TITLE: A Trance's Tail
AUTHOR: MikeJaffa
SUBJECT: Rommie learns why Gold Trances don't have tails.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own ANDROEMDA and are having fun.
WARNING: Silly Muse Alert; put down the food and drink.
SETTING: Post-series finale (so Trance is still gold, but bear with me…)
"Everything is going well," Dylan said in the recording playing on the central screen of *Andromeda's* command deck. Beka, Harper, Rev, and Rhade were around him in the room in a Wayist mission.
Reb Bem smiled into the camera. "I am looking forward to my visit," he said, "and especially looking forward to meeting you, Doyle. I have heard a great many good things about you."
"Another week, and we'll be back. Enjoy your down time in dry dock, and you should be ready to come online so maybe Rev can join us for a little shakedown cruise. Hunt out." The screen blanked.
"Rommie?" Trance said from the command podium. "Anything hidden in that message?"
"Nothing," Rommie said. "Dylan has not sent any signs that he is in distress."
"In that case, send an acknowledgement back with the courier."
"Aye. And Trance, the courier also brought updates to some bulletin boards you've been following."
"Thank you, Rommie. Transfer to my console."
"Aye."
At the next console over from Rommie, Doyle glanced at her sister android, then looked away, but opened the private channel she and Rommie shared. =Rommie?= she silently transmitted. =Are you all right?=
=Yes,= Rommie answered. =Why?=
=It's just that something is eating at you. I can feel it through the IS network. What's wrong?=
=Oh, it's just that ever since the Battle of Arkology, I get a little nervous when-=
"Belendek!" Trance exclaimed. "Why can't those venotac-" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "My anger belongs to the Divine. It is like the air, it is like the water." She opened her eyes and cleared her screen.
"Trance?" Rommie said. "Are you ok?"
"Yes, no-" Trance said, "well … it all goes back to when I was purple."
Doyle frowned. "Purple?"
"Oh," Rommie said. "Copying files."
"Download completed," Doyle said. "So what happened when you were purple?" Doyle sounded as if she had been there from the beginning.
Trance's eyes flicked between the two androids. "You guys know it's really creepy when you do that?"
Doyle and Rommie tilted their heads to exactly the same angle. "Do what?" they chorused.
"Well…" Trance said hesitantly, "when Dylan first set out to restore the Commonwealth, the galactanet communities lit up like a casino drift, and everyone and everything was put under a microscope."
"I remember," Rommie said. "Some of the traffic gave me a headache. Dylan learned to just ignore it."
"I wish I had," Trance said. "I lost count of the number of times I read, 'Hunt should bet rid of that purple bubble head.' It hurt. But then my tail was shot off, and people got mad about that. They blamed Dylan for that."
"Why?" Doyle asked.
"I don't know," Trance said. "But after I grew up, and I came back in time and switched places with my younger self, people were mad at Dylan for that, too, and refused to accept me as the real Trance. Urrgh!"
Rommie counseled, "You'll never persuade those people, Trance."
"I know," Trance said, "but after all these years, and after all the good we've done, you'd think that sooner or later, some of them would cut me some slack. But nooooooooooo, I'm still the fake Trance, or whatever, and everything Dylan did after I came back was wrong. Ugh!" She took another deep breath. She opened her eyes. "But I will just let it all go by me. Like the air, like the water." She sighed and turned back to her work.
Rommie started to turn back to her console, but she paused and turned back to Trance. "Trance? Mind if I ask you something?"
"No, Rommie, of course not."
"Could you adopt your original form again if you wanted to?"
"Why would I want to?"
"Question is, can you?"
"Sure. Just like you could build an avatar that looks and acts like a nine year old girl."
"I think I see your point." Rommie half turned away, paused, then turned back. "About the tail-"
"Don't tell me you have a tail fetish!" Trance snapped.
"I meant no disrespect," Rommie said, "and I don't mean to pour salt on open wounds. But this has piqued my curiosity. If you don't mind."
Trance relaxed. "You are one of my best friends, Rommie; I shouldn't have snapped at you. I apologize. What do you want to know?"
