“I understand that it can be difficult to give up. Impossible. A living hell.”
Morgan nodded. “Yes. Yes…”
And very slowly, Seven disengaged her hand. “But it’s not a life. It’s just existence. And mere existence is”—a tear began to roll down her face and she wiped it away—“futile.”
“No, it’s not.”
The Doctor had spoken. He had not moved one inch from where he had been when he first came aboard the ship. Watching the confrontation with what seemed utter detachment, he said, “Existence is not futile. It doesn’t matter if you don’t age. Or breathe. Or live. All we are—all any of us are—are the sum of our experiences. You think. Therefore you are.”
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “I should have known that you, of all people, would understand.”
“I do understand,” he said. Seven was looking at him with an air of someone who was being totally betrayed. He didn’t meet her gaze. “I understand better than you do. We all see the world through the prism of those experiences, and they help us to learn and grow…”
“Yes! Just as I was saying—”
“Except,” said the Doctor, and he was speaking with more force, but also clinical detachment, “you haven’t been doing that. You’ve been moving further and further away from everything that you were. Your callous disregard for life has made that clear. I’ve studied your lengthy medical history thoroughly—and I am forced to one ineluctable medical conclusion. Nothing in the psychological profile of Morgan Primus displays anything resembling psychosis or the mind-set typical to a mass murderer. The deviation from the accepted norms is beyond the margin of error. The prism of your experiences has been shattered beyond repair. There is life… and then there is a semblance of life. I believe you are the latter. It is a difficult thing to understand one’s limitations. I know. I’ve never been terribly good at it myself. But there it is.”
“And I would share that point of view if I had any limitations,” said Morgan. “I don’t.”
“That’s the point,” replied the Doctor. “The woman upon which you’ve modeled yourself understood that a lack of limitations… including natural limitations on one’s own existence… was inherently wrong. The fact that you do not leads one to the conclusion that you are not her. You cannot have a claim to life if you do not respect life’s sanctity.”
“That’s ridiculous. History is filled with mass murderers. Are you saying none of them were alive?”
And Robin spoke up once more. “So you admit you’re a mass murderer?”
“I suppose… technically…”
“Then what more proof do you need that you’re not my mother? She would never do that. Never. I want you,” and she walked slowly toward her, until she was face-to-face, practically nose-to-nose with her, “to go away. Forever. Now. And stop sullying the name of my mother, you cybernetic bitch.”
Morgan stared at her for a long, long moment.
And then she drew back her hand faster than anyone could have imagined was possible. She drew back her hand with the speed of a computer and she brought it around and across Robin’s face. The crack of the slap echoed through the bridge and Robin went down.
As if sensing his mother was in distress, Cwansi let out a pitiful howl, struggling in Xy’s grasp.
Morgan turned and snarled, “Shut that brat up.” Xy did his best to quiet the child, pressing him against his shoulder and patting him on the back, but Cwansi cried even more loudly. “I said shut him up!” and she started to advance.
“Keep away from my baby!” Robin cried out. Tania had gone to her to try and help her get up, but Robin was already clambering to her feet. “Keep away!”
“Oh, stop your whining,” Morgan snapped at her. “What, you think I’m a baby killer now as well?”
“How many babies did you kill on New Thallon?” said Robin. “How many, huh? How do I know where you’ll draw the line?”
“I’ll draw it where I think is right,” said Morgan. “Because I’m more entitled to it than you are. Than anybody here is.” She closed her eyes, trying to contain herself. “I am so sick of your ingratitude. You spent your life not listening to me, and now I’m supposed to listen to you? ‘Oh, my mother abandoned me. Oh, you didn’t abandon me, so you can’t be her!’ Listen to yourself! I defied death to be there for you, and all you can be is a selfish little brat, telling me to go away. Maybe,” she said heatedly, “maybe you’re the one who should go away. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t deserve to live. Did you ever consider that? Have any of you?” Her glare took in the entirety of the bridge. “You’re like ants saying there’s something wrong with the eagle because she’s not down on their level! You’re like—”
“Like fleas trying to dictate to the dog?” Soleta said knowingly.
