Chapter 6

Lucas had spent the last four days studying the materials Dr. Smith had given him, then cross referencing that with all the scans and reports she had given him, then doing it all over again with the chip in Alex's head. He'd had equipment brought down to the medical bay so he could stay by her bedside the whole time, only leaving to sleep and shower, and then only when he was reminded to. He would get so involved he would forget to do either one until he was unconscious on the keyboard if the rest of the crew and Dr. Smith hadn't taken it upon themselves to check in on him occasionally. Tony had decided he was food delivery once he had noticed Wendy was playing waitress and shoving food at him while he worked. Despite that she still made Lucas stop and eat a real dinner everyday. The rest of his meals were portable, pizza, burritos what ever he could eat at his keyboard. When the doctor wasn't playing waitress, you would find her beside Lucas going over the information they had gathered and discussing it, trying to work together to find a way to get around the chip.

Gaining access to the chip hadn't actually been all that hard. He had done that in a day. It was the self destruct mechanism he couldn't find a way around and that's what mattered. It wasn't a self destruct so much as a kill switch. If you tampered with it, it would begin shutting down life sustaining functions one by one in a domino effect that couldn't be stopped, each body system was too interdependent on the others.

Lucas had begun thinking of it like a parasite, this lurking predator attached to her brain stem. After it killed its host the chip would self destruct. If he could get around the chip, the chip's self destruct was to simply fry it self, that would be no problem but the rest had him at his wits end. He had figured out how to disable it but he couldn't find a way to do it without killing her.

Something else he had discovered was that the wires terminated inside her skull, the wires out side her head were plugged in through her scalp, the ports so tiny they weren't even visible beneath the wire sheath and it hadn't shown up on the scans. The other thing he had figured out was what disturbed him the most. Even if he did find a way around the chip's defenses if it was removed that would kill her as well. The way it was implanted made it impossible to remove. She would be stuck with this thing in her head forever. A permanent reminder of this horror. He was at a loss and so frustrated and heartsick he thought he couldn't take it anymore. It looked like a no win situation.

Lucas felt like he was at the breaking point and vented his frustration on Tony when he had brought him dinner. A hot dog, Lucas still didn't see why Tony liked the things so much.

"How's it going?" Tony asked. Lucas looked over at him in frustration.

"It's not. I can destroy the chip and kill her, or I can leave the chip alone and she stays like this. I can't find a way around it. This is impossible! She doesn't even seem to know I'm here, I can't find a way to save her and Dr. Sanborn is out there some where doing the same thing to some one else!" he ranted at him. It was some measure of relief just to say it out loud to someone. Tony patted him on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion.

"You'll get it Lucas. You always do. Just keep at it." he encouraged. Lucas just looked at him helplessly, his eyes welling with tears and threatening to spill over.

"I'm losing her Tony. I lost her for six years, found her like it was some miracle and now I'm going to lose her all over again." he said mournfully. Tony wrapped his arm around his shoulder and squeezed.

"Just hang in there kid, you can't give up yet. You care about her a lot huh?" he replied. Lucas blinked back the tears and stared at the computer screen willing it to show him some solution, any solution.

"Yeah, I do." he confessed. Tony let him go and looked down at him consolingly.

"I know you do Lucas. Keep fighting. It can't rain all the time." he said as he turned to go. Lucas ran his hands through his hair and looked despondent.

"It's not raining, it a damn hurricane." he sighed.

Through it all, Alex still hadn't shown a single sign of response to his presence. She laid in the bed as still as a dead thing. He was beginning to loose hope altogether. When it all finally came to a head he threw the pad full of calculations and figures across the room, his pencil pinging off the wall, books, scans and reports skittering across the floor. The ruckus brought Dr. Smith into the room to investigate. She looked at the mess on the floor and then at Lucas.

"Lucas are you alright? Something wrong?" she asked hesitantly, he was pacing the room like a caged animal.

"Yes something is wrong! I can't find a way around this damn chip, there's no way to disable it and not kill her! Am I supposed to be okay with that!" he raved. Wendy watched him struggle with his frustration and knew he was loosing the battle.

"You've made progress Lucas, look at all you've already found out about it," she encouraged him. He stopped pacing and leaned heavily on a computer console.

"It doesn't matter what I've found out. None of it tells me anything I can use! She's going to die or stay that way forever and there's nothing I can do about it!" he wailed. The doctor moved forward and rubbed his back consolingly.

"I know it feels that way right now Lucas, but you can't give up yet. The answer has to be there somewhere. Why don't you take a break, you've been here every waking moment for days. Maybe a break will give you a breather and a new set of eyes for it when you come back? Take a walk, go play a game. Anything to get your mind off it," she suggested.

"I'm not giving up Doctor. It just seems so impossible. If the answer is there I'd sure like to know where," he said dejected.

"I know. Take a break and see how you feel about things then. I think it would do you good," she reaffirmed. Lucas looked skeptical.

"Is that your professional opinion Doctor?" he asked.

"Yes it is, it's also an order. Take a break I mean it," she said kindly. She hugged him with one arm warmly and left the room.

Lucas milled around the medical lab for a while longer contemplating it and finally gave up and took the doctor's advise. He decided a walk sounded like a good idea so he just pointed himself down a hallway and walked, letting his feet take him where ever they wanted to. Inexplicably he soon found himself at the moon pool. He sat down beside the pool and just watched the water ripples moving gently back and forth, trying to think of nothing, give his mind a rest. It wasn't working. Darwin's silver gray head broke the surface and he bobbed there a moment before chittering at Lucas affectionately.

