A tale of the Wily Fox

Posted on Mon May 18th, 2020 @ 12:01am by Civilian Resident Akio Itachi (NPC)

3,492 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Meanwhile...
Location: BACKPOST
Timeline: 2397- Deep Space near Romulan Neutral Zone

-Start-

{Akio’s hammock, Supply 3-f Medbay}

Judah watched him sleep, this strange man who had taken him on such a journey. Akio had brought him back from death, and given him new life, the enormity of it was staggering. Judah didn’t experience emotions quite the same, his body was in a vegetative state, and glandular exchanges didn't really occur. There was the memory of emotion, what ones he could still recall.

He didn’t need to be visible anymore, the parameters of the holographic projection totally alterable at his whim. Life continued for him, despite the teams of people who would line up to dissect him and close this freak show down. They had been on the run four years now, Akio breaking himself continually in service to making this work.

As he slept soundly, Judah envied the living for their warmth and sensations of laughter, ecstacy and even simple pain. For all that he was now, life would never be the same. Judah had a plan to change this. Akio had thoroughly burned their bridges, but the research had paid off. Transfer of consciousness to a digital avatar was successfully ongoing, this would change the galaxy.

Checking the security logs, he saw no update to the warrant. Akio was listed under a different name and DNA profile as a Biogenic criminal conducting dangerous research. The only dangerous aspect of this was the Borg technology Judahs cognitive interface was designed to emulate, but the fear of an outlaw Borg pirate researcher kept the hunt alive.

Judah considered all he had learned since the Second Star had come to the starbase. Akio had to have this research known, it was the raison d’etre for him. Under a pseudonym he sent a series of messages over subspace, timed to arrive so that various labs would have the separate components for the exact machine that powered Judah but none would see the link between them as anything other than coincidentally close.

It was a small award for such a sacrifice.

“Thank you, you wonderful crazy man.”

Judah felt sadness, he remembered sadness very well. He enjoyed flawless recall of any memory, even now. As for the time before he awoke, there was only the footage he managed to store and carry with him. The memories a man carries defines them, Judah felt this was what kept him human.

Akio slept, watched over by his ward. Judah, capable of doing ten thousand processes in an instant became lost in reverie...

***Five years ago***

{Stealth ship- “Ryder4” En route to Romulan Neutral Zone}

Akio monitored Judah, eyeing the boys vitals monitoring an unending slumber. He was small, with pale white skin, untouched by natural sun, never to feel wind or rain again. Long black hair, greasy from the miracles of puberty despite an ongoing coma. He lay inside a steel tube, just a small window over the head to see inside. A console showed the livestream of biological data, and there was the battery unit with extra capacitors mounted onto the gurney and powering an anti grav sled.

A simple shuttle crash, coupled with failed inertial dampeners and this boy's life was ended. The lack of fairness to the world was its only symmetry. Judah Capek, age 14, cut down so early in his life, by all accounts a sweet boy and very gifted. Akio didn't believe the brain could survive with consciousness intact, but for several months the family and medical professionals had tried to revive him. The Federation had standards, and lacking certain brain activity, Judah was dead. Clinically alive was perhaps a factor, and yes he registered low levels of activity, but he was dead as a person. Cissy had been the last hold out of the family to say otherwise, so she hired people to save Judahs life.

Their heist had been flawless, an unsuspecting hospital's coma ward was hardly high security. The other half of a generous payment depended on the boy arriving alive, but aside from the cranial trauma this body was able to live on its own. Anyone with half a brain could keep their body going, and Judah wouldn't face any major challenges from the stasis. The hardest part of all of this was knowing he was taking part in such a large crime, much larger than anything he had ever imagined being party to.

Cissy Capek, sibling to Judah Capek, had insisted to the point of pulling a weapon that her brother was still alive. She was a twin, and said she just knew that he was still aware. Her family was in mourning, their son brain dead and lying in a vegatative state. The decision was agonizing but inevitable. Cissy stayed by his side day and night, and said there were signs he was there, but the way the scanners read brain activity didn’t register it as such. A 13 year old with access to wealth, and a prodigy of her own right, Cissy would not let her brother be lost.

