Disclaimer: Paramount. No further comment.
Let's see what madness I can come up with today…heehee…
Chapter Forty-Six:
Technical Difficulties
Kirk fell into Sickbay. He didn't walk, stride, or stroll. He fell. He'd been trying to lean back against the wall. Instead he'd leaned back towards the door, which of course opened. So Kirk fell into Sickbay.
He sprawled on the floor, legs in the doorway, and became reacquainted with the Sickbay ceiling. For a moment, until someone leaned over him.
"Jim?" McCoy said, looking concerned.
Kirk said something vaguely like "erk" and scrambled to his feet. He backed up against the door. Which opened again. Which sent him sprawling again, this time into the corridor. He was quick to get up again. "I'm okay," he said immediately.
The look McCoy was giving him made it very clear that the good doctor was doubtful. "Are you sure?"
Kirk shook his head. "No." He ran a hand through his hair and squinted at McCoy. "Are you sure you're you?"
McCoy put on his best expression of professional concern, took Kirk by the arm, and firmly steered him back into the Sickbay. "We're going to have a little chat, Jim…"
"Yes, let's," Kirk agreed. "I want to be certain you're really you."
"And…what makes you think I might not be?"
"If you'd just seen seven of you go by, you wouldn't be sure either."
McCoy's eyes widened. "You just saw…seven of me?"
Kirk nodded. "Seven. In a pack. Carrying phasers."
"We really need to talk…"
Realization hit Kirk. "Hey wait a minute, I'm not nuts!"
McCoy nodded. "Of course not…"
"When the goose showed up, you said you'd believe me next time!"
"About a goose, yes, not about this," McCoy pointed out.
"I'm telling you, they were out there!" Kirk insisted.
"Jim, you're trying to make me believe that you just saw seven of me!"
Kirk started to argue. But even he could see the absurdity of it. He grinned a little sheepishly. "I guess it does sound a little strange…"
McCoy nodded. "Just a little."
"I don't know, maybe my eyes were playing tricks…"
"Maybe you're under too much—"
"—stress, I know," Kirk finished. "Fine. I was going towards the transporter room to beam down anyway."
"Maybe I'll come with you to the transporter room…see if we encounter any more multiples of me."
Kirk rolled his eyes. "Funny, Bones."
"What? I could use some extra hands around here…" McCoy said as they left Sickbay.
They got to the transporter room without seeing any more McCoys. Or anything else unusual, for that matter. Kirk beamed down. McCoy hung around for a minute to talk to the transporter technician. He was still there when Kirk requested beam-up, two minutes after beaming down.
"That was fast," McCoy commented, surprised.
Kirk had a very strange expression. Somewhere between shock and terror. "Yeah. Well. I wasn't exactly where I meant to be."
McCoy blinked. "Where were you?"
"I don't know. A run-down city, I think," Kirk said, stepping off the pad and heading for the door.
"A…run-down city?" McCoy repeated, following him out into the corridor. Seemed like he was doing a lot of following today.
"Yeah. It was strange. It was a run-down city. And there was a…woman there. In a mask."
McCoy grinned. "Maybe it's just me, but seems like in that case you'd want to go there…"
"She wasn't my type!" Kirk snapped, and continued down the corridor.
McCoy watched him go, a puzzled expression on his face. "And here I thought Disneyland had done him some good," he said to himself.
We can be sure what McCoy was thinking. McCoy was thinking that Kirk had lost some portion of his mind, possibly a large portion. Kirk was more difficult to read, because even Kirk wasn't sure what Kirk was thinking.
Strange things were happening. Maybe it was him. But maybe not. He didn't know. But he knew there was something strange going on. Of that there was no doubt. On normal days he simply did not see seven McCoys, and then beam into cities with…a masked woman in them. And he definitely didn't find huge mounds of jello around the corner.
But that's what he found around the corner. Jello. Lots of it. He wasn't immediately aware of the amount of jello though. Because his first encounter with the jello was in the form of a blob hitting him in the face as he turned the corner, which completely obscured his vision.
As he tried to wipe jello out of his eyes, he heard a vaguely familiar voice say, "Nice going. First you press the button, then you hit the Captain with jello!" to which a voice that sounded somewhat like Kevin Riley responded with, "Scatter!" By the time Kirk could see again, there was no one to see. But there was a lot of orange jello.
