2022-02-15: Tune Up
- Cutscene: Tune Up
- Cast: Saraven Vai, Miamina Metta (NPC)
- Where: Palau
- Date: February 15, 0096
- Summary: The Newtype Research Institute away team makes a few adjustments to their ongoing test study in quantum brainwave tuning.
"These receptor levels are higher than anticipated," Dr. Miamina Metta mused as she squinted at a printout full of lines and graphs. They jagged across the page in ways that made her a little anxious.
"It's to be expected, isn't it?" The young lab assistant across from her fussed with the cuff of his labcoat sleeve as he stole a glance through the medical office window, out into the lab beyond. "The subject has been operating fairly regularly in a new paradigm."
"Yes. Maybe with overburden."
The doctor settled back against her chair, tucking her legs beneath her desk and pushing her shoulder-length brown hair away from her face with both hands. A monitor off to one side reflected colourful vital sign trackers in the lenses of her glasses as she clasped her hands together, elbows on the desktop, and rested her chin atop folded knuckles. "I think it goes back to that, yes," she mused. "To the load we're putting on her. The Luna event spiked the numbers quite a lot. It's a concern."
"I don't know if we have the facilities to properly handle that here," warned the assistant with a frown.
"We can, but it's tight." Dr. Metta frowned and glanced up again. "The paradigm is we give the project direction to follow and that's that. What's increasingly obvious is that Commander Frontal needs people who can strategize and act decisively. We can make that work, probably. But there are risks to the project."
The lab assistant frowned. "I wasn't here, but I'd heard about the incident...?"
Mia pursed her lips and turned her eyes to the vital signs, watching lines and indicators pulse and move in regular patterns. "...I don't think that will happen again," she responded after a few seconds, hoping more to convince herself than anything else. "We have to accept the current situation. Palau isn't a world-class quantum-neurosurgery lab, obviously, and this group is under-resourced even compared to our usual arrangements. It is what it is and we have to adapt. We'll move into a new phase of the project."
Pulling out a notepad, the lab assistant leafed to a clean page, pen in hand. "I can get started however you want."
"I think if we make some adjustments to the psychomotor regulators, we can prevent an overwhelm. Switch it up this way." She rattled off a few familiar substances - stuff Palau could get without too much trouble.
Before long, the assistant was sweeping back out to the lab to handle his tasks. Mia pressed her lips together and watched him go.
Out in the lab, sitting on one of the treatment beds, the dark-haired girl was quiet and compliant. Saraven usually was. Dr. Metta looked on for a moment as the assistant loaded up a syringe and steered it towards the base of her skull. The tuning process required a certain amount of regular maintenance, with periodic adjustments here and there.
Sorry, kiddo, Mia reflected as she settled back with a sigh.
No... no I'm not, am I? Because Zeon doesn't need another kid right now.
Maybe you can be a kid once the colonies are liberated and the Federation is smashed and broken. But right now what we need is someone who can handle the breaking.
From out in the lab, she could see Saraven glancing her way from over her shoulder, expressionless even as the needle pushed into her.