Lt. Commander Worf sat at a table at Quark's and took a sip of his prune juice. He glared at the holosuite program rod sitting on the table and tried to ignore Jadzia Dax.

"Worf, they're just trying to express their gratitude," Jadzia commented.

Worf grunted. "I have no need for their gratitude."

Julian Bashir walked up to the table and picked up the rod. Worf snatched it out of his hands.

"What program is that, Worf?" Julian asked. "Quark trying to set you up with one of his more risquИ entertainment programs?"

"It is not your concern."

Worf was hoping that this would be enough to discourage the enthusiastic doctor.

Instead of leaving, Julian looked at Jadzia and asked, "Is this seat taken?"

"Yes," Worf grunted.

"It is not, Worf," Jadzia interceded. Julian sat down.

"So, what's this program about?" Julian persisted.

When Worf didn't answer, Jadzia said, "It's a western." She looked at Worf with a bemused grin on her face. "Worf isn't interested in trying it because he has no sense of fun."

"A western? That sounds wonderful. Worf, you've got to at least open it up and look at it."

"I have no need for holosuite adventures. Especially in the west." Worf shuddered, remembering the last time he had activated a western program.

"Worf?"

Worf turned and glared at the Trill. "Yes."

"General Martaugh gave you a dagger for your role in his being assigned to this station as advisor, didn't he?"

"Yes. What has that to do with anything?"

"I know for a fact," Jadzia continued, "that you carry that dagger on occasion, and when you aren't carrying it, it is displayed on your wall."

He fixed her an irritated glare. "That has no bearing in this matter."

"I think it does. Martaugh is a warrior. And he gave you a gift of his trade. The Binars are programmers. They designed a program for you. To refuse their gift would be dishonoring them." Jadzia grinned at him.

"Very well. I will utilize this program. But only once," Worf conceded ungracefully.

"Mind if I tag along?" Julian asked.

Worf gave him a withering look, but decided that it could not be any worse with Julian there than without him. He nodded once, and Julian smiled.

"Anyone else want to join in?" Worf asked the room. His voice was a growl as he openly dared others to take him up on it. Worf saw that Chief O'Brien nodded.

"Sure, Commander. Sounds great!" O'Brien said enthusiastically.

No one else had the temerity to take him up on it. "Tomorrow at 1800 hours," Worf growled, then he downed the remnants of his prune juice, picked up the rod, and left Quark's.

Julian looked at Dax. "So, what was that all about?" he asked with a smile as he waved Quark over to their table.

"You know Worf," she replied.

O'Brien sat down at the recently vacated seat and took a sip from his mug of synthale.

Quark made his way to their table. "What'll it be?"

"I'd like a Black Hole," Julian responded.

"Feeling adventurous today, Julian?" Jadzia asked.

"Must be; I just invited myself to join Worf in a holosuite outing," Julian said with a laugh.

O'Brien raised his mug with a laugh.

Jadzia just shook her head. "Well, I've got a project in the science lab that I need to check. I'll see you two tomorrow."

Worf decided he looked ridiculous with a cowboy hat perched on top of his head. He briefly considered abandoning it, but decided against it. When he saw Jadzia standing in the dress next to the holosuite, her figure barely contained by the decorative corsetted dress and highlighted by a bustle, Worf decided that perhaps his hat wasn't so bad. Jadzia looked a bit miffed that she was attired as befitted a saloon girl.

Julian was attempting to mollify her. "I've been reading up on the period, and there really wasn't much in the line of respectable work for an unmarried woman to do. Could have been worse, you realize."

She squinted her eyes at him, glaring slightly. "How is that?"

Julian brightened considerably and winked at her. "You could have been a washerwoman. I imagine you'd have a grand time up to your elbows in laundry water."

"I'm sure that there were women doctors and lawyers and┘"

"A few doctors and nurses, to be sure. But those were pretty rare, actually," Julian started.

O'Brien interrupted him. "She's just upset cause she wants a gun."

Jadzia protested, a bit quickly, "I do not!" Then she raised her skirts and showed them her gun, neatly holstered in a garter. "I already have one."

Julian was wearing a three-piece suit, and looking very much like an Easterner visiting the west. O'Brien was attired in an outfit so dusty that its shape was almost indeterminate.

"I take it these costumes were the design of the program," Worf stated.

The three other members nodded. "I assure you, Worf, I'd have chosen something a bit more debonair if it had been up to me," Julian put forth.

"And I'd have certainly not been a saloon wench," Jadzia added.

"But it certainly shows off your spots to great effect," Julian commented, earning him a swat from the Trill.

