Chapter Eight
It made perfect sense. Her gloves, the uniform she had been wearing, the injuries she had sustained. She had clearly been in a racing accident, and most likely not her first.
Apocrypha wasn't a place. It was a group of people – frustrated, angry people, looking for an outlet to escape from mainstream society. When I brought up the word at the dinner table at an academic conference, I received wide-eyed stares of incomprehension, and a couple of indignant coughs. When I brought up the same word at the dive bar across the street from my apartment, I was told stories about the Starfleet parts that had been stolen to upgrade Apocrphya's illegal racing vessels. From these telling experiments, I pieced together my own notions about the true nature of Apocrypha.
I mentioned in public only the name; I said nothing to anyone of my meeting with Cassandra. I didn't dare. I had the distinct impression that if I so much as breathed the word Borg, I would receive a summons to appear in court. Intellectually I recognized that I owed this woman nothing – she, after all, had threatened my life and my reputation without scruple. But something within me told me to protect her, to keep the secret of her existence at least until I saw her again. I felt I was perhaps on the brink of a major discovery, which would never come to pass if I were to lose her trust. At the same time, the wiser part of me believed that if I never saw her again, it would be too soon.
I met Cassandra again on a rainy Saturday morning. I had decided to go in to the clinic alone, to take inventory of the medical supplies. It was something of a tradition. I have always considered taking inventory to be a fundamentally solitary activity, and have always chosen a day in the year when I knew that no one else would be present and that I'd have no distractions. There is something marvelously calming about counting hyposprays and tricorders, and measuring small amounts of sterilizing agents. There is a certain beauty in repetitive work that requires only a minimum of concentration.
At 07h00, my examination room was pitch dark, and deadly quiet. I placed my coffee mug on the counter and stood for a moment in the blissful silence.
"Computer, li –"
"Miss me?"
I jumped a mile. There she was. A dark, lanky silhouette reclining on the examination table.
"What are you doing here?"
"You didn't answer my question."
My pulse raced. I had the impulse to reach for a weapon, but of course I had none with me.
"Look, the medical clinic is closed today. Why don't you come back during the week and make an appointment?"
This, not surprisingly, had no effect on her whatever.
"Computer. Lights."
"You've been asking about me, Beverly."
I had my back to her, and I began scrubbing my hands.
"I've no idea what you're talking about."
"You don't need to play games. I know you've been trying to find out everything you can about me. You're fascinated."
I snapped on my latex gloves.
"You can count those bottles of insect repellant as much as you want, but I know you've just been waiting for me to come back."
I didn't stop what I was doing, somehow I felt determined to go about my morning as if she weren't present.
"You had no right to threaten me the way you did," I said. "I would have helped you anyway."
"Out of the kindness of your heart, no doubt. And what about your precious girl from Betazed? Still keeping on the path to adultery and ruin?"
Finally I turned to face her.
"What about Deanna? We don't speak anymore."
"You don't say. What in the world happened?"
I chose to ignore the sarcasm. "That's all there is to it."
She tilted her head to the side. "That's too bad."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Some stories just don't have a happy ending, I guess."
I walked behind the examination table to reach the cabinet on the other side.
"I'm pretty sure that I could provide you with a happy ending."
Her voice, so close to me, sent some type of shiver down my spine. She was frightening, and unsavory, and crass, and everything Deanna wasn't.
My eyes met hers, with great hesitation.
"I know you're just dying to see it."
I felt all of the blood draining from my face. All I could do was stare.
Suddenly she broke out in a peal of harsh laughter. "I'm talking about Apocrypha! You're horrifically uptight, aren't you. What did you think I was talking about?"
I let out my breath and moved away from the examination table as quickly as I could.
"Well? Am I right?"
I laid my computer pad rather too forcefully on a nearby tray. "What makes you think that I want to see Apocrypha?"
"I don't mean to be rude, but you fit the profile."
"The profile?"
She hopped off the examination table nimbly, her leg, evidently, having healed.
"You're a fine Starfleet officer. You're ethical, courageous, noble, by the book, and not just a little bit boring. Sometimes you even bore yourself when you think of how hellishly square your life has been. Whether you want to admit it or not, the biggest milestones of your career are probably behind you. And you look around, at your two-bedroom apartment in the most Starfleet district in your Starfleet town, at your well-furnished medical bay with all of these nonsensical tools and gadgets just to mend the scrapes of a few pompous Admirals, and you think, where has it all gotten me? What has been the result of all of my tireless, selfless labor all these years? Nothing but a broken heart, a lonely walk home in the October rain, and the memory of a beautiful woman who left you for a man, because she was too much a of a coward to admit she loved you. And like the dedicated, honorable officer that you are, you stand aside, and you say nothing, and you watch the world go on without you."
I searched her eyes, large and hazel and eternally unfeeling. "I appreciate the analysis," I said dryly, "but it's not true. I love practicing medicine. And I don't feel that the world has gone on without me. I'm fortunate to be doing what I love, every day."
She sauntered closer to me, not once breaking eye contact. "Really," she said quietly. "Then why are you standing here, with me, dreaming about leaving it all behind?"
