Tropolisine
By Mike Buendia
As Lieutenant Commander Rodger Simmons awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin; a social parasite. This did not surprise him. Since his discharge from Starfleet, he felt as if he had no control over his own life. Or perhaps he was crippled by the absolute control of his life.
During his active duty, which accounted for almost three quarters of his life, Lt. Cmdr. Simmons was head engineer aboard the USS Bradbury, a transport vessel. An avid spacecraft enthusiast, he dedicated all of his personal time to mastering engineering. So when he was forced to retire, he felt entirely lost. Engineering was all he knew. He spent the first few years of retirement attempting to take in the world around him. His rank afforded him with a great benefits package upon discharge, which provided him with a plethora of plushy retirement locations to choose from. Lt. Cmdr. Simmons had decided a small lakeside cabin on Amerind would be a satisfactory place to spend his final days. With flora and fauna similar to Earth's and vast areas of undeveloped wilderness, Amerind seemed like the perfect place to relax and take in the great outdoors in peaceful solitude. And with several large, but isolated, metropolitan areas, Lt. Cmdr. Simmons could have his solitude, but an urban culture fix was only a quick ride away.
At the moment, a fix was all that the old man could think of. Nauseous, depressed, anxious and emaciated despite a working in-home replicator, Simmons' only concern was how quickly he could leave it all behind and face the day, how quickly he could get a dose of "Sky". Sky – the drug that had caused an existential crash on the once noble populace of Amarind – was a substance synthesized from the native and naturally occurring tropolisine. The people of Amarind used the psychotropic pollen for ceremonial purposes for centuries. When prepared correctly, it produced an out of body experience that allowed the user to see everything in the universe without context, as things-in-themselves, and travel through space and time as a surrogate for a new omnipresent being. This, combined with the feeling of euphoria, made the ingestion a well loved, spiritually strengthening experience. Of course that was before the Federation found out about it.
Because the citizens of Amarind were not native to the planet (they were relocated from Earth when their people and culture were threatened by genocide in the 18th century) their use of the local substance was banned. Antigens that inhibited the effects of the drug were released into the planet's atmosphere, which made taking tropolisine a futile affair. It wasn't long before the psychotropic compounds were isolated from the pollen and reshaped to have the desired effects. However, this came with a few undesired side effects as well. The new substance, known as "sky", was highly addictive, as Lt. Cmdr. Simmons was feverishly aware.
With little to no negative physical health effects, and it's longstanding history as a catalyst for spiritual enlightenment, the retired lieutenant saw little to no harm in accepting the invitation sent out by his old friend, Lt. Reginald Barclay, to indulge in "an exciting new way to experience space and time." He was aware of the addictive qualities, but as a model of self-restraint and discipline, he figured he would be able to over come addiction's grasp. Furthermore, he believed he couldn't get the substance again even if he wanted to. The federation had been systematically eliminating it from the streets, and replicators were blocked from producing any banned substances. But after his first experience, when he went outside of himself, outside of space, outside of time, after he became his own personal god, he could not live without it.
The experienced engineer with a lifetime of technological knowledge had no trouble at all modifying his replicator to override the prohibitions originally programmed into them. He took it off the Federation's network and linked it to the Dark Net, the illegal and untraceable counter network used mostly for the trade of illegal goods and services such as Romulan ale, felicium and Holodark* simulations. (foot note: *The introduction of holosuites – holodecks rented out for sexual simulation – to Federation planets came with provisional limitations set by an ethics committee to prevent the simulation of interplanetarilly offensive material; including pedophila, bestiality, and violence in a non defensive manner (all with cultural variations specific to each planet's customs) . However, immediately following the introduction of holosuites were "holodarks"; holodecks modified and connected to the Dark Net for the use of said offensive acts, and more. Though to achieve these levels of depravity, all safety features must be sacrificed.) He now had an unlimited supply on hand at all times.
Replicators permit the freedom of having any substance any way you'd like it; Romulan Ale in a baked good, Cordrazine as a cocktail, heroin as a moisturizing lotion. Tonight, Lt. Cmdr. Simmons would have Sky as a breath of high altitude mountain air. "Sky inhaler, air of Mt. Everest," Simmons commanded of the machine, and the machine complied.
Within seconds, the inhaler appeared before him. He reached for it with his quivering, sweat-soaked hand, and his thoughts began to race rapidly around a well-trodden, incoherent path. His body convulsing as much as his mind, he clumsily managed the inhaler to his lips and with the next erratic spasm of his lungs, inhaled.
To say that sky takes one to a realm of everything and nothing is simultaneously accurate and inaccurate and terribly clichéd. Imagine you are a two-dimensional person who only understands the world around them in terms of up and down, left and right. Imagine how you would feel discovering you can move forward and backwards and experience space in a 3rd dimension. The third dimension has always been there, you were just unable to perceive or experience it until this moment. Now move through time in a 4th dimension, and then add 18 additional dimensions to your experience. Describing the sky experience would be like trying to describe a sunset to a blind man from a non-parallel the universe after you've died several times. Such are the limits of our perceptions of the infinite. So know that the narrative following this explanation has been adapted into a perception of time/space/infinity that can be understood by the reader, hopefully without too much lost in translation.
