Avery Tynte

Cpt. Corizon> For the last time, don't call me DOG BOY! (:P Couldn't resist Corizon)

Age update.

Avery stood looking at the man sitting on a biobed in front of him. He could feel his heart beating in his throat and the moisture on his hands. Had he really just said the words he thought he said? Recently he had had to take up more responsibility in Sickbay and he was beginning to adjust to the pressures and stresses involved in that, but this was new and uncharted territory for the young Doctor. Avery had been on this vessel for three years and had seen three captains at the helm, but he had never looked at one of them and said the words that had just came out of his lips. They thundered through his head even now. Captain LoAmi, I hereby relieve you of your duties as the Captain of the USS Arcadia. The two men just stared at each other, neither knowing quite what to say. The root, the narcotic, had been wreaking havoc on every member of the crew, but Avery had though somehow the Captain would not be affected like the rest. Somehow he had thought the man leading them would somehow be immune. He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very young and naïve again. Young he was, but he had thought himself past the naïveté. That was truly a sentiment of fools. LoAmi finally broke the silence, protesting what he felt was an out of line activity from his Bajoran doctor. Avery opened his eyes and stared at the man he had just removed from his position. He had a confused ensign on one hand and an irate captain on the other. Somehow the old adage of a rock and a hard place just did not seem enough. LoAmi was still talking, demanding the doctor dispense with this foolishness and allow him to do his job. Avery could barely hear him through the droning of his own thoughts. His eyes began to room around Sickbay. This room and virtually the entire ship was filled with those suffering from the effects of the narcotic root. The irony was not lost on the man that some seemed so elated that one would think they would never stop smiling, while others were mere inches from death. His eyes fell to Ensign Maler, the young man writhing in pain on biobed number 4. Maler was an Gorithun and the root had gone straight to his spinal column, which was doubled and wrapped twice unlike a human. In theory the ensign was in more pain then most humans would be in his position. Lying only one bed over was Lieutenant Markenson, an older woman who served in the engineering department. She was almost doubled over in laughter and tears were streaming down her face. Her body chemistry has accepted the drug in much the same way Avery’s had. He had been able to medicate himself, but Markenson was proving a difficult case to treat. Sickbay was full of scenes just like this. People sitting with their knees pulled up to their chests rocking slightly back and forth, others with a permanent smile that said the cat just ate the canary. Most cases were no where near this severe, with most of the crew still able to function. But the suffering of the few bothered Avery just as much as the suffering of the many. “Doctor,” LoAmi’s voice cut into Avery’s thoughts, sounding as if it had been trying for a while. “Doctor?” Avery turned his attention back to the Trill. He opened his mouth to speak to his commanding officer. At the same time he said a silent prayer to the Prophets. Please, by all the Divine Beings, let me be making the right decision.

