Now you see me now you don't

Posted on Tue May 28th, 2019 @ 8:24am by Captain Taliserra Tigran & Lieutenant Anthony Edwards Ph. D & Lieutenant Helena Wells

4,385 words; about a 22 minute read

Mission: The science of stars
Location: Uss Wolff - Various
Timeline: 7th March 1945hrs

ON:

HG wandered into the lab with a smile as big as the Cheshire Cat from the Alice stories. "Good day, Anthony," she greeted. "You hear that we might be able to work on doing some observations on a way pre warp culuture?"

“Yes the Captain just told me that we could set up a hide on (planet name.) We’ll take the program you’ve been developing and see how it holds up to real life. I suppose that means I will need to hear some local linguistics to help lock the program to the local languages and help it adapt to predict changes.” Anthony said.

HG made a phhhfffftttt sound and a look on her face to match, sort of like pickled herrings that had gone bad. "And how much language do you expect to learn and follow sitting in a hide?" She asked. She did not wait for the answer but reached over and touched what looked like a bracelet on her wrist.

For a moment she stood there and then one could see the room behind her and then she just simply seemed to melt away into the air. A disembodied voice coming from the same direction chirped in triump, "Now you see me, now you don't."

Anthony knew where HG was by her voice, though he couldn’t verbalise anything and just stood there scratching his stubbly chin and he said, “I need a shave.”

HG then seemed to appear again from that ghost like transparency to solid again. How did you like that?"

“That’s even better than the isolation suits but can you get it to cover your voice? If you could that would be perfect then we could speak via the comms devices while we were out amongst the native people.”

"Oh that is easy but there is more!" HG sounded like an excited ten year old that just discovered some new bug. "An experiment," she said. She came around the desk to stand in front of him and said, "Now when I disappear try to touch me." She again touched the bracelet and disappeared again. This time she did not say anything.

Anthony tried touching a few places her face, waist outer thigh and after a few seconds of each he said “Much better than Isolation suites. Okay HG you can turn it off now.

HG complied with the request and then sat on the edge of Anthony's desk. "Well boss how about that for getting up close and personal with the natives?"

“I’ll say, you can obviously hear what’s going on around you or it would be pointless, but I still need to know how silent it is when we use the comms a good first test might be on the ship. Chatting with me while out in the population for which I think the captain will need to know about it. If we’re going to do a now you see me now you don’t with the crew I think the whole crew will need to know about it so we have no accidental medical issues for Doctor Polaris and her crew to deal with the shock.” Anthony said with a smile.

"Ahh....it is not really a test then? I pretty much can tell you that unless they have the same quantum phase which this works on then pretty much we are not there. However," she produced another bracelet similar to hers and put it on his desk. "If you wish to give it a go. Just use press this button here and it will put the device on private comm. You can see and hear, and it will seem like you are there but to everyone not on the same phase you are not there. Cannot communicate otherwise without the rest hearing."

“So long as we can use the comm badges so we can contact the ship. I mean we would have to turn them off to return to the ship though we could do that by transporting to or from the ship just behind a rocky outcrop.” Then Anthony started jumping in great leaps as he often did when other scientists that knew what they were talking about presented something he didn’t completely understand. “Imagine if you will, this could be Starfleets way of getting around the treaty of Alergon, if we could get it to integrate with the ship’s engines and navigational arrays.”

HG frowned. "And that is why I resigned. The Federation would have loved this and other things which I am not sure would have been used to the good. Besides if I recall the Federation already tried a phase transition device. Of course they did not fully account for how quantum phase transition occurs. The blockade effect builds up but unless the system is handled then the transition becomes unstable and the entire system then either collapses or fluctuates." She finally leaned over and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "For now, let us keep this toy between ourselves deal?"

“Well you do realise we will need to pitch it to the Captain for the ability to use it during an mission, especially if it means they would not be able to see us. Operations would need to know our phase so we can speak directly to the ship and so they can record what we get on our wandering. I suppose your right it is your toy so it should be up you when we introduce it to the crew.” Anthony said.

"I do not mind that part, what I will draw the line in the sand about is exactly how it works. At least for now. We have a deal?" HG asked.

Anthony kissed HG again and said “Okay I’ll let you be the boss, I have a tendency to try to leap tall buildings in a single thought when experts in their fields present something I fully understand. Phasing technology is something I am unsure of. I mean I understand the generalised science of it and the fact that if you aren’t in the same phase you won’t hear or see them except maybe as shadows as if they are almost between our dimension and another, but that is as far as my knowledge of understanding goes.”

