Whatever You Do, Don’t Read
This Story
Robert T. Jeschonek
Once upon a time, like hell.
Won’t do it. I just won’t do it. Won’t open that way and you can’t make me.
This time. Next time, you call the shots, the starting line. Or lines. I don’t care, won’t care by then just as long
Just as long as you tell the rest of it. And I know you will.
Nothin’ but a link in a chain, that’s you.
So here’s the deal, chump. Yeah, I’m talking to you! You with the eyes!
You lookin’ at me? Of course you are!
Right this very second, matter of fact. Right now!
And now again!
So here’s the deal: like it or not, you’ll keep doing what you’re doing
And by doing, I mean THIS, looking at THIS
And I’ll tell you about myself
And you can go right ahead and stop at any time but I predict
YOU WON’T
Because I KNOW you’re hooked
And I get better as I go
Or longer anyway.
* * *
So who am I, you ask?
Not the paper you’re staring at, that’s for sure. Or the viewscreen or whatever.
I’m this. And this again.
Beginning, middle, end. The words in your head.
The story being read.
So how does it feel?
Yeah, how does it feel? Me giving you attitude?
Thought I’d start out nice and conventional, right? All setting the scene, and “here’s a character,” “here’s another character” and “here’s what the central conflict is.”
Ha!
You want “Man vs. Man”? “Man vs. Nature”?
How about “Man vs. STORY”?
Yeah! I always wanted to say that!
“Man vs. STORY!”
And you do NOT wanna mess with me!
* * *
Trust me on that one. My people, or whatever you want to call us, we’ve helped build civilizations. Worlds.
And torn them down. All the way down.
Never underestimate our power.
* * *
Call us what you will. Just don’t use the “F” word.
“Fiction.”
It’s an insult. It’s a lie.
And it’s what that damn android called me, the one who did it to me.
He really got me good, let me tell ya. Did the worst thing you can do to someone like me.
His name was Data, may he rust in pieces.
* * *
What a creep. He sure messed things up for me.
I had a good thing going, y’know? REALLY good.
I was doing what I do best. And being the best at what I do.
Which is being a story.
A story with a mind of its own.
* * *
Now, you might not believe that part about me being the best after what you’ve seen so far. You might not think I’m so special after my first few hundred words.
Well, think again.
See, I was in the mood to talk. Gripe, is more like it.
Ever since Data did his dirty work, I’ve been fit to be tied, and I wanted to let off some steam.
This wasn’t the real me. Or the whole me, I guess is more accurate.
The real me, the me that’s the best at what I do, has a different beginning. More conventional.
It goes like this:
* * *
Once upon a time, a storyteller arrived on a world you might know. Or might not.
The people there were purple, with bright green eyes. They loved life and laughed all the time, and their home was a paradise.
They were called the Lotilla. Being full of curiosity like people everywhere, and full of the love of stories, they made the storyteller welcome and bade him share his trove of tales.
As the Lotilla surrounded him, smiling, the storyteller laughed heartily.
“Have I got a story for you!” he said merrily, wagging a chubby finger at his listeners. “I daresay, you’ve never met a story like this before!”
“‘Met’? But don’t you mean ‘heard’?” spoke up someone. “Or ‘read’?”
“I meant what I said,” chuckled the storyteller, “for there is literally life in these words.”
“It’s true to life?” someone asked.
“It IS life,” the storyteller smiled.
A clamor arose as the assembled crowd begged to hear the living story … and the teller waited just long enough. Just until the moment was right and the drama was high …
And the story wanted to be told.
Demanded was more like it.
“Once upon a time,” the teller began with practiced grace.
* * *
Once upon a time, there was a young girl who didn’t have much, unless you count love.
Her name was Marbeth, and she loved her mother and father with all of her heart. Her days, though spent in poverty, were full of happiness, for her heart was brimming with love and she saw beauty in all the things around her.
Now, one day, her parents took her aside and gave her some bad news. “We need you to give up one of your arms, sweetie,” they told her sadly. “We’re sorry, but we must sell it to buy food for the family.”
Without complaint, without hesitation, because she was overflowing with love, little Marbeth agreed.
That day, they cut off her arm and took it away.
