As Allison followed Spock, she felt a sudden chill. In an attempt to ward off the cold, she rubbed her bare arms with her hands as she tried to ignore her headache. The cold wasn't helping it any; the pain was steadily increasing.
It finally got to the point where she could no longer keep up a normal appearance. One hand went to her temple, as if physical pressure would relieve the pain. Her hands were trembling in what seemed like icy air, but she was the only one who showed any discomfort. Her steps faltered, and she almost stumbled.
"Are you well?" Spock asked, and only after he spoke did Allison realize that he had stopped walking.
"I don't think so," she answered, feeling horrible. "I'm a little cold...and my head hurts." At that point she would have fallen, if it hadn't been for Spock's strong arm supporting her.
He flipped open his communicator. "Spock to Doctor McCoy."
"McCoy here."
Their voices seem so far away, Allison noted fuzzily. I wonder why it sounds like I'm in a tunnel?
"Doctor, one of the children has collapsed. I believe she is quite ill, and will require your assistance once we have returned to the Enterprise."
She felt like she was falling, and vaguely wondered what would happen if she just fell asleep. Thank pitchforks and pointed ears... the random thought came, influenced by hearing McCoy's voice.
She was aware only of being carried, and the intense cold that seemed to run through her very blood. There were voices, floating around her in worried tones. A shrill noise...a tricorder? The hum of machinery...
And then she only knew blackness.
~~~~~~~
There were only six transporter pads, so only six people could beam up at a time. Spock, carrying Allison, and McCoy went in the first group along with May, Kristian, Lia, and Steve. Kirk, Michael, and Jessie had to wait until they were already gone before being able to transport up to the ship.
Jessie materialized on the transporter pad, finally being able to feel the sensations of "having her atoms scattered back and forth across the galaxy," to quote McCoy. She hadn't had the chance earlier with those aliens, because they had knocked her out.
Jessie turned to Kirk. "They're taking Allison to Sickbay, right? Could you show us the way?"
"I think it's the least we could do," Kirk said. "But I have to get back to the bridge, so Mister Scott will show you the way." Then he walked through the doors, and disappeared down the corridor.
"Aye, follow me," Scotty said as they left the transporter room. "So, where are ye both from?" he asked them as they walked.
"I'm from Michigan," Jessie said, then mentally slapped herself. Scotty doesn't know you're not from this century! she reminded herself. Let alone that you were human.
"Michigan? Aye, but that's on Earth!"
"Uh...yeah. Umm...we're not exactly from around here, though..." Jessie said.
"Of course ye are!" Scotty objected. "Earth isn't that far away, though I never heard of a Klingon bein' allowed to live there."
Jessie glanced at Michael. "We might as well tell him," Michael said.
"I wasn't a Klingon until about two hours ago," Jessie started. "And we're not from this time, all seven of us are from the twenty-first century."
"The twenty-FIRST century? Aye, that IS a different way o' lookin' at things. How'd ye end up here?" Scotty asked, sounding interested.
"We're not sure exactly," Michael said. "We were at a Star Tre-" The rest was muffled by Jessie's hand, which she had hurriedly slapped across his mouth.
"Don't tell him we know all about them," Jessie warned in a whisper, so the engineer couldn't overhear. "Who knows how that'll change what's supposed to happen in the movies and stuff?" When Michael nodded slightly, she released him and turned to a puzzled Scotty. "Uh...we're not supposed to say where we were," she said truthfully.
Scotty nodded slowly, unconvinced. "Well, we can't help that now can we?" He finally stopped in front of a sliding door. "Here's Sickbay," he said. "Doctor McCoy and that Vulcan friend o' yours should be inside."
"Thanks," Jessie said, and dragged Michael through the doors before he decided to say something stupid.
Inside Sickbay was just how Gene Roddenbery had shown it; white, clean, and smelling faintly of Tennessee whiskey. Busy noises came from the connected room, obviously where McCoy was looking over Allison and trying to find out what was wrong.
On the other side of the Sickbay "lounge" were the other four teens, in various states of emotion or non-emotion. Kristian was examining the computer terminal on McCoy's desk while May tried to keep him from even touching it, Steve was looking over a map of the Enterprise in hopes of finding the cafeteria, and Lia was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Rolling her eyes, Jessie sat down in a chair near the wall and watched the time-traveled teens basically flip out over the fact that they were actually on THE Enterprise, NCC-1701.
