vacuous woman. Then, from the same slightly
stooped position, she turned to Geordi and said,
"You're kidding, right?"
"I'm afraid not."
She took the Borg's face,
squeezed it in one hand, turned it to the left and
right and studied it. "I know I'm not much of a
morning person," s he said at last, "but this is
ridiculous."
"This," said Geordi, "is what happened to her
at the hands of the Borg. I wanted her to see you.
To see what she had been like, so that she could be that
way again."
"Well," and Reannon stepped back and
spread her arms wide, the gesture encompassing
all within their view. "This is it. This is what there
is to me. They've got this whole legend built
up around me. "The Brass Lass."
'Course, the problem with brass is that it
tarnishes." She stared once more at her future.
"Tarnished something bad, didn't it."
"Could you say something to her?" said Geordi.
"Something that will--"
"That will what?" Reannon's voice was
suddenly sharp and angry. She was stalking the
bridge like a caged animal. "I mean, what the
hell did you do this for? What're you, the ghost of
Christmas yet to come? I mean, look at this!
You show me this ... this pasty-faced thing that's going
to be me, and you ask me what I have to say to it?
Here. Here's what I say to it," and she leaned
into the face of the real Reannon and shouted,
"You're an idiot! Okay? You're a
freaking moron! I mean, look at you!
Look at you," and her voice was shaking with
fury. "After everything I've been through, after
everything I've dodged and the life I've led,
I'm going to wind up like that? That stinks! How could
you have let yourself get into this!" she shouted at herself.
"You're a zombie! You're a walking space
case! I mean, I figured if I die,
okay, so I die, and that's all. But this? This
isn't dead! This isn't anything! This is just a
... a waste!"
Geordi was astounded. He hadn't been sure
of what he was going to get by programming the
holodeck for such fidelity to the original
persona of Reannon Bonaventure, but he
certainly hadn't expected this. "Reannon--"
and he wasn't even sure whom he was addressing.
The holodeck Reannon had hurled herself
into a chair that was in front of her sensor
apparatus. "Just go away, would you, please?"
"Reannon, only you can help yourself," said
Geordi.
She spun around in the chair as if it had been
hurled by a slingshot and said, "Are you saying I can
avoid this? That there's something I can do to prevent this
from happening?"
"No," said Geordi. "No, there's not. Not
a thing. But you can help restore yourself to reality."
"Yeah?"
"I think so," said Geordi with a confidence he
didn't feel.
Reannon slowly rose from the chair and walked
across the bridge to face herself. She took the
Borg woman by the shoulders and said softly,
"Oh, baby ... what have you done to yourself?"
She did not reply to herself.
"Remember?" Reannon said. "Come on.
Remember the good times, huh? Huh? Like that time
the Ferengi tried to cheat you, and you left them
holding the bag? Or the time that those people on
Savannah One wanted to make you into a
goddess, because they'd never seen a woman with pale
skin before? Or how about," and she smiled, "how about
the feeling you got when you were being pursued. The way
the adrenaline would pump and your mind would be racing,
trying to come up with a new angle. And how about
sex, huh? A guy in every port. They all
wanted a piece of me, just so they could say they
had. I had men in two different sectors
claiming they'd been with me at the exact same
time. Gods, the sex was great. Come on. Come
on, you can't say you don't remember that."
And there was no response from the Borg woman.
She continued to stare straight ahead, impassive,
unknowable.
Reannon shook her now, sounding a little
desperate. "Come on," she said urgently.
"You've got to remember. You've got to say
something. Come on. Say something. Speak to me,
dammit," and her voice rose in confusion and
fury. "They couldn't have gotten to me this much. Not
me! I'm tougher than that. I'm better than that.
Come on!" and she shook her violently.
Geordi started toward them. "Hold it. That's
en--"
"Come on!" bellowed Reannon, and she
drew back a hand and slapped the Borg woman
as hard as she could across the face. Her head
snapped around and she staggered back.
"Get away from her!" shouted Geordi, and he
grabbed Reannon from behind, pinning her arms back.
Reannon struggled furiously in his
grip as the Borg woman slumped backwards and
fell to the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
"Say something!" Reannon shouted. "Say
something, you useless slab of meat! I'm trapped
in you! Let me out! Let me out!"
"Computer," Geordi began, about to issue the
order that would terminate the scenario.
"No!" shrieked Reannon. "No computer!
