Chapter 3: A New Reality

They had crawled from one of the cramped tunnels out into one more brightly lit that permitted Buffy and Dawn the luxury of standing. Picard crouched down and reached for a hatch cover and lifted it the merest slit, revealing on the level beneath them endless rows of the silent, standing cyborg men, each sporting the same white face with nondescript features, each clothed in black metal armor that seemed part of their very flesh.

As he slowly, soundlessly replaced the hatch, a muscle in his jaw twitched; with grim revulsion, he glanced up and said softly, "They're on this deck, too. We have to keep moving."

"Look," Dawn said. "I don't know how to use this thing. And I can feel the fear of everyone with the exclusion of myself."

"Both a blessing and a curse," Picard said as Dawn nodded. "You two have served long enough with me in the time I'm from that I know how you feel, Dawn."

"I don't want to try firing this thing at them and hitting the wrong button and you getting killed," Dawn said as she handed Picard the phaser.

"This way," he said as he headed off down the tunnel. "What happened in sickbay? Dawn where's your future counterpart and Dr. Crusher?" Despite his effort to suppress it, his eyes and voice betrayed deep concern.

"We got separated," Buffy said. "I guess more of whatever those things are were trying to break down the door. We were ushered into one of the tunnels in the wall."

Picard nodded as he reached where he was going. He pressed a panel on the wall and a hatch opened onto a large chamber, and he strode inside.

The room was empty save for groupings of couches and chairs facing the oddly bare far wall, which sloped outward at a forty-five degree angle.

Picard moved quickly toward it, he said, "Those cyborg men you two saw are trying to prevent the launch tomorrow morning. But we're here to help you."

"Kind of figured that," Dawn said. "Or my future counterpart would not be on this ship."

"As you surmised, you're not on Earth. You're in a spaceship, orbiting at an altitude of about two hundred and fifty kilometers."

Buffy and Dawn looked at each other and then back at Picard who pressed the control and they watched as the great curving wall slid aside to reveal a profoundly startling vision.

Naked space and stars, and beneath them, vast and blue and shining, Earth.

"I beginning to understand," Dawn whispered to Buffy. "I was drawn to him for a reason." She looked at Picard. "Force field?" she asked startling him.

"Yes," Picard said.

"Seen enough TV shows before the war that I know what a force field is," she said as she and Buffy stepped toward the force field. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful before."

"Jean-Luc Picard," he offered warmly. "My name. If I may ask, what are the names you two are going by now?"

"We didn't tell you?" Buffy asked as she realized future Dawn had not mentioned to Picard about this event."

"No," Picard answered. "Likely to preserve your own history."

"Lily," Dawn said, "I'm going by Lily and Buffy is going by Willow. We're basically our own granddaughters as far as records go."

"Welcome aboard, Lily, Willow," he said. "Come on, there's more I need to tell you…"

Picard led them down a tunnel as he explained exactly what was going on. He opened a hatch and jumped down to the next level as they followed and then moved cautiously down the hallway.

"Cybernetic lifeforms," Buffy said with a shake of her head. She looked at Dawn. "And here I thought my days of fighting the forces of evil were gone."

Picard laughed as he looked at Buffy. "You aren't done quite yet. That said though vampires and demons by my times are almost non-existent on Earth. But that's not why you are Millennial though, is it?"

Buffy looked at Picard her eyes wide. "So its true."

"Yes," Picard said.

He paused in their journey to consult a computerized panel on the ... bulkhead.

"The encryption still in place?" Dawn asked.

"Yes," Picard replied.

"So how many planets are in this ... Federation?" Buffy wondered. The future he had described to them that they might one day get to live in sounded nice.

"Over one hundred and fifty," he said. "Spread across eight thousand light-years."

"Not even a quarter of the galaxy," Dawn said. "You must not get back to Earth very often."

"I do try to get back when I can."

"How big is this ship?" Dawn asked, gazing around her. It seemed they'd covered miles of empty corridors.

"Twenty-four decks. Almost seven hundred meters long," Jean-Luc answered, with obvious pride.

"It took Dawn and I six months to scrounge up enough titanium to build the Phoenix's cockpit," Buffy said. "You must have some good sources for the metal."

"We do," Picard answered. "We have mines throughout the Federation that supply the various shipyards."

As they rounded a corner they found it lined with a dozen hibernating Borg inside narrow alcoves, and several Borg were moving about, apparently working.

Buffy and Dawn watched as Jean-Luc headed for the Borg. "It's all right," he said in a low, calm voice. "They won't attack us unless we threaten them."

