Disclaimer: The Sentinel belongs to Pet Fly Productions, UPN, and Paramount. Star Trek belongs to Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made from the use of the characters and plot devices in the two shows.
Earth orbit, stardate 52891.3
Lt. Christopher Ellison was glad to be finally getting out of Internal Security. He had been transferred from that agency to Starship Security, and thankfully he would never have to deal with the spooks again. Of course, he wished that the circumstances of his leaving IS were far different. He had been on a mission to a Cardassian outpost world and hadn't been retrieved until six months later when he was discovered by the Enterprise during a routine scan. He didn't really remember much about that time, but he knew he was only one of a team of six. His had been the only human life signs on the planet. He didn't want to have to deal with the covert ops crap anymore, but he still felt the need to protect people, to do his part, so he'd stayed in Starfleet.
He looked at the ship that was about to become his home through the viewscreen of the shuttle. The U.S.S. Enquiri, an Ambassador Class vessel captained by Benjamin Peters that would soon be looking for Dominion warships. She was a fairly small ship, but she could get the job done and she saw action regularly. That was what Chris wanted. He wanted to have his mind held far away from that little hell hole of a moon he'd been stranded on, wanted to make sure that he would never remember it or the loss of his team. He had never been one to handle his emotions very well, something that his mother had once said was a trait common to Ellison men. He figured if he didn't remember, then he wouldn't have to deal with it.
As he stared at the ship that would be his home, a flash of light drew his gaze to the port side. A small drone had collided with a micro meteor and had exploded. The light drew him in and he began to loose focus, dwelling on the sight until it was all that made up his world.
There was no telling how long he would have stayed like that if another meteor from the same shower hadn't glanced off the hull of the shuttle. The sudden sound and the jolting vibration brought him back to himself in time that the pilot and co-pilot didn't notice. As the pair dealt with the situation, he thanked fate for the coincidence. It would be all he needed to get the reputation for blacking out before he even got onboard.
They flew into the shuttle bay and settled on the cold deck plating. As he set foot on it himself, he thought of how relieved he was to be on an assignment that seemed legitimate to him as the paranoid slinking around of the IS had not. He would be just another amber uniform, another face in the crowd in the mess hall, providing him with a kind of anonymity that he hadn't had in IS. He could hide from the world in plain sight now instead of in the darkness of covert operations. He didn't want to deal with the world, but he was tired of the tactics and the paranoia. This would be much better.
4 years later...
Dr. Emily Sandburg stepped off the transporter pad, finding herself glad to be in one piece. She'd never had to use the infernal contraption before, and with any luck it would be a long time before she had to again. She was mildly transporter phobic, not so much that she hadn't been able to force herself to use it when there was no other alternative, but enough that she could get very inventive about finding ways to avoid it. She was on the Enquiri as a civilian scientist, an anthropologist and xenopologist trying to find corolations between ancient human cultures and those of other humanoid races, specifically trying to find out if other races had Sentinels, individuals whose five senses were heightened far beyond the norm, though it was still a very unpopular theory. She was desperately trying to get the work of her ancestor, Blair Sandburg, validated so that she could base her own papers on his, not only for the sake of the long-dead detective, scientist, and Guide, but for herself and the rest of the galaxy at large. She was very Unitarian in her beliefs, being convinced that all the races should share information and culture and history, not huddle in their own circles, convinced that the universe was out to get them. Sure, there were those out there who gave the isolationists and the war mongers beliefs credence, and she didn't believe in being unprepared, but using preparedness as an excuse to horde valuable information was just wrong to her.
An out-shoot of those beliefs was that the Sentinels of the Galaxy should be aided and shared, allowed to commit their ancient duties without worrying about being hauled off to some lab and studied within an inch of their lives, or kidnapped into the military and forced to harm rather than protect with their gifts, or even worse, to be thought or driven insane and locked up because no one had the information necessary to help them. The Shaman in her hated what Sentinels had to go through because of the ignorance of the people, and she hoped to change that.
Emily had inherited the historical building containing the loft apartment that Blair and his Sentinel, Detective Jim Ellison, had shared. The building had passed to her a year after she received her twin doctorate from Oxford. Going through the building had been a treasure to an anthropologist. The building had been sealed in a plastic spray-on liner that had prevented the dust and weather of centuries from destroying it's contents. That had probably been done just before the Atomic Crisis, the combined meltdowns and nuclear wars that had lead to the Post Atomic Horror. That the building had survived that mess had been a miracle, though there hadn't been much fighting in the Washington State area.
The loft was like a snapshot of the lives of two men. Jim had been a neat freak, and until his death he had been the actual owner of the apartment, so all but one of the rooms was excessively neat and clean, save for the thin layer of dust particles that had settled all over everything, dust that had already been present when the building was sealed. That one room had belonged to Blair. The room looked very lived in, since Blair had moved back in with Jim after his wife had died. It was still neat, but it had a lot more character. In that room was a box that contained all of Blair's Sentinel research and his leather-bound dissertation, the document that had gotten him into so much trouble with the press and Rainier University. Lining the book shelves were fifty years worth of spiral notebooks, his case notes from being a detective with Cascade PD and his journals. Emily had learned a lot from her ancestor, and had decided to make his work her own, expanding it to include the rest of the galaxy as well as Earth.
She had taken the research to several scientists, working for nearly three years to get Blair's work validated by the academic community. In the end, it had been three men who had helped her the most, as well as several of the journals and looking up his record with the Cascade Police Department. Those men had been Dr. Gill Haris, Professor of Xenopology at Oxford, Sarian, the Vulcan Professor of Anthropology, and Commander Data from the U.S.S. Enterprise. The professors and Data had read the material and had concluded that the work was scientifically sound, as well as very thorough. Data had taken all of the information together and realized that Blair Sandburg was not the kind of man who would commit fraud, but that he would have been the kind to throw away his career to protect his friend.
The theory was still very unpopular, and Emily had been warned that it might be career suicide to follow up on the work, but she was convinced. There were several things that just added up when she started reading material from other worlds. The Vulcans had, in ancient times, had a far more tribal structure, and the tribes would always have a Guardian, one who was sent out to help protect the tribe from beasts, natural disasters, and encroachment from other tribes. But Emily doubted that there were any modern Sentinels on Vulcan. They would be far more likely on Romulus or Remus, as the Romulans had not suppressed their emotions and instincts as the Vulcans had, but the chances of studying Romulans to find a Sentinel were not good given their current relations with the Federation. The Klingons were also likely candidates, although they were far more individualistic, but the same problem with studying them existed as with the Romulans, not to mention the fact that a Klingon was far more likely to knock your head off if he didn't like what you were saying to him. No, the best chance, she thought, would be Bajor. If Sentinels existed on that world in modern times as they had in ancient ones, their abilities would be considered gifts from the Prophets, and they would therefore be more free to use them and more likely to get help.
That was one of the reasons she was on the Enquiri. Another was that she was tired of sitting behind her desk and conjecturing. She wanted to get out there and make a difference. Her family had been Shamen for generations, and academia didn't really lend itself to that. She was thinking about actually joining Starfleet's science department, hoping dearly to get assigned to a starship like this one so she could travel the stars and so she could help people. It would really be a dream come true.
Standing in the transporter room with her was a Security officer. He indicated the bag hanging by it's strap on her shoulder and asked, "Dr. Sandburg? Is that all you brought with you?"
She nodded. "Yep. Clothes, accessories, necessities, and note PADD, all in one convenient carry-on." He looked at her strangely. "Hey, I know how to pack! Actually, they sent the rest of my things ahead." She held out her hand and the man took it. "Emily Sandburg."
"Lt. Ellison. I've been assigned to show you to your quarters and then to the lab. From there, you should be able to get someone else to show you around the ship." He wasn't hostile, but he obviously didn't want to be here. He probably considered escort duty one of the most boring parts of his job. His name threw her, though. She wondered if he could be related to Jim Ellison. Wouldn't that just be a cosmic coincidence?
She decided to test her theory a bit. "Why don't you do that? Then I can get to know you better. After all, I'm going to be on this ship for a while, and I'd like to have at least one acquaintance outside the lab." The look on his face was so much like the one picture of Jim that she had that was pre-Blair and post-Peru it was uncanny. The closed off hell-no look was crystal clear. "Woah, man. Sorry I asked."
Ellison's expression softened a bit. "Sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm kind of a loner."
She grinned at him. "That's all right. I can get a little overzealous sometimes."
They walked in silence to her guest quarters, where she dropped off her bag and picked up an odd box. It was old. It was actually made of cardboard, putting it's age somewhere between three and four hundred years old, but it was not yellowed or fragile. Even though it's contents obviously made it heavy, the slight scientist had no trouble carrying it, meaning that both she and the box were very strong. If Ellison was curious, he didn't indicate it to her.
He escorted her to the science lab and told her to have a good day, then left. As she watched him go back down the corridor to the turbolift, she wondered again if he was related to the detective she had read so much about. Then she shrugged and went into the lab.
Over the course of the next month, Emily aquatinted everyone in the lab with her research and that of Blair Sandburg. Most of the lab workers thought she was chasing phantoms, but they were willing to discuss theories with her. The great thing about people who worked with Starfleet for any length of time was that they saw a lot of strange things, things that often pushed the boundaries of previous beliefs, so they were a lot more open minded than planet-bound scientists tended to be.
She and one of the lab workers, Ensign Creid, were discussing the Sentinel theory one day in the mess hall over lunch. Creid said, "If these Sentinels exist in modern times, why don't we ever see them?"
"Think about it, Creid. If someone like that popped up today they'd either be ignored or forced to submit to testing because of the Eugenics laws, at least in the Federation. And if they don't find a Guide, they'll go insane when their senses start to go haywire. Jim was close to checking himself into an institution because he kept hearing voices, along with all his other senses. He had dinner with his ex-wife just before he met Blair and accused the restaurant of trying to poison him. But his senses were just out of whack. The noises were just a few rooms away, or a block away, or whatever. That's why I think the Bajorans are my best bet for finding a non-terrestrial Sentinel. They would consider it a gift from the Prophets and wouldn't question their own sanity so easily. They would go to the temple and get help."
Suddenly, there was a disturbance by the replicator. Lt. Ellison was standing there with his lunch arguing with an engineer who was apparently trying to fix the machine. Ellison shouted, "I don't care what you say, there is something wrong with this! There's enough cayenne in it to kill a horse!"
The harried engineer said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't change the program when you're the only one who tastes it. I don't have the authority to do that."
Ellison clenched his jaw and glared at the ensign, but the man , while intimidated, could do nothing about it. The lieutenant chunked his tray into the recycler and said, "I don't believe this!" Then he stalked out the door.
Sandburg and Creid had watched the altercation with interest, but for different reasons. Creid said, "Man! Who stuck a burr in his chair?" But Emily was on a different track of thought completely. If he was descended from Jim like she thought, could he have inherited the Sentinel gene? Blair had once calculated the odds of a child being a Sentinel. If both parents were carriers, if they both had at least one hyperactive sense, then the odds were still only one in four, and if both weren't carriers, they wouldn't have any chance at all. Still, if Ellison were descended from Jim, then the odds would be greater that he was at least a carrier. And if he were a Sentinel, then it was obvious that things were starting to get out of hand with his senses. That most likely meant he didn't have a guide, and it also meant trouble. That incident was almost identical to the one with Jim and Carolyn. She wondered what could have triggered his senses into coming back on-line.
