A Trip Inside My Imagination

Posted on Mon May 4th, 2020 @ 11:05am by Kodria Mizu & Commander Rita Paris
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2020 @ 12:36pm

Mission: Return to the Core
Location: USS Hera, Deck 11, Holodeck 2
Timeline: 2397

Taking a journey inside one's mind to see if there was a fragment of information from one of the consciousness that comprised the core of one's personality wasn't the strangest trip Rita Paris had undertaken in this lifetime, but it was definitely up there. Now she had to make the attempt with Kodria, the fragment of the time-traveling 'niece' of the Hera who had ended up leaving a 'neural clone' of herself in the ship's computer who was now slowly becoming a crew member. After all, Kodria the original had left her behind to try to affect events that would lead to her creation, yet would be tragedies for those who comprised her 'family'. Thus Kodria the copy had gradually lost her foreknowledge advantage of the future, as the timeline diverged from the one she knew.

Once Rita had figured out that the 'pre-recorded messages' from Kodria were a bit too on point, she had figured out the living program was in the system, and had coaxed her out to begin integrating her with the crew. After all, Kodria would have to wait 80 odd years to awaken, and Rita couldn't leave the poor kid hiding in the Hera's computer core until then.

But today brought a new challenge, one that was unlike any Rita had faced before. Locked in the mind of Mnhei'sahe Dox, who penchant for trouble seemed to match her own, were equations left there by Gaia, the titan whose fragment had briefly inhabited the mind of Dox. Now that the Hera was trapped in a formless void, a space out of time, they needed those spatial calculations in order to get out of the entropic void in which they and three Romulan battlecruisers had become entrapped.

They might get out of here without the equations. But then, they might not.

Thus today found Rita reserving her holodeck of choice, to bring up a lovely Parisienne cafe in early fall, as the winds beging to pick up and bring a bit of morning chill, but not enough for her to need more clothing. Instead, oi a simple cafe on a side street on Rue J'etaim, Rita sat out front, eating a delicious flaky danish and drinking a cup of strong coffee, when she called for Kodria.

"Miss Kodria, could you join me please?" the buxom bombardier asked the empty air, knowing that her algorithms tended to alert her when her name was spoken, usually by one of the 'relatives' who knew her. "It's a lovely day in Paris, and we need to catch up on current events, I think."

It took a few seconds longer than normal since Kodria was no longer hiding and watching things from inside the ship's computer, but eventually, the holographic representation of the future android and granddaughter of the ship's captain shimmered into view with a lopsided grin on her face. "Sorry, it took me a moment to get away from the sims in the R&D lab. There are a few experiments running and I just wanted to make sure Maru was watching them before I came."

She then slipped into the other chair at the table and served herself up a glass of sparkling water and a Charlotte aux fruits exotiques to nibble on. "By current events, I assume it relates to the area of... what passes for space outside the ship right now."

"So it does. What experiments are you working on, out of curiosity? I haven't seen the reports," Rita asked casually.

"Mona wanted some further tests run on the holographic materials she developed. She had some concerns when it came to the Warchicken so I've been running concentrated radiation and weapons tests with the holographics paneling at full while blasting them with a wide range of sensors." Kodria pulled up one of her floating holo-screens that tended to hang out around her to show Rita the data being collected. "I'll admit that I may have programmed in a couple sensors that have yet to be invented yet... But I'll delete them as soon as the tests are concluded."

"The other tests are mostly just stress tests for Daycare One's new systems," Added the young lady as she sipped at her water. "The grappler arms and tractor manipulator fingers are... unexpected."

"But interesting. In the long run they may come in quite handy if Daycare 1 ever needs to deploy," Rita countered, sipping her coffee. "So I am going to assume any meeting in which your name is mentioned, you are listening, because you can review the sensor logs and study the exchange. So if that's the case, i assume you know why we're here today?"

