In sickbay, Genie stayed by the biobed as Doctor T'Ana and nurse Westlake examined Mariner.

Finally, as Mariner sat on the edge of the biobed, T'Ana said, "Well, Lieutenant, I can't find anything wrong with you."

"So, what, I'm just hallucinating?" Mariner said.

"Who knows?" T'Ana said. "You know the drill better than most of us: It could be hallucination, telepathic communication from another race, repressed memory, momentary contact with a parallel reality, take your pick. But at least I have a prescription that should rule out any mental health issues." She handed Mariner a PADD.

Mariner read it. "Role up my sleeves and feel free to personalize my hairstyle?"

"The human brain can be freaky enough even if most humans don't have telepathic powers than drive everyone within a thousand meters crazy," T'Ana explained. "You'd be surprised how many physical symptoms a human can have because their fight-or-flight reflex is tricked out. Now, no one's saying you're not a tough little bitch. And everyone thinks it's great that you're trying to get with the program. But you've been through a lot since you got promoted, and then Tendi got dragged back to Orion by her bitch sister. That's a lot. Pile on top of that your history of survivor's guilt, fear of responsibility, and self-sabotage, and pushing yourself outside your comfort zone might be just enough to turn your brain into a witch's caldron of neurotransmitters. That's the last thing we need."

Mariner hopped off the bed and set down the PADD. "Yeah, it has felt a little weird," she said as she rolled up her sleeves. "I was wondering if this could give me hives." She loosened her hair, letting her curls fall free.

"See what I mean?" T'Ana said. She smiled. "Besides, you being Little Miss Starfleet has everyone freaked out." She turned serious: "Other than that, you're free to go. Getting back on duty is probably the best thing for you right now. If you have another episode, CALL ME RIGHT AWAY. Don't try to tough it out. You ain't alone, Beckett. Let us help you."

"Ok," Mariner said. "Thanks, Doc. C'mon, Genie."

After the door closed behind Mariner and Genie, Westlake said, "It's some kind of anomaly, isn't it?"

"Yeah, probably," T'Ana groused. "I hate those freaking things."

8

8

"So, what, we're thinking alternate realities?" Mariner said. Nothing else had happened during the morning watch. She, T'Lyn, Rutherford, Boimler, and Genie had met up in the bar for lunch and were convened in their favorite booth. "God, what does it say about our lives that we can talk about this as if it's nothing?"

T'Lyn said, "Your misgivings notwithstanding, that is a valid hypothesis."

"Yeah," Mariner said, "but a starship that uses rotation for artificial gravity? I can't think of anyone who does that. Or a warp capable starship with technology out of a Dixon Hill holonovel? Where does that come from?"

Boimler said, "Don't worry—I have a guy working on it."

"What guy-" Mariner said, "no, wait, not-"

"Hey, Mariner," Steve Levy said with a smile as he came to the booth.

"Steve. Levy." Mariner's head flopped onto the table. "Shoot me now."

Levy squeezed into the booth. "So, yeah, I found the things that you were talking about. The ship design was easiest. I'm surprised Rutherford didn't tell you. Transferring data to your PADDs." He tabbed his own PADD. The others' PADDs beeped.

Mariner rolled her head to one side and hinged her PADD up with one edge against the table and read it. "Starfleet historical database? What, no conspiracy web site?" The ship in the image had two warp nacelles coming out of the rear section of a roughly cylindrical ship whose midships had two blocky booms extending from it and rotated independent of the sections fore and aft. The nose was dominated by what looked like a shuttle pod hangar. "'Delta class corvette'?" Mariner read. "Never heard of it."

Rutherford said, "Levy's right—I should have remembered this. Back when Starfleet was founded, they wanted to commission ships with the most advanced warp engines they had at the time. They couldn't do more than two or three times the speed of light, but that would have been fast enough for them to patrol the solar system and maybe go out to the inner edge of the Oort cloud. Some engineers weren't sure you could combine inertial dampers with gravity plating. So, they proposed the Delta class. Inertial dampers would dampen acceleration, and the rotating section would have gravity for the main decks and crew quarters."

T'Lyn said, "I, too, am aware of this. Starfleet's Vulcan advisors reassured the admiralty that gravity plating and inertial dampers could be combined reliably and safely. So, the Delta class was shelved in the design phase. Some Vulcan commentators have used the Delta class proposal as an example of human reticence and to refute the idea that Vulcans held humans back in developing Warp technology. Theirs is a minority view, however, and no serious Vulcan scholar supports it."

Boimler said, "Still, it makes sense—an alternate reality where Starfleet went with the Delta class, and it stuck."

Mariner raised her head. "And how did you get onto this, Steve?"

"Temporal cold war," Levy said.

"Ah, of course," Mariner said. "Now, what about the 'bridge' with the antique tech?"