Not yet! Not yet! Please! Wait a
moment!"
"What is it?"
In a low, barely controlled voice, she said,
"Please. Please promise me you'll do
something. Don't leave me like this. Please.
Please promise."
"I'll do everything I can," Geordi assured
her, finding it hard to believe that he was trying to still
the concerns of a holodeck recreation.
"Don't do everything," Reannon told him.
"Do anything. Do whatever it takes, but save
me. Please."
"All right," said Geordi. "All right."
"Promise."
"I promise."
Her struggles subsided and Geordi released
her. She stood there a long moment, staring at
herself. Then she turned towards Geordi and
regarded him.
"I'll do whatever it takes," said Geordi.
"Thank you," she said, and to his surprise she
took him firmly by the face and kissed him
passionately. And when she released him, he most
definitely did not want to be released.
She stepped away from him and coughed slightly,
then turned and went to the Jeffries tube.
"Whatever it takes," she said one last time.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I got work to do."
But her bravado barely covered the unmistakable
sound of fear that filled her voice, and she jumped
back up the Jeffries tube before she'd have to deal
with it any further.
"Computer," said Geordi, "end simulation."
The ship surroundings promptly vanished, to be
replaced by the steady glow of the holodeck grids
once more. Geordi went to the unm
oving,
de-Borged form of Reannon and said, "How about
we go to the Ten-Forward lounge and get a drink.
What do you say, huh?" He spoke in a
convivial, offhand way, as if in this casual
manner he could somehow trick Reannon
into speaking. As if the entire thing were some sort of
elaborate hoax on her part, and if he caught
her off guard and got her to say something, she would be
all right once more.
But there was nothing from her, and Geordi sighed
inwardly. Well, no one could say he had no
idea what he was letting himself in for. He also
knew, though, that he would not be able to get the image
of Reannon out of his mind, and that he had to get in
to help her.
He took her by the arm and she obediently went
out with him.
Beverly Crusher entered sickbay and gave a
cursory glance around before starting to head for her
office to catch up on her paperwork. Then she
stopped in her tracks.
One of the beds was empty, and she knew immediately
which one it was. She immediately turned towards the
other Penzatti and said, "Where did Dantar go?"
They stared at her blandly and shrugged. They put
on a splendid show of not knowing, and perhaps they
didn't. More likely, they simply didn't
want to know.
This got even less response. She tapped her
communicator and said, "Crusher to security. We
may have a problem ..."
There was an uneasy air hanging in the
Ten-Forward lounge, as there always was when the crew
knew that the Enterprise was en route to a
particularly dangerous situation. Word had seeped
through the normal grapevines that made keeping a
secret on a starship so damned difficult. The
general talk was that they were going to be encountering either
something that was the Borg, or just like the Borg, only
more powerful.
Guinan moved among the customers, making
small talk and generally letting them know, in her
subtle way, that she was there if they had anything
they wished to discuss. She moved to a table at which
Data was seated, andwitha slight inclination of her
head that served as a greeting, she sat opposite
him.
"Unusual to see you here by yourself, Data," she
observed. "Usually you're only here in the company
of the others, unless there's something very specific on
your mind."
Data pondered that a moment. "I do
not believe that is the case in this instance," he said.
"I merely wished to be with my fellow crew
members in an informal setting, and so I came
down here."
"Any idea why that might be?" asked
Guinan.
He shrugged, a gesture he'd picked up from
Riker. It had taken him a while to get the
hang of when to use it. At first he'd started
shrugging in the middle of conversations, totally
unrelated to whatever was being discussed. This started
concern that Data was developing some sort of
twitch in his positronic brain. "I have no
idea," said Data.
"Perhaps you enjoy it, Data."
He gave it some thought. "I do not think that
likely. I cannot enjoy an event. At most,
I can appreciate the variation in stimuli that are
presented when--"
She put up a hand and said, "Data, let's
just say that you enjoy it and don't know it, okay?"
He stared at her and was about to reply, when La
Forge entered with Reannon in tow. Heads turned
all over the Ten-Forward lounge, and the relative
silence that had been present before was now replaced
by a low, curious buzz. Clearly Geordi and
his new companion were becoming the center of conversation
wherever they went.
Geordi's gaze scanned the room, and he
saw that people were drawing slightly closer together, as
if to put whatever distance they could between themselves and the
female with him. And the chief engineer, slow
to anger, felt his annoyance boiling over.
