Kim wondered if that was doubt or warning he heard in Chakotay’s voice.
Chapter Twenty-Two
CORIDAN
“I’m sorry, Doctor Sharak, but you won’t be able to access that room for the next twenty-four hours,” Officer Crixell advised. The middle-aged civilian head of hospital security had met Sharak and Wildman when they arrived to question Ria and led them to her when she was detected on the fourteenth floor.
Shaka.
“There might be evidence we require,” Sharak said. “Even a single cell from Ria’s body could be essential.”
“The radiation levels in that room are toxic. I’ve already requested a forensic team to investigate and they will be equipped with standard biohazard suits, but I can’t even allow them to enter the room until we reduce the levels enough to ensure the safety of everyone else on this floor of the facility.”
“It’s all right, Doctor,” Lieutenant Wildman attempted to comfort him. “The forensic team will find anything that might be left.”
Shaka.
“I only wished to speak with her,” Sharak said softly.
“This isn’t your fault, Doctor,” Wildman assured him. “We still don’t know who that woman was, or why she was really here. The fact that she committed suicide rather than speak with you suggests she could not risk you learning her truth, whatever it was.”
Shaka.
Sharak feared he already knew her truth. Once Lieutenant Wildman’s efforts had pointed him to Ria, he had run a staffing search on every plague patient who had been sent to quarantine from Ria’s hospital. Not every patient Ria had attended had fallen to the plague. But every patient who had fallen since the day Ria first volunteered her services had been attended to at least once by Ria.
A sense of controlled chaos reigned around them. As soon as the security team had witnessed Ria’s abrupt suicide, they had begun to quickly and efficiently clear the area of all physicians and patients. The entire floor would be evacuated within the next few minutes.
Callimas at Bahar.
“I suppose we should try to speak with some of the doctors and nurses who worked with her on a regular basis. They might know something,” Sharak suggested.
Turning to Crixell, Wildman asked, “Can you tell us who the volunteer supervisor was?”
“I think his name is Simnly,” the harried man replied. “Doctor Beemz will know,” he added, gesturing toward a man with a long face standing at the nurses’ station.
“Doctor Horse,” Wildman whispered softly as she pulled Sharak by the sleeve to get him moving toward the tall, thin man in a gray coat who was busy issuing orders to every nurse within range of his voice.
Ellanan. Her hands empty.
“Excuse me,” Doctor Sharak interrupted. “Doctor?”
“Beemz,” he replied. “Were you the visiting physician who wanted to speak with Ria?”
“Yes,” Sharak replied.
“You’re Starfleet,” Beemz said. “This facility has observed every protocol Starfleet Medical and the Federation Institute of Health proscribed to the letter since the invasion. Why you would need to question one of our volunteers escapes me.”
Kadir beneath MoMoteh.
“I am not here to question your methods, Doctor Beemz,” Sharak said. “I have reviewed the work of the facility over the past year and can confirm that it has been exemplary under very trying circumstances.”
“Ria was a devoted woman,” Beemz said. “Her medical training was limited, but she followed orders conscientiously and was always willing to work extra shifts when asked.”
“Do you have any idea why she just killed herself?” Wildman asked.
Beemz looked away, clearly struggling to retain his composure. “None,” he said.
Shaka.
“Were you the one who advised Ria that we needed to speak with her this morning?” Sharak asked.
“Of course not,” Beemz replied. “Our volunteer coordinator, Mister Simnly, notified the staff this morning of your request and would have been the one to tell her. I saw Ria when she first came onto the floor.”
“Was she normally assigned to this floor?” Wildman asked.
“No. I thought it was strange to see her here. I even asked the duty nurse, but by the time she checked for me, you people were running down the hall and shouting for Ria.”
“We need to speak to Mister Simnly,” Wildman advised Sharak.
Ellanan. Her hands . . .
A few minutes later, they were brought to the office of the elderly male Coridanite who assigned all volunteer staff at the hospital. He had already been advised of Ria’s actions and was clearly shaken by this turn of events. The windowless office was small, tucked into a corner of the administrative wing. It barely held the three of them along with a desk cluttered with numerous padds.
Kira at Bashi.
“Mister Simnly,” Sharak said in his most comforting tone of voice, “I realize this is a difficult time for you, but there is information we require about Ria.”
“Of course, of course,” Simnly said. “Anything I can do to help Starfleet. Was Ria in some sort of trouble?” he asked, then answered himself: “Obviously she was. She must have been. She wouldn’t have . . . but she was so kind and so dedicated to her work. I don’t know where she would have found the time to do anything inappropriate. She was here every day. She worked more shifts than any other volunteer, even after the initial crisis had passed. I think she always wanted to be a nurse, but her circumstances did not allow her . . .” he trailed off.
“When you told Ria that we wished to speak with her today, was she disconcerted?” Wildman asked gently.
Simnly raised a blank face to Wildman. “I didn’t tell her,” he replied. “I hadn’t seen her yet this morning. I intended to call her to my office as soon as she arrived, but I was speaking with Doctor Mettiger when the alert sounded on my companel. I didn’t interrupt the doctor. I never do, you know. They work so hard for our people.”
