BOOGEYMEN

by Mel Gilden

  “Not so good. But he’s having fun with it.”

  “That’s our Data.”

  They watched Data for a while. He wasn’t moving. Which in Data’s case meant nothing. Wesley said, “Did he catch this from the mainframe?”

  “I hope not, but the evidence is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Does this have anything to do with my Boogeymen?”

  “The diagnostics didn’t find the program. But even if the Boogeyman program somehow got through, the machete program would have cleaned it out.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “You may be relieved, my boy,” La Forge said as he put an arm around Wesley’s shoulders and guided him toward Data, “but personally, I’d rather have Boogeymen. At least I’d know what the problem was and how to deal with it. As things are . . .” He shrugged.

  Data looked up as they approached and attempted to erect a smile. La Forge said, “Can I plug you in again, Data? I’d like to run a little diagnostic of my own.”

  “Of course,” Data said. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “How about some hot chocolate?” Wesley said.

  “I must remind you, Wesley, that I do not eat.”

  “I know that. But I’ve seen you mimic eating for social occasions. I just thought a cup of hot chocolate would make you feel better.”

  “This is part of being sick?”

  “If you’re lucky,” La Forge said.

  “Very well.”

  Wesley went to a food slot and said, “Hot chocolate in a cup. With a marshmallow.” He grinned at Data.

  “Very plush,” La Forge said.

  However, what came from the slot was not a steaming cup but a large platter with a red spiderlike creature lying in the center surrounded by greens and lemon wedges. Something round, soft, and purple was caught between its jaws.

  “Geordi,” Wesley said, very worried.

  La Forge came over to look at what had come from the food slot. “Denebian Slime Devil à la Tellarite,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I asked for hot chocolate.”

  Another cooked slime devil appeared on the stage, knocking the first one to the floor. And then another after that.

  “Computer,” La Forge called out.

  “Working,” the computer said.

  Wesley stared at the slot in horror.

  “What the hell kind of computer voice was that?” La Forge said.

  Wesley swallowed and said, “That was the voice of a Boogeyman.”

  They watched the food slot produce another plate of Denebian Slime Devil à la Tellarite. La Forge ran for the master situation monitor while he called for his staff.

  Chapter Nine

  THE MOOD IN the conference lounge was glum, and Picard saw no reason to lighten it. For the tenth time since sitting down at the head of the table, he punched the ready button on his memo terminal. The Starfleet logo faded from the screen and was replaced by the word “Working.” Picard said, “Report status of Enterprise systems.” On the screen the words “One moment please” appeared, and then gibberish rolled across it. Picard was not surprised. He’d gotten gibberish the other nine times, too. Gibberish was the language of the day all over the ship. “Cancel,” Picard said. The computer worked to the extent that the screen went blank and the Starfleet logo came up again.

  Picard looked around at his senior officers and said, “Mr. La Forge, what is Mr. Data’s condition?”

  “He seems to be suffering from a minor breakdown of all his systems. His efficiency is down twenty-two percent, his operating temperature is up four degrees Celsius. The activity in his positronic brain is erratic, but my training is in propulsion and ships systems. If I could fix him, I’d be Dr. Soong, but I’m not.”

  “Can he repair himself?”

  “Data seems convinced that he can. His maintenance programs act like our white blood cells; they seek out enemy code and destroy it. Assuming, of course, that his maintenance programs have been designed to fight this particular enemy.”

  “Is there a chance they haven’t?”

  “It’s a big universe, sir.”

  Picard knew that La Forge was right. He nodded philosophically and said, “Dr. Crusher, do you have an opinion?”

  Dr. Crusher shrugged and made a motion of dismissal. She said, “Data’s an android and even further outside my specialty than he is outside Lieutenant Commander La Forge’s. But I’ve given him every test that seems relevant. If he were human, I’d say he had the flu.”

  “Flu?” Riker said.

