Episode 509: Joshua Drake, This Is NOT Your Life ... , Part Three

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Back in the recovery ward, the rest of the crew is fed decent military hospital food. It’s not too bad, actually. We’re also given standard issue military hospital fatigues: slacks, shirt, shoes. All insignia removed. Apparently it was easier to grab what was needed off the quartermaster’s shelves instead of boarding our ship and grabbing a change from our own bunks.

One thing of our own they do return to us is our cat. Jahn survived the trip as we had, bundled into a vac suit and dosed comatose until help arrived. The hospital staff revived him well enough but unlike us humans, Jahn is wheeled around in a neo-natal bassinet, with piped-in oxy and as much petting as he can stand by the nursing staff, who are quite frankly smitten with him. Looking at the smug expression on the feline’s face, one could swear the cat is malingering for the attention it nets him. Watching the cat being trundled along in the bassinet like a Sultan in his sedan chair trailing concubines … well, let it not be said that cats do not recognize a good thing when they have it.

A couple of SPs enter the ward. They mingle a bit and then one calls out.

SP: Is there a .. Rina or a Marina?

Rina looks up from her dinner, where she’s been pushing her food around her plate, and eyes the SPs. They’re armed. She’s not. Her crew can be used as leverage against her if she misbehaves. She puts her fork down and rises, head up, shoulders back.

Rina: Yes?
SP: We’ve just come to debrief you.
Rina: All right.

Nothing to be gained by causing a scene, she goes with the SPs without protest. Behind her in the ward, Kiera and Nika look up from their card game and watch the engineer leave.

Kiera: (quietly) Okay, the bet is whether or not she’s going to be the wild card.
Nika: I’m not takin’ a sucker’s bet.
Kiera: We’re gonna have’ta break her outa jail. You know that, don’t you?
Nika: I’m not takin’ that bet, either.

Rina’s escort leads her through the corridors of the ship to an elevator. One of the SPs pulls a card from his harness and Rina eyes it. It’s waved at a spot on the wall before the elevator and the elevator opens. She watches carefully to note where the card goes back. It’s attached to a retractable lanyard clipped to his gear. Hmmm.

The elevator goes down a deck and spits them out into another large area, one that has a porthole. The Black twinkles outside and Rina goes right over to it and stares out. Beyond the glass she can see Equinox tied between the engine nacelles aft. Repair bots and pushers fly over it, little sparks gleaming where repairs are being made. She looks long and hard out that porthole, scanning the lines of our ship, looking for any evidence of foul play. Also she looks for signs that the altered section of our hull that she and Kiera discovered during their EVA has been found. It’s out of view on the far side of the ship from her, however, and there is no telling. Lagniappe is not visible to her either and she fervently hopes that the dropship has been recovered and is docked inside our hangar deck. Again, there is no telling from here. She looks over her shoulder at the SPs.

Rina: Where’s our shuttle?
SP: We don’t know.

They seem sincere and they’ve made no move to stop her from looking out that window. Hmmm. She rejoins her escort and they continue on their way. She notes the character of the level she’s on. Administrative offices line the corridor and they lead her to a fairly nice conference room. There’s a table in it and in the chair at the far end is the man who visited them earlier, Captain Wise. There is a chair opposite him at the table. She sweeps the room with a look. There are a couple other chairs against the walls waiting to be pressed into service. She looks over her shoulder. One of the SPs makes to stand beside the door but Captain Wise murmurs a dismissal. The SP steps into the corridor and closes the door after him. It shuts with a click and Rina is alone with the man calling himself Captain. He gestures to the chair facing him. She takes it.

Silence.

Captain Wise: So you are … Rina?
Rina: Yes.
Captain Wise: Mm-hm. (a beat) And what is your position on the ship?
Rina: Engineer.
Captain Wise: Engineer?
Rina: Mm-hm.

Pause.

Captain Wise: And … how did you come to know my son?

As a crew, they’d all agreed to stick to the truth. But Rina is not unaware that the truth has many sides and her version might not match another’s. And the use of the word ‘son’ sets off a warning bell inside—is this interrogation going to be a fact-finding mission? Or an axe-grinding one? Is the man in front of her the Captain of the ship? Or a father whose son has fallen in with the wrong sort of crowd? And where does that put her, exactly?

She decides to stick to the plan.

Rina: We met him on the Trafalgar and—
Captain Wise: You met him on Trafalgar? What were you doing on Trafalgar?
Rina: We were scanning one of our crew—
Captain Wise: Scanning one of your crew?

The constant interruption to repeat what’s just been said is a deliberate tactic she knows is meant to rattle. She lets it slide.

