Along the Old Road

After walking down the Old Road for three days without finding any of the promised answers, they reached a junction where a small dirt road branched away from the main road. Glitch stopped dead in his tracks, looking around. "I know this place," he said, "I've been here before." He stumbled across the road, from here to there, examining the trees and stones. Then he stood in the middle of the dirt road and stared off into the distance.

"This way!" He waved for Jim, as he ran down the path. "Come on. It's somewhere around here. I just know it," he called over his shoulder, when Jim didn't follow.

Jim stood on the pavement unmoving. He rubbed his head tiredly. Over the past days, they had been through this countless times. Glitch would see some landmark and claim he remembered it, that this was the place they had to search. And after they had been wandering around for a while, coming up with nothing, he always had to admit he had been mistaken. The captain was fed up with this game by now. He already regretted ever suggesting this venture. He had better things to do than stumble through this wilderness, searching for a phantom that most likely didn't even exist. He had to get back to his ship.

Originally, he had hoped that keeping Glitch's mind busy would help get his brain in gear, so he would finally be able to put his communicator back together. But the longer their journey continued, the more evident it became that he had been utterly mistaken. Glitch was way too excited and distracted to even think about his communicator. All he had in mind was finding this Cain guy.

He made up his mind. This time he wouldn't follow Glitch into another fruitless chase after his imaginary friend. "Glitch!" he called sternly.

Reading his mood correctly, Glitch called, "This time I'm sure. I swear." He threw Jim his most irresistible lopsided smile, and involuntarily he felt his feet moving forward. Could anyone possibly resist this scatterbrain, if he looked at them like this? He sighed and followed obediently. Glitch led the way with a determination he hadn't shown before.

The path ended in a muddy yard in front of a dilapidated wooden hut. Judging from the state it was in, it must have been abandoned decades ago. The windows were broken and the door was unhinged. Jim went to take a closer look. Inside the place was a mess. Dried leaves mixed with broken furniture and scattered papers. But the bed in the farthest corner of the room looked like it had recently been used. The embers in the fire place seemed to be fresh as well, and there were leftovers in the kettle that hadn't started decaying yet. Someone must have been staying here not too long ago. That peaked his curiosity. He examined the room.

On a shelf he found a shattered picture frame. He brushed off the glass shards to find the picture of a family: a couple and their son. The boy was about seven, Jim guessed, and had his father's stern features. The mother was a beautiful brunette with a radiating smile. The father had put his arms protectively around his family. On his chest he wore a silver star that reminded Jim of a sheriff in the old 2D western movies he had loved watching as a kid. His posture emitted self-confidence, as his blue eyes looked straight into the camera.

And Jim noticed something else: not only the hair and the eyes, but even the features seemed awfully familiar. The man in the picture looked almost like himself, only a little older and more serious maybe.

It couldn't be. Was this actually the man Glitch was searching for? But this man had a family. That didn't match up to Glitch's statement of Cain being his lover. Still, the resemblance was remarkable. Glitch had told him time and again how much he looked like his Wyatt. That couldn't be a coincidence. It had to be him. So maybe the man did exist after all. He had to ask him directly.

He stepped out of the shady cabin and blinked at the sunlight. The scatterbrain was nowhere to be seen. Jim sighed. He should have never left him out of sight in the first place. He should have known better by now. After all, this wasn't the first time the brainless had disappeared, completely forgetting about Jim and their quest. Just where had he wandered off to this time? "Glitch," he called, half fearing he wouldn't get an answer.

"Over here!" Glitch answered. Jim went around the cabin and found the brunette crouching in front of something that reminded him of the ancient iron lady he had seen in Earth history books. That had to be one of those Tin Suits Glitch had told him about.

Glitch had his back turned on Jim, and his frame radiated sadness. "I told you this was the right place. He's been here. But now he's gone," he said, his voice nearly breaking with desperation. His fingers caressed the door bolts.

Jim stepped behind him and held out the picture. "Is that him?"

Glitch took it. He looked at it for a long time. His fingers retraced the man's outlines. "Yeah," he finally whispered. "Jim, where is he? What did they do to him?" he asked, fear evident in his tone. He stood up on shaky legs and for the first time in this conversation he looked Jim straight in the eye.

"I don't know," he returned helplessly. It pained him to see the grinning face he had gotten so used to over the past days contorted with grief. Tears glistened in the chocolate brown eyes, threatening to spill over. Yet, he maintained his composure. There was a dignity to the man Jim hadn't noticed before in the way he held his back and shoulders straight, refusing the grief to weigh him down. Jim felt a new respect for him.

