Double or Nothing

06:00 hrs. The corridors and quarters were all still mostly silent but for the constant lulling hum that was the litmus of security, the sound that no one notices unless it's not there. No one likes it when it's not there. Like a mother's heartbeat is that white noise of thrumming power that radiates through the metal and whispers across the doorways with calming reassurance. As necessary as the floor beneath their feet.

He had worked through his personal time the day before in preparation for today. Even now he sat at his desk with reports in front of him, the cat semi-conscious on his lap. Only another few hours and the game would begin. If he didn't know better, he would have thought he was anxious. He rose and went to the small vanity in his room. The orange feline moodily stretched and followed as far as the doorway where she sat and watched with indifference.

"What shall we do today?" The rhetorical question was left appropriately unanswered by the air or the cat. "Elementary, my dear Spot," he answered himself, and his yellow eyes met the cat's in the mirror as he took his pipe between his teeth and adjusted the brim of his brown plaid deerstalker.

Geordi appeared frenetic, brimming with enthusiasm as they marched the now bustling corridor in full costume. He in his matching hat and coat, and Geordi in the typical trappings of a nineteenth century doctor, a charcoal suit, white shirt, and smart bow tie and links. "You are going to love this one Data. I think I might have finally thought of one that will stump you." Data didn't know much about emotion, but he knew that Geordi knew that he would neither love nor hate nor enjoy or tire of the mystery he had planned for them that day. However he had learned some time ago that constantly reminding his friends of that fact was not only not necessary, but often seemed to affect them emotionally in a negative way.

"I am looking forward to it Geordi. Will the Doctor be participating in this one?" He referred to, of course, Dr. Moriarty. The clever character who had proven too smart to be contained within the holodeck and within the confines of a hologramatic existence still lived in the ship's computer in a continuous simulation since his hijacking of the ship from the holodeck over a year ago. The captain had no contact with him as far as Data knew, but Data would occasionally link with the holodeck just to check up on the fictitious villain. His crimes were, after all, only in the imagination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his readers, and not real events. His circumstance was unfortunate and entirely the responsibility of the Enterprise crew. Data reasoned that he should be provided for. There was, of course, another Moriarty, and the possibility for infinite Moriarties. The canned ones that came with the Sherlock Holmes holodeck program and all the possible variations they could design into the character. He often played in their simulations. It limited the suspect list, but proving motive and means usually became more difficult. Geordi seemed to especially like utilizing that character for his unpredictability.

"Well, I suppose it won't ruin the surprise too much to tell you. No, he isn't in this one."

"I see. And the captain?"

"No, he backed out last night. Said he had some work to do. Just you and me this time. But I think we'll manage."

"As do I, Doctor Watson," Data said with his calm, steady voice as the holodeck door slid open before them.

"Now you're not going to cheat are you Data? No using modern methods, right?" he asked as if he almost suspected it of Data, but when Data met his eyes he saw the slight teasing smile there.

"Of course not. I have restricted myself to only the methods, knowledge, and technology available at the time of Sherlock Holmes. Though I too must assume these methods are enough to detect whatever mystery you've laid down." Data actually found that aspect of their game challenging. His positronic mind balked at the restrictions of this subroutine. Using all available data and resources to find the answer to a problem was as natural as, well. As natural as anything was for Data. To resist that actually took some extensive programming and circumnavigating his protocols.

"Yep. I've made sure that it's possible, however improbable, for you to be able to solve it using your mind and what will be available to you in the simulation." It was a carefully worded reply, and Data took note.

"Very well. Let us begin."

He nodded. "I call this one, Double or Nothing."

Back in Data's quarters, Spot lounged on top of Data's desk, an action that would have gotten her sternly looked at and shooed with milquetoast ferocity had Data been present to issue the punishment. She amused herself for a while pawing at Data's computer and reading his personal journal. 'September 28th: Captain Picard has issued new agendas for his senior staff members. Today I will be helping Geordi refit the plasma conduits. He hopes to improve engine efficiency within 2.786...' God that man was boring. She never understood why everyone was just so fascinated by the guy. Possibly the only thing more dull than Lt. Comdr. Data was being Data's cat. A problem, she decided as she hoisted herself up on furry limbs, stretched, and dug tiny scratches in Data's desktop, that she must rectify.

