CHAPTER 2
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down,
should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
and found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Ohio)
=/\=
They transported to the Temporal Integrity Commission together. Rick was able to bypass all of the way stations. His access overrode most of the posturing and security that hid the Commission from prying eyes.
"We can talk freely anywhere in here. There's a little courtyard garden. It's kinda nice."
"Okay," Sheilagh said.
The courtyard garden had tulips in bloom, in several different shades. A Ferengi was tending to them, and he waved in greeting.
They sat down on one of two curving stone benches that defined a little space. There was a steel and glass monument in the center, and it said Tempus Fugit in its center. A name, Eskon, was engraved on one side of it.
"What, uh, what does that mean?" Sheilagh asked.
"It means Time Flies. And, uh, on the side there, that's the name of a Cardassian who died during a mission. Fortunately, it's the only name on the monument."
"That's good," she said, "Definitely answers one of my questions. So, um, tell me. Are you an Augment?"
"It's like this," he said, "About a millennium ago, more actually, as you are well aware, Augments were first developed, and that led to the Eugenics Wars. This was, heh, bad mojo all around, which is the understatement of the decade. Then they reared their heads again around a hundred and fifty years after that – their leader was a guy named Malik – and then maybe eighty years after that there were the Botany Bay and Khan Noonien Singh."
"You're not telling me anything I don't already know."
"Right. Well, the Temporal Integrity Commission started up in 2804 and it almost immediately became problematic that we've got all this technology. The first Temporal Agents, they went out with Communicators, tricorders – uh, we're back to calling them PADDs these days, phasers and Transporter remote controls. It was a lotta stuff to keep track of."
"I'll bet."
"And people would lose stuff. So the first idea was to consolidate all the tech. That didn't work so well for two reasons, namely, all the complicated circuitry would break down a lot more frequently. Plus, it made the devices dandy targets for thieves. The Commission needed a better way."
"I see."
"The first idea they hit upon was to do the Communicator implant. That was a truly amazing breakthrough, and it's still used."
"How do you get used to that thing?"
"It's light. And you just, I dunno, it's like you get used to anything, I suppose."
"Oh. Thanks."
"The rest of it was tougher to do, so the Commission started to look into the older medical research on, as you surmised, Augments. It was becoming readily apparent that keeping Agents out of ancient medical facilities, prisons and POW camps was a necessity. They needed people who could do things like run faster, and hear better. They needed for us to be able to survive all sorts of assaults. We had to be, well, better versions of ourselves."
"Like the blood trick you showed me."
"Right. That's a stem cell growth accelerator. The way it works is that my immune system is kinda in overdrive. It goes after any problem, and fast. You saw how quickly it closed up a small wound."
"Can it, uh, I know this is a disgusting question but, can it fix an amputation?"
"Yes. But there's, well, there's more going on with that. I'll tell you that part in a minute. It, uh, also, if I get a virus, or a bacterial infection, it attacks it quickly. I get infected, for sure, and I'm even contagious, but I heal up fast. Cancer, HIV, smallpox, you name it. It's only really fast-moving, devastating illnesses that can get me."
"Like what?"
"Hemorrhagic fevers and the like. But it all comes with a price."
"Which is?" she swallowed a little.
"I get all of the pain, but it's compressed into a far shorter time period."
"No wonder you cringed at the diner. You looked like you were about ready to pass out."
"Yep. Paper cuts are horrible, lemme tell ya."
"I guess they would be."
"So there's that. But there's also – you mentioned amputations. Well, that's rather tricky. Before the accelerator was developed, the Commission sent an Agent to medieval England. The guy had his hand cut off because he lost his trial for petty theft."
"God."
"He came back, and he was fixed up with a prosthesis, of course. Good to go, right? Well, no, not really. 'Cause what happens if the prosthesis is cut off, or the fake skin is opened up, and wiring is exposed? It's one huge temporal contamination issue, just waiting to happen."
"Your body regrowing a limb would do that too, though, right?"
"If you were caught in the act, then, yeah. But the chances are a bit less. It's still a better system. If I lose a thumb in private, the entire mission doesn't have to be scrapped."
"True."
The Ferengi came over, "Which do you prefer, yellow or peach?" he asked Sheilagh.
"Uh, Von, this is Sheilagh Bernstein. She's thinking of taking a job with us," Rick explained.
"Rick is a rascal. Only listen to one-tenth of what he says."
"Which tenth?" she asked.
"No one knows, and you're not allowed to ask," said Von, "So, yellow or peach?"
"Uh, yellow, I guess."
He went to the tulips and clipped a yellow one for her, which he presented with a flourish, "Putting two beautiful things together is most profitable."
"Yes, but doesn't latinum last longer than lust?" Rick asked, "Uh, Rule of Acquisition Number 229, if I'm not mistaken."
"I get the feeling Rick isn't the only rascal around here," she said, smiling, "Thank you."
