WRITER'S BLOCK

Columbia Crash Site, Talos-IV
Stardate 2261.41

- 0945 hours -

His two companions were waiting for him on the bridge of the old starship just as they always were, at the time and place he expected them. He did not remember which of them had arranged these regular meetings, but it pleased him to assume he had arranged it himself as a sign of his true and unyielding leadership. He also didn't remember who had repaired the viewscreen at the front of the room that they had rigged to monitor the holding cells for the new arrivals. Vina, he assumed, although it could be any one of the other members of the Workforce.

He also knew the purpose of the meeting without needing to be told. They hadn't communicated it to him, exactly, but he had sensed their emotions well enough even before he got here to know what was the source of the great anxiety that had been radiating from them all this time. "We will have to change our plans if we want to avoid catastrophe," began the Dreamer as soon as he stepped down to the decrepit command deck. "Their method of probing our defenses was methodical and precise. The damage to the Workforce facility was relatively minor, but will take much time to repair."

The Keeper nodded in agreement, "What they lack in intelligence, they more than make up for in adaptability. A second attempt to recover their Captain would most likely succeed."

"Or destroy us in the process," said the Dreamer.

"We must accelerate the program to complete our scenario immediately, before they have a chance to mount another rescue mission. Our position grows more precarious by the second."

The Watcher frowned, and spoke out loud, "It may already be too late. Even if we do complete the scenario as intended, we are still unable to influence their commanders in orbit. They are very much aware of their tactical superiority."

The Keeper had suspected as much. "Then we have no choice. We must send for assistance from the Magistrate."

"Out of the question, Keeper!" Watcher said, again speaking out loud and more clearly than before, "If our allies believe that we are too weak to handle this situation ourselves, it may jeopardize our prior agreement."

"And if this Sunfleet crew accidentally destroys the Workforce while attempting to recover their crew, what then will come of our agreement?"

Watcher looked helplessly at the Dreamer, who was already thinking through the possible outcomes of this situation. "The Magistrate as much invested in the colony as we do. He may attempt to modify the agreement, but I'm confident he will not abandon it."

The Keeper considered this for a moment, and looked at the Watcher, who seemed to almost agree with this line of thought. "Send the message, Dreamer," he said, "The Watcher and I will return to the humans and begin the next stage immediately."

.

- 1002 hours -

It was a simple illusion that didn't try too hard to present itself as reality. Intimate, comfortable, but uninteresting. Kirk had learned to interpret these sessions as "fillers," the kinds of projections they used when they weren't all that interested in the outcome. He understood that this was a reflection of the aliens' persistence, but bombarding their captors with images and scenarios to constantly reinforce their conditioning. But he also understood that these low-level simulations were not being watched attentively, and that he had slightly more freedom of movement within them than he did when his actions were more closely guided.

Even so, it took him a minute to process the discontinuity of his surroundings when they suddenly changed around him. His cell seemed to rearrange itself into a circular white hallway with a slight curve to the right and the regular paneling and imbedded light fixtures that some expert system had calculated would provide the most even and comfortable illumination aboard a starship.

"Are the torpedoes still in the weapons bay?" Carol Marcus was walking briskly ahead of him, turning the corner down that very same corridor.

Kirk realized he was walking close after her without realizing why and heard himself saying, "Loaded and ready to fire. What are they?"

"Don't know, that's why I forged my transfer onto your ship to to find out why... I do apologize for that, by the way. If I caused you any problems I am sorry. I'm Carol Marcus."

Kirk grinned. "Yes. I know who you are."

She blinked, the grinned back, just for a second, then turned and rushed on down the corridor. "Torpedoes."

He followed her aft and downwards, past the auxiliary hangar and into the main shuttlebay where he somehow knew that Doctor Marcus had stashed most of her belongings in the crew compartment of shuttlecraft Warrant. Scanning equipment and mechanical tools too specialized to really belong to a science officer. How she'd managed to get all of this equipment aboard the Enterprise, Kirk didn't care to speculate, and in hindsight he now realized he never did get around to asking her.

