Chapter 10 – 2401
Seven of Nine was not sure why she'd done it.
She'd known it almost certainly wouldn't work. She'd remembered a time when it had worked and the man she'd saved had been absolutely despondent. She'd known that Shaw, of all people, would hate it, and her, if he survived. He was drawing his last breath and they had a Federation to save if they could – there is no time, there is no time –
Yet a voice said, soft and close to her ear, just try.
If it had been Shaw's voice, she might have understood. Or if she had imagined it was Picard's wish. Or if Ambassador Radford had somehow reached across space to call in the favor she earned when she saved Cuini's passengers. But it was someone else. Male, neither young nor old. Not a voice she recognized. A stranger. Not demanding. Just asking. Just try.
There is no time.
Just try.
So she allowed a single teardrop to fall into Shaw's bleeding chest, and in it she sent just seven nanoprobes – seven, because he had fucking finally called her by her name – and then she'd left him.
Much later, when they were gathering the wounded and the dead, they found Shaw deeply comatose, unresponsive, but alive.
Two days later, Dr. Crusher summoned her. "He's alive, but his brain activities is very suppressed. Tell me what happened after we left."
Reluctantly, Seven told her.
Crusher whistled. "As I understand the process … that shouldn't have worked."
"I know. I don't know why it did."
"Or if it did. Maybe the nanoprobes had no effect at all and he just didn't quite die."
"Maybe." Honestly, Seven hoped that was true. "But if that were the case, wouldn't he have regained consciousness by now?"
"Yes. In theory, yes. The damage to his neuro pathways is extensive. What if," Crushed mused, "the nanoprobes reached his brain, and then the Borg Queen –" She paused, frowned. "I don't know."
"The assimilation process was reversed abruptly," Seven added. "We've never had an incident quite like this one."
"No. I just don't know."
Seven could see how tired the doctor was. She wondered if she'd slept at all. "Is he going to recover?"
"I don't know that either. We've seen tiny increments of improvement, but the damage is massive – I just don't know."
Seven wondered if anyone had notified Ambassador Radford. She assumed she was listed as Shaw's next of kin, though she didn't know that for sure. But thinking of Radford prompted her to look more closely at Crusher. "Have you eaten?"
"What?"
"Have you eaten lately?"
"Oh. I don't know. I'm not hungry."
"You should eat."
"I don't have time …"
"I know you won't sleep, Doctor, but you need fuel to keep going. Come with me."
"I can't, I …"
"Please."
It took a long moment, but the doctor finally agreed.
2401
At breakfast, Becca said, "The old guys are coming out to help clean out the shed this morning. They'll be here in half an hour."
"The old guys are still around? Mel and Jalen and Bek?"
"Only Jalen. The others are gone. But some of the younger old guys. And my dad, maybe. We talked about it yesterday."
"If you say so." Shaw scowled. "Why are we cleaning out the shed? You gonna make me start sleeping out there?"
"You can if you want to. But I was thinking we'd use it to park a four-man in the winter."
"Is it almost winter?"
"No, it's July. But the weather's clear and they had the time
Shaw nodded and ate his toast. Frontier Day was in April. So he'd been here twelve weeks or so. Becca would probably tell him exactly, if he asked. He didn't want to.
A year, she'd said before they went to the Soak. A year to a year and a half. So he was either a quarter of the way to being well, or a sixth. If he even got better at all.
He chugged the rest of his coffee and went out to see if he could fix the shed door that was falling off the track before they got there.
The old guys – Jalen, plus guys named Joel, Godinez and Lenyens – arrived ten minutes later, while he was still struggling with it. They were packed into the cab of a big old flatbed truck with a very old winch on the back. Together they made short work of getting the door back on the track, but the track itself sagged precariously. "We can fix that as soon as we get a ladder," Joel said.
"Ladder's in the shed?" Shaw guessed.
"Yup."
They wrestled the door open, then stood back, each with their hands on their hips, and stared at the chaos within the shed.
Front and center, blocking the doorway, was something large and bulky, waist-high, covered with a dusty tarp.
"Well that's got to go," Lenyens said immediately.
"Sooner the better."
The cottage door shut. They turned to see Becca walking across the yard. Almost as one, the old guys turned and walked toward her. Shaw followed, mildly confused.
"Morning," Becca said. "Thanks for your help with this."
"Morning." Joel nodded. "Been a while since I been out here."
Godinez said, "Looks like you're taking good care of the place since you're back."