"Well we all have our talents. Like I said it is not that it has not been done, it is handling certain things and those details as I said, I will keep to myself for now. I can certainly give enough to allow the ship to communicate. So think we are ready for a test of hide and seek....with the captain's permission of course." HG added that bit though she really did not care for the formality but her lover and boss was still wearing the uniform and he had to 'play' by the rules.

Anthony laughed. He could feel the loathing of the fleet rules oozing from her pores. “We aren’t that bad are we?” He asked to distract her while he thought whether he was ready. He finally asked the one question that was actually scarring the Dickens, or in this case the Wells out of him. “What stops us walking out of the ship if we are out of phase, at least holodecks have safety protocols, what stops us walk out into space?”

HG laughed lightly. "And I would have fallen through the decks as well. More solid matter than air requires more power to handle the phasing. These little devices just do not have that overall. They can handle our body such that we are basically pass through as you experienced but trying to pass through hard walls such as what starships are made of is a different story. A bamboo hut or maybe wood and wattle probably we could get through but much else more power than what these can generate. The phasing device on the old USS Pegasus pretty much required quite a bit of the warp engines to get a ship through things. Anyway, no fear that you are going to walk through one of the hull walls into space."

Anthony laughed then said “Okay then I guess we’ll be caught in the office, because I guess the door charm is a little thing that is less tactile than the human body.” Leaning it closer he whispered “Could be an interesting way of getting some alone time.”

"Ohh!!!! I had not thought of that. Want to do it on the captain's desk?" HG replied with an evil grin.

Anthony was glad that he had waited to get his cup of tea, or he would have accidentally spat it all over HG in exasperation. “No I think that would be rude and presumptuous. Though there is nothing to say we can’t try it in one of our quarters on the uncomfortable tables but I th8nk the couch might be more comfortable.” He winked then added with a completely straight face. “Or the Captain’s day bed in her ready room.”

"Well let us give it a try. Might want to start in the corridor though and then when clear activate the cuffs. It will give us a good idea of how well they will work or did you want to still tell the captain first?"

“I don’t think one quick trial could hurt, but obviously we would need to let command know if we want to do anything more than a simple test. Captain Tilgran would need to knowof the trial if no one else need know and I am certain she will understand your reservations.”

"Simple test, come on," HG said and nodded toward the door. She did not wait but headed for the door and walked out and looked left and right. The door remained open as she stood there and waited for a passing crew member. She again looked around and then touched her wrist and then as before seemed to ghost and then vanish. The door closed as it could not detect her presence any further.

HG waited out in the hallway just opposite the door waiting for Anthony. She had a good view of the hallway and right now it was deserted.

Following HG out Anthony smiled when he saw the hallway was deserted as soon as he was out the door he tapped the bracelet and faded to the other phase. As soon as he did the door closed. He waved his hand at the sensor and it obviously did nothing in recognition that nothing was there waving at it. “I guess that solves that question early then!” He said to HG.

"Told you. You will not be able to interact with much but just so to put your mind at ease watch." She backed down the hall a bit and started running and then veered into the hull. Normally one would have banged hard but it was more like seeing someone run into a padded wall. "See," she called from down the hall just as a couple of crew members came around the corner. They walk right on past while she was talking and did not notice that she fell in behind and continuing while waving her arms. "Not enough to get through the hull." She got back to Anthony dropping her arms as the two crew continued on seemingly oblivious to the antics. Even as they passed one could hear them gossiping. "And did you hear Ensign Malloy is sleeping with that petty officer from ops? I swear I would never have thought him her type."

Anthony laughed at HG antics then said to the two gossipy female crew members “And I’m sleeping with a civilian, so you should buttout of your betters relationship interests” before the crew past him.

The two crew walked past Anthony and one waved her arm but it passed right through him.

HG had come back and leaned against the wall again and watched a moment. "See we can hear, I tuned that part but they cannot hear or see us. Also to prove that you will not go walking out into the space. Want to take a stroll down the mess hall? Just to see how things go?"

“That sounds wonderful, and it is good to know there are some safety protocols to keep users safe while there in space. They may not be as necessary planetside but out here it is a long walk to the nearest planet not to mention cold.” Anthony said with a chuckle.

HG just chuckled and then skipped ahead as she spotted some other crew. She put her arms out and ran shouting: "HEY! HEY!". She went right through them and they never even gave any indication that they heard anything or felt anything just chatting away. "Give it a go!" she turned back to Anthony.

Anthony laughed and then started laughing harder as he said “A Data moment where he appeared as a floating head, but I think that should certainly be left until the captain and department heads know about it.”

HG looked puzzled for a moment. "I did not put in selective phasing. To do that requires quite a bit of....well say complicated work. This is sort of an all or nothing thing. Sorry boss,"

"That's okay I think Data's incident was a lucky accident that saved an entire planets inhabitants. On top of that I don't believe the reality of it is that except on a knowing and suspecting crew it would be less that productive for protecting the species being observed." Anthony said smiled and added "The Cheshire Cat always looked stupid to me."

