Chapter 10

"So… explain this to me again?" Reg asked, wondering if his IQ had suddenly dropped or if this conversation was making little sense. "You're doing this because you need to stay on the planet?" They were sitting in a shuttle on the way down to the underground complex on the K-class world. They both had work to square away or hand over before they disappeared onto the holodeck.

"I think, I think baby brain is making this seem more complicated than it is." She drew a deep breath. "We got Taryn 1 working again with the procedure from the Andromeda computer, but we still aren't sure it will work for Lal without major adaptation. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes, I got that part." he replied.

"We found that the Andromedan programming language is relatively straight forward. It's symbolic and looks incomprehensible but it boils down to a tetradecimal machine code."

"Base 14, got it."

"But from androids we've examined from the Alice and Barbara series their programming can't be altered, it's hardwired into their processors. But for some reason the Taryn series was different. They made them reprogrammable. We suspect because they were designed to be specifically for you, presumably so they wouldn't all cascade fail when you died of old age. They could… devote them to a new target." Taryn explained.

"That's… disturbing but it makes sense."

"We also found out how to set the Primary Control Android, there hasn't been one since Kirk talked him to death but it can only be a solitary android not a series." Taryn told him.

"So you plan to make Taryn 1 the Primary Controller." Reg stated.

"Yes, but we aren't going to reprogram her with code. We're going to attempt a synaptic transfer."

"Who from?" he asked with a frown, then realisation spread over his face. "Oh God no, you're not. I mean, Juliana died. Ira Graves died."

"They were already dying. They didn't die from the procedure. It's no more invasive than a medical neural scan, the hard part happens in the recoding at the other end."

"So she'll be another you?" Reg asked. "I don't like it. I don't think this is a good idea." He shook his head.

"Juliana worked on this technique with Soong and she's studied Graves work. She knows what she's doing. She's just going to copy my knowledge, skills and sense of morality so maybe Taryn 1 can find a way to break their dependency on organic life and help them to be more than servants at some point in the future."

"That would be good I suppose. They aren't evil, they mean well, they just don't understand." He smiled as Taryn took his hand and positioned it on her tummy. "Does that hurt? They seem to be kicking quite hard."

"No it feels…like a muscle twitching I suppose but it takes me by surprise a bit when it happens. I might have been feeling some movement for the last week or so but it wasn't as obvious as this, I thought it was wind." She smirked at the expression on his face. "Anyway, they seem to accept an android with a human brain as organic so we're hoping they'll accept her as a, well obviously not a human but someone to please as well as a controller. It's not exactly within the Prime Directive but we can't leave them seizing life-forms and imprisoning them. Bruce is okay with the plan. If you're not I won't go ahead with it."

"As long as it's not dangerous to you or our little kickboxers I suppose it's okay but… What if she's fixated and comes after me? I mean she stood there and told me I had to love her because she was made for me and, well you'd come after me. At least I hope you would."

"It's already been discussed and Juliana has it in hand. In fact, when we're done I'll be able to prove to you that she isn't going to pursue you till the end of time like I would." The shuttlecraft landed and they disembarked and headed for Level Four.

"I think I should be there to make sure you're alright." Reg said in the turbolift.

"That's not a good idea, she's… well, she's been asking for you and we told her you left on one of the other ships." The doors opened and the stepped into the corridor and walked towards their laboratories.

"But…" he protested as they reached his. "I'll wait till she's deactivated, I just…"

"I'll come and see you when the scan is done." She stood on tiptoes to kiss him. "See you soon." She pushed him through the door to his lab and turned and walked away.

…

"Dr Z? I don't want to work with Dr Z!" Dan protested. "He's an ass!"

Reg couldn't really deny it, he was a dear friend, but he was certainly an ass. "You can always help out on Level Six, or another option is to work with Dr Singer." Since turning back Juliana's biological clock she had needed a new identity and the one Haydn Prior's rather shady associate had built was of a brilliant young scientist who had earned her qualifications via distance learning from a remote colony. Her credentials were technically legitimate however, she'd earned them in her former life and they were ratified by the Associate Chair of Robotics at the Daystrom Institute, one Admiral Bruce Maddox until he found a suitable replacement. Dr Juliana Singer was offered a job at Daystrom in the Cybernetics department as they had a number of vacancies following the deaths of Dr Jason Eden and Lieutenant Ruxia Dar.

"Juliana?" Dan grinned. "Well, I could shadow her for a few days until you get back I suppose."