"My pleasure. I hope you join us," he went back to the tulips.
"The Temporal Integrity Commission has a gardener?" she asked.
"He does that for fun. He's actually an engineer," Rick said, "Anyway, uh, body parts. The Commission knew that we Agents had to be faster, stronger, that kind of thing, but not too obvious about it. We had to be smarter, have better eyesight and all of that, but not stand out too much."
"I take it the accelerator doesn't do that."
He shook his head, "I've got implants."
"Where?"
"Lots of places. Every fingertip, the bottoms of both feet and in my head, in a few places."
"What do they do?"
"The ones in my feet give me padding mainly, and traction. It's not exactly like wearing running shoes all the time, but it's close. They also keep the interior a bit more intact. There are infections and parasites that you can get through your feet. The implants keep them out. Of course the accelerator ultimately cures that, but they're unpleasant so it's kinda nice to not have to deal with them at all. I don't really run faster with the foot padding, but the impact on my knees is less. I don't get so much shock. I definitely have better endurance."
"That's good."
"They saved my bacon when I was on the AD 79 mission to Pompeii. The uh, the fingertip implants are a lot more sophisticated. I can gather some simple data with them – chemical analysis, that sort of thing – and even patch that into a computer, on the Wells or here at headquarters."
"Wow."
"They can also be used to keep me from leaving behind latent fingerprints. Or, if I have to leave a fingerprint, like, let's say I was being arrested in 1902 London, well, I can do so, and even change the print if I need to."
"Nice," she said, twirling the tulip in her hands.
"Then there's what I've got up here," he said, tapping his right temple, "I've got implants in both ear canals, which give me the ability to hear farther up and down, beyond the range of normal human hearing. I can also differentiate tones and voices, and can hear faint sounds, too."
"Can you play music?"
"Not a note," he smiled, "It doesn't give me any abilities in that area. That's why we're probably going to hire the music guy, HD Avery."
"Oh, yeah. I think I remember him. Scraggly beard, right?"
"Dunno. I didn't look at his picture," Rick had only looked at the photographs of the female job candidates, "I also have implants in both optic nerves, so I can see UV and infrared, and I can see farther than just about anyone. I can see detail work, too. I'm no artist, it's not like that, but I can see differentiation, in a way that most people can't."
"Like the petals in this tulip, you can see variants."
"Well, you can see them, too. But I can also detect the color as it transitions from one end of any given petal to its other end. It's a tiny bit more orangey here, near the pistils. Can you see that?"
"I can't," she admitted, "It just looks like a fairly uniform shade of yellow to me."
"I've also got some cerebral implants, mainly to enhance my memory. I still need a PADD for some things, and I keep one with me, but I've also got a photographic memory, and an associative intelligence. I can, well; I can put ideas together in all sorts of ways."
"So you improvise."
"Right. I wonder if I could do stand up. All of this generally keeps me from having to bring a PADD with me on missions, so I don't have that to lose. I do bring a phaser, though, and a Transporter remote control. I also sometimes bring a thing called a Departiculating Handgrip. It makes it so I can walk through walls. It's convenient but unnerving."
"I can see where that would be."
"Sheilagh, I didn't have a photographic memory before I got the implants."
"Interesting."
"Yeah. It's not, I mean, it's not like I was dumb before. But I've zoomed so far ahead of what I was; it's as if that was some other person. Know what I mean?"
"I think so."
"See, it kinda mops me up if things really go haywire."
"Maybe this question is outta left field, but, uh, would I be expected to, um, sleep with people I didn't like in order to accomplish these missions?"
He thought for a moment, "Not expected, no. But you do need to get the missions done. So it might happen."
"That makes me kinda uncomfortable."
"I think it probably should. You also, uh, you might meet people who you like, you know. That does sometimes happen," Lucretia Crossman. Betty Tyler. Empress Hoshi Sato. Phillipa Green. And more. It had happened, for him, more than once or twice.
"But these are people you'll never see again."
"True," he said, "We aren't, uh, please don't take this the wrong way, but one of the reasons I was chosen to do this is because I'm no matinee idol. No offense, but the job isn't for the super-beautiful. It helps for us to be able to better blend in. I'm not saying you won't have offers or anything. But the idea is, well, for us to not be irresistible. Please, uh, don't take that as an insult. You are an attractive woman. But a real stunner would never be offered this job."
"Hmm. I, uh, can you show me where Carmen's office is?"
"Of course," he walked her there. Carmen was in, so he left her there.
"Well, what do you think?" Carmen asked, as soon as her office door closed.
"I think I'm in."
"Good," Carmen said, "Richard will train you, as soon as you've had your surgeries."
"Yes, he explained those."
"That was good of him. Welcome to the team."
"Thanks. I, uh, I guess things are gonna change for me," Sheilagh said.
"They'll be changes for the better, I trust."
=/\=
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
we're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming.
Four dead in Ohio.
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Ohio)