DISCLAIMER:
"Star Trek" and all associated names and characters, with the exceptions of the ones created by myself for this story, are © Paramount. I am a fan of Gene Roddenberry's dream and just wish to keep it alive so that tomorrow's youth may gain by it as I have. This is fan fiction; there is no infringement of copyright intended with this story, nor have I written it for personal financial gain. So relax, engage at full warp and enjoy!
(Please note before reading—The concept of this story-line is to help both readers and writers to understand the art of fiction better. It is set in the multiverse first envisioned by Robert A Heinlein, a golden age science fiction writer. His idea put forth in the book 'The Cat Who Walks Though Walls' was a simple one, and is explained in the story. In essence we create whole new worlds when we write, and those worlds are just as real as the one we are living in. The moral I hope to show by this story line is that good and bad fiction alike both are responsible for fostering our imaginations. It is not really my intent to review other stories by this writing. I know it may appear that way, but what I am hoping to accomplish is to show how characters react to the fiction that we write. I mean after all, they have to LIVE in the worlds we create. And just as a side note nothing that the characters of my story are saying in their dialogues should be taken as cannon. They are just the opinions of the characters talking back. And BTW remember this is fanfiction, and just as we borrow characters and settings from other authors, we shouldn't hold ourselves above being borrowed from. Again, I will Reiterate, I AM NOT trying to form reviews of other people's work…or even my own for that matter…. I am just showing the character's point of view to the world that they live in. I mean a good example would be if Rudolf the red nosed reindeer went to visit John Rambo, don't you think Rudolf would run away screaming, "I think you are a bad man! I am heading back to the North Pole."
Just remember this is all meant in fun, and hopefully it will show a new perspective to aspiring writers and avid readers alike.
Also remember to take along that clean underwear, your mom just might be right about that.
Also, Also, never eat yellow snow, take it from me…it's not lemon flavored.
So relax and enjoy, the ride is about to begin!)
The Q Who Walks Through Walls
By
Mojo2722
Chapter one: …Just add water!
(Special guest authoring and editing by NixNivis)
Voyager had just ended on television, and he was now tired after trying to multitask by composing on the computer and following the plot of the show. He grabbed the remote from the end table next to him, and quickly silenced the screen by hitting the power button. Hitting a dry spot in his fiction writing he decided to hit save and close out of Word.
He yawned slightly and stretched his arms up into the air. It was eleven PM and his night was just beginning. He decided to power down for a while, so he hit the start menu and selected shutdown. A few clicks and seconds later the screen to the computer cut to black.
He decided he needed some more caffeine if he was going to stay up, to work more on his fiction that night. He jumped up from his cyberized nest, stretched his legs trying to ignore the popping sound they made when first stood up, and walked into the kitchen.
He grabbed hold of the handle of the door to the refrigerator, and chuckled to himself. It was in all actuality nothing more than a beverage cooler to him, for he never actually kept any real food in it. He was a bachelor after all. He opened the door and peered inside. Thirteen ketchup packets salvaged from take out, a Domino's box that housed the remains of last week's pizza night, and the welcoming sight of his case of diet Pepsi. He bent down and reached his hand back into the case to retrieve a can of pop. He felt back further and further until the horrible sensation of hitting the cardboard backside of the case hit his fingertips. He desperately moved his hand from side to side to see if there was a stray can that had eluded capture somewhere in the case.
He had no such luck.
The case was empty.
He withdrew his hand and shut the door to the refrigerator with disappointment. He needed something to drink to keep him awake, and since he had no caffeine sources available to him, he chose to have the next best thing.
Sugar.
Because he had younger nieces and nephews that came to visit occasionally, he knew that hiding somewhere in his cupboards was a few packets of Kool-Aid somewhere. He began to open cupboards and fish through them.
There were the plates, but no Kool-Aid.
Spices, still no Kool-Aid.
Eighteen boxes of macaroni and cheese, yet again no Kool-Aid.
He opened the last cupboard and it appeared to be empty. Knowing that looks can be deceiving, he reached back feeling blindly along its shelves.
That's when he found it.
He felt a packet of something that was definitely the right shape and size to be Kool-Aid. He grabbed hold of it and brought it down out of the cupboard to give it a closer inspection. He was disappointed. It didn't look like a packet of Kool-Aid to him. It was in a plain white package with only the words 'just add water' written on it.
He didn't remember buying anything that it could have came with, so he came to the conclusion that it must have been something that one of his brother's had brought over while visiting for his nieces and nephews to have. If that were the case, then it must be Kool-Aid, albeit very generic Kool-Aid.
