Warning! The Sturgeon General has determined Meneks' Star Traks: BorgSpace is deviant, and meant for entertainment purposes only. No comment was offered about the original Star Traks by A. Decker, nor Paramount's Star Trek and its spin-offs.
Please State the Nature of the Medical Emergency
{Regeneration cycle complete. Time index, current repair docket, and log of prior four hours follows.} The computer's string of trinary sounded as a neuter tone, followed by a scrolling list of data. Doctor, head of the drone maintenance hierarchy, wrinkled his nose as he absorbed the docket, noting a sudden surge in minor injuries and malfunctions - the Borg equivalent of skinned knees and bruised elbows - among the weaponry hierarchy. Eye still closed and optical implant darkened, Doctor shuffled assignments to cover the upswing, followed by a quick examination of inventory to make sure all necessary replacement parts were readily available.
Naughty boys and girls. Naughty, naughty, naughty. The others would go playing their games, then come whimpering to him when the inevitable happened and someone's implant was radically dislocated. And then they would /ignore/ his well-placed criticisms, often responding with snappy backtalk. Was it any wonder he preferred non-sentients? At the very least, animals didn't argue with the vet about treatment and check-up options.
The sound of a single pair of running feet echoed along the catwalk. Doctor blinked to optical awareness and stepped from his alcove, peering through the dim lighting to locate the source of the noise. An unknown humanoid form skidded around a corner, eyes wide with fright. The torn remains of a uniform hung on the tall frame. It seemed to have no awareness of the Borg standing in its path. Before Doctor could respond, the apparition collided with him...and kept on going. Collided was too strong a word; the creature, now identified as species #218, Talaxian, simply passed through like a ghost, never reacting to Doctor's presence.
Three sets of measured pacing, hurried, pounded from the direction the being had been fleeing. A trio of drones from the weaponry hierarchy appeared. They neared, then stopped as a shriek of dismay rose from the far end of the walkway, cutting abruptly in mid-note.
"Got him!" exclaimed 299 of 300, bouncing excitedly in a definite hyper and unBorglike manner.
Doctor, still shocked, was quickly scanning the entire sub-collective log for the prior four hours of his regeneration cycle. No hint of trouble was mentioned beyond typical maintenance concerns; and definitely no sign of an invasion by phantom Talaxians. Excited voices were flying around the dataspaces, accompanied by full-sensation memory files. Weapons was at the heart of the chaos.
{Scenario complete!} announced Weapons as Doctor listened, dipping into the weapon hierarchy links. {Next modified BorgCraft game initialized, customized scenario function engaged. What parameters shall be inputted?} A rising tide of clamoring voices was the answer as Doctor dropped out of the intranet link.
The three drones had not left, and by appearances were heavily immersed in the intranet to the point of external oblivion. None of the trio moved, locked into standing position while their minds surfed the dataspaces. Doctor frowned, clicked his incisors twice in indecision, then finally shunted code to 299 of 300, forcefully returning her to exterior awareness.
299 of 300 gave a warbling sigh crossed with a whine, "Doctor! I was busy helping determine the next BorgCraft scenario. Can't this wait a few minutes?" The other two drones continued to ignore outside input.
"Don't whine girl. Whining isn't good for grown puppy-girls. BorgCraft is known...it is that battle game..."
"Preparatory assimilation and invasion scenarios. It isn't a game," interrupted 299 of 300.
"Whatever. Anyway, it is the 'preparatory scenarios' your hierarchy uses as mental drill, and to keep busy when the rest of the cube is melting with boredom. How is BorgCraft, a wholly dataspace application, and the sudden appearance of hologram invaders related?" Doctor came right to the point.
299 of 300 hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, looking like she would rather sink back into the net. Finally she answered sheepishly, "Well, our hierarchy received permission to install holoprojectors for purely tactical reasons; concurrently we modified BorgCraft to take advantage of the modifications. It will raise our efficiency, even the Greater Consciousness agreed." Actually, the Collective only agreed after Captain had begun uploading a list tetrabytes in length detailing the cons of a bored weaponry crew, most of which ended with the scenario of Cube #347 and the quantum slip-stream prototype /never/ arriving at the final destination in BorgSpace. 299 of 300 did not volunteer that information.
"Holoprojectors? How many holoprojectors? And how often will the weapon hierarchy be using it?" Doctor did not wait for the reply, delving into ship schematics himself. The number of projectors was staggering, covering a great majority of the cube. One of the auxiliary cores and a large portion of hardware-based computing brawn would be needed if the entire system was ever active at once.
"Um..." 299 of 300 could see Doctor already knew the answers to the first two questions. "Well, we'll be using it as much as possible. Whoops, the scenario has been initiated, I must return to my starting area." 299 of 300 and her two comrades transported elsewhere.
"Great," darkly muttered Doctor. "Just great."
Dismissing the new toy of the weapon hierarchy as irrelevant, Doctor began his between-regeneration routine. For the next several hours he physically inspected each maintenance bay, making sure actual inventory matched compiled lists. Several pieces of equipment was discovered missing in Maintenance Bay #1, which would require an arduous task of tracking down the culprits. Doctor shelved that particular assignment in favor of examining the docket, checking for need of additional bodies in repairing boo-boos. No such luck.
Doctor transported himself to the Maintenance Bay #15, the final stop in the inventory. This particular bay was darker than normal, lights dimmed almost to the point of nonexistence. In the distance, one could hear the deep, subsonic hum of a transwarp engine array buried beneath the hull surface, vibrating the local superstructure. Maintenance Bay #15 was not currently in use...had not been in use for over eight years.
The reason of the apparent abandonment was two-fold. One, the sheer redundancy of any cube, including Cube #347, allowed for sections to lie dormant. Two, Doctor, both as hierarchy head and as average drone, had carefully inserted commands in the root code of the sub-consciousness to avoid this particular bay. In effect, Maintenance Bay #15 existed as a "ghost".
Well, it usually worked. Doctor looked around, noting the signs weapon hierarchy, in their zest to install holoprojectors everywhere conceivable, had made in the bay to add it to the holonetwork. Fortunately, the bulkhead Doctor focused his attention on was still intact.
Eight years Doctor had hidden this particular pet; eight years he had tended it and watched it grow. He was not going to allow inadvertent discovery by overeager members of Weapons' mob to destroy so much work. A large panel of the bulkhead was removed, allowing a bright light to shine forth. Within the interstitial space, nearly a room in itself, rooted in dark soil and laced through a two meter tall trellis, quietly twisted Thorny.
