A Purple Light
Posted on Fri May 1st, 2015 @ 2:20pm by Commander William Carver M.D. & Captain Aidan Rackham & Lieutenant David Windsor
Mission:
The Night Cries
Location: Starfleet Administration Centre, Fraser Road, Pike City
Timeline: 2278.47: 1125hrs.
Dr Maximilien Lamaison stared at the large box which had just arrived in his lab. He sipped at a small cup of coffee while he looked it over. It was made of an unknown alloy and coloured in a deep red. It looked for all the world like a small vacuum cleaner.
The police had just brought it in, having found it in the trunk of a car they had impounded the night before. They were worried about it being a bomb- bless them- their tricorders were terribly out of date.
He knocked gently on the surface, trying to find out whether it was hollow or not. It didn't seem to be, the knock returned a deep thud. It had only one control interface which contained a small push button panel which seemed to simply turn the mechanism on and off, accompanied by a small dial.
It was standard practice for the police to turn over any non-standard technology to Starfleet but since the murder of Elsa Gunning they seemed to be bringing everything to them.
He was feeling brave. He flicked the switch.
The room was bathed in a deep purple hue as the machine began to hum away beside him. He could see smudges on the tiled walls slowly disappearing and, as he looked down at his dirty old lab coat, he was sure he could see grime lifting off it.
He reached for the communication panel on the wall behind him. "This is Doctor Lamaison. You'd better get me the Farragut investigators over here, now."
[20 Minutes Later]
Carver was feeling a bit agitated, even if the summons was related to the murder of Elsa Gunning. He didn't mind rushing out to look at evidence, but he didn't quite understand why the Pike City police force insisted on being so vague. Their description of the item they found was so useless, William could have sworn they were Starfleet officers. If he had one more Starfleet captain tell him that he better come take a look at something without giving him more information than that, he may just snap.
"And that's all they said?" David was asking as the stepped out of the small transport craft outside the large police head quarters building. "A red vacuum cleaner that gave of a purple light?" While his expression was serious, there was a hint of a twinkle in his eye. His ever present companion when a mystery was afoot. "And it cleaned the room?"
He stopped for a moment and looked at Carver with narrowed eyes, "Did they give any thought to the fact that maybe it _is_ some sort of vacuum and they're wasting our time?" The humor of that situation wasn't lost on David, but he resisted the urge to chuckle.
"Nope, I'm afraid not," Carver replied, shaking his head. "For all I know we're on some sort of goddamned wild goose chase." The humor wasn't lost on him either, but lack of sleep left him in no mood for such things.
"No, but I think you miss my point," David said as he followed behind Carver. "What if it is a vacuum cleaner? What if it's the vacuum cleaner that stripped Gunning's room clean?" He offered, a hint of hope in his voice. If he was right, it'd be their first real break through in the case. Or perhaps another frustrating dead end.
The doctor shrugged. "We can only hope."
"Gentlemen- you are from the Farrragut, yes? The investigative team?" Dr Lamaison poked his head out of the laboratory door just as the two officers were about to walk by. "I believe this device will be of interest to you. I leave it in your hands."
David looked at William and raised his eyebrows, then ducked into the room, almost unable to contain his excitement.
Carver followed the science officer into the lab. Although he wasn't quite as excited, he was quite curious to see what they had found.
Admittedly, he was a little let down. For some reason he'd been expecting something much more impressive than a glossy red box with a single button. He looked around and hmph'd a little, "Your lab is exquisitely clean, Doctor," he noted. "Not to critique your personal tidiness, but I take it that this little device is responsible for the white glove treatment?"
"So you're aware of what it does?" Lamaison replied with trepidation. "I turned on the device and found that it began to remove dirt and other pieces. I thought that it may be relevant to your investigation. They brought it in last night but this is the first chance I have had to examine it."
"Well, we have a vague idea of what it does. How it does it is the big question." Carver readied his tricorder and started to scan the device. "I don't suppose we could get a demonstration."
"I'm afraid I have another appointment to keep." Lamaison said quickly, swishing into a coat on the way out the door. "Just flick the switch on the device and you'll see it!"
"Do you get the feeling he didn't want to 'see it' again?" David asked with a hint of a smirk and an arched eyebrow. How someone even remotely involved in the sciences could be less than curious at this point was beyond him. He was ready to press that button at a moments notice.
"Yeah, I noticed that too." Carver shrugged. "I guess that's why he's not in Starfleet. He has no sense of adventure." He held his tricorder at the ready. "I can tell that you're itching to turn it on." He gestured towards a nearby shelf. "Is there anything over there that we could use to make a mess?"
"Ahm..." David looks around until he spotted a vial of something viscous and brown. "Ah... that looks disgusting. Let's use that," He said, walking over and checking the lable. It was a dirt suspension from a case that had been contaminated by an outside source and was no longer any good for evidence. He nodded and poured it out on the floor.
"For science, I suppose," He said rather eagerly as he depressed the botton on the device.
As before, the room was filled with a deep purple light. Carver was busy scanning away with his tricorder, trying to measure anything he could. The mess that Windsor made on the table seemed to break apart and evaporate away.
"Fascinating," Carver replied stoically. "Something like that would make cleaning up before and after surgeries a breeze, especially if it could be made to be completely sterile. I am picking up feint traces of radiation. It certainly looks similar to what I found on Gunning's prosthetic. Are you getting the same results?"
"Absolutely," David replied, nodding. "It'd make cleaning up the botany lab a snap as well... this is definitely what cleaned up the mess in Elsa's room," He concurred.
Carver nodded along. There was still a lot that needed to be investigated, such as where this device came from, but at least they were starting to get somewhere. He pulled out his communicator, flipping the subspace antenna open with a flick of his wrist. "Carver to Rackham," he said after the characteristic chirp. "We might be on to something. The radiation traces from this device match what we found in the autopsy and the investigation of the room. We don't know where it came from, but this is probably the device the killer used to clean up after himself."
Rackham's voice crackled back through the communicator. "Acknowledged. We have a lead too. Meet us at the Police Station- hop to it."
William closed his communicator and returned it to its holster. "I don't suppose we can bring that with us?" he asked, gesturing to the device on the table. "Lamaison did say he was leaving it in our hands, after all."
David wasted no time turning the device off and hefting it up under his arm, "I'll try and figure out what makes it tick with DiMarco as soon as we're back on the Farragut," David said, excitedly.
Commander William Carver MD
Chief Surgeon
Lieutenant David Windsor
Science Officer
Captain Aidan Rackham
Commanding Officer
USS Farragut
Dr Maximilien Lamaison
Federation Scientist
Cestus III
