The Sharp Edge of a Butter Knife

Posted on 17 Sep 2012 @ 2:06am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn

1,877 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Sickbay
Timeline: MD 09 - 1400 hours

[ON]

Stepping closer to an Andorian who was alseep on a biobed, Andreus Kohl raised a hand to the biofunction monitor. He swiped his hand across the screen to see further details, and review the patient's chart. The patient's vital signs were stable, but she was presenting with signs of an infection following her second surgery. Kohl adjusted the controls on the biobed to inject the patient with the prescribed medication. After he watched her vitals for a short while longer, he moved on to his next patient.

Markum was sitting on the edge of his bed, cursing under his breath while trying to pick up a butter knife. "You little bastard, I'm going to pick you up."

"I didn't realize utensils of questionable parentage were allowed to work in Sickbay," Kohl said --with only the slightest edge of mockery-- as he approached Markum. His eyes never leaving the movement of Markum's hand, Kohl slowed to a halt beside the biobed. He tilted his head slightly as he watched.

Markum looked up to Kohl. "Hey, yeah. They are tricky things that just won't listen." Quinn replied with a smile and light chuckle. "How's things going, Ensign? You wouldn't happen to have a magnet around, would you?"

"I'm all right. I'm magnet-less, but I'm all right," Kohl said. His face pinched into a questioning expression and he extended a finger to point at the butter knife. "What do you plan to do with a magnet exactly?" he asked.

Markum shrugged his shoulders and then pointed toward his newest nemesis, the butter knife. "Well, I could use it to pick up that damn knife, for starters. Of course some would call it cheating, while as an engineer, I'd call it improvising."He looked back at the nurse before him.

"No, no, oh no," Kohl said, his voice coloured with concern more than anything else. "If you don't use the new arm now, you'll never master the fine motor control you have with your other arm. It's constraint-induced therapy. You've got to use the new arm all the time, all day long. Really, I'd prefer your other arm be in a sling."

Markum looked at his new arm, then back again. "Okay. I'm willing to do whatever you think should be done. But, If I swear and call you a few names, please don't take it personally. I'm just naturally a grumpy-man." he said with a smile.

"I was raised in Revith Valleys on Argelius II," Kohl said sardonically. He offered back a lopsided smile of his own, as he palmed the tricorder on his hip. "Rough language makes me feel at home."

Markum let out a laugh. "Good, then we will get along just fine. Besides, you're too damn and young for me to give you too much hell."

Despite his eyes following the sensor readings of Markum's biosynthetic arm, which appeared on the tricorder display, Kohl genuinely smirked at Markum's response. "To start with," Kohl said, "continue doing what you were doing. Using only your biosynthetic hand, pick up the knife."

Markum looked down at the knife, and gave it a quiet cursing under his breath. He looked to Kohl, then back to the knife, then his arm. He took in a deep breath, then reached for the slippery utensil. Markum's arm reached out toward the tray that the knife was resting on top of. The hand stopped above the knife, well, almost over top of. "Now for the fun part." stated Quinn with some sarcasm. With a thud, the entire hand landed on the knife. "Well, shit." said Markum with a slight chuckle. The hand lifted over the knife and he manipulated his fingers and thumb down toward his target. "Well, I can't seem to get my fingers to close over the knife."

When Markum laughed, Kohl laughed along with him at the sight of that big hand slamming down on the tray unexpectedly. "We can come back to that," Kohl said, nodding at the butter knife to dismiss it as unimportant. Kohl raised one of his own hands, flat palm facing Markum. "Let's try this instead," Kohl said, "Do what I'm doing. Can you keep your fingers straight while squeezing your fingers and thumb together side-by-side?"

Markum looked at Kohl's hand and attempted to do the same thing. On the first attempt all four of his fingers closed, leaving only his thumb sticking out. "Well, I can at least still hitch a ride if I ever get stranded."

As he cleared his throat, Kohl lowered his hand to make a fist and then stretch his fingers out. As soon as he'd given himself enough of a positional rest, Kohl raised his hand flat again to demonstrate another rep of the same exercise. "Tell me about your work," Kohl asked, "What are the different types of physical demands you put on your hand?"

Quinn attempted again to duplicate the actions of Kohl's hand. "Well, I use them for fine articulated, and extremely precise calibrations of equipment to the one-ten thousandths. They also have to reach into very tight spaces to tighten or remove bolts, or other items. My hands are constantly moving, lifting, tuning, turning, feeling, and throwing hammers at staff that anger me." he added with a grin.