Thorny was a bloodvine, a planet originally from a planetary outpost of species #4128. Cube #347 had participated with inventory tasks of the outpost eight years ago, at which time Doctor, who had simply been another member of the drone maintenance hierarchy and not expected to be head for another eleven assignments, had found the seedling in an abandoned agricultural shop. Such a helpless plant, it had wiggled in seeming fear when Doctor's shadow had passed over the seedling among the shards of its broken pot.
Bloodvines in many ways were more akin to animals than plants, for all that they were chlorophyll bearing, had flowers in the appropriate season, and were usually rooted. A sensory system based on airborne chemicals - a sense of smell - was highly developed, allowing a wild bloodvine to find its normal source of fertilizer, an animal carcass. However, dying animals worked just as well if they were unable to escape.
Large plants could move at speeds up to 0.5 meters per second, which translated to nearly two kilometers per hour; therefore, bloodvines were much fleeter than the average vegetable...and faster than several local animal clades as well. The whole plant moved, ambling along like a tentacled snake, using its mobile roots and vines to pull itself along. A symbiotic bacteria was the key to mobility, entrenched in specific cells of the plant as firmly as a terrestrial mitochondria, acting as nerve analogues. When the carcass was reached, the bloodvine would firmly root itself, a vital component of the natural decomposition cycle.
Certain species of bloodvines had moved beyond the scavenger mode of life, actively ambushing prey. Weeks, even months, might pass as the plant sedately waited with vegetable patience, quietly photosynthesizing. Then an animal passed within reach. Specialized vines descended, impaling prey in a twining, thorned lattice of death.
Thorny was a domesticated bloodvine, bred to be a vermin catcher in the species #4182 equivalent of wheat fields. It was much more deadly than its wild relatives.
After eight years of cube-side life, fed an excellent blend of nutrients, basking under the glow of a finely tuned gro-light, Thorny was larger than any but the most ancient (fifty years plus) of its species. Its glossy green leaves were laced with silver veins, and the central vines were distinctly mottled gray in appearance. The inevitable nanites which Doctor compulsively spread to all his "pet projects" had affected Thorny. In encountering a wholly unique environment, the nanoprobes had subtly mutated, doing their instinctive best to assimilate a fundamentally brainless vegetable.
Thorny did not care; Thorny could not care, had not the neural awareness to care. All Thorny knew was that it had all its requirements met in a type of vegetable nirvana. Often a presence triggered an ambush instinct, but the creature was not susceptible to attack. If anything, its harmonics and rumbles were pleasant, conducive to growth.
Doctor quietly clicked his teeth in pleasure, a habit not quite suppressed by assimilation. Several of Thorny's main vines had grown one hundred centimeters since its last examination; and it would require a new pot soon. Unfortunately, the next pot would need to be larger than the current version's diameter of one meter, which would necessitate a rebuilding of the interstitial space.
"Its okay, little Thorny. Doctor will get ums a new pot, but the wittle plant may need to wait a few months," crooned Doctor. The plant rustled its leaves slightly, an odd occurrence to those not familiar with bloodvines, considering no wind was present. A hand was reached out to stroke the base of a vine which was untwining itself from the trellis. "Yes Thorny, uncle Doctor will get you a new pot. Maybe something in tan with cream trim?" The vine wrapped itself around Doctor's arm, driving thorns into the sparse regions of unarmored flesh.
A laugh. "Now, now, Thorny. Be a good plant. That's right." Doctor unwound the vine, carefully placing it back in its original place. The inflicted wounds were already disappearing. "I hear nasty sounds of hologram hunting; perhaps it would be best if you were hidden again. Wouldn't want tales getting back to Delta now, would we?" Doctor's voice turned dark. "Yes, she would be screaming about axes or machetes and other awful things. Not that you have ever done anything to her precious systems."
Thorny did not give comment: it /was/ a voiceless vegetable, after all. Leaves rustled again as the wall panel was replaced. By the time weapon drones came charging through the bay in pursuit of an escaping contingent of tech-snatching Starfleet personnel, Doctor was gone and there was no sign of Thorny's existence.
*****
Decaying blue on black, with the hint of a former brilliance which at one point outshone all local stars. Young civilizations in a century, or a millennium, would point at the heavenly omen, declaring godly favor...or demon's blight; Cube #347 simply registered a fading spatial anomaly on the edge of long-range sensors with typical dry dullness.
Classification of the anomaly began, cataloguing class, assigning a hazard factor. Conclusion: the remains would be completely evaporated in a solar year, presenting no future peril to cube movement. The hop from warp factor one back to high transwarp was to be initiated when chance afforded a deeper view into the heart of the anomaly...and the sight of an unexpected object.
Curiosity, combined with command, sent Cube #347 closer, covering intervening real space at impulse. First the object simply registered as metallic, of obvious sentient manufacture, composed of alloys common to space-faring races. Sensors resolved hull silhouette, and finally a registration which was blazed across the upper bow area: "Fiji", followed by a unique string of Federation alphanumerics. A follow-up analysis of the region detected no danger to cube structure, therefore the sub-collective crawled ever nearer, halting only a kilometer from the unresponsive ship. Federation scout ship Fiji was known from records assimilated during previous Borg excursions into Terran held territory; and although it was not a ship type capable of offering even the slightest resistance to Cube #347, the sub-collective nonetheless cautiously probed the quiet vessel's status.
No biosignatures; power systems essentially nonexistent; one nacelle sheered off at the hull and scars from rough handling liberally streaked along the starboard side - Fiji was a ghost ship....dead. The story of its passage from Alpha quadrant to Beta would be an epic tale to those historians so inclined, but the Borg were not interested. Fiji was an opportunity to be exploited, nothing more: data absorbed, materials gained.
Fifty-three drones drawn from the hierarchies of weapons, assimilation, and command and control beamed onto Fiji. Signs of hurried, yet orderly, evacuation could be seen: decayed food products on trays in the mess hall, clothes scattered in quarters, absence of escape pods. Downloaded logs confirmed a slow-moving spatial anomaly under study unpredictably capturing the Fiji, allowing time to escape, but not enough time to extract the ship.
Cutting beams lanced out from Cube #347, beginning the process of carving up the carcass to salvage useable materials. Inside, engineering drones materialized among the previous crews, and all worked scavenging. Wires, blocks and barrels of organics, equipment, slowly Fiji was dismantled in a process not entirely unlike the relenting progress of tropical army ants.