"Not a lot to taking care of it, but yeah."
"We was thinking about that sweet tea you used to make when Otto still lived here."
She smiled. "Oh, I forgot all about that stuff."
"Think you could figure out how to make it again? Gonna be a hot day, we'd probably need a glass come mid-day."
Becca blinked at him. She glanced past him to the open door of the shed. Shaw glanced back, too, but all that was visible was a bit of the tarp. "Okay," she said quietly. "I'll see if I can remember."
"Thank ya, lass."
If they had been anyone else, if they hadn't been the designated elders, Shaw would have argued while Becca was still there. No one had the right to send her – ambassador or just family member – to the kitchen that way. But she hadn't argued with them. Puzzled, he followed the others back to the shed.
No one moved until the cottage door closed. "Right. Let's get this bastard out of here."
"What is it?" Shaw demanded.
"You ever meet Phillip?"
"The other brother? No. He died before I ever came out here."
"In a boating accident," Lenyens said. "That's the boat."
"Ohhhh." Their dismissing Becca, and her willingness to allow it, suddenly made sense.
They backed the truck up to the door, wound out the winch cable. Then there was nothing for it but to uncover the wreckage.
Shaw might have been able to identify it as a watercraft if he hadn't been told, maybe. The stern was partially intact. The bow was just crumpled and twisted destruction. He found a strut mid-wreckage that might hold the weight enough to drag it onto the truck and wound the end of the cable around it.
"Still don't know why they didn't just let it sink," Godinez said.
"Jeremy thought is the missus saw the boat, she wouldn't insist on seeing the body." Joel pulled the lever and took up the slack on the winch line.
"Did it work?" Shaw asked.
"Nah. She was determined to see her boy." He jerked his head toward the house. "But the youngsters, this is all they saw."
They got the wreckage hauled onto the truck, strapped down, and covered with the tarp again. Then, finally, they seemed to relax. There was still plenty of crap in the shed, but none of it had any emotional weight.
"Is this a truck engine?" Shaw asked.
"Most of one." Godinez gestured. "Guessing he thought he was going to mount it on that four-man frame."
The frame had no engine at all.
"It would never take that weight," Shaw muttered.
"It didn't. Look at this bend here."
"Phillip was big on ideas," Joel said. "Following through, not so much."
They hauled those pieces and some other random junk out to the truck. Behind them was what had been another four-man, but its frame had been hacked. The second set of seats was gone, so it was now a two-man, with its front and back wheels very close together where the frame had been re-welded. "Does this work?" Shaw asked.
"Probably not. But it might be salvageable, if you want to keep it for a project."
He considered. There was plenty of room now for a four-man in the center aisle. Lots and lots of junk along the sides, still, but room enough to keep this little monstrosity. "I guess we could throw it out later if it can't be fixed."
"Sure enough."
They moved a few more pieces to the truck. Jeremy arrived while they were strapping them down. "Sorry I'm late," he called. "Damn conveyor in the dining hall broke down again."
"That damn thing is cursed," Joel pronounced.
Jeremy glanced at the truck bed. Shaw saw him register the tarp-covered wreckage. He looked away and walked into the shed. "God almighty," he said. "Otto would have tanned that boy from here to Sunday it he saw this."
Shaw noticed for the first time that there were work benches along the walls of the shed. The benches were cluttered with tools and scraps and garbage, but above them, mounted on the walls, were neat tool pegboards. There were old, faded outlines for each tool in their spot. A few of the tools were still in their places, but most were scattered. There was crap on the floor, crap on the shelves beneath the counters, but he could see that once this had been a tidy, functional workshop.
He turned slowly. The workspace on the back wall was less chaotic, though there was plenty of trash and clutter in front of it. There were what looked like small ground drones on the shelf beneath that space. They were certainly solar and their batteries would be dead, but they looked intact.
It would take a year to get this workshop back into functional shape.
Well, as it happens, I have a year.
Lenyens said, "Who the hell leaves one shoe in their workshop?" He picked up the dusty shoe in question, then yelped and dropped it. A small brown mouse squeaked and fled under the bench.
"Gonna need a cat if you're gonna be workin' out here," Jeremy said. "We do have a variety to choose from."
Jalen whistled. "You gonna try to sort this place out?"
"I might," Shaw said. "Got nothing better to do."
"Well, I'm gonna fix that door then."
