Chapter 44 - New Scene (Patreon)

Originally this scene took place in the background and didn't actually appear in-chapter.  As I was giving the final polish to chapter 44 in preparation for publishing, I had a change of heart and decided to write this scene and add it into the chapter.  So now it shows up immediately after Gothic has his hard conversation with B'Elanna.  It is copied below so you don't actually need to go back and re-read all of chapter 44.

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Sickbay. Onboard the Flighty Temptress. In orbit of Earth.

“Have you ladies had enough time to study the technology and the surgical plan?” I asked, after walking into sickbay. “Are we ready to proceed?”

My holographic doctors as well as my digital daughters had been surrounding a large wall with a myriad number of medical displays and a holographic display of my body, likely running simulations, even now. Design schematics for the Mark 37 nanite were on display, along with the internal power core/replicator units that would be surgically implanted into my body in 5 chosen locations. Sections of the nanite internal programming were also being closely studied, which is probably why Hermione and Natasha were collaborating with my doctors.

“We have, my Lord,” the EMH modeled after Gal Gadot responded. Though I hadn’t done anything to purposely make this happen, at least as far as I knew, this version of the EMH had organically taken on a leadership role amongst her fellow doctors. I genuinely didn’t know for certain why. I had only a suspicion that Wonder Woman’s backstory, as a many century old demigoddess, had influenced me unconsciously when I was designing her personality profile and that had somehow manifested in her interactions with her fellow EMHs. “Your final nanite design is ingenious and several decades more advanced than the Federation’s current designs. However, there are several unknowns here that are giving us pause.”

“Please explain, doctor,” I asked, carefully listening.

“In many ways, the nanites were designed to improve the way your body functions to keep you alive, to essentially increase your chances of survival,” she explained. “The nanites, for example, will expedite functions that your enhanced immune system was meant to do alone, speeding up the creation of antibodies, healing wounds, directing and enhancing cellular regeneration, etc.”

“That was intentional,” I replied, confused.

“We know. The problem is that we are not working with a human body that we have millennia of medical knowledge and observational evidence to rely upon for our predictive models to accurately simulate. The bottom line here, all of our simulations are guesses, at best, when it comes to you,” she answered, pointing at me. “You are human, but in many ways you may as well be an entirely new species, a species of one that we still don’t fully understand. We have had only a worryingly short time to fill in those knowledge gaps. God-like beings enhanced you to some idealized version of the human genome that may or may not ever come to exist tens of thousands of years in the future. Presumably, it’s reachable through natural evolution, but who knows?”

“You’re saying that your simulations are only as good as the data that underly them and that data comes from baseline humanity and guesses made with knowledge from the other humanoid species,” I tried to sum up their concerns.

“Yes, exactly,” she said. “One question, one of many we have to be honest, is how your enhanced physiology will work with the nanites. Will the nanites supplant your body’s natural functions, perhaps causing overreliance that has a detrimental long-term effect on you, or will they work hand-in-hand with each other, essentially buttressing and enhancing those natural functions? Or something else entirely? We just don’t know enough yet.”

“I’m willing to take that risk, doctor,” I said after a few moments’ consideration. “This is the next step forward in my development and may be vital in keeping me alive. If something goes wrong, we can always adjust the nanite programming or remove everything altogether and deal with the consequences. So, I ask again, are we ready to proceed?”

“We are, my Lord,” the doctor modeled after Tricia Helfer responded. “Lay down on the surgical bed. We will be putting you in stasis during the procedure, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

I hopped up on the bed and readied myself.

“Hermione, Natasha, please stand ready to carry out my instructions,” I ordered, referring to the plans we’d made in case anything went wrong or anyone or anything tried to take advantage of my temporary incapacity.

“We will, father,” Hermione said, Natasha nodding.

“I’m in your hands, doctors,” I said, as I laid down and closed my eyes, a red all-encompassing beam forcing my body into stasis, something which would not be possible in the future without my consent, once my nanites infused my whole body. That was one of many good reasons why it was time to proceed with this…upgrade.