Rina: Yes. Well, we made a delivery, as contracted. And we—
Captain Wise: This was during its decommissioning?
Rina: During its decommissioning, yes. It is not … entirely kosher what we did, but … we wanted to do a scan on one of our crew members.

It was actually her adopted son Lem we wanted to do a scan on, to track the progress of the TSE he suffered from. She withholds that information for now. Wise isn’t the only parent with a son to protect. Her expression is bland but her accent is out, a sign of stress if one knows to look for it, and it deepens as she continues.

Rina: And we did not have the money or the access to a Coreside hospital. We knew that Trafalgar might have a scanner not yet decommissioned and no one would … mind if we … used it while we were there.
Captain Wise: I take it you didn’t get the Captain’s permission for this.
Rina: Not exactly. Is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, yes?
Captain Wise: We’ll see. Go on. You were on Trafalgar. Conducting a scan on one of your crewmates. Any reason for this?
Rina: We were on a medical ward. Off to the side. No one was there. And … while we were busy in one bay, a ship docked alongside another one—
Captain Wise: The ship?
Rina: A ship. I don’t recall the name. We were … surprised. We thought—(breathes a laugh)—quite reasonably that we were going to be thrown in the brig. Because we weren’t really supposed to be there.

Absolutely not supposed to be there. And yet had we been elsewhere, it might well be Joshua would never have walked off Trafalgar alive and Rina would not be sitting in front of the man who believes Joshua is his son.

Rina: And we peek around the corner and Joshua walks out.
Captain Wise: So he was on the ship?
Rina: I don’t know. I … He walked out of the airlock it was docked in. I did not see him enter it or leave it. I only saw him walk out. And, well … (gusts a sigh) …

She doesn’t have much hope he’s going to believe what’s coming next.

Rina: Bad stuff happened.
Captain Wise: Did you try to capture him? Try to hide what you were doing?
Rina: Capture him? Without him we would have died. No.
Captain Wise: But you were caught by an Alliance officer, doing clandestine—illicit things on a cruiser. Presumably you would have been nervous and upset upon being discovered by such a person, right?
Rina: We were more nervous and upset by the Reavers.

She has to give the man credit. He doesn’t bat a lash.

Captain Wise: Reavers.
Rina: Mm-hm.
Captain Wise: On an Alliance cruiser. In Kalidasa.

His tone is getting to her. Not quite incredulous, not quite condescending. She takes a deep breath.

Rina: They came off the ship that docked off alongside. I don’t know where they came from originally or how they got onto the ship that docked alongside, but they were on that ship. They came out. They started doing what Reavers do.
Captain Wise: So they were on the ship that came up. A Reaver ship docked on—
Rina: A ship with Reavers docked onto Trafalgar. Joshua was there and—
Captain Wise: Can I just say one thing? That does seem a bit preposterous. I mean, a Reaver ship is able to dock onto an Alliance cruiser? Even if it were being decommissioned.
Rina: No, no. I said the Reavers were on the ship. I didn’t say it was a Reaver ship.
Captain Wise: Okay. Go on.

Is he looking at her with the expression one reserves for the dangerously insane? Rina knows she’s lost any hope of guiding the interrogation and privately admits that she never really had a chance at it. Since she’s already resolved to tell the truth—regardless of whether she’s believed—she might as well get on with it.

Rina: As best as I can piece together … there were Reavers on that ship. They were being shipped somewhere and Joshua, with I think it was six, eight Marines—I saw them die, the Marines—somehow the Reavers were loose on that ship. The Marines started shooting … Joshua defended himself and he ended up defending us as well. When the Reavers saw us, they came for us. And when you’re in a situation like that, you don’t question the uniform. You don’t question what side of the war you were on. You survive.
Captain Wise: What side of the war were you on?

Our side? Their side?

Rina: My side. And when the smoke cleared, Joshua was on our side of the blast door. We were wounded, we were bleeding. One of our crew was dead. And without him, two more would have died. He got us out of there. He got us back to … the medical wing were there was still staff. He … He saved us. And when he asked for a ride off, we gave it to him.
Captain Wise: So after he helped you to the medical area, then he asked to go with you.
Rina: Yes.
Captain Wise: And you just got back on your ship and left and the Reavers just … magically disappeared?

Damn. He would pick up on that. Should she tell him about the Blue Hands?

Rina: The Reavers were taken care of. It is very hard for me to explain, since I do not know exactly how it works. But … there were two other people there. They have … (thinks) … It is a … weapon. A sonic weapon. You turn it on and the-the frequencies, the harmonics, they scramble up your insides and you start to bleed out until you are dead. Reavers are not immune to that.

