((This fic comes with a trailer! I spent 27 hours on it. :) Please got to youtube dot com and search "Skin Deep Seaquest." Only one video shows up and it's mine. I'd recommend doing that before reading so as to get you pumped up for the story. DISCLAIMER! I do not own SeaQuest, or the clips or music in the video. The only thing I do own is the voice of Sam, because... well,... it's me! I own my own voice, or at least I hope it hasn't been subverted by Viacom.))
((Please note this is NOT A MARY-SUE! Read on and enjoy. :) ))
((This story has been altered from its origional format. It has been edited to fit this screen.))
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SeaQuest: Skin Deep
By Melanie Presson
Part One: Chapter One
"Samantha"
Lucas Wolenczak sat as his computer, feverishly typing away at one of the three keyboards surrounding his cramped little work space. The hard distorted guitar of Electrasy's "Cosmic Castaway" blared through the room from a mini-disk player perched on a CD rack.
He'd shoved all his working computer components into one corner as much as he could, to keep it all localized for easy access, but despite his efforts it spilled over to the rest of his room. Wires that he couldn't stuff back inside their respective technology stuck out from every crevice and crack. It invaded his 1990's memorabilia collection, his inactive technology, his personal gifts, and even across the pipes that ran along the underside of his ceiling like a runway. Noting this as just his way of living, he was content. He knew round-about where everything was, but occasionally there were times when he'd be stuck searching through boxes and under cloths for a specific mini-disk, or the mate to one of his socks. It was a total guys room; Even down to a "Radioactive" sticker on the outside of his cabin door. Most who knew him would joke that the sign was more a warning than a decoration. His room was located just short of the mess hall, so no matter what he did, the subtle scent of fried onion rings and greasy foods from the kitchen lingered in the air.
The loud music--though muffled by the thick metal--seeped though to the outside world beyond his cabin. Samantha let out a breath, dreading what she was to find when she opened the door. The last time she was here, she'd sat on something that resembled a ham and cheese sandwich --only green and fuzzy. The idea of meeting another of its kind made her somewhat nauseous, and forced her to rethink staying for very long. Even last time, she was only here for five minutes. She glanced at the sign on his door that said "Mammal Engineering" and sighed.
She knocked, getting no answer. She knocked again, still being ignored. Impatience overtaking, she figured he'd been sucked inside the trap of yet another project, and pushed open the door. Instantly, her ears popped, and her eardrums were about to follow suit as the full force of the electric guitar and drums burst into the hallway.
"Luke!" she yelled. "Hey, Luke!"
The sixteen-Year-old seemed oblivious--Samantha wondered if on purpose.
"LUCAS!"
Lucas looked up, pen in mouth, and blinked as his current train of thought jumped the track.
"I was beginning to wonder if you were dead!"
A small, brown haired woman standing in the threshold of his cabin held a data pad in her right hand, and looked at him with unblinking, green eyes. She wasn't dressed in the uniform of a UEO science officer, instead she was dressed as a civilian in a pair of blue jeans, sneakers, a faded dark green tank-top, and an off-white button up shirt tied around her small waist. A simple silver dolphin band on a silver chain hung around her neck. Half her hair had been pulled up in a pony-tail with long strands falling to either side of her face.
Lucas thought she was attractive when she first came on board, but over the past two months, he'd discovered that her personality was undoubtedly Celtic. He'd wondered if labeling a hot-headed woman to be of Scottish decent was just a stereotype, but she'd proven him wrong. It was all true. Though she was only eighteen, she'd already perfected 'The Look.'
Lucas knew instantly that he had forgotten something. "Uh," he began, reaching over and clicking off the mini-disk player. "Hi."
"Hi, my ass. You were supposed to meet me in engineering thirty minutes ago. Or did you forget about the modifications we were going to make to the VR core?" She was genuinely surprised something that important would slip the mind of Lucas Wolenczak. "It's test day."
She watched as he scrambled to put on his black Nike sneakers and fumbled with the laces.
"That was today? Jeeze, Sam, I'm sorry. I am. Just gimme a few, k?" he said hurriedly as he saved the program, then pulled a blue and gray flannel shirt over his white T-shirt and jeans. By the time he was ready, Sam had already started back down the hall, brushing past a crewmember from the science division on her way to the maglev.
Lucas caught up to her, trying to tie his shoes as he walked--or rather hopped down the corridor just as she pressed the activation panel. "Look, I got a little distracted is all. It's not like this project is set on a timer. Captain Bridger gave us all the time we'd need."
Samantha stepped into the maglev. "D-deck." She sat down, brushing a strand of short brown hair behind her ear. Lucas sat next to her as the maglev shot through the ship like a bullet through a wind tunnel.