"My father gave me access to every program he oversaw," Marcus was saying as she rounded the back of the shuttle, "Including something called Project Sleepwalker. I don't know anything about the program's logistics or background," she paused, climbing up the ladder into the shuttlecraft, "But I know what it entails. The use of memory manipulation and behavior conditioning to produce deep cover sleeper agents."

Kirk seemed to recall that until a few seconds ago they were talking about torpedoes. But that, he realized, was just a memory. The scene was replaying itself based on that, but nothing was forcing them to follow the replay precisely. Doctor Marcus was playing in the margins of Talosian control, and she'd picked the perfect memory in which to do it.

The memory, he realized, where she finally did what she should have done hen she first came aboard. She was telling him what he needed to know and trusting his judgement to make the best decision possible.

"Seems like that would require a very specific skill set," Kirk said, "Not many telepaths specialize in memory manipulation."

Marcus smiled, "You're much clever than your reputation suggests, Captain Kirk." She turned and trotted up into the shuttlecraft, saying over her shoulder.

Kirk followed her inside. "I have a reputation?"

"Yes you do, I'm a friend of Christine Chapel's."

He drew a blank at the reference, though only for a moment. At the time the name had meant almost nothing to him but in hindsight he had actually managed to put a face to the name. "Christine, yes. How is she?" He followed close behind her as she moved through the shuttle, gathering her equipment onto a work bench on the port side.

"She transferred to the frontier to be a nurse. She's much happier now."

"Didn't she have a... boyfriend? Fiance? Something?"

"Doctor Roger Corby," she turned from the bench and then leaned back against it, regarding Kirk with a serious expression, "The man's a useless prat, but love is blind."

"Well I..."

"Is this shuttle prepped to fly?"

"Of course it is. Why?"

"Would you please turn around?"

Kirk flinched. "Why?"

Marcus glared at him, annoyed, "Just turn around."

Shrugging, Kirk turned around.

She went on talking behind him as he did. "The proposals I've seen mention that the sleeper agents would be most effective if their conditioning time could be as quick as possible to avoid what they called 'discontinuity of presence.' A person is abducted, programmed with false memories and then returned to their home town before anyone notices they're missing. A certain audible signal or a visual image will trigger a programmed behavior. Say, the sleeper transmits everything he knows about his target via subspace, or unlocks a database at the government ministry where he works."

"Or," Kirk said over his shoulder, "He walks into a top secret weapons facility and blows himself up."

"I didn't see anything in the proposal about terrorism..."

"But I wouldn't put it past Section Thirty One. Would you?"

"Honestly?" Marcus sighed, "No, I wouldn't."

"So why are you telling me all of this?" Kirk said, turning. And he was somewhat disappointed to find that he'd missed the opportunity he'd accidentally exploited a year ago when he'd turned around to find Doctor Marcus in her underwear, halfway into changing into a field jacket for the away mission. She was already dressed now, but not in a field jacket. Now she was wearing a sky blue party dress that hugged her frame too closely to be anything but deliberately provocative.

His palms started to sweat.

"It seems to me," she said in a soft, sensuous voice, "That our crustacean friends aren't being totally honest about their motives."

Kirk nodded, "That goes without saying. They're trying to lead us to something, but I'm not sure what."

"Neither am I," Marcus said, stepping closer to him, "But there's an easy way to find out."

She didn't answer him with a word. She leaned closer to him, making solid eye contact enough that he couldn't possibly mistake her intentions.

Kirk leaned back on a reflex and dodged a kiss he knew he would regret if he let it land. "Whoa. What are you doing?"

"Acting on your choice, Jim."

"I haven't made any choice."

"You made your choice on the first day, remember? You chose me. In all of our fantasies together, it's me you celebrate your freedom with. Admit it, Jim. You want me."

"Not enough to play into the Talosians' hands. C'mon, Carol, you're smarter than this."

