Manual Shopping

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 3:08am by Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Commander Mindo & Lieutenant Tyson Brookes
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 2:29pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Current

A Mission Post by Lieutenant JG Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Mindo & Lieutenant JG Tyson Brookes
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Current
Tue Mar 20th, 2018 @ 12:05am

The crew of a Starfleet ship were, on the whole, quite used to odd occurrences. It was a necessary part of their training, after all, as well as a normal aspect of life in the hodge-pot of species and cultures that was the Federation. Thus, as Cailus walked up the deck to Sickbay with one of his hands completely detached from his wrist, his other hand holding the detached manus, he barely received a second glance from the people that he passed.

Like so Cailus walked into Sickbay, looking around for the new CMO while the little red status light in his cybernetic severed wrist flashed accusingly. He hadn’t yet met the man, nor indeed did he know anything about him, but now was the time to find out.

Cailus entered a quiet sick bay unannounced. As thus he had caught a conversation in progress between the Chief of Medical and Ensign Doris, the sick bay medical technician.

At the time there were no patients on any of the biobeds. The lights shone brightly in the sterilized environment. The soft hum of the sick bay computer’s going through routine testing and samples of concurrent research was being accumulated.

… “It just feels itchy. I don’t know. Would it be infected?” Ensign Doris asked Tyson. Both of them standing near the doorway to Brookes office doorway. Doris is asking in a quiet low tone.

“I told you to replicate, like how many different types of creams now, the rash won’t clear up if you keep changing them,” Tyson stated annoyed.

Just then they had both noticed a crew member enter the sick bay. The tall man was broad stong and seemed to walk with importance. He was a Lt JG and one of the few officers on board who had a cybernetic implant, if not the only one. This crew member had become instantly recognizable to Brookes if only for the fact he was literally ‘carrying’ his right hand with him.

“Lieutenant Griffin.” Tyson cut his conversation with Doris rather rudely as he walked away and to meet the Security and Operations Officer. “Welcome to sickbay.” Brookes looked obviously at the mans severed biomechanical prosthetic held. “What can I do for you?”

”A minor malfunction,” Cailus said with nonchalance, glancing at the ensign who the doctor had brushed off. “I can return another time if you’re occupied.”

“Not at all, I see you need a hand.” Tyson blurted out, placing a literal foot in his mouth. He was one to blurt out his thoughts at times. His impulsive 1980s ADD exploding outward.

“Mr. Griffin over here at the sensor clusters.” Tyson led Cailus to the interior of the sick bay. There was the central computer workstation where Tyson and Cailus could examine his biomechanical arm. "Have a seat."

Rolling his eyes at Brookes’ pun, Cailus nevertheless followed him and sat down. He hesitated briefly, feeling oddly reluctant to part with his right hand, but nevertheless placed on it on the workstation. Cailus was long used to doing maintenance on the prosthetic himself, and the thought of someone else working on it, even a qualified medical professional, was strangely unsettling.

“The hand has been acting up ever since I caught that sword wth it on Salvaxe,” he explained, disgruntled. Brookes looked competent enough, although the man’s appearance was slightly unusual, just enough fof Cailus to feel wary. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve done that, and the prosthetic was a combat-rated model in 2291, but it appears to have suffered some damage regardless. Fine motor control has decreased by 44%, there is a .27 second latency in its responsiveness to my thoughts and there is a static charge within it that has been shocking me at regular intervals.” Cailus raised his right arm, with the stump at the end of it alternating between red and yellow lights amidst the exposed circuits that usually connected it to the hand. “There appears to be damage to my wrist port as well.”

Tyson could feel a particular distant exterior from Cailus; a calculated apprehension from the man. Brookes was able to sense the uneasiness of the situation.

“2291… If only most things would last longer than 97 years.” Tyson replied. He was waiting for this moment. He had known of Cailus and his prior history of cryogenic stasis. It was a stark moment when Tyson had read Griffins personnel file through the medical computers.

“How long have you had feedback from your prosthesis? When did it start?” Tyson asked curiously. The discharging feedback loop of cybernetic isolinear pathways often indicated burnout pathways in the unit.

“Good, you read up on me,” Cailus said with gruff approval. At Brookes’ question, he frowned, attempting to cross his arms then giving up when he realised that he couldn’t. “After we beamed back onboard. It took approximately three hours after the damage was done before I felt the first palpable shock.”

“I do read up on my patients. I can find a lot of information on their health and welfare habits.” He nodded. “Your body entered stasis and was programmed to be re-awaken from stasis. Is this true?”