Kodria held up one finger and spoke as if reciting protocol. "All meetings that I'm not directly involved with, official or otherwise, are purged from my memory immediately after all trigger words are logged for privacy and security reasons. That being said, since it is a matter involving me, I've logged the use of my name and the cause of that use having assumed that you would ask me about it. You're interested in seeing if, as a copy, I have the same data that's stored in the personality core that was used to stabilize the original..."

The young lady shook her head sadly. "Yeah, those algorithms. Unfortunately, I don't. Maru ran a recursive scan on my subroutines for me and none of that data is there. However, I should be able to interface with the original core, if it's still aboard."

"Original core? Meaning what now?" Rita had gotten lost in the conversation again, which happened from time to time.

"After an incident with a being I believe is called Gaia, Uncle Sam downloaded everything he remembered during the communal mind meld into some sort of personality core, and it contains the memories and subconsciousness of everyone that was in it, which eventually became the core of my own subconscious and stabilized my matrix. I believe the data you're looking for is in there. Plus, the interface subroutines are still at the core of my program."

In truth, Rita intensely disliked that there was a virtual copy that existed of her. Apparently her thoughts, memories, feelings- everything that comprised who she was on a mental plane had been copied, along with Sonak, Dox and everyone else who had been involved in that mind meld. It was an enormous invasion of privacy, and startling that to a Starfleet who couldn't reproduce a functional positronic brain they could equip the cyborg intelligence chief with sufficient onboard computing power to hold not one life experience, but numerous more, to the point of being able to reproduce them for available receptacles.

It was, in truth, a violation. Of their trust in including Sam in the mind meld, and in Sam for backing up and saving all of the data, as literally personal as it was. For her personally, being copied to be reproduced at will rankled Rita to her very core. If not for the moral conundrum that Moira Telvan would one day use those copies to create Kodria, upon learning of their existence Rita would have insisted they be eliminated immediately.

But now they were critical to a lifeform 80 years into the future, and in the here and now they were about to violate Dox's privacy in an effort to save the ship. It made Rita's teeth grind, but there seemed to be little recourse.

At which point she stopped, because there was always a choice.

"No, Miss Kodria. We will not violate Miss Dox's mind, even in a virtual fashion, for information that it contains. Not without her consent," Rita stressed, as that was a core issue here- consent. None of them had ever consented to being digitally copied, as improbable as it seemed, and Sam backing up the data and storing it was just that much greater the violation. If she was the shepherd of this life form, then it fell to her to teach the young woman morals.

"If there is no other way, we may consider it. But for now.... no. I will not be a party to such a violation of privacy. While I understand the circumstances of your creation meant you had no say in the matter, you do have a say in delving into a digital copy of Mnhei'sahe Dox's mind now." At that, Rita's tone softened, as she realized she needed to coax and guide- this was not the time for moral outrage. That would be a conversation with Lieutenant Clemens later. For now, she needed to explain the difference between right and wrong to a young woman who might not see the moral implications of a particular course. "So in the here and now, I'm going to explain that is a violation to do so without consent, Kodria. We shouldn't do such things if they can at all be avoided, all right?""

"I understand completely, Aunt Rita," Kodra replied with a soft smile and a bow of her head. "That was why I didn't include it when I copied myself over. I think that's why my mom only used the core as a subconscious guiding and stabilizing force in my matrix. I couldn't remember anything directly out of it, but all the morals and hope were here..." With that, she put a hand over where a human heart would be, but in her it was where the core was. "And it may sound strange, but I never felt alone, even on that station when it seemed all hope was lost. Somehow, I knew I would never be alone no matter what, and that someone would come for me."

"I appreciate that, Kodria. So for now, how about we work to find another way out of this mess. Why don't you review the sensor logs of the incident, and what we've put together so far, and see if you have any insights to offer?" Rita had been the one to call the meeting, so she needed to find a way to enable Kodria to participate in a positive manner. Just calling her here to find out about Sam's indiscretion wouldn't do at all.

