Title: An Imaginative View Of The World
A Star Trek / Pretender / Profiler / Reality Crossover
By: Chris
Rated: G
Spoilers: None
Part 4
What, an employee of the Centre? She was part of that hell-house? Definitely another dream. But what about Jarod? She had wanted to arrange a meeting with Myra, now she had one, but she had thought it to be different. Myra was one of the bad guys, and she herself seemed to be one of the good guys who had been caught while working for the wrong side. What had she done?
"What have I done to be treated this way?" Kyla asked, needing all her courage to face Lyle.
"You were working with Jarod. You helped him escape. You will face the same fate as your friend," he said and gestured towards another bed where Miss Parker was lying. Her friend?
"Why she?"
"You were working together, why not she?"
"Let her go," Kyla demanded.
"Of course I will let her go," Lyle grinned and mentioned Myra to help Parker up.
"You are free to go, Parker", he said and couldn't stop grinning. There was something in Parker's eyes that told her to stop talking.
"Go, Parker."
"I'm waiting for your orders", she said, not moving.
Oh no, another brain washing experiment. But somehow Parker seemed to have resisted. There was a sparkle in her eyes and Kyla knew that she could count on her.
"What have you done to her?" she asked Lyle.
"Oh, this is part of the Centre's retraining-facility. She'll listen to my orders only and from now on she'll be working for me. And I intend to catch Jarod. He trusts her and he'll be mine, the next time they meet. Oh, and you will help us as well," he said, still grinning wickedly.
Kyla wasn't sure if she could resist the "retraining" the way Parker had but she intended to do her best. She didn't want to end up like another Angelo or worse, like a slave of Lyle. Lyle said something and Parker left the room. Now she was alone again, alone with Lyle and Myra. Was everybody against her? She felt the prick of a needle on her upper arm and from the corner of her eyes she saw Myra step back.
"Well done," Lyle said to her and kissed her on the cheek. What?? Lyle had kissed Myra? What kind of reality was this? Her head grew heavy and her surroundings seemed to disappear into darkness. She didn't see Lyle grin broadly, didn't feel that she was lifted and brought into another room.
They laid her down on a small bed inside an empty room with no window and only a light bulb at the ceiling. Somewhere, invisibly hidden behind cracks in the wall there were cameras, watching her constantly. She was high on drugs that Myra had injected her. Myra, who had followed them stood beside the bed and waved the two men away who had carried Kyla. They closed the door behind them and the two young women were alone. Myra was still playing with the syringe in her hands and was looking down at Kyla. The door opened again and Lyle entered the room. He was smiling when he saw the syringe in Myra's hands.
"Can't get enough, can you?" he said she only grinned.
"You know that I forever have to have something to do with my hands or else I'm incapable of concentrating."
"So what are you concentrating on?"
"Her thoughts. There's something on her mind that doesn't belong here. Maybe she doesn't even belong here."
Lyle only looked at her and shook his head. Then he took her by the arm and led her out of the room.
Kyla opened her eyes and looked around the room. The light seemed to be artificial and it was somehow too bight to be sunlight. The ceiling was high above her. The last thing she remembered was her encounter with Lyle and Myra, but where was she now? Why couldn't she just go back to her own reality? For the umpteenth time she imagined herself already being in a lunatic asylum, drugged and without any connection to the real world. What if it was true? She had no connection to HER world, was jumping from one imagined world to the next and had no idea what was really happening around her. From one corner of her mind she saw a movement and slowly turned her head. Oh no, not again here. Again on DS9? But something was different. This wasn't Deep Space Nine, it was somewhere else, but definitely in the future. A woman came towards her bed and looked down at her. She had long red hair that curled around her face. She smiled when she looked into Kyla's eyes.
"Nice to have you back. How do you feel?"
Kyla looked around, somehow the surroundings seemed familiar, but that had always been the case when she had jumped to another fantasy of hers.
"Where am I?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"You're on the Enterprise, and you're save now."
"Save? Save from what?"
"You've been taken hostage while on an away mission. They were trying to erase your brain patterns, some kind of brain washing. Data and Geordie have found you and freed you. Now you're back and I've been able to repair the damage they've done to your brain," the woman said.
Kyla only looked around the room, trying to remember the woman's name. Crusher! Dr. Beverly Crusher. Right, the CMO aboard the Enterprise. She wanted to sit up, but Dr. Crusher put her hand on Kyla's shoulder and shook her head.
"You're not in the condition to get up yet. You'll stay here for another day or so."