Kadir . . .
“I’m sorry, sir,” Sharak interrupted, “but if you did not tell Ria we wished to speak with her, why did she attempt to elude the security staff?”
“I don’t know,” Simnly said.
Sharak and Wildman exchanged a puzzled glance. Wildman found her voice first. “Can you tell us where Ria went this morning before we found her on the fourteenth floor? Someone else might have mentioned our request to her, and we should speak with them too.”
Simnly nodded and accessed his data panel. “Her access card was checked in at ten minutes to eight. She arrived early for her shift,” Simnly said with a faint smile. “So dedicated.” His face clouded over as he continued to read. “It appears that she entered the central environmental control area just after she arrived. Why would she do that? Perhaps she wanted to speak with one of the custodians. A special patient request, no doubt. She was always so good with our patients and their families. No concern was beneath her attention.”
Temba . . .
“After she left there, where did she go?” Sharak asked.
“The secondary lift brought her directly to the fourteenth floor,” Simnly replied.
Klemar. When it rises.
Sharak looked again to Wildman. “Perhaps we should . . .”
“Environmental control,” Wildman finished for him, nodding.
Simnly personally escorted them to the subbasement and introduced them to the custodian in charge, Mister Alwen. A heavyset native of Coridan, Alwen did not report seeing Ria. She had entered the area just before his shift had begun. He offered to ask around to see if anyone had seen or spoken to Ria, and as he did so, Wildman asked to enter the area Ria had accessed.
Sharak followed. Force of habit caused Wildman to activate her tricorder the moment they had entered the bowels of the facility’s environmental control system. Every wall was lined with data interfaces and large display panels. Beyond them a lattice of conduit and piping was visible.
Sokath. In dar
kness.
“What are you looking for?” Sharak asked.
“Cellular residue,” Wildman replied. “If she touched anything, we might find a few random cells she left behind.”
His eyes uncovered.
Sharak nodded. After a few moments Wildman said, “Only three panels in this room have been touched in the last hour. Mister Alwen?” she called.
When Alwen joined them, Wildman asked, “What does this station control?”
“Thermal regulation,” he replied.
“Has it been malfunctioning?” Wildman asked. “It’s a little hot in here, isn’t it?”
Alwen shrugged. “I haven’t received any complaints yet. But it is warmer than . . .” he began as he studied the thermal regulation logs displayed before him.
When he paused, Wildman said, “What is it?”
“Someone intentionally increased the temperature here at shift change. There were no orders and I can’t find their command code. No one has access to this system that isn’t on staff.”
Shaka.
“So it couldn’t have been Ria?” Sharak asked.
“No,” Alwen said.
Wildman keyed a new command into her tricorder and began scanning the room. When she angled it toward the nearest conduit, it registered a faint alarm. Moving past the custodian onto a small catwalk that accessed the innards of the environmental systems, she continued to scan. Finally she dropped the tricorder and stared hard at a small metal box affixed to a pipe.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Alwen joined her on the catwalk and scratched his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. I don’t think it’s supposed to be there.”
“I’m reading traces of organic material inside it,” Wildman said. “There is also some sort of membrane around the organic component that is destabilizing as we speak.”
Shaka. When the walls fell.
“Evacuate the hospital at once,” Sharak said.
“I beg your pardon,” Alwen said, clearly shocked by the suggestion.
“Shaka. When the walls fell. Evacuate the hospital. Get Officer Crixell down here now. Tell him to wear his biohazard suit, bring emergency forcefield generators. Do it now,” Sharak said. Taking Wildman by the arm, he said, “You must leave, Lieutenant. Return to your Goldenbird and wait for my next instructions.”
“I’m not leaving you down here alone.”
Kiazi’s children. Their faces wet.
“Yes, Lieutenant. That’s an order,” Sharak corrected her.
STARFLEET MEDICAL
Seven retreated into Axum’s lab, desperate to bring order to the chaos that was now her mind.
I need to speak to the Commander.
The Commander who had requested her assistance, brought her from the Delta Quadrant to Earth, forced her to undergo a humiliating battery of tests, and still not troubled himself to actually utilize her abilities to help him cure the catomic plague?
The Commander is using my catoms, Axum’s, and soon Riley’s to attempt to cure the plague. He must have discovered how to alter their programming. His methods are unsafe. He is experimenting on healthy individuals as well as those already infected. He does not want me to know what he is doing because he knows I would not permit my catoms to be used in that manner.
Seven had no idea how to make contact with the Commander. Axum had said he would reach out to her in his own time. Seven was all but certain that time would never come.
He now has access to all known catomic particles in this galaxy. Should the Full Circle Fleet discover any other former Borg who remained outside the gestalt, he would likely imprison them, just as he has us.
Was this prison? It hadn’t felt like one until now.
But what else should she call it?
“Annika?”
