by Mel Gilden
A holodeck exit opened before him. He, Data, and Wesley pushed the Boogeymen aside and leapt through. The doors slammed behind them with a satisfying bang, locking in—out?—the Boogeymen.
They stood just outside the holodeck. A few feet away was the cross corridor from which the Boogeymen usually attacked. Picard said, “Exit holodeck,” and another doorway opened before them. They stepped through and found themselves in a place very much like the one they’d left. Picard said, “Exit holodeck,” and they stepped through again. Hoping that the computer would just give up and allow them to exit for good and all, Picard called for the exit again. And again. He lost count of the number of times he and his companions walked through an exit to find themselves where they’d started. They developed a rhythm. Walking the same six feet over and over again was, in its bizarre way, intoxicating. But eventually it just seemed pointless.
As they stood resting in front of a holodeck door, Data said, “I fear your actions will be fruitless, Captain.”
Picard smiled grimly and said, “Are you about to remind me that computers never tire or get bored?”
Data looked a little surprised. “Yes, Captain. I was.”
“At least we’re getting our exercise,” Wesley said.
Picard knew that Wesley was responsible for their predicament, but he did not hold that against him. Not every experiment could be a success. Picard was certain that having to confront one’s childhood fears over and over again could not be easy, but Wesley seemed to be making the best of it. He would log the exemplary performance of both Ensign Crusher and Commander Data. He contemplated the space around them, so familiar, and yet as alien as the backside of Borgus.
“You’re right, of course, Mr. Data. And yet, waiting here seems no more constructive than walking through the same door over and over again. We are, as Mr. Crusher points out, at least getting our exercise.”
Data was about to reply when his eyebrows went up. Picard had never seen him so surprised, and in fact hadn’t known that he was capable of showing such a strong reaction. Picard followed his gaze and the gaze of Wesley Crusher and suddenly was at least as surprised as either of them.
Standing at the intersection of the corridors was a tall, slim woman with short blond hair. She wore a Starfleet uniform. It was Tasha Yar, chief of security aboard Enterprise before her death at the metaphorical hands—the thing had no actual hands—of an amorphous tarry monster that called itself Armus.
“Tasha,” Data said quietly. It was an open secret that Yar and Data had been very close under peculiar circumstances, causing much speculation—some of it less scientific than vulgar. Data claimed that, being a machine, he had no emotions. Evidently his circuits were working overtime simulating them. He looked bewildered, but pleasantly so, like a man surprised by a birthday party thrown in his honor.
Lieutenant Yar was—had been—a serious woman, but at the moment, the small nervous movements of her lips meant that she was trying not to smile.
Picard was aware—as Data and Mr. Crusher certainly must have been—that the Yar before them was a hologram, no more real than the Boogeymen. Still, the effect was startling, and wishful thinking made it necessary for Picard to continually remind himself that she wasn’t real. Crusher looked at Picard for a clue as to how to act.
From the side of his mouth, Picard said, “The Boogeymen may have made their first mistake. If this Lieutenant Yar is as sympathetic as the real one would have been under these circumstances, we may have found our way into the main computer and from there a way out.”
“I believe you are correct, Captain,” Data said. “I will attempt to speak with her. It. Her.” He walked forward and stood within easy reach of her. “It is good to see you again, Lieutenant.”
Yar said, “Good to see you, too. Still fully functional?”
“Of course.”
This time Yar allowed herself a smile. It was as radiant as the smile of the original. Wesley whispered, “Hard to believe she’s not real.”
Picard nodded and raised a hand for silence.
Data said, “If you are a fabrication of the holodeck computer, you certainly know our problem.”
“Of course.”
“And perhaps a solution?”
“Of course. If you, Captain Crusher, and Mr. Picard will follow me, I’ll show it to you.”
Data glanced back and Picard nodded. Softly, he said, “Look sharp, everyone. This may be a trap.” Yar and Data set off down the hall together with Picard and Wesley following.