"They don't want us for a breeding pair. They want you to keep resisting me until something breaks. Then they begin the next phase."

"You can't know that for sure."

Doctor Marcus smiled, "Yes I can." She lunged at him, and Kirk had run out of shuttlecraft to back up. He held up his arms to hold her back, to warn her that she was making a huge mistake, that this would only make things worse for them...

But Doctor Marcus wasn't there anymore, and neither was the shuttlecraft. She was standing a few feet to his left now, staring out into space with a dazed expression on her face as if she'd just been daydreaming.

Vina was standing on his right, looking anxious and unhappy. She regarded Marcus with the open suspicion of someone who had abruptly stopped talking when the subject of her conversation entered the room. And she looked at Kirk along similar terms: accusatory, and slightly disappointed.

Kirk was surprised the Talosians would bring her back into the cell at a time like this, but only mildly so. It actually made a certain amount of sense. The Talosians needed to stay on script and they didn't want their actors deviating too far from the intended theme.

"See? Now we know," Said Marcus. Kirk glanced at her questioning, but she didn't elaborate further and didn't get the chance before Vina let out a wail of distcontent.

"Oh, good..." she said, eyeing Kirl coldly, "More punishment."

"What are you doing here?" Kirk asked, "Or have you been here the whole time and they just wouldn't let me see you?"

"I don't know that it makes a difference, except for the creepiness factor that I've probably been sitting here in the room with you while you had sex with your science officer."

Kirk began, "We never actually-"

"Keeper." Marcus was pointing at the transparency. The door to the facility's central elevator had opened and the Keeper was shuffling out into the corridor towards them.

All three of them turned to face the Keeper as he stopped in front of their cage. Kirk stepped to the front of the two women, but Marcus stayed closer behind, just within whispering distance.

"Since you are resistant to the current specimen, an alternative approach is being devised. We will now consider the ideal configuration of a possible mate, the appearance of which will be applied to the female called Vina."

"So you'll make her look like anything I like, is that it?"

"That is correct."

Kirk heard Marcus whisper something behind him he couldn't make out. It sounded at first like a foreign language, but too much like English to be that. Without a universal translator he couldn't be sure, but after a few seconds his mind clicked the broken syllables into place, "They ote-ray emselves-thay into an orner-kay."

He thought about this for a moment, suppressing the emotions that came with it. It was nothing he could pin down to support that conclusion, but it made sense. The Talosians were looking for a way to move on with the next part of this charade, but they couldn't figure out a way to make it happen. The conditions were all wrong; something they needed to happen at the right time wasn't coming into place. Considering the damage caused by Spock's rescue attempt, they probably didn't have the time to try a more subtle approach either..

So the goal of escape could be reached by playing the narrative to its logical conclusion. Talosians loved their narratives, even when they were nonsense. If they'd somehow written themselves into a corner they couldn't get out of, Kirk and Marcus would have to give them an out...

It hit him in the back of the skull like a poison-tipped dart. It was simple, so simple even the Talosians should be able to see it. In fact, maybe they were hoping something exactly like this would happen and this was their latest attempt to resolve the impasse. Kirk decided to take the bait.

"That's..." Kirk looked Vina over for a moment and ever-so-slightly smiled, "Interesting."

"I judge by your reaction that you approve of this proposal."

"I approve of the gesture. And I intend to evaluate it from a safe distance after I've escaped from this cage and left this god-forsaken planet forever."

"Jim?" Carol said behind him, loud and clear now, "What are you talking about?"

"It's unnecessary, though," Kirk said after a pause, "Vina's fine just the way she is."

The Keeper bobbed his head slightly and then departed with a shuffling of feet.

Marcus waited until he was gone and the doors closed behind him, and then she gripped Kirk's bicep with a death grip and hissed, "You approve of the gesture."

"It simplifies things," he said, turning back to the little cot in the corner of the room, "We won't have to search for Vina now when we escape."

