STF

IntSec Office/Tom's Quarters

Posted June 17, 2022, 9:37 p.m. by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) (Kate O'Neill)

Posted by Lieutenant Tom Jarvis (Internal Security) in IntSec Office/Tom’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vanessa Slade (CNS) in IntSec Office/Tom’s Quarters

Posted by Lieutenant Tom Jarvis (Internal Security) in IntSec Office/Tom’s Quarters
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip
“Judge Wilkins O’Flannery at the fourth precinct and Father 0’Boyle of the Immaculate Conception on tenth street.”

Algorithms would extrapolate the individuals they were trying to reach and the IS3 priority would bring up the Internal Security splash screen as well as playing the notification chime at a very noticeable volume.

The holo-panels that lit up for the communication showed Vanessa waiting for the connection.

  • Tom, IntSec

As she waited for the comms to connect, Vanessa looked at Tom. “Is all this…typical?” Her gesture and expression showed Vanessa’s question was an honest one. This was the first time she had ever been on a ship where space was at a premium. On Earth, one could just expand an office or move to a larger space if needed. On a ship that was impossible.

Vanessa Slade CNS

Tom leaned back in his chair. The panels automatically adjusted for maximum comfort. It was the same kind of chair Vanessa was sitting in and, if she looked at it, though feeling very solid, the panels were held in place by what she could only assume was electromagnetism or gravity manipulation technology.

“This is typical for me. Special installation and accesses that require specific clearances.” he said matter of factly while gesturing to the desk.

“There is a certain aspect that I should inform you about. This is all being recorded. I’ll send you a copy of the recording. People usually find the recordings a little disorienting as I have a condition that will cause you to forget me within three minutes after you leave line of sight with me. People I work with have a tendency to use methods of recording or taking notes to keep track of interactions with me.”

  • Tom, IntSec

Vanessa broke out in a full bout of laughter hearing his comment. She knew the jokes about spies and spooks associated with the intelligence division but never someone telling her she was going to forget him. Her laughter began to slip from full bodied to more nervous as she looked at his calm and neutral expression. It was never good for therapeutic rapport to laugh at ones patients and although Tom was not technically a client, one day he could be. The last thing she wanted was from Tom to come back with ‘the last time I shared something important with you Slade you laughed at me.’ Coughing she tried to roll into a more serious tone although it would never have actually hidden her initial reaction. “Wait, so you are serious? I am literally not going to remember you when I wake up tomorrow?”

Vanessa Slade CNS

Tom shook his head.

“No…”

Leaning forward…

“You won’t remember me three minutes after leaving this office.” he said.

“Because I will have developed an acute case of amnesia?” Her comment sounded maybe slightly sarcastic but aside from the odd night of heavy drinking, Vanessa rarely forgot a face. “What kind of condition makes someone else forget things?”

Tom leaned back again.

“It’s a low level psionic field that operates on personal line of sight. It’s not in just one part of my brain either, it’s given off by my entire neural system. Every last nerve and neuron and I have no ability to control it. It’s always on. It intensifies if I get intoxicated which is why you’ll never see me using intoxicants.”

“Shut up,” Vanessa’s voice had a ring of awe to it. “So you are telling me that if we get you drunk no one in the bar or anyone we pass on the way home will remember our exploits? Where were you when I was in the academy,” she let out a small laugh. “You know how many fences and fire escapes that would have saved me?” While his condition was not positive in any way shape or form, Vanessa’s chosen career had taught her to find the positive and use that to her best advantage in making people the best they could be. While this was not a therapy session, it was hard not to ever be off the clock when it came to crew morale.

But you wouldn’t remember either and, by intensify, I mean that people start loosing memory of me and the details of other memories, around the same time, start becoming collateral damage. If I pass out due to an intoxicant, it’s like a mindwipe bomb that takes everything in the last three days and random stuff from up to three weeks. There’s nothing good or fun about it.”

“I don’t know. There are some nights I would love to never remember.” She meant it as a joke but also the truth. What people saw as negative, Vanessa always tried to find the positive in it especially in cases like Tom’s. There was nothing he could do about his situation. Focusing on all the negative aspects of it wasn’t healthy. While this was probably the lousiest way to find a positive, there was some truth in what she said.

Tom smiled genuinely for the first time since he’d been in Vanessa’s presence and it was a very brief moment.

“Well with someone like me you could have those wild nights and remember nothing about it in regards to me. Your questionable interactions with others, however, would still be embarrassingly present.”

Over her career, Vanessa saw some things that she prayed she could forget. While it was not ethical in any way to want to suppress events in ones life, it was not always fair either what happened to some people in their lives. For a second, she debated if she would ever use Tom’s power for this purpose if she had it. Luckily, it wasn’t her burden to bear because Vanessa worried she might not have as much control as Tom seemed to have.

“So there are no exceptions,” she asked very interested in the topic.

“Of course there are exceptions. Cybernetic memory augments, brain damage, extradimensional beings, machine intelligences, AIs… Although with Machines and AIs, for some reason, the sentient ones are affected by my condition. There’s also extended contact for more than three hours.”