He pulled out a pitcher from a lower cupboard, and set it onto the counter. He ripped open the packet and poured the reddish white powder into the pitcher. He turned to the sink and set the pitcher underneath the spout of the faucet. He gently turned the knob and the water began to flow into the pitcher.
He began to hear a strange sound. The powder in the pitcher was fizzing! It definitely wasn't Kool-Aid in the packet, he thought to himself. The pitcher began to foam over and smoke began to waft up from it. He slowly backed up, not bothering to turn his faucet off.
That's when his jaw dropped.
A human arm slowly reached its way out of the pitcher. His eyes instantly shot wider than they had ever been before. He stumbled further back landing against the refrigerator. The smoke intensified, and another arm dressed in a red shirt pushed its way up into the air.
He closed his eyes, and thought to himself, this is what it is like to go mad. His mother had warned him that too many hours in front of the computer monitor would make his mind turn to mush. He was beginning to think she was right.
That's when he heard it.
It was the sound of a thump. Something or someone had just landed on the floor not more than five feet in front of him. Slowly he let his eyes creep open, and when they were about half open he didn't believe what he saw.
He opened his mouth and asked, "John de Lancie?"
Standing there before him in a red officer's uniform from star trek was John de Lancie the man who portrayed the mischievous 'Q'.
"Well I've heard of a dry spell, but that was ridiculous." The man said, walking towards him.
"Okay that's it, I'm nuts!" he said.
The man who he thought was John de Lancie walked past him and turned towards the living room, "So mortal what is your name?"
"Mortal?" he questioned, realizing that what he was seeing couldn't be a psychotic episode. He got to his feet and followed the man into the living room.
"You mean to tell me, that you consider yourself a writer with a bit of talent, and you don't even know what the word 'mortal' means?" the man asked.
A sinking feeling in his stomach, and the notion of insanity returning, he asked, "Your not John de Lancie, are you?"
The man sat casually down in a recliner, crossed his legs, clasped his fingers and then responded, "A very astute observation, human. Tell me what was your first clue? Me being reconstituted from a powder by just adding water, or was it when I didn't respond to you by that name?"
"Your Q, aren't you?"
"In the flesh." Q beamed a grin.
"Oh my God, I am going nuts." He said as he collapsed into the other recliner that was in his living room.
"Now that I have introduced myself, would you do me the courtesy of doing the same?" Q asked.
He sank his head into his hands and mumbled, "I think one of my brothers has medications for this."
"Stop sniveling, human! This isn't a psychotic episode. I am really here." Q snapped out.
He brought his head back up and decided to face the psychosis that he was going through, he might as well have fun with it. "Okay, so if you are really Q then you already know my name. Q is supposed to know just about everything."
"Just about everything would be the closest label that your limited human intellect would be able to understand. But my mental prowess aside I know all about you, human. Would you prefer that I address you as mojo twenty seven twenty two, or would you prefer your given name of Joel to be used?"
"Shhhhh! Don't say that too loud, someone might be listening." Joel said staring outward at the backside of the glass of the computer screen.
"So which will it be then human?" Q asked.
"Well since you let the cat out of the bag already, you can go ahead and call me Joel."
"Well okay Joel it is then. Do you believe me now that this isn't some sort of a psychotic episode."
"Not really, and if I told my doctor about it I doubt he'd believe you either." Joel said, shaking his head. He looked over to Q and asked, "So what are you doing in the neighborhood Q? Slumming it?"
"Well actually I came here to show something." He said tilting his head.
"You came here to show something to me?" Joel asked.
"Don't flatter yourself, Joel. I said that I came here to show something and that is exactly what I intend to do." Q replied. With his response he snapped his finger into the air and in a brilliant flash, Joel found that he was no longer in his apartment in Iowa.
Joel found that he was sitting in the captain's chair onboard what appeared to be a galaxy class starship. He looked around and didn't believe what he saw. Stronger medications, he thought to himself.
"Well do you know where we are right now?" Q's voice asked from above him at the tactical station.
"Let me guess this is the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC 1701D." Joel responded.
"Wrong!" Q replied. He walked down the ramp and around to the chair next to Joel. He sat down and mused to himself, "He imagines and he writes and he still doesn't recognize the place!"
Annoyed by Q, Joel stood up and barked back, "What are you getting at Q?"
"Well you should recognize the place. Maybe this would help…" Q responded. He snapped his finger and in a flash Joel was standing at another location on the bridge.
Joel found himself near the entrance to the turbolift. "What am I looking for Q?" Joel asked.