She'd never wanted to be paired with him in the first place, but Dr. Westphalen had insisted that this project to enhance the computer core's connection with the VR helm would be more beneficial if she and the ship's cabin boy worked together. It was meant to give the user control of the ship through the Virtual Reality system; meaning the ship would respond to the person's thought commands. Its scientific name was the VRN: Virtual Reality Navigation, and it was very experimental.
To Samantha, it felt like a school project in science class where you were paired up with the kid behind you simply because the teacher said so. "Why Kristin had to stick me with you is beyond me."
"Hey, it's not like you're any picnic to live with, either. Just remember which one of us is doing all the programming for this thing," he snapped back.
"We both are."
"Not. Try 'Me.'" Lucas jabbed his thumb at his chest.
"It's your territory, Wolenczak, not mine. She wanted me here because I've worked with A.I. systems before."
"Kristin knows I can do this on my own."
"Maybe she didn't think you could handle it on your own." The maglev doors opened and Samantha Kinkade walked out, leaving an irritated Lucas fuming behind her.
He hurried out fast before the door could slide shut and followed behind, happy not to have anything to do with this woman right now. It seemed like every time they got together for something--even breakfast--they would end up arguing, and one of them would leave with more annoyance than they came with. By about the second month of this, the rest of the SeaQuest crew had been getting more and more accustomed to the frequent teenage battles.
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Dr. Kristin Westphalen waited patiently in the core for the two to arrive. She glanced at her watch, wondering what could be keeping them.
She had personally taken on the responsibility for keeping an eye out on Samantha since the girl was sent to the SeaQuest by Malcolm Landsdowne after the last time Nathan Bridger had been to the Caicos Key Dolphin Research Center concerning Darwin's health. Malcolm thought it would be an excellent opportunity for Samantha to hone her skills with Darwin's vocorder as well as gain more experience, and Kristin had whole-heartedly agreed. Samantha was smart for her age, but Kristin had sensed their resident genius was starting to believe his territory was being infringed upon. Samantha had felt out of place on the boat, but whenever she was with Darwin, or tinkering with her guitar, Kristin saw a light of peace in her that seemed to make her forget that she was sometimes thousands of miles away from her home. Yet when she talked of her father, Shawn, her voice hadn't exactly held the pitch of die-hard admiration.
Shawn Kinkade was a renowned Egyptologist, and her mother, Susan, was a lawyer. Samantha had tried to make it clear that, even though she loved her parents, she wouldn't want to live with them. They'd sent her off to Berkley at the age of fourteen and that had been that.
Kristin wondered when the most advanced boat in the water had become a haven for teenage social refugees.
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Westphalen stood off to the side, watching the two teenagers work like dogs beneath the heat of the lights as they typed in numerous commands, rerouted power, and worked hard to make this project a success. They'd been down here for weeks, carefully redesigning this aspect of the system, and now it was time to see if all their sweat and blood was really worth it. She could only think to smile.
"I need a little more to the power relays." Samantha adjusted the power intake to the VR helm, and typed on the keyboard for a moment. The yellow spike in the output zone immediately jumped to red. "Whoa! Whoa! Not so much! Lucas!"
"Hang on, hang on," his voice came back over the pal where he was working in the heart of the system. She was at the consol just outside the chamber. "Got it. Is that better?"
The levels bleed down to a normal, calm green. "Much."
The comm. system sounded and she answered in a cheerful voice, "Oz Salt Mines."
Captain Bridger grinned slightly at the joke. They were pretty much in the deepest area of the SeaQuest. "We've got the boat ready for the test, Sam."
She was happy to hear the captain's voice. "Give us another couple of minutes, captain. We've almost got the relays at full power."
"Just give the word. Bridger out."
Samantha jockeyed some of the power back and forth between the two relays until she was satisfied, then called her partner. "Ok, try it now."
"When we're done with this, you'll owe me big time, babe," Lucas chimed in, lying on his back and twisting two wires together. He tapped on a data pad that received the readings from the computer.
"I'll owe you nothing. Half this project is already yours, Frodo," she quipped. "And don't call me babe."
'And don't call me babe,' he mouthed. The only nickname she'd ever taken to was Sam. He fussed with the power levels, angling himself further underneath the consol to view the technological masterpiece. "Ah. My preciousss." He hissed.
Samantha chuckled and watched the power levels shift to yellow, spike to red again, then down to green where it lingered. "Ok, it seems stable. I think we got it. Go ahead and stay there while I test this bad boy. Watch the output, Luke."
"Aye, aye, ma'am," Lucas quipped. "And don't call me Luke." He liked the way he could throw her words back at her.