Tom looked at the holographic displays floating above the surface of his desk.

“We should have connection by now. Though people do have a tendency to get nervous when they see Internal Security pop up on their monitors. Forgive me, I’ve been rude. Would you like something to drink?”

  • Tom, IntSec

“I guess if I ask for a double shot of whiskey I won’t have to feel weird about seeing you in the halls later,” Vanessa replied with a half smirk.

Tom changed course from the replicator to a cabinet under the media center. He pulled a bottle and a single glass and set them just outside the camera’s field of view.

=/\=Slade this had better be good. You know it is three in the morning here=/\= Judge Wilkins said in a tone thick with the grogginess of sleep. =/\=Speaking here were are you?=/\=

“Not in town but that is not important. I need you to write an emergency order granting my parents custodial rights for Frankie and Johnny until I can figure out what to do to straighten out their parents. If you do I will send my brother over to fix that up stairs bathroom you have been getting estimates on.”

=/\=How can you know....you know what…forget it. Our problem is going to be however who is going to serve it and pick them up. I am assuming they are sending them to a shelter for the night?=/\=

“Let me handle that. Just upload the documents to me and I will do the rest,” Vanessa pleaded.

Vanessa Slade

Tom waited for the next request.

  • Tom, IntSec

The next voice that came through had the classic Irish twang. =/\=Nessie ‘ahney ‘ow is life treatin you. I am gahnna assume you finally left sahbo sence you are callin me and naht at my wendow o’ my vehecle.=/\=

“Yeah, and something came up. I need you to pick up a priest, a judge, and some papers,” she scratched her forehead as if she was trying to avoid the conversation.

=/\=You know dat sooehnds like a bad jahke?=/\=

“Yeah but it’s not. I contacted Judge Wilkins,” Vanessa said getting serious.

=/\=Aht dis ‘our? An’ he didna through you in de hooskal=/\= O’Flannery shot back with a hearty laugh.

Tom wondered if the man had missed the Internal Security splash screen at the start of the call.

“O’Flannery will you focus. Joey and Frankie ran into a pinch and they called me as their one call. ‘Course their pa and mah are nowhere to be found so I have to deal with that,” she went into a slew of profanity discussing the arresting officer she had to deal with.

O’Flannery didn’t need to be told why the priest was involved now. It was to make sure someone got their last rites before O’Flannery sent two men to meet their maker. =/\=Boeht I gaht a gaheye in de back ov de squad car? Can’t Daltahn take it?=/\=

“No, he is handlin’ Hoffman’s trip there. You know how much harder it is to get them out once their paperwork is processed. So you need to get there now,” she said urgently.

Her comment was replied to by vehicle doors slamming and the sounds of grunts and moans as O’Flannery let the man out of the back of the car. =/\=You are so goin’ to owe me. Does Denny stell do electrical?=/\=

Tom smiled briefly before suppressing it.

“And yes I will have Denny stop by this weekend.” Vanessa looked at Tom with a raised eyebrow wondering if the background sounds she heard matched what he thought just happened. “Did you just throw him out of the car?”

Tom arched and eyebrow in a very Vulcan manner but the hint of his smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth.

=/\=He’s too drunk to git fahr. Comm ya back Ness,=/\= O’Flannery said clicking off the call.

Dropping back in the chair she drummed her hands on the arm rests looking around. All they could do now was wait. “You know at times I think I would need a universal translator if I hadn’t grown up back in Boston,” she joked. “Where did you grow up?”

Vanessa Slade

Well…” Tom started as he brought up a few screens that started to scroll the extensive forms Vanessa would have to fill out just to learn his place of birth, “You’ll have to fill out a request of information form in triplicate. You then submit that form to the Internal Security administrative office, the Star Fleet Admiralty, and Star Fleet Intelligence. They will ask for your Sigma 7 clearance, or higher, for minimum access. You will be thoroughly checked out as the recorded traces of your life are scrutinized with a tunneling electron microscope. You will then be subjected to an interview where you will be observed by experts in body language, bio response, and voice stress analysis. Should you meet all the requirements, you’ll have access to the most basic information in my file beyond what my handlers feel you’d need to practice your profession on me.”

Tom sat back and waited for that to sink in.

  • Tom, IntSec

“Or I could just ask you and you could tell me,” she let out a small laugh. Tom fascinated her. He had a sense of humor but it was dry and highly intelligent humor…or was it? It was too soon to tell if the man sitting ninety degrees from her was joking or being serious. “I am a sucker for birthdays,” she said leaning back waiting for the next call to come through. “I know some people aren’t but they celebrate a person’s life and each one is like the start of a new chapter about someone. It also comes with cake and anytime you can have cake it is a good thing.” With no one remembering who Tom was, it was unlikely he had birthdays. That was definitely going to change with Slade around.

Vanessa Slade CNS

“I remember having birthdays until I was about twelve, then people started forgetting me. Now anything birthday related is rare. I still get messages passed to me from my parents wishing me a happy birthday but they’re tense and uncomfortable as they barely remember anything about me after the age of fourteen.”

