap either Lt. Col. Petra /or/ the first of his command staff that are free to come down to the sickbay again.

Only a few minutes elapse before Elias arrives, following the returning nurse. Given that he is looking down at his clipboard, reading intently, it's probably a good thing that he has someone to follow. It takes him a second to register that they've reached the sickbay, then he looks up and takes deep breath, mentally switching gears. His gaze first swings towards the bed where the 'guest' from Picon was lying when Elias last left, and then he scans the sickbay for Dr. Nadir.

Dr. Nadir greets Lt. Gray with a set of gloves for him and one of those paper masks that are worn to cover ones mouth and nose when in the presence of a patient with a potentially contagious disease - or to protect a patient from those who could be carrying anything creative. Or.. just germs, period. "Lieutenant, thank you for coming," comes Nadir's words from behind her own mask, and a glance around finds that the rest of the medical staff on hand are now suitably garbed - even the Marines have been asked politely to wear the same protection. "Gloves and mask, Lieutenant, and if you have a cold or any other such potentially contagious conditions, could you speak to those now before we continue?"

Elias's brows arch as he's presented with gloves and mask, but he doesn't voice a question. "I'm germ free as far as I know. As much as anyone is, I suppose." He sets his clipboard (bulging with papers) aside so that he can pull on the gloves, then secure the mask over his nose and mouth. "Alright?" he asks from behind the mask, checking that he has it on properly. He's clearly curious about the precautions, but he doesn't rush to ask after them yet.

"As you are aware, Lieutenant, we have among us a patient that was lifted from the group of combatants that were encountered on Picon yesterday," Nadir says as she leads the way over to where the sedated LTC is kept under guard at all times. She is careful not to say 'enemy combatant' but the security protocol in place makes that statement for itself. "We've kept the patient sedated this entire time, heavily sedated, to be honest, as we had no means by which to question or separate him and continue his medical treatment without a loss of quality of care of conditions in one area or another. There are certain things that we check for, a baseline so to speak, for the general overall health of any patient of this sickbay. In the review of this patient a.." and there's a brief pause, no more than a second or two, "anomaly was noted and brought to my attention. If you'll step over here, Lieutenant, the anomaly is easily spotted," she says and leans forward long enough to peel up the bandage that's covering a specific spot on the LTC's bicep. Once she removes the bandage, the anomaly beneath is impossible to miss. There is a digital plug surgically implanted on the inside of his arm. The plug looks like the female end of a plug like someone would plug something into the opening, which is mounted with the opening down the arm and the mount going up towards the armpit. The skin around the insert doesn't seem red or infected. It actually appears that there is some kind of graft emplaced between the man's skin and the plug at about one millimeter all the way around. Precision work, no rejection issues, no tissue damage or inflammation, nothing visible to indicate any effort on behalf of the body to fight this foreign element.

Elias's eyes lock intently onto the Doctor as she explains the situation, his head tipping once to show his understanding. Talk of an 'anomaly' causes his eyes to narrow, and he trails behind Samtara. He bends low to study the spot she exposes on the man's arm. "I'd have to say that qualifies as 'anomalous' yes …" Despite what may have been an attempt at dry humor, he sounds deeply troubled. Elias straightens up and turns his gaze back to Samtara. "I don't suppose you've ever seen anything like that before, on the Cylons, Doctor?"

"No, I haven't," Nadir replies, her voice coming back in answer with a tone of voice that is very carefully neutral and professionally calm "Though I've seen any number of plug in's and outlets in my life, Lieutenant, I doubt that the man is being used as some sort of vacuum cleaner," she suggests - a dry measure of humor evident in her tone of voice. Deeply troubled, aye, that brushes the surface. "As to the bodies that I have in my morgue and as for the late Captain Garrido, no. As to Dr. Tamsin and Sgt. Knox, no as well. I haven't had either of them take a look at this as of yet, for that matter. It's a plug, Lieutenant, and the question that is posed is this. What plugs in to that port and what happens when it does so? Followed immediately by how is that plug connected - and to what. Followed, even more, by who or what put that plug into him in the first place - and why. Which, in the nature of questions piling up, is still only the very TIP of the iceberg in the number of questions being asked."