Kirk stared at it for a moment. Then he swallowed, stepped back around the corner, and called the maintenance team on the comm unit.
"Maintenance here, is there a problem?"
"Yes, there's a rather large mess on Deck 3, Corridor G." Kirk peered back around the corner, not quite believing he'd really seen a room's worth of jello. "There seems to be a lot of…" It was gone. "Um…never mind…"
Strange things. Strange things indeed. Maybe he'd go to the bridge. Yes, that was a good idea. He'd go to the bridge.
It was a good idea, and he tried to carry it out. But the nearest turbolift was by Sickbay, and halfway there he encountered something else. Which is why shortly after that he rushed into Sickbay.
"Bones, you have to come with me, you're not going to believe this!"
"What am I not going to believe?" McCoy asked cautiously, as Kirk pulled him out into the corridor. "Did you see more of me?"
"No. I saw a dragon."
McCoy came to an abrupt halt. "You what?"
"A dragon, I saw a dragon, now come on!"
"What…kind of dragon?" McCoy asked carefully, consenting to be dragged along.
"A dragon! Seven feet tall, wings, dark eyes, bronze colored, his name's Cobalt," Kirk snapped out.
"Is it?" McCoy said with exaggerated interest.
"Yes. He's right around this…bend…"
The corridor was empty.
"He was here. I swear," Kirk said numbly.
"Riiight…listen, about studying your brain waves…"
"I'm not losing my mind!"
"Now, now, I'm the doctor, let me decide that…"
Kirk paced furiously up and down the corridor. "I don't understand it, I do not understand it, but something strange is…" His head snapped up. "Wait a minute. It's not August Fool's Day or something, is it?"
McCoy blinked. "What day?"
Kirk shrugged. "I don't know, all I know is the last time something like this happened it was April Fool's Day."
"Well it's not me, if that's what you're thinking."
"Great," Kirk muttered. "There's something else going on."
"Y'know, Jim, I really think…"
"I'm going to the bridge," Kirk said shortly, and headed for the turbolift.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" McCoy asked, following him. (There he went. Following again. What was it with him following Kirk today?)
"I'm positive!" Kirk snapped, stepping into the turbolift. It closed before McCoy could do anything, leaving him outside looking at the closed door with a troubled expression.
* * *
The turbolift doors opened again, and Kirk stepped out on the bridge. Surely nothing strange could happen on the bridge, right? And even if it did, there'd be witnesses, which would solve half the problem.
Kirk crossed the bridge to the command deck, sat down in his chair, and for about five minutes everything was normal and nothing at all happened. And then Spock's voice came from the back of the bridge, requesting his attention.
"Well, Mr. Spock, what is it?" Kirk asked, turning his chair as he spoke.
"An object, Captain. Beyond that I am unable to determine. It is almost too small for our sensors to pick up at this distance, but it appears to have been emitted by the white hole," Spock explained.
No one on the bridge questioned where a white hole had come from. Not even Kirk.
"Alter our course towards it, Mr. Sulu. Drop to impulse," Kirk ordered, turning back to the front of the bridge.
Spock probably would have given a time to intercept, and it probably would have been somewhere around half an hour, but that wasn't to be. The comm unit buzzed, requesting that Mr. Spock report to Sickbay. Spock was mystified as to the reason, but nevertheless stood up and started to cross to the turbolift. He stopped at Kirk's voice.
"He wants to talk to you because he thinks I've gone insane," Kirk said without inflection, still looking directly at the viewscreen.
Spock blinked. "And what has led the Doctor to this conclusion?"
Kirk opened his mouth to answer. Shut it again. How was he going to explain clones and a strange—let's be honest, frightening—woman in a mask, and jelly, and dragons? He wasn't. Kirk shrugged. "Better let him try to explain it, I don't understand it either."
There was a pause. "I see," Spock said finally, lying through his teeth, then crossed to the turbolift.
* * *
"Doctor, this does not make sense," Spock said, for at least the third time.
"Did I say it makes sense?" McCoy demanded. "All I know is, that's what happened."
They were in McCoy's office. Discussions regarding the Captain's sanity are not generally made in public.
"I hardly find it credible that the Captain has lost his mind," Spock said, just a little sharply.
"You mean you don't want to believe it of Jim, but saying that is too emotional," McCoy countered.