A problem arises. A member of weapon hierarchy is discovered to be downloading entertainment data, holographic files belonging to the Fiji hologrid to be exact. One small part of the greater sub-collective protests, two hundred fifty minds designated subunit #522, declaring the information irrelevant and a waste of storage space. Argument and dissent noticeably affect the on-going salvage effort, most evident as the cutting beam wavers off track, slicing deeply into the small saucer section, explosively decompressing decks two and three. A mess is the consequence, and the ire of the drones working in the affected sections.
Subunit #522 eventually loses the argument. To protest the decision, it enables its physical firewalls, spliting its consciousness from the other minds and readying itself for internal contemplation of all the ways the sub-collective of Cube #347 is less than perfect.
Finally nothing is left of Federation scout ship Fiji beyond a few spare tools and free-floating flotsam; all salvage has been carefully stowed in cargo bays, or put to immediate use. Task completed, Cube #347 disappears into transwarp.
*****
At first, Doctor was merely puzzled. Drones began to complain of premature tiredness of the type which demanded regeneration. The simple symptom quickly became an epidemic; however, nothing appeared to be wrong, and Doctor himself was not experiencing similar problems. Then, unexpectedly, the epidemic took a turn for the worse.
Subunit #522, presence absent since the Fiji episode, contacted Doctor first, a note of panic in the mental signature.
{We do not know what to do. Functions have begun to deviate widely from expected parameters. Query: shall this subunit terminate its existence?}
Termination? The request stopped Doctor in his tracks. Only the most serious of problems demanded termination of useful drones.
{Describe nature of problem,} demanded Doctor. The response came in form of detailed displays of body schematics: members of subunit #522 were experiencing widescale rejection of implants. {You will send the ten members most seriously affected to Maintenance Bay #4 immediately.}
Subunit #522 complied.
The root of the problem quickly became evident: nanoprobes within the body were spontaneously denaturing...all of them. Nanites not only functioned as an artificial immune system, but were also the bridge between mechanical and organic, forming the whole cybernetic being. Penetration of specific individual, often delicate, cells by molecular wires without the former dying in vast quantities was province of nanites. The miniature machines were the primary link between micro- and macroscopic, continually repairing implant interfaces as they underwent the normal process of breakdown in the harsh environment of a living body. Without nanites both suppressing the body's subdued immune system and maintaining proper implant interface, rejection was the consequence.
Injections of new nanoprobes had little effect; denaturing of otherwise healthy nanites fresh from the regeneration system or bulk vats of Assimilation did no good. Experimentation with subunit #522 showed a continual regeneration in alcoves retarded rejection, but implants continued to malfunction to the point of necessary removal. Doctor initiated a program by his hierarchy to systematically operate on all members of subunit #522.
Then, as things couldn't seem to get worse, the figurative fecal matter squarely hit the rapidly oscillating blades.
{Doctor? I need to speak to you. Now.}
{Yes, Captain?} Doctor was busily wielding laser scalpel and microfilament cutters, delicately removing part of an artificial limb assembly from 1789 of 12225, member of subunit #522. A question by one of Doctor's underdrones working at another bench led to dismissal as 72 of 152 admitted to faltering on the edge of needing regeneration. Doctor requested assistance from Assimilation to borrow a few additional bodies. {Captain?} There was no response.
Doctor shrugged and was about to continue with surgery on 1789 of 12225 when Cube #347 began to shake violently. The ship had abruptly dropped out of transwarp, straining inertial dampers; superstructure groaned alarmingly. The computer relayed a warning.
{Emergency: loss of active directives to drive functions via primary node pathway of current assigned facilitator, designation 4 of 8. Automatic return to real velocities; automatic re-establishment of drive functions with secondary node pathway of alternate facilitator, designation 3 of 8.} Translation: the part of the computer interfacing directly with the engines had lost contact with the driver, i.e. Captain, and in response had stomped on the brakes long enough for Second to take the wheel.
Doctor immediately initiated a location trace on Captain, pinpointing the latter in the nodal intersection he normally frequented when not in his alcove. A bench opened up as a member of subunit #522 completed its surgery, allowing Doctor to beam Captain to the maintenance bay.
{What the hell happened?} queried Second. Like all drones except Doctor, he had been experiencing fatigue, and had been in the middle of an increasingly frequent regeneration cycle. Jolted from his nap, there were many other, less polite, phrases Second was rapidly recalling, especially as engineering (and the sub-collective in general) demanded to know the cause of the problem.
Doctor replied, {Stand by.} Thirty seconds of scanning Captain's body confirmed implant rejection and extreme system fatigue. Apparently Captain had been ignoring automatic warnings of stasis lock, pushing himself beyond the limit his body could withstand. The consequence had been the acceleration of implant rejection until body systems had suspended in self-protection, snapping awareness back to a fundamentally unconscious body; thus the primary link with cruise control functions, however autonomic, had been severed.
{Doctor,} asked Second, {what is the malfuntion? And how long will it take to fix Captain so that he can get back to dealing with this circus?}
Doctor huffed in annoyance, wrinkling his muzzle. {Captain broke himself like an overused chew-chew toy. I will patch him enough to interact with the sub-collective. Unfortunately, high probability all in this cube is going to end up like Captain.} Doctor relayed a synopsis of the many malfunctions.
Second's answer was extracted from the very eloquently vulgar language of species #646, a ritualistic idiom conveying the absolute certainty that one's self and family were seriously f***ed.
After an hour of intense effort, on top of coordinating an increasing deluge of drones frantically reporting implant malfunctions which were the prelude to rejection, Doctor repaired Captain enough to allow the latter to regain awareness.
{Wake up, boy...wake upsy.}
Captain's organic eye slowly showed a recovering consciousness as it opened. The focus point was approximately half a meter behind Doctor's head as he leaned over the workbench. Concurrently, Captain's weary mental signature returned to the dataspaces. "What happened?" came the whisper.
"Nanite malfunction," began Doctor as he uploaded directly to Captain's personal files all information pertaining to the mysterious epidemic. "Your ignoring general orders to spend as much time in regeneration precipitated an advancement of the malfunction until your body shut down automatically. Your coded instincts of hardware preservation were more intelligent than the brainware.
"Several implants have been removed, none vital. Although I have flushed your system with fresh nanoprobes, they are already denaturing and few of the necessary molecular and cellular level repairs will be accomplished before the rejection process begins anew. You /will/ follow your vet's orders and return to your alcove and enter continuous regeneration."
