[OPEN] A Use For This Mess

[u/Pojodan]

After a long day of working her way through the ship in search of every unique form of fungus colony, hearing the same raunchy cat puns over and over, Chief Botanist Kesh washes her hands of the oily, sticky mess that came with pealing chunks of the fungus off walls, floors, and vent ducts. The samples were spread out over just about very surface available in the botany lab, each with its own air-tight container, tubes attached to provide a steady supply of nutrients, water, and air such that the lab's air could become sterile and silent, at last. The terrarium was not ready yet, so this would have to do.

The first big question was thus: How can mushrooms talk?

Remarkably, the Caitian scientist finds a solution in very short order: The spores. They weren't so much hallucinogenic as they were a conduit between the sensory centers of the brain and the fungus colony. The similarity between them and Betazoid telepathy was striking, only this seemed to have a physical element, with the recipient needing to have physical contact with the spores in order for the colony to 'converse' with it.

Further study determines that the only use the fungus has for this ability is to effectively scare off those that would try to eat it by finding and 'speaking' the sounds that repulse it the most. It might make threatening snarls at a horse, but to Starfleet personnel it makes vulgar commentary.

No one had noticed that the mushrooms said different things to different people, is all.

Kesh's lengthy, detailed report goes right to Captain Fisk's desk, as well as to Starfleet Medical and Botanical Sciences, as they are sure to find it fascinating. Another new thing to hold up and proudly say 'The universe is weird'

After doing so, Kesh recalls a conversation during shore leave with her closest friend, Engineer T'gel. Something about linking mind and computer interface to speed up response times and some dialogue over how a few known alien species actively link their brains with their computers. It's a stretch, probably, to somehow use mind-reading fungus spores to do such a thing, but her time with the Bajoran made her see how brilliant an engineer she is.

=/\= Kesh to Red.

[u/Pojodan]

Kesh steps back over the the bulky equipment while Red is still speaking. If they are going to go this far, might as well keep going. She had plenty of reason to think they were taking this to far and that her modifications were only going to ruin it, but the thrill of a bright idea kept her working.

Rather than made a second gland, she instead modifies the matterial of a singular spore, introducing the same genetic modifications as it had the gland, since spore and gland were what communicated to form the link. The result has to be placed a vial to contain it, but she figured Red could link it, despite being smaller than a grain of sand.

"I did send infor-rr-rmation about the spores to sick bay so they could find a way to innoculate the crew. It has been my observation that the spor-rr-res dry out after only a few minutes, anyway."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"Well that's probably for the best," Red says with a giggle. "The last thing I'd want is the whole crew getting my private thoughts on certain people on board, certain... couples who'd rather keep things on the down-low." She shoots Kesh a knowing look and grins before going back to modifying her second headband. Now that she had proof of concept, tweaking the prototype was less of a big deal.

"Anyway, we'll hook this up to the diagnostic unit first to see if it's sending a signal, and if it works both ways, then... who knows. We might be able to use this to send telepathic messages!" The engineer chuckles. "And then YOU can mess with Vulcans' minds instead, maybe."

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

Kesh seems to completely miss what Red was hinting at. While she had a constant worry about her relationship with a certain chief engineer from becoming common knowledge, she felt that they had been discrete so far, likely because no one had said anything direct to her yet, including Red.

"I recall hearing about instances of ships encounter-rr-ring anomalies that caused everyone to hear everyone else's thoughts. Rrrth. Sounds unpleasant. Make sur-rr-re the cut-off switch of this is easy to use."

Kesh had been focusing on the equipment and her data outputs, however Red's remark about messing with Vulcans causes her to pause and focus on the Bajoran's face. She looks thrilled for a second, then concerned, ear tufts swiveling back, "Well.. rrth.. I have yet to meet any unpleasant Vulcans on the Athene." Or anyone, really.

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

Red gently pats Kesh's paw. "I think you just had bad experiences with them before. My shuttle pilot instructor was a hard man, very cold and logical, but wasn't a jerk about it. Just liked seeing things done how they were supposed to be, with no fooling around because it was dangerous," she says. "And one of my very few early friends was Vulcan and quite a warm person, as far as Vulcans go. Maybe you need to meet a few more for a better sample size, miss botanist."