Kohl laughed at that, and then he said, "Try this." With the hand he was holding up, Kohl pinched the pads of his thumb and his pinky finger together. Guardedly, Kohl said, "At this point, I can't estimate how long it will take you to adjust to the new arm. From medical research, I can say that if you don't force yourself to rely on your new hand, force yourself to use it constantly, you will never have the dexterity you used to have. But" --Kohl took a deep breath-- "If I ask you to only use your new hand, and you're not yet using it well, am I going to get the ship blown up?"

Markum attempted the exercise with his own cybernetic hand. He let out an hardy laugh. "Hardly. I'm on Bridge duty for a while. Peers is running engineering for now. So, no, you're safe. As long as I can tap the console, and occasionally hit the fire key, we should be alright. But I will keep up with the exercises. You have my word."

"Excellent," Kohl said amid a satisfied nod. Kohl continued to demonstrate the hand exercise to Markum, and he asked, "How's it feeling? What kind of sensations are you receiving today?"

Markum gave a coy grin. "It hurts like hell, to be honest. That's the part that is really odd to me. I wasn't expecting to have so much sensation. I do on occasion experience sharp, shocking jabs on my finger tips and the base of the thumb."

The smile on Kohl's lips gradually faded, as Markum explained his pain. Kohl stopped demonstrating the hand exercises, because he needed his hands on his tricorder. He had theories about what could be causing the pain, perhaps neural trauma in what remained of Markum's own limb or a technological problem with the biosynthetic limb. Perhaps it was even psychosomatic pain, but Kohl didn't have the experience to make that kind of diagnosis. He swept the tricorder over Markum's arm, and he said, "I'll be sure the doctor knows. At what kind of frequency is the pain coming?"

"I'd say on a scale of one to ten, it would be around a four, but can get as high as a seven or eight." responded Markum.

Maintaining a neutral expression, Kohl nodded at Markum's answer, and he made a note of it on his tricorder display. From an instrument tray beside the biobed, Kohl picked up a small foam rubber ball. He tossed the ball at Markum, to the biosynthetic hand, and he said, "Squeeze this."

Quinn took the ball with his right hand and smiled as he gracefully (mostly anyway) managed to squeeze the foam ball and rotate his wrist at the same time.

Kohl was staring at a spot over Markum's shoulder, staring so intently into the middle distance there. "You can tell me to shut up at any time, you can swear at me," Kohl said carefully, without once looking at Markum. "But I-- a part of me wants to know... When you went into that nacelle control room. Did you think you were going to die?"

While still squeezing with his right hand, Markum raised his eyebrows up and with one opened eye, and one closed, he sighed a shook his head. "Honestly, man....I just reacted. I've been doing this shit for over thirty years, and all those years of training, and doing, and doing again, in life or death moments, I just simply did what I knew had to be done. Not for glory or any of that frazzle-dazzle." Quinn stopped his exercise and placed both hands on his knees. "For a split second, I was going to send someone, but I knew it would be a total mess up there, and that nothing was going to be where it should be. So I needed someone left that I could trust to think quick on their feet, and not second guess themselves....but Peers, my assistant was on the bridge. So...and no one on this ship knows the engines or those new grade nacelles better than I do. So I just did it. And while up there, I was so damn busy and scared out of my mind, thinking I was only focused on the job. But, once that was done, and I knew the nacelle was back on line, then the thought started to come on, but I passed out before I ever really had time to worry about it."

Kohl was standing there, with his hand up, and he was demonstrating the exercise by squeezing an imaginary ball. He wasn't entirely sure why he had asked that question, and he certainly didn't have the words to explain why he had asked the question. And then the answer, that Markum hadn't seen it coming, Kohl couldn't sort out if that was more or less comforting. "Thank you," was all Kohl could think to say at first, and then he nodded at the hand, "How's it feeling now?"

While nodding his head and wrinkling his forehead some he let out a slight grin. "Good. Great, really. For a second or so, it felt like my natural hand again. Wow, you are a miracle worker. That was smart, to ask me about something else beside my arm."

Kohl smiled wanly and shuffled his feet without actually going anywhere. Despite what his body language was saying, Kohl nodded and remarked, "Ancient nursing magic."

"Well, job well done then." Quinn smiled and looked down to his hand. "I guess it will take time to really get used to, I suppose. Thanks, again for your help. You may see me again if I need an adjustment, or something."

"Nah," Kohl said, and he batted a hand through the air. "If you need an adjustment, just unscrew the palm and stick in a hyperspanner."


[OFF]

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn
Chief Engineer
USS Galileo

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