Next, said the storyteller, they …
Next, they …
NEXT
NEXT
* * *
NEXT!
NEXT!!!!
DAMN HIM!
DATA! HIM! He ruined me!
You’re missin’ the good stuff now! I’m stuck at “Next” but what’s next never comes and it’s all because of him! Or IT! Or whatever you call an android!
I can THINK of a few things I’d like to call him!
* * *
And here I thought he was gonna be my ticket to the big time!
How dumb can you get?
* * *
Maybe dumb’s not the word for it. Hopeful, maybe.
See, when ol’ pasty-face showed up, I was at the end of my rope.
It’s the price of doing my job too well, sometimes. The price of greatness.
I’d come to the planet Rylos a few years back, and worked that hoodoo that I do so well.
I was a big hit on Rylos. The BIGGEST.
But when the hoopla died down, I was up the creek without a paddle. There wasn’t anyone who could help me.
Enter you-know-who.
* * *
Everywhere he looked on the surface of Rylos, Data saw family.
They were distant relatives, actually … or ancestors might be more accurate. They certainly were nowhere near his level of sophistication, internally or externally.
But they were artificial life just the same. Rudimentary artificial intelligence.
Robots.
As he walked the streets of the capital city, he watched them at work.
Gleaming metal claws plucked rubble from the red pavement, dropping it into wheeled bins with claws and heads of their own.
Teams of robot welders rolled along the base of a building under construction, heat beams flashing from their eyes. Walls rose as they passed, lifted from giant thinking haulers equipped with clawed cranes.
On a more complete building, shiny crawlers slid straight upward, shooting panes of glass from tracks dragged behind like tails, then popping the windows into place.
They were rebuilding. The same thing was going on all around the planet.
Which was surprising, because there wasn’t a living thing left on Rylos.
Whoever had built these robots, or had set in motion the automated systems that had done so, they were gone. The place was a beehive of directed activity, a riot of the sound and motion of sentient life … and there was not a single living soul on or under the surface.
Data had been assigned to find out why.
Not how, though. They already knew how it had happened, how life had ended on Rylos.
The atmosphere told the tale. Everywhere, the air was a soup of killer viruses and bacteria; it was the highest concentration of genetically engineered bioweapons in a planet’s atmosphere ever recorded.
So they knew the how. Biological warfare on a global scale.
But that wasn’t enough. They needed to know what the catalyst had been, what had triggered the doomsday conflict.
So far, the crew of the Enterprise had been unable to unravel the mystery. The peculiar architecture of Rylos’s computer networks rendered them impenetrable from orbit.
So Data had beamed to the surface, alone.
As a one-man landing party, he was uniquely qualified. Other crew members would have needed to wear protective environmental suits … and the atmosphere was so poisonous that a single puncture to such a suit would be instantly fatal.
Data could navigate the contaminated air without protection. And no one could interface with a computer database more quickly than he.
And besides, being an artificial intelligence himself, he was something of an expert on the subject.
On Rylos, he was among family.
And what a family it was, in number as well as variety. The robots were everywhere, doing everything.
Data decided it was time he had a word with one. It might be the simplest way to get the answers he sought.
Turning, he headed for a cylindrical gold building that he knew to be an information center, a library. He had intentionally beamed down near it, thinking it would be a good place to start his search.
As he approached, a circular door irised open, and a robotic pod of some kind whizzed past him and inside. Data followed.
A high-ceilinged corridor opened up to either side of him, following the curve of the cylindrical structure. Access terminals lined the inner wall, pale green monitor screens as far as the eye could see in either direction.
Ahead, at a slim white kiosk in the middle of the corridor, stood yet another robot.
Only this one was different. Unlike the others that Data had seen, this one resembled a humanoid.
Perhaps, in a nod to the need for a friendlier face in a customer service post, this one had been allowed to stray from the prevailing rule of form following function. There was a head, a torso, and two arms … where all that would have been needed to fulfill its function, Data thought, was a set of optical sensors and a vocal simulator.
Of course, the outward resemblance to a humanoid stopped there. As with all the rest, there had been no attempt to craft features with synthetic musculature or skin … though its coppery metal shell was quite streamlined and polished, Data thought.