Back in the lab, Emily started going through records. She had some access to the personnel files, though nothing in-depth. She pulled what she could of Ellison's file and his genealogy. Lieutenant Christopher Ellison was indeed the descendent of Detective James Ellison. He joined Starfleet twelve years ago, starting his career in Internal Security. After he was lost on a Cardassian moon for six months, he left IS, transferring to Starship Security and the Enquiri. Recently he had been complaining of hyperactive sensitivity on all five levels. The doctor could find nothing wrong.
Staring at the screen, Emily realized that things were quickly getting out of hand for Ellison. The time was soon coming where he'd be forced to seek psychological aid or he'd be kicked out. Something had happened to bring him back on-line, and whatever that might be, it was probably not going to recede again. He needed a Guide, and fast, at least a temporary one until he could find someone he could trust to take over.
Emily decided to talk to the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Janet Simms. She went to sickbay the following day, wondering how she was going to broach the subject. Ellison was not going to like the fact that she had been in his personnel records, even the surface records that had nothing to do with his personal life or what he'd done in IS. That problem was solved when just as she walked in the door someone from Security called for an emergency transport from Deck 8. In seconds, Chris Ellison materialized on the floor, screaming that his skin was on fire.
Seeing him like that, she simply reacted. She knew that she couldn't touch him. That would only make it worse. She got down next to him, ignoring Dr. Simms for the moment, and started talking to him. "Chris! You have to knock it down, man! Focus on my voice, Chris. Latch on to my voice and come back. Come on, man, you can do this. Come on, Ellison, this is not a good time to be doing this. Come on, you can do it, just follow me back."
After a while, the talking worked, surprising the hell out of the doctor. Soon Ellison was able to take control of his sense of touch and bring it back to an acceptable level. It was then that he really became aware of his surroundings and who it was he had been listening to.
Simms was arguing with that scientist he'd escorted about a month back. "How could you possibly know what's wrong with him? You have no medical training at all!"
The scientist (wasn't her name Sandburg?) said, "There isn't anything medically wrong with him at all! This isn't a disease or a condition, Doctor. He was born with more active sensory perception than most humans, that's all! It's genetic. I know you don't want to believe that my research has any merit, but if you block me from helping him, you'll be doing him absolutely no good!"
"Who are you to tell me how to treat my patients?!"
Ellison had heard enough. "Woah, guys. The patient can hear you both. Now what the hell's going on? How do you know what's been happening to me?"
Sandburg smiled lightly at him. "Let me throw a few things at you and see if you recognize what I'm describing. I witnessed that scene yesterday in the mess hall, so obviously our sense of taste has shot up, and just now it was your sense of touch. I'll bet it was just the uniform. So have you experienced any other sensory spikes lately, like smelling things no one else could, or seeing things that were too far away, that no one should have been able to see unaided, or hearing conversations that were taking place several decks away, stuff like that?"
Ellison stared at the scientist. How the hell could she know that? He just nodded, waiting to see where she was taking this. "I'm almost certain that you, my friend are what the explorer Richard Burton in the nineteenth century called a Sentinel. In ancient tribes, there would always be one person who would be responsible for protecting the tribe from encroachment and natural disasters, for helping to find game and water. This person was chosen because of a genetic advantage, a hyperactive response on all sensory levels. It was usually honed by time spent alone in the wild. Have you spent any time recently in prolonged isolation?"
"Yeah. Remember about three weeks ago, when the holodeck was on the fritz? I was the one that got caught in there. I was running a survival training program, the jungles of South America, trying to see if it would work for training cadets at the Academy, and the thing got caught in a loop. I was stuck there for a week."
"That's probably what triggered it. I'd guess you've been suppressing your senses for some reason or other, but that brought them back into use, and now you're on-line. I can help you to understand these senses. I have information about another Sentinel, one from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, that came from the man who helped him."
"This Sentinel. What was his name?" Something about this girls story was clicking, other than the facts of his problem.
Sandburg grinned. "Detective James Joseph Ellison, Cascade PD, Washington State. His partner and Guide's name was Blair Sandburg."
Chris sat back on the bed that he'd been moved to once his sensory spike had calmed, leaning against the wall of Sickbay. He remembered the stories his Dad used to tell of their ancestor, how he had better senses than those around him and it helped him to solve crimes. Chris had never believed those stories, thought that that's all they were. Now it seemed that he was the same way. He didn't know what to do about it. "What am I supposed to do about this? I'm gonna get kicked out of Starfleet because of those damned Eugenics laws if this gets out, and if not that, I'll be dragged back to IS and used like some pet assassin! I can't let that happen!"
"Woah, man, I don't want that happening either. I can guarantee you that the tests they'll run will come up negative. This is a natural genetic enhancement, not a splice, and if IS tries to grab you, I know how to raise a stink. I have friends that wouldn't mind helping me if it came to that, one of whom is Commander Data. Everybody knows that messing with him is bad karma. Even IS." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Believe me, I'd never let anything happen to you, man."
Chris looked at the scientist. 170 cm tall, brown hair and chocolate eyes made a lovely picture, and she seemed to have the bounciness that Jim Ellison's partner was described as having. She was honest. She meant it when she said that she wouldn't let anything happen to him. Wasn't he supposed to be the protective one? He didn't want to do what she suggested. She'd have to get involved with Security, and he wasn't sure he could swing that. But he needed her help. She had been able to stop the spike that had been so painful. "Damn. I know I'm going to regret this. All right. I'll see if I can get you permission to tag along with me, but you're going to have to promise not to endanger yourself."
"Hey, I can promise to try, but I can't stop fate if she decides to throw a curve."
Chris grinned. "Right."
Three months later...
Emily had known what she was talking about. It seemed that whenever a Sandburg started hanging out with an Ellison, the cosmos had to try it's damnedest to put them at risk. In three months she had been in as many hostage situations. At the time, she had been doing nothing dangerous. The first one happened when she was helping Dr. Simms to carry some heavy equipment into Sickbay since the antigravs were being repaired. One of his patients had awakened, disoriented, and thought he had been taken prisoner by the Jem'Hadar, though the war had been over for some time. It had taken all her skills at obfuscation to get him to let go, and she'd still made sure that Chris didn't try to stuff him in a shuttle bay to decompress. The second time, she was in the lab working on some of Blair's old spiral notebooks, when they were suddenly at Red Alert. A pirate ship surgically hit the Enquiri's shields, disabling them to allow boarding and then taking out the weapons and the engines without harming the rest of the ship. Chris had caught up with the main group of boarders. His team had them surrounded, but they had ended up right outside the lab. They took Emily, intending to use her against the Security forces, but they didn't take into account that this was her lab. She had several of the artifacts from the loft with her on the ship, one of which was Incacha's ceremonial dagger. She drove it into the pirate's leg and he dropped her. She ran to the door and told the computer to seal the lab in a Level 3 force-field, one that was still gas permeable so they wouldn't suffocate, but they couldn't get through it, either. She'd made sure that Dr. Simms gave her back Incacha's dagger, certain that the ancient Shaman would have approved of it's being used like that.
The last one had happened only an hour ago. She sat in Sickbay, her aching head being repaired by Dr. Simms, just waiting for Chris to come in and start yelling at her for getting into yet another situation. It would take a while for him to calm down enough to admit that it really hadn't been her fault. But she was getting to know him fairly well, and he would eventually see reason.
Sure enough, just as Simms was finishing up, the door opened to admit her Sentinel, whose face was a study in worried frustration. Could she call it or what? Maybe she could head him off. "Before you say anything, just remember, all I was doing was walking to my quarters after work. It's not my fault that Chinser escaped the brig or that I seem to make such an attractive hostage."
A smile broke through the worry. "I know. I guess I'll have to come to terms with the fact that my best friend is a cosmic trouble magnet. You know, I've taken the time to read some of those journals, Em. I think it's genetic. Blair apparently had the same problem. Just promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"If we ever end up dealing with a human whose last name is Lash, lock yourself in your quarters." She looked at him, knowing that he was talking about David Lash, the psycho who had come so close to killing Blair the first year of his partnership with Jim. She smiled and nodded.
Later that night, they were having dinner in her quarters, and she was trying to get him to cooperate with some of the tests that she knew would help him to attain better control. "Come on, Ellison. You know that this can only help you. Now that recipe has been in the family for a long time. I programmed it into the replicator myself, so I know everything that's in it. Dial up smell just enough to tell me what's in there, and if you guess the whole recipe then you get a prize."
Chris grinned, "Watch it, smart ass."
Emily returned the grin. "Hey, all of me is smart. Now quit stalling. Take a deep breath, then dial up your sense of smell. Identify the surface stuff, then filter it out so you can concentrate on the rest of it."
Chris did as he was instructed, using Emily's voice to ground him so he wouldn't zone out. "That's some weird meat, Em."
"It's ostrich. Come on, Chris, what else?"
"Pinto beans, tomato paste, diced tomato, onion, garlic," He paused for a moment, trying to catch the spices. "Cumin, basil, thyme...What is that?"
"What? What's it smell like?"
"Kind of peppery, but without the bite."
"Good! It's stewed coca leaves. You boil it to separate the drug part out so it doesn't get in the food, then you dry it and use it like any other herb."
"Ah, Sandburg..."
"Hey, don't worry. It's replicated, remember? No chance that the harmful part got into the food."
Suddenly, a new voice joined in, causing them both to jump out of their seats. "But where's the fun in that? You really should try the real thing some time."
Standing behind them, leaning up against the bulkhead, was a young man who looked about seventeen dressed in the uniform of a senior officer, though without any collar tabs to indicate actual rank. Both Sentinel and Guide recognized him from those reports from U.S.S. Voyager which had been required reading for all Starfleet personnel. It was Q2, the son of the Q who had always made himself such a nuisance to the crew of the Enterprise. The first new member of his race since before the beginning of the universe. Chris said, "What do you want, Q?"
The youth smiled, the same annoying smile of his father, the one that said "I am superior to you in every way." "Is that any way to treat a guest, automatically interrogating them?" Chris crossed his arms and glared. "Oh, fine! Spoil sport. I'm here to give you two the chance of a lifetime."
Emily cracked, "Why doesn't that thought fill me with confidence?"
Q pouted. "Oh, come now. Must you judge me by the actions of my father?"
Chris said, "No. I think your own actions on Voyager and your popping in here unannounced during dinner is enough to make me wary all by yourself."
He grinned. "Touché. Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do, at least. You see, there are several of us who are very interested in the Sentinel phenomenon. We'd like to see how you two do in an environment that neither of you has any real experience with, but that you would know enough to get by in normally."
Emily said, "So what's the catch? If we would know enough to get by, then where's the part where you're laughing your ass off?"
"That's the part you get to figure out for yourself." His grin widened and he snapped his fingers, enveloping Ellison and Sandburg in a cocoon of light.
Blair climbed into the truck on the passenger side, setting the Tai food down on the seat next to him while he got buckled in. He never failed to perform that little maneuver since hooking up with Jim because one never knew when they would be drawn into a high-speed chase and be thrown all over the cab of the truck. Once settled, the detective picked the food back up and set it in his lap. Then he turned to Jim and said, "We headed to Harborman's?"
Jim nodded. "Yeah, Chief. It's the fourth robbery of his retail stores in as many weeks, so it's no wonder it got kicked back to Major Crimes. Old man Harborman is probably getting ready to behead whoever's behind this. He has enough problems with the divorce."
With that, the pair headed for Fifth and Georgia, the latest of Harborman's Retail Outlets to be hit by these very effective and efficient robbers. There was no doubt that they were all being committed by the same person or group of people. The MO was identical in all four robberies; the front door locks tampered with, the most expensive items stolen from the store, and the office safe open and empty, no finger prints, no foot prints, no fibers. The safes were never harmed by the break in. Whomever was committing these robberies had the combinations.