Huh. Put that way, she wouldn’t believe herself either. But it is what happened.

Captain Wise: When did you start calling him Joshua?
Rina: When he told us his name when we asked him.
Captain Wise: And that was on Trafalgar?
Rina: Yes.
Captain Wise: Hm. And did he then say he really wasn’t an Alliance officer? Or that he was? Did he explain any of that?
Rina: (sighs) It didn’t matter.
Captain Wise: It didn’t matter?

Silence. She doesn’t think she can make him understand that everything she needed explained, everything that mattered, had already been revealed by his actions when he saved the crew.

Captain Wise: So, you went from illicitly doing medical stuff on an Alliance cruiser, having a battle with Reavers, to …escaping … on your ship with this thing and it didn’t bother you at all that he might be an Alliance officer? It didn’t make you second guess the situation?
Rina: He saved our lives. He said he wanted to leave. He felt he was being chased by these people with that sonic weapon and he wanted out.
Captain Wise: Mm-hm.
Rina: What else could we do? We couldn’t leave him there.
Captain Wise: And … did you then take him to this Dr. Arden?
Rina: I didn’t have to take him. Arden was our crew. He was already there.
Captain Wise: Ah. And was it Dr. Arden who did surgery on … this Joshua? Brain surgery?

The idea is so preposterous, Rina doesn’t hesitate a second.

Rina: (incredulous) What? No. (puzzled) What brain surgery? What … ? (incredulous) No.

Silence.

Captain Wise: My son seems to think highly of you. Do you return his feelings?
Rina: (very quietly) Yes.
Captain Wise: So, now that you know he’s got a chance to go home and recover his real life, you’d want him to have that, right?
Rina: I want him to be able to make … an informed and full choice.
Captain Wise: (heavily) Informed choice.
Rina: I’m sorry?
Captain Wise: So you would want him to see his family. His home. To recover the life he had. To have the opportunity. Instead of this … I don’t know what they call it, this … second life. You’re not worried that he might choose that one over the life he’s been living for the last two years?

Aware of the trap, Rina chooses her next words with care.

Rina: There is always … an element of risk … when you must make a life for yourself from scratch. As he has done.
Captain Wise: Did he ever tell you why he was making a life for himself from scratch?
Rina: I thought it was pretty clear. He was getting away from those people with the weapon. He wanted out. He had to make a new life for himself.
Captain Wise: Well, times have changed, obviously.
Rina: No joke.
Captain Wise: Is there anything else you want to add?

Silence.

Captain Wise: Do you believe that he is this Joshua person?
Rina: I believe that he is what he’s made himself. On his own. For the past two years. And I believe he has the right to keep it if he wishes. (a beat) Regardless of my feelings for him. He is a human being. He is an autonomous person. And he needs to be able to make that choice.
Captain Wise: So if you were to speak with him, you would encourage him to find out about his past before he makes any decisions.
Rina: Now that is a slanted question. I would encourage him to do as he feels right. Whether as it is defined by you, or I, or anyone, he should be able to make that choice himself.
Captain Wise: Mm-hm. (a beat) I just find it … concerning … that he should fall in love with someone who wants him to abandon his past life, his family, to give up everything that he worked for, for years and years, to go off on some adventure on the Rim, when he could be …. It just seems an odd, an odd thing for someone who truly cared for someone to feel.
Rina: Sir. I have not said those things.
Captain Wise: And yet in the nearly two years that he’s been with you, I have not received a single wave from him. So …?
Rina: (gently) To my knowledge, he did not even know you existed. You cannot send a wave to someone you do not know exists.
Captain Wise: That’s some logic. I’m sure all the drugs he’s been on helped him have a good memory of all these things. I don’t have any more questions.
Rina: (sincerely) You’ve been very kind.

The interview being over, she lets herself out and remands herself into SP custody. Arden is brought before Wise next. As Rina watches him leave with the SPs, she murmurs to Nika:

Rina: He thinks we’ve brainwashed him.
Nika: What?

Meanwhile, Arden is doing pretty much as Rina did on the trip to the conference room, noting the route taken, looking out the window, inspecting our ship. Nothing new in the way of damage, just the same old love taps from our adversaries. Huh. We really need to get those repaired. Dents on the family are never a good thing. Looking a little closer, he sees that repairs seem to be underway.

Arden is shown in, Wise looks up and gestures to the chair opposite.

Captain Wise: Doctor. Have a seat.