Jessie set her new bat'leth on her lap, looking at the weapon closely. Much more real than the plastic one Allison had been fooling around with at the convention. Hard to believe it was real, and that the reflection she saw in the smooth metal was actually hers.
And as she stared at her image, she wondered if her life would ever be normal again.
~~~~~~~
About fifteen minutes later, Doctor McCoy walked through the door alone. He looked slightly more relaxed than when they had last seen him, which almost instantly reassured everyone that Allison was going to be okay.
"How is she?" Kristian asked, quickly stepping away from McCoy's desk and trying to look innocent.
"Well as far as I can tell, there were a few factors influencing her condition," McCoy began. "First of all, she's a complete Vulcan. The temperature on that ship was set far lower than what she could stand. Spock's lucky, he's only half-Vulcan so the lower temperature of Earth-normal doesn't bother him that much."
"That sounds logical," May commented.
"A simple bioscan showed that she had recently undergone a massive genetic mutation, changing her mental patterns quite a bit," McCoy continued as if he had never been interrupted. "Some kind of experiment, I presume?"
"You could say that," Jessie said.
"And the third thing..." McCoy looked down at the PADD in his hands and frowned. "She has the strangest menagerie of medical conditions I have ever seen, and some of them were wiped out two centuries ago. Scoliosis, costrochronditis, far-sightedness..." He shook his head. "I just don't get why she's had them this long. Vulcans don't normally get human medical conditions, but this one has to be a first."
Jessie blinked, a bit confused. "Didn't Captain Kirk tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
Jessie glanced at the others, who all silently urged her on. "We're from the twenty-first century, and we were abducted a few hours ago by some aliens who did experiments on us," she explained. "All of us were human no more than a day ago."
Instead of reacting in absolute shock as they had expected, McCoy smiled and looked relieved. "Well, that certainly is good news. Now I know for certain that she'll be fine after a few hours of rest. Nothing major to worry about."
Steve looked up from the map he had been looking at. "What's the stardate?"
McCoy was caught off guard. "4836.5...wait a minute, I thought you said you were from the past," he said, looking confused. "How do you kids know all this?"
The six exchanged glances, and then May took a very creased paper from her pocket, unfolding it and pointing to each character in turn. "This is Captain Kirk, and there's Spock...Lieutenant Commander Scott..."
Kristian caught on almost instantly, and pointed to three more. "Ensign Chekov, Lieutenant Uhura, and Lieutenant Sulu," he offered. He pointed to the last one. "And this one's you."
McCoy snatched the old poster away and looked over it, staring in disbelief. He finally looked up to the kids. "Where the HELL did you get THIS?" he asked, dumbfounded.
Jessie continued the recitation. "We are currently on board the U.S.S. Enterprise, registry number NCC-1701, Constitution class."
Steve, meanwhile, was looking over an old Trek episode guide, looking at the Stardates. "Hey guys, we got here just in time to see `The Paradise Syndrome' in real life," he called. "It should occur in about a week."
"Allison should be happy," Kristian mused aloud, talking to Steve. "That's one of her favorite episodes."
Lia finally spoke up. "Doctor McCoy, I think the explanation should wait until Captain Kirk can come down here and listen too. And I think Allison should explain it when she wakes up. She knows more about this than the rest of us do."
McCoy, shocked almost speechless, just nodded. "Uh...I'll call Jim down here at my first chance," he said. "Alpha shift gets over in two hours, and your friend should be awake by then." He looked around at the six teenagers, as if noticing their alien features for the first time. "So, were all of you mutated?"
"Well...we were all unconscious at the same time for a while, so it's possible they might have experimented on all of us," Kristian said.
"But Lia, Michael, and I are all still human," Steve objected.
"On outward appearance, that's right," May cut in. "But they might have done something else to you...I dunno, gave you superpowers or something."
"Cool!" Michael yelled, making the two half-Vulcans wince from their enhanced hearing.
"It's gonna be a LONG night in the lab," McCoy grumbled. "I just know it." Sighing, he took out a medical tricorder and began to scan each one in turn.
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