Dire Straits

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Though whoever "they" were probably hadn't accounted for internal screaming. Despite being separated by thirty light years, the screaming happening in the mind of Lead Scientist Shiratori could no doubt be heard over the vast distance of space and even beyond. The crinkling of her eyebrows and the tightening of her jaw made that obvious to anyone watching the planet-to-planet feed.

"You cannot be serious," her words were tight and even. "Please, tell me this is a joke."

"I'm very sorry, Doctor Shiratori," the woman on the other end said, a compassionate tone in her voice, "but it has been three whole years since we have heard of any progress. The Board had been debating continuing the project even back then. We cannot in good faith continue to put in funds when there have been no results."

"In good faith?" the doctor's eyes narrowed slightly. "Good faith would be to let us complete this after a near decade of work being done! People are going to die here just because the board wants to make their profit margins for the year!"

"It has nothing to do with margins, Doctor, you know that," the compassion began to slip away to exasperation, "people are not going to die. There are ways and means—”

"Ways and means that involve artificial organs and nutrition supplements that ultimately ignores the long term deterioration to our nervous systems," Doctor Shiratori leaned forward as she interrupted, emphasizing her points with a finger tapping hard on the desk. "You are dooming us to eventual extinction. If we don't find a solid solution to this—”

"We’ve been over this point before, Lucy,” she interrupted in turn, “the projections show that deterioration won’t be a detriment for at least two to three generations down the line. That is more than enough time for you and your team to find a breakthrough by going into alternate fields of research—”

“No, no, you can not shut this project down based on that very biased and self-serving projection from the Bioartificial Department, Vivian,” the Doctor said her name with a bit of bite. “They are not down here in the trenches seeing what’s going on firsthand. We are! The deterioration is happening now so we need to act now!”

Master Vivian Lyon, Lead Project Manager of the R&D Department and Chief Operations Officer of Tiburon Corporation, pinched her lips together and stared long at Doctor Lucretia Shiratori, Lead Scientist for the Disease and Debilitation Prevention Department for planet Tiburon. The Doctor in turn stared back, her lips etched in a permanent frown across her dark complexion. Silence hung heavy for a good long moment, until Vivian sighed through her nose then spoke.

“Doctor Echobell, what are your thoughts on this?”

The Sinopek’s head came up from their datapad to look at their boss and their boss’s boss feeds. They’d been sitting there, silently going through the files while the two humans had their clash of words. Lucretia had asked them to be part of the scheduled PTP call because she had suspected what Vivian wanted to talk about already. She had told them that as far as Lucretia was concerned, if there was one person in their department who could convince the materialistic greedy monsters in Tiburon Corp that the project needed to continue, then it would be Oskar Echobell.

Oskar strongly doubted this. They always got so nervous just talking to anyone outside of what Oskar considered to be their “Near Clutch”. They were too easy to read and gave away too many easy tells. There were other Sinopek who could speak to others without even a twitch of their nictitating membrane, but Oskar unfortunately, was not one of them.

They lowered their shoulder cuffs and kept their head straight forward as much as possible. They could feel their fringes on the back of their neck starting to flush to purple as their anxiety rose.

“Well, M-master Lyon,” Oskar paused a little longer than they normally would, making Vivian’s eyebrow arch a bit. “Sorry! … I-If I am to be honest I do believe that, generally, overall, basically … that Doctor Shiratori is c-correct. Our statisticians have been reporting that the records from the health centers have seen increased frequency of the so-called ‘fuzzy head’ sensation and sluggishness that many are experiencing along with the severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and lowered appetite. The neurologists have been recording the interrupted firing of the neural synapses throughout the human body which further increases when one comes in as a repeat patient.”

Oskar looked at them both in turn and concentrated on slowing their words down to make the point, “To put it bluntly, the projections that have been given by the Bioartificial Department is severely underestimating how much time we have. Just from the last two years alone, the numbers have increased even past our own projections.”

“So you agree with Doctor Shiratori’s assessment that action is needed now?”

Vivian’s emphasis on the word “now” caused Oskar to flush even more at the back of their neck. This was exactly why Oskar was usually not on the interviews with the newsfeeds or there to greet visitors. They got so nervous so quickly it was embarrassing.

“While there is need for e-expediency, I-I also think there is also merit in spreading to other fields in order to find a solution,” their eyes shifted to Lucretia, who’s eyebrows were both arched. Oskar hadn’t quite brought this fully up to her yet, but now was the time to bring the idea forward. “Pharmaceutical methods and various forms of physical therapy have not yielded any solid solutions, only temporary relief. As this is an allergic reaction and not a disease or illness we have not officially attempted to broach into vaccines. However, where we really should go is genetic alteration.”