They arrived at the scene, fully taped off in yellow barrier tape. The store was already attracting reporters, so Simon had made sure to get the area blocked off fast. They showed their badges to the uniforms who were keeping the press back and walked into the store. Forensics was already there, dusting for prints and attempting to collect evidence. Jim spotted the captain and walked over to him. He noticed them and waved them over. Blair said, "Hi, Simon. Is this looking like it was the same guys?"
Banks nodded. "So far. These guys do a real slick job, never leaving anything for Forensics to pick up. I'm hoping you two can find something they might have missed." No one in the room would have taken that statement amiss except the owner, who was currently attempting to bully his way into the crime scene. Simon groaned, rubbing his forehead with his cigar-toting right hand and said, "Why don't you two get started while I deal with Harborman."
They nodded and Jim said, "Yes, sir."
The two detectives had made an art out of the way they worked a crime scene. Blair automatically placed a gentle hand on his Sentinel's back and began talking about what to look for as he used his senses. It wasn't that he thought Jim couldn't remember what to do from one instance to the next, but he knew that his voice and touch could provide a grounding effect that would keep him from zoning while he worked.
It didn't take long for Jim to find something in the air. Quickly noticing the change in his body language, Blair said, "What is it, Jim?"
"I'm smelling something weird here, Chief. I recognize it, but I can't quite place it."
"All right, just catalogue it for later. Any thing else?"
They went carefully over the entire store, but they found nothing else. It was time to go into the office. As Jim surveyed the room, he quickly spotted something behind the small vanity mirror that was kept on the desk. First, the glass was one way. Second, "Hey, there's a camera in here! It's pointed straight at the safe." He went over and picked up the mirror, surprised that the cheap setup hadn't been discovered by these thorough crooks. However, he thought that the store manager should be commended. Everything there was probably taken from the shelves of the store. The little mirror was part of a spy game that was sold there, the camcorder was of the brand sold there, and the book that was propping up the little camera was, too. This was all propped up on the office desk, and until Jim had picked up the mirror, a casual glance would not have revealed that there was anything wrong with the mirror being there.
The camera only took standard video cassettes, so there was only six hours of tape, but it would probably have the robbers on it. The night manager left at midnight and the opening manager normally came in at six, so the robbery would have had to take place in between those times. This was a major break.
When they got back to the station, they went to the lab to run the tape. As they were walking, Blair said, "Apparently the night manager has been doing that for the last two weeks, ever since the press got hold of the fact that the safes were always opened with the combination and not broken into. He figured if someone was targeting the chain they'd get to him eventually and he didn't plan on being blamed for the money disappearing. Last year they caught one of the cashiers stealing and he almost got blamed for the loss."
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Thank God for greedy men."
Blair snorted. "Yeah."
They reached the lab and Jim opened the door, allowing Blair to enter first. He put the tape into the VCR and hit play, then forwarded it until they saw the thieves come into view. They watched as a man knelt in front of the safe, pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket, and then punched in the numbers he read on the safe's keypad. The device then opened obligingly and the man, who was dressed totally in black and was wearing a ski mask and gloves, emptied the cash and change from the safe into the bag. Then he closed the bag and left the safe open, never even turning his head toward the hidden camera.
After the initial run-through, they played it again, this time in slow motion, hoping to catch some small mistake. A sudden flash of pale flesh at the thief's wrist made Jim pause the tape. "It looks like this guy has a tattoo on his arm." Just then, one of the lab techs walked in. "Hey, can you get me an enhancement of this frame? Mostly on the guy's wrist?"
The surprised tech took a moment to look, then said, "Sure. That shouldn't be too hard."
Blair grinned and said, "Things are looking up!"
Jim just smiled.
As the light faded from their view, Sentinel and Guide took quick stock of each other before looking at their surroundings. The first thing they noticed was that their clothes had been changed. Emily had been dressed in a dark blue, form-fitting shirt and loose black slacks with black ship boots. Chris had been in his uniform since he was due to go on duty in an hour. Now Emily was dressed in a red cotton spagetti-strap shirt, black denim jeans, black sneakers, and a black leather bike jacket. Chris was in a navy cotton collared shirt with long sleeves tucked into black jeans, a black leather belt, and black sneakers. All very much indicative of early twenty-first century fashion, fairly trendy without being terribly expensive. Then there was the place that they found themselves in. Emily asked, "Why did he send us to the loft? And why make us dress the part?"
Chris got to looking around. There was something wrong here. Then he looked out the glass balcony door and blanched. Noticing his reaction, Emily moved to where she could see out as well. Chris quietly said, "Holy-!" For outside the loft was not the mostly-destroyed ruin of an ancient city, with trees and grass and weeds encroaching from the surrounding forest to reclaim what once belonged to it, but a sprawling and very active metropolis of the early twenty-first century.
This caused Chris to notice other things, like the smell of coffee, fresh enough to have been made that morning, the ticking of the clock on the wall that proclaimed it was half past five o' clock in the evening, the news coming off the radio in the down-stairs bedroom that mentioned the date being August 15th and the City of Cascade's upcoming Labor Day celebration. Finally, he noticed a newspaper on the coffee table. He checked the date. "August 15th, 2002. If I didn't know it wouldn't hurt him, I'd wring the little brat's neck!"
Emily realized they were in trouble when she looked at the clock and it read 5:32 PM. "Chris! We have to get out of here. They get off at five. They'll be home any minute!"
Chris tried to remember what he knew about twentieth century construction. "Where's the fire escape?"
"Blair's room!"
At the sound of an approaching internal combustion engine, Chris cursed under his breath. He looked toward the door of the loft apartment and saw a large black jaguar. The animal growled at him in challenge. "We have really got to get out of here! All we need is for two twenty-first century cops to catch us in their apartment!"
Emily blanched. "Especially when one of them is a Sentinel!" They scrambled for Blair's bedroom. Emily got the window unlocked and they went through it. They started down the rickety steel stairway, praying that they could reach the bottom before the cops got out of the elevator. The other Sentinel would know already that something was amiss, and dealing with Jim Ellison in what Blair had always called "Blessed Protector" mode was not on their things to do list!
As Jim's blue and white '69 Ford pickup pulled in, Jim already knew that there was something wrong. He couldn't yet place it, though. However, once they were in the elevator, Jim pulled his gun. Blair said, "What is it, Jim? What's wrong?"
"I can hear voices in the loft. You expecting company?"
Blair's eyes narrowed. "Not me."
By the time they had reached the top floor of their building, Jim could make out what they were saying. "They went out the fire escape. They're talking about us using first names, so they know who we are, but I don't recognize the voices." They got inside the apartment and Blair got on his cell phone to call in a break in. Jim went to Blair's room to follow the invaders out the fire escape.
The two were already to the ground by the time he got out the window. He started tracking them as he tucked his gun back into its back waist-band holster and thundered his way down the steel, hoping to keep them within range of his senses. By the time he reached the bottom, however, they had either gotten out of his hearing range or they had stopped running, for he could no longer hear the pounding of two pairs of running sneakers on the sidewalk. Cursing the timing that had allowed them to escape, he went back around to the front of the building to the truck. Not surprisingly, Blair was there waiting for him. His partner often came so close to reading his mind it was scary.
Jim got into the driver's seat and started the truck while Blair got buckled in, then they headed off down the street, trying to spot the fugitives. Blair said, "What did they look like?"
"One white male, six foot plus, dark hair, blue shirt, black pants. One white female, five foot seven, dark hair, red shirt, leather jacket, black pants. Either they got out of range of my hearing, or they stopped running to blend in, and I'm betting on door number two."
As they rounded the corner, Jim spotted them on the sidewalk. They were walking briskly, but they weren't hurrying, blending into the crowd fairly easily. Not knowing if they were armed, he wanted to wait until he could get them away from people to apprehend them, but he wasn't sure if they would do that, especially knowing that there was someone after them. He paced them for a while, then saw an opportunity to make his move. He drove into an alley blocking their escape route in that direction. He got out and walked around the front of the truck. Blair got out, too, and they both started toward the fugitives. The male of the pair suddenly looked up toward them. He got a look of controlled fear on his face, then grabbed his companion and steered her toward the street.
They would have made it. Jim and Blair were much too far away to have caught up to them on foot at this point and still have to dodge traffic, and the man was obviously counting on that. But fate took a hand and forced matters. As they stepped into the street, the woman slightly ahead of the man, a red convertible with an idiot teenager at the wheel came speeding around the corner, probably in a race with the green one that was close behind it. She didn't see the car, and the driver swerved too late to miss her. Chrome collided with flesh with a sickening thud, throwing her ten feet before she hit the pavement.
The man shouted "Emily!" and ran to where she had landed, no longer caring about the police who were on their tail or the fact that he would be arrested now. For the moment, neither did the two detectives. All three men converged on the fallen woman, concerned for her well being.
The man reached her first. Her face was covered in blood from being dragged along the street, and it looked like she had broken a few bones. Jim listened and realized that she wasn't breathing. The fugitive shouted, "No! Don't you die on me, Emily!" He began mouth to mouth, trying to keep air moving in her lungs. Blair called it in and Jim watched in case her heart stopped as well and CPR was required before an ambulance could get there. It was nearly a full minute later, but she finally started breathing on her own again. Relief flooded the man's face, but she wasn't out of the woods yet, still unconcious and most likely with broken ribs. It didn't look like she had hit her head, just scraped her face along the road, making a bloody mess, but he made sure that she didn't start moving either in case she had a spinal injury.
"They're on the way, Jim," said Blair after shutting off his cell phone.
The partners silently agreed not to arrest the man until the ambulance arrived, sensing that the man wouldn't leave his female friend. However once it got there and the paramedics started taking care of her, Jim approached the man, handcuffs out and ready. He saw the maneuver, but he made no move to run. He just said, "Please. Let me wait until she's ready to go."
Jim regarded him thoughtfully, then nodded. It was a minor thing, and if it allowed him to have a cooperative prisoner, then he had no problem with it. "What's your name?"
He looked at him oddly, then seemed to wilt a bit. He said, "I can only tell you Christopher. I'm sorry."
"Why is that?"
He groaned, almost as if he were afraid of the answer to that question. He said, "That's classified. I really can't tell you anything else."
Classified? That meant these two were likely military. Shit! He prayed this didn't mean his secret was out. He was deathly afraid that the military would one day decide to kidnap him and try to turn him into a weapon, a brainwashed assassin, or even kill him and dissect his brain trying to find the part that made him a Sentinel and try to replicate it. Either way, it would mean the end of his life because he would be shot trying to escape or he would permanently zone out without his Guide there to center him. Unless they brought Blair along, and that didn't even bear thinking about.
They finished loading the woman into the ambulance. Christopher watched the vehicle pull away, worry and hope warring on his face as they turned the corner out of sight. Then he sighed and turned to face the detectives. "Do what you have to."
Jim sighed. "Let's get out of the street." Once they were on the sidewalk, he handcuffed Christopher and read him his rights, the charges being breaking and entering and evading arrest. He walked him over to the black and white that had just pulled up and put him in the back.
Blair walked up behind his partner. "Do you want to deal with this today, or go home and question him in the morning?"
Jim said, "He told me that even his last name is classified. We won't be getting anything out of him, so I think we should go home. Deal with him tomorrow. We've got the Harborman case, too, but if the military has decided to come after us that isn't going to matter much. I prefer to be fully rested if and when they show up."
As they got back into the truck to head back home, Blair prayed that Jim was wrong about the meaning of the break in, but he knew he would worry about it, making sleep a problematic concept at best. He sighed. It was going to be a long night.