Joint Log Captain Lo'Ami Lt. j.g. Dr. Avery Tynte Captain Lo'Ami barely realized how long he'd been standing in sickbay. It only seemed like a few moments lost in thought. He could make out Tynte laughing, and Sema'J collapsing on the ground, and another engineer on a biobed. People walked in and out -- mostly in. There was commotion in sickbay. But, the Captain just stood, uttering a command here and there. Slowly, the fog lifted. He looked into his hand, but there was nothing there anymore. Avery slowly regained control of himself and silenced the laughter; although he had to work hard to keep a small smile off his face. He looked around Sickbay and saw people he did not remember coming in. That was not a good sign. He looked up and saw the face of the captain looking at his hands. "Captain, I think we have a problem here." The captain looked over at Avery, then looked around the newly crowded sickbay. Avery's voice snapped him out of the delirium that had come from the higher concentrations of root vapor in the atmosphere. "What happened in here?" He looked down at his empty hand again, then back to Avery. Avery pointed to a root sample, "That is the problem." Lo'Ami turned toward the root sample. "You're right. We have to get back to testing the samples to determine if they fit the Axrekravian specifications!" "Captain, I have already tested the samples." "That was an operation involving detailed scans from both science and engineering. How could you have possibly tested the samples yourself?" Lo’Ami asked "Not that type of test, Captain. I did compositional tests to determine the make up of the root." "And? The Axrekravian specifications gave us some detailed concentration limitations. We really should test more samples." "Captain, are you telling me that multiple people have been exposed to this root?" Avery replied. "As far as I know, myself, the entire science department, a few engineers,” he motioned towards an interior office as he spoke. "I think we should move somewhere," looks around sickbay to make sure the nurses have everything under control. "A bit more private" "Your office?" "Works for me," Avery said as he got up and moved towards the door. When they were both inside and the door had swished shut, he turned. "Captain have you noticed anything strange when you are around the root?" "Well, the active form has a distinct smell." He then remembered what it did to Daena and Sema'J. "Some people have a severe reaction to it! That's why I'm in sickbay." "Slight memory loss and loss of the ability to focus, definitely signs...." Avery seemed to be talking more to himself than Lo’Ami. As the fog lifted further, the captain realized just how serious this might be. "Signs of what, doctor?" As he sat at his desk Avery tried to decide how best to put it and decided straightforward was best. "It's a narcotic Captain." The word hit like a ton of bricks. He repeated. "The Axrekravians made us deep sea dive for and transport a narcotic?" "It has all the markers of a very potent drug captain. From what I can tell, it will affect individuals differently based on their species and chemical make up." Avery replied. Putting it all together Lo’Ami said, "And sickbay is suddenly crowded because it was released into the atmosphere?" "That is the best guess I can fathom Captain. I am afraid we have all been infected somehow." "And I do not think all the effects are going to benign as laughter." "So that's what happened to Daena and Sema'J? Will they be alright?" "The drug does not really have any negatives other then the lack of focus and other odd side effects, at least none that I have seen yet. I think everyone will recover. But I have a feeling withdraws will set it." Avery knew that included himself, he was not looking forward to this. The captain looked at his hand again, and then looked away. "Just how many of us were affected?" "I will not know until I start treating patients." "How many are in sickbay now?" Avery tapped the desktop and read the number scrolling across it. "45 in Sickbay itself, calls are coming in from all over the ship though..." "Then that means we're going to have a whole ship on our hands with withdrawal symptoms. And, we only released one, no, two active roots from containment." "How many are in active containment?" Avery asked as he looked up from the screen. "We have a few hundreds of tons." Lo'Ami remembered the difference in the root samples' smells. "But not all of them may be biologically active." "Ok, I need to start treating patients. I would recommend that while I do that you start finding out how much of the stuff is active." "I have a feeling that's what the Axrekravians want to know too." Avery just nodded. "Captain, I have to ask you another question." He seemed a bit uncomfortable as he said it. "Go ahead," the captain said; he was anxious to get back to surveying their root supply. "How long have you been exposed to the root and how much have you been using since? I remind you that I am a doctor and whatever you say stays in this room." The captain thought back. "I was there with Ensign Phoenix when we tested the first root. It exploded when we brought it out of containment. Then, the second set of tests in the hydroponics bay with Lts. Daena and Sema'J." He paused. "And I've been carrying around a sample with me since the first test." "Why have you been carrying it?" Lo'Ami thought about it for a few moments. "I don't know." "This is going to be a hard time, captain...for us all." "Then, we have very little time until withdrawal sets in to get a handle on it." Avery just nodded and stood. "I better get started. I'll keep you informed." Lo'Ami nodded and left sickbay for the hydroponics bay. The clock was ticking.

