Mind Games: Infertility
Posted on Wed Jan 31st, 2024 @ 7:50pm by I-400 & Boso Gane & Oko Gane & Lieutenant Akira Kogami
1,310 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: From the Inside
Boso's final victim was the blonde's best friend. He had saved her the worst torment, having to listen to her crewmates go down one by one, and now, it was her turn...
"Come on," Akira muttered to herself as she wove her way through the labyrinth of corridors. "Where the heck are you guys?!"
She rounded a corner into a darkened room; straining her eyes, she could just barely make out a silhouette laying on the ground in front of her.
"PATTY!" she shouted as she rushed over to investigate.
Curiously, however, as she drew closer, the shadow quickly dissipated, as if it had never been there in the first place.
"What in the-?!"
Rubbing her eyes in disbelief, Akira quickly retrieved her palm beacon and shined a light on the spot where she could've sworn she just saw someone laying.
"What the hell is going on here?! I could've sworn-!"
She didn't get the chance to finish before the silence was punctuated by a hollow, disembodied melody. It took a few seconds for her brain to process what she was hearing, but once the initial shock had worn off, she scanned the room with the palm beacon, attempting to identify the source.
"Hush-a-bye, ma baby, slumbertime is comin' soon;
Rest yo' head upon my breast while Mommy hums a tune;
The sandman is callin' where shadows are fallin',
While the soft breezes sigh as in days long gone by..."
Ah, The Missouri Waltz; points for originality, but if this was I-400's idea of psychological warfare, she was going to have to try a lot harder then that.
"Alright, Buddy, playtime's over! Show yourself this instant!" she demanded.
As if on cue, her palm beacon landed on a lone I-400 drone, which was watching her from the scaffolding directly above.
"Way down in Missouri where I heard this melody,
When I was a little child upon my Mommy's knee;
The old folks were hummin'; their banjos were strummin';
So sweet and low..."
"Where's Patty, you rat fink?!" she shouted, raising her weapon. "I'm only going to ask you this once!"
An I-400 drone suddenly stepped forward. The mechanical woman had far less detail than the main drone, and lacked so much as a moving mouth. However, with the mainframe destroyed (not like it mattered, since a new mainframe was under construction aboard her cube as this was unfolding), it was what I-400 had at the moment to taunt the away team with:
"Oh, she's fine;" I-400's voice came from a fixed speaker where a mouth would normally be. "But we're not finished yet..."
Suddenly, Akira could hear the sound of footsteps approaching rapidly from behind her.
"You see what you fear most..." A male voice whispered into her ear. "Your worst fears.. brought to life!"
Akira suddenly felt her eyelids go heavy; she closed them for just a second, and when she opened them...
She found herself standing in a traditional Western parish, with pews flanking her on either side and an altar situated dead ahead. The church-goers were all adorned in black, and a funerary dirge could be heard playing somewhere off in the distance.
Akira staggered back in disbelief. Was this really happening right now? Had she unknowingly fallen asleep, and this was all just some hallucination?
She instinctively reached over and pinched herself, half-hoping she wouldn't feel anything and confirm this was all just some fever dream. No such luck; the sharp, stinging sensation that she felt confirmed that this was, indeed, reality. But if it was, that begged the question; where was she, and how did she get here? She had been standing in Klawe's mining facility not more than 10 seconds ago, and she hadn't felt the side effects she would've associated with a transporter beam, so it was almost if she had instantaneously teleported to this new location.
Her attention shifted to the altar, where she observed what appeared to be a small, pink casket, with a frilly white crepe lining the edges and the lid splayed open for viewing. Akira wasn't quite sure what came over her at that very moment- morbid curiosity would've been the obvious answer, but she wasn't quite sure if it was that or an urge to pay her respects to... whomever these people were- but it was if the casket had developed some sort of magnetic pull, beckoning her to satiate that morbid sense of dread that was beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. A few of the church-goers glanced up in the direction of the newcomer, and while no words were exchanged, the look of pity on their faces left Akira with an uncomfortable sense of dread for what awaited her.
Finally, she drew up to the altar, and could get a proper look inside the casket. Inside lay an infant, donned up in a white angel gown with pink frills. She was evidently much smaller than a typical infant- as was evidenced by the fact that she barely fit into said angel gown- indicating that she was possibly a stillborn. Akira couldn't place her finger on it, but even though she had never seen this baby before, she couldn't help but feel there was something.... oddly familiar about it.
She glanced up and observed that an ominous silence had descended upon the room. Her gaze shifted towards the pastor, who up to this point had been standing quietly beside the altar.
"Who's baby is this?" she asked nervously.
The pastor looked at her sadly. "Yours, I'm afraid."
Akira glanced back at the casket. All at once, the similarities leapt out at her; the small, pudgy nose, the soft cheeks, the way her lips curled at the middle- she'd know those features from just about anywhere. Her hand shot to her mouth, fighting back the instinctive urge to scream. The bile began to rise up in her stomach, and she turned and started making her way down the aisle, hoping to at least get out of there before the contents of her lunch were splayed out all over the floor. But just as she was about to pass through the large, oaken doors, her foot snagged on the carpet, and any thoughts of holding it in until she was outside went up in smoke.
"BLEEEEEAAAAUUURRRRGH!!!!!"
She was lying on the floor now, shaking uncontrollably as she stared at the pile of vomit pooling in front of her; the tears began to stream uncontrollably as the painful memories that she had been fighting to repress for the better part of four years were bubbling to the surface.
"I... I'm so sorry," she gurgled pathetically- whether it was to the churchgoers or herself, she really didn't know anymore. "I-I... Geh..."
Boso had watched Akira in her catatonic state alongside the I-400 as Oko rejoined them in time to watch Akira throw up and collapse into her own vomit.
"I must say, she was probably the easiest of the bunch next to her captain friend." Boso admitted.
"Best not to dwell on that too long" Oko responded, turning to the I-400 drone. "Is the Dilithium secure?"
"We got what we came for." I-400 responded.
"Good, then let's get out of here and leave Starfleet to pick up their pieces..." Boso said.
"With pleasure..." I-400 said before the three of them beamed away.
To be continued...
Posting By (In Order Of Appearance):
Boso Gane
Antagonist
Lieutenant Akira Kogami
Chief Security Officer, USS Missouri (NCC-78316)
I-400
Antagonist
Oko Gane
Antagonist
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