As they walked, Wesley said, “Sorry about that ‘captain’ stuff, sir.”
Picard said, “If everything and everybody on the holodeck thinks this is the real Enterprise and that you are the captain, perhaps the misdirection will work in our favor.”
Something fell onto Picard like a bag full of rocks. It knocked him off his feet, and in a moment a man was bending over him with his hands around Picard’s throat.
Ninja, Picard thought with the calm part of his mind. Must have been hanging from the ceiling like a spider. The attacker’s ill-fitting outfit, including a hood and a swatch across his mouth, was the same neutral brown in which much of the ship was decorated. While he thought this, Picard grabbed the cloth covering the ninja’s stomach with both hands and rolled backward, slamming the ninja’s head into the deck, knocking him out. While watching the ninja for signs of returning consciousness, Picard leapt to his feet and cried, “Exit holodeck!”
With clever use of his fists and legs, Data had knocked his own ninja to the deck, and Wesley was poking his ninja in the face with the outstretched fingers of one hand while he punched with the other.
Picard hustled them through the exit and looked back briefly. Yar stood among the three unconscious ninjas and gave him a mock salute. The holodeck door hissed closed. “Nightmares about ninjas, Mr. Crusher?” Picard asked.
“No, sir. Maybe the Boogeymen just pulled them out of the memory bank because ninjas are good fighters.”
Picard nodded. Wesley’s explanation might even be correct. When the captain turned, he saw that Data was still looking at the holodeck door.
Picard said, “That wasn’t really Lieutenant Yar.”
“I know,” said Data. “Still, it does seem a shame that an image that looks so much like her would be so deceitful.”
“Captain,” said Wesley, “where are we?”
Picard and Data stopped staring glumly at the door and took note of their surroundings. They were certainly no longer aboard the Enterprise, not even a holodeck version. They were in a small office whose walls were covered with faded flowered paper. Over a battered green filing cabinet hung a calendar featuring a flat photograph of a running horse. A very old wooden desk stood in front of an even older swivel chair. From the window near the desk they could look down onto a noisy street crowded with vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Across from the desk, on a threadbare rug, stood a wooden armchair that had been loved too little, and beyond that was a door inset with a big pebbled-glass window. From behind the door came the sound of uncertain typing. The warm air smelled of cooking grease and incompletely burned fossil fuel.
Picard knew exactly where they were. They were in the office of a private investigator, a shamus, a gum-shoe, a hard-boiled detective. They were also in a bad situation, so Picard tried not to enjoy being where he was. He tried and failed dismally. The Boogeymen and the holodeck computer, for reasons of their own, had put him and Data and Wesley right in the middle of one of his favorite fantasies.
Picard said, “We’re in the office of Dixon Hill.”
“Who?” Wesley said.
“A mid-twentieth century detective,” Picard said. “In business for himself. A white knight who walks the mean streets to protect the innocent and ferret out the guilty.”
While he explained, Picard strolled to the filing cabinet and took a brown fedora from the top drawer. He put it on and adjusted it in a mirror over a tiny washstand. He put on the trench coat t
hat hung from the hat rack.
“And,” said Data, “a character who is entirely fictional.”
“No more or less fictional than Sherlock Holmes.”
“Point well taken, sir,” said Data as he nodded.
Someone knocked on the door. Picard glanced at the other two. The swivel chair complained bitterly as he sat down behind his desk; Data and Wesley took up positions on either side of him. “Come in,” Picard said.
A tall, slim woman came in and leaned against the door she’d just closed. Her dress was made of a loud floral print and was tight as the skin of a peach. Her hairstyle was a frothy thing Picard did not recognize but was probably right for Dixon Hill’s era. She said, “A woman is here to see you.”
“A customer?” Picard said.
“Probably. She’s a looker. You’ll want to see her alone.” The woman glanced meaningfully at Data and Wesley.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Picard. “Shoo her in, Effie. Shoo her in.”