Infinity is real, though to experience it via the vehicle of sky does not permit the visitor true existence within it. They can look out onto it, but can never interact with it. This is where Roger is now; through the looking glass atop the tower engulfed in, yet separate from, everything/nothing.
Roger is aware of his limitations in this realm, as he is also aware of everything within and beyond the multiverse within the confines of human perception. He sees an infinite number of universes burst into being and fade into nothingness as new forms of life develop emotional sensations and galaxies collapse into quasars while matter a, b, and c merge with anti-matter x, y, and z to form phenomenon and anti-phenomenon beyond matter, time, space, energy, and their anti-equivalents simultaneously.
The Lt. Commander Simmons of our plane of existence is not still through this experience. He can be seen from the tower as well, since he is included in infinity (several times over actually, but that's getting a little too deep into the rabbit hole for this story). His body moves through 4 dimensions as per usual, only his perceptive mind is experiencing it second hand from afar. It is almost as if his body is set to autopilot. He is steady and composed now on both planes of existence, his withdrawal satiated in one, his body non-existent in the other. In our universe, Lt. Cmdr. Simmons heads to his transporter as his consciousness looks on. Standing on the platform, he moves his jaw and is surrounded by glittering particles sending his matter to Diné Bikéyah, or DB, as it's known, the urban hub of Amerind.
It's very difficult for a person on sky to blend in with the rest of society: their pupils dilate beyond the whites of their eyes, which do not blink, they drool ceaselessly, wheeze as they breathe and often sing arrhythmic melodies to themselves. The emaciation, unkempt appearance, and horrible smell associated with addiction don't help much in the fitting-in department either. So it makes sense that Lt. Cmdr. Simmons would head towards the seediest part of DB, if only to be in like company.
After transporting as close as he could get, Roger still had quite the trip ahead of him. Those with interests in the black market took many precautions to protect their enterprises, including implementing anti-transport barriers around their territories. Roger watch himself walk through dark, damp alleyways, into crumbling tenement buildings, down cellar staircases, and through mazes of hallways before reaching the sordid center of the lascivious labyrinth; the Holo-Dark District.
Lt. Cmdr. Simmons had been here before. He had a program saved in one of the Holo-Darks, one that created holograms by reading brain waves rather than vocal commands. Simmons developed this technology himself years ago, though Starfleet refused to invest in further development, as it was somewhat unpredictable and dangerous. Duly so when the user has no control of his mind and there are no safety features. By entering this deck, Roger was taking his life in his own uncontrolled hands.
When the doors opened, Lt. Cmdr. Simmons was presented a small hospital room with a physician's table in the center of it. He walked to the table and took a seat. As he sat in wait for the doctor, the room began to transform. The ceiling faded away, exposing a clouded night sky. The walls split apart into many columns, which multiplied, grew tall, sprouted branches, and spread out for what seemed like miles from the table. The muzak transformed into sounds of swaying branches and a babbling brooks. The air grew thick with humidity and the scent of mud and musk. Roger saw himself sitting dumb on a table in the middle of the jungle, like a tethered calf left at a prehistoric alter.
Activity in the jungle was audibly growing. The rustling and chirping which composed the white noise of the woods was now at an alarming volume. Almost all the animals seemed to be scurrying away from the table, but some footsteps were clearly getting closer. In the distance, Simmons could see treetops parting from the rest of the forest, forming a wide path straight towards him. The footsteps got perpetually closer, until Roger was face to face with a creature unfamiliar to all of nature. It stood upright at about three meters tall, humanoid in stature, reptilian in features. It had large yellow eyes with vertical pupils set on either side of an elongated face. Its teeth, the size and shape of tortilla chips, were coated in neon green saliva that reeked of hot, sour blood. It wore nothing more than a frayed, brown suede vest, which was the only clue to its sensibility. Swinging violently behind the beast was a prehensile tail that looked like the vertebrae of a whale stripped of its flesh and coated in steel. At the end of it's muscular, multi-jointed limbs were fingers sprouting long metallic claws. And the entirety of its being was covered in luminescent, dark green scales. But before Lt. Cmdr. Simmons could take in all of these details, the creature was upon him, shredding his flesh and organs until they more closely resembled kimchi than a human body.
Up in the inter-dimensional tower, Roger observed the multitude of dimensions before him; a masked man found a cat on a space station, a celebrity-chef seduced a young lady, a mining crew dwindled under an infestation of pastries, an insecure female stereotype made passionate love to a cartoon Great Dane, and a retired Starfleet officer bled to death on the floor of a back-alley holodeck. The view and the tower itself began to fade quickly. Images flickered and dimmed, sounds were muted; senses became dull, until all that was left was silent, empty darkness.
Sunlight, unbearably bright, beamed through his bedroom window and unto his listless body on the bed. The chirping of birds outside stirred him back into painful consciousness. As Lieutenant Commander Rodger Simmons awoke from unsettling dreams that morning, weak, starving and incontinent, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.