Spock, who had be continuing to monitor his station looked up "Uhura is quite correct.

The star charts do not look exactly correct either, if you would like another guess, I would say the year is 1985. It appears by passing through the entity we have moved in both time and space. Possibly even through dimensions. Fascinating."

Everyone on the bridge turned to look at Spock, who went on, "we are currently in orbit above the old Earth city of Los Angeles. In this time period there should be a population of three million. I am only reading approximately fifty thousand human life signs however."

Kirk was stunned and rushed to check the instrumentation himself. At that moment, with a familiar swish, the bridge lift doors opened and Dr. McCoy entered the bridge.

"Jim!", he exclaimed, "have you done with shaking this ship? I've got patients down in sick bay!"

"Not now Bones", Kirk urged, "Spock, are there any concentrated pockets of people down there ?"

"Approximately one hundred are gathered in an organised commercial area, I believe such a place was called a 'shopping mall'"

"Good", replied the captain, "we've got to get down there and find out what's going on.", he hit the intercom switch, "Security team to the transporter room". To the bridge he said, "Spock, Bones, you're with me. Sulu, until Scotty has repairs under control, you have the con", and with that the three headed to the lift.

When they arrived in the transporter room Scott was waiting with three red shirted security men; after brief instructions they all took their place on the transporter pads.

"Energise" ordered Kirk.

Scott adjusted the transporter levers and after a moment all of them dematerialised.

Within a strong blue haze all six men appeared at the designated co-ordinates, which as predicted by Spock was a shopping mall - they were standing outside an electronics store, its window filled with over sized music players. Spock's highly developed ears could pick up a cassette player that had been left on inside the store '...if I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning...' the tune continued on. His eyebrow raised, "Fascinating", he said to himself. Although unaware of the music, McCoy looked with interest at the shop "Jim, have you seen this?", he said, but Kirk who had walked a couple of paces away from the rest of the group was pre-occupied with looking up and down the mall street. The enclosed street was quite a large area, with dozens of stores that he could see, everywhere was deserted apart from one man who was near an opposite store, he appeared to be chaining up a fire exit and had not seemed to notice their arrival.

Dr. McCoy moved over to Kirk "Where is everyone Jim ?...from what I remember of my history these places should be packed with people!"

"That's what I intend to find out - let's start with him" answered Kirk.

Still looking around, the landing party walked over to the man. When they had nearly reached him, Kirk noticed the strangers uniform and shouted over "Excuse me...are you...a policeman ?"

A surprisingly young man with dark hair turned around on hearing the voice, talking as he did so.

"Almost done, Hooker, they shouldn't be able to get through that...", the man paused when he had turned completely around, "Hooker, you look slightly different somehow, and why are you dressed...like that ?"

Kirk looked down at himself and then at his men, who were all equally puzzled. "Hooker ?", he said, "my name is Ca...Jim Kirk. Do you think you know me, officer...", Kirk looked at the policeman's name badge, "...Romano ?".