He led them into the enemy's midst as the Borg moved past them. As they passed by one hibernating Borg, it suddenly bolted forward from its alcove and moved past them, silently summoned to do some task.

Jean-Luc grabbed Buffy and Dawn and pulled them out of the way of a Borg who would have walked blindly into them.

When they were moving again, an odd expression passed over his face. As Dawn watched she was sure he was hearing something that she could not hear. "You hear them don't you?" she asked. How Dawn knew that she was not sure.

Picard simply nodded. A moment later they stepped from the Borg corridor into what Buffy and Dawn recognized as Federation surroundings. He peered down an adjacent corridor, his mind clearly seized by a fresh idea. As Picard raised his phaser Dawn grabbed his arm.

"Let me," Dawn said as Picard looked at her and nodded. "What were you going to aim at?"

"The equipment at the end of the corridor," he said.

Dawn reached out and touched the bulkhead and held out her other arm at the same time and fired a blast of electrical energy at the equipment that Picard had indicated.

The equipment exploded in a rain of sparks.

Behind them, two Borg simultaneously turned about and began to pursue them.

He led the two of them down a corridor to a set of double doors, he hit a control, and then motioned them inside before the doors slid shut with a silent whoosh.

Picard stepped up to a small, glowing control panel and began to tap it with his fingers.

From the other side of the door came a slithering scrape: the Borg.

With maddening calm, he fixed his gaze upon Buffy and Dawn and looked her frankly up and down, still fingering the panel.

"Perhaps something in satin."

The door rumbled, then began to screech.

Within seconds, they would be inside.

In the snap of a finger, the world around them changed. No more dark, empty room. Instead, they found themselves immediately transported to another place, another time—a nightclub, in the early twentieth century, judging from the clothing. Another man appeared beside Buffy.

"It'll look less suspicious if we both have dates," he said to Buffy.

Buffy nodded in understanding. Once the Borg got in they would have a hard time identifying the three of them in here. Without a date she would stand out. And the Borg might zero in on her.

The room was impossibly larger and filled with a smoky haze. An old-fashioned band was packing up for the night, while busboys cleared tables to the tinkle of ice against glass. Dawn and Buffy noticed it was not only the world had changed or the addition of the new man. But they and Picard had changed. Both Buffy and Dawn now wore long white satin dresses. And Picard himself wore a striped suit with a broad, necktie, and a banded fedora at a rakish angle.

Picard seized Dawn's arm and propelled her through the nearly empty, smoke-veiled room toward the main bar.

Buffy grabbed the man's arm and they followed after her sister and Picard.

The bar was an ornate creation of gleaming mahogany and brass trim, adorned by Tiffany lamps, golden swans, and cherubs; behind it on the wall hung a large Maxfield Parrish print of a gossamer-clad woman on a swing.

"Eddie!" Picard called to the bartender.

The man glanced up from the glass he was drying and grinned. "Dixon!"

"Dixon, Dixon," Dawn muttered to herself. She had heard the name before, back before the war. "Dixon Hill?" she asked Picard as she realized where she had heard the name, a mystery novel.

Picard nodded without responding.

Behind them, the holodeck doors gave a final terrifying shriek as the two Borg pushed them apart and stepped inside ... then hesitated, perplexed by the unexpected scene.

A tuxedoed maître d' at once approached the drones and said: "I'm sorry, gentlemen. But we're closing."

The Borg made no move to leave. Annoyed, the maître d' continued firmly. "And you do understand we have a strict dress code. So if you boys don't leave right now, I'll—"

One Borg seized the unfortunate host's collar and dragged him close; a small black scope covering one of the drone's eyes began to flash, then extended outward and focused a thin laser beam on the face of the maître d'.

"Long time no see, Dix! What'll it be—the usual?" the bartender asked.

Picard glanced surreptitiously up and down the bar. "I'm looking for Nicky the Nose."

"The Nose?" The bartender frowned and ceased his relentless polishing. "He ain't been in here for months."

Picard briefly closed his eyes and let go a breath in a moment of disgusted revelation. "This is the wrong chapter," he said. He lifted his face slightly, as if speaking to someone hovering overhead. "Computer: begin chapter thirteen."

Dawn and Buffy blinked, a single, swift fluttering of the lashes, and after that briefest of instants, saw that the bar was still the same, but the dance floor was filled with people swaying to the band's music.

Waiters sailed through the room with trays of food and drink, and all the empty space surrounding them was now crammed with warm bodies.

And the Borg had just entered the ballroom.

