First Contact, page 12
He gasped as a sudden chilling wave of fear seized him, and he knew at once the answer. With great effort, he managed to subdue it, managed to keep his voice from trembling as he demanded, “You have reactivated my emotion chip. Why?”
“Don’t be frightened,” she said soothingly, smugly.
“I am not frightened,” Data countered. If she detected the lie, she gave no sign, for her attention was now focused intently on the cybernetic shell that encased the android’s right arm. With a faint whirr, it opened.
Within lay his arm, stripped of its synthetic skin to reveal the inner layer of circuitry and servos that draped his metal skeleton as muscle drapes bone.
And atop it, something new: a fragile, delicate patch of human flesh, nursed by slender tubes of blood and fastened to the hideous mechanical surface by metal hooks and clamps.
Data gazed down at it and felt fear combine with unpleasant anticipation to form the emotion called dread.
“Do you know what this is, Data?”
He swallowed, paying careful attention to the nuances of the feeling while at the same time yearning to be freed from its grasp. “It would appear you are attempting to graft organic skin onto my endoskeletal structure.”
“What a cold description for such a beautiful gift.” She leaned low, gazing reverently down at the attempted graft until her face almost touched the immobilized arm; her lips parted, and she exhaled a long breath onto the patch of flesh.
The hairs on the exposed skin stood bolt upright; at the base of each, a small bump formed. Goosebumps, he had once heard Commander Riker call them, though the commander had been at a loss to explain the term’s origin.
And the sensation… it was undeniably pleasurable, which confused and disturbed him.
He looked up to see her face next to his, smiling slyly. “Was that good for you?”
* * *
Lily drew a deep breath and leapt through the hatch to the next level down where Picard waited. She landed hard on the soles of her feet, knees deeply bent, and stumbled trying to keep her balance. Picard moved to put a steadying hand on her elbow, but she waved him away, then walked alongside as he moved cautiously down the hallway, raygun at the ready.
As anxious as she was about the immediate predicament with the Borg—Picard had explained, briefly and eloquently, that they were indeed as sinister as they appeared—she could not prevent her mind from rapidly working to piece together the precise turn of events that had led her to this moment.
It was true: she had been dying from severe radiation sickness when Picard and his android officer, Data, had found her. Never mind that she had tried to fill the two of them with bullets; the point was that had they not come, she would be dead now.
And because they had come, she was now stuck in this new, equally insane and dangerous scenario.
Despite the current danger it faced, the future Picard described was far, far more wonderful than Lily had ever dared dream. She had expected humanity to slowly die off from disease, or maybe go up in a huge fireball when someone got fed up and decided to detonate the last of the nukes.
But for something amazing and good to happen? Impossible…
Yet here Jean-Luc Picard was, an amazingly sane and compassionate man, and here was his amazing ship, with its rayguns, invisible force fields, and awe-inspiring observation decks. After Zef and his quirky moods, Jean-Luc seemed enormously easy to talk to; less than an hour before, they had been strangers—and she had contemplated killing him—but now she felt completely relaxed in his presence, and he in hers, as if they had always been friends. It was a delight to listen to him speak of his century, for his delight in it was infectious and embarrassingly (to a denizen of the twenty-first century, at least) inspiring.
He paused in their journey to consult a computerized panel on the… bulkhead, not wall, she corrected herself, remembering the nautical term he had used. As he did, Lily indulged her curiosity about an organization he had mentioned.
“How many planets are in this… ‘Federation’?”
“Over one hundred and fifty,” he said, his attention focused on the panel as he swiftly fingered a few controls. “Spread across eight thousand light-years.”
She considered this with a faint smile of amazement. “You must not get home much.”
He glanced over at her, and his expression warmed at once. “Actually, I tend to think of this ship as home. But if it’s Earth you’re talking about, I do try to get back when I can.”
On the recessed monitor screen on the wall, a message flashed in red: ACCESS DENIED. Picard was visibly relieved. “Good. They haven’t broken the encryption codes yet.”