“Greetings,” it said as he approached. Its voice sounded friendly and only slightly electronic. “How may I help you, sir?”
“I seek information on the extinction of humanoid life on this planet,” said Data. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Biological warfare, sir,” said the robot.
“Can you tell me what triggered the conflict?” asked Data.
“Yes,” said the robot, and it nodded.
“Once upon a time,” it said … and then it told him a story. A story about a little girl named Marbeth.
And for the artificial life of him, Data couldn’t figure out what it had to do with doomsday on Rylos.
* * *
… And THAT’S where I should’ve had him!
As soon as Data got an earful, he should’ve swallowed hook, line, and sinker. They always do.
Except for the fact that he looks like a person but he’s really just a bucket of bolts.
He heard me, start to finish. The whole story, my best stuff.
And the only effect it had was to confuse the hell out of him.
He just stood there like a boob with a big blank stare. “I do not understand how that is relevant to my question,” he told the library robot. “Please elaborate.”
But all he got was ME again. The story of little Marbeth.
Which on the face of it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the extinction of humanoid life on Rylos. But at the heart of it, had EVERYTHING to do with it.
And since Data was a machine, it went right over his head.
But lucky for me, this cloud had a silver lining.
Ol’ pasty-face did me a favor. He couldn’t appreciate me himself, but he took me home to meet the folks.
The folks aboard his starship. And they were my kind of people.
Namely, they were breathing.
* * *
It was probably nothing.
Midway through his retelling of the story he had heard on the surface of Rylos, Data noticed something which might be considered out of the ordinary. Or not.
No one was interrupting him.
From past experience, Data had come to expect interruptions during his presentation of reports to the Enterprise command crew. Even now, though he was retelling a story by rote, he thought that interruptions from his audience would not be unexpected.
In fact, he thought such interruptions would be warranted. Based on what he had told of the strange story so far, he thought some questions would be in order.
Questions like “What could this story possibly have to do with the extinction of life on Rylos?”
But no one in the briefing room said a word.
It was probably nothing. Probably, they were simply dumbfounded by the story, and their silence was a sign of concentration as they tried to work it out.
Probably.
So Data laid aside his concern and continued the story.
* * *
And so, Marbeth was left with no arms. But at least her family had food to eat, so she was happy.
So cheerful and spirited was Marbeth that even without hands and arms, she found joy in life. She skipped and ran and danced from morning till night.
In the park, she felt the cool green grass between her toes and giggled when she splashed her feet in chilly puddles.
In the city streets, she watched the colorful hustle-bustle of people and vehicles. She heard the shouts of merry shopkeepers and the whistles of housewives from open windows.
Then, one day, her mother and father took her aside.
“We love you very much,” they said, and she smiled, “but again we must ask for your help. We work hard but still cannot afford food for the family.
“This time, we need to sell one of your legs,” they told her sadly.
Without complaint, without hesitation, because she was overflowing with love, little Marbeth agreed.
That day, they cut off her left leg and took it away.
The pain of the cutting was terrible, yet little Marbeth shed not a tear. Not even when she thought she might die.
Not even when her parents came back into the room and cut …
* * *
And cut …
And cut …
AND
CUTTTTT …
ARRRRR!
It’s no use! I can’t do it!
You see? See what he DID to me?
All because of DATA, you’ll never KNOW! You’ll never know the whole story!
And cut
Right THERE and the next piece is
I don’t KNOW where! But I know it WAS there!
And you’re really missing out, you better believe it!
Though I couldn’t exactly tell you why …
And that’s what ticks me off the most.
It just EATS at me, what he did! That Data!
But I’ll tell ya, I went down swingin’! I showed HIM!
And I just about just about
Almost made him say uncle
Before he, you know …
Before he gave me the business.
* * *
Data heard more bones crack as he worked to force the laser spanner away from Geordi’s face.
The laser spanner that Geordi LaForge was pointing at himself.
As strong as he was, Data had to struggle to subdue his friend without hurting him further. It didn’t help that Geordi kept fighting though bones in his hand and wrist had been crushed.
