Ohio

2 - Squeamish

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are cutting us down,
should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
and found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

-- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Ohio)

=/\=

They transported to the Temporal Integrity Commission together. Rick was able to bypass all of the way stations. His access overrode most of the posturing and security that hid the Commission from prying eyes.

"We can talk freely anywhere in here. There's a little courtyard garden. It's kinda nice."

"Okay," Sheilagh said.

The courtyard garden had tulips in bloom, in several different shades. A Ferengi was tending to them, and he waved in greeting.

They sat down on one of two curving stone benches that defined a little space. There was a steel and glass monument in the center, and it said Tempus Fugit in its center. A name, Eskon, was engraved on one side of it.

"What, uh, what does that mean?" Sheilagh asked.

"It means Time Flies. And, uh, on the side there, that's the name of a Cardassian who died during a mission. Fortunately, it's the only name on the monument."

"That's good," she said, "Definitely answers one of my questions. So, um, tell me. Are you an Augment?"

"It's like this," he said, "About a millennium ago, more actually, as you are well aware, Augments were first developed, and that led to the Eugenics Wars. This was, heh, bad mojo all around, which is the understatement of the decade. Then they reared their heads again around a hundred and fifty years after that – their leader was a guy named Malik – and then maybe eighty years after that there were the Botany Bay and Khan Noonien Singh."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already know."

"Right. Well, the Temporal Integrity Commission started up in 2804 and it almost immediately became problematic that we've got all this technology. The first Temporal Agents, they went out with Communicators, tricorders – uh, we're back to calling them PADDs these days, phasers and Transporter remote controls. It was a lotta stuff to keep track of."

"I'll bet."

"And people would lose stuff. So the first idea was to consolidate all the tech. That didn't work so well for two reasons, namely, all the complicated circuitry would break down a lot more frequently. Plus, it made the devices dandy targets for thieves. The Commission needed a better way."

"I see."

"The first idea they hit upon was to do the Communicator implant. That was a truly amazing breakthrough, and it's still used."

"How do you get used to that thing?"

"It's light. And you just, I dunno, it's like you get used to anything, I suppose."

"Oh. Thanks."

"The rest of it was tougher to do, so the Commission started to look into the older medical research on, as you surmised, Augments. It was becoming readily apparent that keeping Agents out of ancient medical facilities, prisons and POW camps was a necessity. They needed people who could do things like run faster, and hear better. They needed for us to be able to survive all sorts of assaults. We had to be, well, better versions of ourselves."

"Like the blood trick you showed me."

"Right. That's a stem cell growth accelerator. The way it works is that my immune system is kinda in overdrive. It goes after any problem, and fast. You saw how quickly it closed up a small wound."