Acting Ensign Katherine Swan & Dr. Avery Tynte Avery rushed over to the surgical bay as the transporter deposited the body on the bed. The man appeared to be human, or at least appeared human-like; the body was very badly injured and blood seemed to be everywhere. It was difficult to tell if the young man wore a red uniform, or if it was simply stained red with blood. Swan looked at the figure that had just materialized. "Oh DEAR!" She ran over to stand next to Avery to inspect what was going on. "Where do you start?" "We start by..." Avery looked over as the console began to beep. "The vitals are almost nonexistent," he said as he closed the surgical table over the man. "Prep the cortical stimulator." "Aye!" Swan quickly grabbed the stimulators and rushed over placing them on the patients forehead. "Is there a chance? I mean, He is so badly injured." She looked back and forth between the man on the table and Avery. "Internal bleeding is bad...very bad," Avery was reading the scans on the console in front of him. Breathing and heart rate were almost nonexistent, brainwave patterns were not registering at all. "Clear," he yelled. Katherine backs away from the patient. "Clear!" She watched as the man is hit with the jolt from the cortical stimulator. “Ill get the cardiac unit over here.” Katherine rushed over and grabbed the cardiac drugs off a med tray sitting near by; she remembered what drugs to get but she wasn’t going to try to remember doses and such in a emergency. She didn’t feel she had learned enough to hold the balance of a persons life in her hands. She didn’t feel capable enough. She just stood back and waited for instructions from Avery. "Swan," Avery said gently. "It is too late," he powered down the cortical stimulator and shut down the console as the surgical table retracted. It had been a long shot at best, but now the man’s entire system had shut down; every reading was nonexistent and the internal bleeding was far too extensive to repair. Even if they could somehow manage to revive the man's brain, his body would collapse before they could even begin to treat him. Swan looked at Avery, "There’s nothing that can be done? Nothing at all?" She actually felt a loss inside. She hadn't done anything, but she felt as if this was her patient that had been lost. She tears began welling up in her eyes, as she looked from the dieing man on the table and back to Avery. "His wounds were too severe," Avery looked up at her, seeing her distress. "There is nothing we could have done," he said as he entered the time of death into the record by hand on the console to his right. Swan watched as a nurse pulls the blanket over the body. "I thought medicine had come so far that anything could be done. Couldn’t you have put him in a crio-unit and froze him to buy time? I mean anything at all?” She paused to catch her breath, but only for a moment. “If this is what I am looking foreword to; seeing death and not being able to do anything about it…then I want out. I don’t want to be a doctor. I’ll serve my time in a prison somewhere for the crimes I committed against your people. I just can’t do this." Swan turned around to leave, tears now streaming from her eyes. She couldn’t realize how she was feeling at this point. She was upset and didn’t even know this man. What if it was one of the crew she had now made friends with? What if this had been one of them? Could she just let them go so easily? Avery's hand grabbed her arm, pulling her gently into a side office. "Swan, breath," he knew how she was feeling. Losing a patient was something a doctor never got used to, but it was something you developed a resistance to over the course of time. "There are some things that even our modern medicine cannot fix, Swan. His internal systems were collapsing at a rate far beyond our ability to fix," his mind registered the irony of the situation; not a year ago he had been the fresh medic aboard Arcadia, still developing as a Doctor. Hell, he still was developing as a doctor… And now, here he stood giving advice to another young medic. "You lose people Katherine. It never gets easy...but it gets easier..." he wondered idly if that sentence actually made any sense. Katherine looks into his eyes, seeing his also had a tear in them. "How can you get used to folks dieing. What if it was one of the ones that have actually accepted me? I can’t let them down. I just can’t." She pulled her arm away from him and turned her back to him. She slowly walked over to a wall and leaned her head on it. She wraped her arms around herself is if she were cold. "You said it never gets easy, how does it get easier?" she lets out a few soft sobs, " I…I don’t understand." "You don't get used to it." Avery said, a hint of longing in his voice. "You never reach a point where your heart does not skip a beat when someone dies in front of you..." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "That is part of being a doctor, Katharine. That feeling you are experiencing right now...that feeling is what drives you, what fuels you. It is what makes you hell-bound and determined not to lose the next one. That feeling is your soul, your heart and mind. That feeling is what makes you human, or what makes me Bajoran. That feeling is what makes us who we are..." he paused, turning her to look into her eyes. "That feeling is what makes us who we are." As she turned seeing his eyes, she begins to understand. With the tears crawling down her cheeks she asked, "If this is what it is, then why is it you continue? I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can keep going knowing that I may end up working on one of my friends and turn around and loose them." Her eyes search his face for an answer. "The reason I continue is for every patient I save. Every life I can steal back from death," he looked at her, a resolve in his eyes he had not felt since his father's death. "Yes, you lose patients...but you also save them," he held up his hands. "These hands can heal, they can give life," he felt his throat catch slightly as he blinked his eyes. He grasped her hands and held them up. "And so can these." She looked at him holding her hands up. “What make you so sure? I’m not a doctor. I was never meant to be. I’m not even supposed to be here. Maybe I should have stayed where I belonged. I should have faced my folks." She then tried to pull her hands away from Avery, but he had a nice tight grip on them. She just leaned her face down right into her and his hands. She had never talked about it to anyone; the fact that she was upset about her folks disowning her. It was now coming out all in the open. "I cant believe they ... they didn't...want me back." she then cuts loose with the water works and her knees begin to buckle under her. He let her sink down, falling with her and holding her head in his hands, turning it upwards so she can see him. "It was their loss," he picked up on what she was speaking of, chalking it up to doctor's intuition. "Katherine there is a new family for you aboard this ship, a family who is depending on you." He paused to let what he said sink in. "And what makes me so sure you can be a doctor?" he gave her the best smile he could muster. "You care...it is obvious you care, or else you would not be taking the loss of a patient so hard." Katherine just looked to the ground once again. She was so torn up she didn't know which way was which. She never thought in her wildest dreams she would be hurting this bad. She wasn't sure herself if it was because of this death or her family rejecting her or a combination of them both. She felt drained. She looked up at Avery one more time then started crying all the more harder. Avery let her fall into him...in so many ways he could relate to the emotional turmoil within this woman. Again the irony crept into his mind...not so long ago he would have given anything for Kathrine Swan to be off this ship. After what she did to Naarahe was sure he would never forgive her. But now, in a side office in Sickbay, he held her in his own arms, trying to console a pain that so few could truly understand. He sighed; the Prophets seemed to have an odd sense of things sometimes. "Have faith, Katherine...have faith..."