They found the ladder and dug it out. Lenyens fixed the door so it actually slid. The others continued to haul out the bigger scraps and clutter. By mid-morning, the center aisle was basically clear except for the hacked-up two-man. It was already humid outside, the temperature was rising, and the truck bed was nearly full.
Becca came out with a tray of glasses of sweet tea over ice. They dragged old benches out of the shed and set them in the grass where they could sit and catch the breeze off the ocean.
"Good as I remember," Godenez said, sipping his tea.
"Pain in the ass to make as I remember," Becca answered. "But thank you. For that." She nodded toward the truck.
"Well you got plenty of room now."
"You want me to come look at that conveyor?" Shaw offered.
Jeremy shook his head. "It's fixed, for now. We'll call you next time. Likely to be tomorrow. Damn thing should be so simple, but the campers keep finding new ways to break it."
Shaw nodded. The heat was making him sleepy; he was glad the old man had declined.
When the old guys had driven off with the truck full of bad memories, Shaw and Becca wandered into the shed. "It's bigger than I remember," she said.
"It's bigger when it's not all full of crap."
She cocked her head at the vehicle. "Does that work?"
"Doubt it. Thought I'd putter with it a bit, just to keep my hand in." He put his arm around her. "Was that the plan? Give me something to do?"
"No. We'll need the space, come winter." Then she sighed, leaned against him. "I started having nightmares about the boat."
"Just recently?"
She nodded. "I think … it's probably Frontier Day related. I don't know. But it had to go."
It annoyed Shaw – it pissed him off, frankly – that he didn't remember if she woke him when she had nightmares. He hoped she did. But he didn't know. "Well, it's gone now. Maybe that will help."
"I think so."
"Do you want me to just leave this the way it is? Is my messing with it going to dredge up more nightmares?"
"No." Becca glanced around at the work benches. "This is all just Otto. Good memories. Dredge away. If you want. But you don't have to, either. It's fine the way it is." She studied his face. "You look tired."
"I am. But this is … satisfying." He considered. "If I take a nap, I'm not going to remember all this, am I?"
"No. I'm sorry."
"Just … remind me. Tell me I need to straighten out the shed."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"What's on the agenda today?" Shaw asked at breakfast.
"You were going to work on straightening up the shed."
"The shed?"
"It used to be Otto's workshop," Becca said.
"Oh." Shaw liked that idea, very much.
"But Phillip trashed it. It's a mess."
"Well. I can fix that."
"Unless they break the conveyor again. Then they may need your help at the mess hall."
He had no idea what she was talking about. "Let me know."
"I will."
Shaw hurried to finish his breakfast and headed out to the shed.
Shaw threw rocks until he couldn't lift his arm. By then his rage about the Borg nanoprobes that had probably saved his life had mostly run out. He dropped the last rock and stood with his hands on his knees, panting. Then he straightened, wiped the sweat out of his eyes, and surveyed the scene.
There was a big white chalk stain on the cliff wall that rose just at the end of the shed. It was less than a meter across; apparently he had pretty decent aim. Between him and the cliff were dozens of baseball-sized rocks.
Shaw wanted to leave them. He was tired. His arm hurt. But if, as Becca suggested, he did this every day, tomorrow him would be pissed off that today him hadn't left him a tidy pile of rocks like yesterday him had done. He picked up the most distant rocks and tossed them to the base of the wall. Then he moved in closer and kicked some with the side of his foot.
I wonder if I could pay one of the campers to do this for me.
Well, no, not campers, but one of the family kids.
Sounded like more trouble than it was worth. They would ask why. They would ask why a thousand times, even if I explained it.
The only ones with worse memories than me on this rock are kids under the age of seven.
Too bad there isn't a machine to do this.
Shaw paused, looking at the shed. Might be something in there.
He finished gathering the rocks. Then he went into the shed.
There were workbenches along three of the walls. One was perfectly, beautifully organized. The other two were messy and cluttered. Shaw shook his head. He'd get to them. His attention was drawn to a lower shelf in the back. There was a small, very old drone there. There were also three ancient little robots.
He pulled them all out onto the floor. Their solar batteries were dead, of course. They'd been in storage for years. One wasn't much bigger than a cat; it couldn't handle the rocks. He put it back. The other two had potential.
One had an arm. Shaw followed what he knew of Otto's organization ideas and found a drawer with a dozen attachments. He picked a pincer arm, checked that it would fit the robot, and then hauled the little thing out into the sunlight.
"How did they bring me back?"