"Let's just get this over with," Worf said. He punched the panel and the doors opened. The quartet entered the dusty streets of the holosuite and the door slammed shut behind them.

"This is most realistic, Worf!" Julian exclaimed almost immediately. "I've run several holosuite programs before, including a few set in the West. But it feels different. The smells┘the leather and the dirt and the┘" he paused a moment and took a deep breath, "the rotting wood and the manure! And the heat! Why, it's positively unbearable!" The doctor oozed with enthusiasm.

"I'm glad you're enjoying your discomfort," Worf put in.

"Oh, I am, Mr. Worf, I am! Usually the environmental controls keep it comfortable, but this is just splendid. I'm parched. Who's up for a visit to the saloon?"

"That is not why we are here," Worf stated.

"Lighten up, Worf," Jadzia said as she batted him on the shoulder. "We're here to experience the atmosphere┘and the best place for that would be the saloon."

Worf led the group into the saloon. Almost immediately, a tall man with a thick mustache approached Jadzia. Jadzia smiled at him.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure, ma'am," the man said with a lascivious grin.

"My name is Jadzia Dax."

"Buck Wilmington, at your service. And might I say that Jadzia is a most unusual name┘." Buck started when he was interrupted by a man clad in a crimson jacket of finest wool.

"An unusual name for an unusual woman," he said as he extended his hand. "Ezra Standish."

Jadzia suppressed a laugh as she saw Buck give Ezra a withering glare. The other man merely smiled guilefully back at him. Buck quickly offered her his arm

Worf glared at the two men, and she was surprised that neither one seemed the slightest bit intimidated or impressed by his baleful glare. Either they were incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.

"We do not require your assistance," Worf stated.

"Let's just let the lady decide if she'd like assistance," Buck replied.

Jadzia stated, "I think I can find my way to the bar unassisted ┘.and unescorted." She looked pointedly at Worf when she said the last phrase. Upon uttering the words, she marched straight to the bar, leaving a stunned Worf, bemused Ezra, and crushed Buck in her wake.

Just then, a tall man garbed in black entered the saloon. Jadzia noted that he glanced first at Ezra, Buck, and a young man with a mug of milk, then turned and looked at her group a moment. His gaze returned to the two men she'd just met, and he nodded. The three men got up and left the saloon quickly, without saying another word.

Julian immediately followed them out. O'Brien wasn't too far behind them. Jadzia agreed. She didn't know who the man in black was, but he obviously thought something was up and she didn't want to miss it.

Jadzia watched as the four men crossed quickly to what appeared to be the jail. Two men were waiting for them outside the building. Curious as she was, she didn't want to intrude on the plot just yet. It was obvious that this program was different; usually, when she'd participated in holosuite programs, her characters were central in the plot of the program. Here, she was on the sidelines. It was an odd feeling.

She started to walk towards the men, as several people were doing. Their activity had caused some curiosity in the locals. Julian and O'Brien were already on their way; Worf stayed on the stoop of the saloon.

Jadzia felt someone wrap a large hand around her face and an arm about her waist. She started to struggle a bit, but he drew her into the street with him.

"Larabee!" the man holding her shouted.

The man in black turned his attention to them. His eyes betrayed nothing but disgust when he looked at them. He sneered. Ezra and Buck both put their hands on their guns.

"Larabee! You're gonna send out my nephew, or I'm gonna kill this wench."

Jadzia elbowed the man hard in the kidneys. She grabbed his wrist and then flung him over her shoulder onto the street. By the time the man landed, Larabee was standing over him, gun pointed.

"You were saying, Mr. Thompson?" he drawled.

"What I believe Mr. Thompson was saying was that he would appreciate a cell adjacent to that of his nephew," Ezra observed.

Buck offered Jadzia a smile. "That was a pretty maneuver there. Wouldn't mind learnin' how to do that."

"Wow! That was great! How'd you do that?" a young man enthused. Jadzia was reminded of Julian's exuberance. The youngster suddenly looked abashed. "I'm JD Dunne, by the way."

"Jadzia Dax," she muttered. By this time, Julian, O'Brien, and Worf had joined them.

"Do you customarily allow citizens to be assaulted on the streets?" Worf accused.

Larabee's eyes narrowed. "Do you customarily greet people by growling at them?"

Jadzia, Julian, and O'Brien simultaneously stated, "Yes." Worf growled.

Chris Larabee looked at the quartet. He could feel the others of his group coming up to flank him. Seven stared down four. "You got business in town?"

Worf glared right back at him. "I do not see how our business is your concern."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "I've just made it my concern."

