A/N: I've updated a past chapter (Chapter 6, "The Face Behind the Mask"), to explain why Annie hasn't just told Kitty that she's being blackmailed. It's basically the same reason she didn't tell Janeway the truth in "Dark Frontier;" she doesn't think Janeway is capable of beating the bad guys.

I don't own "Star Trek: Voyager."

The Doctor had not deactivated once since being kicked out of the program all those days ago. Holograms weren't supposed to feel fatigue, but he was beginning to feel exhaustion on emotional levels, and maybe in the energy of his programming. He was used to being deactivated for a few hours a day at least, just to get a break from consciousness and to keep his program refreshed; and even when he was activated, he'd become accustomed to some leisure time.

He was still working furiously over the scans of the senior officer's brain patterns, when Naomi Wildman's voice came in over the com.

"Wildman to Sickbay."

The Doctor hit his com badge. "What is it Naomi?"

"A few things happened in the program you might wanna know about. First, Chakotay was talking in his sleep—well that's not the first thing that happened, but it's the biggest…" the Doctor sighed inwardly as the girl rambled on. "See, he was asleep, and Seven found him. And I heard him say the name 'Seska,' and 'Voyager.'" The Doctor's eyes bulged. "Seven heard it too. She asked him what he was talking about, but when he woke up he couldn't remember."

"Did it stir anything for Seven?"

"No. She was just as confused as her character would be."

Damn.

"Did you say there was more?"

"Yeah! Tuvok remembered the Vulcan neck-pinch, but he looked confused by it afterwards. It just came instinctively to him. And later on, Billie—I mean B'Elanna—she growled at Tom like a Klingon."

"Perhaps the brainwashing is beginning to degrade!" The doctor reexamined his scans hopefully. "Keep me posted Wildman. Make a list of everything you see or hear them do that hints to remembering their real lives."

"Way ahead of ya Doc. I've been taking notes pretty much this whole time."

The sky was beginning to lighten when Tommy, Harry and Billie were headed back into the city. Billie told the old cabby that she didn't need his help anymore, and asked him not to mention her to anyone, even paying him a very generous tip to keep quiet. She hoped that wasn't too conspicuous.

They came onto a long, high bridge that crossed the Los Angeles River. On the other side, one could see the lights of the city.

"So," Billie said, staring ahead at the dark bridge. "You and Charles were war buddies?"

"I think we lost the 'buddies' part after I got three of our own men killed." Tommy kept his eyes on the road. "Charles isn't the forgiving type."

"He got over me lying and blackmailing him pretty quickly," Billie replied.

Tommy scoffed. "That's a bit of a different ballgame from killing someone. Besides, you're female and pregnant."

"Look," Harry said from the back seat. "You're together now. Once we get that bird, we'll all have enough money to go someplace where we can start clean. Why don't you two just bury the hatchet?"

Staring down the road, Tommy replied, "Because we're about to be arrested."

Surely enough, a police car was coming at them from the opposite direction, flashing lights. Tommy looked around, as if considering trying to escape. They were in the middle of a long thin bridge, with no room to turn around. Tommy finally admitted defeat and pulled over, right next to the railing of the bridge. The two cops stepped out of their car and approached the Buick, shining flashlights.

"Step out of the car please."

The three of them obeyed.

"How fast was I going officer?" Tommy tried.

"Sir, we had a report from a concerned cab driver about a pregnant woman leaving a house with two men of your descriptions. Both of you are also linked to a brawl witnessed on Delta Street around midnight, and you've also been implicated in a recent drive-by shooting. And you," he turned to Billie, "Would your name be Wilhelmina Torres?" When she didn't answer, he continued, "Your father was recently arrested for the murder of Mickey Kazon."

"I know that," Billie said quietly. "I didn't pick my father."

"No, but you gotta admit, it looks awful suspicious when the daughter of a murder suspect shows up in the company of two suspected gangsters. Look nobody's in trouble yet, but we're gonna have to take you down to the station with us."

Billie nodded slowly, working to hide her panic. "Right…alright…"

Tommy's face had gone bone white.

Harry swallowed, and asked the policeman, "What about them?" he looked over the policeman's shoulder. "Do they have to come too?"

The cop was just stupid enough to look over his shoulder.

