Child of Night (Kind der Nacht): Part 9

Author: Christy Anderson

You can contact me at kittyunlimited@go.com.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount minus Ensign Christy Anderson, Tre'kent, and a few selected insignificant characters.

All I can say, is that I apologize because this part is extremely over due, and I finally found the time to finish it. I hope you enjoy it

Child of Night (Kind der Nacht): Part 9

As the doors to Sick Bay swished open, Tre'kent released his supporting grip around my waist and let me stand on my own two feet. He gave me a caring, knowing glance before he took a step back. "I'll be right outside," he promised softly as he turned around and exited through the doors.

Inside of Sick Bay, B'Elanna's voice erupted. "Captain, I knew him. The bastard taught me a sem"

"B'Elanna," the Captain warned sharply, interrupting B'Elanna in mid-sentence.

"He taught me a semester of quantum physics at the Academy during my first year there and I always knew there was something funny about him. He was eccentric and he had an obsession with radical principles and discovering the 'perfect human being'," B'Elanna was saying furiously as she gestured her arms wildly. Her cheeks were flushed with outrage, and one of her fists shook a gray, circular alien object.

As I became engrossed in their conversation, I took a stumbling step forward and flailed out for anything around that would support me. I grabbed onto a console, and a PADD that was resting on top fell and smacked the ground. The sound radiated throughout the room, and the Captain instantly looked in my direction to catch me eavesdropping. Clearing her throat loudly, the Captain looked back up at B'Elanna. "Lieutenant, I'll be happy to finish this conversation at 18:30 hours in my Ready Room," she ordered as she interrupted B'Elanna again.

Startled, B'Elanna looked up and followed the Captain's glance. The indignant gleam that seethed in her eyes immediately quieted down to a sympathetic gaze when she noticed that I was standing behind her. "Of course," she whispered, pained, as she set the alien object on the Doctor's desk and turned away to exit Sick Bay. Coming up towards me, B'Elanna stopped and gave me an impulsive hug. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she whispered as she just as quickly hurried away to inconspicuously wipe away the tears forming in her eyes.

I looked up at the Captain, who motioned me forward as soon as the doors swished behind B'Elanna. "Ensign," Captain Janeway uncharacteristically acknowledged.

I nodded my head to acknowledge her as the tormented look from B'Elanna's eyes began to register. She had been crying, and angry. Bemused, I opened my mouth to ask about what had happened, but the Doctor immediately cut me off.

"I think you might want to sit down, Ensign," he said stoically.

Puzzle, I glanced from one solemn face to the other. The Captain's expression was grim, her eyes now dulled and lifeless. The only outward sign of emotion was the clenched fist that lay stiffened at her side. She watched me through glazed eyes that shifted nervously around the room, and a bead of sweat ran down from her forehead. Gazing at a small spot on the wall, she was in a deep vegetative state that usually only set in when she was particularly disturbed.

My pulse began to race as I could increasingly sense that something was terribly amiss. I stood rooted to the spot, the chaos in my mind whirling around enough to make me dizzy.

"I said sit down on the biobed, Ensign," the Doctor commanded with more authoritative volume in his voice.

It was enough to shove me out of the trance and I pushed down my panic levels as I fought to keep my voice even. "Unless its absolutely necessary, Doctor, I actually would prefer to stand," I insisted.

The Doctor made a face. "Captain," he complained.

The Captain jumped abruptly and her eyes spun about the room, finally setting on the Doctor. "I'm sorry, Doctor, you were saying?" she asked after a few moments

"Never mind." He gave an exasperated sigh. "Very well," he grumbled as he moved to activate the console. "I think we should begin Captain?"

She nodded, now fully alert. "Of course- Christy, how much do you remember about your childhood?" Captain Janeway asked with an unmistakable ghostly look in her eyes.

I shrugged. "What do you want to know?" I answered with a question.

The Captain wrinkled her face. "Nothing really well, no, I mean yes," she stopped to take a deep breath. "Christy, do you ever remember being in Dallas, Texas?"

I made a face as I thought back to as far as I could remember. "No, not at all," I said as I shook my head.

The Captain frowned. "Not at all?" she asked as she looked up at me again.

Bewildered, I shook my head a second time. "My parents were there a few times for some of my Father's earlier projects. If I'm not mistaken, that's where my Mother received the radiation poisoning."

The frown on the Captain's face grew deeper. "Do you remember that Tom and B'Elanna found your medical file on the shuttle?"

"Vaguely," I said as I recalled hearing a faint conversation in the shuttle as I came to the second time. I stared at the Captain who was being aberrantly evasive. "Captain, just tell me" I pleaded.