As a therapist, Vanessa had to work hard keeping emotional components out of the equation when helping people. When it wasn’t an official session, much like this there was some flexibility. For people to see someone as trustworthy, they had to see them first as important. While there was no reason in the universe for Tom to see Vanessa as anything other than a nameless face in a sea of crew, her second most important job on the ship was to make people realize they weren’t a number to her. That she could separate out the friend from the co-worker role and read them the riot act in sessions but still show up after hours demonstrating what happened behind closed doors stayed behind closed doors. Not everyone accepted this nor did everyone want it but for those that did, it helped her bond with the crew and establish trust. Since this conversation was not in her office, Vanessa let a small frown dance at the corners of her lips. It wasn’t pronounced but it did show his comment mattered to her.

Tom took a drink of his fruit infused water and sat silently for a few moments as if weighing options.

“But still, if you want to know, I can have the information request forms delivered to your quarters. You don’t have at least a Sigma 7 clearance but, if you come up with a compelling reason, they might let you have more specific information that the year I was born.”

  • Tom, IntSec

“No,” she said firmly already coming up with several ideas in her head. “I don’t want someone is HR to flash a number on my screen that is you only to be replaced with another random string of numbers that I assign artificial importance to. I can wait. One day you will come up behind me…and then after telling me who you are again,” she broke the tension with a small joke, “you will proudly announce hey Slade today is my birthday,” she imitated him very badly in a deep voice that made her sound slightly like lunatic Sicilian mob boss. “Until then,” she pulled out her phone, “we are going to celebrate Tonessa Day. For the record,” she gave him a smirk and side glance as she stored the information into her phone, “that is going to be you official unbirthday focusing on what really is important. Remembering the day I got to meet you,” she held up a finger with an expression that said but wait there is more like on the holomercials, “and in remembrance of the first scheme, I dragged you into. Trust me with your abilities there will be more so this is sort of an anniversary of sort.

Vanessa Slade CNS

Tom looked puzzled. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened but it always ended the same. Uncomfortable moments as recordings are watched and unease knowing that the man before them should be familiar but was a complete stranger outside of recordings and communications. And when there was intimacy there was a different set of problems. Sometimes anger, usually resentment.

“That is unnecessary. It could create many potential complications.” Tom said but there was a trace of uncertainty in his tone, “I’m used to having to rely on myself.”

He was socially awkward, over analytical, and had a tendency to say the wrong things at the wrong times.

  • Tom, IntSec

“Absolutely. Having friends is such a pesky complication.” It was slightly sarcastic but not everyone responded to being handed kleenex and having their hair braided as they got emotional about a problem. She had also come to the realization that those that needed their hair braided didn’t actually want their problems addressed. They were happy with their problems and just wanted someone to listen. Tom definitely did not need or want his hair braided but that did not negate the fact sentient beings needed contact.

“Because that makes you so much happier,” she countered. Raising her hand she cut off any response before he could make it. “Have you ever heard the saying Starfleet did not assign you a spouse and kids with your duffle bag?”

“It is something Herman Hornsby was always barking out in the security classes he taught at the academy so that you focused on the task at hand. For security personnel having emotional attachments is a hindrance. You go into combat situations and you need to focus solely on the task or you could die or cause the death of someone else. The problem is when you get home and you are alone your mind can go to places it shouldn’t be leading to depression, PTSD, irritability,” she listed a series of complications and then stopped. “Individuals need a combination of alone time and social networks. Networking is different for everyone. Some people need vast networks. Others need one or two close friends.” Adjusting in her seat, Vanessa leaned back and looked at Tom. “So we are going to start with a group of two: Me and you. I am persistent so unless you enjoy yammering to my family or watching guilty pleasure serials with no point or content, what do you like to do?”

Vanessa Slade

Tom pointed at the old entertainment system.

“High adventure, horror, comedy…” he said, “I had to learn to make my own happiness as my condition inhibits my ability to be social with people outside of official needs. I was addicted to the holodeck for a while, mainly in my academy years when I needed stability somehow. Fictional characters don’t forget who they’re programmed to believe you are.”

Tom could talk about things he did in his career but he’d have to turn on scramblers and such to negate any recording devices and have class 2 amnestics ready in case she had a resistance to his curse but, he didn’t want to deal with that hassle.

“I have had many people claim to be my friend. Mostly they were just friendly. Very few people have been able to maintain a friendship with me and only two tried to be romantic. Both of those failed spectacularly.”

  • Tom, IntSec

“Well there is a reason for the saying try and try again,” she polished off the rest of her coffee. “Tomorrow night. Pizza, beer…my place 6 pm…Galaxy Quest. It is a movie about life in Starfleet or at least the comedy version of it. Never gets old and a plot line that doesn’t take a lot of mental capacity.” Vanessa was used to after hours work although her ways of connecting with people did not seem to always fit the norm.

Vanessa Slade


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