When he did, Harry lunged and tackled him, knocking the cop right against the Buick, and bringing them both to the ground.

Tommy and Billie were momentarily stunned. When the other cop reached for his gun, Billie flipped around and gave him some kind of martial arts chop in the chin that sent him to the ground, and swiped his gun from him. Panting, she looked down at the gun, and then at the stunned cop, as if wondering where the hell that had come from.

Tommy could only stand and stare stupidly, while Harry wrestled his cop, and Billy looked around the bridge, gun in hand. Billie's cop remained on the ground, awake but blinking widely, as if his brains had been momentarily rattled.

Tommy turned to Harry and the other cop, searching for an opening to join in the fight. The cop finally pulled his gun and took aim at Harry. Harry reflexively kicked the cop in the middle, sending him tumbling under the railing and off the bridge.

Harry's eyes bulged. Behind him, Billie gasped.

"Come on!" Tommy pulled Harry to his feet and urged him towards the car.

The other cop was just pushing himself up when the three of them tore off down the bridge.

Billy began yelling at Harry. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Harry stared out the window. "If the cops got Tommy, they'd find out who he was. He'd go to prison for killing those war buddies."

"You killed a police officer!" Billie exclaimed.

"I didn't mean to! I—"

"Change of plans." Tommy cut them off. "We're finding a place to lie low. Chuck'll be fine with Indiana."

"If you say so," Billie folded her arms over her pregnant stomach, not sounding convinced.

In Astrometrics, Naomi was furiously typing away at her pad. She and Icheb were still monitoring the program's "story," while Tal Celes and the Delaney sisters poured over the hologrid readings.

"Every time they're about to converge as a group," Naomi said, "Something pops up and stops them. If we didn't know it was Seska now, I'd've just thought the program was written by a really lazy author."

Icheb stared up at the screen. "She's preventing them from confronting each other head-on. She wants to keep them in the dark about each other's whereabouts and motives."

"Typical Seska," Megan Delaney scoffed. "She's just driving them all to kill each other."

"Yes, Megan," her twin snapped, "We've figured that one out. Can we just concentrate on finding a weak spot in this program?"

"Don't start fighting," Tal warned. "I'll bet that's exactly what Seska wants!"

"Okay," Naomi changed the subject. "So Billie, Tommy and Harry are on the run from the law. Now what're Annie and the Chuck up to?"

Icheb glanced up at the quarter of the screen focused on Seven and Chakotay. "Clichéd romantic banter."

"I'm not leaving that bird."

"I'm not asking you to."

Annie was leading Charles through the empty café. He limped carefully after her, nursing his cracked arm and ribs. The rising sun cast shadows of the half-closed blinds over them that felt uncomfortably like prison bars. She brought him around a corner and into the coat room, where several unclaimed coats and jackets hung.

"I don't suppose I can get my coat or hat back?" Charles asked sarcastically.

Annie found his old gray fedora and put it onto his head. His trench coat and suit jacket were long gone (probably sill in Tommy Chicago's car), so she pulled out a gray trench coat that had been sitting unclaimed for several weeks.

"It might be a bit roomy," she said, throwing it around him like a cape, careful not to touch his broken arm or ribs.

He shrugged into the coat, and said humorously, "Just as long as the owner doesn't spot me and accuse me of stealing it—" He stopped laughing when he saw the bullet holes in the trench coat's chest.

Flatly, Annie said, "You need to get to a hospital."

She took him out the back door and helped him wave down a cab.

Before getting into the taxi he pleaded, "Come with me. I can get you out of this underworld."

"And into yours?"

Silence.

Annie took a step back onto the sidewalk. "I'll give your office a ring tomorrow afternoon. I assume you'll be out of the hospital by then."

He nodded. "I'm in the phone book."

"Go." She turned to the cab driver. "Now."

Once the cab was out of sight, she returned to the café and hurried up to Kitty's sitting room. Annie rapped on the door, almost frantically.

"One moment," Kitty groaned.

When the door opened, Annie was faced with the dreaded Kitty-in-the-Morning. Kitty blinked through fatigued eyes and smeared make-up. Her hair reminded Annie of the creatures from horror pictures.

Raising her eyebrow, Annie asked, "Up late I take it?"