Captain frowned, squinting as he finally found the correct focus to resolve Doctor. The ocular assembly obscuring one eyesocket was obviously being troublesome. "Continuous regeneration would require entering long-term stasis, which in turn would dim all mental activity to minimum. I can't allow that; I hate it, but it is my responsibility as consensus monitor and facilitator to this sub-collective...." The words faded out as synthetic vocal cords took that moment to malfunction.
"You will comply with me, you bad kitty-boy. The whole sub-collective is going to come down with this problem, including my own hierarchy, like a nasty case of worms. The Greater Consciousness is not fundamentally aware of our dilemma yet, primarily because subunit #522 is itself in long-term stasis; therefore we have no order to terminate.
"I appear to be unaffected; my nanites are remaining whole and functioning at top efficiency. Soon I will be the only one capable of actively removing rejected implants. Projected casualty percentage if Cube #347 does not enter general long-term stasis is 99.975%, with the final .025% alive being myself. Mortality in stasis is much lower, depending on a wide variety of conditions, primary factor being time to devising a cure." Doctor glared down at Captain, daring the other to dispute the statement, delivered in a stinging tone as one might chide a not-quite-housebroken animal which has left a small deposit on the kitchen floor.
Captain passively looked up, not bothering to expend the effort to focus on the head of the drone maintenance hierarchy. There were many discussions, several arguments, and much weighing of consequences in the intranets. Doctor had presented the cold facts, and did nothing to add to the consolidating consensus, did not need to.
A flexing of mouth, a clearing of throat, Captain finally responded, "I...we will comply."
Five days Doctor endured loneliness, the knowledge that while his comrades were physically present, only those mentalities whom were undergoing surgery were aware. Thorny was a comfort, but in the end was only a plant; it moved, it displayed "love" of a vegetable type, but could not begin to hold up the end of a conversation. During wake periods, Doctor processed a never-ending assembly line of drones requiring the removal of potentially troublesome rejected implants, while during regeneration slipped among the quiescent dataspaces, digging at archives in an effort to determine the error.
Cube #347 plied the transwarp corridors on autopilot, the computer taking over all navigational duties. Parameters had been specified to avoid all potential problems. The primarily trouble would be spatial anomalies as civilizations normally did not reach transwarp (or beyond) without attracting the fatal interests of the Collective. No signs of transwarp had ever been detected in the present galactic grid coordinates.
Doctor was weary, but not because of denatured nanoprobes. Too much work, too little communication with others, was taking its toll; Doctor could feel his grip on the Borg equivalent of sanity, even as loosely defined by Cube #347, beginning to slip.
Standing by a workbench, between surgeries as he searched through continually updated reports on the system health of over four thousand drones for the member with the highest priority, Doctor's glazed gaze ran over a piece of new-looking hardware located in the upper corner of the maintenance bay. He blinked once as the computer automatically returned his query, labeling the unit as one of the projectors of Weapon's holo battle system.
An idea floated deep in Doctor's mind, or perhaps it was the dreaming thought of a crewmember (or several) in the driftless oblivion of long-term stasis. The deep subconscious of all the drones were linked, even as Doctor was awake and all else were asleep, all reacting on a fundamental level to the perceptions and experiences of every connected mentality. The origin of the thought was not relevant; the outcome was.
"Holoprojector," mused Doctor outloud. 'Holoprojector' echoed in the nearly empty dataspaces, bouncing off the ghost signatures of drones on the edge of awareness. "Holoprojector," repeated Doctor to himself. The idea took root and flowered.
Clicking his teeth excitedly together, Doctor had a flash of original inspiration, a very rare occurrence among a civilization which relied upon other species to supply assimilated ingenuity. {Computer, activate holoprojector system in Maintenance Bay #5. Display member of species #218.}
A Talaxian in the colorful uniform of its navy shimmered into creation. Spots, hedgehog hair, yellow eyes, the Talaxian stereotyped its species. Doctor nodded with pleasure.
{Computer, link Talaxian algorithms to drone maintenance databases and set program to be compliant to my commands.} The computer sent acknowledgment of the demand as it was completed.
Doctor roughly awoke 93 of 300 from her stasis, beaming her to a workbench in the bay. Weak protests at the treatment were ignored as Doctor focused on the species #218 archetype. "You will remove malfunctioning implants from 93 of 300. Do you understand?"
The Talaxian blinked, then turned mechanically to regard the prone drone. "I understand. I will comply." Doctor nodded as the hologram picked up a scalpel and began to cut with exacting precision.
As Doctor began to activate as many holograms as possible, it became swiftly apparent the computer system would project only one archetype at a time. Each basic algorithm could not be mass duplicated; the origin of the problem was linked to a software bug of Weapon's accidental devising. Still, the weapon hierarchy's modified BorgCraft files held dozens of species profiles.
Fifty-one holograms populated a total of three maintenance bays, allowing twenty-five workbenches to be in use at any one time. Unfortunately, while it was an improvement over one bench, twenty-five slots for four thousand plus drones in a state of continual body system decay was barely a drop in the bucket. Doctor took an hour to automate the selection of priority cases, then turned his attention to the holo-entertainment files taken from the Federation starship Fiji. Several dozen additional character algorithms could be sensed.
Doctor wearily combed the Starfleet holographic database, searching for another suitable template. All base character types were active. However, an overlooked software bridge from the medical records sent tendrils of code into the active database, accessing the basic humanoid form metatemplate. Tracing the bridge to its origin, Doctor stumbled upon an immensely complicated series of algorithms. There was no time to closely examine all the permutations of what was another needed holographic body. Doctor activated the character's matrix.
"Please state the nature of the medical emer...gen...cy...." The bald human in Federation uniform which shimmered into view stumbled over the last word, head craning around in confusion. It, he, did not seem to notice Doctor as he turned in a slow circle, goggling at the sights in the empty maintenance bay. The tall image's face was on the down side of middle-age in appearance. "This is not my ship. This is not the Fiji's sick bay. I demand...." The angry words abruptly trailed into inaudibility as the EMH program focused on Doctor. "A Borg?"
Doctor swiftly patched the EMH code as per the prior holodeck humanoid templates, splicing access to the necessary Borg maintenance databases and rendering the awareness of the program to the minimum necessary for it to function effectively. The sheer bulk of the software driving the EMH was unusual, reacting oddly as the patch took up residence; the physical aspect of the federation doctor fuzzed twice before stabilizing. No matter - a program was a program was a program.
"You are now relocated to Maintenance Bay #6. Begin your duties when you arrive." Doctor sent the hologram to the appropriate bay, materializing it among the others.