"I do not find it credible," Spock maintained.
"Look, I don't like it either, but the fact is he came in here raving about clones! And then it was something about a woman in a mask, and then some nonsense about dragons. What's it sound like to you?"
"I have no explanation," Spock admitted. "Which does not mean there is not a plausible one."
"I hope so, Spock, I really do. In the meantime…"
"With no further data, there is nothing to do but watch."
* * *
The turbolift hissed, and Spock reentered the bridge. He went directly to his own station, and did not meet Kirk's eye. Kirk shrugged, and went back to looking at the viewscreen. Minutes ticked by and they drew closer to that magic half-hour number that had never been raised but somehow everyone knew anyway. 31 minutes, 8 seconds after the issue of the object and the white hole came up, Spock broke the silence on the bridge.
"Captain, we have reached the object. It appears—" Spock paused for a heartbeat. You decide if it was a Vulcan heartbeat or a human heartbeat. "It appears to be a body."
"A body? What kind of a body?"
"Humanoid, approximately 5 ft 3 inches, enclosed in an EVA suit that ran out of oxygen 3.96 days ago. I cannot ascertain more without closer analysis, but it appears the suit was punctured—"
"That's enough," Kirk said with a grimace. "Have it beamed aboard, and get a medical team down to the transporter room."
"Yes, Captain."
Things were quiet on the bridge for a little while after that. Somewhere below them there was activity in the transporter room, but that was somewhere below them, not on the bridge. The bridge was quiet. Until the comm buzzed.
Kirk flipped the switch. "Bridge."
McCoy's voice came uncertainly over the line. "Uh, Jim?"
Kirk picked up on his tone immediately. "Something wrong, Bones?"
"Well…I'm not sure. But there's something…strange."
Kirk knew there was an eyebrow rising somewhere behind him. He didn't bother turning to check. "Strange how?"
"Well, uh…I think you better come down to the transporter room."
"On my way." Kirk flipped off the comm, nodded to Spock, and they both headed for the turbolift.
* * *
They arrived at the transporter room quickly, entered quickly, and stopped abruptly. It had indeed been a body that they beamed aboard, and it was currently on the transporter pad. Dressed in an EVA suit, helmet removed, it was obviously dead. Had been for a while. Its face was turned towards them. Distorted though it was from space and death, its features were recognizable.
It was Kirk's face.
McCoy and three medics were present, rather far away from the body, looking stunned. Spock's eyebrows climbed up into his hairline and vanished. Kirk just looked smug.
"Strange, isn't it?" Kirk said. Smugly. "Very strange. But not much stranger than clones. Or dragons. Or—"
"Okay, Jim. You're not nuts," McCoy said. "You might be dead, but you're not nuts."
"Thank you. Anyone want to bet me dinner that if we all walked out, then came back, the body would be gone?" Kirk asked brightly.
No one cared to bet, but they did agree to try it. They all walked out. They all came back. The transporter room was empty.
"Where'd it go?" one of the medics asked a little wildly. "It couldn't just walk out on its own!"
No one answered him.
Kirk walked over to the comm unit on the wall and called the bridge, to ask if they were still near a white hole. They weren't. Kirk turned back to those present in the transporter room. "Department heads, briefing room. Now."
Why? Because he always calls a department heads meeting, remember?
* * *
"Maybe we've all gone crazy," Kirk said, in a tired sort of way. They'd been going around in circles for…well, he'd lost track of the time, but for a long while, and all they had was what they'd started with. There was something strange going on.
"That is not entirely unreasonable," Spock commented. "A mass delirium, perhaps. The cause, however, is currently undefined."
"You mean we might all be nuts, but you don't know why?" McCoy clarified.
"It started with me," Kirk said, before Spock could say anything in response to McCoy. "But why? Why did I see multiple strange things, before anyone else saw anything?"
"Random chance, perhaps," Spock suggested. "Or the whim of whatever is causing this."
"The whim of…" Kirk's eyes widened. "That's it."
McCoy frowned. "What's it?"
"This is too strange to be easily explained. This is completely incoherent!"
It started to dawn on McCoy. "Incoherent. You mean…coherency is overrated, and all that? You mean…"
"Exactly. This is the fault of our lovely fanfiction writer," Kirk said grimly.
"Our who, Captain?" Uhura questioned.
"Our writer. And I'm betting she's behind this."