Kitty rubbed her face. "Too many calls, not enough coffee." She removed her hand from her face and placed it on her hip. "So what'd you find out?"

Annie resisted the urge to swallow, or look to the side. She was a natural when it came to lying to strangers, but she was not used to lying to her mentor. And she had a lot of baloney to sell Kitty right now.

"He doesn't have it." Annie said sternly. "I doubt he'd even be capable of getting his hands on it. He isn't very bright."

"What makes you say that?"

"You mean aside from the fact that he just marched right in here and demanded the bird from you, then got into a brawl over it against three of your men—in a street where there could be any number of witnesses? Well, let me think. He tried offering me five-thousand dollars to betray you and join him in his hunt for the statue." Annie's lips turned up in a half-smile. "I asked him what he needed the bird so badly for if he already had that kind of money, and he just went silent."

Annie wasn't certain how to turn the subject to her next lie. Now her face faltered.

Kitty looked at her under her eyebrows. "Annie? Are you in love with him?"

Deciding this detail would work into her story's favor, she decided to answer truthfully. "Yes."

Kitty let out a long sigh and looked away.

"He's no threat to us anymore," Annie argued. "Even if he were stupid enough to try ratting us out, who will believe an Indian whose father was a bootlegger for Los Angeles's most wanted gangster?"

"A thorough investigator maybe! These cops aren't all as dim as the movies make them seem Annie! You of all people should know that."

"I of all people know how often human beings may underestimate each other on the basis of race."

Kitty shook her head. "I don't want him leaving, he knows too much. We're keeping him here until—" She noticed Annie's expression again. "Annie, you didn't."

"He needed a hospital."

Kitty took a step back into the sitting room, throwing her hands up.

Annie continued. "He was groaning, making all kinds of noises. He would've attracted attention."

"I'm surprised you didn't want to keep him here so you could nurse him back to health yourself."

"I have bigger fish to fry. Which reminds me, I saw the bird."

Kitty looked back at her sharply. "Now you've got my attention."

"When I sent Charles into the cab," now she allowed herself a swallow. "I saw a car on the other side of the street. There were three men milling around it, they looked like the kind that worked for Mickey Kazon. They opened the car's trunk just for a moment, and I saw it."

"How much of it did you see?"

"The entire thing. From the back angle. I could make out every stone on its tail feathers. I don't know if they saw me or not, but they slammed the trunk shut and took off like a bullet."

Kitty slowly took a seat on one of the sofas. "Which direction?"

"Northwest. They went straight through the alley between the bakery and the bookshop, and then turned to the left. That's the last I saw of them."

Kitty's blue eyes turned down, as she apparently thought through her next move. She glanced over her shoulder, just for a moment, at the gaping hole in the wall where the bird had been hidden hours before. Finally she stood up, and touched Annie's arm.

"You did good tonight Hanson. I'll leave Charles be. You can have your brave, as a reward."

Annie tried to look as if she found this choice of wording mildly amusing, rather than infuriating.

Kitty nodded. "Go home and get some rest. Be back here at the usual time."

As soon as Annie was headed down the stairs, Kitty slowly closed the door and bolted it. Then she picked up her phone and dialed.

"Mr. Gardener? …Forget about Frankenstein and the elf; I've got someone new for you to tail…"

"Really Mr. Excelsior, there's no need for you to come along."

"Mr. Felix," Tim cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief as they walked on. "I have no interest in your 'medicine.' If you wish to take morphine like most of us take coffee, that's not my concern, unless I'm paid for it to be my concern. I'm a private detective, not a police detective."

They were strolling down the street, in a very sketchy part of town. It was nearing lunch time. They'd grabbed a few hours of sleep at the house and changed into clean clothes. Kaaren informed them that Tommy and Harry had returned home, but then left quickly when an old girlfriend of Tommy's showed up pregnant. Ned and Tim had both gotten the feeling that Kaaren was leaving out some important details, but she'd insisted that that was the sum of it. Then she'd said she was tired, from being up all night worrying about her husband, and went back to bed.

"Alright then," Felix said. "What part of going with me to get my 'medicine' interests you, and who's paying you to be interested?"

"I want to talk to your de—friend, Willy. From what you tell me, he's quite familiar with the criminal underworld of Los Angeles. He might be able to give me some leads on Mr. Gardener."