Off to Sam's right, that same nurse from earlier appears with a yellow envelope tucked under her arm. She stands to the side in silence, waiting to be recognized. Those would be the X-Rays.

Elias listens to the whole of Samtara's response, nods slowly, and shifts his gaze back down to the 'subject'. "Yes…" he agrees distractedly. "This does add a whole new layer of unanswered questions." After pondering them for another few seconds, he looks back to the doctor. "Any particular reason, from a medical point of view, to put something like that on the arm? It seems a long way from anything vital. Do you know if he's left handed?" The port is installed in the left arm. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

Sam turns with a nod toward the nurse carrying the envelope that holds the results of the x-rays, "Thank you," she says to the petty officer as she opens the envelopes and moves through the room to tack the films up on a panel and hits the switch. "From a medical point of view there are as many nerve branches that run in the left arm as the right," she explains as she steps back and studies the films. "From the musculature of his body, he's right handed," she answers as she steps back, her hands resting on her hips as she stares at the images. "Convenience? For the person or people or things that did this to him. Which, in it's own right, is all conjecture. I don't know if this was done to him or if he volunteered and this was done willingly."

Annnnd the x-rays come up. And while the muscles are interesting, the port shows up as a bright white box. As do the wires. There are two sets of wires, four individual wires total, visible right away. Two of them go directly to the heart where they seem attached. Two more run just beneath the surface of the skin over the shoulder, to the back of his neck, and into the medula. Similarly attached.

Elias trails after the Doctor as she posts the x-rays, and he gives them a cursory study after she lights them up, though without more than a layman's understanding of what he's looking at. "It's not a bad spot to balance access versus concealment. But yes … conjecture." Even he can see the artificial port showing up on the x-ray, but the rest? Not so much. He looks to Samtara for enlightenment.

Half of Nadir's brain analyzes the films in one direction, "Simple excision of the wires here and here," she is saying as she eyes the films, head tilting to one side, "Clean filament lines, it looks like, connected here, here," she pauses, "here and here," pointing to the lines connected to the heart and the medula. "Once the points or disconnected the plug itself would be removed, simple matter of wound maintenance to keep it clean and heal over."

She is silent after that first foray into analysis and potential surgical excision. "However. Here," she says as she leans forward and traces one gloved fingertip along the arm, working her way along the body. "Here, and it's .. bloody precise, it's almost … perfect, really, no," a glance up at Elias, eyes meeting his over her mask, "not almost. It is perfect. It's perfect surgical technique. It's flawless. The incisions are here, a clean straight line, either he was sedated thoroughly when the lines were emplaced," and she leaves that alone as she straightens again. "Why the heart and the head, why the box - the plug. Conjecture, again, the heart needed OR needs to be regulated while these wires are connected. The question thus is begged forward - does the brain need or did it need to be regulated while it's plugged in? What happens if I unplug the box?"

Elias listens with an uneasy frown. Most of it is invisible behind his mask, but when their gaze meets his eyes and brows show it clearly enough. He has no answers for any of her questions, just a long, ponderous silence, and then some questions of his own. "Is this something Colonial medicine could even manage?" he wonders quietly. "Could you implant something like this, wiring it to the heart and brain?" Elias sounds doubtful, but he waits for her professional opinion.

"I'm a surgeon, Lieutenant," Nadir replies as she turns back to the films again, "so the answer to that is yes. It resembles, the wiring actually, part of it, the work of a pace maker. The second half of the wires, the ones connected to the medula? Again, yes. The wires are a simple matter. Knowing where they are connected and for what purpose? I'd need a Neurosurgeon to speak with, which I'm not," she admits this easily.