“Who? Those bionic zombies you told me about? The…” She faltered, trying to remember.
“Borg.” He averted his gaze, his expression darkening faintly as he began to move again.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Lily answered, and in hopes of easing that darkness, added, “Sounds Swedish.”
He shot her a pained glance in acknowledgment, then at once returned to his thoughts, clearly trying to work out a strategy in his head. She should have let him do so in peace, Lily knew. But the sudden wild shift in reality had left her shaken, and the knowledge that at any moment, they might encounter a far deadlier enemy than the ECON had completely frazzled whatever nerves she had left. She had to do something to distract herself—and so she kept talking.
“How big is this ship?” she asked, gazing around her. It seemed they’d covered miles of empty corridors.
“Twenty-four decks. Almost seven hundred meters long,” Jean-Luc answered, with obvious pride despite his intense preoccupation.
She did an honest double-take, nerves forgotten for an instant; he was talking about a small town, not a ship. “It took me six months to scrounge up enough titanium to build a four-meter cockpit.” She paused. “How much did this thing cost?”
He smiled faintly. “The economics of the future are… somewhat different. Money doesn’t exist in the twenty-fourth century.”
She had been willing to accept that she had been dying of radiation poisoning and been cured, that she was orbiting Earth on a spaceship the size of Poughkeepsie, that she was in danger of having her brains sucked out by cyborg zombies. But this, she could not believe. “No money?” She whirled toward Jean-Luc, walking sideways to keep up with him, her face shoved toward his. “You don’t get paid?”
One corner of his lip quirked a bit higher. “The acquisition of wealth is no longer a driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. We’re actually quite like you… and Dr. Cochrane.”
At that, she let go a cascade of laughter—in part because it felt good to relieve the tension, but mostly because the notion of Zef Cochrane and Lily Sloane building the Phoenix without thought of recompense was simply riotous.
“What?” Picard demanded, half smiling at her hysterical mirth, half confused that she should find the statement so funny.
Your history books need a few corrections, she wanted to say, but when she tried to speak, laughter overwhelmed her again. As they rounded a corner, she thought she might have to stop and lean against the bulkhead for support…
… But her amusement ended abruptly with a horrified gasp. Directly ahead of them, the corridor was lined with a dozen hibernating Borg inside narrow alcoves; worse, several Borg were moving about, apparently working.
Lily turned to flee, but Jean-Luc caught her arm and said, in a calm, low voice, “It’s all right. They won’t attack us unless we threaten them. Come on.”
“Isn’t there another way around?” Lily whispered. It had been a bad day, a very bad day, and until that moment, she had believed things incapable of growing worse. She was not sure that she could pass by them without finally breaking down.
Picard pressed the weapon he called a “phaser” against his belt, then fastened on her his reassuring gaze. “I know what I’m doing,” he said, and she believed him.
But she was not so certain she trusted herself. He took her hand and gently led her into the enemy’s midst. Lily knew herself to be a strong person, capable of bearing more than she’d ever imagined, but the emotional and physical fatigue of all she’d endured over the past few hours left her trembling, struggling against rising panic as they entered the dark, ominous corridor.
Cyborgs moved past them, so close that she could feel the slight breeze stirred by their passing, could see them in terrifying detail: the utter bloodlessness of their flesh, the infinite blankness in the one exposed eye, the expressionlessness of each face. It was, Lily thought, very like walking through the grass, watching a family of poisonous serpents slither over her bare feet.
It was also the longest walk of her life. As she and Picard passed by one hibernating Borg, it suddenly bolted forward from its alcove—to attack, she feared, and recoiled instinctively… but the creature continued past her, silently summoned to some other task. Two steps later, she stifled a scream as another Borg brushed against her, its body surprisingly warm; perhaps the emptiness in their gazes had caused her to expect their touch to be icy.