"I thought you might manage to force yourself." Reg replied. Dan remained a world class flirt and liked nothing more than a challenge. With a certain green scientist off the market he had focused on the now young and extremely pretty Juliana who wasn't any more interested than Taryn had been, but it didn't stop him trying. His interest wasn't exclusive however, he'd also made a pass at Lal and most of the female officers on every starship or transport that was in orbit for more than a day. He made Commander Riker in his single days seem positively introverted. "They're doing a synaptic scan next door if you're interested."

"Really?" Dan beamed. "Oh cool!"

"Wait," Reg called as the ensign headed towards the connecting door, "If anything goes wrong come and get me." he instructed. The spying could work both ways, fair's fair.

Barclay looked at the matrix on the screen, it was well and truly scrambled. It looked like someone had tried to test it to destruction. He stood and left the lab and entered the one opposite.

"Don't you ever knock?" Zimmerman barked.

"Good morning to you too Dr Z." Reg said brightly.

"What's good about it?" he snapped, "Why aren't you on your honeymoon instead of harassing me?"

"You'll be pleased to hear we're taking a three day break on the holodeck from tomorrow." Barclay replied.

"Lucky bastard, I'm stuck in this hellhole with no more leave until the Enterprise leaves orbit unless I die of being overworked before then. What did you want anyway?" Reg smirked, the eminent holo-engineer had volunteered to stay and analyse the notes of the holography team at the Annex. He could leave and take their research with him at any point or could even work on the Enterprise, as could Reg. The fact was he felt responsible that one of his protégés had been involved in the atrocities and chose to stay to try and put things right. As had Lucy Sheridan and Bill Mitchell until there was simply no more they could help with.

"Can you take a look at file 0013243 please? I'd like a second opinion." Reg asked.

"Ugh, I think that's a goner." Dr Z stated after looking briefly at the file.

"It's not great, but the primary matrix looks recoverable and… I don't know, there's something about this coding sequence here." he pointed to the screen over Zimmerman's shoulder. "I get the feeling it's a live one."

In the course of going through every hologram in the Annex core they had found that not all of them were sentient, some merely had the potential to be so and in some cases Taryn's colleagues had seized every construct in a program rather than simply extracting the one that was self-aware. So far Barclay had found eighty-two non-sentient Empress Rosalba's and had lost count of all the imps and minor demons that had passed through the lab and 'The Demons of the Darkling Realm' was by no means the only game that had spawned sentient characters. He'd come across gun slingers, secret agents, and gangsters of all era's. The 1920's flappers that had turned up were fun though, Dan was in his element surrounded by bob haired girls in short skirts dancing The Charleston and The Black Bottom. Dan hadn't realised it was a spawning construct and one hologram had turned into an entire party of exuberant good time girls. Taryn had caught Reg fleeing from the lab with one of them trying to hump his leg while protesting that he was a married man and had literally peed herself laughing. She'd blamed having two people sitting on her bladder but he knew she just found his embarrassment hysterically funny.

"It's unusual, I'll give you that." Zimmerman curled his lip. He didn't even look up as Hayley entered the room."

"Hello Mr Barclay, How's Mrs Barclay?" she said cheerily.

"Hello Hayley, she's great thank you. We felt the babies kick for the first time today." Reg smiled.

"That's wonderful. You must be really excited."

Zimmerman smiled briefly. "Have you noticed she's started glowing?"

"What, literally?" Reg asked. He was still a little perturbed by the incident where she had attacked Trey Masters and begun to display bioluminescence.

"No, well sort of. She looked rough early on, all pasty and tired. I was quite worried for her while you were missing but she's got that look now, the Earth Mother vibe. It suits her." Zimmerman stated.

"I know what you mean." Reg agreed with a smile. Despite the gruff exterior Dr Z had a softer side when it came to women.

"You could try a fractal algorithm to realign the matrix." Zimmerman suggested.

"I already tried that." Barclay replied. "I was wondering if you had anything else up your sleeve."

"Reginald, I hate to admit it, but you probably know more than I do and have for quite a while now." Dr Zimmerman admitted. "But I might have an algorithm that could work but it's experimental and risky. It's actually one that I found in Trey's notes that probably did the damage in the first place. I've been working on adapting it, but it needs more work."

"It's not degrading, I suppose it could wait till I come back. I was hoping to get it done though."

"I'll take a look if I get a chance, assign the file to me." Dr Z moaned. "Always coming in here giving me more work." he muttered.

"Wait, is that the physical parameter subroutine?" Reg asked looking over his mentors shoulder.

"Looks like it." Zimmerman said and activated it. "Fine looking woman, in a Victorian sort of way."

"Oh God," Reg paled as he looked at the figure in the corner of the lab, "It…it can't be…It's not possible."

"Are you alright Commander?" Hayley asked.