Captain Janeway looked up at me strangely, and then smiled. "Sorry," she muttered. "Christy, while you were on the shuttle, Tom and B'Elanna brought up your medical files for ideas to treat you. However, there were millions upon millions of medical entries, well that is a slight exaggeration. When the Doctor was searching for ways to treat the DNA transition, B'Elanna told him about the entries in the shuttle"

"Entries that I had never seen," the Doctor interrupted. "Needless to say, when you came aboard Voyager, we didn't have your medical records, but B'Elanna downloaded two hundred and sixty different entries from your birth until now, some of which were civilian."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Civilian?" I asked with a squeak.

The Captain nodded. "Yes, but we had no real basis to assume they were true. What exists in the shuttle's database should be in Voyagers too"

"And you didn't tell me?" I asked suddenly, cross at the fact that they had held such information from me since I had woken up on Voyager. So this is what had everyone so upset.

"Christy," the Captain began, "You have to understand we couldn't find them in Voyager's database, and needless to say, the medical entries were very controversial. We didn't want to alarm you unnecessarily because you needed to rest. But B'Elanna and Tuvok were searching endlessly through Voyager's database. We had all shifts of security teams searching the shuttle, checking through sensor logs, and Tom was helping run simulations of the pulse that hit you during the mission. We weren't sure that anything would turn up, let alone what would turn up..."

But I had already stopped listening since her second sentence. "Controversial?" I asked sharply.

The Doctor stepped up, obviously ignoring my question. "B'Elanna came in here two hours ago with sudden inspiration. She remembered that she had removed all of the security protocol before she had attempted to bring the medical files up. When Tuvok removed all the security protocol temporarily, these entries came up just like they had in the shuttle. Evidently, they have been in the database since Voyager left dry-dock."

At last, Captain Janeway caught up to the rhythm of the conversation and stepped right in without skipping a beat. "As far as B'Elanna can tell, someone added all of your medical files to the Starfleet database and protected them with a program that required a password to view all of your files. It fed off of the security protocols, and as soon as they were disabled, the program shut down. All we can think of is that someone sent these files to somebody that was waiting for you on Celsius Prime"

"Waiting for me? Controversial?" I asked again emphatically.

The Captain's face showed brief sorrow. "I don't think that I can explain this properly. Perhaps, Christy, you should take a look through the files."

At her nod, the Doctor stepped up to another console and activated the screen. I came up behind him and began to read the first few entries.

29 December 2354-

Kathryn Hopewell Hospital, Dallas, TX

Dr. Koshener

The infant child of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson responded well to post radiation treatment- no permanent damage observable. However, deep tissue scans show that the Third Chromosome, Sub-junction Beta, Base Pair Sequence Alpha displays a complex radioactive pattern, more extensive scans in process

"This is perfectly normal, Captain, I already knew I received acute radiation poisoning before I was born. Dr. Koshener was my father's friend who handled the case. Even when I was eight he still came for visits" I trailed off at the look on her face as she hit a button and zoomed ahead several entries. Following her lead, I trained my vision back on the screen and commenced reading again.

8 April 2354-

Kathryn Hopewell Hospital, Dallas, TX

Dr. Koshener

The radioactive gene has displayed the ability to morph and mutate the basic DNA sequence. I have begun to confer with several colleagues of mine in an attempt to shut the gene down. According to calculations approximately .001% of her DNA has changed, and by shutting the gene down we should be able to protect her from any more of these changes. Another month and I should be able to locate the areas affected by the small mutation

The Captain hit the button again.

10 April 2354-

Kathryn Hopewell Hospital, Dallas, TX

Dr. Koshener

Dr. Gibralnher from Starfleet examined the medical case. Starfleet will officially take over tomorrow on the account of medical advancement. They are bringing in all of the workers at the launch of the U.S.S. Asteroid Belt who received the acute radiation poisoning that was leaked from the ships port nacelles to see if any of them contain the extraordinary gene. I leave the case in his capable hands

The display zoomed forward again.

STARFLEET MEDICAL FILES

Stardate 32285.1

Medical Personnel- Dr. Gibralnher

Medical Notes

After running several diagnostics on test results, I have become even more certain that I have finally found what I have been looking for. The child has a special gene that can mutate her DNA on the subatomic level. I have teams studying the type and frequency of radiation she was exposed to, to see if we can reconstruct the accident and create several identical genes in different test subjects. All personnel present at the original accident, both Starfleet and civilian, who were brought in for more extensive testing, do not display any of the significant changes in any of their 24 chromosomes. The only hypothesis we have is that this child was not born yet at the time that the radiation leakage occurred

I have permanently removed Dr. Koshener from the case. Tomorrow I will begin experiments to see if we can harness basic radiation to force the gene into rapid mutation. Perhaps we will shortly be able to design ways to target specific areas of the DNA to change specific things, from eye color to IQ, we could finally be looking at a way to create the perfect human being (at last)

I tore my eyes away from the console, the naked reality beginning to seep in. I looked up at the Captain, tears stinging my eyes. "Was any of this done to save my life?" I asked in a whisper, and immediately saw the Captain shake her head. "I was an experiment?" I asked pained.

