* * DECK 15 - PROJECT OMNI MAIN LABORATORIES AND WORKSHOPS * *

            As soon as she left the daycare center, B'Elanna initiated a massive and frantic search for Miral. Station security scanned all internal sensors for biosigns pertaining to a four-year-old. Twenty-five came up, twenty-two of which were located in the daycare center on Deck 7, one at Station Ops (presumably the Commodore's grandson), one in the Deck 5 Officer's Mess and one in the Deck 15 corridor. B'Elanna frantically headed down to Deck 15, knowing her clever young daughter would probably be smart enough to find the deck that housed her office and the deck on which she'd spent the entire morning. She hit the hallway and ran a mad dash through the corridor, only to be stopped by a large pile of debris emanating from the open doors of the Office of Computer Systems Support.

            "It's gone… It's all gone! Frank! It's gone!"

            "So you lost an archaic 20th century audio device, Dave. Can't you just replicate a new one or something?"

            "It's not that simple! That wasn't just a phonograph. It was an NAD phonograph. An NAD, man! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get one of those? Even with a replicated one, you have to tune up the replicator patterns just right to get it to work like it should. Hell, to get a decent one, I had to buy it for 300 credits from some guy down in Greenwich Village. 300 credits, Frank!"

            "Forrester!" Dave's head snapped towards the door by the surprise appearance of his superior officer. "I'm looking for my daughter, Miral. She's about 3 feet tall, forehead ridges, blue eyes, curly brown hair. Have you seen her?"

            "Hell, she was here all right! She even-"

            B'Elanna cut him off, "Where did she go?"

            "I think she took a left down the corridor."

            Without another word, B'Elanna leaped over the debris pile that now stretched across the corridor, and took off down the hallway.

* * * *

            B'Elanna's mad dash through the Deck 15 corridor was hindered once again, this time by a crisis in the middle of the hallway. Fearing the worst, that it was Miral and that she was terribly hurt, she shoved her way into the crowd and saw the limp figure of an Engineering Crewman sprawled on the floor, clutching his leg. Around him were splatters of what appeared to be white hull paint.

            Rona was kneeling down next to the man, helping him up, "I'm so sorry… It wasn't supposed to take off like that…"

            "What's going on here?!" B'Elanna exclaimed to the group.

            "Oh, Chief," Arah exclaimed, "One of the crawlers malfunctioned and chased off after, of all things, a little girl. Crewman Reiss here got knocked over by the crawler.

            "Miral! Where is she?!" B'Elanna was frantic after hearing that her young child was apparently assaulted by what amounted to a robotic paintbrush.

            "That's the thing," Rona interrupted, "we can't seem to find her anywhere, I mean…"

            While the lieutenant explained, B'Elanna noticed something odd out of the corner of her eye. It was an open Jeffries tube hatch, right next to the accident scene. Adding two and two together, she slapped her commbadge furiously.

            "Torres to Franks," Without waiting for a response, she exclaimed, "I need you to do another check for four-year-old biosigns. NOW!"

            "Okay, okay… uh… what the…?"

            "Out with it, Ensign!"

            "There's one showing up in Jefferies tube 37, section 15a. That's odd…"

            Without waiting for another word, B'Elanna was inside the open Jefferies tube hatch.