"Simple just read, you can do that can't you? I mean I was assuming that you could. Since you can write…well if you want to call what you do writing anyway."
Joel looked down and then it hit him. Written on the brass dedication plaque for the ship were the words, 'U.S.S. Hoyle'.
Q was now hovering over his shoulder looking at the plaque with him. "Do you know where you are now, Joel?" Q asked.
Joel turned around, faced Q, and asked in disbelief, "Are you trying to tell me that we are aboard the Hoyle, Q? I mean this ship doesn't exist, it's only in my imagination. I mean I only wrote about it in the privateer story."
"I know tell me about it. From the way you write I am surprised that I don't see a myriad of superfluous comma's floating about the bridge. Didn't you pay attention in your high school English class, Joel?"
"Okay, Okay, I know that my comma usage is not the greatest in the world, but that still doesn't answer my question. Are you telling me that we are aboard the Hoyle?"
"If you need that question answered, human, then I think I picked the wrong person to join me on this sojourn." Q replied walking back to the tactical station.
Joel followed behind Q and questioned, "So you are telling me that you can make my fiction come to life?"
Q laughed and threw back his head. He looked back down and began to tap at the controls of the tactical station. The main viewscreen came to life with the image of a balding old man on the screen. Q turned towards Joel, leaned against the console with one elbow. "Recognize him, Joel?" he motioned with his free hand to the viewscreen.
Joel knew the image very well, "That's Robert A. Heinlein."
"Very good, Joel." Q said with sarcasm. He straightened back up and said, "Now for the answer to your question. Tell me, Joel, do you remember what he said about fiction and reality in the book 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls'?"
"Yes it was one of his later works, he wrote it in 1985, I remember it. And in the book he said that fiction and reality were the same thing, that the more readership the fiction had, the stronger the reality it created. In essence, however, what he meant was there are many different universes parallel to our own that are created whenever a writer puts them to print." Joel explained. He thought for a moment and asked, "Are you trying to tell me that you didn't create this? That Heinlein's idea about reality and fiction is in fact real, and that by writing about the Hoyle I am responsible for its existence here and now?"
"Bravo, Joel!" Q said and applauded a short and quiet golf clap. He continued, "And to think the rest of the continuum had their doubts about your deductive abilities!"
"Okay, so I get it now. I am somewhere inside the story line of Star Trek: Privateer. So what is your point to all this Q? What is it you wanted to show me?" Joel asked.
"There you go again, assuming its you that I am trying to show something to. Maybe it would be more clear to you if we had a change of local." Q replied. He snapped a finger into the air, and in a flash they were no longer aboard the Hoyle.
Joel wasn't used to traveling instantaneously through the ether to wind up just appearing in a flash somewhere else in the universe. Well somewhere in some universe to be more correct. Q was standing beside him, smiling. "Do you recognize the place, Joel?" he asked.
Joel looked about the room that they had 'arrived' into. It was dimly lit, and it appeared to be private quarters. He looked over and saw out of a viewport a breathtaking view of a planet. He continued to glance around the room and saw a federation replicator. The room was too large to be accommodations onboard a starship. "Okay we're onboard a Federation space station."
"Very good, Joel." Q replied with his usual sarcasm, continuing, "But do you know which one?"
"How should I know that, Q?"
"Maybe this will help." Q offered, as he snapped his fingers. A man appeared sitting at a desk in the quarters. He appeared to be either tired or in some pain, as he was massaging his temples. "Well, human, does this help?" Q asked.
Joel looked to the man sitting with his back turned to both of them. There was a black and gray uniform jacket hanging over the back of his chair. On his desk was a small portable computer unit. There was something all to familiar about it.
That's when the answer hit Joel like a bolt of lightning.
"Oh my God, are you tellin' me that we are onboard Starbase Bajorana?"
"And they said the apes wouldn't amount to much!" Q answered, shaking his head.
"Lord Nix, is gonna kill me." Joel said, cradling his temples and covering his eyes with a hand. He shook his head, removed his hand, looked to Q, and said, "Q we need to get out of here…now!"
"But the show is just beginning, and I haven't shown what I want to show yet." Q said with disappointment.
"Listen, this is Nix's story and we have no right to be invading it like this. Nix seems to be a nice guy and all so I don't want to piss him off." Joel explained.
"Invading his story?" Q pondered with his arms crossed and one hand cradling and rubbing his chin.
"Yes, invading his story. I mean can you imagine the consequences if Captain Marcus over there turns around and discovers we are here? That would totally ruin the story that Nix is trying to write."