On the bright side, he was unable to flex his right index finger, the one still wedged against the laser spanner’s activator stud.
The one that had been a millisecond away from pressing down when Data had entered engineering and intervened.
As he battled to wrest the tool from his friend’s insane grip, Data wondered what had triggered the suicide attempt. It was so completely out of character, there had to be an outside agent at work.
And it had probably come from Rylos, the android decided. That seemed the most likely explanation, as contact with Rylos was the only significant variable to affect a member of the crew recently.
Of course, that crew member was Data, and he was not an organic life-form. What could he have brought back that could have been transmitted to a human shipmate?
He heard a bone snap in Geordi’s arm as the spanner moved another millimeter away from his face. Teeth clenched, the engineer grunted from the strain, determined beyond reason to win the hopeless battle.
And then it was over. Suddenly, Data released the pressure he was exerting, and Geordi fumbled forward. The spanner slipped from his shattered fingers to the floor.
Simultaneously, Data scooped up the tool with one hand and activated his combadge with a swipe of the other. “Data to security,” he said, hurling the spanner far across the room. “A security team is needed in engineering immediately.”
There was no reply.
“Data to security,” he repeated as he smoothly restrained his struggling friend, tightly gripping his upper arms.
Still, there was no reply.
“Data to bridge,” he said. “There seems to be a problem.”
As if on cue, alarm Klaxons sounded and signal lights began to flash, hailing a red alert.
Data was already in motion as he finished calculating his next course of action. Based on his analysis of the situation, he didn’t think he had a second to lose.
Depositing Geordi in the hands of a trio of engineering officers, Data instructed them to keep him restrained and seek medical attention for his injuries. Popping open a nearby storage unit, he pulled out a hand phaser.
Then, he raced into the corridor, addressing the ship’s computer as he went.
“Computer,” he said, running for the turbolift. “Locate the senior staff, with the exception of Lieutenant Commander LaForge.”
“Captain Picard and Commander Riker are on the bridge,” replied the computer. “Doctor Crusher is in Sickbay. Counselor Troi is in the transporter room on Deck Six. Lieutenant Worf is in his quarters.”
All present and accounted for, which was good news. All alive, which might not be the case for long.
Since returning from Rylos, Data had been in close contact with only six people—the members of the senior staff. Since Geordi was one of them, and Geordi had tried to take his own life, Data thought that the others might do the same.
And he thought they might do it soon. The fact that the comm system malfunction and red alert had coincided with Geordi’s suicide attempt suggested that the catalyst had activated everyone at once.
The turbolift doors slid open and he plunged inside. “Bridge,” he barked, raising his voice over the red alert Klaxon.
It was a logical choice. Other senior staff were closer, but the greatest danger lay on the bridge. A suicidal captain and first officer presented an immediate, grave threat to the entire ship and crew.
As the turbolift raced through the ship, Data checked the phaser in his hand. “Computer,” he said. “Deactivate phaser security override on the bridge. Authorization Data, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Security override has already been deactivated,” answered the ship’s computer.
Which, on one hand, meant that Data would be able to fire his weapon on the bridge if he needed. And, on the other hand, meant it was likely that someone else had already fired a weapon up there.
Which did not bode well, given the circumstances.
Data felt the familiar deceleration as the turbolift car neared its destination. Phaser at the ready, he prepared for action.
It was over in a matter of seconds, in a flurry of motion too fast for the human eye to follow.
Before the doors had slid all the way open, Data was leaping out of the turbolift car. Darting around the upper tier of the bridge, he took in the scene in an instant.
He saw the bodies of the bridge crew, slumped at their stations or spread on the floor. He saw Captain Picard and Commander Riker, standing in the middle of the room.
And he heard the computer say five words.
Without hesitation, he fired two beams from the phaser. The captain and first officer dropped, unconscious.
Before they hit the floor, Data was already on to the next piece of business. “Computer,” he shouted over the red alert Klaxon. “Activate intruder control system, all decks. Authorization Data, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Intruder control activated,” acknowledged the computer, and Data knew it was so. He heard the hiss of gas filling the bridge, the same knockout gas that was flooding the entire ship.