Cailus was quiet for a moment, watching the doctor stonily. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, glancing around Sickbay to ensure that the ensign had departed, leaving him and Brookes alone. “I expect this to be kept under doctor-patient confidentiality, Doctor, but yes. The full details are in my file and are accurate.”

Picking up his Medical Tricorder Tyson had Cailus hold out his arm. Scanning his connective tissue, and the burnouts of electrical current severely damaged. While using the portable scanner over the arm Tyson reached for the dermal repair scanner and began to focus the energy on his points of damage. “You have a lot of damage to your bio mylar sheath connective tissues.”

"I need a complete workup of your histogenesis anatomy." Tyson reached for the hypospray and then placed it on the side of Cailus's neck. "This is some sedative for your wrist. Man, that is nasty." He shook his head. Tyson watched as the bio dermal repair unit started to work and then complete its skin work after what was 25 minutes and levels of two different scans and corrective procedures.

After some hard work on Cailus’s repair, Tyson took a piece of pink hubba bubba chewing it blowing a few bubbles cracking them. Focused on the device he finished repairs at the cellular level, the pathways of Cailus's wrist of the damaged neurolemma and neuron pathways regenerated.

“Your biomechanical prosthesis will need to be replaced Mr. Cailus. I think you know that.” Tyson turned his computer panel to the Chief to view. “There.” Parker pointed to the damaged pathways and neural connections to his amputated hand and wrist connection. To add to your numbers,” Brookes punched up the data statistics, “that’s a 93.4% degradation level from burnouts you experienced.”

Distracted though he was by Brookes’ bizarre gum, Cailus’ attention was sharpely focused by the new diagnostic reading. It was true that he had been contemplating getting a new hand, and Shae had even encouraged him to do it, but subconsciously, he realised that he had been putting off for months. He raised his right hand to look at it, then realised with bemusement that the thought of its deactivation was...sad. It was bizarre to anthropomorphise something as ordinary as a mechanical prosthetic, but damn it, it really did feel like losing a faithful friend. Without the ingenious little machine, Cailus’ career would’ve been over almost as soon as it had started thanks to that insane Klingon.

Still, there was nothing to be done. He closed his hand into a fist experimentally, but the latency this time was enormous, taking more than a second for the hand to actually do what it was told. Even then the fist wouldn’t tighten properly, no matter how much Cailus willed it. There was no avoiding it. The hand had saved his life for the last time back on Salvaxe, when he had caught that Ravager’s monstrous greatsword.

“Very well, Doctor,” Cailus grumbled, putting his hand back down. “If I must replace my prosthesis, the new hand would need to have a certain level of functionality. Starfleet has very specific requirements for any prosthesis used by a serving line officer.” Then at a passing thought, Cailus raised his eyebrows as a particularly evil thought occurred to him. “I may also require certain...additional...functions.”

“I am not an Engineer. We need the Chief to help design a mechanical blueprint, implement a prototype for a new biologically enhanced prosthesis.” Doctor Brookes punched up the gigaquads worth of designs for a human hand.

Cailus frowned at that, but he forced his resentment down. “I’ll talk to Lieutenant Mindo. He may be able to spare some time.” Hell, he had been trying to be more friendly towards Mindo lately; perhaps this would help mend fences Shae certainly got on with him well (damn, it felt strange to not immediately get angry at thinking that), and she was a good judge of character. Perhaps Mindo would be happy to help, in spite of their considerable enmity. Perhaps.

Returning his attention to the gum-chewing Brookes, Cailus said “Assuming that Lieutenant Mindo can assist me, when will we be able to undertake this proceedure? I will not able to return to duty until then.”

"Thought you would ask that. I am willing any time. I have to get some samples from you for a workup of digital microfluidic channels and markers." He then had Cailus sit his self up and sit his self down at another biobed. This second biobed he had Cailus sit down on allowed Tyson to look directly into the DNA data of Lieutenant JG Griffin's body. The machines and devices of the 24th century astounded Brookes, even more so, being able to work with them.

Patting on the bed, he had Cailus lay his self down. "While your being scanned you may feel drowsy."

Cailus frowned, eyeing the doctor suspiciously. He had no reason to distrust the man, but even so, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. “Why?”

"That's because I need to put you asleep. This sample may be uncomfortable Lt." He looked down atop of Cailus who lay on the second biobed of the Medical Department. Pressing the inoculator interface into the skin of his neck, Griffin was out like a light in less a second.