What he needed was a good healthy dose of quandary. Everything he did was regulated, measured, and scripted down to the tiniest detail. He probably symmetrized his nostril hair. He needed something inexplicable. He needed a problem with no solution. A conundrum to break that control, and nothing so tawdry as Geordi's little mysteries. And Spot. What did Spot need? Spot needed a good belly laugh. She hopped down off the desk and loped out the door toward the holodeck.

"I assure you the method of my deduction is quite simple," Holmes boomed as he paced stiffly across the wooden floor of the Lady Beausoleil's fine townhouse. Doctor Watson and the local constable looked on. "Today is Sunday is it not, Dr. Watson? The lady of the house is wearing a fine dress of scarlet today, with no fewer than thirty tiny cloth covered shank buttons up the back, and a corset beneath, judging by the stiffness of her trunk." The lady looked quite haughty at her undergarments becoming the subject of Holmes' scrutiny. "She has mentioned twice before that her lady in waiting has been ill as much as two days and has not been round to do the cleaning, the truth of this evident in the light coating of dust upon the mantle piece. This being Sunday as it is, in this strictly Protestant borough under the ecclesiastical leadership of the good Reverend Woodard who we met yesterday, a widow such as the Lady Beausoleil would be want to find herself away from the church this morning or suffer the disparaging remarks of the rest of the townsfolk, the populace upon which, as a widowed seamstress, the lady's income entirely depends. Barring that, she would have to be at hospital or tending some extreme emergency for such an absence to be tolerated. But she was not. And the reverend being the sharp and prim man that he is, would not allow the lady dressed in such a way into his church. And even if he had allowed it, her appearance would have caught someone's notice, which it did not. Nor could she have changed her clothes with all of those buttons by herself in the time it took us to get here from the scene of the crime this morning. That means that she was the only person unaccounted for while the murder was taking place. She had the motive, the means, and her garments place her not only not at the church as she claims, but squarely in Mr. Tomkin's living room!" Data slapped his leather riding gloves in his own hand for emphasis.

"In the living room, sah!" the Welsh constable exclaimed.

"Indeed. Observe the widow Beausoleil's left shoe. The small black bow there by the buckle." He pointed. "A trifle of decoration. Now observe the right. It is missing. I found a tiny scrap of the same black silk ribbon on the decedent's coat. If you compare it to the other I think you will find it to be a perfect match. She may have in fact, kicked the body to be sure he was dead." The constable looked aghast.

Geordi always had a hard time staying in character while Holmes orated, sometimes slipping out to titter a little at Data's performance, but today he looked simply beatific. He beamed at him from across the room while the lady flushed red and scowled against the banister, applauding briefly. Data was unsure why he seemed so happy to lose the game once again. It gave him pause, and he thought he should reveal the rest of his evidence to the constable before he took her away.

"However," Holmes started again, but he didn't get to finish because the lady lunged at Doctor Watson with a growl, producing a dagger from her skirts and plunging into his chest so fast, no one had a chance to react, not even Data. Geordie hardly made a sound as Data caught his collapsing body. The constable seized the woman as she shrieked.

"You told me she would get away with it! You didn't tell me you were going to frame me for it! You told me he would never know! You told me you would take the blame Watson! Now Matilda has everything!"

But as Data looked down to his blind friend in his arms, he saw that Geordi could no longer hear her. Data could not understand how the safety protocols could have been disengaged when he had checked them just before they started the game. An instant later, his hand was almost to his communicator beneath his costume to call Doctor Crusher to have Geordi transported to sick bay. There may yet be a chance to save his life, to revive him.