Akio had nothing to do, but was paid to stand vigil. If anything happened to the boy there was nobody else to step in. It was also a relief, as the crew were not people one chooses to associate with if there is any choice. Such people used information as weapons to exploit one another, and it was a constant unending game. His acumen got him jobs, but his silence kept him alive.

“Thank you, for caring.” Cissy spoke to Akio from behind him. The large warehouse room of this ship had several entrances, none of them carpeted. He should have heard her. It was easy to underestimate children, but this one was by no means inexperienced. Cissy had grown up over the last two years, and become a woman before her time. She had used a family bodyguard for his connections, plied money, politics, extortion schemes, all to assemble this crew, all to rescue him. She had ordered hard actions, and whether there was blood in her wake or not was up to chance.

Akio turned to see her, she was in faded denim, soot black with grime, and a simple brown crew jacket over a monotone white shirt. She was barefoot, and he understood better how she got so close. She was a young woman at this point, a hard life and choices resulting in a slight frame with tight lines. Cissy looked like a gymnast, but the grace she exuded was not meant for dance.

He was his usual rumpled and disheveled self, always with hair akimbo and collar half raised. The operation had not stopped yet, calm as it was, so he was on day three of his clothes.Their ages were vastly different, yet Akio was waiting to see what she did next. He flattened his hair, and performed a half bow at her presence in greeting.

He gently spoke to her, “Of course. He is my charge, I will see him to the other side of this as we agreed.” She was here for something, but he couldn't imagine what.

Cissy wasn’t here for that answer, it didn't touch her facade. A mask of inscrutability concealed in enigmatic youth made her impossible to read. “He is health… doing well? Have you noticed anything on his cognitive readouts?”

Akio nodded to buy time, and looked over the same readouts as he had for the last few hours. She wanted proof of life, proof he was in there. He considered that with all she had done, that proof wasn't necessary but here they were.

“He is doing well considering, within acceptable margins… but I have not seen any neural activity outside of standard bodily activity. Amygdala and hypothalamus are regulated by lower brain functions just fine, but higher brain functions do not register. I am sorry I couldn’t give you the news you wanted.”

Cissy walked to the stasis tube, no short jaunt in the large dark room. They were the only people, but crates and sundry abounded around them, casting shadows from the computers light source with Judah. She didn't look at Akio but spoke as she placed a hand on the window over his face, “I know. We tried everything. We even had telepathic therapy done, and they said there was a closed off portion of his brain. That's the only answer I have and I’ve attached myself to the idea he is in there. A clinician told us that the brain will do this as it suffers, to separate the nightmare from the dreamer.”

Akio remained silent, she was revealing information freely, so he would let her. His eyes were focusing on the neural interface, adorning the mottled and scarred brow. It was possible scans could miss latent neurological activity if it was confined behind a damaged region. Scarring, improper testing, many reasons could contribute to negative readings.

…” Can I ask you about something?” Cissy brought his attention back to fore. He was no longer so nervous around her.

“Of course, I am not a doctor so I will try to-”

“No, it’s not about Judah specifically, I wanted to,” She hesitated, phrasing was something she needed to get right, being blunt and rude didn't help anyone. She picked up the cognitive master display, “If he was strong enough mentally to move himself into other portions of his brain, rewriting their purpose to sustain his life, would these machines know how to report it?”

He felt a mix of adulation and trepidation. This was a subject matter he had researched intensely, he was very much able to answer her questions, but that led to why she chose him for this mission. She had come here to ask that very question to him. They hadn’t needed to even hire him for the job, but to get him here took all of this guile. So before he answered, he asked, “Did you select me for my experience with cognitive biomechanical research, or for the event that shattered my life and career?”

