New Neighbor, New Friends

Posted on Fri Jun 15th, 2018 @ 5:09pm by Akira Zhuri & Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Curing the Black Blood
Location: USS Hera, Deck 8, Officer Country
Timeline: 2395

Funny thing about a starship. Everyone was on some sort of duty roster. Everyone was wearing a communicator, so that the sensors could easily track them. It was a remarkably simple matter to locate someone if you were determined. And at this point, Rita Paris had become determined.

Standing outside Akira Zhuri's quarters as she approached them, the blonde-haired gold minidress-uniformed officer waited, leaning against the wall as if she were just casually waiting for someone. As Akira approached, the human woman looked up with a smile.

"Miss Zhuri? I'm Lieutenant Rita Paris. I think we might have a few things to discuss."

"Hn?" Akira had almost missed seeing the strangely garbed human standing outside her door, so great was her distraction. "Oh, uh, discuss? Okay," the blue-skinned hologram said with a soft-spoken timidity as she unlocked her door. "Please, come in," Akira offered in a subdued tone as she entered her quarters. The room was not decorated, the only personal things worth noting were some books on a shelf and a cat tower for her kitten to play one, though the kitten herself was conspicuously absent.

Another thing worth noting was that there was a second fair-skinned Akira standing in a corner, her eyes closed seemingly in slumber; losing control of her android body on Danu's world had frightened the young photonic life form, so she shed the body until her fear abated. "What did you wish to discuss?" Akira asked as she moved on auto-pilot to the dining table to make some tea for her guest, only to realize after she'd started the kettle that she herself could not drink the tea as she currently was.

"Are... you okay, miss?" the lost navigator asked, taking the fact that the civilian who was for some reason the ops chief was blue, which hadn't been in her personnel file- not that there was anything in her file to be found particularly, but there was at least a portrait- and there seemed to be another one of her standing in the corner who was not blue. For the fish out of water, this was all starting to look like a bad idea in the making. "I can come back later if you'd prefer...".

"I- I'm sorry, I seem to be a bit preoccupied," Akira said, staring at the kettle. "The planet we had recently visited, it was not a nice place... No, that's not right, it was a nice place, but something very unpleasant happened there, and I seem to be unable to think of anything else." Another moment passed and she closed her eyes to try to banish the memory; whether she had succeed or not was up in the air, but when she looked at Rita she at least appeared to be more focused. "You said you were Rita Paris? You're the new pilot, right? Uh, and the talk, yes... we can talk now. What is on your mind?" Akira asked as she made tea for Rita.

The woman... person's distress was plainly evident, and it looked to Rita as though right now she needed counseling far more than a 'hey, I hear I come from the same universe as you' chat. Mentally she made a note to send a missive to Sickbay and see if there was someone who specialized in PTSD, or whatever they called it in the future.

"Nothing... it's nothing. Clearly you've already got a lot on your plate and I don't want to disturb you," Paris worked to extricate herself from the situation. Ordinarily she might try to help, but this individual was most definitely outside of her experience and she suspected outside of her pay grade, and just her luck she'd end up causing more harm than good trying to offer an ear and a shoulder. "We can always talk another time when you are less... preoccupied."

"Oh... Okay," Akira replied with a hint of disappointment; normally, Akira loved meeting new people so she could expand her experiences, and for a moment she had hoped that a nice chat would help bring her out of her stupor, but Rita was right, she was far too preoccupied. "I, uh... I think I need to..." But what did she need? "Counselor, I should go see the Counselor..." she finally said with some resolve. "I am sorry we didn't get to talk, but it sounded important, so maybe... maybe later?" Akira offered with a sad smile.

"Yeah, no, nothing important," Paris lied fluidly, shoving aside her own concerns and problems in a time-honored Paris tradition.

"Talking to the counselor sounds like it might be a good idea, though," Paris replied, noting that apparently there was a counselor position now, which she assumed would be under the heading of Sickbay. She'd likely benefit from some time with a mental health professional herself. "Did you need someone to walk you down there?"

"That... that's very thoughtful, thank you," Akira said softly. Forgetting entirely to clean up the tea on the table, she headed for the door. "I am sorry about all this," she said in an apologetic tone as they walked. "I'm normally not so scattered, but I've never... I mean, I- I'm not yet a year old, and while I have experienced some terrifying things in that year, this was... something else, and I do not know that the right words exist to express what I feel. Have... have you ever felt anything like that?"