"We need to get Data down here, and La Forge, maybe even Captain Picard. Oh boy this is bad…" he leant on the console.

"I'll contact the Enterprise." Hayley said offering him a seat which he refused. "What should I say?"

"Tell them I've just found Countess Regina Bartholemew in the Annex computer core."

…

"What do you mean you can't go?" Taryn was furious, he'd even begun to worry that her supernumerary human adrenal glands were about to kick in and was going to turn fluorescent and start wailing on him like the She-Hulk. It wasn't hard to guess the incident that spawned that childhood epithet.

"It's… It's the Countess. She was in my care, my responsibility and somehow she ended up here and I have to fix her. You get that don't you?" he argued.

"You need to get this. I feel responsible for all the Nanites, the Exocomp, the Microbrain, the Horta, a Borg Queen and eight other life-forms that we haven't shipped out yet and I passed my entire workload to other people and begged favours all over the place to get us this time off. I need to get away from this place as much as you do and at 0700 hours tomorrow I will be on Holodeck 3 and if you aren't there I'll load a spa program and lock the door behind me." Her green eyes flashed and she turned and stalked away.

"Wait!" he called and ran after her. "Are you leaving me? I know you're angry but please don't say we're over?" he asked his eyes sad and alarmed.

"What? No of course not you prat." she replied, "I'm talking about three days apart, not a divorce. I hoped you'd stop doing this once we were married. You have no reason to be so insecure. I can be annoyed with you and love you at the same time."

"You'd really shut yourself away on a holodeck and lock me out?"

"Either you turn up tomorrow or you don't, it's your choice." she stated. "The Countess is stable, she can wait. I can't. she stated. "We need you to stop in next door to test Unity."

"Who?" he asked distractedly, pausing from chewing his fingers worriedly.

"We changed Taryn 1's name. It was doing my head in." she replied and walked away, towards the connecting door between the two labs.

"Will it take long? Only I need to go back to the ship, the Senior Team and Admiral Maddox want to know how I managed to lose two sentient holograms without noticing at 1700 hours." he called after her.

She stopped and dropped her head. Then turned and walked back to him. "It'll only take a minute or two and then I'm done here and I'll come with you to the ship." She took his hand from his mouth and held it. "Do you have any idea how it happened?"

"No, I…I kept the cube and the enhancement module locked in my quarters on the D. Then it came with me to the E. I discussed it with Geordi when I got posted to Jupiter Station and I moved it to a safety deposit box at Starfleet Command. I've always kept it secure so some idiot couldn't put it back on a holodeck if they got curious." he explained. "I just…I don't understand. It doesn't make sense." he said sadly.

"The D crashed during my first year at the Academy, what ten years ago?" she asked.

"Nine." he replied. "Wait, it was unlocked, the, the… lots of systems got scrambled in the crash and I never thought. I forgot it, we were the last shuttlecraft to evac. I had to go back for it and the safe in my quarters was unlocked."

"Okay, that's a start. We can check the Annex personnel deployment records and see if anyone was near Viridian III around the time of the salvage operation." He nodded in response and she cupped his cheek with her hand. "If Haftel wanted them he would have stopped at nothing to get them. He might even have swiped them from Starfleet Command. It isn't your fault."

"It feels like my fault." he whispered. Taking her hand from his face and kissing her palm.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, we're a team, remember? And, I doubt they want to keel haul you, they want to know how Haftel stole them to add kidnap it to his charges. You are not on trial."

"Let's get this android thing over with." he said softly. He just didn't know what to think or how to feel beyond all-consuming guilt.

He followed her into the lab where Unity was sitting on the worktable. Her appearance had changed since he last saw her. Her hair was cropped short in a pixie cut, similar to a Vulcan style but rougher, more textured. It suited her face better than he'd expected short hair would. She was also in everyday clothing that was comfortable but functional and she no longer wore a number around her neck. She looked up with interest as he entered the room but little more. Juliana turned and smiled at them as they entered and Taryn walked over to a nearby terminal and started working.

"Unity, this is Lieutenant Commander Reginald Barclay." Juliana introduced him.

The green-skinned android extended her hand and shook his confidently. "I'm pleased to meet you Commander, my name is Unity." she said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you Unity." he responded, forcing a nervous smile.

"Unity, do you feel anything when you look at him?" Juliana asked.

"No," Unity replied, "should I?" She looked at him more closely. "He has pretty eyes, he's tall and he looks intelligent but, no I don't feel anything beyond that."

"Thank you Unity." Taryn said and steered Reg out of the room with a padd in her hand. "Well, she got my taste in men in the transfer but she doesn't have the first idea who you are so the filter Juliana set up worked. Are you okay?"

