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It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.
Jean Nidetch
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The Medical Bay door swooshed shut behind me, and I just stood there. I had been making every wrong decision I possibly could. "To trust Harper or to not trust Harper? That is the question." I smiled as I remembered when Harper told me about Shakespeare and his literature. The smile quickly faded as I made my decision. If he behaved himself for five minutes, I would go down to the Mess Deck. If I caught him trying to escape again, I would put him in restraints regardless of what he said or did. I had warned him before, and he had made a promise to me that he wouldn't try to leave the Medical Bay.

Four minutes passed without incident. I was beginning to think that Harper had kept his word after all. Then, I felt someone tap my shoulder and jumped. I half-expected to see Harper standing there, a grin on his face, telling me that I should watch the door more carefully. I turned around to see Dylan standing behind me.

"Trance, have you seen the data I sent you?"

"Not yet. I had to spend a lot of time stabilizing the girl and then Harper's sedative wore off."

"Do you have a minute to come and look at it? Rommie and I have made some progress in analyzing it."

"Of course." Dylan and I began walking towards the main laboratory of the Andromeda. I wondered what they had discovered in the data. Hopefully something that will help me reverse the girl's condition.

Rommie was in the lab, leaning over one of the consoles. I approached her from behind and started reading the data. It was, like the girl's condition, different from anything I'd ever seen before. I couldn't even determine whether it was living or not. It had some similar compounds to living organisms, but there were also traits associated with unliving things.

"What progress have you made?" I continued reading through the data.

"We have determined that it isn't living organisms causing this. The affected wall has been attracting many nanobots, but none of them have been able to completely destroy it. There have been no effects on the function of the systems, and as far as we can tell, it's become harmless. As for its entry, we still have no clue how it came on board." Rommie pressed a button on the console and an image appeared on the screen. It reminded me of a virus I had seen several months ago, but there were distinct differences, too. And it wasn't the virus I felt I should be reminded of. There was a nagging in the back of my mind about all of this, but I couldn't pin point what it was.

"This is one of the organisms from the wall magnified a thousand times," Dylan said. He moved to the other side of Rommie and pointed out several key characteristics they had found that might aid in its identification.

"It's so familiar...I feel like I should know what this is." I tapped my fingers lightly on the edge of the console and read through the data again. The results of the reading were the same. I still had that feeling I was forgetting something very obvious that I should have noticed immediately.

"You can get back to your patients, but if you think of anything, I want you to contact me immediately. We still aren't sure of what this is capable of."

I nodded and left the lab. The image of the substance was burned into my mind. I knew if I hadn't had such an off day I would know what it was eating at my mind. I trudged down to the Mess Deck. I ordered some hot herbal tea for myself, which had helped me clear my mind in the past. I wasn't very hungry so I just ordered strawberry ice cream for Harper. The ice cream would be easy to swallow and shouldn't upset his stomach too much. Strawberry was his favorite, and I wanted to make Perseid Fever as easy to bear for him as possible. I knew the Medical Deck wasn't his idea of paradise, and he would be absolutely swamped with work when he returned to duty.

I returned to the Medical Deck. I first turned towards Harper's bed to find he wasn't there. I sighed and wondered where he had gone. Then, I turned to the girl's bed. Harper was leaning on it, his hand tightly clenching hers. Both of them were moving their lips as if they were speaking to each other. As I moved closer to the bed, I felt the psychic energy I had always been sensitive to. They were undoubtedly communicating on some level.

I set the Mess Deck tray down on an unoccupied bed and silently advanced towards them. I wondered if he could help her where medical technology failed. Spending as much time with Harper as I did, I knew he would do everything in his power to help her. But I didn't know if that would be enough in this situation. Her readings weren't as serious as they had been, but they were still abnormal. They seemed to be suspended at an elevated level. Nothing fluctuated even a minute amount. Even comatose patients' readings fluctuated naturally.

The readings jumped off of the sensors into extremely dangerous levels without warning. Both Harper and the girl were physically suffering the effects of this, but he didn't let go of her hand. 'She must mean a lot to him, or he wouldn't go to all this trouble,' I thought. I knew if I intervened, both of them could be lost. Any of my superior officers would insist I do something instead of leave them to save themselves. I decided against telling anyone else about this. "Be careful, Harper. Please be careful."