Ned wrinkled his nose. "You've been talking nonstop about that creep all night. Remember Tim, we're being paid by Miss Marquis to get that statuette for her. And you said yourself, we're private detectives, not policemen. What do we care if some crazy guy is on the lose?"

"That 'crazy guy' is working for the same woman we are." Tim reminded him. "And I know better than anyone what Mr. Gardener is capable of."

Changing the subject, Ned asked, "That story Kaaren told us, about Tommy's old girlfriend showing up…do you feel like she left anything out?"

"She did seem a bit on edge," Tim admitted, putting his glasses back on. "Then again, it must have been quite a shock, to meet an unmarried pregnant woman, made that way by someone Kaaren considers a friend. Particularly for someone as sheltered as Kaaren."

Tim left out the fact that he suspected Kaaren and Tommy of having an affair.

"Ned, old pal!"

Willy stepped out of an alley, wearing a grin remarkably similar to Ned's. Willy seemed to have the same skin condition and poor taste in facial hair as Ned, too. He and Ned shook hands, and caught up, while Tim hung back and observed for a few moments.

"Wixiban," Naomi pointed at the drug dealer on the screen. "Neelix showed me pictures and told me stories. They were buddies, back when Neelix was living outside the law."

"And here he's Neelix's drug dealer," Icheb mused.

Tal looked over her shoulder. "So Willy is dragging Ned into his bad habits, just like Wix did that time he and Neelix tried to rob Voyager."

Naomi smirked at her. "I thought the grownups weren't supposed to be listening in on the kids' conversations. Aren't you supposed to be focusing on the hologrid readings?"

"You wanna trade?"

Icheb suddenly nudged Naomi, and pointed up at the screen.

Naomi followed his gaze, then shook her head. "What?"

"Look at the nurse."

Naomi craned her neck, squinting, and then her eyes widened.

Charles was not a man who indulged in drugs, but boy was he enjoying the morphine the nurse had given him. He almost wondered if she'd overdone it. She was no spring chicken (he felt a bit sorry for her, a woman her age having to work to support herself), and he wouldn't put it past her to have mixed up his dosage. He felt like he might melt right into the hospital bed. He was covered up to his neck in a white sheet, hiding his casts and bandages.

The nurse touched his arm in a way that felt a tad too intimate. "How are you feeling?" she asked in a low distant voice.

He opened his mouth to respond, but lost the words. He replied with a sloppy, stoned nod.

He wasn't sure if it was the drugs, but he was finding the woman's make-up very distracting. Charles didn't like to make cruel judgments, but good grief, her make-up was horribly overdone and out of date. It was obvious she was trying to look young, with her thin drawn-on eyebrows and her caked-on red lipstick. Her silver hair was yanked into a bun that looked painful.

The nurse left his bed, and headed for a phone that was sitting on a shelf in the tiny room. Even after all the times his boxing career had sent him to the hospital, Charles still wasn't sure what determined who got their own room, and why some had certain accessories like phones. Sometimes he woke up in his own private hospital room, and sometimes he woke up in a long hall lined with beds. This time he had his own room, and apparently it came with a telephone.

As the nurse dialed the number, Charles found something off-putting about her expression. She stared ahead at the window, her eyelids low and a small smile on her lips. Why were the curtains shut?

The person on the other line answered.

"Hello," the nurse said. "I'm a friend of Annie Hanson's. Can you put me through?"

Charles shot up—or tried to. That was when he realized he was strapped to the bed, underneath the sheet. Before he could call out for help, a ball of fabric was stuffed into his mouth, and a gag was being tied on. He knew who was silencing him before he even dared to arch his head back and look. After Seraphine finished tying on the gag, she mockingly "shushed" him and folded her arms on the bed. She was dressed as a nurse, and wouldn't have stood out in the hospital if not for the ridges on her nose. She watched the other woman at the phone with a smile. Charles gave up struggling and slammed his head back onto the pillow, breathing heavily.

He heard Annie's voice come in on the other line.

"Hello Anita," the older nurse drawled. "I found your package at the safe." A pause, as Annie said something indiscernible. "No Anita dear, I'm afraid you're not in the clear. Did you really think you were going to fool me with a tin spoon?"