"Computer, end program," came the mirthful voice, and Watson and the screaming woman, the constable fighting to hold on to her, the twin sister and also apparently the real murderer, Matilda Tomkin, the room, and everything else disappeared, revealing LaForge standing in the corner, grinning.

Data stood.

"Well, what did you think? I finally got you didn't I?"

Data blinked as he processed the results of the game they had played for the better part of the day. He could not find fault. "Very well played, Geordi. Your interpretation of our rules could be considered stretched, but as I did not specify that you were not allowed to use modern technology to win, I can not find you in error."

"And you did have the ability to detect the double. I didn't make him perfect."

"Yes I did. All I would have had to do was quiz it to find out that it was not you, but I failed to detect his imperfections or even consider the possibility that Watson could have been in on it."

"Exactly!" He sighed heavily. "Data, you have no idea how good it feels to know I finally beat you. I've been trying for years."

"I know," Data said with quiet stoicism.

"He did what?" Riker let his card hand drop to the tabletop.

"He made a duplicate of himself, switched the copy in for himself during the game at some point when my back was turned, then killed the character off, revealing the real villain." Geordi was not in attendance at the poker game. He usually played, but not tonight.

Riker showed his surprise with a simple gesture of the brow beneath his always perfectly stolid expression. "I can't believe Geordi would do that."

Data detected not incredulity in his voice but resignation and interpreted it to mean he disapproved of Geordi's actions. "It was a legal tactic. There was no stipulation against it in our rules."

"Maybe not, but...it was still a horrible thing to do. Didn't you think he was dead?"

"Yes, I did," he said honestly.

"Commander LaForge does have a competitive streak, Number One. He is after all a very young chief engineer."

"That's true, but I've never heard of him going so far. I'm glad he didn't do that to me. I would have been tempted to lay him out," Riker grumbled.

"I have a mystery for you Data," Guinan chimed in after a long silence that seemed all the longer for her sudden jump back into the conversation. The other three paid their full attention. "A guy walks into a bar and he asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a phaser and aims it at the guy's head," she said slowly and carefully, and then paused to glance around the small table. "The guy says, "Thank you." The bartender says, "No problem," and then the guy leaves. Why did the guy thank the bartender for aiming a phaser at his head?"

Data blinked a few times and his brow creased in that way he had seen so many times when humans were faced with a question they could not answer. "It does not appear that I have enough information to answer the riddle."

"Well that's the point of a riddle Data. The answer is the bartender cured his hiccups."

Riker grinned. "You have to think outside the box, Data."

Data mouthed the phrase and scowled again. Picard and Riker seemed to understand just fine, and the captain's eyes twinkled just a little when he glanced at Guinan and took a sip of his drink. "Shall I deal again?" Data asked softly of the small group. As if in answer, Spot leaped up onto the table and sniffed at the deck of cards.

"Spot. You are not allowed on the table," he said mildly.

Guinan pet the cat perfunctorily. "Sure. I'll play one more," she responded. "I'm feeling lucky," she said through a sly smile. The other two nodded and Data picked the cat up off the surface of the table with two hands. She left a claw in the felt and Riker winced as Spot was placed back on the floor leaving behind a scar on the tabletop near the deck of cards.

Data dealt the four of them five cards each at a speed a little too fast to be mistaken for normal, (sometimes emulating the humans in every detail only serves to annoy them that he is not using his abilities to their fullest.) and with the placement of each card precisely on top of the one before it creating four little fans on the table top. "The game is five card stud."

The captain and Commander Riker both folded with the first round of bets and leaned back in their chairs. The bet was up to seventy five when Guinan called and revealed a full house. Data spread his cards and showed four deuces.

Guinan scowled and retracted as if the cards were a snake. "That's not right. I don't feel lucky very often, but when I do, I always win," she mumbled. The others tossed their cards in a pile and Data shuffled. Data watched her in his peripheral. She still seemed quite frozen in deliberation about it. Suddenly she said, "Double or nothing."