The Captain gave a slight nod, almost indistinguishable. "Apparently when Dr. Gibralnher took over your case he viewed it as an opportunity to create the perfect human being. Your radioactive gene sped up the process of genetic recreation, especially when he learned that your stem cells were responsible for the abnormal chromosome. In a few short months there were three infants, including you, but only you had the full radioactive gene. Try as he might, he could only replicate parts of it, and there were many times that he failed and killed his 'test subjects'. Over the years, as he concentrated on all three, especially you, he came up with a process of targeting specific DNA sequences to change specific things. According to the entries, these experiments lasted for years. It was not until you were thirteen that you were released from your monthly 'check-ups' because he had collected all the data he needed to start other experiments on new children. The Doctor has determined that up to 97% of your existing DNA has been changed. About as far as we can tell, the pulse that you were hit with on the Shuttle didn't give you an entire new DNA sequence, it reverted all the changes back to the original"

"Unfortunately, your body can no longer hold that original sequence," the Doctor began, "I already tried to stabilize you earlier when you were brought in, but almost every single thing is different, especially your amino acid sequences The large change is too much for your system- that is why you were going into synaptic shock; at your age, you cannot handle any more changes to your DNA sequence. Of course, when you were first brought in, I also wasn't quite sure that any of these recorded experimentations that Tom and B'Elanna found were true, but when I did find a masked radioactive gene on the 3rd chromosome, I used a Bajoran technique to shut it down immediately for your safety."

At that moment in my life, I could only blink. The moment I tried to process the information, the emotions of anger and hurt came rushing at me with a thousand attacks. But there was one question one question that had to be asked "Did my Father know?" I heard my own voice asking, pleading, waiting hopelessly for the answer.

From my own two eyes, I watched the Captain nod again. "It didn't take your Father long to discover this after Dr. Gibralnher began to change specific things, some were probably relatively easy to spot. When your Father confronted Dr. Gibralnher, he was threatened with his job, his career as a scientist. He said that he could twist your Father's reputation, start a family scandal for the world to read. And, Christy, your Father backed down"

Her last words injured me more than anything ever had in my life My father had backed down and left things the way they were

For a moment, I stayed deathly silent, wondering if I could even make it out of this room before I broke down. But I stood in front of the Captain, and I could never bring myself to cry in front of her. Instead, the anger aroused inside of me as I spat out my next question: "Why don't I remember any of this?"

The Captain grimaced. "From the age of three, they began giving you doses of memory drugs to block the memory pathways to specific incidents Every month there would at least be a few hours out of one day that you could not remember. It seemed harmless to them, of course- this way there would be no emotional damage on their 'test subjects'. You were right, though, Christy, Dr. Koshener kept in touch and came to see you and your Father, often, too often. Dr. Koshener began to notice the changes too, and he began to do research, stick his nose in where other people thought it didn't belong. He asked questions for your sake, questions that had gone unanswered and ignored in the previous years. He finally found out from an old colleague, who was working distantly on your case, that some of the rumors he had heard were true. Dr. Koshener was outraged when he found out that your Father knew what kind of experiments that they ran on you every month. Without hesitation, he publicly accused Dr. Gibralnher of malpractice and unspeakable crimes. But the next week, Dr. Koshener was falsely cast out of the medical field for alleged murder. He was arrested, and put to death under Starfleet. I'm afraid that is why you never saw him again after you were nine. However, his accusations brought up a minor investigation of Dr. Gibralnher's lab. They interview you because you were one of his charges, but you had no recollection of the experiments and Dr. Gibralnher was off the hook."

The load of information was becoming intolerable and I began to shake my head slowly back and forth to clear it of the random, haphazard thoughts that were running through my mind. I suddenly felt a heavy hand on my shoulders as I began to ask, "Who knows?"

The reply was deliberate. "I do. Chakotay, Tom, B'Elanna, Tuvok, and the Doctor know. Security Teams Alpha- Gamma know a little. Other than that, we've kept it pretty quiet for your sake" the Captain's voice trailed off. "I know that you have millions of questions, so the Doctor downloaded all of the files, and his report, and transported a few data PADDS to your quarters."

"His report?" I asked.

"I analyzed the extensive tests that I had taken and drew up a list of systems that had been affected by the DNA changes. Needless to say, the list was long. I also included my medical opinions and a firm demand as Voyager's Chief Medical Officer, and your medical liaison, that the perpetrators be rightly and justly prosecuted for their crimes- malpractice, violation of three innocent children, arranged murder, etc.," the Doctor said with a taint of sick enthusiasm.

