Chapter 7:
Dr. McCoy ran through the halls, his eyes dilated, his skin full blown pale, and dark circles around his eyes. He looked as if he had not had any sleep in days. Like he had lost his mind and had snapped completely. He was giving blood curdling shrieks and kept screaming like someone was after him. The crew that passed by him stared at him or froze right in their tracks, trying to stay out of the man's sight. McCoy was blind mad.
"Kill him! Kill him! He's out to get us all! He'll kill this entire ship, murder him! Lock him up! Kill him!" He screeched.
Spock and Scotty came down the hall in the opposite direction, stopped and observed the scene, and stood in disbelief.
"Great Scot...he's gone blind mad." Scotty spoke barely. He was stunned, terrified, and worried ill of McCoy. His illness was progressing rapidly and at a much faster rate than it had affected the ones who suffered from it down below on Altius VII.
The Vulcan raised an eyebrow and watched the old doctor with a careful eye.
"Fascinating," he said.
"Mr. Spock, what do we do? We've got to get him to stop screaming and calm down," Scotty said with a quiver.
"Mr. Scott, first of all, do not panic. It is a simple matter of apprehending the doctor safely. I suggest that you gain his attention so that I may have the opportunity to conduct a Vulcan nerve pinch."
"Yah mean yer gonna go over there and attempt physical contact with a mentally unstable person?!"
"It is either that, or risk Dr. McCoy harming others on the ship or himself."
Scotty sighed and hung his head slightly.
"Alright, Mr. Spock. We'll try it your way."
Spock nodded, and made his way passed Dr. McCoy, as if he were on his way towards a meeting. Scotty took in a deep breath and made his way slowly and cautiously towards McCoy.
"Dr. McCoy!" The Scotsman called.
The old doctor snapped his attention towards him.
"Scotty, get lost! He'll come after you next!" He wailed.
"Who will?"
"There's a murderer on this ship! Get going, or he'll get you, too!"
"Dr. McCoy, there's no murderer on this ship, lad. Yer just hallucinatin' things. No one's after us."
"Where's Jim? Where's Spock?...Where's Julia?!"
"We're all fine, Dr. McCoy. We're all safe, nothing's harming us. Yah gotta snap out of it, Doctor."
While the exchange between CMO and CEO occurred, Spock slowly and silently made his way behind the doctor, his phaser in hand and on 'stun' as a safety precaution.
"Where are they? Where's my daughter? Where's Jim and Spock?!" McCoy ordered.
"They're all fine, Dr. McCoy, but yah've got to calm down, lad!"
The Vulcan was in reaching distance, took his dominant hand, and pressed down on the back of McCoy's neck. The doctor cried out, then fell to the floor limp.
Once the McCoy had collapsed, Scotty hurried to Spock's side, and both examined the man. The Vulcan pulled out a medical tricorder and scanned the doctor's body and nervous system for any changes in patterns or bodily functions from the last time he had been examined.
Spock looked up to Scotty, then quickly back down at the tricorder in his hands.
"The gray matter in Dr. McCoy's brain is decreasing rapidly. It's almost over halfway depleted," he said.
"Can yah stop it from getting worse?" Scotty asked, a bit of anxiety in his voice.
"Negative, Mr. Scott. If we knew how to stop it from getting worse, the death rates on Altius VII would not be increasing in size currently."
"There's gotta be something to help him, Mr. Spock. Just to give us more time to find a cure."
"Perhaps putting Dr. McCoy into a medically induced coma would slow the progression of the disease in the doctor's body. As what we've already seen, it's progressing much faster in him than the Altians."
"Is it because of the different body chemistry between us and them?"
"It's a logical assumption, but nothing can be confirmed of that, however. There could be many factors to why the disease is affecting Dr. McCoy quicker than with the Altians down below."
"I wonder how it would affect someone like a Vulcan such as yourself. Would you be able to stop it from affecting your brain so violently? I mean, you were able to fight off the pain and disease symptoms you experienced, when you were bit by that rogue neuron cell on Deneva."
"The only thing that will answer your question, Mr. Scott, is for me to fall ill with the disease currently affecting Dr. McCoy. One Starfleet officer being sick is enough already, would you not agree?"
"That leaves me with only one question, then, Mr. Spock?"
The Vulcan raised an eyebrow.
"What question might that be?"
"How much time do we have left?"
Kirk and Sulu made their way quickly to the signal the helmsman's tricorder was picking up on. Both were anxious and curious to figure out what this 'liquid substance' was, as Sulu put it.
The two Starfleet officers had made it to their destination, standing on a bridge, and were surprised to see that the source of this mysterious clear liquid was exiting out of a sewer drain and into a river filled of purplish pink water.
"I don't understand, Captain. How is the liquid coming out of the sewer drain going into a river that's purple, and not be purple itself?" Sulu asked, befuddled.
"Perhaps that mysterious liquid is the source of where this disease is coming from." Kirk suggested.
"As Mr. Spock would say it, it's quite a logical explanation."
"Come on, Mr. Sulu."
The two made their way off the bridge and closer to the sewer drain. Once getting there, Sulu knelt down on the ground and started scanning the clear water-like liquid, and Kirk took Julia out of the satchel and held her close to him. The young captain was hopeful this was the first lead to finding a cure for Dr. McCoy, save him from a brutal death, and save the thousands of people on Altius VII from such death, too.
The tricorder's readings started to come in, and Sulu's eyes bugged out of his head.
"Captain!" The helmsman gasped.
"What is it, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk asked, his adrenaline starting to run.
"This substance...it's dopamine."
"Dopamine! Explain."
"It's coming from somewhere into the sewer and entering out into the city's water supply...there also seems to be something with the water itself. Not only is dopamine entering it, but there seems to be some sort of bacteria living in it."
"Mr. Spock said the same thing, when he examined it. Does it say what kind of bacteria it is, Mr. Sulu?"
"Negative, Captain...but it seems to be affecting the dopamine neurotransmitters within the medicine itself. It's causing them to become mutated, and their duplicating themselves rapidly."
"We've gotta find a way to shut down this sewer drain...but how?"
"We could try blocking it with something, sir."
"I'm afraid of it having a chance and leaking through cracks."
"What if I went inside the drain, located where this dopamine is leaking from, and block it from there?"
"Absolutely not! I refuse to have another one of men become sick with this illness!"
"I'll be alright, Captain. The dopamine is not the cause. It's the bacteria in the water that's causing the illness."
Kirk was still uneasy about the idea.
"I'm coming with you," he said.
"What about little Julia, sir?"
Kirk looked down at the little baby in his arms. Julia looked up at him with her little blue eyes, her face looked like she was trying to figure out what was going on.
Getting an idea, he pulled out his communicator and contacted the ship.
"Kirk to Enterprise."
"Lieutenant Matthews speaking."
"Beam down an infant sized rain cap and jacket. Pink or something with flowers or ducks on it would be preferred by the little one."
"Aye, sir. Infant sized rain cap and jacket beaming down."
"Kirk out."
Putting the communicator back in it's holster, a tiny pink hat and a jacket with tiny pink flowers appeared lying in a soft patch of grass.
The captain picked them up and dressed Julia in it. Once her little face and body had been covered with protection, Kirk approached Sulu and nodded.
"Let's go, Mr. Sulu."
"Aye, sir."
The two of them stepped foot inside the sewer drain, Sulu took out a flashlight, and they began their trek hopefully towards the answer to their question.
