(Quick note: anyone who doubts the following choices of reading materiel (or language) to be age inappropriate obviously never knew me or any of my friends.)
That first meeting. A new kid at school. A shy lonely kid sitting alone at lunch break, afraid to be seen. And then...
"Hi!" He jumped as a pair of hands smacked down hard on the table in front of him, then looked up to see who wanted to torment him now. It was a face he didn't recognise, all freckles and pug nose and…
"What? That scary?" She leaned in and widened her eyes, grin spreading across her face. "I'm a genetic anomaly. It's called heterochromia irides, which is rare enough, but then you only usually get normal colours like brown and blue. How this combo came up I have no idea." The words came fast as though racing each other to be first out of her mouth. Without asking she pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.
"Huh?" Well this wasn't going according to script. Wasn't she going to say something about him being weird, because that was the normal course. Charles Tucker the Third, grade three freak.
"Whatcha reading?" She plucked the pad out of his hand before he could answer or react. He closed his eyes, certain he was in for it now; his choice of reading material made for an especially tempting target for his classmates. "Hmn. King. He's okay, I guess, but I prefer Poe. Much more psychologically stirring. Fall of the House of Usher? Scared me half to death. You know a lot of people say Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented the deductive detective genre, but Poe wrote his Dupin stories first. Even Doyle admitted to being inspired by them. But I don't know anyone else who was better at the 'dark and dreary'. You know?"
All he could think to do was nod. She didn't seem to notice, didn't even pause.
"Anyway, my name's October Brynn Howard, but if you call me that I'll smack you, don't think I won't. Call me Toby and everything's fine. I'm new here, and my mom said the best thing to do was just walk up and introduce myself, and since you're the only person not already in a conversation I thought it wouldn't be as intrusive." The entire speech came out on one breath, impossible as it seemed.
"Trip." It was the only thing he could think of, and said it so softly that he wasn't sure whether or not he actually spoke.
"Is that your name? Cool. I suppose I should be grateful, Mom and Dad could've called me something worse, like May or June. Now Trip is interesting. Not too many people get tagged with something like that."
"It's because I'm the third. Charles Tucker III." He wondered if there would ever be a day he'd have to stop explaining it.
"Whoa." She sat back like she'd been hit. "That's harsh. I mean I've always been opposed to that, it's like they expect you to be a copy of themselves, not your own individual. My mother said that my dad wanted to name me after my grandmother, but that grandma said that it was too much baggage for a child and I should be allowed to start afresh. Actually she was in favour of waiting until I could choose my own name, which would've been so totally cool, but my parents nixed that and said there had to be something on my birth certificate. I know it's weird, having a social conscience, but my parents have never tried to stop me from anything. Grandma says I'm a very old and wise soul, which I think is very cool, too. Pretty much everything about Grandma is cool, which is why I'm glad I get to live with her." She seemed to notice the dazed look on his face at last, and leaned back in. "Are you okay?"
"It's just, that, um, I've never known a eight-year-old who talks like that. Mostly it's just about games and comics and stuff." And sometimes girls, but this was the longest conversation he'd ever had with one.
She nodded sagely. "I know what you mean. It's probably because I don't know any better because I'm only six."
If lunch hadn't ended just then, he probably would have choked. People accused him of being too smart because he spent more time wrapped up in books and drawings. It was somehow comforting to know that his position as class encyclopaedia (not a hard thing, considering what they expected you to know in grade three) had just been usurped. He had a feeling he'd somehow just acquired a friend.
A sudden chill and an odd smell pulled him out of his reverie. He blinked his eyes and stared down at the bike. The data display smoked, which even his addled brain recognized as the clear sign of a complete burn out. He cracked it open, half afraid to look inside.
More smoke billowed outward from a mass of fused circuits. There was no way enough power should have surged through the unit to cause that level of damage. The bike was freestanding; the only power came from a small battery pack that produced very little output. It was designed not to do this.
Nice going, hotshot. Now you killed the bike. He felt himself turning into the damned Typhoid Trip of the Enterprise. Calamity Charles. Can't even be around the machines before they start to self-destruct.
Shaking, he climbed off the bike, only to find that his legs didn't want to support him. Only fair that they should join the majority vote. He staggered over to the wall and pressed the button for the intercom. "Maintenance."
There was a pause while communications routed him through. "Maintenance here. What's the problem?"