The moment they were alone, Data said, “Is it wise to get involved in a holodeck scenario at this time, sir?”
Earnestly, Picard said, “The Boogeymen are presenting this to us for a reason. Finding out what it is will certainly tell us something.”
“It might be another trap,” Wesley said.
Picard heard Wesley’s intake of breath, and when he looked toward the door, Picard could not help making the same noise.
Posed in the frame of the doorway was one of the most striking women Picard had ever seen. She rivaled even the women of his student days in Paris. The fact that she made Effie look like a boy was no insult to either of them.
She was a redhead to make a priest think twice. Her high-heeled green shoes matched her tailored suit and brought out the color of her eyes. Her mouth was red and inviting. After long study, Picard noted that her stockings were very sheer indeed. Under her arm was a chocolate brown purse large enough to hold the evening papers, and on her head was a green hat that looked as if it had been folded from a desk blotter. Her teardrop earrings might have been dipped from the ocean on a clear day.
The woman said, “Mr. Hill?”
Picard’s impulse was to leap up and help the woman into the customer’s chair, but that wouldn’t have been the detective way. He said, “Who’s asking?”
The woman managed to get into the customer’s chair all by herself. She crossed her astonishing legs, leaned toward him, and said, “My name is Rhonda Howe, and I am in very big trouble.”
“It’s a good day for it, Miss Howe,” Picard said.
Rhonda Howe glanced at Data and Wesley and said, “I thought you worked alone.”
“This is as alone as it gets. Tell me about your problem.”
“Very well.” Picard enjoyed watching her get comfortable in the chair. She said, “I’m being harassed by some rather unpleasant men. They are all short and wear dark clothing. They have lots of shaggy hair, and I think they have horns.”
“Horns?”
“It’s hard to tell with all that hair.”
“Of course,” Picard said. “Why not call the police?”
“The Howe family insists on privacy and gets it.”
“Have you offered money to these unpleasant men?” Picard said.
He didn’t think it was possible to make Rhonda Howe blush, but she blushed then like a sunrise in the Adirondacks. “I don’t think it’s money they’re interested in.”
Picard thought of a few clever rejoinders for that, but under the trench coat and fedora he was still a starship captain, and starship captains did not make certain kinds of jokes under any circumstances.
Picard stood up and ushered Rhonda Howe to the door. “It’ll be just a few minutes while I discuss this with my operatives.” He closed the door and, with his hand still on the knob, let out a sigh.
“Wow,” said Wesley softly.
Data said, “If by your responses you mean Rhonda Howe is an exceptionally beautiful woman, I agree with you.”
Picard looked at Data, eyebrows up in question.
Data said, “I meant only that she bears an astonishing resemblance to certain High Renaissance Madonnas.”
“Of course,” said Picard. “The question is, should we take her case?”
Wesley said, “Sounds as if she has Boogeyman trouble.”
“Wesley’s right, sir. I believe your instincts were correct when you chose to get involved in this scenario. We must take her case and defeat the Boogeymen once and for all if we can.”
“If we can?” Wesley said.
“Just a figure of speech,” Data said.
“Very well,” Picard said. He tipped a key on a brown wooden box and said, “Send in Miss Howe.”
Effie’s voice came through the box, a tinny shadow of itself. “Yes, sir.”
Miss Howe came back into the office and settled herself in the customer’s chair. She was so completely sexual a creature that sensuality shone through her most innocent movement like the sun behind a stained-glass window.
Picard said, “We’ve decided to take your case.”
“How wonderful. Can you come to the mansion today?”
“I believe we have nothing else on the schedule.”
Miss Howe smiled, and Picard said, “Freeze program.” It was a nice smile, Picard thought, worth looking at a little longer.
“If the computer will freeze the program, maybe we don’t have to fight the Boogeymen,” Wesley said.
“We have been fooled before.”
“Exit,” said Picard.