Less than a year old, a civilian and she's the Ops chief? What in the absolute hell?!? Internally Rita boggled at how all of this might have come to pass. But a gentle, sad smile settled onto the face of the extroverted explorer as she moved to the door to accompany the bewildered being. Rita had spent four years as a warp ghost, completely isolated and alone, and that was before she'd been hurled through time and dimension to come here. Experiences outside the ability to express one's feelings were very familiar to her. "Yes, Miss Zhuri. I most definitely have felt like that on more occasions than I'd care to admit. Come on, let's get you somebody to talk to who can help you process what you've been through, huh?"

The urge to wrap her arm around the smaller being to offer some degree of comfort was there, but who knew how she might react to that. For Rita, physical reassurance worked great on her, since she had spent so much time immaterial. But that wasn't everyone's experience, and the last thing she wanted to do was exacerbate the situation. Instead she just kept pace with the infant life form as they made their way to the turbolift.

"Thank you," Akira said with a grateful smile. They came to a lift and shuffled on, and Akira directed it to the appropriate deck to set it in motion. "I wish Daytona was awake..." she continued with a wistful sigh. "Oh, sorry, Daytona Rahl is a Warrant Officer in Intel, and he is my boyfriend, and... he is recovering from recent events. I did not mean to sound ungrateful for your company, but normally he makes me feel better when I am sad; he holds me and makes me feel like everything will be alright... N-not that I would ask a total stranger for a hug, it's just that I am finding it difficult to function without that assurance." Then her cheeks flushed a violet hue when she realized she was rambling.

This, however, seemed like something she could understand, so Paris took a gamble, as she always did in such moments. Leaning over she wrapped a shoulder around the slight frame of the photonic personage and gently offered her a side hug. If this ended her up in the captain's office so be it- the kid sounded broken and terrified, and it was a feeling Rita Paris knew all too well from personal experience.

"Sometimes we just need to reassure ourselves that we exist, that we're here, that other people acknowledge us, and that we matter," Paris offered.

Akira may have been photonic, but she felt solid and warm in the way a real person felt, and the texture of her hair felt realistically soft, her uniform felt real... Most people who met Akira rarely had any idea she was photonic until she mentioned it or decided to blink elsewhere on the ship. And for Akira, the feel of Rita's arm around her was a welcomed balm, as were her words, which soothed an existential worry that ached within Akira.

"Thank you," Akira said, turning hesitantly to put her arms around Rita; if this had been a few months ago, she might have started crying, but she had grown much recently, matured, so she would hold in the flood of tears that threatened to fall, at least until she got to the Counselor's office. "I keep needing to thank you, and now I feel extra bad about all this; you came to me needing to talk, yet I'm the one coming unraveled..." she confessed.

"Hey, it happens," Paris chuckled. "My issues aren't going anywhere, trust me. And it sounds like you could use a shoulder to lean on and a sympathetic ear. I may not know exactly what you've been through, but I'm willing to listen. And I might understand more than you'd expect.... so lay it on me if you wish, or I can just keep mum and let you talk about it with a counselor. Entirely up to you, ki- uh, Chief." Rita had to stop herself from calling the young being 'kid'. It didn't help to be spoken down to in such moments, and compared to her, everyone was a kid these days. Bad enough when I was just five years younger than I looked...

If Akira noticed the slip, she didn't remark on it. The lift came to a stop and let them out. "I really do appreciate that," Akira said, stepping away with a sad, meek smile to continue their trek. "Although I really should see the Counselor; maybe I should take a few days off, get myself right before I try to go back to work," she mused aloud as they walked. The Counselor's office wasn't far from the lift, so just as she finished speaking she could see the door coming into view, as well as the door console which read 'In Session - Do Not Disturb'. "Oh... Guess I'll have to wait a bit..." With a sigh, Akira accessed the console to 'pencil' herself in for the next available session, then she looked to Rita.

"Is that offer for a sympathetic ear still good?"

The smile that dawned on the face of the gold-clad cosmonaut was genuine and warm. "Sure. How about we find someplace quiet with a nice view, and you can lay your problems on me. No judgment, no condemnation- you can tell me what you think and how you feel and I promise I won't think any less of you. And so long as it doesn't endanger the ship or anyone's life, including your own, it doesn't have to go any further than me." Somewhere out there the ghost of Dr. Parnassus, her old therapist back at Starfleet Psych, would be proud of her, Rita mused. Can't say I didn't learn a little from all of our sessions, Doc. Look at your crazy old patient paying it forward...

"A view?" Taking the suggestion quite literally, Akira thought for a moment. "Well, there is a small observation deck nearby that often gets used as a break room for the medical staff; at this hour, no one should be in there," she offered, then started walking as Paris strode beside her, moving with a martial stride but slowing it down for the civilian.