Arden sits. Wise taps a remote and a picture of a brain shows up on the surface of the conference table.

Captain Wise: You’re experienced with neurology, right?
Arden: I have neurology.
Captain Wise: I’ve read some of your work. Very impressive. Especially given the conditions you were doing it on.
Arden: I had a lot of people helping, too.
Captain Wise: Mm-hm. (pans the picture) Here, let me help you. (zooms)

Arden examines the image and sees that there are unusual striations on the amygdala.

Arden: Okay.
Captain Wise: Have you seen this before?
Arden: Ah, no. I mean, I recognize that it’s a brain and that’s the amygdala and that somebody looks like they’ve done some sort of … (what the hell did they do to it?)
Captain Wise: Stripping.
Arden: Stripping?
Captain Wise: Yes.
Arden: Is that what they did?
Captain Wise: It would appear to the protective sheath.
Arden: Did they? That’s really not good to do.
Captain Wise: I agree. So in the two years or so that you’ve flown with … this Joshua, you’ve not had an opportunity to do a brain scan on him?
Arden: Hmm, I can’t remember if we’ve actually done a brain scan on him or not.
Captain Wise: But you didn’t see this.
Arden: I did not. This is the first time I’ve—
Captain Wise: Then you did not do it, is what you’re saying.
Arden: I did not do it.
Captain Wise: You have not done brain surgery on him.
Arden: I’ve done surgery on him but not brain surgery.
Captain Wise: He never was infected with Prion Disease? I know that’s one of your specialties.
Arden: No, he was not.

No one on our crew, except Arden, was infected with Prion Disease. Thanks to his unique genetic alterations, Arden was able to get rid of his by flushing his system with an elaborate cocktail of drugs.

Arden: He was never infected with Prion Disease. I try to be extra careful in dealing with that little bug.
Captain Wise: It’s understandable. It took quite a toll on Blue Sun, from what I understand.
Arden: The system?
Captain Wise: Yes.
Arden: Yes.
Captain Wise: Were you working on Prion Disease when you were on Trafalgar?

Actually, yes. It was the reason we scanned Lem, though Rina managed to keep that to herself.

Arden: We were there delivering goods to the station or the ship. And a former crewmate had adopted an orphan and we were afraid he might be infected with the Prion Disease so we went there to try to diagnose and see what his prognosis was.
Captain Wise: I see. So you didn’t have opportunity to do any brain surgery on … Joshua.
Arden: I did not.
Captain Wise: And did you prescribe him Flomoxipan? Were you aware he was taking it?
Arden: I was aware. I did not prescribe it.
Captain Wise: So he obtained it illegally? (off Arden’s look) He had it in his system.
Arden: Well, yes. Out on the Rim some things that are normally illegal are fairly easy to find and that’s one of them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Flomoxipan is illegal without a prescription, but Arden decides to let that one slide. He is talking to a fellow doctor, after all, one who would know the distinction.

Arden: His mental condition required him to be, I don’t know if dosed is the right word, but it was the only thing that could calm his manic condition.
Captain Wise: I see. It’s not a traditional—
Arden: No, but it’s what Blue Sun used.
Captain Wise: Blue Sun. The—?
Arden: Corporation.
Captain Wise: Blue Sun Corporation. So you’re saying Blue Sun prescribed or gave him Flomoxipan to deal with a manic condition.
Arden: What I’ve been able to piece together in the past two years of what I think happened to Joshua, whom you know as Rex—he was … experimented upon by Blue Sun scientists to be some sort of chameleon. To take on the habits and appearance of somebody to impersonate. And in the process—I’m assuming this surgery that you pointed out to me, I’m assuming the surgery was done then, I don’t know—but they also Flomoxipan to … calm him between episodes of imposterism.
Captain Wise: I see. And you thought it best to continue this process, to calm him. Perhaps he might get agitated when he discovered that he was not on his normal—
Arden: Oh he knew he was on it. In fact he was trying to wean himself off it.
Captain Wise: But you didn’t let him?
Arden: No.
Captain Wise: You didn’t let him. Why not?
Arden: No, I did not—No, in the sense of: I did not try to keep it from him nor did I try to give it to him.
Captain Wise: When did he start to try to wean himself?
Arden: As far as I know, he was taking half doses the entire time I’ve known him.

Wise leans back in his chair.

Captain Wise: Okay. So as ship’s doctor—
Arden: Right.
Captain Wise: Your methodology of weaning someone off a drug such as Flomoxipan was a two-year course—
Arden: I wasn’t trying to wean him off of it.
Captain Wise: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you said you were assisting him in weaning off it.
Arden: No. I said I neither tried nor assisted in weaning him off.
Captain Wise: And you don’t feel …? That this is … okay?