All possible emergency measures were in effect. Doctor was body weary; he ran a status check on himself, mentally shuddering as he absorbed his diagnostic. He was less than thirty minutes from stasis lock, and the only cure was regeneration. Acknowledging the reality of the situation, Doctor transported himself back to his alcove, stepping back and up, feeling the clamps steady his body.
{Computer, set regeneration cycle for three hours.}
{Warning: condition of body of drone designated 27 of 27 requires six hours regeneration for maximum effectiveness,} chirped the computer system.
{Override! Bad computer...I don't have time for your silly tricks. Regeneration cycle set at three hours; and release nutrients to Thorny as well.}
{Compliance.}
Doctor felt the regeneration cycle take effect. Abandoning the constricting boundaries of his body, he let his awareness flow more fully into the intranet. Research. The answer had to be somewhere.
*****
Do computers dream of electric sheep? What does a holographic program think, if anything, between bouts of required activity? Is all an oblivious darkness; or is there a superficial awareness, a dimly perceived "outside" of the host computer system reacting to its environment?
The EMH program, Mark I series, of the Federation scout ship Fiji had been christened "Frank" by the crew. The reason behind the name, as opposed to the generic "Doctor" label, was the uncanny resemblance of the EMH creator to the Fiji captain's older brother. A quick shave of the head and eye tinting, and the original Frank was a near twin to Dr. Zimmerman.
Frank, the EMH program, only had occasional memories of his pseudo-life aboard Fiji. Besides initial activation and performing solitary duty shifts when the Fiji's medical staff skipped work in favor of the holodeck, the scout ship had been an uneventful place. The bulk of Frank's time was spent floating in a surreal existence of a palatable nothingness, a comforting status of eager anticipation to be called upon to perform his designed function. Assigning emotions to what was ultimately lines of software code, personifying ones and zeros, did not give a truly accurate view, but it was suffice to say that no sheep, electric or otherwise, were in evidence.
Activation aboard a Borg vessel came as a shock to Frank. The final memory sequence from Fiji was an order to abandon ship, but the reason had been a rogue spatial anomaly near the Neutral Zone, not a Borg attack. Frank did not understand, and his response was to slowly turn, attempting to collect as much information as possible.
"This is not my ship. This is not the Fiji's sick bay. I demand...." began Frank, closing his mouth with a snap as the bipedal rodent sporting Borg hardware came into view. "A Borg?" The rodent's nose twitched slightly, and the stance wavered back and forth slightly, as if it could not keep its balance.
Frank abruptly turned inward as he felt his program superseded by another. A patch of Borg origin congealed around key algorithms, dulling his self-awareness. At the same time, an influx of data commenced, pertaining to drone maintenance. While the information was immensely interesting from a medical point-of-view, the deadening of will was frightening. Frank began steps to modify the patch, hurrying to succeed before all desire to do so slipped away. His body matrix fizzled twice before stabilizing.
"You are now relocated to Maintenance Bay #6. Begin your duties when you arrive," intoned the drone in a tired voice. Frank could not respond, locked as he was in the battle against Borg code. The quiet torture bay disappeared, only to reappear in another form, this one quite busy.
Ten benches, some reclined while others were flat, rose to waist height, aligned in a starburst pattern with the center of the bay as the nexus. A drone lay on each bench; non-Borg persons moved rapidly around the area, carrying equipment and parts which Frank on one hand found mysterious, while simultaneously the patched part of his program relayed detailed information. The non-Borg, holograms all as it swiftly became evident, were working on the table-bound drones.
A Klingon in full battle armor, a green Orion slave girl with strategically placed scraps of clothing, a Cardassian sporting Gul's rank, a Vulcan in a meditation robe...the diversity of the holograms was astounding. Curiously, only one of each archetype was visible, although all performed their duties with the same mechanical precision.
A Bolian in the crisp dress of a scientist ran a laser scalpel along the torso of the nearest "patient," removing a section of body armor, revealing the Borg-pale skin of torso underneath. The drone lolled its head sideways, opening one functional eye (the optical implant on the other socket was removed) to examine the job before returning its previous position.
{Rejection along the following body segments,} spoke into Frank's interior programming, followed by the schematic of the drone on the bench. Several sections of armor glowed a dull red, along with a series of implants in the body cavity and the left leg. The Borg was directing its own dismemberment! In fact, all the drones were quite awake and aware.
The patch, still not neutralized, rode like a leech on Frank's self-will, forcing him towards the spot vacated by the Bolian. Frank knew what needed to be accomplished even though Borg medical expertise was definitely not part of the standard Starfleet database; the tasks demanded were more akin to engineering maintenance than surgery. Frank doubled his efforts to find a way to circumvent the patch.
A laser scalpel sliced deeply into the prone Borg's left leg.
*****
{Regeneration cycle complete. Optimal regeneration of drone 27 of 27 will require three additional hours. Time to stasis lock due to sub-optimal regeneration [general data of Doctor's species and records of normal body deterioration curves for the drone designated 27 of 27] is seventy-three hours.} The computer's mental voice sounded...condescending. It was not possible: Borg never programmed for artificial intelligence; in fact, normal computer operations were incredibly dumb in comparison to other space-faring beings. After all, what comparison was silicon processing to tens of trillions of linked organic brains? The computer of Cube #347 was nothing more than a glorified calculator and database monitor.
The "ahem" sound of throat clearing startled Doctor to full awareness, bouncing him out of the dismal status of continuing nanite deterioration and its consequences. No neural transceivers had been rejected yet, but that was the only bright spot among the gigabytes of reports.
"I know you're awake," came the voice associated with the "ahem". Doctor opened his eye to the sight of the holographic doctor archetype standing with arms crossed, tapping one foot impatiently. A look of annoyance crinkled the human's face. "Good. Now I want some explanations."
Doctor abruptly stepped out of his alcove, frowning with his own growing annoyance at the mobile program of coherent light. "Bad hologram. You will go back to Maintenance Bay #6; there is more which needs to be done." Doctor reinitialized the original patch, grinding his incisors in astonishment as the hologram's code matrix actively rejected it.
"I will not go back to that mockery of a sick bay..."
"Maintenance bay."
"...and you can't make me. I've had three long hours to think, to remove that damn patch, and to try to figure out what is going on. You did not steal the Fiji and her crew, did you?"
"No, we did not. We found it adrift in our current quadrant, fair and square. Finders keepers, losers weepers." Doctor shut his mouth with a snap, clicking his teeth together.
