Chapter Seven
From that day forward, I thought of almost nothing but the bizarre woman who had presented herself in my waiting room, and the conversation we had shared. It was, if I may be honest, a miraculous distraction from thinking about Deanna. I did hours of research, trying to find the meaning of the Apocrypha, but found nothing other than references to ancient mythological texts. Surely that couldn't have been what she was talking about.
I suppose I ought to have been outraged, and most likely afraid, that she had somehow discovered my secret and was using it as a means of blackmail, but somehow any emotions I might have been experiencing were eclipsed by utter fascination.
It was clear to me that this woman was a medical marvel. I am no stranger to the Borg, and she was not Borg by any traditional definition. How she had come to be, and why, were the questions keeping me up at night, poring over my inconclusive scans and secretly hoping she would return to the clinic.
I did not think she would betray my secret, because I did not doubt her sincere need for medical attention. The other thing that puzzled me about her was the sheer number of injuries she had sustained. She must have been in some type of accident. Would she have initiated this contact with me for a one-time occurrence? Or did she somehow suspect that she would be hurt again, and need my help again?
In the days that followed, she did not return. I had pieced together a file in her name, so that if ever she made another appearance, it would seem as if she were a regular patient. Strangely, the receptionist at the clinic had no recollection of having seen her in the waiting room on the day she came.
Apocrypha, from the Greek. Meaning, that which has been hidden away.
I fell back into my routine. I went to bed late, and got up early. Every morning, I contemplated the hypocrisy of telling my patients that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, when I never ate it. Some days, I cleaned my apartment obsessively, and at other moments I let it go entirely. Each night, I fell asleep with a bunch of miscellaneous work-related computer pads strewn across my bed. She hated that habit so much, she used to threaten to sleep on the sofa if I kept it up.
Summer had turned to fall. When the October wind brushed through my fingers, I could almost feel her hand lightly slipping into mine. Sometimes I would even turn to look, to heighten the illusion, to transfix it in my mind. It never went away. They say that losing someone you love is like losing a limb, an internal organ without which you can't breathe and can't function. If it happens quickly, you are perhaps lucky, as the lucky soul who feels that blinding flash of pain, and then nothing afterward. But for me it happened slowly, a little more each day, each hour. I could feel myself gently becoming a ghost, my face in the mirror transparent, losing its color, as if someone had been, little by little, draining my blood.
On a cold Monday night, crashing into Tuesday, unable to sleep as usual, I flipped angrily through the Starfleet broadcast channels, finding them mind-numbingly dull. An entire hour on protozoa known to infect bio-neural gel packs. An all-night information session on a new classification system for battle ships. News I had heard a hundred times. Weather. More weather. Political upheaval on the Klingon home world.
"Attention Starfleet Officers! Looking for a thrill?"
The sharp voice was marred by static, and I tried in vain to clear it up. A tall young man appeared intermittently on my screen, staring at the camera with a terribly intense expression.
"Been on the ground for too long? Looking for the ride of your life? Apocrypha racing club is here for you. Come fly with us, and I can guarantee, you'll never look back."