"Ah yes, well the history is quite interesting actually. The cat predating the Lewis Carol books by quite a bit. The actually origin ranges from a poor attempt at sign painting to cheese made as a smiling cat with the tradition that one started at the tail and finished at the front thus the smile was the last thing one saw. Well enough of history," she gestured. "I suppose just in case let's go see the captain. I think we have more or less established that I think the device works for a person." She gestured to the cuff. "You will have to deactivate it in order for the comm to work. We are phased on that level as well.

“Probably why I hate the Cheshire cat. Now Narnia and the series of movies that came from that and and his friends works from the samarillion and Lord of the Rings, though I loved your Grandfathers many times removed work War of the world’s was excellent too. All of those were much better than the Cheshire Cat series. Your right however I think your right I think it is time to take this to the Captain.” Anthony gently tapped the cuff and milliseconds laters he reappeared in a recently emptied corridor. He tapped his comm badge and said =/\=Lieutenant Edwards to Captain Tigran, I have a new toy to show you Captain could we come see you in your ready room?=/\=

=/\= Come up when you are ready.=/\= Taliserra replied.

=/\= I’ll be there soon Captain.=/\= Anthony replied and changed back and said to HG as they made their way to the turbolift. “Right she’s waiting, I think we’ll head up and have you just appear in her readyroom. I’ll shake my wrist when it is time to join us.” He changed back to interact with the call button and the computerisation to make it go or stop. Pressing the button a few seconds later the door whoosed open.

HG just nodded and remained in the out of phase. The visual was good, she could watch Anthony go about his interactions, hear things just fine, when he would phase into hers and back out there was like a brief little glow as the wave function caught up. The ride was quick and soon enough the two of them, though to everyone else there was only him standing at the ready room door. She could not even tell him ready without either of them being in the same phase. The device handled visual and auditory transition alright but it was currently a one way street. The user like her could see and hear but not communicate otherwise.

Anthony pushed the chime to let the Captain know hen had arrived he smiled but said nothing. He didn’t want people thinking he was going the way of the fruit loop as he waited for the Captain to acknowledge his presence and tell him it was his turn.

"Come in." Taliserra called out, she assumed it had to be Anthony and HG.

As the door open at her voice command Anthony walked in apparently alone. “Good evening Captain, how has your day been going ma’am?” He was wearing a new looking bracelet that Taliserra hadn’t seen before.

"Fine thank you Anthony, what can I do for you? You said you had something to show me." Taliserra asked.

“Well Ma’am during this mission we are no doubt going to do some cultural observation? Let me introduce to you the cultural specialist new best friend.” As he said it Anthony shook the bracelet on his right wrist.

HG had followed closely in on the heels of Anthony. The door sensor would not have recognized the presence but would have closed and the devices were not sufficiently powerful to allow a full phase through something that solid. Now however, she just did as would an observer, she lounged against the wall while her boss was showing the bracelet off to the captain.

She figured it was as good a time as any then to indicate what the device he was wearing could do. She went ahead and deactivated hers. It would have appeared as if she was sort of transparent and then became more solid, very much like a ghost appearing. "Good day captain," she just said.

Needless to say Taliserra was surprised at HG suddenly appearing leaning against the wall of her ready room, there was no tell tale whine and light show of a transporter, she just slowly appeared from nowhere. "Interesting." She simply said.

Anthony chuckled and said “The reason for being the cultural observational teams is you can see and hear what is happening around you, but by being out of phase to those around you, in comparison to wearing something like the isolation suit wear you might take a helmet off and appear as a head running through the town. It is all on or all off. You could be on a ship over night or if needed build a longer term hide then disappear do your cultural run and have no affect. The only people that can hear you is others in the same phase as you, like Gordi LeForge in the accident on the enterprise in 2368.”

"A controllable personal phase cloak?" Taliserra asked. "Now while phase cloaking for scientific reasons isn't technically illegal it is frowned upon and potentially very dangerous, are you sure this device is safe?"

“I’ll say this it isn’t powerful enough to pass out into space or interact with anything solid.” Anthony said with a smile then added “As to it absolute safety I refer you to the personal cloaking device’s designer and Engineer. HG you know it better than I do.”

"Define safe." HG pushed away from the wall. "Nothing is absolutely safe. Safe as in if the device fails will you be stuck inside a wall. No as it is not powerful enough to allow that kind of phasing. It lacks sufficient power to do that. Even in other cases such as if you wanted to observe oh say an orgy up close and personal, if the device failed there would be a moment when self repulsive forces would cause the wave function collapse to keep you from merging with the participants. They might get quite a surprise and what might occur after well..." she spread her hands. "I did account for the blockade backup and phase resistance which is something previous attempts failed to account for resulting in shall we say a problem."

