Chapter Text
The lunch rush had thinned to its mid-afternoon plateau, the rhythm Quark's settled into when the breakfast crowd was gone and the dinner crowd hadn't started, when the Dabo wheel turned with only one or two players and the ambient noise was less roar than hum. The light was warmer at this hour. Quark had rebalanced the emitters six months ago after a concerted complaint campaign; he wouldn't admit Vic had been involved, but the after-lunch lighting had improved markedly the same week Vic had sat through three of his sets unprompted.
Julian had a tricorder open on the table next to his plate, which was less unusual than the fact that he wasn't eating. Miles was halfway through a sandwich and had given up trying to get him to start his.
JULIAN: ...and the unevenness is what makes it useful. If we calibrate against a perfectly lit space, we're calibrating against a fiction. Every actual environment on this station has gradient inconsistencies. Quark's has gradient inconsistencies that fluctuate: the Dabo wheel pulls power on its spin cycle, the replicators behind the bar draw on a different schedule, the floor lighting in the gaming alcoves was installed by someone who didn't read the specifications...
MILES: That last one was me.
JULIAN: Was it?
MILES: Quark wanted them brighter. I told him brighter wasn't the problem. He wanted brighter anyway.
JULIAN: Then the floor lighting is intentionally miscalibrated, which is even better. The new emitters need to handle deliberate inconsistency, not just incidental...
His eyes had tracked across the room and snagged on something.
JULIAN: What is the structural rating on the upper deck?
MILES: Standard.
JULIAN: Are you sure? It looks reinforced.
MILES: Standard, Julian. You're looking at a shadow.
JULIAN: The shadow is uneven. The lighting from the second tier is creating...
He pulled up something on the tricorder.
JULIAN: There's a fifteen-degree variance between the rail lights and the alcove lights. That's perfect. If the new emitters can render a holographic figure walking from the rail toward the alcove without color-shift artifacts, we have resolution good enough for station-wide rollout.
Miles took another bite of his sandwich. Behind Julian, a Bolian engineer was crossing toward the bar in a black t-shirt with a green silhouette of a theropod on the chest. Underneath the silhouette, in clean white text: IF I WERE A DINOSAUR, I WOULD SABOTAGE THE SHUTTLE.
Miles paused mid-chew.
JULIAN: ...and the Dabo alcove is a separate test entirely. The wheel's strobe is fast enough that lower-grade emitters produce visible refresh artifacts. If we run a holographic dealer in that alcove and the new emitters hold render integrity through a full spin cycle...
MILES: Julian.
JULIAN: ...we can certify them for high-motion environments, which means we can get the station-wide rollout approved by...
MILES: Julian.
JULIAN: ...mm?
MILES: Do you...
A Trill woman walked past with a different shirt. Hers was gray, with a small cartoon T-rex in a Starfleet science uniform, and the text CLEVER GIRL.
MILES: Never mind.
JULIAN: You said something.
MILES: I said never mind.
JULIAN: You started a sentence.
MILES: I unstarted it.
Julian looked at him.
JULIAN: You don't usually unstart sentences.
MILES: I do when I realize the sentence wasn't worth finishing.
JULIAN: That's not the same as unstarting.
MILES: It's close enough.
Julian held the look for another beat, then returned to the tricorder.
JULIAN: The other thing is that Quark's bar surface is also useful as a test surface. It's polished but not mirror-finished, which means reflectivity testing without specular complications. If we can render a figure standing at the bar and have the reflection track correctly across the surface...
A young Bajoran ensign passed their table on her way to the Dabo wheel. Her shirt was navy blue. The text on it read: I SIGNED UP FOR A COMPUTER PROJECT, NOT DINOSAURS. Underneath, in smaller letters: — CHIEF M. O'BRIEN, USS CURIOSITY.
Miles stopped chewing entirely. He set the sandwich down.
JULIAN: ...what we want is a location where we can test reflectivity, gradient handling, motion artifacts, and ambient inconsistency in a single space. Almost nowhere on this station offers all four. The infirmary has uniformity. The Promenade has too much foot traffic for clean readings. Quark's has all four characteristics in a footprint we can map in a single afternoon. I'm telling you, this is the venue.
Miles took a slow drink of his synthale. He looked at the Bolian, who was now leaning against the bar in profile, the dinosaur on his chest perfectly visible. He looked at the Trill woman, who was at a corner table with two friends, one of whom was wearing the CLEVER GIRL shirt in a different color. He looked at the Bajoran ensign at the Dabo wheel, who had her back to them but whose shirt's smaller text was readable from twelve feet away because Quark had improved the lighting.
MILES: Julian.
JULIAN: Yes.
MILES: Look up.
JULIAN: I am looking. I'm reading the tricorder, but I'm also...
MILES: Look up at the room.
Julian looked up.
The Bolian was now joined at the bar by a human in a different shirt, this one with a stylized tooth-and-shuttle logo and the text KHANASAURUS REX. The Trill table had three shirts visible. A Ferengi server moved through Miles's field of view wearing an apron that had been printed with what was clearly the Curiosity insignia and a small dinosaur tail curling out from underneath it.
Julian's eyes tracked the room. Once. Then again. His hand stopped on the tricorder.
JULIAN: Miles.
MILES: Yeah.
JULIAN: That shirt.
MILES: Which one?
JULIAN: The...
He gestured.
JULIAN: The first one. The Bolian. If I were a dinosaur, I would sabotage the shuttle.
MILES: Yeah.
JULIAN: That's something I said.
MILES: Yeah.
JULIAN: On the away mission.
MILES: Yeah.
JULIAN: Miles, why is that on a shirt?
MILES: Quark.
Julian processed this.
JULIAN: How long has...
MILES: A few weeks now. Maybe longer. I think the Clever Girl one came first.
Miles picked up his sandwich again.
MILES: There's a drink, too. The Khanasaurus Rex. It's purple. It comes with a little...
He gestured vaguely.
MILES: Plastic teeth.
JULIAN: On the glass?
MILES: On the rim of the glass.
Julian looked back at the room. His eyes caught on a new shirt: a Starfleet engineer two tables over, eating dinner, wearing a quiet gray t-shirt with only a small, clean line drawing of a tricorder on the pocket. Underneath, in tiny print: I PARSED THE SCAN.
JULIAN: That one isn't even a quote from the mission. I never said that.
MILES: He's been making them up too.
JULIAN: Quark is attributing statements to me...
MILES: To all of us.
JULIAN: ...that I never made...
His combadge chirped.
OPS (comm): Ops to Lieutenant Commander Bashir.
Julian tapped it without looking away from the engineer's shirt.
JULIAN: Bashir.
OPS (comm): Sir, you and Lieutenant Commander O'Brien are requested in the Curiosity conference room. Admiral Tomak has arrived with three additional admirals. They've requested an immediate briefing.
Julian's attention dropped from the shirts to the tricorder, then to Miles, then to the middle distance.
JULIAN: Acknowledged. We're on our way.
He closed the channel.
JULIAN: Three admirals.
MILES: With Tomak.
JULIAN: Tomak doesn't bring three admirals for a check-in.
MILES: No, he doesn't.
They were both already standing. Julian collected the tricorder. Miles drained the rest of his synthale and reached for his uniform jacket, which had been folded over the back of the chair.
At the bar, the Bolian engineer turned, saw them, and lifted his glass in a small salute. The dinosaur on his chest was, in the warmer afternoon light, rendered in slightly more detail. It had teeth.
Julian stared at it for one more beat.
JULIAN: We'll come back to this.
MILES: No, we won't.
They left through the front, which gave them a clean view of three more shirts on the way out.