“Very well, Doctor,” Cailus said irritably, hating his current position. There were only two people in all the galaxy who could make Cailus lie down without complaining, and Brookes sure as heck wasn’t one of them. Even so, Cailus duly closed his eyes and the moment that the cold press of the sedative hit his skim, he was deeply unconscious, the subtle electrical trickery of the inocular interface manipulating his brain into sleep so the sedative could take hold quicker.

"Computer initiate level one scan. Articulate data for algorithm development, polymer sensor bio memetic genesis." He ordered the sick bay computers.

A new biomechanical device for Mr. Griffin would both need to be durable, flexible and lightweight. He would pass on this data to the Engineer and then develop biomarkers, so the device did not reject.

==============
Some time later...
==============

An hour later, the scan was done. Gradually, and with some irritation, Cailus awoke, recognising the haze of anesthesia and hating it. He forced open his eyes and swung his legs to the side of the biobed, waking himself up through sheer force of will. It wasn’t like waking up normally, where Cailus had trained himself to wake up instananeously, nor was it like when the ship went to red alert, where he’d drilled his brain into being out of bed and half dresse before he’d even properly woken up. Hell, by now he’d drilled himself to wake up alongside Shae at a red alert, which had proven a necessity after he had once ripped her leggings by groggily trying to force his legs into them. Waking up like this, however, was much more arduous.

"Adaestron..." Tyson gestured for the medical officer to help sit back down the groggy Cailus on the bio bed.

"Mr. Griffin. Your surgery on your arm is complete." He spoke rather stern and loud. "Sit back down, we can help you relax. We can call anyone you like?"

Cailus just grunted as the doctors helped him into a more stable sitting position, running his right hand over his face before remembering that it was malfunctioning. With the fingers not responding properly to his thoughts, it instead felt like an ice-cold slab of flesh being clumsily slathered over his face.

“I’m fine, Doctor,” he grumbled. “And no, I’ll be quite alright on my own. If you’re done, I’ll be leaving now.”

"Nowhere near done." He became tired and angry. "Sit down on that bed. Right there." He then slapped his medical badge. "Lt. Mindo please report to sickbay, we have a patient who requires some of your assistance if you will so kindly." He communicated.

=/\= On my way, =/\= came Mindo's reply. Within a few minutes, he stepped into sickbay.

"How can I help?" he said.

"Welcome Lieutenant Mindo." He welcomed the Chief.

"Mr. Griffin here." He walked gesturing Mindo to walk with him to the Surgical unit of the bay. "Is need of drastic repair to his current biomechanical prosthesis, or an entirely new one. I can't decide that, I am not an engineer." He shrugged, Tyson rubbing at his forehead having spent hours on the situation, overwhelmed at the complexity and depth it required of the hand. He wanted to get this right, as Mr. Griffin deserved the best that Starfleet had to offer as a serving dedicated officer.

"I need you to help me integrate the neuron pathways and biologic of Lieutenant. Griffins right hand prosthesis."

Mindo looked briefly at the broken hand and nodded, saying, "Only if after this is done you both let me say I had a hand in it."

Cailus rolled his eyes at the pun. He was already having premonitions of the onslaught of punnery that would be fired his way in the coming days. Nyx and Mindo would surely take every opportunity to tease him, as would Owen and Janet, although Cailus took comfort in knowing that Shae would at least be merciful.

“Very well,” he said gruffly to Mindo, “you are welcome to take full credit for your work.” Realising what Mindo’s presence meant, Cailus’ expression softened. “I am appreciative of whatever assistance you can provide in this matter. This doesn’t fall under your normal duties.”

Tyson winced inside bursting into sudden laughter from Mindo. Nothing outward was observed. He held it as hard as he could, his ordinary emotionless doctors professional, ‘I drink coffee face’.

==================
Engineering Labs, Deck 11
==================

Seated at a console, Tyson was checking through the analysis of Cailus's biomechanical prosthesis. The right hand needed a lot of work; they would do their best… Doctor Brookes has done the best he had at provided biomechanical compounds and structures of amended anatomy at the cellular levels.

“Mr. Griffin have you experienced transient hypertension in the past?”