Then something dawned on him. "Wait a minute. Maybe he hasn't been taken away at all. I found traces in the cabin of someone staying there recently. Maybe he somehow freed himself…"

Glitch threw him a dubious look, shaking his head. "You don't just break free from a Tin Suit. See these bolts? It's impossible."

"Okay… or maybe someone helped him get out. And now he's living in that cabin. Or at least the person who released him is and can tell us where he is. I say we stay and wait for whoever it is that stays here. For the time being, that's our best option to find out anything," the captain suggested.

Glitch nodded warily. He didn't exactly like the idea of staying here, something about the place just didn't feel right. Yet, he had no better plan and Jim had a point about finding a lead on Wyatt.

They retreated into the cabin to wait for whoever inhabited it. Soon, Glitch got bored from sitting around, doing nothing but wait. He cleared the ramshackle kitchen table and pulled out of his pocket the case with his tools and the cloth he'd wrapped up the debris of Jim's communicator in. After three days in which he had seemed to have forgotten he carried them around in the first place, he finally remembered.

Jim had almost given up hope this would ever happen. Over the past days, he had been wondering if Glitch's genius had been but a meteorite, a fire burning brightly for an instant before dying out in the atmosphere forever. He examined him closely, considering whether he would be in the right state of mind to actually put the thing back together. There was still this new dignity he held himself with Jim had noticed before. Something inside him had changed ever since they had found the Tin Suit that was supposed to hold this Cain guy, empty. The frantic urge to move forward was gone.

Glitch had kept pushing himself, trying to extract memories from his mind that just weren't there – and probably never had been to begin with. It caused him to glitch frequently. The strain on his already jarred brain was simply too much. Then Glitch would either stare at Jim without recognition or – which was even more disturbing – he would confuse him with Cain, throwing his arms around him and drawing him in for a feverish kiss.

The disturbing point though was less the kiss itself, but that Jim started liking it. During their long journey, Glitch rambled on endlessly about this and that – Jim usually understood only half of it, at best, the scatterbrain switched topics faster than he could follow. But if he tuned out the actual words, the lecturing tone reminded him strangely of a certain Vulcan. His mind wandered off to his ship and the people waiting there for him; the warm embrace he kept dreaming about. He felt homesick. He'd finally broken through Spock's icy armor and tasted the sweet warmth lying underneath. And now that he had tasted it, he wanted more. He wanted to get back home already. And Glitch's touchy-feelyness was somehow comforting, soothing. Being around Glitch and learning about the similarities – as ridiculous as that seemed to be – between him and Spock, at least gave him a sense of connection to his original life. It grounded him and gave him hope.

At night half asleep, he would sneak up to Glitch's sleeping form and snuggle into the inviting warmth of his body. Then he would always dream of home, of the warm arms that awaited him there. And every morning, he would wake up to the cold damp reality of this planet, facing the goofy smile of the curly head instead of his stoic Vulcan, and feeling sad and empty.

Glitch was calmer now, more relaxed than he had ever been since they had met. His brown eyes were clear, no trace of confusion or another fit waiting to burst forth. There was only determination and focus, as he picked up his tools and set to work.

Jim decided it would be better to leave him alone and backed off a little. He busied himself examining the room again, closer this time. He found faded letters, yellowed books, crumpled kid's drawings – remnants of a family life long since abandoned. He wondered what had happened to the family. He wanted to ask Glitch, but didn't dare interrupt him. He probably didn't have any answers anyway. The brunette was immersed in the mechanics of the communicator, mumbling while his hands moved rapidly, expertly putting the puzzle piece by piece back together. He had already made great progress. The mess slowly reshaped into his communicator.

After watching him for a while, the captain returned his attention to his surroundings. He dug up more pictures. One of them showed Cain alone. This time he was apparently in some kind of uniform: a brown coat and a matching hat. Under the coat, Jim could make out a gun holster and pinned to the lapel was again the silver star he had noticed earlier. Seeing it up closer now, he realized he had seen it before. The 'Long Coats', as Glitch had called the men who had arrested him, had worn the same insignia – and, now that he thought about it, pretty similar uniforms as well.

But that would mean Cain was one of them. Could Glitch be this mistaken to confuse his captor with a lover? Jim's mind raced as it tried to put the pieces together. Anything was imaginable with Glitch's messed up state of mind. He had a bad feeling about this.

He turned to the inventor who was still engrossed in his work and slammed the picture down on the table in front of him, "Did you know your beloved Cain was a Long Coat?"

Glitch threw him a vexed glare. "No way! What are you talking about?"

"Look at this uniform! It's the same the men who arrested me wore," Jim elaborated.