"You might want to come down to the gym and have a look at one of the bikes. You're going to have to pull the panel; I hope you can replace it. And put it on my desk, will you please, I'm going to want to have a look at it." But not right now, right now he had to get out of here, away from the stares that said more than anybody's words could. It had gone way past the point of no respect, now they were afraid of him. It was only time before they turned on him, pushed him back out to the margins. He almost let loose with a hysterical laugh. Malcolm was so jealous of him, of his popularity, of the way he seemed to fit in anywhere. If you only knew. All of it was an act, a shell over top of that same shy, skinny kid who used to fake sick so he wouldn't have to deal with the kids at school. And not always fake: sometimes the dread was such that his heart would echo in his ears and the world would spin circles around itself. He wanted to say something, let them know it wasn't him, that he hadn't done anything, but knew it would only make things worse.
Of course you haven't done anything, Commander. Would be the response, it's just one of those things. All the time keeping him calm while they called for Phlox with the tranquillisers. He headed for the door, wanting to be away even more than he had on the bridge. They'd really be talking about him now, behind his back and maybe even to the captain. And how would Archer react to the fact that the crew was afraid of the chief engineer? Would he take it as another sign that his third officer was a loose cannon who had no business being in Starfleet period, let alone out in deep space and in charge of a very large anti-matter bomb? Would he re-evaluate their friendship – the closest kinship Trip had had since Toby – and find it wanting, find Trip to be unworthy of the trust and respect he'd been given. Would he feel betrayed?
You think he doesn't already? Inner-Charles seemed almost gleeful at that oversight. I would be surprised if you don't head home on the first Vulcan ship heading back in that direction. You single-handedly screwed up first contact with an extremely technologically advanced species. You made him look like a fool. Archer did not suffer fools gladly, if he suffered them at all.
The doors slid open, revealing Malcolm on the other side. Just lovely, Trip thought. Just who I didn't need to see. The concern was twofold. Not only was Malcolm likely to ask how he was – a question Trip didn't feel considering let alone answering honestly – the lieutenant also had reason to worry. It wasn't that long ago that Malcolm stopped him from making a fatal mistake -- are you sure it was a mistake? – when they were trapped in Shuttlepod One with little hope of rescue. Despite his tendency to self-absorption, Malcolm was hardly stupid. Would he put two and two together and realise that it wasn't misguided heroism that inspired Trip to climb into the airlock? Had he put two and two together?
"Just who I was looking for." Malcolm sniffed for a moment then peered past Trip at the bike. "What happened?"
"Malfunction."
"Oh. Well, I was actually hunting you down to ask if you were going…"
"No." Trip shook his head, not letting his friend finish. "I'm not. I'm…" He sighed, but didn't finish the sentence. Company was the last thing he needed tonight, even though the movie was one of his favourites.
Malcolm's brow furrowed. "Are you sure? Because I was just…"
"Look, Malcolm. Right now I'm really not in the mood." Talk about stating the obvious.
"Masque of the Red Death." Malcolm clearly wasn't going to give up easily. "Sounds like something right up your alley."
"I know what the damn movie is, Malcolm. Who the fuck do you think picked it out?" One of Toby's favourites too, though she always swore by the story first. Poe. Her premiere choice in the world of fiction. Why was it all leading back there? He regretted his choice of words as soon as they were out, but there was no way to take them back. At the same time, he just didn't want to fight anymore.
It worked. Malcolm's face closed down, but not before his eyes flashed with hurt. He turned and stalked away without saying anything else.
Well done. Anyone else you want to alienate while you're at it? He could feel the stares behind him intensifying. While never exemplary, his language had never carried quite that harshness before either. A small voice crawled up from the recesses of his mind, a mantra from all the bad old days. Why can't everybody just leave me alone?
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Perfect darkness. Not the dark of a moonless night with its greys and shadows, but the deep absolute dark that comes when there's no light at all, even the glow of the farthest off star.
Perfect silence. Not the silence of a grave with its gently shifting dirt and the soft skitter of burrowing insects, but the overpowering absolute silence of nothing and nowhere.
Perfect silence, perfect dark. Nothing to indicate a passage of time, or that time even existed. Yet he knew it was there, trickling or racing past he had no idea, but knew it wasn't going to stop, no matter how hard he wished it would. Each moment robbed him of hope, drew him closer to the worse darkness, the one that came with morning, light, and sound. Here, he was like Schrödinger's cat: in a state between alive and dead or maybe a little of both. But sooner or later this box was going to open and he'd have to decide which it was going to be. Tempting as it was, he couldn't stay here forever.