Data stopped shuffling and noted that it was the second time that day he had heard those particular words ordered in exactly that way. He looked at the other men. "Go ahead. You two pretty much cleaned me out anyway," Riker said. The captain put his hands up in acquiescence.

Data dealt Guinan and himself five more cards each. She scowled again when she looked at her cards. She revealed three of a kind. Three two's, a jack and a nine.

Data put down a straight. Ace through five.

Riker turned to his captain with darting blue eyes. "All four two's are on the table again. What are the odds of that?" he said offhandedly.

"The odds of it happening would not give us the most accurate picture in this case, however, the probability of any four of one kind of card in a fifty-two card deck with ten cards drawn would be 546 over-"

"I don't know if I can stomach any more of those card games that start defying the laws of probability." Riker leaned back in his chair a little defensively.

"I'm with you Number One. Though as long as we don't start predicting the outcomes, I think we'll be alright. Good luck or bad."

"No no. I'm telling you. I've never lost a hand when I was feeling lucky Jean-Luc. Something is off here. Double or nothing, again." She gestured at the table and Data shuffled and redealt in a matter of seconds. She didn't even bet, just turned the cards over with a slide and flip to the bottommost card. She had nothing but a pair of two's and a sampling of others. Data turned over his to reveal a full house. Two's over jacks.

Everyone looked at Data. He looked at the deck.

The captain smirked in a way Data had only witnessed him do six other times. "Mister Data. Have you been cheating?" he asked, though Data suspected he did not ask the question completely seriously.

"Five two's Data?" Riker seemed similarly amused.

"No sir. I do not know how this deck became tainted," he said and scanned the entire deck in under three seconds, finding an ace replaced with a two which explained why he did not notice a change in the thickness of the deck before.

"It seems Mister Data has a competitive streak too," Guinan said with a slight cock to her head and purse to her lips.

"Hey, Data," came the voice over the com.

"I am here Geordie." After his guests left, Data consulted the ships computer and began devouring all texts on file that contained the words "outside the box" and cross referencing them with his own memory. By morning he believed he had quite an in-depth understanding of the colloquialism and its possible application to Guinan's riddle.

"Are you free? I've finished the newest Holmes mystery."

Data was surprised. It had only been a day since the last game. It usually took Geordi about a month to complete a mystery.

"I will be available at 11:00 hours."

"Great!" Data could hear the grin on his friend's face.

"Geordi..."

"Yeah."

"When did you create this new mystery?"

"It's one I've been working on for a while. Winning yesterday must have spurred me on to finish it finally. Stayed up most of the night. Beating you once...I'm willing to call that a fluke. If I can do it again, then I'll call it a victory."

"Ok, Data. Same as always. This is Doyle's universe. No other cases were used for any background information, including ours. So, naturally, Watson is still alive and Holmes doesn't speak Vulcan."

"Of course."

An hour in and Data had a sturdy case file brimming with suspects and a large amount of evidence, half of which he believed to be falsely planted. This was an intensely complex story.

Holmes paced the dimly lit study with his hands clutched behind his back, pipe cupped in the left, legs stiff, chin nearly to his chest. Watson stood in a similar pose off to his right, and two men and a woman in period costumes, cg characters, waited pensively off near the fireplace which crackled and poured heat into the room realistically. "Based on previous experience," he said in that booming Holmes voice, "I must assume that the level of our game play has stepped up," and Geordi looked up, shocked to see Data slip halfway out of character like that. He never talked about the game while playing it. It was both disturbing and gratifying. He couldn't put a finger on why it disturbed him exactly, perhaps in that instant he seemed just a tad more human than normal, but it was always gratifying to see the ways in which Data's mind grew and responded to new things. It felt a bit like he imagined teaching a child would be like. But Data had never addressed the mystery before, had never addressed Geordi as he would a villain before this. He had always addressed the characters with his deductions. It gave Geordi a little chill. "I must assume that, although the rules for me restrict my play to within the realm of Sherlock Holmes, you are not similarly restricted, but I must also assume that you want there to be a possibility for me to solve the mystery or there would be no point to playing. Therefore I must expand my list of suspects to include anyone who you, the creator, could possibly involve. Furthermore I must consider what other elements you are capable of introducing from the real world that would still be detectable by me here." Then he became pure Data again. "You realize this creates a mild paradox, Geordi?" And Geordi got the idea that he wasn't going to win this one.

