The Schrodinger Paradox
Posted on Sun Jul 5th, 2026 @ 5:00pm by Captain Kagami Izumi & Lieutenant Commander (Soghla') Thorillo Son of Drej & Lieutenant "Joliet" Jane Cooke & Lieutenant Maki Nishikino 'Bones' & Lieutenant Marina Kelea & Lieutenant Joseph Frost
3,058 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
All Our Yesterdays
Location: Starbase Frontier- Sickbay
Timeline: After "Just A Normal Day"
"What am I even looking at?"
Admittedly, that was a bit of an exaggeration, as Maki knew full well what she was looking at; that being Captain Izumi and a second, much younger Captain Izumi that, if the older one was to be believed, had just materialized out of thin air smack-dab in the middle of her office. A more accurate question, perhaps, was how exactly Captain Izumi was simultaneously existing alongside her younger self without any immediately discernible changes to the timeline- especially when the elder Izumi couldn't recall an incident like this having ever occurred.
"I was hoping that you'd tell me that," older Kagami said simply. "I have no idea why a younger version of myself has suddenly appeared. I have no memories of ever being here before I took command..." she looked over at her younger self. "So I need you to identify who she is."
Marina had joined Kagami and her younger self hoping to be of some use with their ‘visitor’. “From what I’m sensing Captain she is you, at least she believes she is, and there is a definite resemblance.”
"Perhaps a good place to start would be trying to determine when exactly this version of Captain Izumi came from?" Maki suggested, indicating towards the younger Kagami.
Marina looked towards Kagami, she was the only one who could accurately pinpoint the age of her duplicate younger self.
"You know I'm sixteen right now..." The younger Kagami said. "And I'm supposed to be doing mid-terms this week! I can't be here right now," She huffed.
Maki sat back and ran the numbers in her head. "So, we know your birthday's in July, so that means we'd be looking at... late October, 2378? Does that sound about right?"
"That sounds about right." Younger Kagami saud.
Marina smiled. “Don’t worry we can organise whatever study materials you need so you can continue your studies.”
"Whats the point if I'm stuck... here?" Younger Kagami asked simply. "Its not like I wanted to be pulled through time is it?" she said.
"Actually, thats a good question." Kagami asked. "If she...I... erm.. yeah. Been pulled through time, why don't I remember any of this? Surely I would remember some of this?"
"My concern is how you're continuing to exist here when your younger self was displaced from 2378," Maki argued. "And I'm no temporal physicist, but I reckon a change like that would be fairly instantaneous."
“It depends, on whether this happened and was corrected putting everything right again” Marina added. “Temporal physics is tricky, but fascinating all at the same time. If we do put whatever this is right, then it won’t have happened, hence no change in the timeline.”
"But if that were the case, then why doesn't the older Kagami have any memory of this happening?" Maki argued. "Has the timeline been corrected already or has it not? I have my doubts as to whether or not it can be both at the exact same time."
“I have no idea” Marina shook her head. “One reason to hate temporal mechanics.”
"That sounds about right..." The younger Kagami said.
"Ugh... goddammit, I'm supposed to be a Doctor, not a quantum physicist!" Maki bemoaned. "Why aren't we consulting with Lieutenant Ki'ana on this-!"
"Unfortuntely she was transferred. We're currently awaiting a replacement..." Older Kagami explained.
Maki's eyes narrowed. "You've gotta be shitting me."
"Language!" both of the Kagami's said in unison before looking at each other.
"I'm starting to notice a trend, here..." Maki sighed as she leaned back in her seat. "Okay, so Lieutenant Ki'ana's out; who else have we got on hand that may be more knowledgeable on temporal physics?"
“Well I said I hated it, but I didn’t say I wasn’t any good at it. I used to be able to wrap my head round it at the Academy in lessons.” Marina offered. “If we put our heads together we should be able to figure this out…hopefully!” She smiled. “Problem is we’re not looking at someone from the future coming to the past doing possible damage, we’re looking at younger versions of ourselves, possibly from the past.” She sighed. “I think we need some reference materials.”
Maki scratched her chin. "Okay, so I may have a theory, and while it's a bit of a longshot...what if this Kagami doesn't come from our past, necessarily?"
“You’re thinking maybe an alternate reality? Like a mirror universe, or something along those lines?” Marina asked curiously. “Is there a way to test for that?”
Kagami shrugged. "No idea. But its a possibility we must consider."
Out in the waiting room, Jane and her younger, pre-duplication self had taken a pair of seats and were waiting for their names to be called.
"Man, this sure is similar to waiting at the doctor's office back home, Secret Big Sister..." Young Patricia groaned in boredom.
"I said the full experience." Jane replied. "The full experience includes waiting..."
Thor entered after leaving Operations in good hands as there still seemed to be no indicator of a cause for the Captain's younger self's appearance. In terms that they can understand at the moment. Thor knew Starfleet would figure it all out soon enough.
He glanced over at Cooke and smiled. "You too huh Lieutenant?" He asked by way of greeting.
Before Jane could speak, it was the younger Patricia next to her that did so first:
"A Klingon, huh?" The teenager asked. "Grandma says Klingon warriors saved her life during the war."
