Disclaimer: see chapter one
a/n: Thanks for reviewing!! I hope you are still enjoying this!
And many thanks to my great beta reader for her insight, hard work and encouragement!
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Trip stood, slumped against the cold stone wall of his prison. He was trapped by hard, relentless, metal restraints. His chin rested on his chest; his eyes closed. His legs trembled slightly, longing to be allowed to relax. As he exhaled, his breath was visible in the blue light of the cell. It had been cold like this for a few hours. He barely noticed he was shivering anymore. Earlier it had been unbelievably hot. Trip coughed.
"You are not so strong after all." came Diluculo's gravelly voice.
Trip kept his eyes closed.
"If you are what Parialter believes you are, why do you suffer? It is because you aren't. Parialter is wrong, and foolish. You are only as strong as the creators. They were just as fragile, just as stuck in certain ways, and easy to defeat because of it. Where are you from?"
"Earth." Trip whispered.
"Liar." It hissed. "Where are the other survivors! Where is Parialter hiding them?!" Diluculo's voice became agitated and very close. Trip could feel hot breath on the side of his face. "I will find them, you know, without your help. You are not protecting anyone."
"I don't know why you'd be askin' me then…if you can d-do it yerself." Trip said trying to make his voice strong, but it echoed weakly back to him off the hard walls.
"I thought perhaps I could make your last hours more…comfortable…if you cooperate."
Trip shook his head. "You're wrong. I've not seen a-anyone else here; well, besides you and Pari….Para…"
Diluculo made a snorting noise. "Fallaciousness will buy you nothing from me. Do you think I'm that easily deceived? No, you are decedents of the creators. It would explain your differences. You've changed, just as I and Parialter have. And it cannot be allowed. You will help me find your friend."
Trip shivered, the room had gone deathly cold. "No," he said softly. Didn't this thing know he had no idea where Malcolm was anyway? Hopefully somewhere safer then he was, and in better company.
Diluculo made a funny, almost gurgling noise. "Well, I gave you a chance. Since you will not help, I will satisfy some of my own curiosities about how you have evolved, without fear of damaging you further. Remember you had a choice. We all have a choice…"
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Malcolm looked the structure up and down for about the fifth time, and for the life of him he could not figure out how to go about getting inside. He put his hands on the smooth rectangular plane located on the side of the building. It looked very much like a door, but there was no way, that he could see, to enter. In frustration he rammed his shoulder against it a couple of times. The brittle material cracked. He tipped his head to the side and surveyed the damaged. He began to worsen the dent by chipping away at it with a rock that lay nearby. After twenty minutes work he examined his progress. Not much. The door was very solid evidently. Frowning, he tapped lightly on it with his knuckles, attempting to find a thinner or hollow portion. But instead, the whole thing shuddered and managed to open halfway.
"Apparently designed to keep the crass out." He murmured dryly, and squeezed in sideways.
The interior was dark, and it took a moment for his eyes to become accustom to it. He found himself standing in a great corridor; with a soaring ceiling that arched and curved far above his head. Oval windows high up allowed sunlight to illuminate the place dimly. The hallway was carpeted in red, and there were even some pieces that looked as though they might have been wooden furniture. When compared to the crumbling exterior, the inside was not in the decrepit state he expected. Proceeding with caution, he found himself grateful for the rugs which muffled his footsteps.
The first chamber he came to was small and round. Things were tossed about in a disorderly, or panicked, fashion. A table over turned, curtains torn down, weapons were scattered about. Some, of what he took to be weapons, looked like phasers. Others were much more familiar; knives. Yet some he couldn't tell if they were weapons or salt cellar. He stowed a few in the pack and picked up a knife before continuing. A room of weapons abandoned in this manner did not sit well with him.
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Trip wished he could scream, but for some reason his voice failed him. It wasn't that he was in pain, well he was, but not the conventional type. Diluculo had attached a tiny device to the back of his neck, and it seemed to be attempting to relay ideas directly into his mind. But it was nonsense, gibberish, he couldn't understand it, and it made his mind ache horribly. Not his head, his mind.
"Hmm. Not even as apt as the creators were. They could at least tolerate this. Some were even curious about it. Interesting how this affects… You don't seem to have advanced much compared to your ancestors." It stated in a rough voice.