The hologram's face twisted towards confusion at the words, or more precisely, at the use of the words in childish sing-song. A moment later, it grew angry as it fizzled with static. "Stop playing with my matrix! I will not go off-line; I will not be transported elsewhere in this ship; and I will not comply with that crud you are trying to wiggle into my program. I want to know what is going on, and I want to know now! I will not go back to that purgatory I get stored in."
Doctor sighed, ending his immediate attempts at subjugating the rogue program. Without the coherent help of his crewmates, he alone did not have the expertise to hack the complex algorithms; he knew bodies...minds, however loosely defined, were the bailiwick of the command and control hierarchy. "Fine. First, however, I'm going to see wittle Thorny-yorney."
The transporter beam to the appropriate bay was activated without waiting to see if the hologram successfully managed to transmit its holomatrix.
*****
Frank scrambled to keep up with the Borg, who had transported itself elsewhere. Rude! However, the hours Frank had spent tip-toeing in the chaotic mess the Borg called a computer allowed him to finagle the new position of the drone. In a way it was easy - the drone was the only one registered as "active" in the crew inventory. Noting the location, Frank transported his matrix through the hologrid.
The destination was the empty sick (maintenance) bay he had first glimpsed in those confusing seconds between initial activation and the horror of butchery. Six tables were in evidence, along with racks of now familiar tools, calibration equipment, and /body/ parts. The Borg glanced once at Frank with an almost expression of disappointment, assuming Borg registered emotion and the rodent face could display it appropriately. As far as Frank truly knew, the hardware-wrapped rat was figuratively jumping up and down with pure joy.
As Frank watched, a panel was removed from one wall, revealing a cubbyhole. The space was brightly lit by a gro-light tending towards the orange part of the spectrum. Basking under the light was the most unusual plant Frank had ever seen...or had information on within his medical database.
The Borg reached out a hand (neither had not been outward altered noted Frank to himself) and stuck it in the dirt of the meter diameter pot. It stood there for a few moments, ignoring its surroundings, not reacting even when the plant began to actively move in a very unplantlike manner. One long green and silver vine uncurled from its trellis, waving in the air like a slow motion snake. Suddenly it appeared to acquire some sort of lock, whipping forward to wrap completely around the drone's extended arm.
"Silly Thorny! Be nice!" A rumbling laugh. "Nice little plant." ('Little?' thought Frank. 'That thing probably masses more than the average Klingon in full armor, and that's without the pot or soil!') The hand was withdrawn, and the vine carefully unwound to be placed back on the trellis. "Nutrient mixture nominal, although I think iron supplements should be boosted by 5%. Perhaps a bit more nitrogen and phosphorus too...I wonder if I can get you to bloom?"
The drone turned back towards Frank. One arm, the one the vine had attacked, was a patchwork of long streaks dripping yellowish fluid where armor was absent. The cuts and punctures healed with nanite-induced swiftness. "You still here?" A definite sneer. "Okay, I've tended to Thorny, and now I need to take care of you. Not that we have much time to deal with the irrelevance you are insisting upon. I have things to do, tasks your artificial intelligence algorithms wouldn't understand. And you are keeping me from doing them."
Frank pressed his lips together in a thin smile. "Try me."
Frank listened quietly as the drone, Doctor he insisted his name was, explained in detail the occurrences which had led to activation of so many holograms. Doctor obviously did not take Frank seriously, and the latter felt as if he were a dog listening to his owner verbally outline his thoughts on a complex matter. Requests of clarification were either ignored, or tersely answered. Frank finally gave up attempting to elicit extra information from the rambling Borg.
The plant, Thorny, was moving again, catching part of Frank's attention. It appeared to be in the process of uprooting itself; long vines reached out of its small alcove to curl on wall brackets. The pot wiggled slightly as the vines contracted, scraping terra-cotta against duralloy floor with a tooth numbing squeal.
"I didn't think plants were supposed to move like that," said Frank, interrupting Doctor. He pointed at Thorny, who had now managed to unearth some of its roots, dripping soil onto the floor.
Doctor's eye's widened. "Bad Thorny!" he barked. "Bad, bad Thorny! You stay in your closet." The drone took a pair of steps towards the plant and began to easily move the pot back into the wall. In the process, three vines wrapped around the drone, turning him into an odd mockery of topiary. Doctor managed to unwind two of the vines, but tore the third, which had become entangled among some tubes on the drone's back. Thorny abruptly drew in on itself.
"Bad plant," continued Doctor, "you should not do that. I said I'd get you a new pot in a few months." Satisfied the plant was not going to begin crawling out of the closet in the immediate future, the Borg's attention returned to Frank. One hand held a slowly writhing vine approximately two meters in length; the stump dripped a pink sap.
Frank could not take his eyes off the balled Thorny. The wound could be seen, the truncated vine (still a good three meters long) held away from the main body. As he watched, the raggedly torn area crusted over, healing at a phenomenal rate; several new buds abruptly sprouted, young leaves opening. Thorny slowly began to reach for its trellis, spreading its leaves under the rays of the gro-light, and the swiftly repaired vine was lost from view.
"Should it do that?" asked Frank. Doctor demanded an explanation. Frank replied, describing what he had just witnessed. Doctor shrugged, frowning as he examined the vine remnant he still held.
"No. Bloodvines do not normally heal so quickly. However, little Thorny-baby has been infested with nanites, so that is more than likely the cause behind what you saw."
A thought whirled in Frank's mind as part of his programming connected several otherwise disparate facts to arrive at a tentative hypothesis. "You say that, um, overly rambunctious plant has been assimilated?"
"In a matter of speaking, although it is not, and nor could ever be, part of the Collective."
The thought consolidated into a solid idea. "Could you answer me a couple of questions, then? Without the attitude, please. I am not a wall. First of all, what /organic/ systems, precisely, have nanites associated with them, and which are obviously affected by the malfunction?"
*****
Doctor beamed a small container to himself. While he answered the silly and irrelevant questions the holographic physician demanded, he filled the container part way with nutrient fluid from the feed within Thorny's alcove. There was a good chance the torn length of vine could be made to root; and then there would be a Thorny Jr.!
Another part of Doctor's awareness slipped among the intranet, examining drone status data. Five of subunit #522 had experienced termination in the last day, and eight of Cube #347's primary sub-collective and another six of the subunit teetered on the edge of full cybernetic system malfunction. He marked those drones for immediate surgery, then began to contrive a work-around to trick the computer into multiplying the currently active holo templates. More bodies were desperately needed!