Smirking, Sam started humming "If I Only Had a Brain" and slipped the VR helm over her head, then started up the new sequence. "Ok, captain, we're ready."
Captain Bridger nodded to Lt. Commander Hitchcock, who obeyed the command. "Initiating command transfer, sir. Command set. Authorizing emergency override." The last was for precautions sake. "Override set. We're good to go."
Samantha activated the VR helm, and in an instant she was propelled through a corridor of shifting numbers; hues of blues and greens morphed around her as she slid into the very heart of the computer.
To the outside world, it was merely a jolt of electricity to her temples.
Sam stood in a virtual recreation of the SeaQuest's bridge. Each station was where it was suppose to be in reality, yet there were a flow of graphics and numbers surrounding her in a vortex that spread out to the view screen. The air she breathed even had the same metallic/salt water flavor to it, everything she touched felt real and fully tangible, even her Sketchers clicked on the metallic deck when she walked. It was like she'd been transported into the main computer, though she could still react to the outside world.
"I'm in," she announced. "It's amazing. The detail is incredibly realistic." She touched the smooth surface of the captain's chair, feeling the cold of the metal and softness of the leather cushion beneath her hand. She reached out and touched an image of Junior, then saw it float away from its position around the SeaQuest. Awed by this, she smiled.
It had worked.
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Miguel Ortiz took a second look at his consol and saw the blip that represented the WSKR, Junior, leave orbit with the others and extend to the limit of its range. "Sir, Junior is moving out on its own. It looks like their experiment is working."
Captain Bridger nodded and felt pleased at the accomplishment. If anything, he hoped the success would end the bickering between the two and he could finally get a full day of peace.
Lucas sat under the consol monitoring the power output, seeing it fluctuate every time his partner attempted another command to the ship. At one point, he felt a slight lurch in movement as she turned the ship to the starboard side. Though it was hardly noticeable, he checked the output anyway.
It had been his initial idea, why shouldn't he have been the first to make the trip into the digital world? Sam had worked with VR systems before at Hawaii Pacific as an intern, but he could learn just as quickly as she could. He was the chief computer analyst after all. And one doesn't obtain that title by being able to crush a beer can with one's skull--although he thought it was neat trick anyway and one Ben would have to show him. Just because she was older, she was the one who got to fly. "By two Years," he muttered, shifting slightly to get the numbness out of his right hip, and spoke into the PAL sitting by his feet. "How's it going?"
He got no answer.
"Sam? Hey, Sam." He chose that moment to look up, and wished he hadn't.
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It felt like something out of a dream. Whatever task she wanted to perform, the VRN system called through the main computer and rerouted command to her instantaneously with her thought. "Captain, I'm bringing Junior back and putting us on our previous course. You'll have your boat back before Ortiz can announce it," she reported happily as she ran her hand across the vaporous numbers and screens before her.
With the ship placed back on course, and Junior on its way in, she reached up to take off the helmet when the electricity sparked at her temples again. She stiffened, then her body went lax and she fell heavily to the consol like a doll. Her head hit the surface with a dull thud.
"What the hell?" Sam pressed the air control that would allow her to leave the virtual reality world, but was rewarded with a violent static shock that forced her to quickly withdraw. She felt light headed for a moment and shook it to clear the fogginess before trying again. "Captain, it's not accepting the exit command." What she heard scared her, for it was only silence that answered. "Captain? ...Kristin? Lucas? Anybody?" For the first time since she'd come on board, she began to feel the noose of panic tighten around her neck.
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Lucas tapped the indicator as the power levels climbed toward critical red. "Uh-oh."
Quickly, he began switching the wiring, diverting power away from the VR helm, but the levels remained high. "Captain, I can't stop the power flow. If it goes any higher, the main computer could sustain serious damage," he reported into his vidcom.
"Pull the plug." Captain Bridger hastily brought up the image of Lucas and Sam split on either side of the forward view screen as Lt. Hitchcock activated the override protocol. Lucas was vigorously working under the consol in the main computer core, but Sam was leaning heavily against her panel, as if she were asleep with her eyes open. Their emptiness sent a shot of hot fear through him. "Kristin, what's going on?"
Kristin's figure bent over Sam, leaning her against the back of her seat. "I don't know. She's been knocked unconscious and her pulse is dangerously low. I need a med team down here now," she demanded in her commanding British accent. She quickly pulled the VR helmet off Sam's head, letting strands of brown hair fall over her face, and warily touched one of the two scored marks on her temples.
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Sam kept trying to deactivate the connection with the VR, but it was as if she'd been blocked from it. "Someone please answer. Can anybody hear me? Oh, for the love of Mike," she swore as she tired another area to no avail.
