Interesting Investigations

Posted on Fri Jul 1st, 2022 @ 10:42am by Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Ensign Kateyo Fenn

Mission: Ares Ascending
Location: Main Transporter Room
Timeline: After Interesting Readings
2131 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure

"I still don't see the big deal," Teyo said as he ran his hands over his short hair.

Xavier sighed. "What's not to get? Every time Benny is near Finn, he acts... strange."

"Strange?"

"Yes strange. He starts rejecting his power transfer, giving anomalous readings. The second she leaves the room, he's back to normal again, like nothing has happened."

Teyo thought about what Xavier was saying for a moment before he spoke. "We don't really know much about the creature, maybe this is just how he is."

"Every time?" Xavier asked. "Every. Single. Time? That can't be a coincidence Tey, in fact in engineering we call that a reaction."

Teyo rolled his eyes, "I know what we call it KoKo." Xavier gave him a look of death at the sound of his unwanted nickname, just the reaction Teyo had wanted. "But maybe he is reacting to another stimulus?" He continued.

"I tried all the variables," Xavier said as he counted them off on his fingers. "I sent in other females to check on Benny, I sent in other humans, I sent in men, I also sent in people of different species. He only reacts badly when Finn is near, either when she's alone or with someone else."

"Is that why you got me to check in on Benny before meeting you here?" Teyo asked, an edge of annoyance in his voice.

"Exactly," Xavier said, amused at the Trill's expression. "You were test subject Trill male."

"Great. Okay, let's say you're right," Teyo said starting to see the issue, "me, you, and Finn were all with him a few days ago and he was fine then. Explain that?"

"I can't. Something has clearly changed with Keating between now and then."

"So you're going to tell the Captain right? Or at least Commander Zora?" Teyo asked, clearly not thinking things through, as normal.

"Yeah right, can you imagine how that conversation would go?" Xavier replied. "Excuse me, Captain, I know that you're a busy man but I wanted to have a word with you about the fetus space cow and Lieutenant Keating. Oh yeah, that's right, the fetus space cow that we brought on board and gave him tertiary engineering to live in. Anyways, Benedict... that's his name by the way, well Benedict kinda acts a bit strange whenever Lieutenant Keating is present. It's not the most conclusive and I'm not sure if it means anything but I thought I would bring this to you anyway."

"You have such a flair for the dramatic," Teyo said as he rolled his eyes again. "So I'm assuming you have a plan or is that too much to ask of Mister Thespian?"

"Of course I have a plan, why do you think we are here?" Xavier said as he waved his arms around the transporter room.

Teyo looked around the transporter room mildly, still not connecting the dots. "You're gonna beam Finn into space? I mean, I'm not fully on board with the plan but I'm sure I can be convinced."

"I might save everyone some trouble and beam you into space," Xavier quipped back.

"You'd miss me too much," Teyo replied with a toothy grin.

"I wouldn't bet latinum on that," Xavier muttered under his breath. "No, we are going to check Finn's recent transporter records and compare them to her previous ones. I need something tangible for the Captain."

Teyo watched as Xav moved over to the main console and started tapping away when a thought occurred to him. "It's a shame you can't just read her thoughts."

"Don't remind me," Xavier said as he stopped typing on the computer for a second. He mentally shook it off and accessed the bio-scanner information. He pulled up Keating's records and then accessed the archive records and pulled up Keating's file again. The two files were on the screen, side-by-side and Xavier started a comparative scan of them both, watching the readings as they appeared on the screen.

Teyo moved to stand next to his friend. "It all looks normal," the Trill commented. "Mass, height, weight, genetic defects, DNA readings, everything is normal."

"Agreed," Xavier said. There was a mix of relief and disappointment in his voice. "Maybe you were right?"

"Stranger things have happened," Teyo laughed as he nudged Xavier. "But while we're here why don't we run a level one molecule scan?"

"Because my young friend, that tells us every single variation between every single transporter use since the beginning of use. There's so much data, it's almost unreliable," Xavier said.

"You're right unless you have a handy algorithm and a pretty sweet engineer," Teyo said as he pushed Xavier out of the way and started inputting the data he want the computer to see as useful and what it declared as junk. He finished inputting the commands and waited while the computer processed the information, sorting out the rate of decay from normal transporter use and peaks of decay from any anomalous readings. Once again it started pulling up the same data but in a much more detailed view.

Xavier scanned the information on the screen when a huge peak in numbers caught his eye. "Wait, go back," he said. "There," he said as he pointed at the screen.

Teyo followed Xavier's finger, "a 0.02% loss of gene sequence degradation," he read out loud. "Does that mean what I think it means?"

Xavier didn't answer straight away, his head was doing the numbers and his mind was counting the days. He rechecked the readings and then ran them again, the stardates matched up.

"Xav?" Teyo asked again.

"Yeah," the Betazoid finally answered, "yeah it does. Finn might be a clone."

Teyo stood back from the console, unwilling to accept this piece of information. "How? When?"

"During our last mission, at the clone station," Xavier answered, still staring at the numbers on the screen. "I should have seen this earlier," he added, more to himself.

"Well we need to tell the Captain," Teyo said as he went to touch his combadge.