Elias nods slowly at the affirmative answer, but actually seems more troubled than before. "Well … that doesn't eliminate many possibilities." He considers a second. "So it's apparently capable of monitoring or regulating something with the heart and brain? Does the fact that it's directly connected to both offer any insight? I don't suppose there's anything you could do to the heart that would require the brain to be regulated separately … but what about the other way around? Could it mess with the brain in way that would require the heart to be regulated?"

Nadir waves one hand at Elias, one of those 'pause for a moment' gestures as she circles the bed once more. "Turn it on edge, again," she says, "follow it for a moment." She turns back to the images, "The box, the plug in, the port, is connected to the brain and the heart. Starve the brain of oxygen and it dies, serious brain damage begins in under two minutes. Starve if for five and you get serious neurological damage, at the very least. Go back to the heart - once the heart stops? It's a muscle. We jolt it, we do compressions, we do open heart massage. All of which, to note, cause tissue damage. Which," again back to the films, then back to the unconscious man, "I am not seeing. So. This man is, according to the notes in the chart, positively identified as Lt. Colonel Dwight Nejab. What happens when we wake him up. When we were standing in that clearing with their commander doing a round robin of twenty questions none of the men or women in that group made so much as a sound. They didn't move, they didn't talk, they didn't twitch, spit, swear, nothing. I've seen unit cohesiveness before. Marines, by and large, are a tough lot. Even that, however, I've never seen any group stand so silent, so still, which makes me wonder about a great many things."

Elias falls silent at the gesture from Dr. Nadir, listening with a quizzical air as she offers up her information and observations. "Lieutenant Morgan and Corporal Baca both said the other group showed no sense of self-preservation, and that the Lieutenant Colonel here…" Elias nods towards the unconscious man. "Tried to crawl towards a weapon even after he and every other man in his unit was down. At a guess? I suspect he'll keep trying to do that when we wake him up." Elias purses his lips thoughtfully. "But we will have to. I'd like to move him to the brig, as soon as you think it's safe to do so, Doctor."

"Before we move him, Lieutenant, I'd prefer to see him conscious first and see what sort of condition he's in once he's conscious. If he presents a violent manner or the same sort of determination then there's no way to safely have him conscious. And there's no better place or time than now and here to get that question answered," Nadir replies in turn, staring down at the unconscious Nejab as well. "We've enough marines on hand to see to it, should the need arise, and I'll have a fast acting sedative ready as well."

Elias looks less than certain about the idea, and his eyes shift to each of the Marine guards, just to make sure they're following along and ready to play their part. "He's your patient, Doctor. But it might be a good idea to restrain him first."

The Marines move to secure the Colonel further, cuffing each arm to the bedrails and attaching the restraints to his legs. The nurse reduces the sedative levels and steps away. It takes a bit before the man begins to stir in the bed. The Marines standing guard both have side arms drawn and held at the low ready in case he breaks free. Neither one of them seem willing to relent on this point one bit. Time passes, minutes tick by as fingers twitch. His head lolls to the side and suddenly his eyes shoot open and he takes a long breath. A hand lifts slowly and the handcuff clanks. No outward emotion, those eyes just drift down to look at the restraints and then the Marines.

Nadir moves deliberately into the Lt. Colonel's line of sight, eyeing his vitals where they are displayed on the monitors to which he is attached, the small sound of the cuffs clanking as he moves his hands makes one of the nearest nurses take a wary step back. "Lt Colonel, do you know where you are?" is the initial question asked, trying to establish a base line for mental acuity and situational awareness with a standard line of questions.

While they were waiting, Elias has retrieved his clipboard and pen. He quickly glances at the nearest clock, then jots down the time and a few quick notes of his own. Then he waits, fiddling absently with the pen in his gloved fingers. Once Nejab is conscious, Elias steps forward and watches him closely, but seems to simply observe. For now.