Throughout it all, Picard’s expression remained cold, focused—but in his eyes, Lily saw smoldering hate. For an instant, she forgot her own terror and wondered what score Jean-Luc had to settle with these zombies—a split second before he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her out of the way of a Borg who would have walked blindly into them.
When they were moving again, an odd expression passed over his face—as if he heard a sound emanating from within his own head, a sound he wanted desperately not to hear. Lily watched as his raven brows rushed together and his eyes narrowed with the effort to concentrate; at last, he gave his head a slight shake, as if to rid himself of it.
Blessedly, they at last stepped from the Borg corridor into what Lily now recognized as Federation surroundings. She let go a low, shaky breath and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the mindless beings.
“Definitely not Swedish,” she said, meaning for it to come out light and airy—but instead, her voice wavered.
Picard did not reply. He was peering down an adjacent corridor, his mind clearly seized by a fresh idea. Before Lily could stop him, he raised the raygun and fired a blinding lightning bolt at a bit of Borg equipment at the corridor’s far end. The equipment exploded in a rain of sparks.
Behind them, two Borg simultaneously turned about and began to pursue them.
“What are you doing?” Lily shouted, aghast, enraged; in reply, he grabbed her hand and pulled her with him down the corridor.
She already knew the answer: the idiot had lured them, intentionally endangering her and himself. But why? In hopes of killing their two pursuers? When he paused at a set of double doors, hit a control, then motioned her inside, she went.
The doors slid shut with a sibilant whoosh. Lily came to an abrupt halt and stared around her in the dimness; the only light came from a small, glowing control panel. The air was blessedly cool and dry, but the physical relief did little to ease her growing panic. She could see well enough to distinguish four bare walls—and no exits.
She turned to Picard. “Is there another way out of here?”
Again he did not spare the time to reply but hurled himself at the glowing panel and began to tap it with his fingers.
From the other side of the door came a slithering scrape: the Borg.
With maddening calm, he fixed his gaze upon her and looked her frankly up and down, still fingering the panel. “Perhaps something in satin…”
She opened her mouth, on the verge of screaming, of leaning forward to snatch the gun from his grasp, of doing something. The door rumbled, then began to screech. Within seconds, they would be inside.…
In the snap of a finger, the world around her changed.
No more dark, empty room. Instead, she found herself immediately transported to another place, another time—a nightclub, if she wasn’t mistaken, in the early twentieth century, judging from the antiquated clothing. The room was impossibly larger and filled with a smoky haze—from cigarettes, she realized with a start, and coughed as the acrid air stung her eyes and throat. An old-fashioned band was packing up for the night, while busboys cleared tables to the tinkle of ice against glass. Most patrons had left, though a few serious drinkers still lingered.
Zef would love this place, she thought, though at the moment panic overrode any feelings she might have had about it. She looked anxiously over her shoulder as the door groaned again, then did a double take as something amazingly soft brushed against her skin.
White satin—she was dressed in a long, alluringly fitted white satin dress more than a century distant from her rugged, practical skirt and jacket. Lily glanced over in amazement at Picard, who wore a striped suit with a broad, old-fashioned necktie, and a banded fedora at a rakish angle.
Picard seized her arm and propelled her through the nearly empty, smoke-veiled room toward the main bar.
The bar was an ornate creation of gleaming mahogany and brass trim, adorned by Tiffany lamps, golden swans, and cherubs; behind it on the wall hung a large Maxfield Parrish print of a gossamer-clad woman on a swing.
“Eddie!” Picard called to the bartender, a middle-aged man in a white shirt with a small black bowtie at the collar.
The man glanced up from the glass he was drying and grinned. “Dixon!”
Before Lily could slip onto a stool, a gin-scented gentleman, his face contorted in what he apparently believed to be a seductive smile, gripped her arm.
A holograph, she reminded herself; he was only a holograph, but his grip felt unsettlingly real. His hands were moist and warm, his fingers digging into her flesh so hard they made an impression there.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said thickly, as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. “How ’bout a drink?” And before she could tell him to drop dead, he fastened his hand firmly to her right buttock.