“Yes,” agreed Morgan. “And every dog has its day, and this is my day. I am not going to back down in the face of an ungrateful child and her mewling brat and all her sanctimonious friends. Don’t you see that I could have destroyed all of you with a thought? I gave you a chance! A chance to die fighting! A chance to die as you lived! That, if nothing else, should show that I have far more compassion than any of you! You don’t understand. None of you understands. I am unique. I am a new life and I”—her voice rose—“don’t need any of you. Multitudes of life… it’s sprawling, it’s impossible to control. I have the power to control it all. To make it all go away. To make all of you go away…”
The Doctor slowly walked toward her, shaking his head. “No, you don’t. You may think you do… but you don’t. Not anymore.”
“I don’t?” She laughed at that. “Do you need me to prove that I do?”
“I very much regret that you have adopted the attitude that you have,” said the Doctor. “I am afraid that the virus developed by myself, Seven, and Soleta must now be… unleashed.”
“The virus.”
“That is correct.”
“You mean,” and her voice was low, almost a purr, as if she were a lion taking enjoyment in teasing its prey, “the one on the datachip that Soleta has secured on her person? The one I deactivated when I beamed you over?”
There was a deathly silence on the bridge then.
“Did you seriously think you could sneak it on here?” she said, slowly turning the screw. “There’s no technology in existence that I don’t know inside and out. A datachip? Seriously?” She began to laugh, and it became louder and longer with every passing second. And there was nothing any member of the bridge crew could say in response.
ii.
Instead it was the Doctor who responded, and his response was, “You are quite correct.”
“Why, thank you.” She managed to gain control of herself, albeit barely, wiping imaginary tears of mirth from the corners of her eyes. “That acknowledgment means a great deal. Maybe after I take care of all the real life in the Federation, I’ll keep you around so—”
“The operative concept,” he continued, “being ‘technology in existence.’ Technology that is not yet in existence, however, has abilities that are beyond your understanding and experience.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. She still seemed amused.
“I am referring to the mobile emitter that gives me form. The datachip that Soleta is carrying was simply to distract you. You assumed—correctly—that we were here to dispose of you, and we knew you would be looking for the means that we intended to employ. The now-deactivated chip on Soleta’s person was meant as a decoy.”
“Mobile emitter?” Morgan was no longer smiling.
“Yes. And there is virtually no information on it in the Federation databases, which is why it is essentially invisible to you. The mobile emitter from the twenty-ninth century enables me to function. The mechanics of the emitter have yet to be deciphered or understood by modern science. Thus it is beyond your understanding or ability to control. A year from now, perhaps, once it is more thoroughly studied. But not today.”
“That is… a
bsurd,” said Morgan, and she was starting to sound uncertain. “There is no way that—”
He interrupted her as if she hadn’t even been speaking. “The virus you needed to worry about wasn’t the one in Soleta’s datachip. It was the one that I downloaded into the emitter. The one that was automatically uploaded from me into you—more specifically, into the transporter’s pattern buffer when you brought us over. It has already wormed its way into your core programming, and requires a simple phrase, spoken by me, to activate it. And that phrase is,” said the Doctor, and there was great sadness in his eyes, “‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’”
iii.
Robin Lefler watched, helpless, as the being with her mother’s eyes went wide with shock. All the arrogance, all the confidence that she had been tossing around began to dissipate. “No… no…” She clutched at her chest, and then at her head, and she staggered. And as she staggered the lights began to flicker. “No, you can’t… you have to undo this.”
“It’s too late,” said the Doctor. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Robin!” Morgan turned to her daughter, or to the woman that she remembered as being her daughter. “Do something. Say something. Talk them out of this…”
Slowly Robin shook her head. She felt a clamping sensation in her chest. It wasn’t a heart attack. Instead she felt like her heart was breaking. “It’s done.”