"Hey buddy. Haven't been to see you in a while have I? Sorry about that," he told him, reaching out and rubbing the dolphin's throat. Perceptive as always the dolphin cut to the chase.

"Lucas worried? Lucas scared?" he asked in the electronic voice the vocodor gave him. Lucas chuckled, so simple but so complex at the same time.

"Yeah I am Darwin. I'm trying to help a friend, and it's not working. If it doesn't she dies," he told him. Just talking to Darwin had a calming affect on him, it did on everyone. He felt some of the tension and kinked muscles relax.

"What is wrong with friend?" Darwin asked curious.

"Well, she has this computer chip in her head that no one can get out, if we try, it will kill her," he paused looking for a way to describe it from Darwin's point of view. "It's sort of like she has this shark in her head and if we try to kill it, it will turn on her and kill her instead," he supplied. He hoped that made sense. Darwin bobbed in the water quietly not saying anything and Lucas wondered if the vocoder hadn't been able to make sense of what he had said.

"Play dead," Darwin said succinctly.

"What?" asked Lucas, now he was confused, maybe there was a glitch in the vocoder. He picked it up and looked at it, looking for some fault.

"Darwin famous shark killer, too many sharks Darwin play dead. Trick them. Sharks go away," he explained. Lucas' brow was knit in confusion.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he asked. Something in his brain had kicked over and wheels were turning but he couldn't quite see it yet.

"Chip is shark, play dead, shark go away." Darwin said simply. Somehow Lucas felt like he was being talked to like a child who couldn't grasp a concept, then it dawned on him what Darwin meant. His whole face lightened and he laughed. He leaned over the pool edge and rubbed Darwin's melon vigorously.

"That's it! That's it! It's so simple! Make the chip think it is shutting down her body functions. It'll never know the difference! Thank you Darwin!" he whooped and dashed toward the medical bay.

"Darwin have fish?" the dolphin asked as he hit the end of the platform, Lucas skidded to a stop and came rushing back. He plucked a fish from a waiting bucket and tossed it to him, before he pelted back out again. Darwin looked rather self satisfied as he leisurely swam back out of the moon pool.

#***#

It took Lucas and Wendy another three days to get things set up. Now she was working the same long hours along side him as he had been. Tony had taken on double duty as food service bringing them both meals and now someone had to remind them both to stop for sleep and showers. Lucas was nervous, in fact he was terrified. Today they would try their plan and pray to what ever powers may be that it worked.

They had set up an elaborate system to fool the chip, routing it through the CPU connected to it. A second set of life support equipment mimicked Alexandria's life signs in sync with her real ones. They had copied her's and programmed in a false set to show body functions failing on command, then wired them into the CPU so as they initiated the chip's defenses, it would follow its programming and start shutting down what it thought were Alexandria's real body functions. As it did they would feed it the false failing body functions data and it would think it had done its job. Once it thought it had killed Alexandria it would fry itself.

They would have to pay close attention, despite all they knew they couldn't be sure what order the chip would start trying to shut down body functions, they would have to anticipate it for this to work. Nothing he could find would enable them to actually remove the chip and wiring from Alexandria's brain but she would be free of the link that existed between her and it.

Lucas had a real time schematic of the chip pulled up and controls for the false life support system. It would enable him to watch what the chip was doing while it was doing it. Dr. Smith had a similar set up on the other side of the bed, allowing her enough free space to bring in a crash cart if it came down to it. From there she could monitor Alexandria's real life signs as the chip shut down the false ones and hopefully prevent anything from going wrong on her end.

"Are you ready?" Wendy asked from over the bed. Lucas looked down at Alex, he squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear.

"Okay Alex, here we go." he told her inanimate form then nodded to the doctor.

"Ready as I'll ever be," he said. Wendy looked as nervous as he was. She sighed deeply. If this failed he didn't know what he would do. He wasn't sure he could handle losing her again.

"Then let's do this," she answered and took up her position. Lucas turned back to his console and his hand hovered over the controls. He worked up the nerve to push the button.

"Initiating shut down...now," he said and hit the button before he had a chance to change his mind. The chip was fast, no sooner than he hit the button did the false life support system start wailing, indicating that pulmonary functions were failing. Lucas flicked a switch to start the wind down of the false function and watched as the chip got ready to switch to another system, satisfied that pulmonary function was gone.

"Life signs are holding steady. She's just fine," Wendy reported. Lucas didn't take his eyes off the screen, the chip went for the cardiac system next. The false life support system's wailing got louder and began declaring a flat line. Despite the fact he knew the readings were false the alarm still made him want to panic, but he kept it together and initiated the failed cardiac system sequence.

The chip didn't even notice it was being tricked, it kept right on shutting down life signs blindly. It wasn't all that complex when you came down to it, the most complicated part of the system was the chip's defenses. Satisfied that the heart had stopped the chip moved to brain function.

"Heart rate is steady and holding," Wendy said as she keyed through the life support system, keeping a sharp eye on it. Lucas flicked the switch to start the failed brain functions process and waited. The chip was efficient he would give it that. It had the false brain functions shut down in no time at all. Now it was all up to Doctor Smith and chance.

"Brain functions still at optimal levels." she relayed . Now all she could do was watch as the chip entered its self destruct phase. Before long the light indicating the chip was on line flickered and went out. Lucas quickly pulled up data and checked. The chip was dead. Wendy ran back through Alexandria's real life signs.

"Life signs are holding!" she declared. She smiled across the bed at Lucas and he smiled widely. She extended her hand over Alexandria for his and squeezed it.

"We did it Lucas," she said softly. Lucas nodded happily.

"Now what Doctor?" he asked as they both looked down at Alexandria.

"Now we wait," she said.