Seeds of Chaos

[Agari]

Agari removed the contents of the box he was holding and put them carefully onto the floor. He then turned the box upside down and preceded to place the contents on top of it. He had a green banana, a raw potato, an apple, a small cup with some dirt in it, and a paring knife. Hopefully that would be enough to get to the bottom of this. Agari noticed some weird things happening that he couldn't explain.

It was for that reason that he was in an empty area of the loading dock. He wanted a nice quiet place where he could experiment. He chose this place in particular because chances were that if someone walked in on him, they wouldn't be someone who would know that what he was doing was foolish. Even if they thought he was weird, it probably wouldn't affect him very much. Whereas if he did this sort of thing in a science lab it could ruin his reputation and make future employment rather difficult. No, best to keep this low-key.

He held the green banana up in front of him. "Okay, now ripen."

[Asher Davis]

Asher stumbled into the loading dock, once again not where he was trying to get. He figured there had to be a medic somewhere on this ship, and he'd been trying to get there right now. He couldn't focus and kept ending up in odd places though. He'd been having headaches that had been growing steadily worse over the past days. Really, it was hard to remember anymore, and especially now, when this had started. It actually reminded them of a time when he'd tried on a friends glasses, but he'd checked and rechecked that the ones he wore were his own so it didn't make sense to him that those could be the cause.

Eyes squinting against the pain and a hand on his head, Asher took in is current surroundings. He was trying to get his bearings so he could redirect himself. He really needed to stop turning up in the wrong place so he could solve this, and mentally cursed himself for waiting until the headaches got this bad to say anything. While he noticed Agari in his search, he didn't really pay much attention to what the scientist was doing. He had his own problems right now, even if they actually were ones of a similar nature.

[Agari]

Agari stared at the green banana, and to his amazement, it gradually became more yellow. "Ah! Ah ha! Ahahahaha, it worked! But how it this possible? Why did it work? What in the world is going on?" As Agari sat there talking to himself he finally noticed the other guy in the room. His cheeks instantly turned red out of embarrassment.

He thought about packing up and going back to his room, but this was just such a big discovery! He had to share it with someone. The guy in the room probably already thought he was crazy, so Agri figured he didn't have much to loose. He called out, "Hey. You over there. Want to see something cool?" Agari probably sounded like a total dork, but at the moment he couldn't have cared less.

[Asher Davis]

Right now Asher couldn't have cared less about the fact that the other guy was..... well, it seemed like he was going mad. He was ranting about something working, and now that Asher looked the guy had a banana in his hand and that didn't make much sense. Still, he seemed excited and now he wanted to share whatever he'd discovered with Asher.

"Uh.... sure," said Asher, his face still holding the same, pained expression it hand moments ago. In fact, he winced a little even as the pain in his head throbbed some. He walked over to where the other guy stood and tried to seem a little more interested, though it was hard with his mind on the pain in his head. Mental note, get directions to the med-bay after this. He might know where I can go. "So, what do you have to show me?"

[Agari]

Agari held up the banana and instantly felt foolish. He couldn't make an already ripe banana ripe again. "This... was green just a little bit ago, but now it's ripe." Agari wasn't sure how to explain what had just happened so he tried to think of a place to start. He thought back to his recently eaten meals in the cafeteria.

"I know this sounds crazy, but I swear it's true. The last few times I ate in the cafeteria, I was given fruits and vegetables that weren't quite all the way ripe. But the thing is, they were always ripe by the time I was ready to eat them. At first I thought I was imagining it, but it kept happening. That's why I came here to test it out. And this banana turned yellow right in front of my eyes!"

Agari's felt his cheeks turning red again. "It really did happen. I'm not crazy."

[Asher Davis]

Asher really did want to believe him, and something made him think that maybe it wasn't as insane as it sounded. He started at the banana and took off his glasses to clean them, as if maybe that would lead to an answer. Only, the thing was, he paused with the glasses and handkerchief he'd pulled out inches from each other and seemed to stare at his hands for a while.

He looked up and gazed around the room, his expression turning to one of surprise as he felt the pain in his head slowly fading. He turned to face Agari and the banana again. The man was blushing, but Asher really didn't think he had any reason to.

"I.... I believe you. It's no crazier than what I'm seeing right now," he said. "I've had headaches that have been getting steadily worse as time went on, probably for as long as you've been experiencing the thing with the fruits and vegetables. And.... I took my glasses off just now...." his voice trailed off for a moment.

He gazed around the room again, unable to believe his own eyes. "I've always needed glasses, but now I can see perfectly without them. And that explains the headaches too, because it's like my eyesight has been getting steadily better.... which is absolutely crazy and yet no less so than your fruit thing."

His eyes returned to Agari's face again for a second time. "I'm not joking either. You believe me, don't you?"

[Agari]

Compared to making a banana ripen, suddenly not needing glasses seemed entirely possible. "I belive you." Then Agari looked down at his assembled fruits and vegis again. "Do you think I can do anything else? Or can I only make food ripen?"

Agari studied the potato, turning it over in his hand. "Hmm, ripening is just the plant maturing, so maybe... Do you think I could make this potato mature? I suppose it couldn't hurt to try." And with that Agari concentrated on making the eyes of the potato sprout. "See any changes yet?"

[Asher Davis]

Asher had no clue how to answer the question. It seemed entirely likely that if he could do one thing, like make the food ripen, he might be able to do more. The potato seemed like a good place to start, and Asher could enjoy he newly found perfect vision to see if anything changed.

At first there was nothing, but slowly he could see roots or sprouts of some sort coming out of the potato. Nothing major and fairly slow, but it was there no doubt. If he'd thought Agari was crazy before, Asher's own eyesight being corrected and this potato were proof that something very weird was going on aboard The Destiny.

