ILLUMINARRPG: (7-1545) Kyllee Stev

[Al Muir]

Mission: Exogenesis

Day: 7

Stardate: 2446.06.07


(USS Iluminar - Deck 5 - Sickbay - MO -  Dr. Kyllee Stev - 1545)


The notification that the cause of this was nanites was a great weight of Stev’s shoulders. But they were only part of the way there. The solution was the hard part. He went back to the diagnostics of Tavay. She was now completely paralyzed. He was concerned because the next move of the infection was attack her involuntary muscles. That would create a cessation of abdominal activity, breathing and even her heart.


He went back to the computer model and put in the new data. Slowly but surely he could see the build up of the nano virus. Technically they were nanobots, or nanites. However they still acted like a virus. And it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate.


He looked at his own scans and could see, if that was even the correct term any more, the build up of the mass behind his eyes on his lower frontal lobe, putting pressure against his optic schiasma. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to see anything, or how long before the pain was going to drive him mad.


“Damn it!” he cried out, throwing his tricorder against the wall, and hearing the satisfactory splintering of the device. He was not able to see it since the action was now out of his visual range.


He heard someone come and he yelled at whoever it was, “Don’t disturb me. I’m thinking, damn it. Have you never seen a man think.”


The door closed with a his and he took a deep breath. He sat back at the computer terminal and moved his hand around until he turned the recording on.


“Okay,” he said more calmly, “Treat it like a virus, Stev. What would you do? Come on back to Microbiology. How does it all work.”  He was finding that talking to himself talk helped. He imagined he was explaining it to the unconscious Tavay.


“You see, my dear Tavay,” he said looking in her direction, “a virus attaches itself to your cells and replicates using the materials that it needs from your body. What does this little bugger need. Apparently Bohb is saying copper. Bad for you sweetie.”


He faced the computer again. “Computer, run an analysis on copper levels in Tavay’s body from the last 24 hours of blood tests.”


[Working.]


He sat and rubbed his eyes. It would have been an easy thing to miss. The concentration of copper in the body is so small. 50 to 120 milligrams in the entire body. Something so little has such a devastating effect.


[Analysis complete. Ensign Tavay has a consistently depleting supply of copper in her system. Current level of copper is 15 milligrams.]


Stev sat back. “We’ll isn’t that a kick in the … butt.”  He filtered his language knowing the computer would not understand. “How can we prevent the nano virus from consuming our bodies’ copper supply?”


[The best known method of defeating a virus is the employment of an antivirus.]


“Does such a serum exist?” he asked hopefully.


[Negative.]


“I knew that was going to be too easy,” he told Tavay. “Apparently Sekal has identified, and I assume singled out a nanite. Can we modify that to turn against itself?”


[Unknown.]


“Should have figured that one out,” he said. “Well, if Sekal can single out the nanite so can we.”


He stood up and bumped into the table with his shin.


“Ow!” he cried. “Damn it.” Then he hobbled over to the probe form of Tavay. “Okay, let’s draw a sample of blood and see if we can’t get the same results.”


As the auto doc began to draw blood from Tavay Stev tapped his comm badge.


“Kyllee to Solice, I have an idea, but I’ll need some help.”


(reply Solice)

(posted by Al Muir)

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