Chris sat in the holding cell, his icy glare enough to get the other four occupants to leave him alone, though there were some things that it didn't help with. None of them were very clean, and the stench of unwashed bodies in his sensitive nose nearly made him want to vomit. One of the men, who had a blue mermaid tattooed on his bald head, continually ground his teeth, making the Sentinel want to knock them out. Other miriad sounds and smells made him want to cringe in their intensity.
He knew that if he didn't control his senses soon, he'd end up doing something to get himself in even more trouble. He imagined Emily's voice telling him how to dial down his senses, returning their sensitivity to more acceptable levels. Finally it worked, the sounds not so grating and the stench slightly more bearable. He took one of the unoccupied bunks and lay down on it, hoping that he'd at least be able to get a little sleep.
His and Emily's ancestors. He'd never entertained the idea of ever actually meeting them, certainly not to get arrested by them. If he didn't know that it wouldn't do any good, he thought he'd likely punch that Q brat in the teeth for dropping them in the loft like that! Hopefully the rest of this weird trip would go better.
Emily. God! He couldn't loose her! She was his Guide and his friend. He didn't think he'd survive if she were to die from her injuries. He was right there! Why couldn't he have protected her? Some Sentinel he was turning out to be! His own Guide, and he let her get hit by a damned car! He was a joke!
Holding back the tears that he knew would be a sign of weakness in this hostile environment, he slipped into a light doze, well aware that it was a good thing he had nothing to steal.
Emily woke in pain, trying to figure out where she was. A nurse came in and informed her that she was in the hospital. "Where's Chris?"
"We weren't told anything. All we know is your first name. Can you tell us your full name, Emily? We need it for our records."
She looked at the nurse, and realized that she couldn't say what her name was. The name Sandburg was well known by the hospitals in Cascade, and it was too much to hope that it wouldn't get back to her ancestor. Chris had probably been arrested. Damn! He wouldn't tell them anything because of the Temporal Prime Directive, and though she was the last one to be quoting Starfleet regulations, she realized that anything she said could easily change the future enough to alter hers and Chris's existence. Things had to remain secret! "I can't tell you that. It's classified." Hopefully saying that wouldn't get her thrown into the psych ward. Ha! She couldn't get that lucky. Jim and Blair would be arresting her as well, and hiding things from those two was going to be a pain, to say the least.
The nurse looked puzzled. "Why would your name be classified?"
"That's classified, too. Sorry. I wish I could tell you, but I really can't."
The nurse walked away in wonder. Classified, huh? That was a new one on her. Probably didn't want the cops to know her name so they wouldn't arrest her like they did the man who was with her. Well, it wasn't her problem.
Jim was in the jungle again. He looked down at himself and saw that he was dressed as he had been when he lived with the Chopec. He looked up and saw the jaguar, his spirit animal, and Blair's wolf trudging through the woods side by side. He followed them, knowing that he wouldn't be here if they didn't have something to show him.
They entered a clearing, and there in the dappled light were two other animals. One was a cat of a kind he'd never seen. It was about the size of a German Shepard, with a red and white face and a darker furred body. It's legs were shorter than a normal cat, giving it a vaguely weasel-like appearance, but it was undoubtedly feline. Next to it was another wolf, this one nearly blonde in color. They were obviously as much a pair as he and Blair. The jag sniffed at the odd cat, walking stiffly at the invasion of territory, but not actually challenging. Meanwhile, the two wolves checked each other out. Neither showed any signs of aggression. It seemed that they would all be getting along.
Just then, Incacha came into the clearing. He said, "These two are here to help you, Enquiri. They will only be here for a short time before they are returned to their own place. They mean you no harm and would protect your lives with their own, for their lives depend on your survival, and more than that, they, too, are Sentinel and Shaman."
The scene faded and Jim woke with a start. He hated the visions sometimes, but this one didn't seem too bad. This one he could live with. There was definitely something coming, something big, but they were going to have help.
The phone rang, urging Jim to get up. He looked at the clock. 5:42 a.m. Man! Oh, well. He'd only have to get up in twenty minutes any way. He stood up and went down stairs, rubbing his eyes as he picked up the phone. "Ellison."
"Jim, I need you and Sandburg down here as soon as possible. That guy who was in your apartment last night was found this morning in lock up staring into space. Nothing's been able to bring him out of it. Sound familiar?"
"Sounds like a zone-out. You think he could be a Sentinel?"
"That's Sandburg's department. I want him to see for himself. I don't need to tell you, but we really don't need another Alex Barnes. I need to know if this guy is a danger."
"We'll be down as soon as we can get showered and dressed. See you in a few." He hung up the phone. This had to be the guy from his dream. But then why was he and his friend in the loft?
Blair, who had also been wakened by the phone, said groggily, "What's up?"
"Christopher was found this morning in lock up completely zoned. No one can seem to bring him out of it. Simon wants us down there fast." Blair's eyes widened. The specter of Alex Barnes, the rogue Sentinel who had killed him and nearly broken their friendship apart, visibly floated in front of his face. Jim remembered the lessons he'd learned from her and said, "I had a dream last night, one I'm guessing is talking about him and Emily. Incacha said that they were here to help us with something, and that after that they'd be gone." He told Blair about the images in the dream, the weird looking cat and the blonde wolf.
Blair thought for a moment. "That would mean that Emily is his Guide. She's in no condition to bring him out of it. I'll need to get him alone somewhere. We don't want the general population of the lock up to see me pulling him out of a zone."
Thirty minutes later, both men were showered and dressed. They went down stairs and got in the truck and headed for the station. On the way, the hospital called to tell them that Emily was awake, but that she couldn't be moved for at least another twenty-four hours. She could, however, be questioned. They decided that they would head to the hospital after dealing with Christopher.
They walked into the station lock up and were escorted by the guard to the cell that held Christopher. He was laying on one of the bunks, facing the wall and curled up into a ball. The other prisoners seemed to be ignoring the man, but when Blair turned him over, it became brutally apparent that this had not been the case all night. A major bruise had blossomed across one whole side of his face, his right eye swollen shut. His left eye stared into space, proving he was indeed in a zone.
Jim's anger at the sight came to the fore with a speed that shocked all but Blair. "Who did this?!" No one answered, increasing his anger. "If you don't tell me now, you'll all get assault pinned on the back of whatever you're facing now. If you do, only he'll get the assault charge." All of the prisoners blanched, and three of them suddenly pointed to the fourth, a bald man with a tattoo on his head. This man tried to cringe back, but Ellison grabbed him. He called the guard. "Take this guy down stairs and tack assault on the back of whatever he's in here for."
Blair, meanwhile, was trying to assess the damage that had been done and if he would be able to pull the man out of his zone. He figured he had either zoned on the pain, or he had already been zoned on something else and the creep had decided to take advantage of the situation. His anger rose to match his partner's, but it was more important to him to get Christopher out of here so he could bring him back. "Jim, we need to get this guy out of here and into the infirmary."
Jim turned and nodded. "All right." He told the guard to call the infirmary before he came back. Whatever it took to get this man back on his feet and able to answer the miriad of questions that were running through his head.
They went to the infirmary with Christopher, waiting while the staff doctor got him cleaned up. She left to go get some bandages after a while to deal with the cut over his eye. While she was gone, Blair started to talk to him in a low voice, taking a guess and calling him Chris instead of Christopher on the off chance that it was his first name and not his last, giving him instructions to get him to come out of the zone. He didn't touch him in case it was his sense of touch spiking. That lesson had been learned early on in his partnership with Jim when he had ended up with a back hand and a black eye from startling the older man out of a zone. However, the constant low speech gave the stranger something to focus on, allowing him to come back. Blair could tell it was working when his good eye closed, then opened again, signaling a return to awareness. He blinked a few times, then groaned as the pain he hadn't felt in the gray fugue state hit him like a bulldozer. When he started moving around, Blair said, "Hey. Stay still man, you're going to hurt yourself."
Chris took in the scent of the man above him. There was something about it familiar, something so close to his own Guide's scent that it instantly calmed him. He opened his good eye, realizing that the other one had swollen shut. What the hell happened? He looked up and saw the two men who's pictures and lives were so much a part of Emily's work. He said, "Where's S- Emily?" Damn! He'd almost called her Sandburg.
The elder Sandburg looked at him. "She's still in the hospital. They called us this morning and she's awake. We were going over there right after we talk to you."
Relief flooded him. If she was awake, then she was all right. Next question. "What happened to me?"
After making sure that the doctor wasn't close enough to hear, Blair said, "One of your cell mates thought it was funny that you didn't respond to pain while zoned out."
His gaze narrowed. They knew he was a Sentinel because he had zoned. Damn. Now they were more than just curious. He blew out a heavy sigh. "Look, I know how this is going to sound, but we really didn't intend to end up in your apartment. We cut out of there because we knew you wouldn't appreciate it and we couldn�t figure out how we were going to explain our presence when we didn't really understand it much ourselves."
His ancestor glared at him, making him think of how much he looked like Uncle Jack. He shook his head to clear it of errant thoughts. Jim said, "You didn't mean to?"
He groaned. "I know, that sounds weak, but I'm not allowed to tell you much." Just then, the doctor returned. Curious about twenty-first century medicine, he looked to see what she had brought. Gauze bandages? At least it was in sterile packaging, and she was wearing gloves. He hated to think of receiving any serious injuries while stuck in this time. That thought made him jerk. Emily's name barely escaped his lips. What kinds of injuries had she received? How well was she being treated?
Jim's Sentinel hearing caught the bare whisper. He softened a bit. The man was obviously not at the top of his game with his Guide stuck in the hospital and no way for him to be by her side. He knew that he wouldn't be. He sighed. "Look, you say you aren't allowed to tell us these things. Who could you tell?"
Chris looked up at Jim. The question suggested a solution, though not the one he was thinking of. He smiled slightly. "I can't tell anyone. But that's not true of Emily. Oh she's not allowed, exactly, but she's not disallowed either. She's, for want of a better word, a civilian."
"A ride-along?"
He grinned. "Something like that." Then he quit grinning because the doctor, who was a bit jaded from having to deal with criminals for so long, was not exactly being the gentlest while cleaning out the cut and bandaging it.
Noticing the expression on his face, Blair said, Sentinel-soft, "Find the dial. Turn it down. Not all the way, just enough to be bearable."
Chris was able to anchor on Blair's voice, though not as well as he could on Emily's. He finally got the dial down, bringing the pain from a fiery agony to a low-grade sting. He looked at Blair gratefully. "Why don't you two go talk to her? She can tell you some of what I can't. She'll probably keep some things back, because even though she isn't required to follow the same directives I am, she understands the reasons behind this one. Tell her I said that the Prime Directive is only for the Fleet. She'll understand that." He sighed. "I hope she's all right."
Jim looked at the man before him. There was something familiar about him, something that went past the fact that he was a Sentinel. He felt that he could trust him. He remembered the dream, remembered Incacha's warning that both he and his Guide would be needed soon. He wanted to make sure, though. He made a decision. "We'll go see her in a little while. If she can convince me that you're telling the truth, I'll drop the charges. For now, as soon as the doc's through patching you up, you'll be going back to your cell."
Blair said, "The guy that hit you won't be any where near you." The doctor left to get some final supplies. Blair said, "By the way, what did you zone on?"
Chris was suddenly embarrassed. "That idiot with the mermaid on his head kept grinding his teeth and I was trying real hard to ignore him so I wouldn't punch them out."