Instinct took over: Lily whirled and struck him backhanded, full across the face.
And was amazed at the pain. He was a holograph, nothing but a damned play of light, but her hand sure as hell didn’t pass through him.
Borg or no, there were some things Lily wouldn’t tolerate, and if the damned drunk groped her again, she’d take him down. She tensed, ready for a fight, as a dangerous light flickered over the drunk’s face.
Picard stepped between them, expression taut, eyes and lips narrowed to slits. “She’s with me,” he growled, and the drunken man slid off his seat and staggered off, muttering under his breath.
Massaging her wounded hand, she turned to Picard. “I thought you said none of this was real.”
“It’s not. They’re all holograms.”
She flexed her fingers. “It sure felt real…”
Behind them, the holodeck doors gave a final terrifying shriek as the two Borg pushed them apart and stepped inside… then hesitated, perplexed by the unexpected scene.
A tuxedoed maître d’ with slicked-back hair and a comically officious manner at once approached the drones and said—as if it were the most natural thing in the world for half-metal, half-flesh men to walk into the bar: “I’m sorry, gentlemen. But we’re closing.”
The Borg made no move to leave. Annoyed, the maître d’ continued firmly. “And you do understand we have a strict dress code. So if you boys don’t leave right now, I’ll—”
One Borg seized the unfortunate host’s collar and dragged him close; a small black scope covering one of the drone’s eyes began to flash, then extended outward and focused a thin laser beam on the face of the maître d’.
Still moving with Picard toward the bartender, Lily glanced back, wondering if these holographs could suffer. Instead, his image flickered slightly, like a television on the fritz. Yet when the drone threw the maître d’ aside, she could hear the loud thump as his body struck the ground.
At long last, Picard and Lily made it down the length of the bar to where the bartender stood, still busily drying glasses with a white linen towel. “Long time no see, Dix! What’ll it be—the usual?”
Picard glanced surreptitiously up and down the bar, clearly possessed of a strategy (or so Lily hoped). “I’m looking for Nicky the Nose.”
“The Nose?” The bartender frowned and ceased his relentless polishing. “He ain’t been in here for months.”
Picard briefly closed his eyes and let go a breath in a moment of disgusted revelation. “This is the wrong chapter,” he said—to himself rather than Lily or the thoroughly puzzled barkeep. He lifted his face slightly, as if speaking to someone hovering overhead. “Computer: begin chapter thirteen.”
Lily blinked, a single, swift fluttering of the lashes, and after that briefest of instants, saw that the bar was still the same, but the dance floor was filled with people swaying to the band’s music. Waiters sailed through the room with trays of food and drink, and all the empty space surrounding Lily and Picard was now crammed with warm bodies.
And the Borg had just entered the ballroom.
Picard took her hand and drew her into the middle of the packed ballroom, then began to dance. “Try to look like you’re having a good time,” he admonished her, but she could not help glancing back at the entryway—and the Borg, who were starting to make their way through the crowd. “No, no,” he repeated. “Look at me. Try to act naturally.”
And when she did finally look at him, he graced her with a charming smile, as if they had come here simply to dance and enjoy themselves on a Saturday night.
It was all so absurd that she smiled back at him—a forced, strained grimace. “Come here often?” It made as much sense as anything else she might say. Twelve hours ago, Lily—just twelve little hours ago—could you ever have imagined that you would be here now, on a Poughkeepsie-sized spaceship from the future, prancing around a computer-generated ballroom in a slinky white satin number that may or may not actually exist, with a strange but charming man as the two of you are being hunted down by bionic brain-suckers?
Nope.
Check, please.
As the Borg moved somewhat nearer, Picard steered her through the crowd toward the far side of the room—so graceful and sure-footed despite her awkwardness that it was easy to dance with him. “You’re not bad,” she told him; he smiled at the compliment, but the smile faded quickly as he spotted someone in one of the dining booths beyond the crowd.