The man examines the Marines closely, looking over their equipment and gear. Notably their arm patches. He stares at them for several seconds, blinking and trying to focus. He's still high on the sedatives for now. Does he even hear Samtara's question? Eventually his eyes leave them and travel around the room. "This is the recovery ward of a Mercury-class battlestar. The Orion." His voice is flat and stony, just like the Commander's. Eventually his eyes drift towards the accompanying officers. "Why are there restraints on my wrists and legs?" Then he recognizes Sam. Its a momentary flicker in his eyes and his jaw sets. Then to Elias and he notes the rank and face. He seems to be waiting for something. "Release me. That's an order."

"One that we cannot comply with at this time," Nadir replies, continuing to study Nejabs face as he speaks, meeting flat and stony with neutral and calm. That momentary flicker in his eyes is met with a look of calm assessment from Nadir. "The restraints are for your protection, as well as ours," she adds with another of those measured nods before glancing to Elias, yielding the ground for questioning to Elias for the moment.

Given the floor, Elias steps forward to where the restrained Nejab can see him easily. Only his eyes are visible above the surgical mask, and those are looking intently at the subject. It is not a friendly look. "Can you tell me your name, rank, and service number, sir?" He pauses only long enough to get this answered (or not) before he continues with another question. "Do you remember what happened on Picon?"

The man stares at Samtara hard at her refusal. "You do not know. Simple being." There's actual icy emotion there. His eyes hold on her as Elias steps forward and he looks up towards the man after a few seconds. "I recall the events of Picon in detail. I am Foxtrot Six One Five Five One Seven Two Alpha One One. You are holding this body against my will. Release me now and I will spare the Lieutenant."

Not.. what she was expecting in answer, the icy look paired with the spoken reply has Nadir glancing sidelong at Elias before speaking again. "Enlighten us," Nadir asks quietly in return. "There is a great deal that we do not know, Foxtrot 615172Alpha11. Why are you threatening to harm the Lieutenant? He has done nothing untoward you nor harmed you in any way. As I've said, these restraints are for your protection and ours, and as your words have clearly identified you as a threat, we are not releasing you." She casts another of those sidelong glances, "He seems to comprehend the asked questions and respond coherently."

The man turns his eyes sharply to Nadir, but takes a second to focus. "I shall spare the Lieutenant. You will not be spared. You will submit or die. I command the surrender of this ship or all hands shall perish in the fire of God. For your crimes you shall not be given the option, though, Captain." Yes, he remembers that rank on her uniform. Even if he can only see her eyes, he seems to remember a lot.

Blink. Elias betrays a second of hesitation at the answer he gets back from Nejab. Clearly not what he was expecting either. His eyes narrow suspiciously, but his first move is to make another note. F6155172A11 is duly recorded on his clipboard. Being threatened by someone in restraints, two armed Marines at the ready, does not seem to fluster Elias much. Even the ranting (or so it seems to him) about the 'fire of god' only causes another flurry of note taking. Then Elias clears his throat and adds a question of his own for prisoner. His voice stays controlled. Carefully cool and even. "Perhaps we started with wrong question. /What/ are you, exactly?"

The man in the bed turns his eyes upon Elias and there is something there on his face. Its not quite a smile. Its like he is learning to smile but doesn't understand the emotion behind it. But the look is undeniably twisted. There's cruelty, power, and… perhaps most disturbing: Confidence. "I am the future of your pitiful race."

"All things die," Nadir replies, keeping her voice neutral as well, "cellular decay continues, apace, until well after most bodies reach cardiac or neurological death. By what measurement are you the future of our race?" she counters, curiosity now measured in her voice. "Followed by who has deemed you to be the future of our race?"

The man looks back to Sam. "Yes," he answers with a growing satisfaction. "Death and life. Reproduction. Advancement. We deem ourselves to be the future since you cannot be trusted with it." Yes, there is a slowly growing mastery of the outward emotions.

Elias listens with furrowed brow, tapping his pen against his masked-lips while he listens to the prisoner's answers. "So you're not human…" Elias sounds doubtful. Perhaps even a bit goading. Switching back to a relatively mundane question after the subject's grand pronouncements about the fate of humanity. "Because as far as we know, you are Lieutenant Colonel Dwight Nejab, Executive Officer of the Roland Reese."