Levy bent closer and his voice became even more conspiratorial. "Control, people."

"'Control'?" Mariner asked. "What, is this that AI thing?"

"An AI Starfleet command was using during the One Year War with the Klingons to present tactical options," Levy explained. "It went rogue and killed the admirals. It took the TOS-Enterprise and the USS Discovery to stop it. The Discovery was destroyed and all hands, including Spock's adopted sister, were lost. But they sent the AI to another dimension.

"But ever since, Starfleet has done these secret war games on how to fight a rogue AI. And the biggest weakness are our computers. They'd have to downgrade our tech."

Rutherford asked, "How big a downgrade?"

"We're talking mid-to-late 20th century," Levy answered: "Solid state electronics, 16-bit processors, no wireless networking, no packet switching—you can forget about transporters unless they were standalone systems."

T'Lyn said, "And the deemphasis of wireless communications would mean antique wired telephones."

Levy nodded. "And they put in regs against giving AI's command. Janeway almost got court martialed for upgrading her EMH into an Emergency Command Hologram."

Mariner forced and smile and said, "Well, thanks, Steve. Talk to you later?"

"Sure Mariner." Mercifully, Levy took the hint and left.

Mariner clamped her hands to the sides of her head. "How bad does it have to be where he's our answer guy?"

Rutherford, "Well, he's not entirely wrong about the ECH. Janeway didn't get in trouble, but Starfleet's software engineers shelved the idea 'pending further review.'"

T'Lyn said, "And I have acquainted myself with the writings of Ambassador Spock. While he is well known for writings on emotions some Vulcans consider radical, he is lesser known for advocating limits on the capabilities of artificial intelligence."

"That's no surprise, T'Lyn," Mariner said, "because the M-5 almost got Kirk and his crew killed."

"Indeed, Mariner, but Spock's position predates that incident by a decade." T'Lyn handed Mariner her PADD.

Mariner read it. "T'Lyn, the title is longer than the paper. Can you give us the summary for people who don't think in annotated paragraphs?"

"In essence, Mariner, that there should be limits on the capabilities of Ais used for command-and-control functions, and that decision making capabilities should rest entirely with organic officers."

Rutherford said, "Yeah. I mean, our computers can support holodeck characters who can act like people, and run an EMH, but the default interface for the computer is nowhere close. And it doesn't have to be that way from an engineering standpoint."

Mariner said, "Rutherford, it is scarry that you are getting into that."

Genie clapped her hands and smiled. "Oh, I know! Levy has acquired mental powers and is projecting his conspiracy theories. All we have to do is cut his head off."

"As appealing as that is," Mariner deadpanned, "my mom would have to approve a beheading. And it takes forever to get blood out of these carpets. And it doesn't explain my vision of T'Lyn's somewhat hot Vulcan Viking hairdo." Mariner took a deep breath. "Ok, T'Lyn, assuming there's something to what Levy told us—and I can't believe I actually said that—what do you make of all this?"

T'Lyn said, "Based on available data, which isn't much and parts of which are highly suspect, the most likely hypothesis, *at this time,* is that you have been experiencing alternate quantum realities."

Mariner said, "Like Worf did that time on the *Enterprise*-D."

"Correct," T'Lyn said, "though I must emphasize this is tentative and may be refuted by more accurate data. But that being said, since in alternate quantum realities, every choice that could have been made has been made, it is illogical to suppose that would be limited to choices made in recent history, or by one race."

Boimler said, "First contact. If the Vulcan ship had been behind schedule or been doing a close flyby of the Sun on the opposite side from Earth, they never would have detected Cochrane's warp flight."

Rutherford said, "Or if Cochrane had scrubbed his flight or flown a day early."

Mariner said, "I get it, I get it. But if I remember right, Worf's shuttle flew through a quantum fissure. Since no one has left the *Cerritos* today, we'll have to convince my mom to turn the ship around and-"

A klaxon sounded, but it was a buzzer instead of a siren. A voice came over the speakers: "Action stations, action stations. Set condition 1 throughout the ship. This not a drill…"

Mariner mused, "'Action stations'?" Then she noticed their uniforms had changed to military style jackets. The bar's door was heavy and hinged, and there was a wired telephone on the wall next to it.

Mariner led the others to the door and picked up the phone. She spoke into it: "Hello? Mariner to bridge or command center or whoever's in charge?"

Freeman's voice came over the phone, "Cerritos Actual. Sweetie? Is that you?"

"'Actual'? Mom? What's going on?"

"Oh, damn, has it happened again? Never mind. Get down here."

"Sure, I'll be, there right away. Where are you exactly?"

"You have no idea where the CIC is, do you?"

"Uh…nope."

"You're in the mess, right?..."

