"The Quiet Comfort of Sickbay"

[Archie Phoenix 0]

Archie’s head still hurt, and he couldn’t be sure that the regular injections from his nurse weren’t making matters worse. It was no wonder that Doctor Swan was keeping him here under observation until she could be sure that he’d recovered fully from his concussion. Not that Archie was complaining. While Sickbay was not the most entertaining place to be on the ship, the good Doctor Swan was the last person he’d ever argue with; she was one of the nicest people on Arcadia, to say nothing of her medical expertise.

 

Still, Archie couldn’t help wondering if the ‘observation’ was focused on more than his concussion.

 

He was still stunned at the full extent of the Aether crisis. He’d known something had gone wrong after the Samantha Kent construct had attacked him and locked him up, and he was able to guess at her harmful intent. He knew nothing of her actions, however, imprisoned and cut off as he was from events outside of Aether’s Caress. He’d assumed that Kent and, perhaps, other constructs in the facility were doing something nefarious to the other members of his team. He couldn’t imagine their influence spreading beyond the facility.

 

When he read the mission logs and took in the entirety of the false Kent’s actions, he could scarcely believe it. The things she’d done. Archie wasn’t sure if it was her capability (nearly taking complete control of Aether’s data network) or her iniquity (bargaining with the lives of Aether’s people, even killing a few outright) which surprised him more. That the Kent entity was his creation surprised him most of all.

 

Or was it his creation?

 

He still had no idea. He’d tried to produce Commander Alces through the neural hoop. Samantha Kent was produced instead. And the Samantha Kent that was produced was like nothing Archie would have envisioned. The Aether’s Caress technology had misinterpreted his thoughts grossly, and the resulting entity was able to break free of that technology in a way that Archie was sure the Aether’s Caress staff could never have anticipated. Everything had gone terribly wrong.

 

There were no answers from Aether. The Caress facility and its control mainframe had been extinguished when Samantha Kent was purged from the net. The Caress staff had been killed by Kent (the thought made Archie’s skin crawl) as a show of force to Arcadia’s crew. Since the facility’s mainframe had always been kept secured from the rest of Aether’s net to respect the privacy of its clients, no one else on Aether could offer any answers. To everyone involved, Kent’s creation was a mystery.

 

So it was, Archie suspected, that he was being required to report to Security after his release from Sickbay. Kent‘s creation was his doing. Naturally, they’d assume that he had answers. Perhaps they’d even speculate about his intent. He could only tell them that he had no answers to give and that he’d never intended for anyone to get hurt -- the truth … but did they have any reason to believe him? The Aether mission was as terrible a string of events as could be imagined. Someone needed to be blamed. And the string lead back to Archie any way it was traced.

 

Archie’s struggles to mix in with Arcadia’s crew had not been resolved. He hadn’t gotten particularly close to any of his crewmates. Who knew him well enough to speak for his character, to defend him if he were accused of willfully causing the events on Aether? No one. And those events would do little to improve his relationships with his crewmates. How could anyone trust him now? His name was in the mission logs. Everyone knew that it all traced back to him.

 

Samantha knew.

 

Again, the thought that caused Archie’s head to throb the loudest, and his heart the coldest. Samantha would certainly know about everything that had taken place on Aether. She would know of his involvement. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking at this moment. Probably the same things that the security officers were thinking. And everyone else. How could he ever face Samantha again? He could almost hear her voice in his head, and its tone was not pleasant.

 

Archie wished the nurse’s latest sedative would reclaim him, that he could disappear further into the comfort and isolation of Sickbay that weren’t going to last long enough. Everything had changed, a nightmare was waiting outside of Sickbay’s doors, and Archie had no idea what he was going to do …