Chapter 37 - Clubbing
Spock didn't remove the panel directly over the door lock in his assigned dormitory room at Starfleet Academy. He instead removed the panel between the door and the long side wall, just above the floor. This larger panel was a generic kickplate that allowed access to the service bundles that entered the room from the conduits below the suspended floor. It was regularly removed by maintenance so unlike the door plate its removal would not constitute evidence of tampering with the door itself.
Spock sat crosslegged before the revealed utility cavity. The wall was 14 centimeters deep and insulated everywhere except here. With the foam-backed plate removed he could hear footsteps and muted conversation from the corridor outside.
He stared, idly tracing colored and tagged pipes and wires. It was oh six hundred seventeen, and the Academy was rising for the day. Spock meditated lightly to force himself to acknowledge that he'd been compelled this morning to hack his dormitory door entry system by his own sense of hurt. There was still no message from Kirk overnight. He was responding to that deep fear of loss by taking something away from the same institution that threatened to take Kirk from him.
Spock stepped through the emotional logic of his actions, acknowledged it to himself, and took up his tricorder. He would have to rig an optical probe wire to study the door latch itself, but he should be able to reach it from this point following along one of the wires. He may have to fetch a few tools from his room at the embassy, but the task of making one would be too easy. He hoped for the sake of distraction that the lock itself was more complicated than expected.
It wasn't until dinner and the usual noise of the senior recitation that Spock had a chance to speak with P'Losiwst. He didn't want to preserve any evidence in messages, even coded ones, as she had suggested doing.
"I have a thought about access to rooms," Spock said. He was bending over his plate, seeming to study the food fabricator's idea of Vulcan Kit'op, a pressed and fermented concoction of wild seeds. The fabricator had mimicked everything but the scent and even though it smelled more pleasant than the real thing, Spock was uncertain about tasting it.
P'Losiwst wiped her fingers on her napkin. "Yeah?"
"Every access must be independent from the others and must not repeat any method of entry."
Her antenna dipped low. "That's harder. Won't be able to do more than, what, three or four rooms?"
"Possibly. I agree it will reduce total count."
She began mixing together the foods on her plate with the spoon she held, a sign that she was not going to eat more. "I don't like that. Let me think about it."
"It has the advantage of not attracting as much investigation." Spock considered Vice Admiral Justin's repeated observations that Spock was closely in tune with his thinking. "The investigation would be relentless if it were as many students as you are planning for."
The seniors concluded their reciting of Basic Station Docking Procedures and the general chatter in the hall rose to fill the space.
"I guess I do want to stay on here. After. Okay. You're right. I don't really want to scale it back, but for now, I agree with you."
"I have observed that you have difficulty letting go of projects once launched. Even if they are in difficulty."
"That's how I get shit done." Her antenna bent backwards which Spock took as a sign of anger.
"That is very much like James," Spock said and returned to eating.
Her antenna lifted straight again, but she continued to appear emotionally down, inward. "I need to go out tonight. Club. Drinking. Please say you are game."
"I have a project meeting with Lt. Carrom at twenty hundred. But I will be available after that."
"Good." She pushed her tray away. "You didn't hear from Commander Kirk today?"
Spock shook his head as faintly as he could.
"You may need to drink even more than me."
"A testable hypothesis."
Spock sat in a pool of light in the basement of the Annex. He was grateful for the endless difficult tasks placed before him, the immersive models on the screen and the counters displaying his progress through the tasks. He wanted no room in his mind for pointless supposition about Kirk.
Carrom juggled three devices, as usual. Put them all down in a neat row for the eleventh time, then stretched his back. "My family's not happy about us having a meeting scheduled on Friday."
Spock was rebundling signals and wiring to the bridge consoles using different vendor products to see how the simulations adjusted. There were no fewer than six bus standards being supported. His patience for the illogic of this was quite short. "I see, sir."
"My wife wants me to invite you to dinner and we can do some work after."
This was in the personal domain, or partly so. Spock shuttered the model on his display and raised his head, sat straighter. He felt ghostly habits of his childhood filling his arms, his spine, reminding him that he was a diplomat's son.
"I'd be honored, sir."
Carrom's face grew wryly amused. "Don't take it too seriously. Just Friday pizza and chikorn sticks in ranch dip or whatever the kids are demanding this week."
"Nevertheless, sir."
Carrom patted his chair arms. "Well, maybe we can pack it in tonight then."
Spock had already closed out the model. He took up his padd and stood. They were making far less progress now on the project per time input. The required changes seemed custom designed to overlap and conflict the more of them were attempted, more like a chess match against the creator of the assignment than an intellectual puzzle on its own.
Spock almost lifted his padd to check his messages, instead he bowed faintly and made his departure, aware of extra looks from Carrom, but not caring about them.
Spock found P'Losiwst outside his dorm room door wearing a crystalline tunic over white tights that showed off the inhuman musculature wrapping around the fronts of her shins.
"Too much?"
"I am a poor judge," Spock said. "But I see I should change."
"You have something for clubbing?"
"Not like that."
"Should we go shopping first? I know a great ten stores we can hit."
"I will make do. Allow me four and a half minutes."