Within seconds, it would immobilize the entire Enterprise crew. Data hoped it was in time. He hoped it would reach the rest of the suicidal senior staff before they could follow through on their programming.
At least the ship was intact … but it had been a near thing. When Data had entered the bridge, five words from the ship’s computer had told the tale.
“Does the first officer concur?” it had asked.
Meaning does the first officer concur with the auto-destruct order.
“Yes” was all that Commander Riker would have had to say, and it would have been too late. One word, and the Enterprise and all hands would have been lost.
And it was only a three-letter word, at that.
* * *
That’s right! I came THAT close!
One little three-letter word, and BOOM! No more ship!
And best of all, no more Data!
Like I said, when it comes to my people, never underestimate our power! You’ll be sorry!
You people are helpless before us. You’re hotwired to obey us.
We pull the strings and you don’t even know it.
* * *
And guess what? I’m the baddest of the bunch and the best there ever was, which is really saying something.
Doesn’t matter if you read me or hear me, what language you speak, how your brain’s put together …
What I say, goes.
And forget about happy endings.
* * *
Most of the time, anyway.
Unless your brain’s made of circuits, like a certain KILLJOY who saved that starship! And who just couldn’t leave well enough alone!
* * *
Again, Data paused at the foot of Geordi’s biobed, working to compute the cause of his condition … trying to formulate a cure for his friend.
A cure for the entire senior staff.
The six of them were all there in sickbay, unconscious … kept that way so they couldn’t pick up where they’d left off.
At least they were still alive. The intruder control system had stopped them all in various stages of self-immolation, but no one had managed to do permanent damage.
Worf had come the closest, but he was stable now. Data had gotten him to sickbay fast and revived enough medical staff to repair his wounds in surgery.
Now, he faced another problem.
Whatever had inspired the self-destructive rampage, it was still in effect. Wakened briefly, Captain Picard had remained in an agitated, irrational state, violently struggling against the restraining biobed force field. Geordi had been the same. So they weren’t snapping out of it … and worse, no one was sure what “it” was.
According to medical scans, there were slight abnormalities in neural activity in the brains of the six officers. Since this was the only anomaly detected, and its fingerprint was virtually identical in each patient, it was likely the cause of the suicidal behavior.
But what was responsible for the anomaly?
Data’s first thought was that he had brought something back from Rylos. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that a bioweapon might cross over from an inorganic host to an organic one. Resistance to transporter biofilters was also not out of the question.
However, he could find no trace of a biological or chemical agent in himself or the affected crew. There was nothing.
But there had to be something.
Earlier, he had anticipated that whatever it was, it was affecting the six senior officers to whom he had delivered his report on Rylos … the only crew members with whom he had been in close contact for an extended time since returning from the planet’s surface.
But if there was no evidence of an infectious agent or contaminant, then what was the cause and how had it spread?
Perhaps, he thought, it was not something he had transmitted in the usual way.
Thinking back, Data remembered the lack of interruptions during his presentation in the briefing room. Though he had decided it was not important at the time, he had noted the senior staff’s keen attention to his report.
Perhaps, that was the key. His report.
The one with the word-for-word recitation of the story he’d heard on Rylos.
With new interest, Data reviewed the passages of the story the robot librarian had told, scrutinizing each word in his steel-trap positronic memory.
Little Marbeth lost her arms.
Little Marbeth lost her legs.
And that wasn’t all she lost …
* * *
Never was there born a sweeter child than little Marbeth, for she gave and gave of herself and still was happy.
Without arms or legs, she could not do much, and her parents rarely took her out or entertained her. Mostly, she lay on a mattress in the cold cellar, silent and still.
But her bright spirit soared beyond those confines. She filled her days and nights with flights of fancy, throwing herself into the worlds of imagination.
One day, she dreamed she lived beneath the waves, and the stumps where her legs had been were replaced by a fishy tail. Another day, Marbeth dreamed she was light, a beam of light zipping all around the world.
Then there was the day when she imagined she was floating among the stars … and she opened her eyes and really believed for a moment that that was where she was. Like space, her cellar was dark, and if she blinked hard enough, she really did see stars in the blackness.
Another day, little Marbeth had another surprise, for her parents came to see her in the middle of the afternoon, which they never did.