"So, if the 'not yet a year old' bit didn't already get your attention, I'm not a normal person..." Akira started awkwardly as they made their way through the corridors. "I'm actually a photonic life form, kind of like the Emergency Medical Hologram, although under normal circumstances the EMH wouldn't be recognized as an independent individual like I am; you see, unlike other holograms, I am truly sentient, not just an Artificial Intelligence. It helped that my creation was quite unique, I was made from another hologram that was once a living, breathing, biological being..." Akira trailed off, briefly lost in thought as the pang of longing for her father hit her hard.

"Anyway, like the EMH, I have been tethered to the ship, unable to go anywhere that didn't have holo-emitters equipped, but recently I was gifted an android body, and it took some getting used to but it became a joy to experience the freedom it offered. But on the planet we just visited, there was a dampening field that suppressed the technology in my body, and it was terrifying to feel the loss of control, it was like a cage. That alone was so terrifying to me that it brought me back to the day my Father died; we were stuck in the holodeck during a cascade failure of our ship, and he sacrificed himself to preserve the integrity of my matrix..." Akira released a shuddered breath, then reached up to wipe a tear away.

"And on the planet, as a test to meet a person posing as a god, I had to hold a white hot rod of iron, and if I was worthy then I would not get burned; I may just be a hologram, but I can still feel pain, and the thought of grabbing that iron... Well, needless to say, I was not burned so I passed the test, but the fear I felt in that moment before taking the rod, it won't go away and now I feel... I don't know... frozen? That freedom I enjoyed suddenly felt so heavy and once I got back to the ship, I couldn't get out of that body fast enough."

Some hallways and another lift ride resulted in their arrival at the small observation deck where a few tables and chairs sat unused. Paris checked the angle of the stars sliding past before she chose where to sit. Once seated, the leggy lieutenant crossed her legs and eyed the young woman. Shaking her head, Rita Paris exhaled, long and low.

"The future never fails to amaze me," the blonde human offered. "You are amazing. In my time beings like you were science fiction, and here you are, having an existential crisis. Which I don't say to mock your feelings at all," Paris leaned in to cup the young woman's shoulder. "That's just part of what's so amazing about you is that like any living being, you too are flawed. It's part of what makes you fascinating and unbelievable and magnificent."

"The future?" It was then that certain oddities about the Lieutenant, her odd clothing and now her choice of wording, were starting to come together. Akira tilted her head curiously, this moment of intrigue eclipsing the raw emotions that threatened to suffocate her, if only for a few minutes. "You are not from this time, are you?"

The buxom blonde smirked and nodded. "Guilty. I got slingshotted a hundred and twenty seven years into the future and across the dimensions to get here. I'm like Buck Rogers but with better legs, if that makes sense to you. So you were scared of the glowing rod, but you did it anyway? That sounds pretty brave."

"I am not brave, I merely did what was necessary to save the crew that were infected with something we could not cure," Akira replied sheepishly, trying to shrug off the compliment as she didn't feel like she deserved it, not with the way she was acting now. "Now, what of this Buck Rogers?" Akira's eyes glazed over for a moment as she interfaced with the main computer to gain some context. "Earth, televised entertainment series running from 1979 to 1981, about a United States Air Force pilot who was frozen for 504 years in an experimental spacecraft, and after being revived he attempts to adapt to life in the future, most often unsuccessfully," she rambled off, sounding unemotional like the main computer voice. Then Akira blinked her eyes and she was back to normal.

"Interesting! But you say you not only transcended time, but dimension barriers as well? Our Starfleet has come across other dimensions, parallel universes... tell me, do you know the key differences between this universe and your universe of origin? Perhaps I can run some calculations, maybe we can help you get home!" she offered optimistically, more than a little grateful for the distraction from her own problems for a short while.

The first reaction Paris had was that a hyperintelligent holographic girl from the future that said she might be able to get her home sounded great. Then there was the realization that Akira was avoiding her own problems by focusing on someone else's problems. Which was a crutch, and would not actually deal with the root issues, and would ultimately solve nothing. But it was also how Rita coped with everything, by burying herself in work, in 'other people's problems', so it wasn't like she could particularly condemn the coping mechanism.

"Well, according to the captain they know the vibrational frequency of the universe that I came from. Of course, then there's the little matter of time travel, but apparently they have the coordinates for that too. What they lack is a sufficient power source to achieve it... as it was explained to me," The buxom blonde shrugged broadly, indicating that the science was a bit over her head.