Looking at the picture, Glitch chuckled, "No, silly! That's a Tin Man uniform…" He took a moment to process the new information his brain spilled. "…My Wyatt is a Tin Man!" he beamed proudly.

"What the devil's a Tin Man?" the captain asked.

Glitch started a lecture on the former queen's reign – or at least the bits and pieces he remembered, which wasn't exactly much, just some bedlam stories about princesses, witches and knights with shiny silver stars, more a fairytale than actual events, Jim mused. But then again, one could never know with this strange planet. And it wasn't like he hadn't heard weirder stories on other worlds.

With this additional information, a new theory began to form in Jim's mind. "Glitch," he interrupted the other's ramblings, "wouldn't that mean my captors were Tin Man too?"

"That's impossible! Or isn't it…?" The scatterbrain didn't have an answer to that.

Both pondered the possibilities of this latest mystery for a while, without finding any answers, though. From the tension in the air, Jim could almost feel Glitch's concentration spiraling toward another fit. Before that could actually happen, he spoke up to lighten the mood, "I guess we'll just have to wait for the answer to walk through that door, right?"

Glitch smiled weakly, the tension slowly dissolving from his features. "You're probably right." He picked up his tools again, as if to distract himself. "In the meantime, I better finish this," he pointed at the pieces still spread out on the table, "before I forget how to do it."

At the prospect of getting his communicator back, Jim suddenly felt restless himself. He got up. "You do that. I'll be outside. I can't sit still anymore."

He left the cabin and roamed the vicinity, still pondering on the matter of the Long Coats and the Tin Men. For some reason, both obviously existed which didn't fit into Glitch's story of the Tin Men having been destroyed by the Long Coats at some point in the past. But Jim had always been wondering about the substance of it anyway. The question now was which of them were in charge? If it was the Tin Men, they could risk going out into the open and get some help. But if it were the Long Coats, they would get into a lot of trouble. He walked along the lakeside, through meadows and a small forest, munching on fruit he found along the way, and tried to find an answer. When he returned to the cabin, the second sun was already setting.

As he came closer, he could hear loud voices from within. Judging from the volume, they were arguing. This was bad! Glitch! He drew his phaser and ran for the cabin.

Before he could even reach it, though, he felt a heavy blow to his head, and the world went black.

Glitch was so absorbed in his work he hadn't even noticed anything amiss, until he looked up – straight into the barrel of a gun. He froze in his seat. A dirty and grim looking man in a black leather coat that had seen better days stepped into the room – a Long Coat!

A wicked sneer parted the stranger's lips, "Advisor Ambrose, it's an honor to have you here in my humble shelter." He bowed slightly. "The entire O.Z. has been frantically searching for you. The palace is worried sick, Commander Cain is turning the entire kingdom upside down, I hear," he explained mock-politely.

Glitch sat paralyzed. He didn't even dare breathing. He was caught. There was no escape from the cabin. The only exit was blocked by the Long Coat.

"What's wrong with you, Advisor? After all I've heard about you, I thought you'd put up more of a fight. You're disappointing me," he grinned menacingly.

When the Long Coat had entered, Glitch's brain had shut off in shock. All this time his mind had been fuzzy, he had been smart enough to stay away from them. And now that the dust had settled and his mind was clearer, he'd been tricked this easily. He only noticed what happened through a thick haze. He felt like he was drowning and couldn't move. Yet, there had been some important information on who he might be in what the man had said. If only he could focus on what it had been – something about Wyatt and the palace. He tried to gather all his mental energy around the new information to make sense of it. But it was no use. The harder he concentrated, the deeper he sank into the quicksand of his consciousness. He could feel his brain spiraling down into a glitch. His breath hitched and then everything went blank.

"…t up! I said, get up!" a voice sounded from somewhere behind the thick darkness clouding his mind.

Glitch only came to, when he was yanked from the chair roughly. "Hey! It's rude to shake a poor scarecrow like this!" he complained, then paused. "Do I know you?" He inclined his head.

The stranger grinned wickedly, "Don't worry, we'll have enough time to get to know each other." He caressed Glitch's cheek almost tenderly.

Glitch didn't understand what was going on, but he sure didn't like the way the other looked at him. He tried to struggle free and kicked for the man. A strong hand grabbed his curls and yanked his head back, the gun digging into his jaw. "Move! And don't try anything funny!"

He couldn't do anything but comply as he was led outside to a horse and loaded onto it. He had no clue who or where he was, or what was going to happen to him. All he knew was his head was pounding like crazy. Several times, Glitch tried talking to his captor, hoping to get some answers. All he got for a reply, though, was the man further spurring the horse, until he felt dizzy and nauseous.