"That I can do," Kodria replied cheerfully. "After all, scientific data analysis is one of my core functions." Without hesitating, a multitude of floating screens started popping up around the young woman, each one with sensor data scrolling past at incredible speeds, much faster than the original temporal analysis ones ever did. Soon there were nearly fifty such screens all overlapping each other displaying the raw sensor data, video records, and other various simulation data as Kodria just sat there in the middle of it all, nibbling on her pastry.

"Initial analysis will take approximately seven minutes."

"Excellent. Then we have time to catch up," the old-fashioned officer smiled as she picked up her danish and took another bite. "So how is life as only a partial ghost? I know we haven't found you much outside of Daycare 1, but you are definitely getting some interaction there. How is it? Are you enjoying it, or is it not really suiting you?"

"Changing my own mother's diapers isn't something I expected," With a soft chuckle, Kodria's infectious cheerfulness returned, as did that wonderful smile of hers. "I'm also seeing the foundation of a few things that I take for granted in my era. Not only being invented here, but just in general. It's... heartwarming, I suppose."

"You suppose? It either is or it is not when it comes to heartwarming. What's wrong, Kodria?" Rita asked, brows coming together in concern.

"Nostalgic might be a better term, but can I even be nostalgic about something I've not experienced? Is heartwarming the right term? It engenders an emotion similar to these and I'm not sure what it's called, Aunt Rita."

"Nostalgia seems to be what you're fishing for, I imagine," Rita confirmed, then took a sip of her bitter black coffee. "Well, it seems you are not pushing any technological breakthroughs before their time and leaving that for the locals, so well done there. How are you getting along with Mrs. Dox?"

"I expected her to be a lot more... Ah... Well, she's nothing like in the stories I was told so..." Kodria chuckled softly as she sipped at her sparkling water. "She's a lot nicer, for one. I'm not sure I can imagine her killing or breaking people on a whim."

Before either of them could continue the conversation, the screens floating around Kodria paused and seemed to stutter a moment before winking out one by one. "Ah, analysis is complete. I have the algorithms used to open the singularity from the other side. I can reverse the algorithms to open a singularity from this side, but... I don't think I'll have a way to set the coordinates for the other end of it. We could end up anywhere in the universe without something to lock onto."

"Or some other universe. That's a lot of possibilities...." Rita contemplated. It would be like going to warp at random, save they were doing it across the multiverse. Surely Sonak could tell her the odds of randomly managing success, but even then, for all they knew they might move chronally as well, so the potential for the Lost Navigator to get the Hera very, very lost was far greater than success. But that wasn't the point to focus on now. "We'll definitely be giving the folks back at Starfleet Command and the Science Academy some interesting data. Alright, it's at least a starting point- now we know what to do with the equipment we have to produce the effect. Well done, Kodria- you just gave us a fighting chance, and that's more than we had five minutes ago."

"I'm just happy to be of help, Aunt Rita. I'll forward the finished calculations to you once I'm done and leave a spot open for if there's something from the other side to lock onto." As she spoke, the android turned hologram poked at her floating screens, going through the data one at a time.

"Thank you, Kodria. So.... anything?" Paris spread her hands, giving the floor to the young woman. "Anything you'd like to discuss while we're here? We're here, we have time, and it's a beautiful day in holodeck Paris."

Which was when her communicator chirruped, and Rita tapped her left breast to answer it. "Paris here, go ahead."

"Commander, the Captain collapsed in 10-Forward and has been beamed to sickbay," Came the reply, and Rita rolled her eyes at having invited disaster with her choice of words.

"I'm on my way," Paris replied even as she got up from her chair, downing the last of her coffee in a gulp. "Well, Kodria, duty calls. Here's hoping the Captain's alright."

Logging the incident internally, Kodria frowned slightly. Nothing of this event was in her memory or logs so she had no idea what was going to happen, however she could at least analyze the data and come up with a most likely scenario. Then she realized she didn't need to calculate anything and smiled brightly. "I'm sure she'll be alright, Aunt Rita. She's got you and everyone else, right?"

Pausing in her exit, Paris turned and grasped the young person in a shoulder hug. "Yeah, Kodria. She's got all of us, you included- so I'm sure she'll be okay."