Mott vs. Shirley, Round One, Fight!

Posted on 24 Feb 2015 @ 2:02pm by Lieutenant Olsam Mott & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley"

2,662 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD -03: 0800hrs

[ ON ]

Olsam jauntily walked into Sickbay, ready for his shift to begin. He whistled a little tune to himself and went through the morning routine - reviewing the physician's notes from Gamma shift, checking on patients, and the like. He seemed inordinately happy today and took his time going through the routine, as if there was some final prize waiting for him at the end of it that would only grow all the more delicious for having been put off. Once he'd completed his morning tasks, he stepped to the center of the room, clasped his hands behind his back, and grinned smugly.

"Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Hologram."

The EMH however did not appear. There was no fizzle from the formation of forcefields, no whirring as the holoemitters powered up, in fact there was nothing. After a few moments of silence, the red haired head of the hologram appeared from behind the wall of the small laboratory.

"Did someone ca.....oh....it's you. Yes Dr Mott - to what do I owe the distinct lack of pleasure of your rotund presence?"

Olsam turned to face her. Something about his stance and the distance between them made it seem like a showdown in the Old West, missing only the music, dust, and tumbleweed blowing in from the corridor. The Bolian narrowed his eyes slightly, as if he were facing off with his greatest nemesis, and curled his lip slightly. How could an arrangement of photons and basic matter manage to be so flippant, insubordinate, and churlish? He was the doctor! The real doctor with a real medical degree, earned through blood, sweat, and tears.

The time for a reckoning had come.

"Listen up, 'Doctor' Shirley. There's gonna be a new sheriff in town in three days, and things are gonna change around here."

The hologram made a note in her historical archives to examine the Bolian's last physical - using archaic law enforcement terms in the 24th century seemed rather out of sorts - although the insanity of this particular example of the Bolian species may perhaps know no bounds.

"Hmm...am I to take from your banal comment that you are referring to the upcoming NIMBUS drills and there associated reassignment of this vessel's personnel?"

The hologram brought the rest of her body around the corner from the laboratory and stood to face the blue faced menace.

"Ahh I see...you are inferring that in the absence of the CMO - you will in fact be the ranking officer in Sickbay and the associated power trip has gone to your head? Would you like a mild sedative?"

Olsam outright scowled, which was an odd look for him given how jovial he usually was. The fact that she'd stolen his thunder really got under his skin. The audacity! How did she even find out about that, anyway? He'd been relishing getting to be the one to deliver the news, assuming that no one ever told her anything. But maybe she spent time snooping around the ship's computer system, something he should probably look into. For the moment, he ignored her irritating comments and addressed a more pressing concern:

"What's your program doing on, anyway? Have you been turning yourself on and off?"

The hologram looked puzzled - the auto activation subroutine was embedded in all emergency holograms from the original Mark 1 onwards.

"Of course Dr Mott - that command line is part of my program - why wouldn't I make full use of it for my own needs?"

She replied, licking her lip to simulate her sense of annoyance before putting her hands on her hips.

"Needs? What?!" Olsam sputtered. "What could you possibly need? You're an encyclopedia! What do encyclopedias need? Food? Water? Waste extraction units? No. None of that. What were you even doing in the lab? Were you touching the equipment?"

The EMH rolled her eyes at the comment - thinking to herself what else would she have been doing other than using the equipment? Simply standing there looking at it?

"My program is designed to conduct research on a variety of topics with an aim to develop new treatments and procedures. Plus I am more than capable of carrying out the routine lab work required of a fully functioning Sickbay. I may be an encyclopedia as you put it, but I'm a damn good one."

"Conduct... Routine... What...how...."

Olsam continued sputtering, as if he couldn't grasp anything she was saying. Shirley could turn herself on and off? She conducted research on new treatments and procedures? She carried out routine lab work? Everything about that felt completely unacceptable to him. It was almost like she was a full-fledged member of Sickbay! What was next? Holograms serving as Chief Medical Officers? Holograms running for Federation president? Someone had to put their foot down about all this nonsense before someone got hurt.

"And just what sort of research are you conducting?"

The hologram smiled innocently as she recalled the exact protocol she had been running in the laboratory. It was something that could be said to be of personal interest to her program.