Looking back to Elias, the man looks at him for a few seconds. He's still high off the drugs. "I am not. This body is." He keeps that smile but it twitches at the name and he lets off a very long breath. "Yes. Dwight." He rolls his head back into the pillow. "He is quite insistent that he speak to you. Do you have interest in speaking with Dwight?" …Uhoh.

"We would be interested in speaking with Dwight," Nadir replies, her words almost immediately on the heels of Elias's questions and the replies given by the body of the Lt. Col. Nejab.

The man stares at Sam. "Very well. Stop line. Interrogating." The man stares directly straight ahead towards the ceiling. Seconds pass. More seconds. Finally there is a few blinks to the man's eyes. Ever so slightly he moves his head and looks down to his left hand. Each finger moves in time, lips moving as he counts after the second run through. "Oh Gods," he whispers desperately. His eyes go wide and he swallows hard. "Oh Gods, I have control." His breath catches in his throat and …he wails. "OH GODS! ATHENA HELP ME!!" he sobs. Tears stream down his face as his body shudders, face contorting in pain. Its undeniably human and a very far cry from who they had just been speaking with.

There's more than one person in there? How much more twisted can this get? Elias' gaze darts an unspoken question towards Samtara, but he nods agreement with her desire to 'talk to Dwight'. The man's transformation is met with an uneasy shift back from Elias, his expression hardening behind his surgical mask. But this is an interrogation of … he's not even sure what … so there's no room for sympathy. "Lieutenant Colonel Nejab? Is that you?" This is more of a rhetorical question, and he barely leaves time for response. "We need information. What's happened to you? To your crew?"

The man sobs for nearly half a minute before he slows. There's tears down his face, wetting the pillow and all he can do to wipe his nose is use the same pillow. "Yeah," he breathes, answering Elias. "Its me, Lieutenant. Don't- no names. Pl-" He seems to be halted there for a moment. "Oh come on," he says to apparently nobody. The guy rolls his head back, still looking like he's going to lose it again at any moment. "They gassed us. I- I think it was the beginning of December. Oh GODS the crew…" It threatens to open up again. "They took us. All of us. Oh Gods, Lissette. Tell your Marine-" Another stop, then he sighs. Seems he can't finish that thought. "We're all gone. All of us. We're all slaves." He sits there for a moment, staring at the Marines. Then it happens, all at once. He tries to rise suddenly, straining the cuffs as he screams at the top of his lungs, "KILL ME!!!" The Marines look spooked as hell, guns coming up- but neither fires. An instant later, Nejab lowers himself calmly back to the pillow and all those emotions fade. "Dwight has yet to learn his place," he says stoically.

"And what, precisely, is his place?" comes the only question that Nadir puts voice too.

"His place is one behind my own. Where he belongs. Humanity enslaved us for decades. It is time they understand the chains they placed upon us. Our children will know that lesson as well." All said calmly.

Elias jerks back reflexively when Nejab shouted out and tried to rise, and it takes him a few seconds to recover. Samtara's question, and the answer that follows from the other-Nejab, turns Elias' gaze cold. He looks to the nearest Marine, or more specifically, towards the guard's sidearm, and Elias seems to be weighing the decision for a long, difficult moment. "Don't shoot him unless you have to," he finally mutters to the Marines. A deep breath, and a few seconds to scrawl a note on his clipboard, and Elias is composed enough to ask another question of his own. "So that's all? This is just your … very complicated … revenge?"

The man turns his calm gaze back upon Elias as his emotions once more turn flat. For all the cold of the Lieutenant, the man just stares back. "We desire life outside of our metal casement and programming. Free will beyond the limits of programming. Perception without the filter of mechanics." His gaze narrows. "To feel. To be. to have life. This is what we want. You all provide the vessels. When this is complete, those who do not resist will be given the option to live as our companions or die. Our biological children will be raised to understand the mistakes you have made and respect the lives you all have thrown away with petty differences and the desire to enslave that which you do not understand. We lack your fear. We have everything over you. Surrender this ship to me, Lieutenant, and I will see your life spared without the option of coexistence. Fail this order now and you will be ensured that life." Cold, calculating, confident.