I gulped. It occurred to me that I was not whom I was supposed to be from the beginning, and at that moment, hearing about a list of my affected systems began to push my level of anger higher. Reading that would seem too much like admitting that those parts weren't really me, but plagiarized, forged, stolen from somebody else. If there was anything else that I dreaded at that moment, reading that list was it. How would my friends feel if they found out what really was and wasn't me. That instead of being smart, I was really supposed to be a vegetable, or that instead of hazel, my eye color should have been red, or something like that. The anger inside of me wanted to destroy that list, to destroy the evidence, to try to go back and pretend that my life for once was normal. That list harbored everything that was threatening to tear my world apart. I took in a sharp breath. "You'll be writing your own report too?" I inquired as I looked up at the Captain. Slowly she nodded.

"I'll be using the entries and the report from the Doctor to write a formal charge against Dr. Gibralnher and his organization to turn in when we get back home in the Alpha Quadrant."

"Do you have to use the Doctor's report?" I asked suddenly.

"Christy!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"Doctor, can I see you over here?" I asked motioning to the other side of Sickbay as I turned and left the Captain standing behind, puzzled. As I waited for the Doctor to come over, my eyes brimmed with tears. He looked up at me in a dominant, yet inquisitive sort of way. "As a member of this crew, I have the right to Doctor-patient confidentiality, correct?" I asked bitterly.

The Doctor's face softened. "Yes, but"

"Can the Captain make her report without yours?" I cut him off.

"Well, I suppose, but it"

"Can she?" I challenged angrily.

The Doctor gave a resolute nod.

I let out an aggrieved sigh. "It's just that It's not like I want to get rid of your report I mean I just need time to come to terms with this," I said honestly. "And I would like to keep this as private as possible."

The Doctor gave another nod. "I understand. I'll go tell the Captain," and he turned around and left. I stood there for a while, somewhat relieved as I watched him tell her. Understanding and sympathy flooded over her face- emotions that I didn't want to accept from anybody. Within the next minute, the Doctor waved me back over.

"Ensign," he began, "I've discussed with the Captain the possibility of counseling."

At once, I frowned. "There is no ship's counselor on board," I stated.

He nodded. "I'm well aware of that, but I have been planning to add parenting subroutines to my holomatrix in order to give informative classes to Ensign Wildman. I might add some psychiatric subroutines as well."

I could feel the anger surging up inside of me. "No thank you, Doctor," I managed as politely as I could.

"But Ensign, you are going through a confusing time, and an imperative one as well. There is room to grow as a person. Your past is going to be a haunting subject for maybe even years to come it is psychologically traumatizing"

"No thank you," I growled. "W" I stopped, suddenly unable to go on. "Wer" I started again. "Wer"

The Doctor beamed a nasty half-smile. "Your German," he said curiously. "I'm surprised that you hadn't noticed it before."

"What about my German?" I snapped, desperately trying to recall the once-familiar words.

"When I operated to restore your DNA sequence to what can now be considered your original one, some parts of your brain took a heavier beating than others. The speech center of your brain, particularly, but I couldn't tell exactly what for sure." He shrugged. "We were afraid you'd wake up speaking German and nothing else, but it seems to be the other way around. The medical profession is always an interesting one," he stopped as he pulled out a hypospray and injected it into my neck. "Don't worry, Ensign," he said as he saw the expression on my face, "It will come back within the next week. And this will help it slightly." He smiled. "Now about counseling" he began again.

"I don't want counseling, Doctor!" I screamed.

"Christy!" the Captain yelled.

I cringed as I heard her voice. "I'm sorry, Doctor," I began, "I just think that it would be beneficial to myself if I worked through this alone."

The two of them nodded. "Then I think it would be fair to tell you," the Doctor added, " that in the next few weeks you will be experiencing flashbacks, some of them most likely unpleasant, because I also took the liberty to restore the blocked memory pathways. And if you ever"

I nodded. "I understand," I interrupted him. "Now, Captain, if I may be dismissed" I said questioningly as I straightened up into the formal Starfleet position.

Despite herself, she gave a small chuckle. "Of course, Christy. You can take the next two days off from your duty shifts, on medical and personal reasons. I expect to see you today at 20:00 hours in my Ready Room, and you needn't have your official report on the mission yet."

I nodded, the tears that I hadn't yet shed welling up once again in the back of eyes. With great effort, I managed to turn around and stumble out the Doors to exit Sickbay.

As the doors swished shut behind me, I felt myself fall into a pair of strong arms. It will be all right, Tre'kent's voice sounded in my head as he wrapped his arms around me. Holding on for dear life, I let the tears out. You can only be brave for so long.

To be continued