Nightshift 47: Extra Storage

[doneinthree]

[from here]

After listening a few seconds for anything he could've disturbed by breaking the door open, Kirk eased his way inside. The door creaked from disuse, but then everything appeared disused right now. Which was odd, as the hospital shone clean and bright during the day, and the number of enthusiastic staff members hardly suggested neglect. It had been the same the previous nights and the previous days, as if they were in fact two completely different places with twin floor plans: one white and professional, the other grimy and abandoned. And crawling with snake-bird-knife-women.

But as far as he could tell, this storage room was empty of any beings besides themselves. It was twice as large as the closet — Kirk guessed it stretched out behind the adjacent room as well, but there was no doorway into it. The place was packed with innocuous cleaning supplies, which gave off a less sulfurous scent than before, but just as unpleasant.

"You'd think that if this was a simulation, this room would be neater," Kirk mused. "Unless they programmed it to look this way, I guess."

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Chekov looked around the disorganized room, mentally wincing at how difficult it must be to find anything one needed in such a mess. There were things used for wiring, boxes, cleaning supplies, and all number of things strewn about the room (though not without some intelligent design to it; it didn't look as though to room had been sacked already).

"It is possible," Chekov admitted, carefully shining his light around the room and looking at the boxes and items. There were some very strange things against the wall, and what their purpose was Chekov could only begin to speculate.

"Ze key to such a disturbing simulation would be to meke ze simulation as conwincing as possible. Which includes employees who do not keep zeir workspeces wery tidy," Chekov mused, frowning at a roll of wire sitting innocently near a large bottle of bleach. He pulled out his map again and began noting things he saw down, picking up the roll of wire and tucking it into his pocket. It might prove useful, and it was something small he could carry while Captain Kirk gathered larger things.

[doneinthree]

"The Enterprise had better not get this messy while we're gone," Kirk muttered, then paused in his study of the room's contents, frowning. It wasn't the thought of disorder aboard the ship which bothered him, exactly, even though he could be something of a taskmaster when it came to organization, despite his laissez-faire attitude in social situations (or hacked training simulations, ahem). No, what bothered him was the idea that it didn't matter. By his own estimation, he'd abandoned a ship with a blown warp drive and extensive combat damage, but both Spock and Chekov believed that Acting Captain Kirk had led them home in one piece.

Which Kirk would've damn made sure of if he hadn't been transported to this place, so he could believe this had happened in Spock and Chekov's timelines. But how could he have been pulled from earlier, yet still be present in his unseen future? What did that make the Jim Kirk of the here and now? A duplicate? An alternate reality version? Or... something else?

"Well, this place feels convincing, that's for sure," said Kirk, setting his bag down to run a finger across the dust on a folded stretcher. If not for the visual aberrations a few nights ago, he wouldn't have suspected that the Institute wasn't firmly based in reality. But even without that, a simulation did explain many of the strange inconsistencies. "The building looks different at night than in the day, but the layout's the same... It may be that they change things around while we're locked up for dinner, and then back once they knock us out and put us into our rooms again. Plus, there was that night we went outside and saw part of the building had been destroyed — everything was as good as new the next morning." Including Spock, he didn't say.

"The more time we spend here, the more I agree with your theory... and yet, it feels so real." Kirk lifted his hand and flexed it, feeling the familiar way his joints and muscles moved. "That their technology is ahead of ours is undeniable, but if all this is a simulation, then maybe we're overestimating their power over us. We only think they can do most of the things they've done to us. We only think we've seen most of the things we've seen."

He sighed in frustration.

"Of course, only thinking you're getting clawed open still hurts like a bitch. I never want a repeat of that, simulation or not." He found and stashed away a tube labeled 'burn cream' before striding back to the exit. "We need weapons."

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