Becca looked up from her tablet. She took a deep breath. "They used Borg nanoprobes."
"They what?"
"Liam –"
"They fucking what?"
"No," she said firmly.
"No what?"
"No, you don't get to yell at me about this. I had nothing to do with it. Go throw rocks."
Shaw actually sputtered with rage. "First off, it's kick rocks, and second –"
"You tried that. You almost broke your foot. Out past the shed. Go."
Somehow the fact that Becca was so casually kicking him out of the cottage made him madder than the idea of the Borg technology they'd used to bring him back, after Borg technology got him killed in the first place. He stomped down the stairs and out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him. How dare she, and like it was nothing –
Shaw continued to stomp across the yard, but it was unsatisfying on the soft moss. Beyond the little red shed the cliff rose briefly, made an outcrop roughly two meters square. The center of the face was covered with white chalky residue.
"Throw rocks," he muttered darkly. There was a convenient little cairn of baseball sized rocks right there, so he picked one up and hurled it as hard as he could against the stone wall. It hit dead center of the whitened spot. A few shards chipped off, but the rest of the rock fell to the ground.
He picked up another rock and threw it. Then another.
Every one of them hit dead center.
"Great, the Borg gave me a fucking fastball. Fantastic."
As the fourth rock hit, something scampered out from under the shed. Rat, Shaw thought, and held onto the rock he had, ready to dispatch it. But it was a little robot, bigger than rat-sized, with a pair of pincers on its front. While he watched, it retrieved one of the rocks he'd thrown and brought it back to the pile. Then it went to get another.
Shaw drew his arm back to crush the little thing with the rock, but then stopped. If he smashed it, he'd just have to fix it. It was harmless. Just doing what it was programmed to do, rebuilding his little pile of rocks to throw.
Which meant –
This has happened before.
Shaw couldn't remember it. But everything pointed to that, from Becca's pre-emptive shutting him down to the rock pile to the robot. He had clearly raged about the Borg tech in his system – was it still there? Was it still functional? – before, and this was the system she'd put in place to manage his rage.
The idea that he was being managed made him furious all over again. He hurled the rock as hard as he could. His aim was off this time, but the rock split neatly in half on impact. "Damn it!"
The robot picked up one of the halves and carried it to a different pile, this one of destroyed rock pieces.
"Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnitdamnitdamnit."
He threw rocks, grimly, until he couldn't lift his arm anymore.
Liam Shaw stomped out of the cottage and slammed the door behind him. Nanoprobes. Fucking Borg tech. How dare she? How fucking dare she?
And Becca – waving it off like he was nothing. When she knew – she knew – how he'd feel about it. And no reaction, just go outside and hit something. Out past the shed. Fine. He would hit something. He would hit everything.
He stalked across the mossy yard. It was cushiony under his boots and he hated it for being silent and soft. He paused long enough to kick it, digging holes in the carpet-like surface with his toe. It wasn't very satisfying. He kept walking.
Just beyond the faded red shed there was a rock wall. It was chipped and marked chalky white, as if someone had thrown hundreds of rocks at it. There were no rocks to throw. There was, however, a wire bucket full of racquetballs.
Shaw glared at it, confused.
There was a quiet whirring sound, and then a little wheeled drone came out from under the shed. It had pincers on its front end and it carried a racquet.
Shaw kicked it savagely. The drone half-tipped, then righted itself. It was undamaged. Shaw's foot, however, throbbed.
"Fuck." He snagged the racquet out of the drone's grip, picked up one of the balls, and smashed it against the rock wall. It hit true, dead center of the white spot, and then shot back at him. He ducked, and the ball soared over his head and over the edge of the cliff down into the Soak's grotto.
Shaw watched it go. I could follow it, he thought suddenly. I could just – go. Jump. Fall. Scary for a few seconds, maybe, but then – no nanoprobes. No memories gone every morning. No screaming nightmares. Just done, finally. Over. Like it should have been. Before Hansen and her fucking nanoprobes.
It would be easy.
Except –
Except that if he did that, Becca would never use the Soak again.
She had shared the Soak with him when he was broken and miserable. It was precious and private to her, but she had shared it from the very start. She loved the Soak. But if she had to watch them haul his finally actually dead body out of it, either shattered or drown, she would never go there again.
He was a selfish dick and he knew it, but he wasn't quite that selfish.
Over the cliff, then. Straight into the sea. They could all pretend it was an accident …
Becca would know.