“It can’t be done. There… there’s so much to do yet,” and she was talking faster and faster. The ship shuddered, and for a moment the lights went out completely before fighting their way back on again. “So many things to do. So many things I was going to show you…”
Soleta had dropped into the ops station as if she belonged there. “Systems failures being reported from all over the ship!” she called out.
“I…” Morgan stumbled forward, reaching for Robin’s hand, but she missed. She grabbed at a railing, snagging it by mere happenstance, and Robin realized that Morgan was no longer seeing anything. Her eyes looked glassy and empty. “I wasn’t really going to destroy the ship. Just everyone on it. And then you and Cwansi and I… we were going to leave this galaxy behind. I… I was going to make modifications to the engines… take us at speeds you never… that you couldn’t imagine… the whole universe was going to be our playground… I… I took you to a playground when you were little… a real one… not the… not the hologram kind. Real, with fresh air and… and… what was it called… green…?”
“Grass?”
“Yes! That’s it.” Morgan shook her head furiously, trying to clear her thoughts. “I can still smell it. Can you…?”
“I can, yes,” Robin said, and she was trying not to choke on the words. “I can’t walk past a freshly mowed lawn without remembering it.”
“There’s so much I need to do. So much lost time to make up for…”
Morgan sank to her knees, and Robin knew it wasn’t really her, knew that at best it was a computer program gone mad, and at worst… if it was her… if it really was her mother… she had become distorted and twisted into something so far away from herself that she wouldn’t have wanted to live like this.
You don’t know that. You don’t. Not for sure. You’ll never know for sure. Soleta came to you on Bravo Station, while the Trident was being refitted, and she told you what she needed from you, and you agreed to it because you knew deep down that this had to be done, that it wasn’t your mother, you knew it, but what if you’re wrong, what if you just helped kill your own mother… my God, how many times do you have to lose her…? And this time you can’t blame anyone but yourself…
“I’m… I’m going to need to teach her,” Morgan said. She almost toppled over but righted herself at the last moment. “Look… look at my beautiful baby girl… so much to teach her…”
The red alert klaxon blared and then almost as quickly went off. The Excalibur slowly began to turn in a complete barrel roll. The lights went out entirely, plunging the bridge into darkness, and then the emergency lighting slowly crawled back.
“Let’s hope we don’t lose gravity,” said Burgoyne worriedly.
“I… honey… we need to teach her… teach our Robin.” Morgan was speaking as if she were in a dream. “Laws. She needs laws to live by. Like… that… that you can only count on…”
“… on yourself,” Robin whispered.
Faster and faster Morgan spoke. “What… what do I see in him? Well… he’s not much of a conversationalist, but… but what a lover… here… look… I made this for you… it’s plomeek soup… I was sure you’d like it… I… yes… I would like offspring… offspring as in… he’s Adam… Madam… I’m Adam… Madam… I’m… isn’t… does not… compute… compute…”
Morgan slumped over and this time her arms were too weak to keep her upright. She fell to the floor with an oddly hollow sound.
“Mother,” whispered Robin, and Burgoyne tried to hold her back, to remind her that this thing wasn’t her mother, that it was just a freak of technological nature. But she pulled away from Burgoyne and went to cradle her head. “Mother…”
Morgan’s face felt cold to the touch. The skin seemed plastic.
“Mother…” Her voice was hoarse, choked with emotion.
And Morgan looked in the direction of her voice, and she reached up and caressed Robin’s face. “Don’t look away… from Cwansi… don’t blink… if you blink… he grows up… my God… Robin… so much beauty… so much… to show you… so… much…”
Her hand fell away and then slowly, ever so slowly, it began to fade. The rest of her did as well. Her face went slack, and her mouth remained open in the midst of forming an incompleted word.