Blair chuckled. "Nothing to be embarrassed about. Jim zoned on a Frisbee the first day we met." Then he ducked as Jim predictably tried to cuff him in the head.
Jim was grinning as he said, "Come on, Darwin. Visiting hours at the hospital start soon."
"Yeah. We'll let you know how she's doing later."
Chris looked gratefully at the retreating pair. "Thank you."
Emily looked up from what was supposedly her breakfast, deciding that the boiled roots she'd been forced to eat on Adelphus IV had tasted better, and saw the two men who's lives had been the basis of her life's work walking off the elevator. Man, how she wished she could just sit down and talk with them without having to worry about altering the future! The two detectives walked into her room with stern expressions, forcing her to remember what they were there for. They had probably spoken to Chris already, and he would have stonewalled them because of the Temporal Prime Directive. While she didn't fully agree with the policy, she understood why it was necessary. Not everyone who ended up in a temporal anomaly had the sense to know what might change the future and what probably wouldn't. She definitely knew of a few who she wouldn't have trusted not to accidentally change their own past or hers. The problem was in knowing what kinds of information was safe and what wasn't, as well as knowing who to trust with it.
Still, she should probably not say anything. Chris might get mad at her if he broke the damned directive, and she didn't think it was worth a fight. Some things were, but not this, not when every argument she could make could be countered by Chaos Theory and the Heisenburg uncertainty principle. Man, but it was tempting!
Ellison closed the door to her room and sat on the chair next to the bed. Sandburg the elder stood at the foot of the bed trying to be intimidating. She pretended it worked, but it was too much of a family resemblance and she knew too much about him to be intimidated like that. She knew that he wouldn't hurt her unless she threatened Jim, at which point she would wish she were dead. Not that she would do anything like that. Ellison laced his fingers together and leaned forward, then said quietly, "Do you think you can tell me what you were doing in our apartment last night?"
Now he was much more intimidating. But what could she tell him? "We didn't mean to" just sounded so lame, and "An omnipotent brat dropped us in there as a cosmic joke" sounded a lot worse. As she struggled with it, Blair's expression softened. "We talked to Chris. He told us to tell you that the Prime Directive is only for the Fleet. He said that you'd know what that meant."
Her eyes widened. He was right. She wasn't held by the rules of Starfleet personnel because she wasn't in Starfleet. It wasn't Earth or Federation law, it was Starfleet regulations. She was a civilian scientist. She would just have to be careful what she said so that she didn't give away anything that would change the future. "He's right. I can tell you some of it. This is going to sound really weird, and I don't know if you're going to believe me, but if you'll hear me out, I promise I can prove what I'm saying." She took a deep breath before she continued. "Let me first begin by fully introducing myself. My name is Dr. Emily Sandburg. My partner's name is Lieutenant Christopher Ellison. We are from three hundred and seventy-seven years into your future, and we are descended from the two of you, respectively. I have a double doctorate in anthropology and xenopology from Oxford, and for the past four years since I inherited the loft in my own time, I've been trying to get your work validated so that I could base my own on it. I finally succeeded, at least partially. Two of my professors and one of Starfleet's most prestigious officers have all conceded to the possibility that Sentinels might actually exist, and Commander Data understands the need to protect the subjects of research from public scrutiny. He's seen the work of scientists abused first hand before, and he would not see another suffer it. I've been looking for Sentinels in non-human cultures, and my current plan is to look at the planet Bajor. As to how we ended up in your apartment, that has nothing to do with my work. A being from an omnipotent race called the Q decided to pull a stunt. I think he's doing a bit of research himself, but he has a particularly ironic sense of humor. Before he dropped us in the loft, he said that he wanted to see how such a relatively primitive pair would react to this kind of sudden change. Personally, I just think he was in the mood for a good prank, but I don't actually know that."
The two detectives stared at her for a moment. She was either the world's best liar, as Jim could detect no change in either her heart rate or her eyes, she was crazy and believed what she was saying, or she was telling the truth. There was one thing that he could sense that lent credence to her words. Her scent was similar to that of his Guide in the same way that Simon's scent and Daryl's were so close together. It wasn't as strong a similarity, but through so many generations, it wouldn't be.
Blair was trying to make sense of the academic part of her story. The thought that even someone in the far future would take that kind of time to validate the work of a confessed fraud was touching at least. But she had said that she could prove it, and he wanted to know how. "You said you could prove it?"
She smiled. Good. They weren't dismissing her as a loony out of hand. "What's today's date?"
"August 16th."
She thought back over what she had read of Blair's journals, praying that she could remember specifics. After all their case load was always so heavy and they solved them so fast... "Ah! I remember. You're right in the middle of the Harborman case. You were called to the scene of the fourth robbery yesterday after lunch. The manager, having been burned on previous occasions of missing money, had set up a camera in the office pointing at the safe. It caught the tattoo on the wrist of one of the robbers, and by 3:00 this afternoon, forensics will have the blowup that you asked for of that frame. That's all I can tell you about the case without changing the future."
For a moment, it didn't take Sentinel senses to be able to hear a pin hitting the floor. The press could have deduced that Major Crime's best team would be the ones working this case, especially given that Harborman was the mayor's cousin. But no one other than the guys in the lab and Simon knew about the camera or the tattoo. And now they had a prediction as to the time when the lab boys would be done with work that she couldn't know about. Gathering his thoughts, Jim said, "How could you know that even if you are from the future?"
She grinned. "You know how detailed his diaries are. Cop he may be, but he's an anthropologist, too. I inherited everything, the journals, the research, the dissertation, and that's what I've been using to help Chris. Believe me, I'm glad I had this information so that we haven't had to go through some of what you have. Although I was surprised when Chris told me that he considered me to be his Guide." Then she chuckled. "Although the increase in excitement in my life should have been a clue."
Blair said, "What do you mean?"
She looked at him, merriment glinting in her eyes. "In the last three months, I've been held hostage three times and been shot at more times than I'd care to remember, though I haven't actually been hit, and now I've been sent nearly four hundred years into the past by an entity who's following in his father's interfering footsteps playing the 'Let's piss off Starfleet' game." She sighed. "To be fair, he's probably just getting a little humor in along with his research. As the first new member in his race since before the dawn of time, he's really being put through the hoops to make sure he doesn't turn into a monster, as well as having to be educated about the universe, something that's never had to be done before."
Jumping in before his partner's curiosity could run away with him, Jim said, "We'll wait until three this afternoon. If the labs are back by then, I'll drop the charges. Then we're all going to have to have a serious talk. If you're lying, I'll still be back, but I'll be leaning on you very hard to find out what you were really doing in our apartment. Let's go, Chief."
Emily snorted. "You already know I'm not lying, detective."
He glared at her and walked out of the room. Blair put his head in his hand. "Do you know how dumb that move was?"
She smiled gently at her ancestor. "I know the Ellison quirks, but I don't like him trying to intimidate me. He does know I'm not lying, so that was just rude."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, but you don't have to deal with him."
Jim stuck his head back in the room. "I heard that, Darwin." He grinned. "Come on, we need to get back to the station."
Once they were in the truck and headed toward the station, Blair said, "So what did you think?"
"About Emily? I don't know, Chief. That's a really wild story, but it's also an easy one to check. We just have to wait 'till three o' clock. If it's true, we should drop the charges, but Simon's going to ask why. He has enough problems just dealing with the Sentinel thing. I don't know how he'll handle visitors from the future and omnipotent beings with a prankster's sense of humor. Hell, I don't know how I'm dealing with it." Then he grinned. "After all, two Sandburgs in the same room..."
"You're real funny, man." He sighed. "If this is for real, We're probably going to be in the middle of a big mess. This kid doesn't sound like the type to do things for the sake of the prank alone. He's got a purpose behind it, and it isn't likely to be small."
Jim nodded. "And that would go along with the feeling in that dream. There's something big brewing, and we're going to need Chris and Emily to help with it. Meanwhile, we need to work on the Harborman case." He glanced at his watch. "We've got five hours at least to wait for those labs. We can go tell Chris that Emily is all right, then we can work on the case until three, or whenever those labs arrive. Then if it pans out we talk to Simon."
Time dragged slowly for the detectives. They couldn't do anything with the Harborman case until they got the labs back, so they did paper work, trying not to seem like they were either bored or waiting impatiently for a single group of lab findings, because if they did, it would just invite Simon to ask what was wrong.
Then, at fifteen 'till three, Serena came through the doors of the bullpen. "Jim. Here's that enhancement you wanted. Definitely a tattoo, and probably from prison." She handed him the folder.
Trying to hide the shivers that were working their way up his spine, he told the woman thanks, and she left. He looked at the paper inside. She was right on all counts. Now he could have Sandburg go through the computer and try to find a match for it. Only half of it was showing, the bottom half obscured by the sleeve of the robber's shirt, but it was fairly distinctive so it shouldn't be too hard to find.
He looked at the clock, knowing that he would have done so without this prediction come true. 2:47. Man!
Blair came over to him and said, "So what do we do now?"
"Now we go talk to Simon."
"Man, he is so not going to like this conversation."
"So let me get this straight. The people who broke into your loft not only didn't mean to and didn't really break in, they're a Sentinel and Guide from almost four hundred years in the future? And you believe this?"
Jim sighed. "I know how it sounds, sir. That's why we didn't just take it on faith. But what she said came true, and given that nothing was taken or damaged and I can't figure out how they got in there, what she told us fit. We know that Christopher is a Sentinel, and it's obvious that Emily's his Guide. I get the feeling that something big's going on with this Q, and whatever it is, it's going to take both groups to fix it."
Simon took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was really becoming a long day. "Why wouldn't Christopher tell you anything?"
Blair said, "Apparently he's some kind of military officer. She called the organization Starfleet. They have a directive that says if you find yourself in the past you can't do anything that might alter the future. They're probably very strict about it with the officers, but Emily's a civilian scientist. I'm guessing its not the law, its regulations, and she's not Starfleet." He grinned. "Sounds close enough to 'You're not a cop.' to me."
Jim snorted. Simon just groaned and under his breath where only Jim could hear it he said, "What did I do to deserve having to deal with two Sandburgs and two Ellisons?" Jim moved his hand to his mouth to cover a laugh. Simon glared at the both of them, then dropped it, a look of resignation crossing his features. He sighed and said, "All right. You two go drop the charges on Christopher then take him over to the hospital. You have anything on the Harborman robberies yet?"
Jim said, "Yes, sir." He handed Simon the blow up. "This is an enhancement of one of the frames on that tape. We have half of a prison tattoo. It shouldn't be too hard to find a match in the computer, and Sandburg can work on that tonight."
"Good. The mayor's been breathing down my neck on this one, and I'd like it resolved, fast. Which I know you always do anyway, but you'll be distracted a bit with your, um, relatives. That'll be all, gentlemen." As his two best detectives left his office, he wondered if he would be able to survive this latest trip into the Sandburg Zone.
Down in lockup, they got Chris out, Jim checking over the injuries once they were out of the cell block. He was annoyed by the fussing, but he knew the man had medical training, so he endured it. He said, "Can I go see Emily?"
Blair nodded. "Yeah, we were headed over there next. You just have to sign the paper work with the desk sergeant, and we'll get out of here."
Emily saw Chris through the open door and broke into a broad grin. The top half of her bed had been elevated, so she just had to lean forward a bit to catch her Sentinel's quick embrace. "I'm so glad you're all right, Chris!"
"Me? You're the one who got hit by a car. What did the doctors say?"
"Nothing worse than a couple of broken ribs and a nasty case of road rash. Nothing that won't heal fairly quickly, as long as I take it easy." A glint of mischief twinkled in her eyes. "Also nothing that would ruin my good looks."