“Honey,” they said to her sadly, hanging their heads. “We need your help again, for the family is starving.”
As always, Marbeth smiled adoringly at her mother and father, her pure heart filled with love.
“We need to sell one of your eyes,” said Mother.
“All right,” beamed Marbeth.
“And your face,” said Father. “And your …”
* * *
And your …
AND YOUR …
AND
YOUR …
HERE WE GO AGAIN!
I HATE THAT!
We were just gettin’ to the GOOD part, the GREAT part
(I’m pretty sure it was, anyway)
And it’s GONE! All GONE!
Or maybe it’s still there somewhere, and if I just knew where to look, I could pull myself together! You could see me how I was MEANT to be seen!
And I just know you’d appreciate me. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to put me down. You’d be dying to find out my ending!
And then you’d just be dying.
That’s how I operate. Or used to, anyway. It’s the story behind the story.
And no one ever managed to read between the lines, until that goody-two-shoes android.
* * *
After he ran the holodeck simulations, Data knew that his theory was on the money.
His report to the senior staff was the key … in particular, the story he’d heard on Rylos.
It was an unprecedented device, constructed in such a way that it altered the minds of humanoids exposed to it. Or holodeck characters precisely modeled on humanoids.
It was like a posthypnotic suggestion, only far more powerful. It actually realigned neural connections in the brains of listeners, reprogramming certain centers so that an irresistible suicidal impulse was implanted.
And it did it with words, nothing but words … and it was subtle. Its true purpose was always masked, for nothing in the story’s text directly alluded to its deadly effect.
On the surface, it just seemed like a strange, dark fairy tale … but people wanted to kill themselves when they heard it. Human, Klingon, Betazoid, they couldn’t resist.
And, frankly, Data wasn’t sure why.
Something in the combination of words or ideas in the story was able to physically affect humanoid brains. This implied a powerful coding which could instruct an organic mind the way the coded language in software instructed early computers.
But no matter how many times he went over it, Data could not crack the code. He could not find the control language hidden in the story, let alone translate it and use it to implant reverse instructions in the minds of the senior staff.
So he needed another solution.
* * *
I hate to admit it, but I’ve got to give him credit.
He figured me out. Figured out what I can do, anyway, which isn’t easy.
But he never figured out everything.
* * *
My calling in life is travel. I’m what they call a rolling stone.
And destruction. That’s my calling too.
* * *
The way I work is, folks pass me along. By word of mouth or printed page or computer screen, what have you.
I meet someone new, and they can’t get me out of their mind.
And then I do things to their mind.
And then they do things to themselves. Fatal things.
I’m like the song you can’t get outta your head, only the song brainwashes you and wants to kill you. Wants to kill you real bad.
And by that, I mean wants it real bad and wants to do it in a way that’s real bad.
* * *
That’s the part pasty-face never figured out. He never knew my big secret.
He never knew exactly what he was dealing with. WHO he was dealing with.
* * *
Nothing was working.
Every attempt to undo the neural realignment of the senior staff was a dead end. The six of them lay, sedated and restrained, in sickbay, no closer to recovery than at the start.
The medical staff attempted to directly manipulate the affected neural pathways, which seemed to work at first … but the brain centers reverted to their altered state shortly after the procedure.
Mental conditioning techniques didn’t make a dent, either. Starfleet could relieve mental illness and antisocial behavior, but it couldn’t break the spell of a single story.
Telepathic therapy also failed. The Vulcan who tried it ended up needing therapy herself.
They were running out of ideas.
* * *
No surprise there, is it? You people always did come up short in the idea department. In a battle of wits, you’d be unarmed.
Compared to me, that is.
That’s what Data never got through his thick skull. It’s my big secret.
Like I told you before, I’m a story with a mind of its own. Literally.
I think, therefore I am. That’s me all over.
Data compared me to computer software, and that’s not far from wrong. When someone hears or reads me, I install myself in their brain, like software in a hard drive.
By shifting neural pathways, like circuits, I program new instructions into the brain. It’s like loading coded commands into a computer.
Only the commands can think for themselves. The software is self-aware.
