From: Kenneth Field (envision_at_fidalgo.net)
Date: Sun Jan 20 2008 - 10:49:13 PST
"The Glade"
(continues from Steve's "We Begin Again")
Location: USS MCINNIS
Stardate: 2.80120.1048
Scene: The Glade, Ship's Lounge
Tomas' Alexei Vukovic surveyed his handiwork with a critical eye. He bent over a holoprojector, extended his right hand and linked into it with practiced ease. BORG connectivity was often harsh and abrupt. Federation tech tended to be more aesthetic and less intrusive, so it was easier to access and operate. Almost a pleasure.
If he could really speak of pleasure these days. He was, after all, a conglomeration of nanitic processors linked in a complex network, right down to what had once been his cellular level. He looked Terran. If someone were to touch him, his skin felt like skin, including body heat, perspiration and galvanic skin responses. Like Shakespeare's Shylock, if you cut Tomas' Vukovic, he bled. He sounded like any other entity that required air breathed past vocal chords to make the sounds of speech. His hearing, though highly augmented, was still nothing much different from other similar species. His eyesight had various advantages, but none immediately obvious to any observer. Both eyes were ice blue. He was in all respects, humanoid, except that he wasn't. He was a machine, pure and simple. Humans were "meat machines." His primary composition was something completely different.
"Turned" by the BORG, he had encountered a BORG Queen from another dimension, courtesy of the crew of the USS PROPHECY, and in his failed attempt to assimilate her, he'd found himself altered on the submolecular level in ways the BORG were still studying. The result of his change was that he could assume other shapes for short periods of time, like the Founders of the DOMINION. Unlike them, he could not hold the shapes for long, reverting to his original appearance as the bald Slav who'd stood at Ambassador Xana Bonviva's side back on the GATE. He continued to require a regeneration alcove, but he never reverted to the golden "goo" that Founders described as their resting state.
He did not otherwise sleep, requiring only 4 hours regeneration time in every twenty-four. At his request, a regeneration alcove was added in a large closet off the main crew lounge where the bar was located. It meant he could nearly always be on task at the bar, despite shift rotations. Despite the fact that he could take many forms, he never felt comfortable in any of them other than his own original one. He'd grown accustomed to his face.
"So ..., this is what you've done with the place."
He turned away from his work, letting the process he'd initiated continue without his constant supervision.
Commander Xana Bonviva stood at the entry to the lounge. Tomas' said nothing, waiting while she looked over everything. What she saw she would no doubt recognize. The crew lounge was an homage to a certain Bajoran pub called the Garden on the Green. Tomas' had utilized a large arrage of holoprojectors to create something similar. The lounge itself was a large curving arc near the forward sweep of the saucer section. Unlike the old Galaxy class lounges, this one did not look out into open space. It was entirely self-contained and armored as an emergency survival area ... just in case. Done in the manner of a forest glade, it sported the trunks of large, gnarled trees with limbs overhead, a vast fan of leaves filtering both sunlight and starlight, depending on the ship's clock, which ran on a 26 hour schedule, like BAJOR itself. Small bits of glass and crystal and mirror hung from various limbs, glinting in reflected light, and water ran freely over various liqui-features carefully placed in the surroundings ... a small waterfall, a gentle fountain, a lily-strewn pond. All of it was holodeck quality. But the magic of its reality was all his. Tomas' Vukovic had a way with machines and technology.
At the apex of the lounge's arc was the stump of a vast tree, hollowed out and polished to a high sheen to form the bar itself. Both food and drink came from this location, carried by servers of various genders and species to the customers at tables sprinkled throughout the woodland.
"I call it 'The Glade,' " he said at last.
"It looks familiar," Xana replied, not disclosing her feelings in any change in the tone of her voice.
Tomas' just nodded. "You're welcome any time. I've prepared the kitchen to your specifications. At least as I remember them from your own kitchen on the GATE. I don't cook. We have a couple of very competent chefs and soux-chefs. I just watch over things and pour drinks."
"Good," she said. "Carry on."
He watched her leave, the entry doors hissing shut behind her. Tomas' was surprised by a sudden thought. It was true he was a machine now. But it was also true, that so was Xana Bonviva.
-------------------- (llli
NRPG: Sarah, this is what we discussed, I think. Pardon me if I took liberties with Xana. It seems to me that she would be distant with Tomas'. And he would think of her emotional distress in his own terms. Doesn't mean he's right, even if he thinks he is. This is where you will find Tomas'. He won't be bopping about on the ship unless invited. Let me know your favorite drink, and it will be there waiting for you.
-------------------- (llli
Kenneth Field
envision_at_fidalgo.net
aka Tomas' Alexei Vukovic
covert BORG inflitrator/bartender
USS MCINNIS
aka Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon
aCNS/GS-2
aka Maury R. Tee
Professor of English (Retired)
Proprietor of "Impulse Drives,"
a little shop of horrors
GS-2, Promenade
aka Commander Gene McInnis, deceased
formerly CNS/GS-2
namesake for the USS MCINNIS
"To gently lie and prove the lie true ... everything is finally a promise ... what
seems a lie is ramshackle need, wishing to be born." -- Ray Bradbury
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Oct 13 2008 - 03:10:29 PDT