"That is not natural...." Asher said as he stared at the potato. "You think anyone else is experiencing weird things too? I mean, my eyesight and your plant thing.... there might be other people here too....." His words trailed off. "I mean, I'd hate to think we're the only ones because then I'd think something is seriously wrong with us."

[Agari]

"Remarkable," Agari exclaimed as he watched the potato sprout ever so slightly. He would definitely need to study this more in the lab. He wondered if there were any other documented cases of people manipulating the growth of plants like this. He would have to look up as many data files on the subject as he could find once he got the chance. Agari was completely mesmerized by his potato until the other guy's words snapped him out of it.

"Two vastly different, yet undeniably remarkable phenomena hardly constitute a pattern. But still, it is possible that we are not alone in this. Maybe it is something on the ship causing these strange things to happen. Should we inform the captain?" Agari was a bit nervous about even thinking of talking to the captain, let alone actually doing it.

Agari then set down his potato and extended his arm for a hand shake. "By the way, I'm Agari. Thanks for being an anchor for my sanity."

[Asher Davis]

Agari had a point. Asher had been rushing to try and make sense of all of this. Still, something was going on. That was undeniable, and just because they didn't seem related didn't mean they weren't.... though connecting them wouldn't exactly be an easy feat even if there were a relation.

"I think it might be something on the ship," Asher said when Agari suggested it. "I mean, these could just be different symptoms of a reaction to the same thing. Perhaps different individuals react to it differently." That was way to technically than Asher usually was, but he was struggling to make sense of this. As far as going to the captain.... Asher wasn't sure what the should do.

"I'm Asher," he said as he took Agari's hand and shook it. "And you're welcome. If I hadn't stumbled in here I might have just kept wandering blindly trying to figure out what was wrong with me..... not that I really know more now aside from my vision suddenly improving."

He glanced around again, still not used to the glasses that were now in his hand being absent from his face. As he did he spoke. "As far as the captain..... I'm not sure. I wouldn't want to alert her if this isn't major, but at the same time you and I have no prior connection so it's not like these are from something that affected us before boarding." It was a hard call to make really. He didn't want to jump at shadows, but didn't want to withhold potentially important information either.

[Agari]

"Asher. I'll make sure I remember your name." He worked on committing his name to memory as he pondered their situation. Agari still didn't think that there was enough evidence suggesting that their two... discoveries, were linked in any way. However, Agari had nothing else to go off of. He was scientifically minded, and so he wanted to at least test their hypothesis before presenting it to the captain.

"How about this plan. We ask around and see if anyone else has had any other similar experiences. If it isn't just the two of us, then we try and talk to the captain about it. If we are the only two, then we go and talk to a specialist as soon as we dock on a planet somewhere. How does that sound?" Agari still felt a bit nervous talking to this guy, but didn't let that stop him from giving his plan. This was important. And weird.

[Asher Davis]

Asher nodded at the suggestion. "That should work. If other people are experiencing weird phenomena like us... well, A it might prove an interconnection and B it would mean that this is something happening specifically on the ship and the captain would need to be informed of that." Asher wanted to think this was related, but he'd work with what he could get. For one thing other odd phenomena with just as unrelated symptoms might be just as likely to prove one source that everyone reacted do differently.

"So where do we start?" Asher asked. "I mean, I suppose talking to anyone would work really, but where do we want to go first? Also, do we want to split up and cover more ground or stay together if only to make it seem less like one of us is a rambling lunatic." He really hoped no one would think that, but it was always a possibility.

[Agari]

Agari could hardly fathom asking around by himself, let alone actually do it. Seriously, what was he supposed to say? Excuse me, but have you developed super sight or the impossible ability to make plants grow? He would feel like a fool. Not to mention he wasn't the most social person to begin with.

"Lets stick together," Agari said. "I think it would be a good idea for both of us to be there when we talk to people. Then we can vouch for each other. Since, you know, what we can do is kind of scientifically impossible."

Agari contemplated for a moment. "I'll have to study my newfound talents in the lab sometime. See if I can't figure them out." He doubted he would be able to, but it couldn't hurt to collect some data. "Shall we go ask around?"

[Asher Davis]

Asher nodded when Agari said to stick together. It made complete sense. One of them alone would look like they were going insane. Two people is a little bit weirder, especially when you consider the size of the ship. Also, whether or not Agari thought their weird experiences were related, Asher still thought they were and was going to watch for anything ordinary. More scientifically impossible phenomena on the ship would just prove Asher right, that something was going on aboard The Destiny and they were all just displaying different "symptoms" as that was the only word Asher could find to apply to it.

"We might want to study me too.... I me I have no clue how we'd do that since it's my eyes and I can't really control it verses you making plants ripen. But still, we might find something. What's happening to both of us certainly isn't easy to explain." But that aside, it was time to move on. "Yes, lets get going." As he started to leave Asher almost put his glasses back on. He paused for a moment before sticking them in the pocket on his shirt. This is going to take some getting use to.

[Agari]

"So it's settled then. We can meet up later to go ask people... stuff. Then I'll see if I can figure anything out in the lab. And don't be afraid to stop by sometime. I'm sure there are some tests we could do to measure your abilities or something too. At least preliminary stuff"

Agari made sure he had everything he brought with, then headed toward the door. He stopped to hold it open for Asher. Which was easy since he only had to keep one of the motion sensors covered in order to keep the sliding door from whooshing shut. "First just let me put all my stuff away. How about we meet in the mess hall in about, oh, half an hour?"