"Yes," he said hesitantly. "In order for you to gather a list of possible suspects you must use your knowledge of the real world, but in order to prove it you can't use that knowledge. I...thought you'd appreciate the fact that it is so close to the problem faced by real investigators encountering privacy laws and rules about evidence retrieval, things like that," he shrugged.

"Indeed I do. It is fascinating," Data replied with an earnest nod. The rest of the characters stood around, oblivious to the conversation as they were programmed to be, except for Professor Moriarty, who, like every version of the character, was always too smart for his own good. Even as Geordi smiled at Data, he kept his eye on Moriarty, looking for changes in his projection that might indicate he was up to something other-worldly. "So, to answer your question, Watson, my list of suspects includes: Andrea Baptista, Mr. Mitchel, Mrs. Mitchel, Sarah Ducharme, Captain Picard, Professor James Moriarty, and you."

Geordie chuckled and shook his head.

"That is preposterous. I've had nothing to do with this and you know it Holmes!" Moriarty growled from beside the mantle.

"I agree," Picard said from behind Data, and he turned to face him.

"Sir, I was not aware you would be joining us this-"

"I don't see what I've done to merit your suspicion," he interrupted.

"Me either," Captain Picard said as he stepped into the room and stood a few feet from the other Picard.

"Um. Data?" Geordi said, and when Data turned back to him, it was clear by the way he looked from one to the other that he was not sure which one had been there originally and which one was newly appeared. It was when the second Moriarty crept in from the library and seized Geordi that he became aware that there was something wrong.

The other Moriarty did what came naturally and took hold of the other Geordi before he could have reacted, and both Geordis were held around the chest with knives at their throats.

"Data," the other Geordi said lowly and carefully. The Moriarty holding him seemed willing to let him speak. "This isn't part of the simulation." The real Geordi was faintly shocked to hear that come out of the mouth of someone that wasn't him. The cold blade against his neck seemed to chill him all through his body and he decided that he didn't like Moriarty anymore.

He had a horrible realization just then. It was entirely possible that Data would think that this was part of the simulation, that Geordi intended this to happen, that the fear on his face was an artificial glaze of pixels.

Data leaned vaguely in the direction of the other Geordi..

"Don't move Holmes or I'll slice his throat," the one on the left growled.

"Computer, end program," Data called into the air. Nothing happened. "Security to holodeck three." There was no response. "Data to the bridge."

A green log in the fire began whistling in the dense quiet. It whistled "Pop! Goes the Weasel."

"Data, I don't know what's going on, but if the computer isn't responding then the safety protocols may not work either," the right-hand Geordi said and swallowed hard around the knife blade.

Spot entered the room just then and jumped up onto the edge of a small table. Data spared a glance to look for the second but did not see her. He took a cautious step toward the right-hand Geordi and the right-hand Moriarty responded by tightening the blade flush to Geordi's skin and saying, "I swear to you Mr. Holmes if you do not back away and allow me to leave I will slice him and throw him into the fire like a suckling pig!"

Data lunged at the left-hand pair, easily disabled Moriarty and freed Geordi in one swift motion that left the engineer spinning a little. He leaned against the fireplace mantle for a second and jiggled his visor just a little. When he turned back to the Victorian study, everyone else was gone except Data and Spot. She got down off the table and leaped into Data's arms.

Spot's density suddenly increased in a simple curve, Geordi could see, increasing at first and then leveling off in the last few seconds. At the same time, her fur became skin and clothing, a captain's red uniform, and her eyes turned brown and shark-like. "Really, Data. I thought you were capable of so much more. I am sorely disappointed in you," Q shook his head, cradled as he was in Data's arms. Data stood the entity on the floor immediately.