"What makes you think we can even trust her? For all we know, she's a Talosian in disguise."

Kirk almost smiled. Well played, Carol. So they were on the same page after all. "She's not," Kirk said, looking in her direction, "We can trust her."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because the Talosians have taken more from her than any of us can imagine. Maybe even more than she can imagine. She won't betray us." He turned to Vina and smiled, "Will you, Vina?"

"Jim, I've been trapped here on this planet for twenty years. The Talosians know everything about me. Everything I'm afraid of, everything I want... they'll use me against you the first chance they get."

Kirk reached out to her, placed both hands on her shoulders and looked into he eyes. He watched her tension level jump to maximum with this and read it in her features that he heart had just started pounding from this completely unprovoked and extremely welcome gesture of affection. "I won't let them take you away from me again. I promise you that."

"Oh for god's sake, think rationally about this, Jim! That woman is an alien sympathizer! She's probably been behavior conditioned to spy on us! Who knows what she really thinks?"

"We're leaving here together, Carol," Jim turned a scowl in her direction, "All of us. That's an order."

"Jim..."

"That's Captain to you, Doctor Marcus. The safety of a civilian under our care is our top priority and now I'm making it your top priority. If anything happens to Vina, I'll hold you personally responsible. Is that clear?"

Marcus clenched her teeth, a gesture of grudging acceptance of authority. Somewhere buried in her expression was a note of caution for him to the tune of Don't oversell it, Jim.

"So," Kirk turned back to Vina, "First thing's first." He guided Vina across the room to his cot and sat down next to her. When he spoke again, it was in soft, calming tones, sympathetic and encouraging. "We need a way out of this cell. It's not safe in here. To do that, I'm going to need your help." I need to focus, he thought inwardly. Need to fill my head with thoughts of protecting Vina. Tenderness, romance, affection. I want to protect her. I want to save her. I won't let anything happen to her.

"I know what you're trying to do," Vina said, folding her legs and sitting on the stone floor with an air of detachment, "Trying to disrupt their influence by controlling your emotions. It won't work, you know. I've tried."

Kirk imagined scooping Vina up into his arms and carrying her out of this cell, alive and unharmed, lifting her to the safety of a Starfleet shuttlecraft. And how grateful she would be, to be free at last.

"Humans don't have the capacity to control their emotions like that," Vina went on, "The mind wanders. Nobody can sustain false emotions for that long."

Not just Vina, Kirk realized. An image of a younger, thinner version of Vina sprang to mind, with the new life growing slowly within her. Ricca and the other children. Victor Hernandez and Doctor Haskins. People the Talosians wanted him to think were figments of his imagination. People he had kept Vina from seeing, maybe for years, and watched her heart break from the separation. He imagined mother and daughter reunited on the shuttlebay floor and smiled at the image.

"Are you listening to me, Jim?" Vina snarled, "Won't you listen please?"

"I'm sorry, dear," Kirk said, keeping his expression soft, "Lost in thought. Yes. Of course I was listening..."

"Her you listen to?" Marcus rolled her eyes and parked herself in a corner of the room, suddenly sullen.

Kirk let himself feel hopeful, knowing the Talosians wouldn't know what this really meant. While he was working himself into a cloud of love and affection, Carol was quietly working herself up into a boiling rage that bordered on insanity. He didn't know how long she could keep this up, or how long he could for that matter. But if he was right about her background - if she was the seasoned Starfleet counter-intelligence specialist he thought she was - he would probably break before she did.

Just for an instant, he was aware of a movement in the wall not far from Doctor Marcus. Something in his mind told him that a seam had opened up and that a small object had been placed on the floor next to it. The only thing he could see there now was a small black rock that he was sure had always been there this entire time and there was nothing unusual about it at all. And the seam wasn't really a seam, just a line in the stone wall.

It was working.

I have to concentrate, Kirk thought, refocusing his efforts, I have to be ready to protect Vina when Carol finally snaps.