“Genetic alteration?” while Vivian had repeated their words, Oskar knew it wasn’t because she hadn’t heard them. She looked around the PTP kiosk she sat in and then stood up and drifted out of sight. They could hear the tell tale sound of the door to the kiosk hissing closed. Lucretia also glanced behind her to the door in her own kiosk, then gave a slightly baffled look at Oskar. They could only move their shoulder cuffs up in a rough mimicking of an apologetic human shrug.

When Vivian returned, her eyes were intense on Oskar, “Forgive me for saying this, but I was under the impression that the Sinopek had a severe aversion to genetic alterations. The Peace Accord specifically states that it is not to be done.”

“There is a clause in the Accord,” Oskar’s digits flew upon the datapad they had in front of them and they quickly sent the file through the feed to both Vivian and Lucretia. “It is buried under the Extinction and Genocide Prevention act, under multiple subsections, but as long as we can prove to the Accord Committee that we have proof beyond a doubt that genetic alteration will be the only way we can prevent the extinction of this small population on a planet this far outside the galactic ley lines where relocation of the populous is not an option then genetic alteration is not just allowable, it is expected.”

“Oskar,” Lucretia's voice was soft and disbelieving, “why would you even seriously consider this path? You know well that there could be severe drawbacks or very unexpected results.”

“Not to mention it would be a severe shift in where your research lay,” Vivian’s eyes were not looking at Oskar, but at the words in the section of the Accord they’d sent, “and to get solid proof you would likely need years to –”

“Two hundred days!” Oskar blurted out the words without thought. “That is all we will need."

Both humans looked at Oskar in surprise. It was Lucretia that spoke, "You're not the sort to boast, but we haven't even approached the other researchers ..."

"I have," Oskar felt their fringes really coloring now, but it was past the point of worrying about appearances. "In my spare time I have been gathering the studies and have already coordinated with some friends in the Biochemistry Department. We made an attempt at a vaccine, but it still only provides a lessening of the symptoms and only for a brief amount of time."

"Wait, what?" Vivian now looked directly at Oskar, a hand raised to pause him. "We have no such projects in line in the Biochemistry Department. How did you create a vaccine? We would have had to ... I would have had to sign off on experimentation with patients and there's been nothing in the expense reports for the needed equipment."

"We paid out of pocket," Oskar explained, "and there are three in the Biochemistry Department who have the condition. They were willing to attempt the vaccine."

Oskar saw both Vivian and Lucretia take in a breath to voice their objections, but they interrupted before they could, "They also have In Clutch .. I mean, nuclear and extended family members who have the same condition. They worry and they fret as they see the ones they love deteriorate before their eyes. They and some of their family were fully willing to have this done in order to speed up the process. Us having no results the last three years was do to the decisions made by people far removed from the problem and who are not staring it in the face very day. We Sinopek do not suffer from it, but the humans on Tiburon are our Clutch now. We will not stand by and do nothing to protect them because of some ... Board."

Vivian physically flinched and Lucretia's mouth was hanging slightly open as she stared at Oskar. It was only then that Oskar also flinched catching a bit of their appearance of their own feed right on their own screen. Their fringes were fully raised and their eyes, normally a shiny green, had shifted into the teal blue of aggression. It shocked them so much that they blinked fully, all three lids on their eyes closing shut for a full second, and their fringes immediately lowered. Oskar had never seen themselves being angry before. It could happen, but rarely was there a refection of it staring right back at them.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean–”

"I was unaware you felt so strongly about this, Doctor Echobell," Vivian's words were both surprised and soft. When Oskar opened their eyes again, they could see both humans with their eyebrows wrinkled in worry. "How long have you and those in Biochemistry been working on this?"

"Three years," Oskar measured their words very evenly, "fairly much the day after the last Board meeting told us we were to keep to our current research that would only aid organ replacement and supplements. Doctor Shiratori shared the recording of the meeting with me .. and I in turn shared it with my friends. Mostly to ... commiserate."

"And that commiseration turned into conspiracy talk," Lucretia said and she raised her hand when Oskar opened their mouth to apologize. "It's alright. I completely understand." Her eyes shifted over to Vivian, "And I wish I had been in the room at the time to conspire right along with you."

Vivian gave an exasperated sigh, "Please, do not give me even more grounds to fire you both. I should be firing you right now, but you're our miracle worker and your word is trusted on the Board. I am assuming, Doctor Echobell, that you already have full results and analysis of your experimentation on that datapad of yours?"