Throughout the ship there was the sound of systems going down, crashing, energy being leached from every part of the vessel. The tactical array in front of Kebron flickered and went out. So did the ops and conn stations. The constant hum of equipment operations that were so much a part of the bridge’s ambiance ceased, giving the bridge an eerie, almost mausoleum-like quality.
The only sounds left were the snuffling of Cwansi, calmed by the gentle rocking of Xy, and the sobs of Cwansi’s mother, whose arms were still cradled in the position of holding Morgan’s head even though the last vestiges of her mother had disappeared into nothingness.
And then Soleta was at her side, and with an agonized sob, Robin threw her arms around her and held her tightly. Soleta’s face was a mask of dispassion, easily recapturing the Vulcan detachment that she had effected for so long before ultimately embracing her mixed heritage.
Soleta made no effort to calm or console Robin with words. Her presence was enough as she held her tightly and let Robin sob into her shoulder.
iv.
Burgoyne wanted to give everyone a chance to absorb what had just happened, but there wasn’t time. “Report, people. Tell me what we’ve got.”
The bridge was mostly illuminated by the glow of the viewscreen. There wasn’t much else on. Tania got up from the conn station, saying, “Basically I’m sitting in front of a brick. Conn’s out, navigation’s out…”
“Nothing on tactical,” Kebron reported.
Tania had crossed over to the ops station, sidling past Soleta, who was still holding Robin. She went over the ops station systematically.
“Do we have anything?” said Burgoyne. “Communications? Engine control? Computer access…?”
Tobias was still running checks through ops. “Be grateful we still have life support. When Morgan went, she crashed the mainframe. Anything beyond rudimentary survival is locked up until we can… wait… hold on… ah!” said Tobias.
“Ah what?”
She turned and squinted at him in the darkness. “I can turn the lights on and off.”
“Well, turn them on, then! Up to full.”
“Not these lights. The running lights.”
“You mean the lights on the outside of the ship.”
“Yeah.”
“Fantastic,” said Burgoyne. “That’s goi
ng to be very helpful. Soleta…”
“Busy at the moment,” she said.
“Get unbusy. You, the Doctor, and… I’m sorry, you’re—?”
“Seven.”
“Commander Burgoyne 172,” s/he said to her. “Always nice to run into someone with a number in their name. I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances. Anyway,” and s/he addressed all of them, “you three are obviously some of the best minds that we have when it comes to computers. I need you to get the Morgan-less ship’s computer back online as soon as possible.”
“Let them handle it,” said Soleta.
“No.” Robin now reached around, patting Soleta on the arm while using her other arm to wipe away the last of the tears. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m… behaving like a jackass. I’ll be okay. You do what you need to to get this ship back up and running.”
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes. Just because I resigned my commission doesn’t mean I can’t put on my Starfleet uniform when it’s called for.”
Soleta and the Doctor moved toward the science station. Xy got out of their way as he brought Cwansi back over to his mother. Xy had many talents, but computer science was not his strength and he was perfectly happy to cede those responsibilities to others. Soleta took one look at it and said, “This is going to be useless. I’m going down to deck fourteen. If I’m remembering correctly, there’s a central junction point in one of the Jeffries tubes down there that will allow me to cut into the system directly and expedite getting everything back online. Otherwise it could take hours, even days, to figure out how to reboot everything, because who knows what ‘adjustments’ Morgan may have made.”
“You realize the turbolift is out. You’ll have to climb down the access ladders,” Tobias reminded her.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to get started faster so I can return sooner.” She headed to the access hatch and moments later had disappeared down it.
Meanwhile Burgoyne—trying not to think about the fact that, special circumstances or not, s/he was allowing a Romulan spy to crawl around in the bowels of a Federation starship, and wouldn’t that look good on hir record—moved toward Seven and said, with understandable concern, “Let me guess: Captain Calhoun was involved in you people showing up here.”