Rommie said, "It's just that as avatars, you, me, and Doyle sport forms that purely arbitrary, for the convenience of our organic friends, and your form is even more arbitrary than ours. You're essentially a mass of plasma in human form; your 'natural state' looks like a small sun."
"Right," Trance said.
"So it stands to reason you could modify your humanoid form any way you want."
"Yes, I can. That's how I 'change my outfits' when I get too lazy to actually put clothes on."
"Eeeyeeeeaaah, well, anyway, it follows from that there's no reason you couldn't give yourself a new tail."
"Of course not."
"So…why don't you?"
Trance thought it over. "I don't really know," she said. "None of us sport tales in our adult forms, and it wasn't long before I didn't even miss mine. But I guess I could have a new tail if I wanted one. You think I should make one, Rommie?"
"It's entirely up to you, Trance, although I must confess I now wonder what it would look like."
"So do I. What the heck, I'll try it! Here goes."
Trance closed her eyes. Gold mist emanated from the base of her spine, rose to about shoulder height, and condensed into the form of a gold, prehensile with a pointed tip.
Trance opened her eyes; she smiled at the tail as it came past her shoulder. "And there it is. Doesn't look too bad. What do you think, Rommie?"
Rommie ascended the platform for a closer look. She smiled. "Not bad, Trance. Are you going to keep it until the others get back?"
"I just might." Trance turned away to focus on one of her console, and the tale whipped around at Rommie's face.
Rommie instinctively blocked it. "Ow! The end of that thing is sharp."
Trance grimaced. "I'm sorry, Rommie."
"It's ok, Trance."
Doyle came over to Rommie and examined the gash in Rommie's hand. "You ok?" she asked.
"There's no internal damage, Doyle; it just broke the skin."
"We should go to the machine shop-"
"Nah. It can wait until Harper gets back. I just need some duct tape…"
…ONE WEEK LATER…
The first thing Dylan noticed as he lead Beka, Harper, Rhade, and Rev out of the *Maru* was that everyone on the ground support team who came into the hangar had tiny bandages on their exposed skin, and their uniforms have small rips.
He corralled the crew man in charge. "Chief? Is everything ok?"
"Yes, Captain."
"It's just that everyone looks like they've been cut up."
"A minor incident, sir. I think the avatars will be the best to explain."
"Ok…."
As the group got close to the inner airlock, Dylan noticed the poster: the word TAIL surrounded by a black circle with a line going through it.
"No tail?" Beka said. She noticed other posters all over the walls. Then she saw Trance coming up to them from the *Andromeda's* corridor. "Trance? What's with the 'no tail' signs?"
"I don't have my tail!" Trance said quickly, smiling a little too broadly.
"I can see that-" Beka started.
"All righty then. I just have to talk to the chief and get with my plants, uh…Hi, Rev! Talk later." Trance darted past the others.
"Weird-" Dylan started, but then he and the others gawked as Rommie and Doyle entered the compartment: They smiled as if everything as ok, when clearly, it wasn't. Both wore lancer armor that was covered with scratches and small dents. Their exposed skin was dotted with duct tape, and both had clumps of hair missing.
Harper found his voice first. "Rom Doll!? Dream Doyle!? What happened?"
Rommie said, "Nothing important. Minor incident."
Dylan stepped forward. "Hardly minor. I think I'd like to know why you and the crew look like they lost a cage match with angry cats."
Doyle and Rommie kept smiling. Doyle said, "It will take some explaining, Dylan."
Rommie added, "Suffice it to say, we have learned why gold trances do not retain their tails from when they are purple."
"I see…" Dylan said. "Tell you what, you can fill me in while Mr. Harper goes with us to the machine shop. Beka, uh…"
"I'll see to Trance." Beka headed back towards the *Maru.*
"And Mr. Rhade," Dylan said, "see that Rev is settled. Rev, uh…" Dylan trailed off and followed Harper and the two androids down the corridor.
"So, Reverend," Rhade said, "how does it feel to be back?"
Rev nodded slowly. "It is good to be back, Telamachus, and I suppose, I can take…comfort from the fact that some things have not changed."
"Indeed."
THE END