A shot sounded near the livery, causing both men to break the gaze. Chris drew his weapon and turned towards the others. Buck was already on his way, followed by JD. Vin disappeared into the hotel to gain access to the roof. Nathan and Josiah herded the local citizenry off of the street, and Ezra was looking at the newest arrivals. Chris nodded to him and broke for the livery, trusting that the con man would keep an eye on them until the situation was resolved. As he moved off, he could hear the excited tones of the man dressed like JD say, "This is so exciting! Come on, Worf, let's go check it out!"

Chris ignored him, trusting Ezra to keep them out from underfoot.

"Gentlemen, and lady, might I interest you in a libation?" Ezra asked. Then his whole world seemed to collapse upon itself and then expand beyond its original capacity only to come crashing down to reality. When he recovered his wits, he could see that everyone was reeling from whatever had struck them.

A soft shrill chirp sounded and Worf answered it. Ezra looked at him again and blinked. He could swear he saw ridges on that man's forehead.

"Lieutenant Commander Worf."

"Report to the bridge at once."

"Acknowledged, sir."

Ezra was sure he'd just heard a voice come out of thin air. "There are no bridges around for miles, Mr. ┘ Lieutenant Commander Worf," Ezra stated. "On what ship did you sail?"

Worf glared at him. Jadzia looked at Ezra curiously. "He shouldn't have heard that. The holosuite is programmed to ignore all external communication." As she was speaking, Ezra stared at her. She had spots. Spots? Where had those come from?

"We must go. Now," Worf insisted. "Computer, Exit," he added in a no-nonsense tone just as a tumbleweed blew past them. It blew out the door, into the corridor, and kept going.

"Worf! Wait," Jadzia shouted.

Ezra watched, fascinated, as suddenly devices of a type he had never seen seemed to materialize out of no where. Frowns appeared on four faces. One of the other men removed his hat and walked to the strange door to another world that had appeared in the middle of the street. He tossed the hat out, and it vanished into thin air.

"Now that should not have happened," he said.

"Still excited about being here, Julian?"

"Miles, while the-"

"Enough!" Worf bellowed.

Ezra merely watched in shock. He needed a drink. Badly.

Worf brought out a small metal object and taped it. "Captain, there is a problem."

Ezra listened for several minutes as the four strangers spoke in what was clearly a scientific, but completely foreign, language. He grew bored and approached the door┘and stepped through it.

Ezra looked down the hallway of metal, then onto the dusty street where the quartet was openly gaping at him.

Almost reluctantly, he returned to the dusty street.

"Computer. Close exit," Jadzia stated and the doorway disappeared.

"Ezra Standish, from Charleston, South Carolina," he said by way of introduction. "And just who, or rather what, might you be?"

Chris walked up to Ezra, noticing the stance his associate was taking with the new comers. They looked different. Ezra actually looked shaken.

"Ezra?"

"These individuals were just about to tell me who they are," Ezra said. "Did you clear up that other situation?"

"Just Tommy shooting at a rat," Chris said with a chuckle. He looked to the foursome. He wondered about the deformities on the tallest of the quartet.

"Commander, I believe that the holosuite safeties are probably not functioning. I recommend that we exercise caution, I understand that projectile weapons can cause a great deal of damage," the man in the suit said.

"Julian, we are holomatter. I don't think a bullet is our biggest concern," Jadzia said.

Chris glared at them. Holomatter? Holosuite?

"I want to know where that doorway went," Ezra said.

"What doorway?" Chris asked as the rest of the seven came and joined them.

Ezra pointed towards the street. "There was a door. A metal door in the middle of the street."

Chris wanted to question Ezra's sanity, but the spots on the woman and the bumps on the tall dark man made him rethink it. Those spots and bumps had not been there before.

Ezra pointed to Worf. "He said 'Computer, exit' and-" Ezra broke off as the door appeared.

"Now that definitely shouldn't have happened," the dirty one said.

The foursome looked very uncomfortable. Chris moved until he was standing almost toe to toe with Worf. "Who are you, and where the hell are you from?"

Worf stiffened. "Worf." He pointed in turn to each of the others. "Jadzia Dax, Julian Bashir, and Miles O'Brien. We're from," Worf paused, "out of town."

"Reckon I could have figured that."

"This is all very well and good, of course," Ezra said. "But I want to know what is down that hallway."

JD was walking around the door.

"This is incredible. You can walk around it. There is nothing on the other side!" He stepped through it.

"JD, get back here!" Buck called out.

JD came back over to them. "That place is incredible! The air is even cool."

Seven faced four, and this time the conflict between them was much more severe. Strangers were on the streets of Four Corners. Strangers not just from another city, but from a land they could not comprehend, a land of which even HG Wells could not dream.