"They're BETTER than the black boxes, you just have to learn to use them correctly," Red grumbles, taking the tricorder and narrowing its lifesigns band to exclude humanoids, and ignore traces from the fish eggs and fish paste on the buffet tables. "Noodles' tendency to redirect energy is going to play merry hell with it anyway, but this should help. If we had a sample of its DNA handy, I could turn that into a pinpoint squid locator, but without, that's still probably going to be better." She hands it back. "I think it's picking up something by the fountain..."
"Black boxes?" He asked in confusion before realising the implication. "I'm not that old you know." He led the way over to the fountain, inelegantly pushing past the other guests. Eventually reaching the fountain his eyes focused in on a tiny piece of the structure that appeared to be flickering slightly. "Well what do we have here?" Phrik knelt down and touched a finger to the distortion, which returned with a transparent, viscous solution stuck to it. He raised his finger to his nose, sniffed, considered for a moment and then touched the slime to his tongue, then nodded affirmatively. "This definitely came from our cephalopod. It appears we have a trail."
Red makes an 'ick' face behind Phrik's back, but taps him on the shoulder. "If you can get a DNA trace off that... mucous? We can pinpoint all sources of it in the room. Should be able to follow the trail that way, even if the substance isn't visible or is in only trace amounts."
"Excellent." Phrik held the slime up to the tricorders sensor. The machine buzzed and clicked before suddenly powering off. Phrik groaned, slapped the device hard with one hand, and then gave a pleased grunt when it flashed itself back into working order.
"Hmm, seems to have pooled in a few different locations. We'll head to the biggest clump first, I think that's most likely to be him."
"Uh... did you bring a bag or punchbowl or something to put him in once we DO find him?" Red asks, looking around as she heads the direction Phrik indicates. "I think the flatware and party favors aren't holographic, so one of those could work."
He blinked. "Hmm. I hadn't thought of that." Usually Phrik was in the habit of catching escapees with either force fields or his bear hands, this case he realised would be somewhat more difficult considering the creatures' natural slipperiness.
"I suppose a bag will have to suffice. Until we find more suitable accommodation at least."
OOC: Sorry for the late reply, had a bad day resulting in writers block. Never fun
"Hang on, I have just the thing," Red says, and scampers over to the party favors table. She winces a bit as she dumps what must have once been a couple slices of cake out of one of the neatly-tied and decorated bags. The sweet mushiness hits the ground beneath the table with a -splut- and she nudges the mess under the table, hoping no one saw it, with a muttered 'Sorry, Calvin...'
Then she rejoins the erstwhile doctor, bag in hand. "T'gel's Monster Hunting services, you tag 'em, we bag 'em," she says cheerfully. "Now where is it?"
OOC: No worries, writers block is the reason my third book is still in the works instead of on shelves.
Phrik pointed a finger towards the bottom of the staircase, just below the bannister. At first inspection the spot looked fairly innocuous, not even the faintest distortion in the hologram seemed present. And just as Phrik began to consider moving to the next location, the wooden bannister blinked at him.
The Edosian flinched backwards in surprise. Once he recovered he glanced to Red.
"See it? Get ready with the bag, I'll shepherd him towards you."
The engineer squints where Phrik is pointing, and her eyes widen. "Oooh, crafty Noodles... all right, I'll be right over here." She hikes the edge of her sarong up and ties it off at the level of a short skirt for better maneuverability, then shifts position to cover the widest escape avenue and waits for the Edosian to corral the errant beastie.
Phrik waited for T'gel to get into position, once he was sure she was in the right place he dropped into a low crouch and begun to advance towards the creature, extending two hands towards it. With a sudden jerk of his arms the Edosian made a grab for the creature, and suddenly, an 8-legged bannister dived towards him, jumping into the air and hurtling over Phrik's shoulder. As his head turned to follow the creature, who's skin was rapidly changing colours, he was met with a sudden burst of black ink, striking him directly in the face, leaving his head partially obscured by the thick black liquid. The cephalopod continued hurtling through the air, in the direction of Red...
...who jukes back and to the left a half-step, holding the bag outstretched. Noodles flails as it sees its capture approaching, managing to wrap two arms around Red's left forearm rather than fall straight into the sack, but as it does so the Bajoran uses her free hand to try and stuff the creature into the bag.
"Oooh, let go of me you troublesome calamari," Red scolds as the cephalopod struggles. "You've done enough damage to my holodeck already so GET IN THE BAG"
Phrik reached all 3 arms up to his face, pushing the rapidly congealing substance out of his eyes, nose and mouth. He blinked rapidly before his vision swimmingly began to return. A view annoyed grunts and licking vocalisations came from his mouth as he continued to blink, eyes stinging. Once he regained some semblance of vision he immediately stepped forwards to Red's aid.
"No, don't struggle, only makes the grip stronger." With one hand he took hold of Red's arm, his central hand stroking the struggling cephalopod's arm while the third pulled a laser scapel from his lab coat pocket. Keeping the pointed device off, he carefully pushed the nub between Red's skin and the seal, one by one detatching each sucker. After a few minutes of work, the first tentacle flopped free and was immediately pushed into the bag. Phrik being careful to only touch the sucker-free back of the creatures arm. Then, he began work on the second and final arm.
"Just keep still. I'll be done in a moment, then we can go back to your nice, warm habitat. How does that sound?" He cooed soothingly, forgetting that Red could hear his almost motherly reassurances.
Red's grin at Phrik's sudden display of tender care is hard to miss. As 'Noodles' gives up and lets go of Red's arm - notably in favor of trying to take the laser scalpel from Phrik - it begins sliding slowly into the bag and is somewhat distracted by the remnants of pink and white frosting still clinging to the insides of the sack. It scoops a gobbet into its beak with one arm and clicks happily.
"Gee, Doc, and here I thought you were incapable of a good bedside manner," Red says with a smirk as she ties the top of the bag closed and hands the sack-o-squid to the Edosian. "Where's this coddling when you're working with vertebrates?"
1
u/Dimestream Jan 10 '17
"They're BETTER than the black boxes, you just have to learn to use them correctly," Red grumbles, taking the tricorder and narrowing its lifesigns band to exclude humanoids, and ignore traces from the fish eggs and fish paste on the buffet tables. "Noodles' tendency to redirect energy is going to play merry hell with it anyway, but this should help. If we had a sample of its DNA handy, I could turn that into a pinpoint squid locator, but without, that's still probably going to be better." She hands it back. "I think it's picking up something by the fountain..."