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Lucas shoved his hand into the guts of the computer, feeling for the chip that connected that VR helm to the power conduits. He'd placed it there over a week ago, so it didn't take him long to locate it. He knew that even though Hitchcock could put the boat back under Bridger's power, it would not stop the power flow. This was a malfunctioning computer that required a cold shut down and fast. The levels were straining on dangerously high when his fingers brushed it. "I got it, Captain!" His triumph was sucked into the surroundings of the small, cramped space. Eagerly, he clutched the chip and yanked as hard as he could, cutting power completely. He watched as the readouts winked out, a sigh of relief forming on his breath. In that moment, he felt a strong surge of electricity crawl up his arm and cover him in a blanket of blue fire. The chip snapped in half and he lurched sideways, hitting his head against a panel hard enough to cause his vision to blur and blacken.
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Samantha's eyes widened with fear as a bright flash of light overtook her, blinded her, and swept through her like the tides of the sea.
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"Oh my god," Hitchcock breathed.
The bridge had gone deathly still in a matter of seconds. Nathan's mouth quickly went dry. "You have the bridge, Commander," he ordered to Commander Ford, and briskly ran out of the command center, bolting for the maglev.
When he reached engineering, Kristin already had Samantha on a gurney and two of the medical staff were wheeling her to med bay. "What the hell happened down here, doctor?"
"There was an overload in the system, and it was enough to knock her unconscious. I need to help Samantha, but Lucas is all right. I've given him medication and a brief examination, but he looks worse off than he actually is. He's over there." She looked to where Lucas was sitting against the wall nursing a gash on his forehead and a burned right hand. She laid her hand on Bridger's arm. "Don't worry, Nathan. They're resilient kids. They're both going to be fine. Keep the hope in that." Kristin looked one last time at Bridger before following the med team out.
Bridger walked over and knelt in front of Lucas.
Lucas held a strip of gauze to his head with his left hand, since his right had been bandaged. "I don't know what happened, sir. One minute everything was running smoothly, the next, it was like some kind of wicked Bugs Bunny cartoon."
Bridger didn't recognize the point to the analogy, and thought the bump on the kid's head was worse than it looked. Already there were splashes of black, blue, and yellow forming around the cut. He was sure the boy had a concussion. "I'm just glad you're all right, kiddo."
"How's Sam?"
"Still unconscious, but Kristin will take care of her. For now, I want you to go to your quarters and get some rest. Take the rest of the day off."
"Captain, I can work, it's not that bad. I..."
"That's an order, Lucas," Bridger pushed as Lucas stood and steadied himself from the wave of dizziness that suddenly made the room spin clockwise.
Lucas gave a resigned breath. "Yes sir," and trudged off toward his quarters.
Bridger took in the room that held one outlet for the core computer and shook his head in regret at the mess. It would take a while to repair. Luckily none of the other systems had been affected.
He was still concerned for Samantha, so his next stop was med bay.
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Lucas stepped into his quarters and flopped down on the unmade bed. He kicked off his shoes and let them lie where they fell, and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, his right hand reached up and flipped the switch that turned out the desk lamp by his bed, but oddly enough on its own accord.
He blinked, head pounding since the pain medication they gave him hadn't kicked in yet, and turned the light back on, then lay back. Again the light turned off before he realized he'd even moved.
Sitting up this time, he turned the light on and pushed the small lamp as far from the bed as he could, knocking off a couple of mini disks that clattered together onto a pile of shirts. Just as his small idea indicated, his hand reached out for the light again, but this time, he took hold of it and forced it back. To his shock and confusion, it fought him. He tore his arm back to his chest and held it fast, fighting a subconscious command to turn off the light. As his hand shot out again, he threw himself back, only to be rewarded by dropping to the floor, and he rolled. He felt like a marionette being manipulated by the strings of a puppet master. With his left hand, he gripped the corner of the bookcase and held on while the other stretched out for the lamp. "What the hell is going on? G'ya!" Something forced his legs to move and he lunged at the light, crashing into it. He did turn it off, but ended up knocking over most everything on that corner of the desk. Flopping back against the bed, he breathed deeply from the small battle, his mind racing with serious confusion.
Lucas swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. He felt his right arm tingle, then lighten as if whatever had been controlling it had left. Gingerly, he flexed his fingers just for good measure. "I'm loosin' it," he muttered, and climbed back onto his bed, facing Darwin's tube.
The cool light filtering through the blue water shifted in aquatic patterns across his room and played lightly around the low lit bed area. The more he watched, the more he was starting to believe that jolt of electricity had damaged more than just his hand. He sighed, closing his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.
tbc