Xavier caught the Trill's hand before he made contact. "What are you doing?" He asked.

"Oh, did you want the credit?" Teyo asked, not understanding Xavier's unwillingness to bring this hard evidence directly to their superior officers.

Xavier shook his head with pure exasperation. "You know the difference between you and me?"

"Well I look like this and you look like that," the Trill answered without skipping a beat.

"No," Xavier said, finally releasing Teyo's arm. "I think with this-" he pointed his index finger at his own temple, "-and you think with that-" he nodded his head towards Teyo's crotch.

Teyo grinned, "to be fair, I think with this and that."

"I'm sure you do," Xavier replied, shaking his head, "maybe engage this a bit more. We can't use the comm, I'll speak to the Captain face-to-face. Don't worry, I'll make sure you get the credit," he added, seeing Tey about to protest. "But I need you to stay here, download this information to my private database and then scrub the records of what we were searching for here, let's not tip our hand until the Captain is in the loop."

"So grunt work?" Teyo asked sulkily.

"I like to call it Ensign work," Xavier said, a joyous glint in his eyes.

"And if I run into Finn?"

"Just be your normal charming self. You'll either get what you have always wanted or she'll run a mile, either way, it will throw her off the scent."

"Ha Ha, very funny," Teyo said.

Xavier was about to leave the room when the doors opened and Finn herself walked into the transporter room. "Finn," he said, trying not to sound too alarmed.

"Boys," Finn nodded as though she hadn't caught a tidbit of the previous conversation. 'And if I run into Finn'. Why would he be concerned with running into me? And why are they both in the transporter room? The clone thought through the suspicious scenario. "What brings you both down here?" She asked, not really expecting the truth.

Xavier stopped in his tracks, "well..."

"Busted," Teyo said holding his hands up in mock surrender. "I was trying to convince Xav to ditch for a few hours and come check out this bar. You wouldn't believe the guys down there."

"And as I reminded the ensign," Xavier continued in a stern voice, "he's currently on duty and I have to finalise the new crew transfers for operations." He rolled his eyes in Finn's direction, signalling Teyo just being Teyo. "You heading to the planet?" He asked as casually as possible.

"Nah, too much work to do around here. Besides, you know being in engineering is the only vacation I need," Finn smiled. "You know," she continued, thinking of ways to remove them from the situation. "I never thought I'd say this, but Fenn might be right. It wouldn't kill you to finish the crew transfers tomorrow morning and I can spare him for the rest of the day if you two want to go and check out the bar." Surely Teyo wouldn't pass on an opportunity like that. If anything, she half expected him to forcibly grab Xavier and drag him to the bar, which would give her plenty of opportunity to research what it is those two were actually doing.

Teyo's eyes grew large with excitement, "I don't need telling twice," he said as he pressed a few buttons on the transporter terminal. "I'm already inputting the coordinates."

Xavier turned to face Teyo wondering for a second if the Trill had already forgotten their mission. However, he didn't need telepathy to know that Teyo was on the case, playing his part like a pro. "Well, give me an hour," Xavier said, "I need to finish some things before I can relax." He turned back to face Finn, sidestepping slightly as to obscure her view of the ensign. "In fact, why don't you join us? I bet you have barely left the ship and if anyone needs R&R, it's you."

"You know me, my favorite form of R&R is working in engineering. Besides, I plan to see about going for a mud run with Mason later," the clone lied. "You go pack, I'll send Fenn down since he's so excited he doesn't even need to pack anything," she chuckled, stepping around Xavier and heading to the transporter panel.

"The only packing I need is right here in my-"

"I beg you not to finish that sentence," Xavier said, interrupting his friend. "Come on you can give me a hand and we'll be done quicker, there's no way I'm leaving you alone at a bar on an alien planet unsupervised," he added with a grin.

"Okay, I'm all done here anyways," Teyo replied as he signed out of the console.

The two men headed towards the door. "You know where we are if you change your mind," Xavier called back at Finn.

"Yeah, bring Mason along," Teyo added, "tell him I'm way more fun than George, with a much bigger..." Xavier pushed him out of the transporter room before he could finish whatever he was about to say.

Finn chuckled until they left and then immediately got to work. Why had they been talking about her? What were they doing in the transporter room? All questions the clone wanted answers to as she pulled up data on the main control panel. It was clear that some files were accessed, but unfortunately, Teyo had covered his tracks well. Not so well that Finn couldn't still find something though.

Wiggling her finds over the panel, Finn thought of various techniques to uncover data. Most didn't know that when you deleted data, it wasn't fully removed until it was overwritten. With that in mind, she scoured the storage and performed a sector scan. It wasn't long before some files popped up and Finn waded through them before finding a recent file of her transport to the Athena. Teyo had been clever enough to corrupt it, so she couldn't tell what exactly they had gotten into, but it was enough to raise further questions. Had they caught on to her rouse? Though she was a perfect clone of the real Finn, there was always some degradation of the gene sequence. What exactly had they found? Without further thought, Finn raced out of the room to find them. If they had located any information, they might take it to the XO or the Captain and that was one risk she couldn't afford to take.