"Security to holodeck three," Geordi said, tapping his communicator with something a little stronger than mere annoyance on his face to cover the receding adrenaline jitters.

"You spent an hour in here and you hadn't yet figured out that it was Baptista who done it? I just looked at the program editor. It was spelled out right there in the afterward."

Data reluctantly addressed the entity. "The point of a mystery is to solve it, not simply read the solution." Geordi envied the android's cool.

Q scoffed and meandered around the hologramatic study swiping imaginary dust from the spine of a book or the brass statuary. "Oh Data. You just aren't any fun. Here I thought you'd supply me with some real entertainment for a change and either allow Geordi to be killed or at the very least manage to figure out that I was the one behind it. I was positively magnanimous with my clues. I thought my brain would melt at the very tedium of leaving them they were so glaringly obvious." Geordi gritted his teeth and reminded himself that there was little to be done about the pretentiousness of the omnipotent.

"I did suspect your influence."

"Now that isn't true, Data. You never listed me among your suspects," Q said with a cheeky smirk.

"For the game, no. But past incidents have forced me to count you among my chief suspects in any investigation on the ship. By reason of..." and he paused in that way that only Data can, the whip-quick recalculation of every subtle nuance of the situation, a maneuver that would make any normal human stutter and stall, "...the body of evidence suggesting that you could be at the bottom of any event that takes place."

"Well, I can't argue with that now can I," he purred and Data nodded once.

The security team could be heard fighting with the door to the holodeck, though Data and Geordi both knew that they would not be opening the door until Q was quite ready for it to happen.

Geordi decided to try to appear unflappable and disinterested in Q's opinions or even his presence. "How did you know that I was the real Geordi, Data?" Change the subject. That at least did puzzle him.

Data pulled a short length of black ribbon from Watson's front coat pocket where it been inconspicuously hanging. And for a moment he was Holmes again, the light nasal quality coming back to an overconfident voice. "When the simulation began, I was sure not to take my eyes off of you, just in case you decided to duplicate yourself again. Then when I had the opportunity, I slipped this into your pocket to mark you as the real one, playing the odds of you loading a premade hologram against the odds of you having the computer scan and duplicate you. I was also betting that if Q was involved, that he would use the same image stored in the holodeck memory in order to keep you confused as well."

"Ah, Mister Data. You're becoming a real betting man, there may be hope for you yet," Q drawled.

Geordi ignored him completely. "And how did you figure out that Q was behind this, that it wasn't part of the game? That I wasn't trying to trick you again?"

"I did not." Data was Data again and spoke with mild solemnity.

"What do you mean? If you didn't know I was really in trouble, why didn't you let it go? I could have been another double. I could have programmed the whole thing."

"Because I would not risk your safety to win a game," he said simply.

And Geordi paused, then hung his head. "Data. I'm...I'm sorry. I really didn't think about it when I made that scenario."

"It is quite all right Geordi."

Q disappeared and reappeared between the two of them, now in his Q Continuum attire. "Well, this is all very touching, but I'm afraid it's also very boring and I must be off." He put a finger to his lips. "Maybe I'll see what Guinan is up to. I always liked her. Marvelous brilliant woman, you could learn a thing or two form her Data. Then again she never liked me much, did she...saucy wench." Q was sneaking away in a purple cloud of smoke, arms raised like a conductor, when Geordie stopped him. "Q." He looked up, annoyed at the interruption. "Where's Spot?"

He dropped his arms with a huff. Then he wound up with one robed leg rising beneath his judiciary gown and threw a baseball squarely at Data's chest. Cheering followed by home run organ music erupted when Data caught the ball against his chest. The ball transformed into Spot, sixteen claws in Data's uniform shirt, and Q disappeared entirely.

The door slid open and the security team bustled in impotently and confused. "Well, I don't know about you Data, but I think I've had my fill of the holodeck for a while."

Data nodded. "I think Spot has as well," he said and cooed at the nervous feline.