  “Influenza. A group of very contagious viruses that ran rampant through human history. Sometimes the sickness caused by a virus was no worse than a bad cold. But it could kill, too.” Dr. Crusher smiled. “Some early virologists called a virus bad news wrapped in protein.”

  Riker said, “How is Data’s problem related to our computer problem?”

  La Forge spoke with his hands as well as his mouth. For him, problems had shapes and sizes. He said, “It’s pretty obvious that Data was contaminated when he plugged into the ship’s computer to run a diagnostic. I’d say that whatever has Data down is also the cause of the problem we have with the ship’s computer.”

  Riker said, “Then if Data’s maintenance programs are able to cure him, all we have to do is load those programs into the ship’s computer.”

  “It might work,” La Forge allowed, “but we’d be taking quite a chance. First, Data’s maintenance programs were designed just for him and his positronic brain. They probably won’t work inside the ship’s computer. Catching the flu is easy. Curing it is a much more sophisticated operation. Second, if we plug Data into the ship’s computer again, he might pick up another dose of whatever it is. Next time it might be fatal.”

  Picard slapped the table and said, “I hope we never become desperate enough to test Mr. La Forge’s theories. The fact that none of you seems to have noticed is that Mr. Data was infected twice.”

  “Sir?” La Forge said.

  Picard realized that he and Wesley were the only ones at the table who had observed Data both plugging into the holo-computer and then into the real computer. He shared that information with the others.

  Surprised, Wesley said, “Of course. Data had forgotten Professor Baldwin before Geordi ran the diagnostic on him. That’s why we ran the diagnostic on him.”

  Riker said, “Data’s second infection seems to have a different effect on him than his first.”

  “Another clue, Mr. La Forge?” Picard said.

  La Forge thought for a moment before he admitted that it probably was. “But at this point I don’t even have a good guess as to what it tells us.”

  Picard had confidence that La Forge would find the solution, with or without the help of Wesley and Data. But they couldn’t brood about it now. Picard went on with the air of a man changing the subject. “This sounds similar to the problem we and the Yamato had with the program broadcast by the Iconian probe. Can we just turn off the ship and restart, using protected master programs?”

  Mention of the Yamato made everybody thoughtful. The Yamato had been the Enterprise’s sister ship. It was her destruction that had given La Forge the clue he needed to save the Enterprise.

  La Forge looked uncomfortable. He lifted his open hand and tilted it from side to side. “I don’t think so, sir. This time the core itself seems to be blocked.”

  Wesley said, “Not just protected?”

  “Sure. The main core is protected by shields, triple redundant circuits, debugging programs, and some things so secret that Starfleet tells you about them only if you have a need to know. But now, it’s been entirely cut off. The satellite computers that are normally coordinated by the core are now running the ship themselves. I don’t know how—but as I said before, it’s a big universe.”

  Riker said, “You think we’ve run into something the Starfleet engineers didn’t think of?”

  La Forge shrugged. “Looks that way, sir.”

  The room w
as silent again. Wesley began to squirm, and at last words were squeezed out of him. He said, “The Boogeymen caused all this trouble?” He looked even more uncomfortable than La Forge.

  “Not all by themselves, Wes. The diagnostics didn’t find the Boogeyman program. But even if it somehow got through undetected, the machete program would have cleaned it out by now.”

  Wesley nodded. He seemed relieved.

  Dr. Crusher said, “Then the Boogeyman program must be working along with some other program.”

  La Forge said, “You were talking about viruses before, Doctor. That’s what we have.”

  Picard remembered that the Iconian program had been a computer virus, too. Only by shutting down every Enterprise system and then reloading every program had they saved the ship. “Continue, Mr. La Forge.”

  La Forge stood up and called into operation a screen at the end of the conference lounge.

  “It works,” Wesley said with some surprise.

  “Yeah,” said La Forge. “So far. Computer, exhibit ‘Virus.’ ”

  “Working,” said the computer. It sounded like a Boogeyman. Picard saw Wesley shudder.