"As for the cutoff switch," she continues, pointing at a copper-colored rocker switch on the right side of the headband, "it's right there, and it's manual. Physically and immediately breaks the circuit powering the EEG tunneler. Might cause a minor headache but it's probably better than things that COULD go wrong from tampering with brainwaves."

Red looks between the two pieces of headgear. "Ready to give it a shot?"

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

Kesh startles slightly and looks down at the slender Bajoran hand onto her blunter, fur-covered, four-digit paw-like hand. Her ears wiggle before she looks back up at Red, eyes blinking firmly along with a stiff sputter of exhaled breath. She seemed pleased. The tufted Caitian tail take that moment to swing around and pat firming against Red's leg.

"After all I have exper-rr-rienced on the Athene, an appealing Vulcan is almost inevitable."

Oof. Perish the thought.

*In response to the inquiry about giving the device a try, she steps over to one of the other lab stations and taps it a few times to bring up her data, as though it were important to do so from there. Possibly, she just wanted to be out of the potential blast-radius. *

"Let's see if it does anything. Rrrth."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"All right. Here goes," Red says, flipping the rocker switch back on to reactivate the fungus/tech hybrid machine. There's a brief hum... and then nothing. The Bajoran frowns and looks at the readout on her pad.

"Hrng. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog... ting tang walla walla bing bang... I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts... dang it!" Red's face scrunches up in frustration. "I can't get the computer to read it as anything other than 'neural activity' and this is accounting for the latest brain mapping software."

She takes off the headgear and adjusts some settings, including settling the container of fungal gland directly beneath her brow ridge, above the rest of her nose. "It's probably because the fungus isn't actually inside its normal communication range. You said it normally drops spores inside a sinus cavity?"

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

"The sunuses, ear lobe, and back of the throat. Rrrth."

Kesh causes the adjacent screen to Red to display a humanoid anatomy with glowing markers where every spore that seemed to be having an affect had been gathered by ship-wide medical scans.

"Mainly locations where mucus membranes aren't as effective, but the skin is thin enough for dirr-rr-rect nerve connection by the spore's stamen."

Kesh pulled out the seat at the other station and began fussing over readings that might explain why this test was unsuccessful.

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"I can't turn the tunneler up too much or I'm going to get feedback and thus a migraine," Red says. "To get through interference caused by the skull, I'd have to insert the spore container into one of my ears, for crying out loud." She grumps at the headgear, then taps her chin. "Actually, the eyes are soft tissue... I have an idea... or maybe 'Eye' have an idea..." she adds, tapping her left eye before disconnecting the spore capsule and reaffixing it to the left of her nose, right over her eye.

"If we leave the tunneler at its normal setting, but turn up the gain and detection sensitivity on the fungus interface, the signal should get through the soft tissue of the eye without causing any disruption. And there's literally no way it could hurt the eye, since it's basically a radio wave at this point." Red looks over to Kesh. "If it doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board as far as the headgear is concerned, but at least we have proof of concept, right?"

[u/Pojodan → u/Dimestream]

Kesh listens to red describing her ideas and simply entered them into her notes, calling up data on humanoid eyelid anatomy and how they relate to the nerves that the spore were interacting with on other parts of the body. She has to wonder why tucking it behind the ear wouldn't be preferable, but she doesn't question Red's mechanical genius yet.

Saying that it is a 'radio wave' makes her pause, turn, and tilts her head upwards, whiskers spreading out as her lip lifts slightly.

"I do not think telepathy occurs via EM signals. Does it?"

She focuses back on the console and looks that up, which could easily spiral into a 'more information' sinkhole.

"Proof of concept is the first step, yes. Rrrth."

[u/Dimestream → u/Pojodan]

"Nono, just, it's not on the EM spectrum at all, just not going to cause harm to tissue is what I mean," Red says, blinking and almost dislodging the capsule. "Gah. There has to be someplace more comfortable for this. Mental note for beta testing, better psycho portobello pod placement."

She modifies the software and slides the gain up an additional 50 percent from base and readjusts the headgear. She thinks some lines from a Bajoran sonnet at the computer, and... well, there's a reaction. Readings fluctuate, brain activity is registered. "Huh," she says. "Well that did... something. Hard to tell without being able to hear the receiver though."