After Captain Freeman gave Mariner directions, Mariner said, "Ok, Mom, I'll be there soon." She hung up and turned to the others. "Follow me."

The others followed Mariner out the mess hall, down the corridor round a bend—

-and the corridor suddenly changed! One second it was level, the next that stretch of corridor was inclined upwards. They all lost their footing. Genie took flight with her wings and grabbed Mariner's arm, helping her back down the corridor, while the others stumbled down to where it became level and went through a right-angle turn.

As Genie set Mariner down and landed herself, Mariner said, "Is everyone ok?" She noticed everyone was now wearing civies.

Rutherford said, "Yeah, we're ok-"

T'Lyn had stumbled back against the bulkhead. "What—what—what has happened to me?" Her monotone cracked just enough for her to sound distraught. Not only did she have the waste length hair again, but she wore a leather, sleeveless coat over a leather halter and matching leather pants. Two bony spikes poked through leather gauntlets on each forearm, bent backwards towards her elbows. The way they twitched in agitation showed they were a part of her.

Barnes came running down the ramp. She was dressed in civilian clothes and her hair had been dyed red. He Trill spots were missing. "Are you ok? My sensors detect signs of emotional distress."

Rutherford said, "'Sensors,' Barnes?" He touched a control on his implant. "You're an android! Where's the real Barnes?"

"Who's this 'Barnes'? I'm Cerri—Cerritos The Ship Made Flesh. You know me, Rutherford. You built this body."

"I did? Wait, what do you mean by 'this body'?"

A holographic version of Barnes—Cerri—appeared next to Android Cerri, wearing a military uniform. She was translucent with scan lines going though her. She said, "I'm detecting severe emotional distress and brain chemistry alternations. Even from T'Lyn, far beyond Vulcanean norm."

Mariner said, "A 'Vulcanean'? What the heck is a Vulcanean?"

Android Cerri frowned. "You don't know?"

Rutherford said, "Cerri, there has been an anomaly. We've lost our memories. Please remind us of when Vulcans became Vulcaneans."

Android Barnes—Android Cerri—nodded. "A Vulcan cultural survey mission in 1909 brought the works of Frederich Nietzsche back to Vulcan. They took the planet by storm. Vulcan integrated Nietzsche's ideas into their philosophy. He became revered as much as Surak. Their culture underwent a sea change, and they began genetically engineering themselves-"

"That is illogical," T'Lyn stammered. "That did not happen."

Mariner said, "Here it did. Can you keep it together?"

T'Lyn nodded.

Mariner said, "Cerri, take us to my mom."

"Your…mother?"

"Augh! Take us to the bridge or the CIC or wherever you run the ship from."

"The command deck. Follow me."

Marriner and the others followed Android Cerri through a confusing 3-dimentional maze of corridors and ladder wells. They came though a large door onto the command deck. The layout was the same as the *Cerritos* bridge, and the door they came through was at the same position as the portside turbolift. But all the stations were designed to be stood at. The only chair was a pilot's chair in the middle of the deck.

Rutherford spied the purple-skinned girl sitting in the pilot's chair. He rushed over and yanked her out into a hug. "TENDI! It's so good to see you, even if you are purple."

"It's good to see you, too, Rutherford. But I'm Vision, Vision Aquarius. Don't you-"

Mariner: "What. The. Heck."

Mariner was staring at the wall with the dedication plaque. The plaque was ringed with pictures of Freeman, Ransom, Shaxs, T'Ana, and Billups.

Mariner said, "Someone tell me. What. Happened. To my. Mom."

Android Cerri said, "The Vulcaneans lured us to the Tartarus system with a false distress signal. We were ambushed by 10,000 Vulcanean ships. My Vulcanean first officer, Chu'lak, betrayed and murdered your mother and the rest of the senior staff. You killed Chu'Lak, Mariner, but then you and I were frozen in time at the edge of a black hole for over three hundred year-"

"It was you," Mariner growled, rounding on Genie, backing her into the area where the captain's chair would be. "It's been you all along, hasn't it? I had my suspicions. I didn't want to believe it. You pop into my life from God knows where, and suddenly everything falls apart? That's not an accident."

Tears were streaming down Genie's face. "I'm so sorry, Beckett. I didn't mean for this to happen-"

Mariner lunged at Genie and grabbed Genie's throat with both hands. "YOU KILLED MY MOM!" Mariner screamed as she strangled her lover. "I'LL KILL YOU KILL YOU DIE DIE DIE-"

Genie offered no resistance, just cried.

The deck shuddered under Marriner's feet and she released her grip on Genie's neck. Everyone else and everything else seemed to break into cubes and other polyhedrons that rotated around themselves, taking the bridge and the crew through different appearances. Then Mariner saw the tips of her fingers break into spinning polyhedrons and the effect started to travel down her arms.

All she could do was start to scream.