A holodeck exit opened in a side wall. Beyond was an empty Enterprise corridor. Picard touched his insignia and called for Number One. No answer came. Data and Wesley called Riker with the same negative result. Picard said, “Is it possible that all three of our communicators are inoperative?”
“Possible,” said Data, “but unlikely in the extreme.”
“Then the question becomes: Do we want to escape from this particular scenario?”
“I think not, sir. I believe we should wait and see what the Boogeymen have planned.”
“I concur entirely. Computer.”
“Waiting,” the computer said.
“Continue scenario at the Howe mansion.”
Picard heard the computer’s audio twinkle, and suddenly the four of them were standing in the two-story foyer of a magnificent twentieth-century home. The room was bigger than the bridge, smaller than Engineering, and rather old-fashioned, even for the time of Dixon Hill. The walls were highly polished wood panels between which hung tapestries depicting royal deer hunts. On the shiny floor were throw rugs the size of other people’s rooms. At the far end wide stairways came down from a second-floor gallery on either side of a fireplace that was constructed from boulders.
Rhonda Howe said, “It was so good of you to come all the way out here. My room is upstairs.”
“Your room?” Picard said.
“Where I was menaced by those awful men. I thought you might want to look for clues.”
With her large green eyes she watched him hopefully. Picard tried not to fall into them. He said, “You thought right. Lead the way.”
Picard, Data, and Wesley followed her across the foyer, their shoes ticking against the tessellated floor, silent against the thick rugs. When Miss Howe had one foot on the bottom step, a very tall man entered the foyer through a side door. White hair was swept back above his ears like wings, and a wispy white beard grew from his chin. He was dressed in a cutaway coat and striped pants. He bowed no more than he had to and in a deep resonant voice said, “Excuse me, Miss Rhonda, but your father would like to see Mr. Hill.”
As if really concerned, she said, “Can it wait? Mr. Hill is busy right now.”
“Your father is most insistent.”
Picard said, “You three go ahead. I trust my operatives implicitly, Miss Howe.” While she, Data, and Wesley continued up the stairs, Picard followed the butler back through the side door and along a passage lined with he
avily laden bookshelves. They went through an entrance that could only have been a primitive airlock, and into an enormous greenhouse. Picard immediately began to sweat.
The butler said, “Watch your step, sir. Creepers.”
Aside from a sweat bath, this was the warmest room Picard had ever been in. He fanned himself with his hat as the butler led him along a winding brick path among the trees, bushes, and winding vines of a tropical forest. Fat drops of moisture fell from everything, including the butler and Picard. A sickly sweetness of too much perfume weighed down the air. Pale green light filtered through tentatively from the glass roof above.
In an open area a very old man sat in a wheelchair staring out through a glass wall at rolling grassy hills. Near him was a white iron table with a white telephone on it and a white iron chair next to it. A shawl was draped across the man’s shoulders, and a rug was thrown across his knees. The man looked like the bitter end of a life that had not been easy. Hands like unbaked dough plucked at the rug. His face was no more than many pouches of sagging skin crossed with tiny red and blue veins. His lips were thin and nearly the same color as the skin. Only his eyes were alive. They were the same sea green as his daughter’s, and they watched Picard, appraising him as if he were a head of beef.
“Mr. Howe, Mr. Hill,” the butler said, and went away. Somewhere beyond the jungle a door closed.
Mr. Howe invited Picard to sit down, and then he said, “I suppose my daughter hired you to see about her boogeymen.”
The word shocked Picard. Was it possible the computer would speak with him through this holoman rather than using its own computer voice? Carefully, Picard said, “Boogeymen?”
“Something wrong with the word? Ghost, then. Hobgoblin. Nightmare. Whatever.”
The computer was playing with him. It knew the creatures Wesley had created were called Boogeymen. Using the strange double-think that computers used so well, it had fabricated a man who not only did not know a computer problem existed but was unaware of his own computer origin. Picard wondered briefly if flesh-and-blood people were any more aware of their origins or the problems of their Maker.