"Oooh, yeah, power, that is a problem..." Akira replied with an emotional wince. "The Hera has been involved in missions of a temporal nature before, and the power necessary to do cross the temporal threshold is... pretty outlandish and a huge risk to do it, but we had to with what was at stake. I'm sorry we don't have the means to get you home, but I'll look into this and work on it in my spare time, maybe I'll find another option that's more viable than what has already been considered. In the meantime, perhaps I could put you in touch with one of my mothers! They are from another universe, but they are currently stationed on the USS Merlin... Oh, Father was from the same universe as them and I carry his memories with me; I know it won't be the same as first hand experience, but perhaps it will help to have someone who can relate with what you are going through?"

"Wow, you carry your father's katra? Sonak would be delighted," Paris puzzled. "That seems... intense?"

"Yes, it is, actually," Akira replied, her expression softening in thought; no one had ever remarked on that before! "I wouldn't be where I am now if not for his memories; when I first came online, I was like a child, I could barely carry on a conversation, and his knowledge gave me a great deal of context that I lacked and it sped up my evolution, but sometimes I recall memories that are not mine and it makes me very sad... And I miss him all the time and yet he is with me, it is so confusing reconciling those conflicting details!"

"I read a story once of a girl who was made of patchwork. Pieces and parts from other people all sewn together to make a whole. But she learned how to bring them into harmony within her, and they became one together, a new being." At that, Paris coughed, looking a bit embarrassed. "They were a, uh, Starfleet romance series I read in the Academy. But the main character was that patchwork girl, and eventually she pulled herself together to become a starship captain. So your situation reminded me of her... sooo not sure if very outdated romance novels are the best place to draw life philosophy from, but there it is."

"Being a patchwork person sounds unpleasant," Akira remarked innocently, grimacing at the thought. "But some days, I do feel that way... Like there's only pieces of me, not a whole; on the one hand I am artificial, made of code based on logic, and I want to use logic on everything, but then there's also a part of me that is real and organic, raw and emotional, and it's not easy being both at the same time. Most days it's not so bad and I enjoy being me, but days like today really suck."

"Being paralyzed and trapped in your own body sounds like it really sucked. You gonna stay out of it for a while?" It was a simple question and phrasing, but it seemed to Rita like a good time to redirect the conversation a bit.

"I wasn't paralyzed in the traditional sense; I could still move, but there was this dampening field and I could feel it affecting me," Akira tried to explain, pausing for a moment to try to find the right words. "It was so heavy and I couldn't... I couldn't access any internal functions, I couldn't even verify that my protective measures were still protecting my core matrix... I know that may not seem like a big thing because I could still move, but it's like..." Akira winced as she found herself lacking the means to properly verbalize what it felt like.

"Please don't take offense, but I'm not sure it's something a biological can fully understand, at least not without an adequate parallel between humanoid function and my own functions. Physically I was capable of movement, but emotionally the sensation from the dampening field was paralyzing. As for staying out my body, I don't know, I'm having a hard time even looking at it for now."

"It's okay. no offense taken. I don't know what it's like, and maybe there isn't a parallel- you're a bit unique, like you said. Not everything translates to the 'human experience' despite our fondness for it and our humancentric perspectives," Rita shrugged, nodding. "And I'm sure no one is going to judge you for staying out of it if that's what you feel like you need to do. You are the expert on you, and you know what's best for you, right?"

"Y-yeah, I guess..." Akira replied as she slowly turned her head to gaze out the window. "It's really frustrating, you know? Sometimes people try to relate to to what I'm feeling, but it just doesn't work that way, and it makes me feel even more lonely... It's like with Father, people would try to relate to him, and he was insulted; how could they know what it was like to die, to be reanimated into a holographic body and watch their physical body die?! Or being brought into a different universe, to be ripped away from the people they love, a stranger in a strange place, how can anyone know what that's like?!" she rambled with growing frustration. But then she stopped and grew quite still as realization dawned on her; Rita understood, well, that last part at least.

"But you understand, don't you?" Akira said ever so softly, her gaze returning to Rita with small smile.

"I don't know all that you have been through, and I can't relate to a lot of it- I don't think anyone can." While she had never particularly had a maternal streak- after all, her career left little time for a family and she dated a man with whom to make children would involve a lot more than mere biology. But something about the lost and injured young lifeform stirred her, and Rita could not help but feel for the unique lifeform that had no one to relate to, no one who understood her trials and no one with whom she could talk about it. Years of therapy had prepared Rita for the encounter, though, and she hoped she knew what needed to be said.

"What we can do is listen, and try to help you ask the questions of yourself to find your answers... and we can care. Even amongst we biological life forms, our experiences are unique. I don't know what it was like to grow up on Andoria. You don't know what it's like to live a few hundred years... well, not yet. All of us have unique experiences that brought us together. But that's the joy of Starfleet- we come together, and together we are so much better than apart. All of our unique contributions make everyone's lives a little better, and we explore the galaxy and help people because that's what we came aboard to do." Paris paused, realizing she'd been a bit long-winded, but it was something in which she truly believed, and was passionate.