  The screen rolled a few times, and when the picture steadied, it was a schematic of Enterprise’s computer system. La Forge said, “This is basically a smaller, simplified version of the flow chart in the main computer center. If everything were working properly, this chart would update itself automatically as the situation changed. But what you’re looking at is not connected to the computer. It is a picture of the situation as it was twenty minutes ago.” He pointed out specific areas. “Normal information flow is in gold. Satellites of the computer brain afflicted by the virus are in red.”

  “Almost half,” Riker said.

  “Forty-seven percent,” La Forge said.

  “Twenty minutes ago,” Picard said. Forty-seven percent. Fifty-two. Seventy-three. When would the ship become unlivable? How long before navigation and life support went down? He said, “How long do we have till we can no longer function, even at the most basic level?”

  “Impossible to say, sir. The virus is spreading by fits and starts, as a clean satellite calls on information in a contaminated part. Could be hours or days. Certainly no more than a week, and that’s only if we are very lucky.”

  “We’ll shut down all nonessential systems,” said Riker.

  “Yes,” said Picard, “and then only essential systems will become infected.” There had to be a loose thread, a way out. “Number One, alert all passengers and crew to use the greatest discretion when accessing the computer. Use it as if it were a natural resource that was running dry. Also, for the duration we are shutting down all recreational functions.”

  “Aye, Captain.” They waited while Riker called the bridge and repeated the captain’s instructions into his communicator. Mr. Worf acknowledged.

  When Riker was done, Picard said, “How did the Boogeyman program get into the system?”

  La Forge sat down, the energy he had shown during his presentation suddenly gone. He said, “My theory, sir, is that when it spread to the holodeck computer, somehow the virus and the Boogeymen got hooked together.”

  Riker said, “And then the virus program hauled the Boogeymen everywhere it went.”

  “That’s the way I see it.” La Forge was almost apologizing.

  Picard thought about what La Forge had just said. It was all very neat. All very logical. It was probably correct as well. “This is my doing, then,” he said.

  “Well, sir—”

  “When I forced the Boogeyman program to disappear, it was not overwritten, as Mr. Data and I thought. It simply went somewhere else.”

  Dr. Crusher moved as if to put her hand on Picard’s, but took it back without touching him. She said, “You didn’t know, sir.”

  “Mr. Crusher didn’t know. I didn’t know.” He shook his head and then smiled as if he had just begun to understand some cosmic joke. “Overloading the computer seemed like a good idea at the time. Which is the best defense any of us can ever give when caught making a mistake of this magnitude.”

  “We have to answer two questions, then,” Riker said. “First, where did the virus program come from? And second, how do we get rid of the virus-Boogeyman combination?”

  Good old Riker, trying to distract him from blaming himself for something no one could have known.

  “I have a theory about the first question, too,” La Forge said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. He’d had a difficult day, Picard thought. First accusing his captain of scuttling his own ship—if only accidentally —and now accusing one of the captain’s friends of helping the process along.

  “Go on, Mr. La Forge,” Picard said, smiling his most encouraging smile.

  La Forge said, “I think we can take it as given that Data has the same virus as the satellite computer system; he was infected when he plugged in to be diagnosed.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “And after the flu symptoms, what is the most obvious characteristic of Data’s condition?”

  “He’s forgotten Professor Baldwin,” Wesley said.

  “But,” Dr. Crusher said, “that happened when he plugged into the holo-computer—which the Boogeymen controlled.”

  “Right,” said La Forge, “but I believe the two events are connected.”

  “How?” said Picard.

  “Okay,” said La Forge, molding the explanation in the air. “Imagine we have these two programs. At the time Data plugged into the holo-computer, he was contaminated by the virus, which caused him to forget Professor Baldwin.”

  Dr. Crusher did not look happy, but she nodded along with everyone else.