Trip thought he might be sick if it didn't end soon. "I-I'm n-not who you t-think I am." He stammered, forcing the words out with great difficulty over all the noise in his mind.
It appeared startled to hear Trip speak. "Why do you hold to that falsehood so tenaciously? To what purpose do you work?"
"So y-you'll believe me." he said with a great effort.
Diluculo was silent. "No. My choice has been made. So has yours, if you recall."
"Don't believe in changin' yer mind?" he struggled.
"Vacillation is…contradictory to the first choice."
"So you equate the first with the best?"
"There is no need to re-evaluate once the conclusion has been reached."
"What if it's wrong?"
"It isn't. I have chosen."
Trip tried to control his pain and continued, "Seems to me for someone who is bent on the idea of choosin' you'd know that changin' yer mind is a big part of bein' allowed to choose."
Silence. Trip waited and then let his head sag back down onto his chest. The torrent of nonsensical information that was demanding entry to his mind stopped. A bright light began to flash directly in front of him; in a rapid, distracting fashion.
"If change is a part of choice, you can only change so much before everything you know becomes suspect or wrong. Choice is not about right or wrong, those are interpretable. Therefore it is not about change, but it is about the power of a free mind."
Trip could barely focus on the words. The light was painful, but even closing his eyes only provided minor relief. The light was red. Deep red.
"Choice is nothing to a captive mind, and everything to a free one." It said
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Malcolm warily made his way through a seemingly endless series of rooms and great halls.
"Would it hurt for you to give me a little direction?" he said low through clenched teeth, rather hoping Parialter was around to hear him.
The place was starting to get creepy the farther he ventured in. Windows were becoming less frequent so the light was decreasing steadily. He squinted through the darkness, jumping at little noises that dared to disturb the silence.
"Something, anything, let me know I'm going the right direction," he whispered.
And with that a soft glow lit up the entrance to a room on his left. Instinctively he shrank back into the shadows, body tense. He watched, and then crept along the wall, knife drawn, towards the light. He turned the corner into the room, eyes sweeping through it quickly. It was empty, but a little brighter. It was a rather messy room filled with cables and wires running to technical units or consoles. He carefully made his way in. Most of the technology looked as thought it didn't run anymore, but there were still some that glowed, and had buttons that blinked. He bent down to examine one that looked like it might still be functional. Touching a few keys on the side of the screen, foreign symbols began to stream across the page.
He sighed, brow furrowing. "Hoshi, if ever I need you, it would be now." he whispered feeling helpless.
He was unable to gain anything from the message before him. But as though in response to his comment the symbols melted away and new ones replaced them. Completely new ones.
"What…" he wondered aloud, "it's listening to me?"
Another new set appeared. The machine was systematically running through the languages it knew, trying to find the one that the Lieutenant was using.
"Erm," he uttered remembering that Enterprise's UT often needed more then a few words to translate a language.
"Hello," he paused, glancing around the room for inspiration. What does one say to a computer in casual conversation?
"Your architecture in here is really, uh…really quite nice…impressive! I mean impressive." He stumbled over the words felling idiotic. The writing on the console did not change. "I, uh…oh what's the use!" He said, impatiently standing up. "I'm just not a linguist." The screen went blank, he watched as a small dot slowly wrote out thirty different symbols, evenly spaced then it stopped just below the first one. Curious, Malcolm went up and put a finger on the dot. Then, he slid his finger down a little the dot left a white trail on the monitor. His grave face cracked into a brief smile. Taking great care he wrote out the alphabet beneath the alien one.
The system processed the new information haltingly, before popping up a poor, but relatively comprehendible translation of the text. Malcolm read:
We thought…(unreadable)…just a glitch…a…(syntax error)…virus. But it was far too many…all at once...Aetas Ferreus is not responding…everywhere…(syntax error) we don't understand…systems corrupted.
Not right…something went wrong…Aetas seems unaffected but we… it's not isolated…a…seems to be deciding alone. Discovery… could be…advanced…(error, error, error)
Now…too fast, the change is too great…unprepared…It's learning…can't keep it back…It's out…It's out…
Malcolm jumped as he heard a shout from somewhere above him. The shout turned into a scream.
"Trip!" he said louder then he had said anything in this place, and darted back out into the darkness.
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