"What do you think's going to happen?" he
demanded of the general room. "That i f you look at
her too long, or accidentally touch her somehow, you
might wind up catching it?"
Guinan was at his side now, a hand on his
shoulder, but it didn't calm him. "She was
assaulted! Don't any of you understand that? Her
mind and body were violated, and you're all acting
as if it's her fault! So, before you start looking
at her and shying away, maybe you'd better look
at yourselves first!"
He pulled her along with him to the table where he
noticed that Data was seated. He was extremely
grateful that the android officer was there. Data
may have been incapable of feeling the best of human
emotions, but he also couldn't display the worst, such
as fear or suspicion. He sat down
opposite Data and Guinan, but before he could
say anything, Guinan cleared her throat
slightly and pointed. He turned and saw that
Reannon was still standing, andwitha sigh he pulled her
down into the chair next to him. "She's kind of
bad on picking up non-verbal cues," he
said.
"So I gathered," said Guinan.
Data was studying her as if she were under a
microscope. "Her motor functions are
performing admirably," he said.
"Yeah, but there's nothing beyond that," said
Geordi. He rested his head on one hand and
sighed. "I feel like I should be doing more, but I
to acquaint her with herself the way she used to be."
"Did she respond at all?"
"Not a lick." He leaned forward, his
VISOR inches away from Reannon's eyes.
"Maybe it's true. Maybe I am just wasting
my time."
And Reannon looked at him.
Looked at him.
It was a subtle change in her face that, of
course, Geordi could not discern, but he thought he
detected a slight, flickering alteration in her
aura, which immediately alerted him. "Data, Guinan
... did she ... is she curious about my
VISOR?" He had not moved a millimeter from
where he was.
"I think curious may be too strong a
word," said Data. "She has, however, noticed
its existence. Since she has not apparently
noticed anything else, this could be considered a
positive step."
She was angling her head slightly, studying the
VISOR from every direction.
Then she reached up, her hand slow and
hesitant, until her fingers came to rest on the
VISOR. They traced the curve of it, lingered
over the circuitry that was at either end in the
earpiece.
"I'll be damned," whispered Geordi,
afraid to talk above a hush, lest it ruin the
mood.
"Undoubte
dly, it is the mechanical aspect
of your visual prosthetic that has caught her
attention," said Data, watching with fascination.
"It is the closest analog to her own recent
experience."
"What ... what do you think I should do next?"
"Let nature take its course," said
Guinan. "Not exactly an original piece of
advice, but one that bears repeating."
Then Guinan looked up, aware that something had
changed.
Guinan was as attuned to the mood of
Ten-Forward as the average person was to the beating of
their heart. So when Dantar entered, she sensed
immediately that something was wrong.
The Penzatti was coming slowly towards the table,
a fixed and determined expression on his face.
His antennae were quivering slightly, as if from
anticipation of something. His gaze was fixed on
Reannon.
"Geordi," said Guinan softly, but with enough
firmness that it immediately alerted Geordi that something
was wrong. She didn't need to add to it, but instead
rose and said pointedly to Dantar, who was still some
feet away, "Welcome to Ten-Forward. How can
I help you?"
The next moments seemed to telescope
outward, as if taking an eternity, although actually
they only occupied a few fleeting seconds.
Dantar's hands had been behind his back, and
suddenly one of the crewmen at a table noticed
something and shouted a warning, starting to rise from his
seat. Dantar's hands now swung into view, and in
either hand he was holding a Keldin blaster, the hand
weapon of choice of the Penzatti. It was deadly,
powerful, and accurate. He took aim at
Reannon, shouted, "Murderer of my family!"
and fired.
Geordi lunged toward Reannon, crying out
a warning. She didn't respond to it, still
mesmerized by Geordi's VISOR. He
slammed into her, knocking her back and sending her
tumbling to the floor, away from his grasping arms.
At that moment the crewman who had called out the
alarm got to Dantar just as the Penzatti fired
at where Reannon had been. The blasters discharged
their powerful bolts and blew out the nearest window
of the Ten-Forward lounge, creating a hole that was more
than a foot wide. The results were
predictable and instantaneous.
With the roar of a hurricane, air was immediately
sucked out of the room.
People screamed and cried out, grabbing at each other
and at the furniture which was affixed to the floor.
The vacuum of space pulled at them with