Thor grinned, “your grandmother is very lucky.” He turned to Cooke and raised an eyebrow followed by a look of, interesting development there. He turned back to the young girl. “Tell me young one, what were you doing before you found yourself here?”
"Well, we were helping my grandmother sell her house." Young Patricia explained. "My dad told me to go fetch something from the attic. I climb the ladder up into the attic and the next thing I know, I'm standing in big sister's office." The teenager motioned towards Jane. "Is it healthy to be in a holodeck simulation this long? I mean, my dad's got to be worried by now."
“You might have to let us worry about that, can you do that for us?” Thor was rather impressed with how he was handling talking to younger ones that it surprised him. He wondered where he got this from.
"Hey, as long as Secret Big Sis here gets to show me around, you guys can take as long as you need." Young Patricia motioned towards.
"Well, I..." Jane ran a hand through the hair on the back of her head, looking up at Thor, doubtful if the duties required of her would get in the way of the promise she made to the teenager sitting next to her. "Uh, we'll have to see..."
"Aw... But you promised!" Young Patricia whined.
"What I said entailed myself not being required for anything." Jane clarified, looking back at Thor.
Thor moved to stand in front of and pointed at the teenager. “Your big sister has a very important job on this station, she is responsible for many tasks.” He gestured back at Chief Security Officer while politely staring into the teenager's eyes. “Those tasks may occur at anytime and take time to complete, should your big sister be called upon while not on duty or because you become uncooperative." He paused.
"Well, she can have one of her subordinates escort you to," Thor paused again considering. "The brig? Would you like to see the brig? See where we put bad persons when they are uncooperative." He grinned, he wanted the fear of imprisonment instilled into her for a few moments. "Though if you are good, the computer can direct you to or one of the security officers can take you to the recreation areas.” Thor explained and smiled. “Let her do her job and while she isn’t, she can show you around. Deal?”
Young Patricia turned towards Jane who gave her a reassuring nod that Thor wouldn't have the teenager imprisoned on her watch. The reassurance eased young Patricia's fear of being incarcerated as she turned back towards Thor.
"Okay." Young Patricia finally nodded. "Deal."
"Lieutenant Cooke?" One of the nurses called out. "Doctor Nishikino is available to see you now."
Jane looked in the nurse's direction, then back to Thor.
"Well, Commander; looks like it's our turn." Jane remarked assertively.
"Best of luck," Thor offered with an un-Klingon-like shrug but a Klingon grin followed it.
With this parting, Jane took young Patricia with her and followed the nurse into Sickbay.
Joseph had gone to Main Operations with his younger self when he saw the Captain and what seemed to be a much younger version of her. He decided to follow to them to the infirmary while still holding little Joseph. The boy, though perky and looking around, had flattened his ears and protectively held his own tail. The elder Joseph held the boy close and whispered “it’s okay little brother. I’ve got you. I will protect you. No big scary things here.” *he smiled to the boy to cheer him up. The boys ears perked just a little while the elder one sat down and held the boy on his lap, waiting for their turn to be scanned.
“Hello, Lieutenant and young one, do join us and tell us what you were doing before you found yourself here?” Thor gestured to the younger version of Joseph and did his best to smile softly, though it wasn’t always taken as such.
Child Joseph looked to Thor as the man spoke before giving the best soft smile a Klingon could muster. The boy, instead of shrinking away, spoke happily "I was getting weady for bed like momma told me. You like my unky Rashad! Only more of the head bumps!"
“A half Klingon uncle,” Thor glanced to adult Joseph before focusing on the younger again. “Is Rashad good?” He found that he wanted to know.
The elder Joseph nodded and spoke softly to Thor "He is a good man. Honorable. He had been rescued from the Borg. He is a family friend who we think of as uncle." He was trying to state things so that the younger Joseph wouldn't get confused or scared.
“I do hope to meet this Warrior one day.” Thor said as he glanced between the two.
The younger Joseph smiled and nodded "He'd wike you!" Before the elder Joseph furrowed his brow. There was something there, a darkness that clouded his eyes temporarily before it shifted away. However, he had been looking right at Thor when it happened. Conveying the message that the man was no longer with them.
He'd caught the brow furrow from Lieutenant Frost and decided to file that away to ask a lot later, something told him something about the uncle, Thor slowly returned his focus back to the younger Joseph and smiled. "Well hopefully the medical staff will see you two soon," Thor stood and glanced around. "I suspect this will get wilder before it gets better, Lieutenant." He told Frost, with a slope-sided smirk.
The elder Joseph smiled a bit before he spoke "I assume that we have a day care of sorts on the station? I haven't quite explored since I arrived.. If the squadron needs to go out, I may need to leave little Joey with someone..."
"I'm sure the Counselors can help. Let them know, add on that it's an order from the Executive officer." Thor winked as he grinned. He glanced over at the main area of the Infirmary for when it will be Joseph's and Joseph Junior's turn to be examined.
Joseph gave a light nod as he held his younger self. The little boy was looking around curiously as he sat still for the elder Joseph. Both of them had the same goofy little grin as they waited.