"I'll be timing," she said as the door to his room closed.
Spock slipped into what he thought of as his mock meditation robes. They were a light consuming black, cut lean, with four layers of lapel down the front and sleeve sode that threatened to brush the floor.
He re-emerged to an appraising eye.
"Okay. That's pretty good. Sort of the antimatter style. Do you have earplugs?"
Spock fetched the set that had been included in his academy bathroom kit. He showed them to her and pocketed them.
"I don't want you getting hurt."
Spock raised a brow.
"Drunk, but not hurt," she said.
The club's noise formed a wall that beat on Spock's face and heart muscle. The plugs in his ears filtered the morass into rhythmic throbbing and indiscriminate tinkling, but at least he was comfortable. He was reading P'Losiwst's lips in the shifting and pulsing light. He wondered about her ear structure, she seemed to hear him if she leaned in when he spoke, something he estimated to be impossible.
She'd fetched them a second set of drinks and hiked herself up onto the very high stool at their very small transparent table. Figures gyrated past them, danced on crystal platforms that rose and sank, changed direction at when the music shifted.
"How are you doing?" She exaggerated the movement of her lips.
Spock nodded. He did not detect a change in his mental acuity from the first drink. He took a sip of the second one, stared into it.
She rapped the table beside his hand. "If you get plastered because you're scared to death of what's going on with James, I know he wouldn't hold it against you."
Spock contemplated the logic of retreat from awareness of emotional strain, which seemed to be the intent of this self-medication. A drug enforced temporary sanctuary was not entirely illogical if one had no other way. He stared at the drink again.
P'Losiwst spun around on her seat, watched the dance floors rising and falling, watched absurd shoes migrate in small circles on them. Club goers dressed in tight shiny skins or faceted tiny dresses strode by their bar area. With noses high, they looked Spock and P'Losiwst over and strutted on. P'Losiwst rotated back. "I think no one is asking me to dance because you're here and they aren't going to tangle with you." Her antenna aimed at him. "I mean, look at you."
"What do you propose?"
"Either you dance. With me. Or I'll make the rounds and find someone for few numbers and come back."
"I will wait."
She stared. "Sure?"
"Yes."
She continued to stare. "You have the perfect body for dancing."
"That is irrelevant."
"You have great coordination, sense of rhythm, and the right height for dancing."
"That is also irrelevant."
Her face shifted to disbelieving, antenna bent all the way to the sides.
"Okay. I'll be back."
Spock sat alone in a pounding universe of vibrating atoms and photons. A young man wearing black skin-tight velour with brown curls piled on his head, strands of it dangling down his back, stopped to flick his unnaturally long lashes at Spock.
Spock shook his head.
The man turned his body to another calculated pose, gave a shrug, and moved on with a toss of his strands.
Thirty minutes, and three other offers later, P'Losiwst returned.
"Daring crowd." She gulped the drink that arrived just as she did. "I saw all the come-ons from the platform. You're popular." She looked at his glass, at the same level as when she'd left. "You're not really drinking. Well. Good. You can see I make it home okay. And by okay, I mean not getting caught drunk coming back to the dorms."
"Understood."
The quiet of the city street felt akin to being muffled under a heavy blanket in contrast to the club. Spock breathed deeply of the dewy cool air that lacked a thousand human scents.
"Well, I feel better." P'Losiwst half tripped, stopped, took Spock's arm.
Spock crooked his arm to make it more stable for her balance. He was still well shielded from the club.
"Thanks. You have fun, at least? I can't tell. With you."
"I am fascinated by the casual mating rituals."
She snorted, fell silent for a time.
"There were two guys I'd have loved to be boned by, I'll admit. I'm not really sure why I sent them off. Maybe because we have a meeting at seven and it's already one." She held up a dramatic hand to the passing streetlight. "One." She snorted again. "My moon goddess, what's happened to me?"
"I believe you are prioritizing. Logically and productively."
"Bad job of it. My number one priority was to get you drunk. You need it."
"Despite my inability to change the conditions of my stress, I have determined it is logical to remain clearheaded and fully functional until I know more."
"That's even more reason to get drunk. Not less. You can't DO anything." She sighed. "That's how I've been feeling, despite our plans for revenge. Like it won't be enough, then a day later, like it's entirely the wrong thing to do." She gestured at the next streetlight. "I hate being like this. I used to be sure. No one had messed with my head before now." She squeezed his arm, shook it. "You know, you helping me get revenge makes it even more confusing."
"I have concluded that reciprocation is expected and to not comply would indicate our unworthiness for inclusion in this institutional culture."
She leaned heavily on his arm for a few paces. She giggled, stopped. She looked back along the darkened sidewalk.
"Maybe I should go back and find someone to knock around in bed with." She let go of him, swayed. "I'll meet you tomorrow."
"You entrusted me with the responsibility to see you home."
She tilted her head at him. "Damn it. I did that. Well shit. There is always that second year who sends me love notes I guess."
"As long as you have arrived at and remain in your dormitory building it is no longer my concern."
She hooked her arm through his again and pulled him into a long stride.
"Oh, goddess, it's like I'm clubbing with my dad."