He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed, touching down on an icy cold floor. What the hell? It shouldn't be cold; there was no ebb and flow of temperature between "night" and "day" like there would be on a planet. Besides, this was freezing.
A factoid from biology class drifted back to him. Cold extremities such as hands and feet were a physiological symptom of extreme stress. The body redirected blood towards the internal organs to keep them warmest, thinking that it was in life or death mode. Sighing, he stood up and stepped forward. And stopped.
The cold seemed to confine itself to one small section of the floor beside the bed. Yet such a thing should be impossible. If anything the areas to the outside of the room, towards the window should be the cooler. And one isolated little spot? It defied every law of thermodynamics he'd ever learned. Cautiously he stepped back into the spot. It was growing warmer now, balancing out to the rest of the room. It was almost as though…
"You're going crazy." He'd always only been a small step away from it in any case. Now it seemed like that step had been taken, and several more besides. His hands shook a little as he considered the possibility. Could he really be that unbalanced? He'd been hearing voices in his head all day yesterday, and now he was hallucinating. Maybe he should see Phlox and…
No. If he was that far gone, checking with the doctor would only make things worse. They'd lock him up, drug him up, and they'd take everything away. He'd rather be dead.
There is another way. No, not that either. While it worked, there was no telling for how long. And anyway, he had promised he'd never walk that road again. He owed that much. Steeling himself, he turned towards the closet, steadfastly avoiding the bathroom. They'd just have to deal with him showerless for the day.
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And you thought yesterday was bad. They must have set a record for efficiency in engineering, as everybody rushed around trying to avoid him without avoiding him. Jobs that had languished for weeks were suddenly being tackled with an intensity he'd never seen before. Too bad you had to kill somebody to get it.
Even Lieutenant Hess – usually as outspoken and blunt as Trip himself – seemed to be tiptoeing her way through her shift. Everybody went to her today, rather than taking their questions to him as would be normal. Conversations stopped when he stepped into the room, as people bent their heads over their work. And now bridge duty.
Malcolm wouldn't even look at him when he left the turbolift and walked to his station. Hoshi shot a quick glance in his direction and looked away, while Travis did an excellent imitation of the engineering crew. As for T'Pol, the look in her eyes put lie to the notion that Vulcans were incapable of emotion. That was nearly the worst, for despite their arguments – or maybe even because of them – hers was the respect Trip craved the most. Next to Archer's, of course.
For the smallest of blessings, the captain wasn't there. Trip didn't trust himself to ask where he was, better just to do his job and get out of here. His headache had returned a while back and was now threatening to disrupt his vision. Then a wave of nausea crashed into his stomach, bringing with it a concussion's worth of dizziness. Migraine.
"Excuse me." He stood up from his post, and didn't even wait for a dismissal. The symptoms were getting stronger; if this followed the usual course he would barely have time to get down to sickbay before becoming completely incapacitated. At least now you've got an excuse. He could hand Phlox the migraine story, take the rest of the day off. Just get away from everybody and everything. As if.
Phlox gave him a shot, which helped some but really only managed to take the edge off. He sensed there was more the doctor wanted to ask him, but he made his excuses, promising to go take a nap so the headache wouldn't rebound later. Better that than admit the truth. I just can't do it anymore.
There was nowhere else to go, nowhere safe. He leaned against the bathroom sink, studying the mirror and hating what he saw. A too pretty face stared back, one that hid the bastard underneath. If he'd been ugly he'd never have been able to cause this much damage. The good looks made people predisposed to like him, and the apparent intelligence made them think he knew what he was doing. Still, even if he'd just been smart…
So, what first? A little something with the eyes maybe? The edge of a straight razor tapped the delicate skin just below the right eye. Slowly he increased pressure, pulling downwards. He'd barely moved a fraction of an inch when it happened. A flash of red in the mirror, just over his right shoulder. He dropped the razor and spun, ready to give hell to the son-of-a-bitch who felt it was okay to invade his personal space. No one was there: his quarters were empty. Hands shaking he turned back to the sink. The razor had vanished. He was sure he heard it clatter into the sink when he dropped it, so where did it go?