On the other line, in her dressing room, Annie felt her heart rate increase.

"What are you talking about?"

"That lump of clay you left for me, in that public safe." Bruna Rike sneered. "Did you think I wouldn't check to make sure that the bird was inside? Did you really think you could just stick any old piece of metal in there and I'd just assume it was the statue?"

Annie stammered. "I gave you the bir—"

She stopped, and replayed it in her mind…

She'd found the fake clay bricks in Kitty's sitting room. She'd pulled the entire lump of clay out of the wall. She'd dug into it just enough to see a tiny hint of silver, and assumed—

Oh god.

Breathing rapidly, Annie replied, "Kitty didn't tell me she had a decoy."

"Didn't she now. I wonder why. One would've thought, after all you two had been through, that you'd be trusting each other."

Annie suddenly remembered the story she'd given Kitty earlier that day, about seeing the bird in the trunk of some fictitious gangster's car… Now she was replaying that conversation with Kitty, and Kitty's reaction after Annie had lied to her.

Annie felt as if she were being crushed on both sides between two elevator doors.

"I'm disappointed in you Annie." Bruna said quietly. "I'll be keeping…" Bruna's voice shrank, as she moved away from the phone to ask someone on her end, "What's his name again?"

On the other line, Annie heard another woman with a clear sharp voice say, "Charles."

Annie's phone almost slipped out of her hand.

Shaking, she put the receiver back to her ear. On the other end, she could hear Charles muffled voice, apparently trying to shout something to her through a gag.

"I'll be keeping Charles until you get me that bird. Get it for me like a good girl. Oh, and if you have any ideas about telling Kitty why you tried to rob her and lie to her, I'll know. I have eyes and ears everywhere. If that happens, I just might forget which medications I'm supposed to administer to my patient. A single dose of the wrong drug can be fatal."

The other woman added, "And don't bother with the police. I've got more than a few of the top officers on my side anyway." Annie heard the sound of high heels, and the woman's voice came right up to the receiver. "If you think Janeway can beat us with one of her hairbrained schemes, before we kill your boyfriend, then by all means…"

Annie shook her head. "Jane who?"

There was a pause. "Sorry, I was thinking of someone else." The woman sounded like she was referring to some kind of inside joke.

Bruna finished, "You have until midnight this Thursday, Anita."

Charles' muffled cries were the last thing Annie heard before the line went dead.

Annie stared at her own heaving face in the mirror. It had practically taken a miracle for her to find that decoy. Where the hell would Kitty Indiana keep the real statue?

Kitty Indiana stood in her sitting room, touching up her hair in front of a mirror on the wall. She was kind of getting tired of the pile of curls over her forehead, but she was momentarily out of ideas. What the hell was she doing worrying about her hair anyway. Her closest associate, Annie Hanson, was betraying her, and she didn't have an inkling as to why.

Annie couldn't have done it because she wanted the bird all to herself; she'd never been a greedy person. No one on this side of the Atlantic knew that Annie had been a Nazi, and obviously no Nazi that had managed to escape justice would go to America; so she ruled out the idea that someone might be blackmailing Annie with her past. The only thing Kitty could possibly fathom was that it was somehow related to Charles Liberty, because Annie was infatuated with him. It would be a real stretch for Annie to betray Kitty and jeopardize their entire mission over a schoolgirl crush. But she was inexperienced in any relationship beyond shallow seduction. With any luck, her tail Ron Gardener would be able to offer some clues, after following Annie around for a while.

Kitty rose from the sofa—which she hadn't even realized she'd taken a seat on—and strode to the counter where the elegant coffeepot sat. She knelt down and opened the cupboard, where she kept her coffee grounds and accessories. She pulled out the extra-large can of Maxwell House coffee, a size designed for coffee shops or restaurants that had to make massive amounts of coffee at once.

She pried off the lid, and sifted through the grounds until she found it. She pulled out the bundle, and untied the string that held on the newspaper wrappings. The newspaper fell away, to reveal the silver, gem-encrusted bird, looking as perfectly polished as it had the day Tommy Chicago and Harry Kimitsu had brought it to her.

A/N: I hope against hope that I'll have the next chapter posted tonight or tomorrow, which will be something of a turning point in the story. Then maybe I can get rolling enough to finish this turkey.