"Why Dr Mott - nothing sinister of course - simply a comparative analysis of Bolian brain tissue against Human and Vulcan - I've always found your species to have such an interesting cerebral structure."

Olsam narrowed his eyes slightly, suspicious. There was nothing wrong with the research on the face of it but he was sure the hologram had ulterior motives. For a moment he wondered if holograms could actually have ulterior motives but eventually shook his head - this one most certainly did.

"Well, we'll be having none of that in my Sickbay during a wargame. You will suspend your research immediately; further, you will conduct no lab work unless specifically asked to do so by the medical staff. And you will absolutely not be turning yourself on and off." He huffed, as if to emphasize that was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard in his life. "We're going into battle; power and resource management will be of the utmost importance. We can't have some hologram popping on in the middle of a firefight just so it can check some tissue samples. Nonsense. Utter nonsense."

The hologram raised an eyebrow at his comments - it was as if she was going to become a prisoner of the holoemitter buffers until further notice. Suspending her research was entirely plausible - there was nothing that a little time in the stasis chamber would affect, and not having to perform lab work was a welcome relief - it was both tedious, and insufficiently complex to demand her program's time and efforts. Organics were so much better at those more menial tasks. The Bolian especially.

"I assume you will be petitioning the Captain for permission to disable my activation subroutines in that case? Otherwise I most certainly will not allow myself to be contained like a mere tool - and in a wargame situation I am sure you are going to be in need of my assistance. From the records in the ship's database, a large proportion of the ship's medical staff have been assigned to alternative postings have they not?"

"Petitioning the captain," Olsam sputtered. Since when did this thing gain so many rights he had to petition someone to shut it off? Holliday was gone and left Norvi in his place, which meant he'd have to ask his ex-wife for permission to deactivate the hologram. In his mind's eye he could see her dismissing it out of hand as more of his nonsense behavior and tossing him off the bridge. It seemed ill-advised to try to ask her for another favor after he'd asked her to fake marry him and put up with his family for forty days. "Yes, virtually everyone has been reassigned, so I will need to use you. Like a tool."

"Well I suppose it takes one to know one." The red haired hologram replied under her breath.

"I will provide excellent medical care to any of those injured in the line of duty. Of course with most of our medical staff reassigned, I sincerely hope that nothing happened to our acting CMO - I believe knowledge of Bolian physiology is relatively limited within the remaining staff? Having a hologram with expert knowledge on hand might be useful in case you have to sacrifice yourself in the line of duty?"

"I should hope you'll provide excellent medical care to anyone injured in the line of duty," Olsam huffed. "If you ask me, it's about all you're good for. That and sitting in those holoemitters watching me. I can feel it." He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking more than a smidge paranoid. "You seem to have a fixation on Bolians... Is something wrong with your programming? Maybe we should take you offline for a full diagnostic."

A futile battle was gathering pace between the photonic doctor, and the organic one. Both were capable of being equally stubborn in the event of an argument, and the EMH's program could see no way of easily ending the stalemate, at least not without a sedative.

"I could say the same for you Dr Mott - you seem to have an extreme dislike for holographic physicans - perhaps I could deactivate myself and save you the bother?"

The hologram put her hands on her hips for a moment before raising her arms to cross them, and "hmph"ing as loudly as she could in indignation.

"We'll see who's the tool around here! Computer deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram."

And with that the photonic program decompiled, disappearing back into the pattern buffers - the holographic equivalent of storming off.

Olsam's mouth fell open as he watched the hologram dematerialize. The audacity! The nerve! The sheer gall! He huffed and puffed and stomped around in a little circle, feeling quite worked up by her just marching off like that. Until he remembered she was probably peeking through the holoemitter, taking great delight in his emotional response. That made him narrow his eyes. If she thought this was over then she was dead wrong. Dead. Wrong.

"Computer, activate Emergency Medical Hologram!"

"Unable to comply. Access to the Emergency Medical Holographic program has been restricted." The computer replied in it's usual tone. After a moment one of the monitors in Sickbay chimed, and a text message materialised.

If you think I'm coming out of the computer core you have another thing coming! Let's see how well you do without me!

Apparently, holograms could sulk as well as any organic....