She heard the doors open and Dr. Crusher turned around. It was an old man without any hair, a black and red uniform -- a DS9 uniform, what meant that she was somewhere in the 6th or 7th season. Well, Dr. Crusher still wore the old uniform, but that was normal, even in the movie Star Trek - Generations she still had that uniform, along with some other crewmen. Kyla had to smile when she thought back to a conversation she had had with Michael (back in a time where they had been good friends and had used to talk about Star Trek) and their discussion about the film and all the different uniforms. The old man, well, old, yes, about in his mid-fifties, was standing beside her bed, looking down at her.
"I hope you're well, Ensign."
"Yes, thank you, Captain," she said after seeing his four collar pips, "I'm fine."
Picard, his name was Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Oh my God, she thought, I'm getting old, I can't remember the names of my favorite Star Trek characters. There was a time when I knew every episode, every name, could tell which episode it was only by seeing one scene and now I don't even remember the names of the main characters, what a shame! Picard smiled and then turned to Dr. Crusher. They left her alone and Kyla kept on thinking about all the things that were going around her head. She had no idea where exactly on the ship sickbay was situated. She tried to remember the blueprints she had stored somewhere in her room, in her own reality, but she couldn't remember anything, except the one thing that the bridge was on deck 1, but that was the case on all starships. Whatever, maybe it was the same as in every other case, that she wouldn't be here long enough to really have that problem. She heard the door open again, but didn't bother to look, it would be Captain Picard, who was leaving the room. She felt a hand on her arm and suppressed the urge to scream out loud. She turned her head and looked into the white face of Data, the Android.
"I am sorry, that I have scared you. I only wanted to see how you were."
"I am fine, thank you Data."
"Here's someone, who wanted to see you a well."
A large red cat jumped onto the bed and looked at her.
"Hey Spot. Nice to see you."
At least I still know the name of Data's cat, she thought. Picard and Dr. Crusher came back from Dr. Crusher's office and they both smiled when they saw Data and his cat.
"Data, animals are not allowed inside sickbay", she reminded him.
"I am sorry, Doctor, I just thought that it might help her."
"She's alright. Please take the cat away, will you?"
Data nodded and took spot who protested wildly. Kyla waved them goodbye and then closed her eyes. She had anticipated to be somewhere else when she opened them again, but she was still in sickbay, still on the Enterprise and nothing had changed. Somehow it was good to still be at the same place. Whenever she "changed universe" she felt disoriented at the beginning. The longer she stayed in one reality the more came back to her. She remembered many of the things she had seen on TV, but it was something completely different to be in a world of which she knew that it didn't really exist, at least not yet. She knew the construction of the set itself, she had been there to watch the filming of the episodes. Not it was real. A real world with real people who didn't know that they only existed in people's minds. They didn't know of the actors and actresses who had given them their appearance, they didn't know that many people admired them, tried to become a little more like them or even changed their names. They didn't know of the phenomenon called fandom, didn't know of fanfic and the writer's fantasies. Another idea came to Kyla's mind: What if she was caught inside the fanfic of another author? She had been writing some fanfic (which she didn't consider to be very good) and she knew of other stories which involved the writers themselves. This could be another possibility. But she still didn't know what she should make of the ever-changing place of events. The highest possibility was still the one of her being crazy. Why not? She had heard it often that people had called her crazy, a lunatic, disconnected from reality and many more things. From time to time she had even believed it herself.
A movement beside her bed made her turn her head. Dr. Crusher was standing beside her, checking on her bio-readings on the monitor beside the bed. Kyla thought about a possibility to solve the problem.
"Doctor, am I crazy?"
"What?"
"Am I crazy? Have I gone nuts?"
"No way, Ensign. This is all an after-effect of the brain-washing experiments, if you mean hallucinations or things like that."
Kyla sighed.
"No, it's something different, but I'm not sure if I can tell you."
"You can try. Then I can tell you whether it is nonsense or something we should take care of. What do you think?"
"Guess I could live with it. But what if you say that it is nonsense?"
"Depends on what you're telling me," Dr. Crusher smiled.
"I'd prefer to have this conversation in a private room. Could you release me to my quarters?"
"From the medical point of view it's not wise, but I think I can make an exception. I'll help you to get up. I don't think you're fit to walk on your own."
Dr. Crusher held her by the arm and led her out of sickbay. They entered the turbolift and nearly instantly the doors opened again to reveal another corridor with the living quarters. The entered the room which was supposed to be Kyla's quarters. She didn't recognize the room, but one thing was the same as in her quarters on DS9, the frame with Miss Parker's photo, at least something that was repeating itself.
Crusher led her towards the sofa and she let herself fall down heavily. The Doctor only smiled and sat down beside her.
"I guess it would be a better topic to discuss with the counselor," Kyla said.