"Relax, Joel. Captain Marcus cannot hear or see us, we are just here as observers."
"I still don't like it, it's not right to invade into someone's story like this." Joel commented.
"Oh I see, so trampling all over and invading professional writers' works is okay because it is…(Q motions with quotation fingers above his head)…Fan Fiction. But when it comes to going into another amateur's work you get cold feet?" Q asked.
Joel thought about it for a moment and watched the suit jacket draped over Captain Marcus's chair fall to the ground as he leaned back in his seat. Joel replied, "Okay, I get it. If the folks at paramount can accept what we fans do with their material, so should we as fans. But I still don't get your point to all of this Q?
"My point human is exactly all of this, human." Q said extending his arms out to the room and turning around in place.
"Is exactly what Q? This room?" Joel asked.
"No! No! No!" Q fumed. He paced back and forth for a second as if in thought and asked, "When you look around what do you see?"
Joel looked about the room confused. He watched as Captain Marcus turned around in his seat and picked his jacket up off of the floor. "I see Captain Marcus's quarters, Q." Joel answered.
"Yes! That is exactly what you see now and did see when we first came into the room. The poor reader of that story didn't get that info till just now when Captain Marcus picked up his jacket and answered his communicator. Apparently, your friend Nix wanted to keep the reader wondering in misery about where this person with the headache was. Instead of even implying a location, he choose to go into lengthy exposition about the second Dominion invasion, and how the captain thought his job was hard, and the capacity of the station, and of the current relations between the cardassians and the bajorans, and on, and on. I am surprised that he didn't see fit to include a complete manifest of storage bay six on level forty three in those introductory paragraphs." Q explained.
"In Nix's defense, Q, he did need to set some background info for the story up. It's only natural for him to do that."
"Oh I agree, Joel. I feel that the reader is deserving of all that background info, but we will get back to that in a minute. Let me ask you, have you ever read a story that doesn't give the reader at least an idea of the character's location within the first few lines?"
Joel thought for a moment, and watched Captain Marcus have a conversation with a klingon on the computer terminal on the desk. Joel replied, "I can't think of one, Q."
Q walked over to the captain's bed, stretched out on it, and explained, "Exactly! We fictional characters love to be seen. We like the reader to know what we are doing and where. If we didn't, then stories would be nothing more than dialogue, internalization, and exposition. So tell me human, how do you think Captain Marcus here felt about not being seen by the reader while his writer toiled on about useless boring facts?"
Joel answered with uncertainty in his voice, "Well, I guess that he must have felt a little disappointed that the reader didn't know where he was for so long. But in Nix's defense, those were not useless facts. They were necessary in order to develop the milieu of the story. I mean the reader would be lost without that background info."
"You are both right and so very wrong on that, Joel." Q replied.
The captain was still talking to the klingon. Apparently their tempers must have been flaring at one another.
"How's that, Q?" Joel asked.
"Well where you are right is that the reader does need that information in order to not be lost in the story. Where you are wrong is how he goes about it. Consider this, explanatory exposition is often thought of as being an internalization of the character. The question you need to ask yourself is this: Would the character really be sitting there thinking about all these facts that the author has chosen to force them to think about?"
"I don't know. I am not Nix, nor am I Captain Marcus. I really couldn't tell you if he would sit there and think about all that background info or not." Joel replied.
"Well let's just go to the source then." Q commented snapping his finger into the air. He turned to Captain Marcus and asked, "So what were you really thinking at the start of this chapter, Jonathan?"
Captain Marcus groaned and told the Klingon that he would have to get back with him later. He ended the transmission, shook his head, and said, "Not you again. Q, why can't you stay in your own story lines?"
"Oh mon cap-i-tan, no reason to fret. It's a simple question." Q replied.
Marcus sighed and replied, "Do you have any Idea the reaming I got from my author the last time I talked with you?"
"Well, he's still writing you, isn't he? He can't be all that put out with it." Q answered.
"Okay, Okay…If I answer the question do you promise to go away and let me get back to what it is I am supposed to be doing?"
Q laid his hand across his chest in an attempt of sincerity, "My word is my bond."
"Okay I'll do it. However, if he sees this and takes it out on me, you are not welcome the next time I see you." Marcus turned in his chair and continued, "Well to tell you the truth I wasn't thinking about the cardassians, or the bajorans, or the klingons, or the specifications for the station, or even any of the melodrama that occurs here that I have to put up with. To tell you the truth I was thinking about my headache, and focusing on my work and that was all."