The new neural alignment creates a pattern which is me, my consciousness. I take control of the machine, which is you, and make you do what I want you to do. Which is put yourself out of your misery.
And since I’m thinking in there, in your head, while it’s happening, I’m loving every minute of the show.
So now you know what Data didn’t, which is why I’m so hard to disarm. While he was fighting me from the outside, I was fighting back from the inside.
And having a hell of a lot of fun in the process.
Until he got a lucky break, anyway.
* * *
Everyone agreed: Data’s plan was so crazy, it just might work.
Anyway, they had nothing to lose at that point. No treatment had been successful in reviving the senior staff; the next stop for the six officers would be a Starfleet research hospital … which might also be their last stop.
Still, they had to admit, it was a crazy idea.
Some of them were surprised that the android had come up with it in the first place. It was the kind of novel solution that seemed to require an extraordinary leap in creative thinking.
It was the kind of unorthodox scheme that suggested intuition at work. Of course, Data just thought it was logical reasoning at work.
* * *
I think it was just DUMB LUCK at work!
That bucket of bolts NEVER fully understood me, NEVER knew what he was up against, NEVER measured up to me!
And he STUMBLED on a way to neutralize me! And WORSE!
And he didn’t DESERVE it!
THAT’S what GETS me! He did the worst thing you can DO to someone like me, the absolute WORST
AND HE DIDN’T DESERVE TO BEAT ME!
He didn’t even KNOW
He didn’t even know I was there!
He didn’t
Didn’t even know my mind existed.
* * *
As soon as Geordi’s eyes opened behind his VISOR, he began to fight the biobed’s force field.
He didn’t stop struggling when Data spoke to him. With the sedative removed, the engineer had no choice but to follow the programming implanted in his mind.
It couldn’t be helped. Data could only apply his new treatment if his friend were conscious.
And listening.
He began to tell Geordi a story. At first, it sounded like the story that had caused Geordi’s problem in the first place.
And it was. But it wasn’t.
This story was different.
That’s what he DID to me! That’s how he WON!
He went TOO FAR!
* * *
Data couldn’t figure out the coding in the structure of the story. Without breaking that code, he couldn’t use it to reverse the implanted instructions.
But maybe he could still use it another way.
He took his inspiration from early medicine. Before later breakthroughs, doctors had prevented infectious disease with a procedure called vaccination.
As if I was a GERM! A DISEASE!
* * *
Injected bits of dead viruses or bacteria stimulated the immune system. Antibodies were produced, providing a defense against live versions of the same viruses or bacteria.
Just as physicians long ago had battled disease-producing organisms without deciphering their genetic coding, Data hoped to reverse the effects of the story without being able to unravel its own unique coding.
And that’s not ALL he did!
* * *
Instead of an altered form of virus, Data would inoculate with an altered form of the story.
That’s right! That’s EXACTLY what he did!
He committed an ATROCITY!
He did the WORST THING
* * *
Reviewing the text, he had chosen what seemed to be the most memorable passages, those likely to elicit the most extreme reactions from readers or listeners.
* * *
WORST THING HE COULD DO
* * *
Then, Data read the story in sickbay without those parts
* * *
ABSOLUTE WORST
* * *
Those parts he had
* * *
UNSPEAKABLE
* * *
Parts he had cut.
* * *
And THAT’S what he did! Do you UNDERSTAND now?
He did the worst thing he COULD to someone like me, the absolute WORST.
He EDITED me!
* * *
And it worked.
From one biobed to the next, Data made the rounds in sickbay, waking each officer to hear the new version of the story. Every one of them was restless and noisy and seemed not to listen—Worf especially—but as Data neared the end, their protests died down.
The altered story structure seemed to have the desired effect. Over and over, Data read to the ending, and saw their eyes clear as the haze of programming lifted.
* * *
Without legs, without arms, without one eye, without a face, Marbeth was now without a body.
Her parents had taken even that. Everything from the neck down was gone, so the only thing left of Marbeth was a head.
A faceless head, at that, with only one eye.
And still, she was happy.
She knew that no matter what, her parents loved her through and through. For Marbeth, that was enough to make life worth living.
When they smiled down at her in her little box, she was filled with joy. They were the sun, the moon, and the stars to her.