Axum had known all along what the Commander was doing, but he had allowed Seven to suffer until she had learned the truth on her own. He had known Riley’s fate long before she arrived. He had intentionally denied Seven information, but why? To prolong their time together here? Did he think she would forget why she had come?
But I did forget, didn’t I?
She had allowed her personal concerns to blind her to the greater threat before her. Her fears for Axum had soon given way to the reality of physical intimacy augmented by catomic connection. She had wasted too much time exploring that pleasure until the overwhelming pain of the Commander’s experiments had forced her to remember her priorities.
“Annika?”
It was critical now that she maintain her focus.
“Go away,” Seven said firmly. Turning her attention to the last series of programming algorithms she had created, she examined the disappointing results.
“I love you, Annika.”
“Love is irrelevant,” she said.
“You don’t mean that.”
“People are dying, Axum. Riley and those who trusted her to keep them safe were just taken from their home and brought here to become test subjects. You and I are forced to experience the suffering of those being subjected to brutal and possibly fruitless experiments. We are complicit in their suffering because we provided the means by which they are being tortured.
“This must end. Your feelings for me, whatever you choose to call them, are not going to change these facts, nor are they going to help us put an end to all of this.”
“Yes, they are,” Axum said softly.
“How?”
“I know that you love me too.”
“Go away,” Seven said again.
“Tell me that you do. Say the words. Tell me that you will not forget what we have shared when . . .”
“When what?”
Axum shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Seven stepped back instinctively as he approached her.
“You’re going about this the wrong way,” he said simply, gesturing toward her data panel.
“Just because I have not yet found the answer I am seeking . . .” Seven began.
“You don’t have to look for the answer. It is already yours.”
Seven shook her head in frustration.
“These are your catoms, Annika. If you wish to see their programming, you have but to ask.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Because you don’t want to. You’re afraid of them. You think you have accepted them. You think you can limit your access to them. You think you can control them, but until you acknowledge that you and they are one and the same now, you will never understand.”
“Fine,” Seven said. “I accept them. They are mine.”
“Order them to reveal the code you wish to study.”
“This is ridiculous,” Seven said.
“You won’t even try?”
“I don’t know what you are asking me to do,” Seven shouted.
Axum sighed. With his left hand, he touched the screen that displayed the molecular representation of a single catom and then brought his hand in front of him in a sweeping gesture. Suddenly the molecule floated in three dimensions at eye level between them.
Seven knew what she was seeing. How she was seeing it made no sense, but she could not deny the reality now hanging suspended before her eyes.
“Order them to reveal their programming code,” Axum said again.
For a split second, the image before her shifted. Insight flashed through her mind like a leaf being carried on a strong wind. As soon as it brushed her fingertips, it fled.
“I can’t,” she said again.
“Promise me you will remember what we had this time. Promise me you will not let it fade as you did after Unimatrix Zero. All I have done was for you, Annika. For you, I sacrificed perfection and paradise. Twice.”
Sensing his urgency without truly understanding it, Seven nodded.
He stole into her mind with shocking ease and force. Somehow she knew he had always been capable of this but had tempered his advances until now, lulling her into submission. She expected
to hear his thoughts, instructions perhaps. Instead, she saw . . .
Joined as they were now, their bodies were merely shells with faint, permeable boundaries merging into one form, seeking complete oneness. Cells, molecules, and atoms that were intrinsic to them as individuals appeared as a gray haze. Scattered throughout it were pinpoints of blinding starlight. Each star burned with endless energy, sending and receiving signals that shot through the darkness, flaring and subsiding in milliseconds.
Her focus shifted to a single star. Looking past its brilliance, she grasped in an instant its individual components. The lines that divided it from the haze were absolute. The clumsy tag that identified it was a mere distraction. Seeing it like this, it was impossible to mistake it for anything other than the beautiful, perfect, and immensely powerful construct it actually was.
Seven had known on an intellectual level what she had become when the Caeliar had transformed her implants into catoms. To see the truth of it, as Axum saw it, was to grasp the utter magnificence of the Caeliar.
Finally, Seven understood.
Somewhere in the distant real world, delight released itself in laughter.
Seven followed that laughter, allowing it to lead her from the inner space Axum had shown her back to the lab.
The catom floating between them was no longer a molecule. It was now an endless stream of programming code Seven could read as easily as her native language.
“Good afternoon, Naria.”
“Hello, Jefferson.”
The Commander removed the hypospray from its case. His hands betrayed him and it fell to the floor. Bending gingerly to retrieve it, he glimpsed her bare feet. They were light lavender today.
For a split second he was back in his first lab, the secluded research outpost on Deneva, his first station after graduating from the Academy. How many times had he watched those feet develop from simple buds to differentiated structures? He could not recall now. Too many to count.
He retrieved the hypo and stood, steadying himself by holding firm to the side of the biobed.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
Yes.
“Not for long.”
Willing his hand to stillness, the Commander lifted it to Naria’s neck.
Star Trek: Voyager - 043 - Acts of Contrition Page 32