"Right this way, please," Maki instructed as she motioned for the young Patricia to have a seat up on the bio-bed.
"It's okay..." Jane reassured the young Patricia when she seemed to hesitate.
With reassurance from her "secret big sis," young Patricia climbed up on the biobed.
"Right, so," Maki began as she pulled out her tricorder and began to calibrate it. "First thing's first, when is the last date you remember before winding up... well, here?"
"Um... Is it not 2386?" Young Patricia asked rather confused.
Maki glanced up at Jane. "You didn't tell her yet?"
"No." Jane replied, stepping closer to Maki and lowering her voice. "She thinks I'm an older sister that was kept secret from her...."
Maki shot Jane a "How-inconsiderate-do-you-have-to-be-to-lie-to-yourself" look before turning her attention back to Young Patricia.
"Okay, so, how do I explain this..." she pondered aloud. "What's happening right now is that you're very far from home, and since your... sister knows that you've got a couple more years to go before you complete your studies, it's essential that we get you back to where you originated from in a relatively timely fashion."
"But... She promised to show me what Starfleet life is really like!" Young Patricia whied. "I told her I was weighing dropping out of school to enlist, and she said she'd show me a taste of Starfleet so I can decide if dropping out is something I want to follow through on."
Jane merely gave Maki a shrug, but she already knew that when she was sixteen, her mind was basically already made up that she was going to join Starfleet, education be damned.
Maki shot Jane a "You-encouraged-yourself-to-drop-out-of-school-you-imbecile" look before turning back to Young Patricia.
"Well... that may be true, and Lieutenant Cooke could stand to learn a thing or two about not running her mouth, but once we're done showing you around, there's still the issue of getting you back home. Don't you think your parents are going to be worried if they find you've disappeared?"
"Absolutely, they are." Young Patricia could at least agree to that much. "I'm sure right now, they're probably wondering what's taking me so long to fetch something from grandma's attic."
"Right, so then you understand that it's important we get you back before they notice you're gone?" Maki suggested, now that she realized she was starting to get through to Young Patricia. "Once we have an idea of where and when you came from, we can work some temporal wizardry to get you back to your grandma's house."
That, admittedly, was a lie, at least for the time being; Maki knew that they had no consistent way of sending Young Patricia back to her own time and place, but at the very least, they had to put up the appearance that they were more-or-less in control of this situation.
Marina was being kept busy with all the younger versions of the crew popping up, it seemed odd her younger self hadn’t appeared but she was glad she didn’t have that to deal with. She offered a warm smile trying to be reassuring, but who knew how this was going to end.
"I gotta admit, sounds quite a bit beyond the capabilities of 2386 Starfleet..." Young Patricia noted. "Maybe you are onto something with the future..."
"Well, consider this our little "backstage" secret, but there's quite a few things we tend to keep from members of the John Doe public," Maki attempted to improvise. "Not everything is ready to become common knowledge until we have a better understanding of it, if you get what I mean?"
"I did say a "behind-the-scenes" tour, did I not, young lady?" Jane added to the improvisation.
A squeal of delight from the young Patricia signaled that the improvisation had done the trick.
"So, what else do you guys need of me?" Young Patricia asked.
"Well, just a quick scan, for any anomalies," Maki replied, waving her tricorder for emphasis. "Shouldn't hurt at all, I just need to give you a clean bill of health before we send you on the tour."
"Okay." Patricia agreed without second thought.
Jane raised an eyebrow. Clearly she could stand to learn something from her own younger self.
The group fell silent as Maki carefully ran the tricorder over Patty, then turned to analyze the results.
"Damnit," she could be heard muttering under her breath
“Problem?” Marina asked curiously.
"The tricorder's not picking up anything out of the ordinary," Maki sighed as she turned to show Jane and Marina the results. "For all intents and purposes, Lieutenant, you've somehow managed to break the laws of physics and exist in two places at the same time!"
She paused and quickly did some math.
"...Okay, three places at the same time!" she corrected herself.
"At least the first time, I was the same age as the Patricia that was rescued first." Jane whispered.
“This isn’t really giving much in the way of answers” Marina added. “There has to be some explanation for…” she paused as the sickbay doors opened and a writhing, screaming child clutching at her head was brought in. “Oh no…”
Marina quickly rushed across to the younger version of herself, growing up she had developed her gifts earlier than she should have regular trips to Sickbay had been a normal part of her childhood. “Hey…” she gave her younger self a smile. “Concentrate on my voice, shut out everything else, just listen to my voice…” she gave Maki a glance. “Doctor she needs an inhibitor, low level, just enough to hold the voices back.”
Kagami whom had stuck around with the new younger versions if themselves popping up could see that this was only going to become more crowded. She opted to leave, taking her younger self back to Operations. At least there sge could try to attempt working out what was happening...
Posting by:
Captain Kagami Izumi
Commanding Officer
Lieutenant Commander (Soghla') Thorillo Son of Drej
Executive Officrr
Lieutenant "Joliet" Jane Cooke
Chief of Srcurity
Lieutenant Maki Nishikino 'Bones'
Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Marina Kelea
Chief Counsellor
Lieutenant Joseph Frost
Commander Air Group
RSS Feed