Star Trek: Bendross

Episode #25 Dare to be Stupid
By
Jay P. Hailey
And
The Bendross Players

Martin Kerenski tapped lightly on the opening to Rudy's coffin like bunk.

Rudy looked up and smiled "My Hero."

Martin blinked once slowly and then launched into his mission. "Hamilton's missing. Can you find him?"

Rudy yawned and stretched, rubbing his eyes. "I don't what he can offer you that I can't." He began to struggle out of his bunk.

Martin's mouth quirked. "I only want him for his mind."

"I guess you're easily amused. What's up?"

"Crystal Heather's tube was hacked. Who do you set to catch a hacker?" Martin explained

"But you can't find Ham." Rudy concluded.

"He may be with Amy Harbaugh. Amy may know something important."

Rudy straightened up. "Gggaaaahhh. I hate those Heteros. Especially the Flaming ones. Always rubbing your nose in it."

Martin smiled. "I thought you were one of those not-straight, but-not-narrow types."

Rudy ran his hands though his short hair and moved toward the head. "Naw. I'm one of those not-straight, not-awake types."

-*-

Jon Dou looked at Leo carefully across the table. He was handsome, well built, fun to look at. However didn't find him attractive. Jon Dou couldn't get past the fact that he just wasn't too bright.

She hid this as well as she could. "So, who do you think killed her?"

Leo answered without hesitation. "I think Hansen did it."

"You seem very certain." Jon Dou said.

"He threatened to kill me." Leo said. "I *believe* him."

"Do you think he was violent with Crystal?" Jon Dou asked.

"I don't know." Leo shrugged. "I don't think so. I never saw anything."

"So what did you do during your watch?" Jon Dou asked.

"Ummm. Stuff, you know. I read, and stuff." Leo evaded.

"Ah. And what did Crystal do?"

"Um. Well. She hung around with her friends, like, you know." Leo was slipping and didn't seem to know how to avoid it.

"Who were her friends?"

"Umm. Amy, Lansing, Van Nesse, Friese, Mulligan you know, those guys." Leo said. The grouping seemed to have a sort of meaning for him.

"Those guys were real tight, huh?"

"Umm. Yeah mostly."

"What did they do?"

"Ummm. Mostly they partied." Leo said. "Some times they talked about stuff, but mostly, you know. What else are you gonna do?"

"Ahh. Did you see Hansen with them much?" Jon Dou asked. She wished she could take notes without breaking the conversational mood.

"No. Not really. He didn't seem to like the drugs and partying much." Leo said. "I think he threatened to kill Lansing, but he threatened to kill everyone."

"Was Crystal there? Did she get threatened too?" Jon Dou asked.

"Yeah, but Hansen didn't threaten her. It was more like she was, like, a spectator or something. She seemed to like that she had a dangerous lunatic on a leash. The problem for me was I was never sure that she had that tight a hold on the leash or knew exactly which end she was on, you know? Dying doesn't strike me as fun so after a while I tried to stay away." Leo explained.

"But not at first."

Leo stared hard at Jon Dou. "None of this is going to get back to Hansen, is it? That guy'll kill you as soon as look at you and I don't want to go there."

Jon Dou nodded "Doctor patient confidentiality. I promise."

Leo shrugged. "It's small place. What are you gonna do? Yeah I partied with Crystal, Amy and the crew. But they broke out some heavy shit. I don't need to go there either. They talked about politics and stuff. You know, boring. After Hansen threatened me, you know, I had a much harder time getting enthusiastic about Crystal. Amy, Friese and Mulligan were cool, still. But you know, after a while I just started getting included out. I didn't mind too bad. Better for my health that way I think."

"Yeah. Much better." Jon Dou said, thinking.

-*-

Coming to was not fun for Hamilton. Something shook him once roughly. He rolled over and the first thing that came through his mental haze was that he had a serious case of dry mouth and a worse taste than when he came out of the cold sleep tube.

Hamilton held up his hands to ward off the expected blow "Hey, hey, take it easy." Then he began to realize that he was naked. Right after that he realized that he was cold.

"Wha, wha," Hamilton struggled with this information and couldn't put it together. Then he opened his eyes.

Martin stood over him. Hamilton squinted and saw a look of mild disapproval on Martin's face. "Aw shit!" Hamilton rolled about half over and covered his face. Not only was this mortally embarrassing, but Hamilton could feel any trust Martin might have in him disintegrating. The feeling was hideous.

"Get up." Martin said.

"I'm workin' on it." Hamilton said. Part of the last evening came home to Hamilton. He looked around. There was a female leg showing behind a crate. He waved his hand at it. "Ughh. Amy. There."

Rudy stepped into view and looked around the crate. "Ooo, Charming. She's alive but looks like hell. She's been throwing up back here."

Hamilton sat up and regretted it badly. A beaker fell out of his hand clattered to the floor. That's right. They'd hit one of the stills too.

Hamilton sat there and felt life sucking for what seemed like an eternity.

After a while Martin's Voice came through the haze of bad sensory input and self pity.

"You have two hours. Then I want to see you ready for work."

Hamilton nodded and then regretted that.

-*-

In the Head Hamilton threw up into the stainless steel toilet. After an eternity it seemed he had purged whatever poisons were still in his stomach. He leaned against the wall and thought. "What in the hell was I thinking?"

"You weren't thinking at all." He told himself "That was the problem."

Hamilton could recall the sex with Amy Harbaugh. At the time it seemed wonderful. Now it felt ugly to recall. "You probably have a disease now," the nagging, worrying part of his brain said.

Hamilton was puzzling over the idea that he could dislike sex. With a living human woman, no less.

Even drunk and drugged as he was he could recall how she didn't look at him the whole time.