"Yes, it was just strange." he replied. "Actually I feel a little better."

"I thought you might." She smiled. "Let's head back to the ship, I have the deployment records and we can do some research there for your meeting."

He did feel better as he held her hand and they walked to the turbolift and entered it, but he wasn't really sure why.

"I've been avoiding the transporter." he blurted.

"I know," she replied, "so they can't take you again."

"I've been stupid haven't I?" he asked sadly.

"No, you've been traumatised." she replied.

"Is… It doesn't make sense but… why do I feel better knowing that she's going to stay? I thought I'd feel bad about anyone being left with them."

"She's…we've changed her but she's theirs and she always will be. This is where she belongs." She shrugged. "I don't know, from things you've said you wanted to help them despite what they did to you and she has that drive within her. I have my doubts she'll succeed but she has five hundred millennia to try. She's already said she has ideas for the next generation of androids, generation not series, and she wants to build a society, not a weird co-dependency on biological life-forms. Who knows, maybe all the training I got from Edara might stand her in good stead as a leader."

He considered her words as they left the turbolift and walked across the hangar level. He didn't know exactly what he felt but maybe seeing the android looking so different from Taryn and clearly not obsessed with him gave him some kind of closure. To be honest he found the idea of anyone being obsessed with him ludicrous in the extreme. He still wasn't used to the idea anyone could be in love with him and he was married. He felt so many conflicting emotions, he was so strung out… How had Duncan put it? Taut as a bowstring, that was exactly how he felt but he couldn't leave things, even for only three days. How could he leave? The Countess was in pieces and they still hadn't found Moriarty. For all they knew he had been destroyed or tortured to death. They were his responsibility. By the same measure how could he let his pregnant spouse disappear into the holodeck knowing he wouldn't see her for three days? If she was leaving for a conference or something it would be different, they could talk via subspace, plenty of couples with diverging careers swore by it but she'd be incommunicado and behind a locked door only a few metres away, even the thought of it was unbearable. They'd overcome so many hurdles to be together, even cheated death so three days apart was nothing really. He trusted her, he didn't trust the half of the humanoids in the galaxy that urinated standing up to be in the same… galaxy if he was honest, but he did trust her didn't he? But three days without feeling her fingers applying pressure to his neural nodes, hearing her scold him for giggling while she was teaching him breathing techniques, hearing her sigh as he massaged her shoulders, holding her in his arms in the bath, talking to their babies while she was asleep. He doubted he could survive a day without those things let alone three.

They sat in the shuttlecraft and waited for it to depart. She turned towards him and stroked his hairline on the back of his neck and behind his ear lazily with a finger. He'd forgotten that, that was one for the list. She was looking at him, gazing at him with a gentle smile on her face. She said it was his decision but it didn't look like she was going to make it easy for him. He sighed and gazed back at her.

"Ashby to Barclay."

"Ashby to Commander Barclay."

"Ashby to Commander Barclay please respond."

"Ashby to Lieutenant Commander Barclay, put down your wife and answer your damn communicator Reg."

"I think that's for you." Taryn whispered still gazing into his eyes.

"What?" he replied softly.

She tapped his communicator. "Go ahead Dan." she said with a sly smile.

"I think I've found Moriarty. I tried searching for Sherlock Holmes Program 3A under original program file as you suggested and it turned up a file, it also lists Picard Delta One in its history. He looks intact."

"Oh thank God." Reg exclaimed with relief. "Whatever you do don't activate him. Can you assign his file to me and flag it."

"Already done sir." Dan replied. "You guys aren't naked are you?"

"Great job Ensign, I'll put in a good word for you with your supervising professor. Barclay out." He looked at Taryn. "Moriarty is going to be apoplectic when we reactivate him, especially if he's been out of the holo-cube for nine years. He was livid that Captain Picard left him in protected memory for four years. I never did work out how he felt the passage of time. He said he felt disembodied, without substance. He's very eloquent."

"Do you think you can save the Countess?" Taryn asked.

"No," he replied plainly, "but Dr Z thinks he found the algorithm that did the damage in Trey's notes. He's going to reverse engineer it to try and build a cure. But…" He shook his head. "Moriarty really loved her. She really loved him."

"They really had an impact on you didn't they."

"They made me think I could make Program 9 real, have the girl of my dreams. Until I met you and realised all of the gaps in the jigsaw I filled in myself were horribly wrong. I scaled her up to average height, I couldn't conceive of an behind as perfect as yours when I made hers, I didn't make her English, I pitched her voice too high…I just remembered something Dan said while we were drunk with your Dad and Geoff. He said I needed to hear you sing. I haven't heard you sing, not even in the shower."