"So we don't know what it's like to be you, but we care. And we'll listen when you want to talk about it, and we'll do our best to help. And you can help us understand, so that future generations of lifeforms like yourself- because I suspect there will be more- will have someone who did understand and who did try to help. And that will be you. So what you are going through now is blazing the trail for others to follow someday- and that is so very Starfleet." The passionate pilot paused, hoping that she hadn't lost her knack for the inspirational speech.

Akira smiled, and it finally reached her eyes in a genuine, heart-felt way. "Thank you, that- that means so much to me for you to say all that," she replied, blushing slightly at having to thank Rita once again. "Although, what I feel now doesn't seem much like blazing a trail, but I suppose that's one of the benefits of hindsight; Mother Maica once said that time heals all eventually, so I guess now all I need is time to find that perspective." Though Rita words helped immensely, Akira wasn't going to use this chat as an excuse to duck out of her appointment with the Counselor; she still needed a good talk with a professional to make sure she was fit for duty, and it couldn't hurt to ask for a couple days off to help her work through the torrent of emotions still swirling within her. But having mentioned one of her mothers did bring something else to her attention...

"You know what I just noticed?" Akira said with a curious tilt of her head. "You have really big breasts... I think they might actually be as big as Mother Maica and Aunt Maica's boobs..." she remarked with a child-like innocence.

The eyebrows of the buxom blonde shot up, and were followed by a wry smile. "I... am pretty busty, that's true. I don't know your aunt or your mom, but yes, I developed early and I've always been... bouncy. It gave me a bad reputation back in school, because people who were jealous or wanted to be with me would make up stories about me." Rita paused, then cocked her head a bit. "Did you just... decide what you look like? I'm sure it's more complex than that, but did you get to choose your appearance?"

"Oh yes, I did!" Akira said with some excitement. "When I was brand new, I did not even have a defined shape! I was just this mass of blue, I think because Father was blue. Anyway, as my matrix developed, I saw my father and slowly became more humanoid like him; at that point it wasn't a conscious decision, merely an adaptation of my code, but as the days went by, I started making conscious decisions about what I wanted to look like and who I wanted to be. I chose a Bolian/Trill appearance like Father, but I'm not entirely certain what caused me to chose to be female, and for a while my features changed often as I experimented with my appearance. I eventually settled on what you see now, but since Father's death I have been wanting to drop the Bolian complexion for some reason, and when I received my android body I implemented the fair skin tone. I had considered trying Orion skin tones like Mother Maica, or even crazy hair like Mother Andy, but I feel happy as I am, that one change was enough for me."

"That's huge, that you were able to choose your own appearance. Definitely an advantage over watching and seeing what biology has in store for you, trust me," the top-heavy time traveler giggled as she shrugged, a seismic activity as she shimmied a little. "So you're continuing to experiment and refine your look- that's very neat. Does it make you happy to customize yourself, to evolve your appearance?"

"I think I'm fairly settled into my appearance by now, but I do continue to tweak things here and there, but just minor things," Akira replied. "As for the evolution of my matrix, sometimes I'm surprised by some of the things I learn about myself; it's hardly the same as the biology roulette that you're dealing with, but, well, I think it's lovely that my own development can surprise me. Except for a few things... I've come to realize I don't like pain and I don't like this fear, but I'm trying to deal with it like biologicals do rather than just turning it off. It's hard, and feel for the people around me who don't have the option of simply turning their emotions off."

"Oh, we can, it just doesn't work well," Paris replied, having shoved an awful lot of emotions that she didn't want to deal with away in the past few days, knowing that wasn't a solution, just a temporary measure. But it was a whole lot easier to focus on someone else's problems. "So are you maybe feeling a little better after having talked about what happened on the away mission?"

"A bit, yeah," Akira replied with a slight nod. "I know it's all still there, but getting it out, it really did help. If ever I could repay the favor, just let me know; after all, you know where to find me," she offered with a teasing grin. "I've never had anyone outside my door waiting for me to come home."

"I thought it was more polite than chasing you down in the hallway, or showing up in your office. Besides, if you show up on someone's doorstep, they are likely to invite you in. And that's a good way to get to know about someone." Rita leaned in, offering her hand. "Thanks for letting me in. I think we're friends now, Akira Zhuri."

"I think you're right," Akira replied with her usually cheery smile finally showing through the fog of fear that had been hanging over her head. "And you know what that means? You're not alone anymore."