Happy Birthday ma Capitaine!

On a random note... Tomorrow marks exactly two weeks until I return to college.

Had I been drinking at the time, this would have elicited a severe spit-take... rofl

The budget for "Catch Me if you Can 2" Was not large enough to hire DiCaprio again.

Welcome Back, Sam. See you on Arcadia.

"Dammit Jim, I hate the time travel episodes."

Her soft and gentle hand traced its way along his cheek. Her lips caressed his with all the warmth and passion of a raging fire. He returned the kiss and swept her into his arms, smiling into her lips. “I love you.” I love you the words bellowed in his mind like a thunderclap from the heavens. Avery looked up and saw those same hazel eyes that haunted his memory. Only now those eyes were filled with contempt instead of love. The door swished shut on the closet in sickbay. “Naara, Miranda will be back any moment.” She smiled at his comment. “Hence why we are in a closet, love.” She draped her arm around his neck and kissed him passionately. He drew back only inches from her face and laid his forehead against hers. “How did someone like me end up with someone like you?” he half whispered. Avery blinked back what few tears remained within his eyes. Now, on top of a horse in the middle of a “Grand Adventure” was neither the time nor place. But how could he not think about it. There she was, sitting not ten feet away atop her own stead. Only now she was cold as ice, her words stinging like daggers. It had been two weeks; but two weeks since what? Nothing had happened. No warning…not even a Dear John letter. Perhaps this would be easier if he could comprehend a reason…phantom a cause… She laid her head against his chest smiling sweetly. He laid his hand on her arm, kissing the top of her head gently. Her hair felt smooth and soft against his lips, the smell of her exotic shampoo filling his nostrils. “I love you…” There it was again…had she been leading him on then? Had she been playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse before devouring it? Perhaps he had grown boring to her fickle will and as a reward she know swallowed her mouse whole…heart and soul. She noticed him looking at her and glanced back, her lips curled into a tight smirk. Was she playing with her mouse now… She sat at the table with a glass of red liquid in one hand the other supporting her head leaned against the glass table top. He walked into the quarters and stopped short. “Surprise,” she said with a slight smile. He walked over to the table. “You made dinner…” he said kissing her before taking his seat across from her. “Replicated is more like it…” she said as her full lips curled into a full smile. Those same lips now spat nothing but needling remarks and snide comments towards him. Avery’s horse slowed a bit, his mind not focused on driving it on. He fell back, but only a few feet. Hot liquid stung his eyes and he reached up quickly to dispel it. His mind still reeled; it was still searching for a reason. Had he done something…had he said something…he looked down as the question he had been trying to avoid crept its way back in. Had she ever really loved him? His search for answers had been futile. Every time he tried to contact her she simply ignored him. When things such as this brought them together she was not outright hostile towards him, but carefully avoided being alone with him; deflecting any questions with a quick joke or snide remark. She seemed to talk to and enjoy the presence of anyone but the man she had once proclaimed to love. The man who truly loved her. With dinner over they sat across from each other talking for hours. The stars behind them stretched into warp lines as the hour stretched late. Still they remained together; talking, laughing… He had not opened up to anyone like this in a long time. He felt as if he could tell her anything, hoped she felt the same. He had cared for her; hell he still did care for her. Not in the way he cared for a patient or a friend. This was, he sighed, had been something deeper…something realer. But now what was it? A lost love? Had it ever even been love? If it had all been an act it had been an elaborate one…but to what end? What possible reason could she have for deceiving him? Avery’s mind was filled with nothing but questions, his mind haunted by every word she had ever said. His dreams were recurring scenes that turned to nightmares as soon as he awoke. But over all one word clutched at his mind, threatened to drag him under, drown him. One small word resounded over all others, blocking out everything until life was simply a blur of motion, a motley collection of sound. One word haunted his conscious mind as he woke and his unconscious as he slept. Why?

