Don't Metal With Rock Folk: Or "Usher III"

Captain Jean-Luc Picard walked across the dance floor, dodging the dancing dullards attending the damnable concert. "Disconcert" was more apt for such dissonant drivel. On his ship no less. None of it was real, of course, but it still maddened him to see it; the only sound truly produced was the constant, calculated rhythm of his footsteps on the holodeck floor. He maintained a cold, outward dispassion as he prepared to confront the stowaway.

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It wasn't so long ago that Orpheus was enjoying life on the underground music scene. That was before the Suits invaded. Federation thugs had graced their hush-hush production community with a visit; they who worked the factories in the underbelly of an empire that denied their very existence. They kept the empire running on good, clean energy by toiling in the grease and muck to produce the illusion of prosperity. All they asked in return was to keep the anti-rock raids to a minimum. They were denied even this.

Orpheus, who worked in an electronics factory by day, was by night a rocker nostalgic for the earth that was--before they ruined it with a splash of Lysol and coat of paint, that is--trying to make some extra ration stamps from the crowd. He had the misfortune of being on stage when the Feds burst in. A girl yelled, "You can't stop us. We're going to rock around the--"

The Suit commander yelled, "Set phasers to kiiiill!" and his men shot her down. The crowd was unable to appreciate the irony that her father worked in a phaser production factory. As the commander turned his eyes toward the stage, Orpheus' band, perhaps realizing there was no way out, began to play music as Orpheus sang that they weren't going to take it.

After the next phaser shot the audience ran. The guitarist was sizzling on the floor and Orpheus dove backstage. Before anyone could catch him he had already slipped out the back door of the club and was on his through the narrow alley behind it on his way home. That is when he ran, literally, into the Suit commander. While his men finished the rest of the band it appears he had slipped back out the door.

Both men fell to the ground. Orpheus tried to get back up and continue running, but the commander had his shirt. "Let go!" he screamed. Then, turning around, he fought back. He kicked and hit and bit and wrestled the phaser out of the commander's hand, which went skidding across the pavement. So instead Orpheus pounded the commander's head into the wet ground until his grip finally loosened. But then he kept pounding. For what seemed several minutes, but was probably significantly less than one. When he stood up the commander was dead. And so was any hope of going home again. Ever. The DNA he had left behind; skin, sweat, and--although then he could feel no cuts--surely blood as well. He would have to keep running.

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The stowaway and saboteur, Orpheus was what he called himself, had requested the interrogation in the holodeck: the very place he'd sabotaged. It was a risk to grant the request, but none of their interrogation techniques had worked thus far, and Orpheus promised to cooperate fully if he was given the proper tool to explain his grand plan. This made it a calculated risk as far as Captain Picard was concerned.

"Now," he began, "What are you doing on my ship?"

"Sabotaging it."

It was honest enough. So far he appeared to be, true to his word, coming clean. Not very useful, but honest. Picard thought he would see how long that would last.

"And why is that?" he studied carefully the captured Orpheus, bound to a holodeck-formed chair.

"Revenge."

Again, he seemed honest. Very well. Captain Picard would put this to the ultimate test.

"And, other than this dreadful nonsense that took us hours to stop from looping on the holodeck, what kind of sabotage?"

"Ah. Now this is the fun part," the bound Orpheus began. "I may not belong in this pretty, shiny world of yours, but your world doesn't deserve to exist in my universe."

"So you're going to destroy it?" Picard was wondering if letting him into the holodeck had been a bad idea.

"Yes."

"Don't you think that's a tad immature?"

"At least I don't think I can create a perfect world."

"But you wish to destroy one?"

"This," Orpheus looked around the room, "is hardly perfect. It's not the end of the world, just the end of your world. I wish there was some other way, I really do. But we can't rewind, we've gone too far," he looked at the rock scene he'd looped, still playing silently off to the side. "This tape will self-destruct in five minutes, give or take. But first I want you to know why. Freedom." With that last word his hardened holographic bonds and chair dissolved.

"Clever, but I still have this," Picard pulled out his phaser.

"The ship will blow if my heart stops beating."

"There's always a way out," said Picard.

"Propaganda. You, a hero of the Federation, never did half of what you claim."

"Maybe so. But I still don't see what I've done to harm you," Picard circled cautiously toward the panel where he could rip out the holodeck wiring.

"You're no different from the Borg. All you Suits and your shiny ships want is to assimilate everyone to your way of thinking. Your way of dressing. Your way of living. Your way of being."

"I hate to let you in on a little secret," said Picard, "But the Borg don't exist; that is propaganda as well."

"And I love to let you in on a little secret; this conversation is being broadcast to the entire earth."

Picard jolted. "I don't believe you," he said finally after more inching toward the panel.

"I don't need you to, O Captain, my Captain..." Orpheus gave a crisp salute and an explosion from the holodeck burst outward, causing the entire Enterprise to spread silently out into space as so much shrapnel.



Epilogue: The Conversation on the Edge of Forever

Picard entered--no, strode into the room with such confidence. He had an imperceptible swagger about him. Like a genteel condescension, he did not deign to parade his arrogance about like the common man, but merely carried it. This only made the cold, follically-challenged bastard seem even more conceited.

"Well, well; you're back. I never thought I'd see you again."

"And you seem your old self," Orpheus replied. "Just like in the propaganda. Confident. Charming to some. Cruel to others."

"Propaganda?" Picard laughed jovially for the first time Orpheus ever saw. "I told you there is always a way out, didn't I?"

"Out?" Orpheus laughed in turn. "We're finally in."

"What do you mean?" Picard's sharp eyes pierced his own questioningly.

"Well," Orpheus explained, "This holodeck has no limitations."

"I assure you it does. Propaganda, remember." Picard seemed no longer worried that anything would be broadcast to anyone.

"Tell me..." Orpheus paused.

"Yes? What?" it was a friendly inquiry.

"Tell me something... anything... something that I might not know."

"The number of things you don't know could be written on the stars, my young friend."

"Tell me more."

"Alright. Now this one's going to sound strange to you, but..." he began to laugh. Orpheus assumed it must have been pretty funny, for Picard laughed so hard that he had tears in his eyes before he could say, "I just want you to know that video did not, in fact, kill the radio star."

Orpheus gave the matter some thought. He wanted to say 'I know, but it's the principle,' but that wasn't right. Finally he understood, however, and could earnestly say, "You know a lot more about the past then you let on, Captain Beatty."

Picard smiled wanly, knowingly, and answered, "It hurt me."

"Weren't good enough?" Orpheus retorted.

"Maybe. But you know as much as I about hurting that which you love."

"I don't love you."

"You loved me once. Believed the propaganda. And now we'll spend Forever together."

"Nietzsche?"

"I am interesting, aren't I?"

"Perhaps," Orpheus admitted, "But this..." he glanced into the abyss--a gaping black hole swallowing the holodeck--and said, "...This is where we part."

"Goodbye," said Picard, unafraid, as he watched Orpheus exit the holodeck--that door opening and closing itself one last time. Disappointment was all the old Captain betrayed, and this only by a hollow look in his eyes that reverberated around him as he fidgeted slightly, as if trekking for a purpose. If purpose wasn't between the stars, maybe it was in them. Picard leapt into the expanding maw of the pit and hurtled down toward the blinding fire at its center.