Picard took Dawn's hand and drew her into the middle of the packed ballroom, then began to dance. "Try to look like you're having a good time," he admonished her.

The Borg started to make their way through the crowd.

"You look like your enjoying yourself," Dawn said when she noticed his smile.

"If it wasn't for the situation, I would say you are right," Picard said and then he noticed something and frowned. "What is she doing?"

Dawn stopped dancing and turned and saw Buffy walking toward the Borg.

"Computer," Buffy said. "I need a scythe." When the computer asked for the kind she gave a very detailed description of the Slayer's Scythe.

The red and gold scythe she was so familiar with appeared in her hands. She twirled it experimentally and wished this was the real thing. She knew where the real scythe was, buried in the ruins of the rebuilt Watcher's Council.

The Borg suddenly broke through the crowd and headed toward her. Instinctively, Buffy did as she had done so many times before. She lunged at the nearest Borg. The Borg reached out to stop and found it quickly without an arm and then its head. The second Borg lunged at Buffy and found itself falling backward with a shot of electrical energy.

Buffy glanced over her shoulder and saw Dawn with her hand on Picard and the other outstretched knew that her sister had drawn off some of Picard's energy and fired a blast. She turned back to the Borg and before it could get up, she cleaved it's head off as well.

Picard and Dawn came up to Buffy. "I still think your talents were wasted," he said, "at helm."

Picard gazed down at the Borg with loathing. He knelt down next to one of the Borg, the one Dawn had fired at. Her energy blast had somehow not only overcome the Borg shields but had torn open it's chest, leaving behind a horizontal swath of shredded black metal and pale flesh tinged with blood. Without a word, Picard opened a panel on one Borg's abdomen.

"I don't get it," Dawn said. "The scythe is not real …"

"I disengaged the safety protocols," Picard answered, his tone curt, distant. "Without them, even a holographic weapon can kill." He glanced up at Buffy. "The question is how did you know that?"

"I didn't," Buffy said. "It was a guess. I figured if holograms could be made solid so could a weapon. And if the weapon was solid that meant it could hurt someone. I was fairly certain you had lured them in for a reason."

"Yes, to do exactly what you did, so I could get this," Picard said as he pulled out what looked like a computer chip. "It's the neuroprocessor. Every Borg has one. It's like a memory chip; it'll contain a record of the instructions this Borg's been receiving from the collective."

"Buffy," Dawn said as she saw the ragged remnants of a Starfleet uniform.

"I know," Buffy said. "Their part of Jean-Luc's crew. But I had no choice, it was us or them." She looked at Picard. "They could be considered no longer human."

"Sadly yes, from the moment thy are assimilated they are more less just like the demons and vampires you used to fight," Picard answered.

Sometime later inside another one of the tunnels between the walls, Picard steeled himself and reached overhead to pull the lever that would open the hatch. Above lay the Enterprise bridge, which, according to the computer panel he had consulted, was environmentally prepared for the Borg. The chance existed that they had already arrived there and now waited on the other side of the hatch.

Inhaling deeply, he pulled the lever. The hatch slowly slid open. He braced himself for the sight of a chalk-pale hand reaching for him, Buffy and Dawn. Instead, he found himself looking up at the business end of three phaser rifles, Starfleet issue, and the grim faces of Worf, Beverly, and Commander Dawn.

"Captain," Worf said, not quite smiling with relief. Beside him, Crusher's and Commander Dawn's tension visibly deflated. Worf and Beverly lowered their weapons while Commander Dawn lowered her outstretched hand. The Klingon proffered the captain a large, dark hand.

Picard took it and stepped up onto a bridge dim and overheated, but blessedly un-Borgified; most of the consoles had been opened up, and officers labored to bring them online.

"Jean-Luc," Beverly said, dark emotions clearly warring with light. She could not quite bring herself to smile. "We thought you were—"

Picard interrupted. "Reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated." He moved away from the Jefferies tube as Worf pulled first Dawn and then Buffy up onto the bridge.

That was when the those on the bridge saw there were two Dawn's.

"It's classified," Picard said to those who were not in the know on Buffy and Dawn's Millennial status.

Buffy looked at Worf and remembering when this ship had come from. This man, for lack of a better term, she reasoned was someone from another planet, not a demon.

"I suggest everyone refer to them by the names that they are going by in this time period so we and they aren't confused on who we are referring to," Picard said. "Lily, Willow I would like to introduce you to Dr. Crusher.

"We met briefly when my counterpart woke us," Dawn said.

Picard nodded as he gestured at Commander Dawn. "Of course, you know your counterpart." He finally motioned toward Worf. "And this is Mr. Worf."