Chris grinned. "Can't have that." He sighed. "I hate having to leave you in the hands of twenty-first century medicine!"
She chuckled, shaking her head. "At least we're not even further back! These people at least have monitoring equipment and a good idea of what's supposed to go where. What if we'd ended up in the Ancient West, or the Civil War?"
Chris thought about it and shuddered. Those conditions were worse than most field conditions he'd had to deal with. Even when he was on that damned moon, L'Arcon, he'd had a tricorder and a modern field kit that had a tiny medical replicator and a water filter. He was definitely glad that they hadn't ended up in the nineteenth century. He changed the subject. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine! Just a little achy here and there. They gave me pain medication, so I have no problems at the moment." She turned to the detectives who were standing at the end of the bed. "So what now?"
Jim looked at her and answered, "Since you didn't actually break in, we're dropping the charges. We told Captain Banks about you two, but no one else knows. Officially, the record will just be 'no harm, no foul.' Blair is well known for being too compassionate for his own good, so it'll be believable. Do you have any idea how long you're going to be here?"
Emily shook her head wryly. "The Q are all very different. Some people have been able to predict them, to a point, but it's not easy, and the kid's a new player. He's not only Q, but he's also basically a teenager. He's just a kid, and every other member of his race is infinitely older than he is. He has a beginning. They don't. There's no telling what that kind of pressure has done to his head."
Chris snorted at the verbose explanation. "In other words, he's highly unpredictable and we haven't got a clue." He jerked his head to indicate his Guide. "Is that genetic?"
Jim grinned at his descendent. "Probably." Then he grew serious. "Since you don't know how long you two are going to be in our time, it would probably be a good idea if you got settled in as soon as the docs release you. You're going to need a place to live and jobs to support yourselves, and that's going to be hard to get with no prior records of any kind. Now, I own the entire building where the loft is except for the bakery. I'll let you stay in one of the empty apartments rent free. 209 is empty. It's small, just one bedroom, a hundred and eighty square feet, but hopefully by the time it would start to feel cramped, the punk will let you go back home."
Jim and Blair went back to work on the Harborman robberies, leaving Chris and Emily in the loft so that the xenopologist could recuperate in comfort. Jim tried several times to convince Emily to tell him what she knew, but she stonewalled him. "You're the detective! You figure it out!"
They soon managed to track down both the tattoo and the odd odor that had been at the crime scene. The tattoo belonged to a third-time loser named Jack Bell, who'd done time for theft and B&E. He had a serious problem with snuff, and the warden had tried to help him quit with an herbal substitute, which was what Jim had been smelling at the crime scenes. They checked his mail and phone logs and found that he had been getting letters and calls from Harborman's home over the last three months of his incarceration, and the first break in was only two weeks after Bell got out. Suspecting insurance fraud, Jim went after Harborman, but when he confronted the man in his home, Harborman started yelling at his estranged wife. Turned out that she had hired the men to commit the robberies in a vindictive move to throw him off his game during the divorce proceedings. After closing the case, Jim apologized to Emily and promised to never ask again.
The weeks that followed were strange for the pair from the future. Emily was used to integrating herself into different cultures and slid in without too much trouble. After all, the culture of Earth in the 24th century was very similar to that of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Even Chris didn't have too much trouble with that part. It was the little things, though, that caused them problems.
The first time Chris tried to take a shower, just after Emily was released from the hospital, he had to get Jim to show him how to use the knobs, a thoroughly embarrassing situation. Jim tried mightily to suppress his laughter, knowing Chris was just not used to this lower level of technology, but he failed, and within minutes, both were laughing at the incident.
Then came Emily's first attempt at washing laundry. She took her's and Chris's dirty clothes down to the basement, where the building's laundry room was located. She had a box of Ivory Snow, the detergent that she remembered from Blair's journals as being Sentinel-friendly, and didn't think to check on how much to use. She loaded the washer, making sure she had the right machine, and then went to add the detergent. She looked at the little scoop that was included in the box, and decided that three was probably a good amount to get the clothes clean. She poured in the powered soap, and then went back up stairs to check on the dinner she was making.
When she went back down thirty minutes later to put the clothes in the dryer, the resulting surprised shout drew the attention of both Sentinels, and they and Blair all went down to see what was wrong. They found her waist deep in suds, cursing in a language that no one recognized, trying to find the evil machine that held her laundry captive. They all tried to keep from laughing at her troubles, but a snicker escaped Blair's throat. Emily twirled around to glare at him, causing masses of bubbles to float up out of the sea of soap and air. This caused Chris to start chuckling, and soon all three men were howling with laughter.
Emily tried to stay mad, just standing there with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at them, her lower lip pouted out and a bits of suds sticking in her hair and on her nose. Still chuckling, and not wanting his Guide angry with him, Chris walked over to her, braving the soap and her temper to calm her down and get her to see the humor in the situation. He reached up and flicked the suds off of her nose, grinning at her. Finally, the hilarity of the whole mess broke through and she started to smile, and then she flicked some of the slippery stuff at his face.
Feeling the need for retaliation, Chris had soon started a sud war and efficiently dragged Jim and Blair into it. When they were discovered later by Mrs. Walton from 106, all were covered in suds and playing like children. She sighed and walked back to her apartment, grumbling about infantile cops and their weird relatives. That set Chris and Jim off again, and the two Guides demanded simultaneously, "What's so funny?" That, of course, just made them laugh harder.
For the first month, other simple technologies that had been replaced centuries before in their time, things like personal computers, radios, and cell phones, caused Chris and Emily grief, embarrassment and tons of good laughs. They usually did okay in public, but the mall was quite an experience for both of them. It wasn't unlike a hundred market places that Emily had been in, but taking Chris there almost proved to be a mistake. She had to help him with the dials quickly, and there was so much continual stimulation, he was either spiking or zoning almost continually. Eventually, though, they were able to fine tune his control enough to get him out of there and back to their apartment, where they could work on his handling of multiple stimuli. This caused Chris to start griping about tests. Jim chuckled from above in the loft. "It's genetic! All Sandburgs must annoy Ellisons with tests!"
Chris glared at the ceiling in the direction from which his ancestor's voice had come. "Laugh all you want, Grandpa. Just be careful, or I might sic her on you!"
"Grandpa!? Kids these days! No respect for their elders!"
Finding the younger Sentinel and Guide jobs was difficult, as neither had any records of any kind, any proof that they existed, but eventually, desperate employers and endorsements from Jim and Blair put Emily behind the counter at Collette's Bakery, in the same building as the loft, and got Chris in with Quest Construction. Both received their pay in cash, and it was all put onto Jim's taxes so that there were no laws being broken.
With the money they made working, Chris and Emily moved into #209, furnishing it through reputable second-hand stores and bargain sales. They didn't need much, small as the place was, and within three months, they were firmly established in their little home.
When Chris got nervous about the changes they could be making to history, Emily was glad to reassure him. "Those changes are pretty small, don't worry. I remember that, when I inherited the building, this apartment had been bricked up, which was why I didn't check it out. I'll bet that's Blair's doing. Whenever Q decides to send us back, if you can get leave to come back to Earth, we should come back and open it. I'll bet that, however we leave it, it's exactly the same, just dustier. Jim and Blair are very good at keeping secrets. They've had to be, and we have been very careful about changing things. We don't give out information about the future, we don't talk about future history where anyone can hear us, even Jim, and we've learned how to blend in. There shouldn't be any problems."
The lieutenant nodded. "You're right. Do you think we're acclimated enough that we could meet the rest of Major Crime? Introduce ourselves as relatives? I'd love to get to know them before Q gets bored and sends us back."
They gradually made the tiny apartment into a home, using what little was left over from their checks to furnish and decorate it. Emily even painted it, adding a thin decorative border around the tops of the walls that used Vulcan symbols of logic and the Chopec symbols of Love, Honor, and Protection. The two sets were strangely compatible as design elements, and the rooms looked astounding.
As the months wore on, the time travelers became more and more integrated, not making the kinds of temporal mistakes, like trying to talk to the personal computers or forgetting to lock their front door, that had marked their first month. They were able to meet the rest of Major Crime, quickly becoming just as well liked as their ancestors. They also got to meet William and Steven Ellison, as well as Naomi Sandburg. The first meeting with the senior Ellison was an incredibly stuffy affair in which William managed to piss off both Sentinels with amazing ease. He tried three times to find out about the future of his business, and he wouldn�t take no for an answer. Finally, Chris had to quote regulations at the man to get him to shut up. Steven had the grace to be embarrassed about his father's insistence, but he wasn't exactly sociable either.
Things went much better with Naomi. She just showed up out of the blue one day while Jim and Blair were out on a case and Chris and Emily were bringing things up to their apartment for dinner. She assumed they were just friends of the detectives, and neither could really get a word in edge wise, so it remained that way until Jim and Blair got home. She helped them cook, and they tried to keep her from rearranging the furniture. Emily's exasperated comment that the woman acted just like her Aunt Ruth struck him as funny and she had a hard time trying to explain why he was laughing his head off when he was across the room.
When Jim and Blair walked in the door, it was to Chris and Naomi in the kitchen, Naomi chattering on about the benefits of sage, and Chris reminding her that both he and Jim were allergic to the stuff. Emily was giggling from the couch and trying to keep Naomi from seeing it, even though there was no way that she could keep it from Chris. The detectives set Naomi straight as to who Emily and Chris were and how they were here. Naomi then had just one question. "You're from the future? Wow! So tell me, when is Blair going to get married?"
"Mom!" Blair blushed to the roots of his hair at the interfering question.
Emily just grinned. "I can't even tell you if he will. It could cause him to change history, maybe to the point where he never has any kids, and then where am I?"
"Oh. I hear that."
Emily just groaned. "Yep, just like Aunt Ruth." Which started Chris laughing again.
Chris and Emily grew closer and closer, spending all their time together and learning each other's quirks and personalities, until finally, on a rare sunny day in May, while walking along the beach, Chris guided Emily to a storm-tossed log and sat her down on it. He knelt before her in the sand, and held her hand in both of his own, kneading the back of it with his thumbs. He said quietly, "You and I have become partners, Em. We work together as well as Jim and Blair, and they've been at this a lot longer than we have. But more than that, I've found myself thinking of you not just as a partner, but as someone I could spend the rest of my life with." He looked up into her eyes. "I haven't even dated since I was rescued from L'Arcon. I couldn't trust anyone to get that close to me and not leave. But with you... I know that even if you were killed, you'd still be with me." He sighed. "Just the thought of losing you scares me witless. I don't know if I'd ever be able to forgive myself, but I do know that it would hurt worse if I never knew you in the first place. I love you, Emily Sandburg, and I would be honored if you would become my wife." He pulled a small black velvet box out of his pants pocket, opening it to reveal a gold band set with a beautiful glittering diamond. "Will you marry me?"
Emily stared at the simple, beautiful ring, shocked and delighted all at once. She looked up at the man she loved, the man who was being so brave as to bare his heart to her and reveal how easily she could break it if she chose, something she knew she would never do intentionally. Then she chuckled, smiling at the man who would soon be her husband. At his raised eyebrow, she said, "You know, I'm going to have to thank Blair. Without his journals, I'm sure I would have screwed up being your Guide. He and Jim had to deal with so many trust issues over the years, but I could see their mistakes and avoid making them myself. And now here we are, you trusting me so far that you can open yourself up to me. I've loved you for a long time, Chris. I think I've loved you since you threatened to decompress Moloney." Chris laughed, remembering when the ensign who had suffered from post-traumatic stress had tried to kill Emily thinking she was Jem'Hadar. His threat to kill the ensign had shocked her, but she hadn't let it phase her, and she'd managed to convince him that it would be a really bad idea. "You proved to me then that you thought I was valuable, and I've never been that before. If it would honor you to marry me, it would also honor me to marry you. I love you, Christopher Ellison."