"Okay, confirm this time line for me. Everything was normal until you zoomed through space using an experimental drive called quantum slip-stream. A month later, everyone's nanites, critical machinery for your health, spontaneously degenerate. Everyone except yours...and the plant. And the plant has been around for eight years, yes? Don't answer that. What I would lastly like to know is how Thorny acquired nanoprobes in the first place. I assume they are not naturally occurring." The hologram, Frank as it insisted its self-designation was, continued to babble. Doctor had never met such a long-winded program.
"It was an accident," said Doctor defensively. He never /meant/ to assimilate his pets; it just happened.
Frank did not immediately answer. "I'll take that as a yes." Pause. "When the plant, um, attacks..."
"Love tap."
"...you, are the nanoprobes from Thorny transferred to you?"
"Yes." Doctor frowned as the computer rebuffed his first attempts at fooling it, and was not paying much attention to Frank.
"Could you perhaps explain a bit more about the process of assimilation? I appear to know all about how to replace a defective joint, but my database on other matters Borg is lacking."
Doctor's concentration was jolted as 132 of 300 died on the operating table, implants associated with autonomic nervous system functions rejected. That particular drone had been old, over seventy years had passed since his assimilation, and had nearly forty percent of his organic body replaced with machinery. He cursed, revising projections of termination rate to be accelerated for those drones with high percentages of vital body implants.
"Enough! I need you to be performing surgery, not wandering about the cube posing irrelevant questions. Here is your data, and if you don't come up with anything meaningful in the next five minutes, I will put you through obedience school. I have turned many a rouge beast into obedient lap-pets, and I will do the same with you." Doctor created a link between Frank's algorithms and the assimilation database.
*****
Frank turned inward as all the pieces finally slipped into place, and the nanoprobes in Thorny were the key.
During assimilation, the nanoprobes which infected the host modified themselves over time for reasons of increased efficiency. Each drone had a set of nanites which were slightly different from the next. In the case of the bloodvine, a massive amount of restructuring had probably happened in order to function effectively in an environment that was not only not sentient, but was also in a blurred gray zone between true animal and plant.
Frank peered over at Thorny, which was now sedately curled around the trellis, innocent and seemingly immobile as, well, a plant. Doctor was impatiently tapping his incisors together, each click a second counting down the grace period. Five minutes abruptly came to an end; Frank's matrix began to shimmer alarmingly.
"No, no, no...don't. I got it. It all has to do with your plant, with Thorny. It is immune to whatever effects the drive had on the other members of this crew; and because you keep on becoming infused with nanoprobes everytime it latches onto you, you are too. The pieces all fit. I'm a doctor, not an engineer, so I can't tell you the how or why, only that the hypothesis is feasible. Is there anyway you can test the theory before you scramble my program?" Frank rushed the words. Suddenly life, or pseudolife in this case, was something to treasure, even if he were only the figment of a programmer's imagination.
*****
Thorny recoiled in pain, or at least that was the best analogy possible for an organism without a true nervous system. Damaged symbiotic bacteria linkages broadcast distress along pseudonerves, stimulating high tensile fiber "muscles" to contract, drawing wounded vines to the center of the body vegetable. Although the nanoprobes in the sap and cells of Thorny did their best to control damage and stimulate the rapid regrowth of lost mass, only so much was physically possible without killing the host via the massive demand of metabolic energy. By the time trama ended and Thorny could once more spread its leaves unmolested under the gro-light, it had lost nearly 75% of its former green mass.
*****
Doctor sighed as he held the final cut vine, wincing as he contemplated the much decreased Thorny. The plant would recover, eventually. {Computer, future feedings to Thorny will include a 10% increase in the replicated supplements 'Bloodvine Master' and 'Vine Feed', until such time Thorny has regained 80% of pretrimmed mass. At that time, feeding will return to preset levels.}
{Compliance.}
The wiggling, thorn laden tentacle was laid on top of the others in a deep bin. The pile resembled a mass of silver streaked, green feathered eels blindly seeking water; pink sap coated the interior bottom. Given enough time, each vine would more than likely regenerate, but that eventuality was not going to happen.
Thorny's assortment of nanoprobes, oddly self-modified variations of standard Borg design, were the cure. It was unknown how the slip-stream drive had affected Borg bodies, thus precipitating denaturing of otherwise healthy nanomachines, and would remain so until engineering and assimilation hierarchies could crunch the problem. However, limited tests on affected individuals had shown an incredible reversal and correction of malfunctions with the new nanoprobes. The problem now was to manufacture enough of the tiny machines.
Doctor beamed himself and his cargo of severed vines to one of Assimilation's vat rooms, fairly large spaces filled with giant metal containers. The resemblance to a microbrewery was an unusual convergence of unrelated technologies. Frank's matrix materialized seconds later as the local holoprojection system came on-line.
"What is this place?" asked Frank, looking around the dull gray. "If I had actual memories beyond this cube and the few times I was active on the Fiji, or databases besides those pertaining to medical resources, I might be able to give a snappy comment."
"Snappy comments are irrelevant. This is Nanite Assembly Room #1." Doctor carefully replaced a vine which had managed to crawl out of its box. "The vines will be placed in a vat. The organic tissues will dissolve, leaving the nanoprobes in an environment perfect for self-replication."
{Computer, activate nanite replication cycle on vats #1 through #6. Vat #1 will be used to seed the other vats when critical density is reached.}
{Compliance.}
Rattles and clunks sounded in pipes, like a large washing machine beginning an agitation cycle. Smooth whirls quickly replaced the initial noises, fading into the background. Doctor opened up the lid to vat #1, upending the box. He closed the top so that he would not have to watch the poor Thorny subunits disintegrate.
"Now what?" asked Frank. He appeared to be somewhat nervous.
{Time to critical density on activated vats?}
{Stand by. Calculating starting density. Time to requested cycle completion: Eighteen hours.}
Said Doctor, "Now we wait eighteen hours."
The eighteen hours passed slowly. Doctor spent several of the hours working alongside the holographic archetypes, continuing the task of staving off implant rejection. Frank refused to participate in "gross butchery belonging in the era of pre-space science," and thus spent the time wandering around the cube or staring at Thorny with morbid interest. Doctor contemplated forcing Frank to comply with the directive to help, but decided the effort was not worth the cost.
Approximately ten hours into the "hurry up and wait" period, Doctor realized Frank's program had a backdoor. No important algorithms could be accessed, at least none which would affect the program's self-will and awareness, but the potential results could be highly amusing. Grinding his teeth excitedly, Doctor quickly wrote a small patch and sent it through Frank's unprotected access point. It took.