"You want me to sing?" she asked. "You know, I get the strange feeling that maybe I'll feel like singing in the next seventy-two hours or so and the acoustics on the holodeck are wonderful." She teased. "Anyway, Deanna tells me you can carry a tune. She said you held your own in a duet with Data."

Reg sneered. "Could you rephrase that sentence please? You make it sound like mutual masturbation."

"You're getting as bad as me." she said and examined the padd, then blanched.

"What's wrong?" Reg asked.

"I crosschecked past and present Annex staff with the salvage and rescue operation on Veridian III and… Young was a Lieutenant on Haftel's staff at the time and was on secondment to one of the rescue ships." she explained and Reg sighed resignedly. "There's that mystery solved."

"Ensign Ashby to Commander Barclay."

"Barclay here."

"Commander, you need to come back to the lab sir. Urgently."

"On my way." he said and stood to leave the shuttlecraft. "Something is seriously wrong, he only calls me Commander so he doesn't get put through to you by mistake, he only calls me sir when senior officers are around and they would just call me themselves."

"Wait," Taryn said and followed him as he strode across the hangar.

…

Taryn often cursed her short legs but she was especially irritated with them today as she struggled to keep up with a man over a foot taller than her, especially when it was her husband and he had just gone into hero mode. She just managed to get into the turbolift with him before it shut and was reasonably certain he hadn't listened to a word she was saying on the ride down to Level Four and as soon as the door opened he was off like a rat out of a trap. She had to stop him before he stormed headlong into the lab without the first idea what he was getting himself into. She couldn't shout, sound carried through the corridors like an echo chamber in this place, you could hear everything that happened on the entire level in any one of the labs. She was reluctant to run in case she passed out again, although the sound of her hitting the floor might actually make him stop and turn around. She decided to risk it, quickened her pace and just caught hold of the collar of his uniform as he reached the door and managed to get her hand over his mouth to silence his protests. She towed him along the corridor by the scruff of the neck until she reached a locked door. She released his mouth and pressed her index finger to her lips then rapidly typed a code into the keypad and shoved him into a darkened room ahead of her and waited for the door to close behind them.

"Lights. As I was saying in the turbolift, those two adjoining labs were mine, so what do they have installed?"

"What?" Barclay asked adjusting his collar.

"I knew you were ignoring me. They have a surveillance system that runs from a separate core." she said, activating the large console and taking a seat. "If what I suspect has happened, we need to know what we're dealing with before anyone opens that door."

"What do you suspect?"

"Sentient holograms soon learn how to manipulate their environments, that's why my duck blind is independent, they kept finding it messing about. I haven't met a self-aware hologram yet who didn't ultimately develop the ability to self-activate outside protected memory."

"And when Dan assigned Moriarty to my job queue he shifted him out of protected memory." Barclay realised and grimaced as she brought up the view in the lab. Dan was standing still as Moriarty circled him menacingly. "I've…I've got to get in there. Dan has no idea what he's dealing with. Moriarty is…he's old world he…Dan will just get on his nerves."

"Wait." she told him and touched her communicator. "Professor Barclay to Admiral Maddox."

"Go ahead Taryn."

"We have a possible hostage situation in Hololab Delta. Moriarty is active and Dan is in there with him."

"Is Barclay there?"

"He's with me in the duck blind, but he wants to go in. I recommend we don't give him more personnel to hold over us."

"Ashby to Commander Barclay. Sir, there's someone here who is impatient and asking for you by name." The fear in Dan's voice was obvious. Reg headed for the door but Taryn caught hold of his wrist.

"I heard that. Get in there Reg." Maddox stated.

"We'll come up with something and get you both out of there but you'll have to play things by ear till I get you some back up." Taryn stated and he nodded in response. "Don't, I repeat, do not lie to him. He's too shrewd."

"I know, I'm a terrible liar." Reg said sadly, clearly disappointed at her lack of faith in him.

"It's not that." She smiled. "I can lie with the best of them and I'd think twice before trying to pull the wool over that one's eyes, he's Moriarty." she stood and kissed him. "Be careful, okay?"

"Promise me whatever happens you won't walk into that room." He took her hands and held them up so he could see them. "I mean it, no crossing your fingers. You have to swear that you and the bumps are not going anywhere near that room or that man."

"They say the basis of a lasting marriage is trust you know?" She sighed. "I promise." she assured him. "I won't go anywhere near him. I swear."

I do not own the She-Hulk or any other Marvel superheroes.

In the next instalment:

Moriarty is less than thrilled, will he blame Reg?