Kansas' Story reminded me of my own. I own a 94 Pontiac Firebird with T-Tops. I was driving along one day without said T-Tops in. It was a pretty day and it was rather relaxing...until from out of nowhere came this huge flood of water. There was not a cloud in the sky....turns out the guy/gal that lives in the brick house down the road (who happen to own a garden hose...go figure) thought it was rather amusing.....

Avery slumped into his chair at the front desk, his hand moving towards the console. He keyed in the commands and began to speak. “Duty log, Assistant Medical Officer Doctor Avery Tynte,” his voice sounded tired as the words came out; his head came to rest on his balled fist propped up on the arm of the chair. “Approximately one hour ago Lieutenant Brighton came into Sickbay. It appears that he had once again overused his mental ability. His mind and body were shutting down.” Avery’s eyes glanced over to where Fitzgerald now rested on a biobed across Sickbay. “It appeared he was in imminent danger of complete synaptic failure; the decision was made to attempt a complete reordering of his synaptic pathways, with assistance from Lieutenant Meriva and Counselor Meara-Callum.” Avery keyed a few buttons on the console, pausing the recording. He stood and walked over to the replicator and keyed in the order for coffee. He began to sit at the cup walking back over to the front desk. He did not sit however, only resting his right hand on the back of his chair. “Resume,” he took another sip as the computer chimed its response. “A complete reordering was not possible, however, even with the help of Dr. Knollwatcher. There were simply too many variables to consider, and not enough time. The decision was therefore made to attempt to stabilize Lieutenant Brighton by joint method of Lieutenant Meriva and the counselor working mentally while Andrea and I used a dual cortical stimulation treatment. The procedure worked, and Brighton is currently stable.” Avery sat the cup down on the desk. “We, unfortunately, do not know exactly what is causing the mental breakdowns in Mr. Brighton’s mind. Only time and study will tell us anything further on that issue. Lieutenant Meriva has returned to the bridge, and Mr. Brighton is currently being held under watch by the medical staff.” Avery looked to his left as Fitz stirred. “Computer,” he said as he turned and began to move off towards the inpatient section of Sickbay. “End log.”

I remember waking up to my mother coming into my room. "We are being bombed." she said. "By who?" was my reply. She said she didn't know. The realitly of what was happnening became clear as I wandered into the living room. My most vivid memory is that of sitting on my couch, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a tissue, tears streaking my face as I watched the towers fall. I will never forget that morning.