Quota

Fictober22

Doctor McCoy has an experimental treatment to test. He chooses Chekov as his guinea pig.

Fandom(s): Star Trek TOS
Character(s): Pavel Chekov, Bones
Tags: Genfic, Experiments Gone Wrong

Rating: Teen+
Content Warnings: N/A
Word Count: 1009
Type: Oneshot, Standalone

Collection: Fictober22, or, Pavel Chekov's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

Written for Fictober 2022
Day 27: "That's not why we're doing this."

“Ah, Chekov, there you are,” said Doctor McCoy when Chekov walked into sickbay. He beckoned to a nearby bio-bed. “Come here, grab a seat.”

Chekov did as instructed, sitting down on the bio-bed, hands clasped in front of him, looking a little confused. “Sorry, sir,” he said awkwardly, “but why am I here? I’m not due for another routine physical for another month.”

Doctor McCoy shook his head. His back was turned to Chekov, and he seemed to be preparing a set of hypo-sprays at the counter. “No, you’re not here for a physical.”

“Oh,” Chekov said. “But… I feel fine?”

“Exactly,” Doctor McCoy said, picking up a tray of instruments and turning back to Chekov. “You’re in perfect health, which makes you the ideal candidate for this experimental treatment I’ve been developing. In theory, it should toughen up human skin enough to eliminate superficial cuts and bruises, and resist serious injury,” he explained, then added, “Should make my job a heck of a lot easier whenever landing parties come back. I swear they go out of their way to get mauled on those missions.”

Chekov had been nodding along absently. He waited for a moment after the Doctor finished speaking, then recalled something from the beginning that seemed quite important. “Experimental? How many times has this been tested?”

“This will be the first test,” Doctor McCoy answered, nonchalant.

Chekov squinted at him. “You’re going to test this thing on a human being with no idea if it’s going to work or not?”

“Well, someone’s gotta be the first test subject,” McCoy shrugged.

Chekov blinked for a moment. “Oh!” He exclaimed as if having an epiphany. “You can’t use animals for testing because that would be cruel, I see.”

Doctor McCoy picked up a hypo-spray, tapping it a couple times. “Well, you have a point there, Chekov,” he said, double-checking the dosage. “But that’s not why we’re doing this.”

“Oh,” Chekov said. “Wait, then why are we doing this?”

Doctor McCoy paused, thinking. He waved a hand nebulously, searching for the right word. “Quota?” He decided.

“Quota?” Chekov repeated, then flinched as Doctor McCoy discharged the hypo-spray into his neck.

“Yeah, quota,” Doctor McCoy muttered. “Because this is bound to go wrong.”

“What?” Chekov asked in a raised voice. “What do you mean it’s going to go wrong? What quota are you talking about?” He asked, rising to his feet in a panic.

“Easy, Chekov,” Doctor McCoy said, gently nudging Chekov back onto the bio-bed. “I’m just saying that there will probably be some side effects. Maybe uncomfortable ones.” He took Chekov’s arm and turned it so it was facing palm up, and pushed up Chekov’s sleeve. Chekov didn’t question this, being too distracted by the Doctor’s cryptic answers.

“What about-” Chekov suddenly shrieked as Doctor McCoy suddenly raised a scalpel and ran it across Chekov’s palm. He jerked his arm back, clutching the scalpel-ed hand with his other.

“Calm down, Chekov,” Doctor McCoy said. “Look, it’s not even bleeding.” Chekov peered suspiciously at Doctor McCoy, then cautiously looked at where his wound should be. He was surprised to see that not only was there no bleeding, but there wasn’t even a scratch. Even Doctor McCoy seemed surprised. “Well look at that, it actually worked. Here, let’s try this,” he said, and used the scalpel to press slowly into Chekov’s arm. The skin around the scalpel's point didn’t break, nor did the skin so much as flex around it.

Chekov had forgotten about his other concerns, completely amazed. “This is incredible,” he said with excitement. “It’s like I’m invincible.” He jumped up and found a cleaver on the tray of instruments. He held out one arm, and raised the cleaver high above his head.

“Chekov, wait,” Doctor McCoy said hurriedly as he saw Chekov do this. “It’s not entirely foolproof, with enough force you can still be-”

Chekov sliced down onto his own forearm with the cleaver, which bounced off his arm harmlessly.

“-Injured.” Doctor McCoy stared at Chekov incredulously. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath. “This works way better than I thought it would.”

Chekov was now running amok in sickbay, intentionally stubbing his toes, banging his shins on things, cracking his head on the edge of a counter, completely unhurt by any of it. Doctor McCoy would have put a stop to it, but he was too much in shock at how well the treatment had worked.

“Uh… Doctor McCoy?” Chekov asked uneasily after a few minutes. “My arms are starting to feel heavy. And it’s hard to move my fingers.”

Doctor McCoy sprang up and checked over his test subject with a tricorder. He frowned. “Good god, no wonder it was working so well.”

“What is it?” Chekov asked nervously.

“Well, the way the treatment is supposed to work is that it gradually thickens your skin cells to a certain extent over only a few seconds,” Doctor McCoy explained. “However, your cells did not stop thickening. And now they are getting so thick that you are essentially turning to stone as we speak.”

“What?”

Doctor McCoy sighed. “See, I knew something would go wrong.”

Chekov, visibly panicked, tried to run. Where he intended to go didn’t matter, because he couldn’t move his legs. It was only a matter of seconds before he could no longer move anything, including his mouth and eyelids. His eyes rolled around in their frozen sockets, silently screaming for help.

“Well, the good news is that it's supposed to wear off in a few hours,” Doctor McCoy said. “So it should eventually reverse itself. My prognosis is that you’re going to be just fine. You just have to stay like that for… I don’t know, eight hours? If all goes well?”

Chekov stood there in calm silence, because he had no other choice.

Doctor McCoy looked at him for a few moments. “You should have shut your eyes before your eyelids froze,” he said. “Now I’m going to have to find an intern to mist your eyes every minute or two.”

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