Anthony laughed nervously at the choice of an orgy when she had anything else in the universe to choose. Well now he knew that she thought about them occasionally and she was using it to explain what might happen if the fail safes failed. “You would go there HG.”

HG drew herself up and quipped, "Only in the interests of cultural observance and practice if need be."

Laughing Anthony knew he was in for some fun in his relationship with HG. “Well I suppose there is that.”

"An interesting choice of words Miss Wells." Taliserra remarked.

"So...," HG drawled that out. "We would like to be able to do a field test of the device and before you ask, yes it could be scaled up but I do not think it a good idea."

"What sort of field test did you have in mind?" Taliserra asked thinking about it. "Some form of hide and seek or something like that?"

"We could do something like that on board. Do observation and see if anyone notices us." HG suggested. She was at least happy the captain had not jumped to could the ship be phased.

“Though at least one of us will be phased so we can get food for the other, and open doors. They don’t seem to recognise we’re there otherwise.” Anthony added.

"I can see that being a problem onboard a ship or in a building but on open ground it shouldn't be."

"Not much of a test," HG replied, "if one has to be the runner for the other. As I mentioned before there is a bit of power problem but I think it can be overcome to an extent. For lighter materials like interior doors and such I think I can increase the power to allow phasing through the door. Should not be enough to go through the duranium hull. The cavet is that the amount of time one would have would be halved. Say eight hours duration. I am presuming that even in a real observation scenario that there would be a blind or retreat to recharge and to partake of meals."

"Yes HG there would still be hide that we can eat and sleep and do reports on. I don't believe being out of phase for more that eight hours a day would be good for the people doing it." Anthony said.

HG nodded and only replied, "As you wish." She wondered if he would catch the reference.

Anthony laughed rolled his eyes and said, “Now if only I could bring myself to believe that.”

HG only smiled and turned her attention back to the captain. "So sir, can we 'observe' the crew then. Promise nothing during off time and personal quarters are off limits." She then knitted her brows. "I wonder, though if someone like a Betazoid would be able to detect us? I am thinking that we might be out of phase too much but it would supply necessary information."

"That is something you can find out during your experiments." Taliserra said smiling at both scientists. "You have my permission to proceed."

“Thank you Captain, this could be a breakthrough in how to make cultural observations accident free.” Turning to answer HG Anthony said “As to a Betazoid detecting us it was Counsellor Troi that felt Commander LaForge and the others that were out of phase with him. So empathic people may feel us, something we might want to concentrate our study on.”

Again HG just smiled and said, "As you wish." She suppressed a wink and continued, "well let me redo the device and we are ready for testing on a mostly unsuspecting crew then. It will be interesting to see what we can do about empathics or telepathics."

“I suspect both telepaths and empaths will feel something, except maybe of telepaths that need to touching the other person, but there is only one way to test it and that is to experience how people react.

"Well then, no time like the present!" HG exclaimed after fiddling with the device during the conversation. She then seemed to ghost away and disappear.

“I guess we’d better apologise for any of the Vulcans that seem to show signs of disturbance over the next few day Captain.” Anthony said and rolled his eyes. Once HG had decided to test a theory there was no stopping her, which was just the same as him. He remembered doing years of study in language and linguistics to get it right and her new improvement to the UT jumped straight over it. Well not completely he had been used to refine it, by how language travels and influences those around it on its travels.

Taliserra watched as Hg slowly disappeared as the device phased her. "Let me know how the experiment goes, this could prove useful."

“You’ll be the second to know Captain. HG doesn’t like the idea of it being boosted too large but I can see it coming in handy to help hide an expedition, but I guess the idea of taking it much larger than that is scary.” Anthony said.

"No one wants a repeat of the Pegasus." Taliserra remarked. "Keeping things simple is the best option for now."

“Us or from the Romulans, that is an oopsy that should certainly stay in the past. I see it being very effective as an evolution of scientific hide, I expect like most scientists she is tapping her foot waiting for me now Captain so by your Leave Ma’am?” Anthony asked.

"Good luck with your tests, dismissed." Taliserra smiled, it would be interesting to see the results of the experiment and figure out the potential uses of it.

“We will I am sure have fun with it.” Anthony got up and head to the door. “Coming ghosty?”

OFF:

Captain Taliserra Tigran
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant (jg) Anthony Edwards (Ph.D)
Chief Science Officer

Civilian HG Wells
Science Officer

 

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