"No, it's alright. But if you prefer to speak with Deanna Troi I can understand that."
"I'd feel more comfortable to discuss it with someone who is not trained to read my thoughts. Somehow I feel uncomfortable in her presence."
"She can't read your mind, only her mother can. Her mother's a full Betazoid, Deanna is half human. She can only read your feelings. So if you're feeling sad she can feel it. It's nothing to feel uncomfortable about."
Kyla shrugged her shoulders and pulled a strand of hair back which kept falling into her eyes. Normally she hated her hair, but today she was happy it was this long and kept hanging into her face so she could hide behind it. Somehow she wanted to avoid this topic, she didn't want to talk about it. But Dr. Crusher stayed by her side and waited patiently. She didn't press her to talk, she was just sitting beside her, looking at her.
"Would you mind if I told you only one half of the story? I'm not sure about the other half."
"Of course. I wouldn't even mind if you decided not to talk about it at all."
"No, I need to talk about it to be sure it really happened. There's just one question I want to ask you before I start telling. Is it normal that I don't remember anything that happened before I woke up in sickbay?"
"Yes, that's not unusual. Your brain was severely damaged and I had to perform major surgery. It is possible that your short time memory has been totally erased."
"But it's not only my short time memory. I have no idea how I came here or what my job is. But that's already part of my story."
"To be honest, that's not normal," Dr. Crusher said, "I would feel better if you returned to sickbay after we have finished talking."
Kyla only looked at her, but didn't say a word. Back in "her real world" she had adored Dr. Crusher and the actress who played her and now she found herself in her reality and even sitting beside her on a sofa. Somehow she liked this reality. Dr. Crusher was really caring about her and wasn't calling her a lunatic before she had heard the story. Most people thought that she was crazy before she had even talked to them, Dr. Crusher was different. So Kyla decided to tell her a part of her story, that part that didn't seem to be too complicated, she hoped. She started by telling her that she was from a different reality. From Dr. Crusher's face she could see that she was still listening to her, trying to understand what she was trying to tell her. She kept on telling her that she remembered being a quite normal girl in her world. That her mother had sent her to a psychiatrist and from that moment on everything had kept going wrong. She told her that she had found herself in different realities, all TV series she loved to watch.
"What is a TV series?" Dr. Crusher interrupted her.
"That was before Holodecks existed. People sat in front of a screen and watched actors who were playing."
"Like theatre? You had no chance of altering the plot?"
"That's right. Only by writing stories by yourself you have the chance to make them act the way you want to. That's called fanfiction. I have written a few stories myself and the people I've encountered in these different realities act exactly the way I've always imagined they would act in my stories."
"So you think that there's a connection between your writing and the things you've been going through?"
"You believe me?"
"Of course I do, why shouldn't I believe it? You don't look as if you were crazy. I have to admit, it sounds a little confusing to me, but I'm sure I'll understand it if you told me the rest of it."
"The only thing I really want is to return to my own reality and be the girl I used to be."
Another thought came to her mind. The Pretender Payback. The "real" Miss Parker, Jarod and the others had tried to change the real world by writing a story of their own. What if she tried the same? She had plenty of ideas for new stories, why not start working on them right now?
"You better return to sickbay with me now, you don't look well."
"I feel a little dizzy, but otherwise I'm fine."
"You're coming with me. And that's an order."
"Yes, ma'am." Kyla thought it sounded ridiculous, coming from her mouth. Reluctantly she followed Dr. Crusher to sickbay. She had wanted to start writing right away, but she didn't dare to ask someone for paper and a pen. She suspected that they'd laugh at her for asking for such ancient things, in this time they used padds for such simple things like writing. But writing was out of fashion. They had no idea how a computer worked in the 21st century or how wonderful handwriting could be. Computers in the 24th century worked via voice commands. Somehow boring.
She was lying on the bed where Dr. Crusher had told her to lie down on, staring at the ceiling. She wondered what happened to those realities where she had been before. She had been to DS9 twice, so she knew that they didn't stop existing. But what about her? Was she sleeping? She knew that every time she had fallen asleep or fallen unconscious she had changed place. So it was only logical to assume that she was still sleeping in the other realities. She wondered when she would shift place again. She had been here for much longer than in any other reality before. Maybe this shift was final? Maybe she was stuck here forever. How she had wished to be part of it. Part of the Enterprise, a crewmember under Jean-Luc Picard. Now that she was, she wished to be home. Somehow ridiculous. Her wish had come true and she didn't want the dream anymore. She had to make the best of it. Maybe she could get used to life on a starship, especially a starship the size of the Enterprise.