“Yes,” Cailus replied, standing by one of the worktables while Mindo and Brookes did their work. It had been a lengthy couple of days of this, with Brookes or Mindo calling him in every so often to run some new scan or ask a particularly obscure question about his medical record or the prosthesis itself, which had stayed in the engineering lab ever since Cailus had come to Sickbay two days prior. Cailus had been somewhat irritated at having to walk around one-handed for two days straight, having been forced to recuse himself from anything more than paperwork in the meantime, but he still made every effort to be polite and courteous to Mindo and Brookes when they called. Admittedly that required considerably more effort after Cailus had the educational experience of changing Aoife’s nappies with only one hand (a task that took far longer, was far messier and typically resulted in a grumpy Aoife), but such was life.

“Specifically,” he elaborated in what he hoped wasn’t a bored tone, “I had transient hypertension after I was awoken from cryostasis. The Romulan doctor did her best to treat it but as she had no experience with humans and limited equipment, success was limited. The hypertension was only permanently fixed when they transferred us to a Federation ship.”

Tyson looked at Cailus from his seat and nodded. He punched in the data into the mainframe computer, which was creating the unique bioanalytics and feedback loops of nanite technology that would build and act as repair cells. Understanding the prior hypertension, or any future levels would be better for the biomechanical prosthesis to adapt.

"Experience any pins and needles sensations in both hands?"

"Have you experienced vertigo? low blood sugar?"

“No, no and no,” Cailus said with patience, giving Mindo a long-suffering look as he spoke while Brookes was working the computer. He didn’t mind Mindo hearing such detailed information on his medical history, but damn, the poor engineer had to be just as bored as Cailus. “Starfleet regs specify that any such symptoms experienced by a cyborg with my level of synthesis should be reported immediately to a physician. I experience phantom sensations and pain when I detach my hand for routine maintenance, but that is an ordinary symptom for cyborgs like myself that is unrelated to my nervous system, either synthetic or organic.”

Tyson looked at Lieutenant Griffin that he was about to say something, and then paused and turned back to his computer. "Your last cardiovascular run showed an incidence of 3.808% percentile marker for taccacardia arrhythmia." He mumbled under his breath " These questions will help develop your unit. Bear with us please." He grinned to his self.

Mindo minded his own business during all of this. Cybernetic hands were a tricky craft, and Mindo had to admit he only knew a little about them. Fortunately enough, this was just a hand and not some kind of internal organ or any other sensory appliance. He continued quietly, the slightest change causing the same tests every time. It was coming along, but Mindo couldn't wait to get back to the core, where his real talent lay.

“I know, Doctor, thank you,” Cailus replied blandly, fighting the urge to roll his eyes for the umpteenth time. Seeing that Brookes was busy with something else, he sighed and looked to Mindo. Hell, now was as good a time as any. “Lieutenant, can I speak to you privately for a moment? Excuse us Doctor, we’ll be back in two minutes.”

Tyson looked up from his medical workstation. He was annoyed, he was about to ask another series of set of questions, so he could finish this, He excrutiatingly had known of Cailus's feelings of finishing this. He gave a blank stare at the men as they had needed to discuss. "Uh, I guess?"

Mindo and Cailus walked out into the hallway for a moment. Mindo had no clue what Cailus wanted to say, but he was all ears.

Feeling damned awkward, especially when he couldn’t properly cross his arms or stand at ease, Cailus settled for simply standing there. “Mindo, I wanted to inquire about certain...additional functions...for the new prosthetic. Most of them are standard operating proceedure for a Starfleet officer and are officially approved, so I expect that integrating the combat and survival upgrades should be relatively seamless. One, however, is...ah...an idea, that I had. Not for official use. For private use.” He shifted his weight slightly, then sighed, forcing the words out. “Could the prosthesis also be capable of...er...oscilliation?”

"You mean you want it to vibrate?" asked Mindo... and then it dawned on him, what Cailus was saying. "Oh! Er... uh... yeah... yeah, sure, I can do that."

“Don’t tell a soul,” Cailus insisted with his most severe glare. “Not Brookes, not Temple and especially not Shae.”

Mindo looked up at Cailus and said, "Cailus, you owe me big for this. Biiiiiiig."

“Don’t remind me,” Cailus grumbled. “The things I do for...alright, let’s get back in there.”

"My lips are sealed," said Mindo. "Though I now envy you in a way I didn't think possible."

At that, Cailus rolled his eyes once again as the two men returned to Brookes, ready for yet more work to be done. Above the workstation where the doctor worked, an intricate hologram hovered, a virtual representation of the hand that he and Mindo were crafting. It was taking time, but through the combined qualities of Brookes’ medical expertise (with a dash of 20th century out-of-the-box thinking) and Mindo’s engineering aptitude, the prosthesis was really taking shape.