"What do you propose doing about it?" Spock asked.
"I don't know, but I want to discuss this."
"How are you going to get her attention?" McCoy asked, pointing out the flaw in the plan.
"Very easily. TAVIA!" Kirk shouted.
And in a gap that hadn't been there before across from Kirk, another person joined the table. Me. I frowned at Kirk. "Who do you think I am, Khan? You didn't have to shout. Asking politely would have worked just as well."
"Next time, I was in a hurry."
"You're in a hurry? How do you think I feel? I don't have time for this, you know, I'm supposed to be writing a history essay." (I am. I'll do it after lunch.)
"That's nice," Kirk said impatiently. "Now about our problem—"
"I thought it was August," McCoy interrupted.
Kirk blinked at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"
McCoy shrugged. "I'm just wondering why she has a history essay to write in August."
"Who cares?" Kirk said bluntly.
"And to think you're supposed to be a diplomat," I commented disapprovingly.
Kirk gave me a look of absolute exasperation. I ignored it, and so did McCoy.
"So why are you writing an essay in August?" he asked me.
I shrugged. "AP History class. We actually have to do stuff over the summer."
"Kind of defeats the point of vacation, doesn't it?"
Kirk was drumming his fingers on the table.
"It's not that bad…a pain and a nuisance, but not that bad. And I kind of like history. Although it's funny, regardless of topic, essays are never even half as interesting as fiction writing—"
Kirk jumped on it. "Fiction writing! Let's talk about that."
I decided that maybe we'd better. Kirk was starting to get one of those Looks. One of those "Run, preferably at high warp" Looks. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"Oh, lots of things. Jelly. Clones. Dragons."
"Not my fault," I protested.
"Woman in masks."
"My fault," I admitted.
"Dead bodies."
"Definitely not my fault."
"What do you mean not yours, it's your story!"
I nodded. "True. But they're not mine. I'm not the one writing the complete incoherency." (Well, I am. But for the sake of the story I'm not. You know what I mean, right?)
Kirk stared at me. "What do you mean you're not writing it?"
"I didn't write it in."
"But where did it come from?!"
I shrugged. "Beats me."
I think I rendered him slightly speechless. Which hasn't happened since chapter six. In any case, Spock picked up the conversation.
"You state that you are not responsible for the strange events occurring."
"Right. Not quite like that, but I did state that."
"But do you have any explanation for what may be responsible?"
I hesitated. "Well…first let me ask, do any of you kind of…remember the things that have been happening? Like they've happened before?"
They thought about it.
"Now that you mention it…kind of," McCoy admitted.
"Like a dream or something," Kirk agreed.
I nodded. "Thought so. See, I recognize the stuff that's been happening. But I didn't write it. Other people did."
"You're not making sense," Kirk informed me.
"Do you remember, let's see, chapter…11, I think? When you went on Fanfiction.net."
"Right. And I kept dying. So what?"
"So that's where the clones and the jello and everything else are coming from. Other postings. I think the stories are overlapping, and elements from other stories are bleeding in."
They considered this.
"A fascinating proposition. Do you have an idea regarding the cause of this sudden intermingling of stories?" Spock asked.
I grinned. "Well, it's just a guess, but I'm betting Fanfiction is ill again."
Spock's eyebrow rose. "Websites do not suffer from medical ailments."
"This one does," I informed him. "They need Bones desperately."
"I'm a doctor, not a web designer," McCoy put in.
"Okay, they need Scotty. Whatever. The point is, FF breaks all the time, and this is probably more of the same. Except usually the website fails to respond. And this time its getting stories mixed up."
"Fine, so the stories are overlapping and elements from other stories are popping up here, and we're blaming it on Fanfiction," Kirk summed up. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"What am I going to do? You're the captain."
"I fight Klingons. I don't deal with websites. That's a writing issue."
Hard to argue that. "Valid point." I considered. "Well…I have an idea. But I think I'm going to need reinforcements…"
Cameos next chapter! After I get back from vacation. Yeah, yeah, another vacation. Friend's wedding. They unfortunately live a long way off. I will probably be writing the next chapter on the plane.
I have no time. It's either reply to reviews and don't post, or don't reply to reviews and post. I'm going to post. If I get a chance tomorrow morning before we leave I'll write up responses and replace the chapter. If not, see you all next week!