The next day, they went to the station to talk to Captain Banks. They had discussed it, and they thought he would be perfect to officiate at their wedding. When the asked him, he stared at them in shock. "Why me? My own marriage didn't last."
Chris smiled at him. "Making it last is our responsibility, not yours. It's Starfleet tradition that the Captain of a ship officiate the marriages of any of their crew. Captain Peters isn't available, and I get the feeling that, had I been born in the twentieth century instead of the twenty-fourth, I would be one of your men. We'd be honored, sir, if you would marry us on the first of June."
Simon shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his countenance. "If that's what you want, the honor is mine." Then he grinned. "At least one Sandburg respects me."
With a twinkle in her eye, Emily said, "Oh, Blair respects you just fine, Simon. He just likes to keep you on your toes."
Chris snorted. "And believe me, that's genetic, too. Em is the only being in space who gets away with calling Benjamin Peters 'Benny.' Not the smartest thing to do with a man who could twist rebar into a pretzel if he wanted."
Emily just winked at him, completely unrepentant. "Be careful, Ellison, or you just might end up in a Betazoid wedding."
Chris blushed to the roots of his hair. "You wouldn't!"
Simon raised an eyebrow at them. "Why would this be such a bad thing?"
Emily grinned evilly. "The dress code is very strict. Wear one stitch of clothing, and you aren't allowed into the ceremony."
The wedding was fairly small, Jim as Chris's best man, Blair as Emily's best man (she insisted she could have one, and no one who knew her was about to go against the statement), and Simon officiating, the rest of Major Crime in the audience, along with the crew from Collette's Bakery, Naomi, and a few others here and there who'd made friends with the couple. It wasn't exactly a traditional wedding, Emily sneaking in cultural touches from other races here and there, as well as adding a touch of the Sandburg Zone, but it was elegant, and without the threatened Betazoid-style dress code.
The color scheme was white and gray-blue, with accents of gold and green. The gray-blue color was not one commonly used, so it was fairly inexpensive to obtain, and it didn't clash with the PD dress uniforms. Emily had done her best to imitate the Starfleet dress uniform, the newer white one, and though it wasn't perfect and couldn't have the Starfleet insignia on it for obvious reasons, Chris appreciated it. There were candles and evergreen garlands all over the small church that had allowed them to use their auditorium, with white and gray-blue ribbons tied to all the pews.
Chris stood nervously at the end of the aisle, Jim and the rest of Major Crime ribbing him good naturedly about loosing his freedom. He took the teasing in good humor, but most of his attention was focused on the large double doors at the back of the room. Jim watched him closely, knowing his descendant was ripe for a zone-out, and not wanting his special day to be ruined by that kind of embarrassment.
Then, as the clock finished striking noon, Jim hit the play button on the stereo that sat unobtrusively beside the podium. A rare recording of a Chopec pipe and drum duet floated into the room. Jim and Blair had visited them after Sandburg had graduated from the Police Academy in order to decompress before starting his new career, and he had recorded the hauntingly lovely music during the trip. Emily, of course, had the same recording, having inherited it, along with the rest of the loft, and had always enjoyed it, so she had asked him to borrow it for the wedding. Since it was a love song anyway, it was completely appropriate.
The music starting was the signal for the doors to open, revealing the bride. Emily had made the dress herself, just as she had made Chris's outfit. It had a simple design, flowing straight down in the front and flaring into a long train in the back and trimmed along the hem, cuffs and seams in gold braiding. The bouquet was made of greenery and violets and peppered here and there with baby's breath.
Emily's eyes never left Chris's as she walked down the aisle. She could tell he had zoned out and whispered to Jim to knock him out of it. Jim tapped him on the back, and to the bride's relief, he blinked. She grinned at him and he smiled back, a bit sheepishly. To prevent a recurrence of that light zone, Emily started talking under her breath. "You know, it's not polite to leave your own wedding. I want your full attention, Lieutenant Ellison, and if I get it, you'll be rewarded later."
Once she arrived at the end of the aisle, he took her hand and said, "You did have my full attention, you know. It was you I zoned on. You're just so beautiful, and I love you so much!"
At the podium, Simon cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the bride and groom, and then addressed them and the gathering. "In certain military traditions, when an officer or any of his family were ready to be married, they could either go to the priest or to the officer's captain. It has always been an honor to be asked.
"When two people fall in love, when they know it's real, they want to get married. Now, they know, and we know, that there are plenty of bumps in that road, but I believe that it's possible to make it to forever, and so do they. Emily Sandburg, do you vow to cherish and love this man, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?"
Emily replied, "In all my travels through lands and cultures which shall remain nameless, I have never felt what I feel for you. I've been in love with you almost from the second time we met, and I could never love another this way. I can't even imagine it. I vow to love and cherish you, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part."
Simon nodded and turned to Chris. "Christopher Ellison, do you vow to love and cherish this woman, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do you part?"
Chris blinked, then said, "I've lived in hell before. I know what it feels like, what it smells like, and when I try to imagine what I would ever do without you, that's what I see. I love the sound of your voice and taste of true freedom you've given me. I love you with everything I have, everything I am, and I'll never stop. I vow to love and cherish you, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part, and longer if I can."
Emily grinned broadly at the addition. Sentinel soft, she whispered, "That's not in the script!" He just grinned back at her.
Simon looked at Jim. "The rings, please?" Jim took them out of his pocket and handed them to Chris. Emily turned and handed her bouquet to Blair. "Christopher, repeat after me. With this ring, symbol of eternity, I thee wed." The rings were placed on the fingers of their recipients, the ritual repeated by each. Then Simon smiled broadly. "If any here should have any reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace." Chris glared at the audience, and if one were a Sentinel, one might have heard the screeching challenge of a cat that had never set foot on Earth. When no one spoke, Simon said, "Then by the authority vested in me by the State of Washington, I now pronounce you man and wife. Now kiss the girl and seal this thing!"
Chris grinned. "Aye, sir." Perhaps answering that way wasn't the best of ideas in a room full of detectives, but it was a small risk, and probably the most anyone would guess was that he was former Navy. He took Emily's face in his hands, staring into her eyes. Their lips met and their eyes fluttered closed as their mouths opened and the kiss deepened. The gathering broke into applause and the two broke apart, smiling wistfully at each other.
The reception was a simple affair, with music and dancing and a three-foot cake, the first piece of which managed to get smeared all over Chris's face, prompting him to start a tickle war. Then, after the bouquet and the bird seed were thrown, the happy couple got into the rented limo and left for the Cascade Towers Hotel, where they would spend their honeymoon. Jim had tried to convince them to take it somewhere more exotic, saying that he would gladly pay for the trip, but Chris and Emily had discussed it and agreed that they could visit far more exotic locales when they were returned to their own time, and just being in this time was enough.
A week later, Emily and Chris returned to their apartment, sated and tired from a solid week of romance. They were laughing at some stupid joke Emily had made about the nature of male dominated societies, when just as they stepped into the apartment, a flash of light caught their attention. "Well, well, the happy couple returns home." It was the young Q. "I suppose you two had fun."
Chris growled, "What do you want, kid?"
The boy grinned. "Temper, temper, Lieutenant. No reason to be hostile. I've only come to give you fair warning. The fun is about to begin." And with that, he flashed out and was gone.
The Ellisons looked at each other, their tired happiness replaced by caution. Things were about to get interesting, in a Chinese curse kind of way.
Jim sat in the cafe, sipping stale black coffee, telling himself that if Sneaks didn't show his face soon, he was just going to pay his tab and walk. He was convinced the snitch did it just to annoy him. The "bonus," a good pair of new Healies, athletic shoes with a retractable wheel in the heel. They were all the rage at the moment, and while not Sneaks' usual cup of tea, the novelty factor should get him what he wanted, information on a new group of buyers in the arms market.
Rumors about these new guys had been sketchy at best. All they had that was concrete was a very grainy photo of a known dealer and the back of a dark-haired man's head. The man and two others had been seen dealing with more than one dealer. They had yet to actually be seen buying anything. They seemed to be assessing quality at the moment. One undercover cop had overheard a phone conversation with them, and they were looking for several good firearms and a lot of C-4. Sneaks had called him and told him to meet him at this cheep cafe, saying he had info on the new players, but he was late. Very late.
Finally, the information broker walked in the door, looking very nervous. He was usually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, so this level of nerves could be serious. The man took one last look around and sat at the booth in front of Ellison. "You're late. I'm thinking you don't want that bonus, my friend."
Sneaks shook his head. "Sorry, man. I had to make sure no one was on my tail. These guys are really bad news. They're high tech, and I mean like out of science fiction high tech. They've got a couple of laser guns, but I got the feeling the things weren't working very well. Good thing for me. One of 'em spotted me and shot at me, put a hole in my jacket, but when he tried to shoot again, it wouldn't work."
Jim looked at him skeptically. He was monitoring the snitch's vitals as a matter of course, but other than nervousness, they hadn't fluctuated. He wasn't lying. But laser guns? "You're joking. You drag me down here with a brand new pair of Healies and you give me laser guns?"
"Come on, Ellison! You know I wouldn't jerk you around. See? Look what they did to my jacket!" Sneaks took the article off his shoulders and indicated the right pocket. There was a long, thin scorch mark that had burned completely through the old leather. "What I've heard is that, since their own stuff is breaking down, they need some good guns to back up whatever they're doing with the C-4. They're also paying in little bars of solid gold. That I saw myself. They don't have any markings on them, and they're about the size and shape of a pink eraser."
Jim knew this was serious. If the perps were paying in precious metals, they probably wanted the transaction to be completely untraceable, and with a bar that size, the stuff could easily be melted down and put into any shape the customer wanted for sale. "All right. Say I believe you. Have they found a supplier yet?"
"No. They're still window shopping. I did hear one of them say he thought the South American had the best deal on the guns, but the one who was in charge said it would be best if they kept looking around to make sure and that they had plenty of time."
Jim sat back and thought for a moment. Whatever was going on here, Sneaks was playing straight with him. He had to find out what the deal was! "Describe these laser guns to me."
Back at the loft, Jim told Blair about Sneaks information. Blair was just as puzzled by the story as Jim. "Green laser beams, gold bars and automatic weapons don't usually belong in the same sentence, Jim. What the hell is going on here?"
"I don't know, Chief." There was a knock at the door just then. Focusing his senses on the outside of the door, Jim said, "It's Chris and Emily."
Chris had a grim look on his face. "We might have some idea of what's going on."
Jim raised an eyebrow and motioned for the couple to come in. They sat down at the kitchen table and Jim poured coffee for Chris while Blair put on the tea pot for himself and Emily. Once everyone had the hot beverage of their choice in hand, Chris spoke. "I didn't mean to overhear your conversation, but from what I heard, I know at least something of what you're dealing with."
Blair said, "I thought your Temporal Prime Directive wouldn't let you tell us anything you knew about our future."
Chris nodded. "That's true, but what you're dealing with is probably from that future, and they are not supposed to be here."
"What!?" Jim and Blair stared at their respective ancestors in shock.
"Yes. From the description of those 'laser guns,' I'd say you have someone from the future here other than us. It sounded like a disruptor, probably either Romulan or Klingon, and not of the best quality. The charge was on the blink, which not only makes the weapon unreliable, it presents the possibility of it going into overload in your hand and then you get to play Captain Hook for the rest of your natural life, if you survive. Who ever these people are, they were probably dealing with a Ferengi and got cheated."