Hamilton felt disgusted that, at his stage in life he was still vulnerable to rejection. Part of him was aware enough to watch Amy's face in retrospect and realize that what ever was going on there had almost nothing to do with him. It was comforting on the one hand and disquieting on the other.

Hamilton found himself concentrating on his encounter with Amy no matter how scuzzy it made him feel, to avoid the memory of Martin's face.

"Do I value Martins opinion of me that much?" Hamilton asked himself

Maybe yes, and maybe no, But what it meant about who Hamilton was is what really bothered him. "I'm the kind of guy who lets Martin down" His brain framed for him.

Hamilton looked that fact right in the face.

And then he threw up again.

-*-

After some clean up Hamilton dressed in a fresh cover all and went to look for Martin.

Along the way Hamilton wrestled with fear. Was Martin going to look like that at him again? What could Hamilton say? Everything that crossed his mind sounded like a self delusional excuse.

Hamilton stopped. "Good morning." He thought to himself.

It sounded like a cheap, pathetic lie.

Hamilton blinked. "I like French Vanilla Ice cream." He thought to himself.

It sounded like a self centered whine, utterly devoid of compassion for anyone else.

Hamilton blinked some more. The truth struck him like a thunderbolt. "My brain hates my guts!"

Hamilton's life suddenly made a lot more sense.

-*-

Hamilton walked into the Engineering office with a grin on his face.

Martin looked up and was slightly surprised. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Ummm. Actually, Yes and no." Hamilton said. "I apologize for not being where you could find me this morning."

Martin quirked his eyebrow at Hamilton. His tone was a touch different from what Martin expected. "No harm. No foul. Come with me. There's something I'd like you to look at."

Hamilton nodded happily "Okey Doke."

Martin hesitated so faintly that Hamilton almost missed it.

"Yessiree, Bob!" Hamilton said with a big grin.

Martin shook his head as he led Hamilton to the Shift Eight cold sleep tubes.

-*-

Hamilton had to fly slowly through the virtual space in the Bendross' main computer. The visual inputs were very close to making him throw up again. An endless grid stretch around him with a few bright, shining constructs nearby. The Engine Control programs were the biggest, and the Most heavily guarded.

Hamilton looked at it for a moment. Unlike the main engine itself, a huge industrial engine containing a hellishly hot and radioactive point of destruction, the control program was a pulsing snowflake. Fractal patterns pulsed and danced in response to the input from the engine sensors. The snowflake was exquisitely balanced, holding the complex reactions in check in a dynamic balance of force and counter force.

"Tristan, you're an artist." Hamilton smiled. When he turned away the dizzies struck back with a vengeance.

With slow patience he made it to the address occupied by Crystal Heather's cold sleep tube.

Hamilton could see the pulse of data forming in the programming of the tube's monitor system. It looked almost like threads being woven together. There was the respiration, there was the report about blood gasses, there was the heart beat. And then the green pulse flew away heading for the main monitoring system.

Hamilton set up fire walls. Programming that would keep any effect from the monitor program of the cold sleep tube from expanding. Then Hamilton used a cloak of invisibility. This was his best model. For any but the toughest hacker or the most advanced system management software, Hamilton's existence was simply not reported.

Hamilton donned some armor of access blocks. Nothing could affect his access, or the programs he had stored locally without fighting through the access blocking armor.

Then Hamilton set up a false environment. It wasn't complex but Hamilton was fairly certain that it wouldn't have to be. This program mimicked the inside of the Bendross computer's virtual environment. Only the largest blocks of programming were mimicked and the level of detail was low. However, if there was a booby trap that would try to damage something, Hamilton was fairly sure it would sense and attack the false target first, giving Hamilton valuable time to observe it and prepare a defense.

Hamilton felt his whole nervous system roll. The level of concentration he was putting into this was intense. And if combat occurred here in the virtual world, Hamilton knew he'd have to settle it in a few moves before the physical distress overrides unhooked him.

Hamilton took a deep breath, and felt his physical body echo the motion, very slowly.

If he had to jack out puking, it wouldn't be the first time. Once Hamilton accepted and then discounted the possibility he found his concentration was easier to maintain.

Once he had the battle ground set to suit himself. Hamilton reached out and accessed the monitor program.

It denied him access. Hamilton recognized a simple but well made access lock program. It was modern, and well done but small.

Hamilton activated a hacking program he had loaded up, a by-passer. Designed to attack the very connection of the access locking program to the computer, it was the metaphorical equivalent of attack a locked door by cutting it out of the wall in which it was set.

The access locking program lost the contest and ceased to operate. So did the program monitoring Crystal's tube. An orange packet assembled. A warning to flash on a watchman's screen. Hamilton looked at it. No input at all from the sensors monitoring the tube. A "kicked plug" failure. Hamilton killed the warning. Everyone knew the tube was empty by now anyway.

Hamilton access the monitoring program and found what he was looking for. The data channel from the sensors had been hijacked to a side space in the virtual environment. Hamilton look in it and found a small virtual closet. The inside of the small box attached to the cold sleep tube. Inside he found a small star. A small trinket of data and programming.

Hamilton grasped the thing. It was a very simple statement. "Temp = -212, Heart Rate = 2, Respiration 0.12," etc. It was an active simulation of what the monitors should have been seeing with the sensors. But a little off. There were no fractions or decimals. The thing had been put together at a keyboard. It was perfect as far as the computers were concerned. Hamilton unfolded the program thoroughly. It was so simple it didn't say anything about itself except that it was very simple, and tailored to the tolerances of the main medical monitoring program.

Hamilton shook his head at the small star in his hand. "I can't believe I got dressed all up for you."