"What are you?" Dawn asked with a glance at Buffy.

"I am a Klingon," Worf offered.

"Cool," Dawn said, nodding.

Picard wasted no more time, but turned to Worf and demanded, "Report."

"The Borg control over half the ship. We've been trying to restore power to the bridge and the weapons systems, but we have been unsuccessful."

Crusher joined in. "So far, there are sixty-seven people missing ... including Data."

Dawn looked at her counterpart and knew that like herself that Commander Dawn could feel a surge of rage and sorrow coming from Picard. They both laid a hand gently on his arms and for a moment Picard glanced at both his crewmate and her counterpart and then slowly nodded. He turned back to Worf and Beverly, he was sure Commander Dawn already knew what he was about to say. "We have to assume they've been assimilated. Unfortunately, we have a bigger problem. I accessed a Borg neuroprocessor ... and I think I've discovered what they're trying to do. They're transforming the deflector dish into an interplexing beacon."

"Interplexing beacon?" Beverly asked.

Picard paused, choosing his words carefully; the term was, of course, perfectly and mysteriously clear to him—just as the knowledge of the neuroprocessor had been. "A kind of subspace transmitter. It links all the Borg together to form a single consciousness. If the Borg on this ship activate the beacon, they'll establish a link with the other Borg in this century."

"But in the twenty-first century, the Borg are still in the Delta Quadrant," Beverly said.

"They'll send reinforcements," Picard continued grimly. "Humanity would be an easy target. Attack Earth in the past ... to assimilate the future." Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed that Buffy and Dawn looked at each other.

"We must destroy the deflector dish before they activate the beacon," Worf stated, coming to precisely the conclusion his captain had intended.

"We can't get to a shuttlecraft," Picard said, thinking over the possibilities. "And it would take too long to fight our way down to deflector control.. ." He paused, reaching; defeat was not an option. Happily, the idea came. "Mr. Worf ..." He looked up brightly at the Klingon. "Do you remember your zero-g combat training?"

Worf swallowed hard, as if trying to keep the unpleasant memory down. "I remember it made me sick to my stomach. What are you suggesting?"

Picard turned to the Klingon with a knowing look. "I think it's time we went for a little stroll."

Thirty minutes later inside an Enterprise airlock, Picard secured the helmet to his spacesuit, then took the phaser rifle Worf proffered.

"I have remodulated the pulse emitters," the Klingon said. "But I do not believe we will get more than one or two shots before the Borg adapt."

"Then we'll just have to make those shots count," Picard answered simply.

Dawn watched her future counterpart as Commander strapped on a helmet. She turned to Picard and leaned in. "Good luck," she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

Picard turned and addressed both the Klingon and Commander Dawn. "Magnetize."

He touched the small control pad on the thigh of his suit; the two others did the same.

Immediately, the light on his boots began to blink green, and the soles hugged the deck with a metallic thunk. He looked at his two officers, their faces entirely visible beneath the face shields; Worf's expression was one of eagerness, Commander Dawn's one of nervous determination.

Dawn understood the feelings she was getting from her counterpart. If something happened and the magnetic boots lost their hold she could wind up floating in space, potentially for hundreds of years till her time as a Millennial was up.

"Ready?" Picard asked. The officers nodded; he moved to a wall panel and activated the control. At once, the airlock door opened. Impulsively, he turned back toward Dawn. "Watch your caboose, Dix," she said.

"I intend to," Picard said most sincerely, and led the others into the airlock.

As the airlock closed Dawn turned and exited the room as she headed back toward the bridge. When she reached the bridge she nodded to Beverly. "Their outside," she said.

Beverly nodded and returned her attention to the console.

"Is there some place Willow and I can talk in private?"

Beverly motioned toward a door and Buffy and Dawn walked through it. If they had not already come to terms with the fact they were in space, what they saw now would have made them believers. They looked out the observation window over the back of the starship.

"You wanted to talk to me," Buffy said as she turned toward her sister.

"I … I don't know if I am feeling someone else's feelings, But I've noticed since we've been aboard that I've felt love towards you," Dawn replied.

"You mean romantic love?"

"Yes."

Buffy nodded as she again thought back on what Fate had told her. "I'm going to tell you something that Fate told me in private. Since we are the only two that will live for a thousand years and since you requested me. The love we feel as sisters he said would likely grow into more."

"I can see that," Dawn said. "For we are the only two that might live as long as we do. But still being in love with you, Buffy, it's like … It's supposed to be wrong."

"I know," Buffy said.