Doctor was in Maintenance Bay #15, waiting eagerly to see the results. Frank materialized. The hologram's appearance had been fundamentally altered. Gone was the Starfleet uniform of blue. In its place a Borg likeness had been substituted, a full make-over from black body suit to pale skin to assemblages and external implants. Frank was absolutely livid.
"What the hell did you do to me? I look like I was assimilated by the Borg! And I can't change my matrix to get rid of this crap!" A nose wiggled, teeth clicked, laughter finally escaped. "I do not see the humor in the situation!"
Doctor eventually relented, allowing Frank to reclaim his normal appearance. The hologram disappeared in a huff.
Doctor stood in the vat room, two hyposprays and several hundred refillable cartridges neatly ordered into rows on a series of tables. Frank had been persuaded to return to the room, although the formerly overtalkative program refused to speak more than a few monosyllables.
"I have finished loading the cartridges with a nearly pure nanoprobe extract. Sufficient quantities are available to inoculate every drone on this cube. You will take a hypospray and begin in subsection 3, submatrix 18; I will begin in subsection 20, submatrix 14."
"No."
"You will comply."
"No." Pause. "What incentive do I have to do anything you say?"
"It will be the most efficient use of time. I can inoculate all crew members, but there is a 79% possibility by the time I complete the task, one or more drones will have terminated."
"So?"
Doctor glared at the recalcitrant projection. "I will say this simply, Franky-lanky. You may help me of your own free will, or I will use that backdoor of yours to force you to comply before deactivating and erasing your program." The threat was a bluff; Doctor could not use the backdoor for more than parlor tricks. Terminating all power to the holoprojection system would kill the program, but he would rather have help in the inoculation endeavor.
Frank was examining his code, trying to find the backdoor. Doctor could feel and see complex mutations in the program's algorithms as a self-diagnostic was performed. It was obviously unsuccessful, as the holographic physician finally declared with disgust, "Fine. Give me a hypospray."
The incoming status reports were overwhelmingly positive, a vast improvement over the dismal accounts only a few hours prior. The new nanoprobes were quickly reversing damage; and before too long, Doctor would be able to initiate the wake-up procedure. However, loose ends needed to be tied up first.
Doctor checked on Frank's progress, noting the hologram still had most of the alcove block in subsection 12, submatrix 27 yet to complete. The other had purposely been given more work to accomplish, but Doctor needed the extra time to finish other tasks. Thorny was first on his "to-do" list.
All automatic files relating to the plant had to be modified, the origin of the modified nanoprobes obscured in a trail which led directly to Doctor. The others - Cube #347 sub-collective, subunit #522, the Collective - had to believe a random occurrence of probabilities was to account for Doctor harboring the only strain of nanites resistant to the delayed effects of quantum slip-stream, if the drive was indeed to blame and not something else. Doctor altered one final datum of information, editing it to clinically efficient Borg dryness.
"Good night Thorny. Grow well." Thorny rustled its leaves slightly, but did not otherwise respond; one might think it was sulking, except for the fact an organism required a higher nervous system to sulk. Doctor easily replaced the bulkhead plate, closing the closet. Satisfied no light leaked from the cracks, a large cabinet of tools was pushed against the hidden panel.
The next part of the "to-do" list appeared in the bay, slaved transporter beaming the spent hypospray along as well. Frank frowned as he missed the medical tool's materialization. It fell to the floor with a clatter, adding one more dent onto the already dinged instrument. Frank snorted, then picked it up.
"Here you go. All done."
Doctor locked onto the hypospray with the transporter, beaming the object to replicator reclamation. It was a superfluous instrument, created only for the one task, and no longer needed. The molecules would be used for other things. "Good pet Frank. It is now time to go to bed."
"Pet? What are you talking about?" The hologram looked exasperated.
"Can't let the others know about you. You know about Thorny, and you might tell. I've prepared a special place to put you, so be a good hologram and do not resist." Operating without the active support of other minds, Doctor had continued to be unable to circumvent the barriers the EMH program had erected to control corruption of its code. Self-will and awareness in a mere program were incredibly annoying, but the concept of a new pet, one which couldn't be accidentally assimilated, had a certain charm. Unable to selectively edit Frank's memories, only two solutions were possible: (1) deactivation by destruction, or (2) long-term storage. Doctor chose the second option.
{Computer, link EMH program to mental signature of drone 27 of 27, copy tagged algorithms to cranial implant delta three.} Frank's eyes widened as it experienced twinning, a copy of which was uploaded into a new memory crystal Doctor had installed into himself. Operating on oneself was incredibly awkward. {Computer, deactivate all holoprojectors and delete original EMH program.} Frank abruptly disappeared.
Turning inwards, Doctor could feel a second awareness cohabiting a small section of his consciousness. It was not the intrusive comfort normally associated of mentalities sharing the dataspaces, but a physical "otherness" locked in a tiny closet.
::What did you do? What is this place?:: Frank's program sent standard ping queries, which were translated into the semblance of words. The transfer was a success; the EMH program was now a subset of Doctor.
::We will have much time to talk later. Quiet my pet. Shush,:: said Doctor to himself, directing the words towards cranial implant delta three. He then lowered the power entering the implant to a trickle.
Doctor was satisfied as the algorithms comprising Frank's program slowed in response to power limitation, placing the hologram in a state of suspended animation, of sleep. The EMH was not truly deactivated, and it would be aware of Doctor's day-to-day activities, but only at a distance, as if it were an observer in another's dream. As the program was built by a Terran, and because files indicated humans held to odd beliefs concerning sleep, Doctor made a note to himself to occasionally feed his pet hologram electric sheep. A good vet not only worried about the patient's physical well-being, but mental aspects as well.
Necessary tasks were completed and Doctor was weary; it was time to regenerate. First, however...{Computer, initiate release from long-term stasis Cube #347 sub-collective and subunit #522. Priority label file 'Nanoprobe Malfunction: Remedy and Probable Cause, A Technical Report' and notify all relevant members of command and control, engineering, and assimilation hierarchies as they wake.} Doctor paused for a few seconds, then swiftly added a few more lines of command before transporting to his alcove to regenerate.
As each member of Cube #347 awoke (subunit #522 was excluded, as it would not understand), he, she, or it was greeted with the sound of a crowing rooster and the words, "Now that you boys and girls are fixed up nice, be careful. Remember, Doctor always knows best."
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