As formidable as this young girl was, she had not yet had the full range of life's offerings, and the despair in his eyes made her blanche. For her, all of these people were pawns in a larger game she was playing, and this reaction was telling. She had never thought of them as people with feelings who wanted a full life of their own.

Honesty took the least explanation, and it was what she owed him for what she had to ask of him. She looked at him, apologies given in the soft glance, but not accepted in his hard stare.
“I wouldn't have heard of you, but I was looking into anything for him, and your story… it sounded like you had gotten closer than anyone else. I didn’t believe what they said, it was an accident right?”

He would have given his whole career and all of his riches to have someone say that a year ago. His research was all that was left of him. Home and family were burned bridges he never considered even once about rebuilding. Akio chased the dream of digital immortality, of waking up one day in ones body but transferring to a computer, so that the next day the same consciousness wakes up again but in a new form.

He was pensieve, this story a sad one for him, the most tragic of his life.He could keep the answer simple for her young ears, and still convey the depths of what she had so casually brought up.

He spoke plainly, with little emotion. This was not an attempt to elicit sympathy. “Since you can see past the investigation's findings, yes, it was an accident. I was not trying to take my own life as was reported to the court. I tried to make the connection in my machine, to bridge the neural pathways to my computer. I failed.”

She blinked hard, it wasn’t something she could understand, to blithely lay your life on the line to perform an experiment. “So if you didn't mean to, why did they say it?”

His Ex-Wife had told the court he was insane. She ruined his career, out of spite for abandoning her. He only told her, “Character statements. My research was declared illegal, the ban on biogenic technology made it impossible for me to continue. I had nothing, so when they found me as I was, there was no defense.”

Cissy said nothing. She really had no frame of reference for the way life sometimes threw punches, but had the good sense to say nothing. Akio appreciated someone who knew when to be silent.

He answered her question anyway, “You asked, if it could be that we do not detect him, but he is aware? It is possible. He was given a standard course of care for his condition, no results, and even your telepathic arousal therapy yielded only a phantom. He has been in stasis ever since, to arrest decay of bodily tissues, so that would conceal brain activity potentially. How is it you are so certain he is aware?”

Her hand was still on the panel over Judahs head, “I don’t, but I feel… look you can see what I do. His cognitive readouts show an uptick in the Gamma band, 39.24 up to 39.77, and it is for sure only when I am close to him.”

Akio looked, sure enough, a slight uptick in brain activity had been registered only moments ago as Cissy walked over. It was negligible, a rounding error or possible misread, but there was something he could work with. Judah was human, Zener scores likely wouldn't be high enough to account for this. Biological twins did have an unusual level of syncopy, but the curious portions of his brain had begun to hypothesize.

Akio finally spoke, “I can see this, and if we can repeat the effect, I would agree with you.”

Cissy had been told “No!” so many times before, she had already written off Akio as another dead end. His affirmative was pure music to her ears.

She was breathless in exctiement and anticipation, the femme fatale veneer had dropped. “Akio? You don’t mean… You think he is alive?”

“It remains to be seen how our experiments will work out, but it is possible.” Her jubilation was infectious, and Akio wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear, so he resolved to compromise the truth. He felt a problem arising though, there had been an odd smell to this from the beginning

Cissy had wide eyes, hope renewed for her. “I have a clinic with a bed waiting for Judah, if you can come up with something for them when we get there I want to try the moment we get there.”
Akio had to ask her, “How are you keeping this a secret, a clinic is waiting?”

Cissy let her smile drop, she didn’t appreciate the tone. “Jadzin pledged to keep us both alive, he is helping me but I am not a fool. I’ve covered my tracks, and my father is on my side.”

There it was, he had been looking for naivete. He gently asked knowing the implications of what he said, “Your father? How is he on your side, he is helping you?

“No, it’s not like that. I thought my credit account would be suspended but he put a message for me, said “just stay safe.’ I’ve had Jadzin handle the money to make sure our tracks are covered, so you can wipe that look off your face Akio!”