Not here, then. She'd told him he could go anywhere he wanted to go, that he wasn't stuck here. He could go to Chicago. Plenty of ways to die there. Or he could go to Hyslainu, maybe have an accident along the way. There were options. Options that didn't take away one more thing from her.
She'd given up her career to be his babysitter. Maybe she'd be glad to be free of the burden. Maybe she'd …
Goddamn it, do you ever stop thinking about yourself? She's taken care of you for how fucking long and you're just going to throw it over the cliff, literally, because you're mad about something that Becca had nothing to do with?
He picked up another ball and hit it furiously against the wall. It sailed back over his head and down into the Soak. The next ball landed in the grass half-way back to the cottage. The little drone whirred over to fetch it. Shaw watched it, then launched another ball. This time he got two return shots before it fell to the ground.
The rock wall made it challenging. The ball didn't return true like it would have off a smooth court wall. But it he hit it in a certain place, in a shallow curve just below the center, it came back pretty clean. He got up to five hits, kept at it until he did it three times in a row.
By then he was covered with sweat.
The little drone was quick. It retrieved the balls and placed them back in the bucket almost as fast as he could lose them. He lost a few more down the Soak, but most came back to the bucket.
The little drone –
Shaw stopped mid-serve and stared at the little drone. It was so well programmed. So focused on its singular task. The balls and the racquet right there waiting for him –
They did this every day.
Every damn day.
Oh, Becca. I'm so sorry.
He launched another ball, barely ducked it when it fired straight back at his head. He should have goggles and gloves, at a minimum. Probably he had at some point, and he'd been too stubborn to use them. Curious again, he launched another serve. The ball hit perfectly in the little curve. He might not remember doing this the day before, and the day before that, but his muscles did.
Damn it. Goddamn it.
The wind threw a fine spray at him. Shaw realized that his sweat was drying and he was starting to feel chilly. And – chilled. Most of his anger was done. Taken out on the rock and the balls and himself, with a little kick to the drone thrown in.
We do this every day.
He handed the racquet to the drone politely. Then he trotted down the stairs to retrieve the balls he'd hit into the Soak.
Liam Shaw ran.
He ran as flat fast and hard as he could.
There wasn't any snow, but the ground was covered with a hard white frost. He stuck to the dirt road, which had a little better traction. He'd already decided that if he fell and broke his leg he was just going to lie in the ditch and die. He'd be damned if he was going to call for help.
He could see his breath in short clouds, but he didn't feel cold. His chest was burning already with the exertion. His legs would join the protest shortly, he imagined. He didn't care. He ran.
Borg nanoprobes coursed through his veins.
His skin was itchy, as if he could feel the microscopic beasts under it. He wanted to stop. To scratch. To tear his skin off, if that would get rid of them.
Borg tech. How fucking dare they! Not they – she. Hansen had done this. She'd poured her fucking poison –
Shaw's right root slipped off a flat rock and he stumbled and fell. Instinct told him to tuck and roll; he did a complete flip and ended up on his ass on the frozen grass at the side of the road.
He sat for a moment, watching his breath cloud around him, waiting to see if anything hurt. Borg. He shuddered. And what was with Becca? 'Go run. Your elbow won't take throwing things anymore.' What the hell did that mean? She acted like they did this every day. He stretched his arm out and made a throwing motion. His elbow twinged.
Do we do this every day?
He stood up and tested his ankle. It felt okay. He looked around, then started running again. Away from the cottage, but at a more reasonable pace. His legs felt easy, relaxed. His lungs settled down. His body acted as if he'd been running every day.
Because we fight about this every day?
But they didn't fight that day, not exactly. He'd asked Becca how they'd saved him. She'd told him Borg tech was involved. He'd exploded, started to yell at her – and she'd cut him off. Go run. Hed been furious, but he'd slapped on his shoes and gone.
The further he ran, the harder it was to stay angry.
We do this every day. We do this every damn day. And I don't remember, but Becca does. Becca remembers. And she still puts up with it. With me.
He reached the end of the avenue – the runway, he reminded himself – and stared at the big lodge there. It was empty now, closed up for the winter. He looked at the trees. Except for the pines, they were completely bare. If it wasn't hard winter yet, it was close. Or just past. Frontier Day had been in the spring. How long had he been here? How many times had he been this angry?
Becca had promised that he would get better – but did she promise that every day?
And what if he never did?
Suddenly exhausted, Shaw turned back toward the main camp and started to jog again.
