After days in the laboratory on little or no sleep, Dr. Min had managed to synthesize a number of potential vaccines that would hopefully allow the humans of Draloos IV to develop an immune response to the alien virus. But he had to run tests on all of them, and there was little time. For that, he had to move to one of the holodecks. “Computer,” he said aloud, “Run vaccine samples EM-782, EM-1402, EM-1863, and EM-2190 in a trial of appropriate sample size, run against a placebo group, 30 micrograms for each individual, delivered intravenously. Species: human. Split male and female even for now. All ages. Standard vaccine clinical trial setup.”
“Acknowledged,” the computer responded.
“Now accelerate time index by seven days. Record side effect profile for every individual over that time period and display the results on screen. Report any deaths.” All of the holographic patients blurred in super fast motion to reach the timeframe that Dr. Min had specified. When it finished, some of them looked perfectly normal but many more still looked very sick. Some of them just lay in their bed in the fetal position, some had collapsed to the ground, and some of the individuals looked like the vaccine had no effect. By inspection alone, the results looked very discouraging.
“Results for vaccine sample EM-782,” the computer casually announced, “low-grade fever (60 percent), high-grade fever (42 percent), mild allergic reaction (67 percent), severe hyper-allergic reaction (43 percent). Success rate of vaccine: 36 percent. Three thousand and twenty-four recorded deaths. Allergic reactions include: wheezing, hives, site reaction…”
“Computer, delete audio,” Dr. Min said.
“Results for vaccine sample EM-1402…”
“Computer, delete audio for all samples.” Dr. Min carefully reviewed the results. “Damn, I was worried about this.”
“Problem?” came a voice. It was the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander LeCroy.
Dr. Min let out a Vulcan curse, which was unusual for him and his usual cool. “I knew that developing a vaccine for this virus would be frustrating. The protein coat that encapsulates the virus incorporates amino acids that are foreign to the human body, and so it’s having a hard time developing an effective antibody against the surface antigen. I should have realized that this would be the outcome. I knew it was a long-shot, but I just had to try.”
“What made you try it in the first place?” LeCroy wondered.
“From my studies of the protein structure of the viral capsid, I found that it mostly uses the same amino acids that we use. I thought that, even with only a few oddities, the human body would be able to create an antibody against it,” Min answered. It sounded perfectly logical to LeCroy, whose medical background had become quite competent after taking up the BX-12 project.
“The vaccines you have aren’t any good?”
“The success rates on all of these vaccines are pretty low. And many of these human subjects are suffering from severe anaphylactic reactions. And so far, these are my best candidates.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” LeCroy said.
“What are you doing here? I’m afraid that I don’t have time to work on BX-12 at the moment.”
“Well, actually, I just wanted the holodeck so that I could do some mountain climbing. I will check on the BX-12 a little later. But I noticed that you were here, so I decided to stop by.”
“You climb mountains?” Min asked amusingly. “Forgive me if I say that you just don’t look the type.”
“I rather enjoy the solitude of the activity, actually. It helps me think about things. But, after a major injury while in the Academy, I had to do it with the safety features on. Kinda takes the fun out of it, you know? What about you?”
“Uh, tennis.”
LeCroy almost snickered. “Probably not many injuries there.”
“Just the way my mother liked it,” he said sarcastically. Min rolled his eyes as he said it.
The Chief looked around at what he was doing with his unusual blue goggles. He saw each human hologram frozen in time in individual chambers, some coughing, some vomiting, others just standing there perfectly content, reading books. There were ten thousand patients, so the rows of chambers seemed to go on forever. “Why are you in a holodeck, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well, I run all of my clinical trials here. I don’t technically need to, but I like seeing all of my subjects. The holographic simulations are close enough to real people now that they can reliably be used to gather physiological data in response to new drugs or vaccines. Starfleet still requires that clinical trials be run before we administer new therapeutics because our predictive power of chemistry to physiological response is still murky at best. But, thanks to holographic technology, we can greatly speed up the process. I can’t imagine how it must have been like to wait ten or twenty years before a patient could try a drug.”
“Better living through holography, I suppose…”
“Exactly.”
“So what are you going to do then?” the Chief asked. “Now that your vaccines aren’t working.”
“I need to try some other strategies for counteracting this virus. Vaccines are really the best first-line-of-defense solution, and I always find it best to use the host’s own immune system to fight it off, so it just makes sense to try a vaccine first. In this case, a vaccine for a human just might not work at all. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to try some other antiviral strategy.”
“Won’t that take a while?”
“It really requires me to understand the mechanism of how the virus works,” Min explained. “But as you said, that will take time and I just don’t have it.”
The Chief looked at him curiously, but sympathetic to his cause. They looked over at one particular female hologram, one who had keeled over and vomited all over the floor of her cubicle. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach, and she curled into a fetal position, clearly in pain. The image was frozen in time, because Min had stopped the program, but that only made it that much more horrific to see. This was a very real reason Min used the holodeck to run his trials. He wanted to be able to see the pain that each of his patients went through. “And if I don’t find something soon, the suffering on Draloos IV will be…unimaginable,” Min said. “If you’ll excuse me, Chief, I have to get back to wo–”
“Captain Seth to Dr. Min and Chief LeCroy,” the comm system interrupted.
“Yes, what is it, captain?” Dr. Min said.
“I need both of you to come to Holodeck 5,” Seth said. LeCroy and Min could have sworn that he heard him grunt over the comm system. “Captain Santiago has something that he wants to show us. He and his team are close to finishing their weapon.”