She said this so simply, but it was a wall of rushing water to his ears. Trusting he was no longer so small in her esteem, Akio dared to offer advice. “Lady Capek, … they are probably already waiting for you at this clinic.”

“Who?”

“Federation Marshalls…”

Cissy’s eyes flashed, she was angry at the presumptive tone. “I told you, I had my bodyguard make the arrangements-”

Akio had lived this life too long, and now realized he wasn't going to be paid in full. “Hush! You were going to do something rash, your family knew it. Euthanizing your brother would only cause further acrimony. Your bodyguard works for your father to keep you safe. I will promise you, he is only helping you to keep you safe and guide you back into your family’s embrace.”

“Jadzin would never lie to me!” Cissy showed her age in a small tantrum.

Akio firmly spoke over her, “Has he made all the arrangements? Hired the crew here? Arranged the ship? How did we so effortlessly perform a high risk operation? You are being allowed to do this to satisfy your-”

“Enough! Shut up!” Cissy had a tear in her eye, but was too mad to care. She continued, “I saved my brother, they were going to remove the machines and I had no time-”

Akio knew the story, he had done his research on her, and now he had been caught up in it. “You threatened Medical staff with a phaser, and spent a week in detention. Your family knew you would try again, and so long as he was alive you would keep trying to save him. You probably made your first mistake using a comm that was monitored, and everything past that was a controlled environment.”

Cissy was listening, the pieces of the puzzle revealing themselves as lies. She had been allowed to do this. She wasn’t as angry at Akio, he was only a messenger but still needed answers. She looked to Akio, “But… why?”

He wanted to be furious about the way he had been used, but the defeated little girl in front of him compelled him to rise to the occasion. “Cissy, you had to see for yourself. If this is what it takes for you to process the loss of your brother, then your family is clearly willing to indulge you.”

“I have people waiting, who said they could… It’s all a lie isn’t it?”

Akio bit his tongue from more caustic replies, “Yes it appears so. The crew are low rent workers, like myself. This clinic will just send Judah back to your father most likely and tell you there was nothing they could do.”

Cissy had stopped crying, still mad, but no longer out of her wits. The cold part of her intellect had grown quite a bit, false caper or no, she had tasted the results of setting her own path.
“So then, tell me how you really think, is my brother in there, can we find out?”

The half pay he had received was all he would get out of this. Stealing a body from a hospital was nothing they’d send Starfleet over, but anyone involved here would be arrested and face some kind of charges. Akio wanted to run, he would lay low and outlive the interest in any warrants to his name, but Cissy was so damned honest about her love for her brother.

Losing a family had made Akio sensitive to the love he was missing. He had lost everything, but now a chance at fulfilling his life's work had been presented. With a spiritual weight lifted, he decided that moment not to run. He would help her, actually do what she asked. Judah was already dead, she was a willing accomplice. Legalities aside, his path was becoming clear.

“Cissy, we will need to make a new plan, just you and me. No telling who else on the crew works for your father. We will need to leave the Federation, and it will take a long time to come back. But yes, I think there is something I can do.”

Too many sad stories and revelations had just occurred for her to celebrate anything.
She did smile and tell Akio, “You’re the first person to actually help us then Akio.”

Akio returned the smile, “You know, the name I was born with, is not, Akio Itachi… my people from Earth have legends, among them stories of clever spirits and devious tricksters. I chose my name as a clever fox, for I have eluded my pursuers through speed, guile, and a big bushy tail.”

He pulled at his unkempt beard, making a silly face. Cissy was a child still, and couldn’t help but giggle at his antics.

“So… Cissy. We are a company, just the three of us here.” Cissy worshipped him at that instant, he had included Judah, referring to him as though he were an equal partner. She stared at him in new appreciation for his abilities, eager for his next words.

Akio lowered his voice, “Jadzin will be a problem. I have a plan, but we must be very careful with it…”

To be continued...

-Austen

 

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