  “Now, as the virus spread through the system, it dragged the Boogeyman program along with it. The Boogeyman program, being more aggressive than the virus, reproduced itself faster, became stronger, and was able to afflict Data with something that looks like the flu.”

  “Let me see if I have this straight,” Dr. Crusher said. “Wesley programs the holodeck computer with Boogeymen. Somebody infects the computer system with a virus that erases references to Professor Baldwin. When it infects the holodeck computer, the virus somehow gets connected with the Boogeyman program.”

  “Right so far,” La Forge said.

  “When the captain distracted the holodeck computer by filling the recreation deck with holo-people, the Boogeyman-virus combination was squeezed into the system, and from there it was able to spread.”

  “Right again.”

  “All of which means what?” Dr. Crusher said.

  Riker smiled in appreciation. “You don’t have a devious enough mind, Doctor. If all reference to Professor Baldwin has been erased, the chances are good that he is the one who designed the virus.”

  La Forge, having recovered most of his equilibrium, said, “You see what I mean about parallax, Captain? Data’s problems give us insight into the ship’s problems.”

  “Mont can’t be Professor Baldwin’s only enemy,” Dr. Crusher said. “Maybe they’re trying to make Baldwin a nonperson, discredit him that way.”

  “No, Doctor,” said Picard. “I believe that Commander Riker is correct.”

  “For what reason?” Dr. Crusher asked.

  The answer was obvious to Picard. Particularly given Baldwin’s private comments about wanting, needing, to disappear. In an information-intensive society such as the Federation, the place to start would be with the records. How better to proceed than by using a computer virus designed to wipe out every mention of his name, every bit of evidence he ever existed? Picard did not feel free to mention any of this, not even now. But he would have to speak with Eric Baldwin very soon.

  Picard said, “Something Professor Baldwin said to me. Mr. La Forge, why didn’t your diagnostic program find Baldwin’s virus when it searched the computer? More important, why didn’t the machete program clear it?”

  “When we find that out,” La Forge said, “we’ll know how to get rid of the virus. I say we start finding out by
talking to Professor Baldwin.”

  Riker touched his insignia and said, “Lieutenant Worf.”

  “Here, Commander.” Worf’s voice pierced the room like a steel shaft.

  “Bring Professor Baldwin to the conference lounge on deck one.”

  “Belay that order, Mr. Worf.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Worf said, sounding a little confused.

  Riker’s eyebrows were up, which meant the captain had surprised him. Picard had almost succeeded in surprising himself. He said, “I’ll speak to him first.”

  “Very well, sir,” Riker said in a tone that meant he was willing to go along with Picard, for the moment anyway. One of the things that made Riker valuable was that he knew when to disagree with his superior officer. Picard knew that time would come soon. But Riker trusted him and would allow him some rope.

  When Picard stood up, the others did as well. He said, “Mr. La Forge, I want you and Mr. Data to track down, analyze, and counteract the Boogeyman-virus combination. Minimal use of the computer, if you please.”

  La Forge nodded and said, “We’ll use tricorders.” He strode out.

  “The rest of you stay alert,” Picard said. “If you have any ideas, even if they seem ridiculous, please see Mr. La Forge. This situation does not seem to welcome conservative thinking.”

  Dr. Crusher and Commander Riker followed La Forge onto the bridge. When the doors closed, Picard said, “What is it, Mr. Crusher?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain.”

  “For what?”

  “For the Boogeymen. For the mess we’re in now.”

  “It seems that we’ve both made a number of mistakes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are determined to take this all on your own shoulders.”

  “Well, yes, sir. If it hadn’t been for the Boogeymen—”

  Picard sighed and said, “Mr. Crusher, I would like to quote a poem to you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wesley said, bewildered.

  Picard recited:

  “Once in a stately passion

  I cried with desperate grief,

  ‘O Lord, my heart is black with guile,

  Of sinners I am chief.’

  Then stooped my guardian angel