Silence as Arden wonders if the man is being deliberately obtuse or if he’s simply hard of hearing.

Captain Wise: I don’t know. I’m not an ethics board. So I won’t … I’ll leave that aside.
Arden: And in this case, I don’t think you’d be qualified to sit on an ethics board.
Captain Wise: But you think a doctor who would continue to encourage somebody to use—
Arden: I not saying I didn’t do anything unethical.
Captain Wise: —a drug he was addicted to for two years without any efforts to wean him from this drug. A drug he was presumably getting illegally. You think that is an appropriate person to be on an ethics board?
Arden: I didn’t say that.

Arden’s expression makes it clear that he’s on to Wise’s tactic.

Arden: Quit putting words in my mouth.
Captain Wise: I’m just having trouble imagining myself being judged by someone like—
Arden: And you’re emotionally coloring your reactions because it’s your son.
Captain Wise: Damn right.
Arden: I have no problem with that. If I had a father I would want him to play it the same way.
Captain Wise: Yes, well perhaps it would be best to have some sort of more judicial procedure. I can contact the Admiral of the Fleet to—
Arden: For what? I am not a member of the military. You would have to turn me over to a civil authority.
Captain Wise: Actually, if you been … treating … a member of the military …
Arden: As far as I know, Joshua wasn’t a member of the military.
Captain Wise: He was.
Arden: I believe you.
Captain Wise: He is Lieutenant Commander Rex Wise.
Arden: Really?
Captain Wise: Yes. I think I would recognize my own son.
Arden: No, it just seemed like a funny name.

What? Rex?

Arden: Sorry.
Captain Wise: But you know, I think you’re right. Perhaps I am the wrong person to be conducting these interviews.
Arden: Well, I just think you’re emotionally invested.
Captain Wise: I’ll get someone else who is less emotionally invested. Thank you for your time, Dr. Arden. Do you have anything you want to add? Do you want to report that I am unfit to command this ship?
Arden: Excuse me?
Captain Wise: Do you want to charge that I am unfit to command my ship?
Arden: (with an edge) No. I never said that, either. You’re putting words in my mouth.
Captain Wise: You seem very hostile.
Arden: Uh, yeah. When somebody tells me what I say I get hostile. Imagine. Now, let me take a deep breath … (takes one) … and can we start over please?
Captain Wise: I’ll let you speak with someone else.

Figures.

Arden: You’re not curious about what I know about your son?
Captain Wise: I’m not convinced I’ll be able to get what you know about my son.
Arden: (oh yeah?) How about I get the medical records from the Equinox and you can look over them?
Captain Wise: That sounds like a good idea.
Arden: And in Joshua/Rex’s defense, he saved my life several times.
Captain Wise: That doesn’t surprise me.
Arden: And I saved his a couple of times.
Captain Wise: That does surprise me.
Arden: We’re crew. We look after each other.
Captain Wise: Well, that’s admirable.
Arden; But you don’t agree.

Both men stare at each other across the table.

CaptainWise: I suppose it’s possible that you saw him much like—I believe a cat was aboard your crew as well, right?
Arden: There was a cat aboard our ship, yes.
Captain Wise: You find a stray, you bring it in--Did it belong to someone? Who knows? Who cares? Does it have a past? Let’s just take it and go--
Arden: (warning) No. That’s not what happened.
Captain Wise: Well if you say you cared so much about your crew, you didn’t do a whole lot of investigation to find out what brought him into this situation.
Arden: Ah, … He was running from the Blue Hands people. The agents of Blue Sun.
Captain Wise: He said.
Arden: That’s what he told us, yes.
Captain Wise: Yes. Okay.
Arden: and at the time the Blue Sun people were trying to kill us as well as him, so I tend to take him at his word. And then later on, just a few weeks later, they used a code word to control him.

Silence.

Captain Wise: Okay. That’s all.
Arden: I see you’ve made up your mind.
Captain Wise: I haven’t. Not yet.
Arden: It seems like it.
Captain Wise: I hope you won’t mind if I bring in an expert.
Arden: Okay.

Arden rises. This interview is over. He’s escorted back to the others in the recovery ward. When the SPs leave and it’s just us again, Arden sighs and takes a seat.

Arden: He’s already made up his mind. You don’t need to tell him anything or everything. He’s already made up his mind.
Rina: Grokked that, did you?

Not quite prisoners, not quite guests, all the way too injured to fight our way out of here, our only option is wait it out and see what happens next.

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