Blair was not one to be caught without a coherent question even when being shocked. "How could they have gotten here? I understand that Q brought you two here, but could he be responsible for them being here as well?"
Emily shook her head. "I doubt it. That's not the game he's playing. I'm betting they came on their own, but Q knew about it. He's acting to preserve the future by putting us where we can deal with those who want to change it. His superiors have probably put a lot of restrictions on him interfering in human history. He probably pitched this to them as a research project, but he still put us in a full year before anything happened, giving us time to get used to things and time to know the terrain. He can't interfere with these guys, but we can!"
Chris spoke up. "We should talk to Captain Banks. The arms deals are definitely your jurisdiction, but their temporal violations are mine, and interfering in the past timeline of any Federation world is considered an act of war. If there's any way for us to take them back to our own time, that's what we'll have to do. We can't risk them changing history, and left in the prison system, they'd do exactly that."
In Simon's office, they told him the same thing. "Great! Just great. How am I going to justify letting you in on this case at all, let alone taking charge of the prisoners once they're caught? Not that I don't agree with you, Ellison, but I have people to answer to, and I have to be able to tell them something!"
Chris shook his head. "I don't know, sir. Starfleet regulations aren't too specific on the subject. Policy is to get out and back to your own time as quickly as possible. That hasn't been an option for us, and it still may not be. We don't have enough information yet to say how these people are going to react. We don't even know if they're human or not. All we have is the fact that they're carrying weapons that haven't been invented on Earth yet and are still old enough to be worthless crap and that they are intent on buying enough C-4 to level a building.
"I'll probably know any technology they've got. You need me on this one, and if they aren't wearing universal translators, once they're caught, you're going to need Emily to translate."
Simon sighed. "I know I'm going to need you on this, but I can't let you become officially involved. Not only is your jurisdiction not active for three and a half centuries, but you have no proof that you even existed until a year ago. You won't even pass the background check. If Ellison consults with you, however, that's his business. Once we've got these guys, I can use a translator without having to run a background check." He turned to Jim. "So what's the plan?"
"We check out the warehouse where Sneaks was. Hopefully, even if they aren't there, they'll have left some evidence."
Just then Brown knocked on the door to Simon's office. "Come in!"
The other detective said, "Simon, we just got a call that the warehouse on 10th and Phelps just blew up. They're asking for us, something about gold being found in the rubble."
Blair frowned. "Jim, isn't that-?"
Jim's face became a hard mask. "Yeah. That's where Sneaks told me to look. Damn!"
"Well you better get down there then."
The two Sentinels walked through the rubble with their Guides, all four combing the area for the slightest scrap of evidence, the slightest hint of who had come into the past and why. One small gold bar that had been missed by forensics was found glinting through the debris. Jim picked it up and thought there was something strange about the way it looked. He bagged it, intending to look at it later.
Simultaneously, Chris found the center of the blast that had taken out the warehouse. A crater the size of a beech ball had been carved out of the cement, a crater that was dusted with tiny green particles, a signature explosion pattern that the Security officer had no trouble recognizing. "Disruptor on overload. Easiest way to make the biggest mess possible, intentional or not." Continuing to look around, Chris spotted a charred bit of metal at the edge of the blast site. He and Emily walked over to it. Recognizing a blackened but intact disruptor, he called Jim and Blair over.
"What is it?" Blair looked curiously at the charred device as Jim picked it up in his gloved hands.
"It's a Romulan disruptor. A pretty old one, too. If this is what these guys were sold, it's no wonder they're in the market for better weapons. These things went out nearly a century ago, our time."
Emily looked up at Chris. "Why would they buy such unreliable weapons in the first place?"
Looking around at the site, he answered her distractedly. "Desperate maybe?" He had heard something, a different heart beat than anything this planet had ever produced. The rhythm had three pulses rather than the four of a human heart. Chris scented the air in the room, filtering past the scents of the room itself, the burned wood and plastic and the photonic residue from the overloaded disruptor, to the elusive personal scents of the living people in the room. He found one which was not human, confirming what he had already guessed. He stepped close to his wife and said, "There's a Cardassian in the room."
Careful to keep the surprise from showing on her face, she said, "What should we do about it?"
Jim heard his descendant, of course, and asked from where he was standing, "What's a Cardassian?"
Chris glanced at Jim without looking as though they were having a conversation. "The Cardassians are a sentient race from a different planet. They're humanoid, and they have most of the same vulnerable spots as humans. They're marginally stronger as a whole, and don't try to head-butt one of 'em. They have a lot more frontal bone mass than we do. The sides under their arms are a good spot."
Jim nodded slightly. Blair asked him what was going on. "We have an uninvited guest, Chief. An alien." Jim told him what Chris had said, then turned to his descendant. "We're in your court, Starfleet. How do you want to do this?"
Chris said, "Surround him. Emily and I will take the right flank. You two take the left." Then, without waiting for acknowledgment, he started meandering off to the side he had indicated.
Emily followed shortly, looking about their surroundings with apparent interest while keeping an eye out for movement. She finally caught a glimpse of him in the dark. He's had his face surgically altered. The soldier looked human enough if you didn't know what you were looking for.
Jim and Blair worked their way around to the other side, everyone trying to keep it looking casual, as though they were still just working the scene, but effectively flanking the Cardassian who hid in the ruins of the building. A soldier himself, he quickly realized he was surrounded, but by that time, it was too late for him to do anything about it. All four humans turned to face him, and Jim and Blair pulled their weapons. Jim shouted, "Freeze! Cascade PD! Come out with your hands where I can see them!"
Deciding to play along for the moment, the soldier stood up with his hands in the air. He looked at the two men in front of him and then turned to look at the pair behind him. His eyes widened in recognition as he got a good look at Emily. A curse in his own language left his lips, proving that he wasn't wearing a universal translator implant. Guessing it was in his best interests to flee, the Cardassian suddenly rushed the unarmed, and therefore he thought helpless, xenopologist, hoping to obtain a hostage.
But no Sandburg was ever truly helpless. Most of the family had the inherited trouble magnet in one way or another, and through the centuries they had learned to teach self-defense at a young age. Emily sidestepped the charging alien and put her knee in his belly, effectively putting him out of commission. He crumpled as the air was driven from his lungs, his natural abdominal armor defeated by his own inertia when it came in contact with Emily's knee. This didn't actually injure him, but for the moment, he was incapacitated.
Knowing quite a bit about Cardassian anatomy, Chris came in behind the alien and threw a well placed punch in his side, where the armoring scales of his back and front were separated by just a few inches. There were no bony ribs there to get in the way, just muscle and sinew, and the blow was sure to deliver at least some injury, though Chris controlled himself admirably and the soldier was in no danger of dying. Still, he slipped into unconciousness.
The detectives moved forward to cover the Cardassian while Chris checked on Emily. She laughed at him. "I'm fine, love."
He hugged her. "I'm just glad I was close enough to get in there while he was distracted, or he'd have protected himself better."
Jim handcuffed the alien. Chris saw this and warned, "You'd better use Blair's set, too. He could probably break the chain on just one."
Later, they had him in an interogation room cooling his heels, while Sentinels, Guides, and Captain Banks watched from behind the one-way glass. Blair said, "He looks human to me."
Emily answered him. "You see the scars all over his face?"
Jim looked and saw how even the scars were. "Cosmetic surgery?"
She nodded. "Yeah, only a little more drastic than that. Cardassians have bony ridges along both sides of the forehead, circling the orbit, along the jaw line and the sides of the neck, at the point of their chin andfrom the tip of their nose to the bridge. There's also a frontal protrusion that gave them the nickname "Spoonheads" during the Cardassian Conflict. This is extensive, and it was done slopily. A better surgeon could have done it without any scaring at all."
Simon shook his head. "Cheap weapons, cheap surgery; everything about this screams that they're desperate, but they're paying for top of the line weapons in this time with solid gold. Why the inconsistency?"
Chris shrugged. "Gold isn't that rare a metal in the rest of the Alpha Quadrant. Can I see that bar you picked up?" Jim hadn't sent the bar to forensics yet, wanting to get a better look himself first, so he took it out and handed it to the other Sentinel. He opened the evidence bag and, without touching the bar, dialed up his sight so that he could see down to the microscopic level. Imbeded in the metal was another, more liquid substance, much like mercury, but thicker, less fluid, and less shiny. "In our time, gold isn't worth even a fraction of what it is here, but if you take a different substance called latinum, a liquid metal that is far rarer, and press it into the same gold, you have a highly portable, highly valuable comodity that is the traders' currency for the entire quadrant."
Figuring out where this was leading, Emily picked up the explanation. "It's the latinum that holds the value, and as long as they have storage for it, most people will take straight latinum just as quickly as gold-pressed latinum. Leach the latinum out of the gold, then melt and remould it, and you have currency for two different time periods."
Blair said, "Still, we seem to be talking about a lot of money. Why didn't they buy the good stuff?"
Chris answered him. "They had to get here somehow. I'm guessing the bulk of the latinum went to the modify a ship for time travel."
Looking at her husband, Emily said, "We're going to have to find that ship, Chris. We can't have it remain in this time where it might be discovered."
Jim stepped in. "Look, we need to figure out what they're up to. Let's get in there and question this guy. Hopefully we can get him to tell us where the ship is, too." Privately both he and Chris doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
Both pairs of Ellisons and Sandburgs went into the interogation room, Simon remaining outside. Jim swept the room with his senses, making sure that IA hadn't placed any cameras in there since the last time he'd used it. He knew that they had a job to do, but they didn't need to hear what was going to be said in there. Satisfied that the room was clean, Jim looked over the suspect, having no trouble with allowing his descendent to handle the questioning for now.
Chris focused on the Cardassian from the first moment. The soldier's heart rate was up, indicating nervousness, though it didn't show in his face. He said, "Let's be frank, soldier. I know what you are. You should have hired a better surgeon. I mean, what a chop job! Did he even use a lazer scalpel? That looks like it was done with a blade. Must have hurt, having all those bone ridges removed. You Cardassians have more nerve endings in the bones than humans do."
Trying to pretend ignorence, though to deal with humans and buy the weapons they were after, they had to have learned English, the Cardassian responded in his native tongue. //I don't understand you.//
Emily broke in. //But I understand you.// Then she repeated everything that her husband had just said. //Now, why don't we start again.//
Chris said, "Why are you here in the past?" Emily repeated it in Cardassian.
//What I am doing here is none of your concern. It has nothing to do with you.//
"Wrong. What you do here will change their future, my past, my present. That makes it my concern."
The Cardassian grinned. //Then you won't have anything to worry about. Because you won't be here.//
Everyone glared at him. Chris said, "And why would that be?"
//Because we're going to change it so far that you won't exist! You will never stop us, no matter what you do.//
"Then it won't hurt for you to tell us what you plan."
The alien snorted. //I'm confident, not stupid. Don't the rules of this nation say that I can talk to a litigator? I don't think I have to talk to you any more.//
Jim grinned. "That's true. So lawyer up. Then see what happens when the United States government discovers that it has a genuine alien life form sitting in a Cascade jail cell. I can promise it will happen quickly and I can also promise it won't be a pleasent experience."
//You're a fool if you think you can intimidate me. You are merely human. I could break your neck with ease.//
Emily said, //It wouldn't be him you had to deal with. Think about it. You'd be spending the rest of your life on this world, in this time, with scientists at a level of technology so primitive they still use projectile weaponry and steel medical instruments.//