"Fuck." Couldn't he do anything? What the hell was going on here?
{Never again…you promised. Never again} Definitely Toby's voice, and not a song anymore. And he had promised. He had promised…
"Trip, what's wrong with you? Are you okay?" With typical Toby stubbornness she followed him into the boys' washroom. The rules applied to other people, she'd argue, and any way sometimes ethics demanded that you break the rules. Of course that was according to her ethics, which were harder to figure out than those damn train equations.
"I'm fine." He wasn't fine; the pain in his head wouldn't go away. How did he think he could make it onto the football team? Most of the other grade seven kids were huge, and he was still stuck under five feet. Then Becky Gershon laughed at him when he'd asked if she wanted to go to the movies that night, and it wasn't long before everybody joined her. Throw in the fact that Mom and Dad were fighting again (he heard his name come up a lot), and he was stuck having to look after his younger siblings, "Just go away. You shouldn't even be here." Couldn't she see that she was part of the problem? He had enough of a reputation for geekdom, being friends with a girl, especially one who was too smart for her own good and saw no need to conform to society – was that a rat poking its head out of her sleeve – didn't help at all. Even David and Gary and Michael were pressuring him to get rid of her, and she was the reason they were all friends in the first place.
"That was then, man. Can't you see she's dragging us down?" Only because Toby had so little patience for the average girl's conversation. She'd rather discuss mechanics, or philosophy, or some other equally weighty matter. So all the other girls thought she was unforgivably weird, and thus Trip weird by association.
"Look, Trip, if there's a problem, I…"
"Just get out and leave me the hell alone, okay? Just go."
She backed off and headed around the corner. He heard the door open then close again. He felt like shit, like he was a bigger turncoat than Judas.
Maybe because you are, Tucker. If there ever were a bigger screw-up on the planet, he'd like to meet the guy. Last year he and Toby won the science fair, this year he was close to flunking out. Dad had started drinking again: nothing short of straight A's would satisfy him, and the fact that his eldest son, his namesake, seemed headed for a life in prison didn't impress him much.
"Stealing cars? That's what you want to do with your life? Goddamnit, Trip, what the fuck were you thinking? You weren't thinking, were you, you were just acting on your goddamn impulse just like you always do. I should let them lock you up, but your mother won't let me. Why do you always have to be so goddamn stupid?" The cops had been more reasonable about it, saying that it was a first offence and they didn't think he had malicious intent. They tried to tell Dad that it was a peer-pressure thing, but he wasn't having any of it. After that speech Dad had quit talking to him, hadn't spoken to him since.
And the worst part was Dad was right, it was stupid. But the girls hadn't believed he could do it, and he just wanted to show them. How was he supposed to know it was wired with a silent alarm and a locater beacon? And it wasn't like he took it anywhere; it was enough proof just to start it up. Then it locked him in and things got worse from there.
The next few days were hell, locked away from his friends, and then he stumbled on the solution by accident. He'd dropped a glass while doing punishment dishes (by hand, the drudgery part of the lesson), and a fragment buried deep into his palm while he was picking it up. The funny thing was, it hadn't hurt, there was a pleasant numbness instead, and he didn't feel as bad anymore. Physical and emotional pain. Processed the same way by his brain, the cut must have put him over the threshold and his body went into an anaesthetic reaction. The only problem was that as the wound healed, the pain went away, taking the numbness with it.
He pulled the pocketknife from his jacket and laid it on the counter. He placed his left hand palm up on the counter then readied the knife.
"Ohmigod, Trip!" Apparently Toby hadn't left, instead waited silently, its own form of miracle. "What are you doing?" She rushed to his side and tried to pull the knife out of his hand.
"Go away!" He shoved her back, causing her to stumble onto the floor. The rat crawled out of her sleeve and ran down the wall behind the urinals before crouching in the corner, afraid of the spectacle before it.
"Don't do this. Please. For God's sake. Whatever it is, there's got to be a better way of dealing with it." She picked herself up and threw her arms around him, her grip too strong for him to break. "Don't do this. There's got to be a way." She was crying, something Toby never did. And the fact that she had nothing to say…
He started to cry too, big gasping gulps. "You don't understand. You don't. It's something I gotta…Toby, you can't get it."
"I can try. Just please, Trip, promise."
But he didn't promise, not then. He couldn't promise her that there, that vow came later, too late to be any good. Tucker, you are a shit.