"O-oh.. yes.. yes! I do!" Oskar immediately went to it to send the data packets to both of them. "Granted, this was only done with less than a dozen volunteers and we would need to collect more data in order to make a more complete and comprehensive finding, but even the little we did–”

"Just tell me right now if there were any severe reactions to the vaccines."

"The most severe was a rash developing on the hands which would go away in a day or so after some ointments and–”

"If that is the most severe then I'm giving the Biochemestry Department full leave to work in conjunction with your department, Lucy. You can let Liu know I've green lit the as yet unnamed project. I'm going to be backdating a few files so it looks like all of this was already planned for."

"Thank you, Vivian," Lucretia replied, "think you'll be okay with putting a stitch into Bioartificial's plans?"

"Long as you get me the direct statistics so I can have my own people go over it. Trust me, Lucy, I'm going to love being able to stick it into Edwin's smug face that he's been forecasting his numbers all wrong," for the first time since the call had started a grin crept onto Vivian's face. "I don't think he's even requested the latest numbers."

"Then consider them already sent," she nodded and tapped a few buttons on her datapad, "but this is only the first step toward the big aim. Genetic alteration will be harder to convince the Board of."

Vivian was quiet at first and stared at Oskar, obvious worried thoughts going through her mind. Then all at once it seemed something clicked, "To the Void with the Board."

Lucretia sat back with some shock, "That's rather strong."

"So is avoiding extinction for the people of Tiberon," the small grin returned. "The Corporation might have spent the decades getting you all out there but that doesn't mean we own your lives. Oskar's anger is fully justified. We shouldn't be holding back on finding a more permanent solution, even as radical as this one."

Oskar felt relieved. They knew there would be further fights in the future to get where they needed to go, especially with the Accord Committee, but getting Master Vivian Lyon on their side was a huge boon. After arranging to have more files sent over and agreeing to speak again in several days time, they cut the PTP feed and joined together in Lucretia's office.

"So this has been why you'd been skipping out on some of the department parties? To go behind all our backs and commit vigilante chemistry?" the smile on Lucretia's face was a bit infectious and Oskar couldn't help but half-squint with a pleased expression.

"I was feeling guilty the whole time, especially when it came to asking for potential volunteers. It was a very risky move."

"It was a necessary one," she sighed slightly as she sat back down behind her ever cluttered desk, "and one that I know you had to work around me to get to. I do recall you posing the idea not to long after the meeting. I fairly well shot you down didn't I?"

Oskar settled their four legs around the stool nearby to hunker down and rest on, "You ... did. However, you also had your reasons."

"They were flimsy reasons, Oskar," she shook her head slightly. "I should have taken a harder stance back then and I didn't. I apologize."

Oskar motioned with a hand in a downward motion, the Sinopek equivalent of the human shake of their head, "That is in the past. We need to look forward now. Some time might have been lost, but we can easily make that up. I have everything documented and ready to be examined by the whole team."

"Good, I'll have the techs set up a completely clean data cluster for you to upload into with a few high clearance sections for the more sensitive material we'll eventually show to the Committee," Lucretia held up a finger. "Speaking of, do you have much data regarding that? Do you have an idea on which way to go?"

"I have a few potential directions, one of them having to do with the Agoras flower, or more specifically some of the insects that thrive off of them. A friend of mine in the Ecology Research Department showed me some of his findings on the Hundred Year Bloom plant and how some insects are traveling between that and the Agora flower feeding on the pollen from both and having no adverse reactions. He had also noted some early set on stages from the herbavors of having the same alergic reactions by feeding on the Hundred Year plant, but not on the Agoras flower even when it's been in touch from polen from th–”

She raised a hand and Oskar stopped, feeling their fringes lay very flat on thier neck. They did have a tendency to ramble a bit too long, but they couldn't help it. The stress of having to hide things for the last several years was over and now they could do some real work.

"I want to read any an all of your findings for the potential for genetic alteration first before you show it to the rest of the team," she said. "You're a damn genius Oskar, but if we're to present it properly we're going to need more than just the facts and observations. Telling them that a friend told you about a plant isn't going to impress anyone."

"You are correct, Lucy," Oskar blinked their eyes in agreement. "You are a far better presenter than I am and I trust your judgment on how to sway our betters to the right course."

At the time, I honestly didn't know what the right course actually was. To be truthful, I was doing what humans would call "throwing things on a wall to see if they stick". Half my so-called genius was luck. It would be decades before the right genetic mix would be found and way too many mistakes would be made along the way. Would I have called it all worth it? Debatable. At the time, we were in dire straits and all we were doing was what we thought was right at the time. - Doctor Oskar Echobell, First Guardian of the Sanctuary