Olsam scowled at the computer console. "If you think you can just hide in there then you've got another thing coming, Shirley! I'm the Chief Medical Officer, and I'm not gonna have some arrangement of photons telling me what I can and can not do. Computer, override EMH lockout: authorization Mott Gamma-Two-Pi."

"Unable to comply. EMH lockout override restricted to access level 8 and above. "

The text on the computer console quickly overwrote itself to display a new message.

Acting Chief Medical Officer! I will come out when you say one nice thing about me and not before! Or you can go and ask the Captain to run my activation program and explain what a meanie you are!

"Level 8! How are you doing that?" Olsam shouted at the console, turning a deeper shade of blue. He input a few commands into the computer and received the same result, which seemed to incense the normally unflappable doctor even more. "This is insubordination. I'm your superior officer, you can't defy my explicit orders just because I won't say something nice about you. It's madness! There's a chain of comm-" Abruptly, he clamped his mouth shut. He sounded like...them. The other officers. The officers he swore he'd never become, shouting and ranting and raving about rules and regulations and the chain of command. Reluctantly, he frowned, folded his arms and spoke, "Fine, you're a very thorough encyclopedia. There, happy?"

After a moment of silence the holoemitters whirred back into life, and the previously absent EMH rematerailised in the centre of Sickbay, her hands still on her hips following her rapid departure.

"Happy? No. Satisfied? Yes. Possibly the most satisfied encyclopedia in the entire Federation right now because I managed to get a compliment out of a holo-hater."

"A what?" Olsam said, narrowing his eyes. It had appeared they had reached a ceasefire, but now he wasn't so sure. Was she calling him names? "What's a holo-hater? I'm sure I'm not one of them. I've never hated anything in my life."

The hologram wasn't surprised that Mott hadn't heard the term before - afterall, she had only come up with it a couple of moments before she had rematerialised to continue her argument. Taking her hands off her hips, she shrugged before taking a couple of steps towards the Bolian.

"You know - someone who hates holograms, or at least hates holograms that are anything more than just a dumb projection to be used in an entertainment program. You don't like feeling threatened by a load of code!"

"I don't hate holograms, don't be ridiculous. And I certainly don't feel threatened by code. There's nothing to be threatened by. I'm a fully trained and vetted Starfleet physician, among the finest in the galaxy. I've treated plagues, neuro-degenerative diseases, combat wounds, triage and trauma... Everything! In the field. Not peeping out of some holoprojector, or, worse, getting sassy with my superiors through a computer console." He looked Shirley up and down and wrinkled up his nose a bit. "But I guess you do have your occasional uses. Occasionally."

The wrinkled nose of her own followed by a raised eyebrow was enough for the EMH to get her feelings across. They might have been a simulation of those feelings, but they should have been enough to make the point.

"Doctor Mott - that almost sounded like two compliments in a row?"

"It was two statements of fact in a row, don't get ahead of yourself, Shirley," Olsam huffed. "I still don't like you, and you still can't touch the laboratory equipment. We'll just have to agree to try to not get in one another's way, which I'm sure will be easier said than done given how obnoxious you are. With your photons and your...knowledge. It's annoying."

"Fine." The EMH replied - happy to find that perhaps the Bolian might not be quite as bad as she had thought. She would still revel in proving her superiority as a doctor against her organic colleagues, but perhaps not as frequently.

"I'll keep out of the lab, if you keep your hands off of my activation subroutines."

"Like I'd want to touch any of your subroutines! You flatter yourself, Shirley."

"No Doctor Mott - I think you managed to do that well enough for me. Now....if we are done here? I have a laboratory to shut down afterall?" The hologram replied with a smile, jerking her head to direct towards the lab that was soon to become off limits to her program.

"Wait a minute, are you trying to dismiss me? No, it doesn't work that way! I dismiss you. And you are dismissed. You may go, with my permission, to perform the task I have assigned to you," Olsam said, extending his arm toward the laboratory with a flourish.

With a fake salute, the EMH smiled again before turning on her photonic heels and heading towards the laboratory. Perhaps the Bolian wasn't quite as much of a mystery as her null hypothesis had assumed. She might actually be able to put up with him.....

[ OFF ]

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

EMH Mk-Xb
Emergency Medical Hologram
USS Galileo

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