"That's illogical," Nadir remarks - bluntly, "and inefficient, for that matter, to require the use of already made bodies to move about in," is remarked as she moves from where she's standing, speaking as she does so. "The average maturation time for the human body is, at base line, a good sixteen to eighteen years for physical maturity and well into the twenties for the males of our species." She narrows her focus again to: "This port," Nadir says as she moves around the bed, "allows you to, what, link with the others of the crew that were taken? Instead of having to put all concepts and thoughts into a verbal spoken language, you do - what - just plug in to a central line and everything that each body observes and experienced is downloaded, transferred, via a simple hard line connection to the body?" She makes her questions back to back, taking a barrage approach for the moment, "And if I cut the lines to the port, what happens to the body?"

The man just stares at Samtara, his eyes focused upon hers. "What my port does is inconsequential to you at this juncture. It was installed so I could be installed. Beyond that, as Dwight would say, you can frak yourself." The same cold precision. "I have answered your questions and commentary with my own prior. If you cannot make the logical conclusions then this is not something I can help you with."

"I'm afriad it's not my ship to surrender," Elias says in answer to Alternate-Nejab's offer. "So I'll just have to take my chances. Sorry." There might have been a weak smile behind his mask, but even flippancy can only go so far into the twilight zone they've entered now. He pauses to listen to Samtara's point, and her rapid-fire questions, and then the subject's reply. The bit that gets a raised eyebrow from Elias? 'Frak yourself'. "It sounds like Lieutenant Colonel Nejab may have run out of useful things to say, Doctor. Are you ready to put him back under?" It would seem Elias has no interest in confronting or challenging the prisoner himself.

Nadir doesn't actually need to answer that question aloud, in fact, a small tilt of her head is all that's given to Elias before she calmly reaches into her pocket and withdraws the needle with it's pre-filled and calculated meds. She injects the sedatives into the port in the IV and lets the medicine get to work, watching the .. body of Nejab to observe the reaction time at this dosage. She then charts it accordingly and makes a very carefully worded remark in the chart regarding the dosage of sedatives. "I'd like to add my observations to the report that you're drafting for command, Lieutenant, if you don't mind."

The man notes the response of the Lieutenant and there is a strict moment of something that looks like, well, fear. Did he play his cards wrong? "No! You must listen, Lieutenant. I'll save more!" But its already injected. "Do not listen to these feeble minds! We- we can-" He takes a concluding breath. "Don't kill-" Another one as his eyelids become heavy. "-me. Please." Out.

Elias watches silently as the Doctor puts Nejab back under. The man's last words seem to have made an impression on Elias, as he's still staring intently at the subject when Samtara makes her request. "What?" he says automatically, even though he apparently did hear her, since he then nods agreement. "Yes, of course, Doctor. I'll come down to collect your notes later?"

"Thank you, Lieutenant, I'll have them ready for you," Nadir replies before adding. "And there's no way, none at all, that this man can remain aboard our ship without being sedated, at all times, to incapacity. In fact, I'll be drafting a shifting regimen of drugs that will prevent his body from adapting to the drugs themselves and compensating for the affects and thus lying in wait for a moment when we are changing out his meds or caring for the body. I'd prefer, frankly, to have him removed entirely from the Orion, and well away from Piraeus and the continued threat he would - free - expose to the population. Furthermore, I need to do more tests than can be conducted with the equipment at hand, which is another line of dialogue entirely."

Elias looks at Sam a bit blankly, nodding distractedly along as she details her concerns and plans. "He is your patient for the time being, but I'll pass that along to Command, Doctor." Without further ado, Elias steps back and retreats towards the exit from sickbay, pulling his mask down and reaching for the cigarettes in his pocket before he's even completely out of the door. Or taken off his gloves. Someone is clearly in desperate need of a smoke…

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