"I see." Q commented. He sat up on the bed and asked, "That reminds me, what exactly were you working on at your desk? I mean your computer was turned off at the time and you didn't seem to have anything on your desk.
"Well I was doing….I was working on….that is to say the task I was performing was…."
"You don't know do you?" Q asked.
"I answered your first question, Q. Now leave!" Marcus barked.
"No need to be rude, mon cap-i-tan." Q responded, getting up from the bed. "Well, it would have appeared that we have worn out our welcome here, Joel. Let us depart." Q added, proceeding to snap his finger in the air, transporting them both back to what Joel could only assume to be the Hoyle's bridge.
"So I think that I am still a little bit lost, Q. You are saying that it is a bad thing to force a character to think about something they wouldn't naturally be thinking of at any given point in a story. Is that right?" Joel asked.
"Would you like to be forced to think about something you wouldn't naturally be thinking of at the time?" Q returned in question.
Joel shook his head, and replied, "No I guess, I wouldn't. But how do you recommend that the necessary background information get relayed to the reader then?"
"That's a mind numbingly simple question to answer, Joel. I had hoped you would have came up with a better one than that for me." Q smirked. He walked down to the captain's chair and sunk into it. He explained, "All the writer has to do is to relay the important facts in the form of dialogue between characters or as a natural result of actions they perform."
"What do you mean, Q." Joel said walking down the ramp.
"Human, I am losing faith in your writing abilities." Q shook his head. He asked, "Do you remember in that tedious exposition, the point where Marcus spieled off about the capacity of the station?"
"Yeah it was in like the second or third paragraph. It was ten thousand people if my memory serves me correctly." Joel answered.
"Well poor Marcus, and the reader as well, could have been spared the agony of that exposition fact had the writer just had that fact pop up in the course of casual conversation between characters. For example, there is a time later on in the first chapter when Marcus meets up with his chief medical officer. He could have just had the doctor say that even though she was responsible for nearly ten thousand people aboard the station that she would make sure to set aside special time for him."
Joel scratched his head and commented, "Wow! That would have been one way to have done that without exposition."
"The rule of exposition and internalization is simply this: Keep them short to let the story move fast, make them long to slow the story down.", Q explained.
Joel walked up and touched the panel of the conn station, until that moment this had all been a surreal nightmare for him. He turned to Q and asked, "So what if that was Nix's point…to start the story off slow that is. I mean he may have done that intentionally. I mean I have read his work and I like it. It is fun to read."
Q stood up, and said, "You may be right, human. However, he was breaking the cardinal rule of good fiction writing with those expositions."
Joel laughed and said, "And I'm sure your going to tell me what that is, Q"
"Well at the bad fashion risk of being predictable, I think I will, Joel." Q replied, continuing, "Rule number two of good fiction writing: Show, don't tell. Reading about the ballgame in the paper is boring, watching or listening to it unfold is exciting."
"I see, so what is rule number one?" Joel asked.
Q smiled and replied, "Have fun writing it."
Joel smiled and then let off a yawn. He looked at Q and said, "Well either I get back to my bed, or I need to get some caffeine in me."
Q lifted his hand to snap his finger and responded, "I know were we can get an excellent cup of tea."
"Where's that?" Joel asked.
"Chapter six of Star Trek: Privateer." He said snapping his finger. "And I know just whom to invite to join us…"
Suddenly, Joel found himself standing face to face with a woman he knew he had never seen before in his life. She obviously wasn't one of the Hoyle's crew, since she was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and she just as obviously wasn't from the 25th century, as her furious glare was drilling into Joel from behind a pair of glasses. But who was she? And what had the poor woman done to earn Q's attention?
"Joel," Q smirked, "meet Johanna. Or should I say… NixNivis?"
"NixNivis?" Joel echoed, not quite catching on. "What NixNi… wait a second… Nix?!" An expression of utter horror spread across his face as it suddenly dawned on him: "You mean… that Nix?"
"And we have a winner!" Q exclaimed, clapping his hands in mock elation. "Bravo!"
Joel just stared. The man who had threatened to descend upon him with a phaser set on "disintegrate" was not only a woman, but standing right in front of him… on the bridge of the Hoyle… in his fan fiction.
Joel fainted.
* End Chapter One *
Holy Q crossovers, Batman! Q has invaded the fan fiction universe!
Will our dynamic duo survive until the next episode? Will The wrath of Nix rain down upon them? Will Joel ever find the Kool-Aid? Tune in for the next installment because this story is…
To be continued…
P.S.—the I would love any questions or comments that you all have for me you can either post them on the review page or email them to me at: mojo@iowatelecom.net