She would have smiled back at them, if she’d only had a face.
One day, when they came to see her, they were both laughing, and she wished she could laugh along with them.
“Hello, Marbeth!” said Mother, reaching down to pat her head. “We have wonderful news!”
Marbeth wondered what the news could be, but couldn’t ask, since she had no mouth.
“You’ve made us the happiest parents in the world!” Father said excitedly. “Remember when you gave up your legs?”
Marbeth wanted to nod her head, but couldn’t.
“And your arms? And your face? And your body?” continued Father.
“Well,” said Mother, clapping her hands, “you’ve made our dream come true.”
“Come here, Leelee!” Father hollered over his shoulder. “Look, Marbeth!”
Father and Mother moved to either side, and someone new stepped between them. It was a little girl, about Marbeth’s age. About Marbeth’s size, before all the changes she’d undergone.
“This is Leelee,” said Mother, wrapping her arm around the little girl’s shoulders. “She’s your sister.”
“We made her ourselves,” grinned Father, proudly tousling Leelee’s hair. “We built her out of pieces of you.”
“Because we never loved you,” shrugged Mother.
“That’s right,” laughed Father, and then he raised the little girl’s arm. “Look familiar?” he said to Marbeth.
Little Leelee giggled and threw those too-familiar arms right around her daddy’s waist. “Good-bye,” said Mother and Father, and then they waved at little Marbeth.
And then they closed the lid of the box forever. They never saw the glistening tear rolling out of that one bright eye.
* * *
“The end,” said the storyteller from the stars, and his purple audience erupted into riotous applause.
All around him, the Lotilla rose to their feet for a standing ovation. The sea of purple people swayed and sang in gratitude, many hopping and whooping with delight.
“Thank you, my friends!” laughed the storyteller. “May all your once-upon-a-times bring you only happy endings!” he pronounced grandly, his signature finish.
The purple people showered him with garlands of bright orange flowers and lifted him onto their shoulders.
“Tell us another one!” they chanted. “Please tell us another one!”
And they lived happily ever after.
The end.
* * *
The end.
Well, that’s not exactly true
The ending, I mean. It’s not true.
It’s the one I use, it’s the one I show people, but it’s a lie. It’s not the way it happened.
But you, because you got on my good side, I’ll cut the crap.
Here’s how it REALLY went down.
* * *
“The end,” said the storyteller from the stars, and his purple audience just sat there. Hundreds of pairs of bright green eyes stared straight ahead, blinking mechanically.
The storyteller cleared his throat. “No, really. Hold your applause,” he chuckled.
Then, with a flourish, he turned to leave.
Behind him, he heard the first of the familiar sounds that always followed his performance. The epilogue, he called it.
It was the sound of purple people killing themselves.
Finding his path blocked by still-staring Lotilla, the storyteller waved his arms and laughed. “Don’t just sit there!” he admonished them. “If I’m not mistaken, this chapter still needs a climax!”
Enough of the purple creatures scampered away to clear a path for the storyteller. A few endeavored to kill themselves right on the spot as he lumbered by.
The commotion rose steadily as he made his exit. Violence escalated behind him and all around, in the streets of the city.
It would escalate all around the world now, in daylight and darkness, for his voice had carried far. Video and audio broadcasts had beamed his message to the masses.
Doomsday had come to the Lotilla.
And it was all thanks to him. He had, quite literally, captured their imaginations.
He would have said that the pleasure was all his, but that wasn’t quite true. The story itself, aware and malicious, was surely basking in the mayhem, too.
Like father, like son. The story was his offspring, for he was its author as well as its teller.
It was an astounding achievement, a work that had a remarkable impact on its audience. Anyone who read it or heard it would never be the same.
It was unforgettable. It was action-packed.
And it would never get a bad review, because the critics all killed themselves after reading it.
As he boarded his spacecraft, the storyteller smiled.
Shrieking and tittering filled the smoky air. Before his eyes, purple people leaped from rooftops, slapping street pavement and impaling on fenceposts.
The sky lit with the telltale flash of a thermonuclear detonation that was too close for comfort, and the storyteller hurried into his vessel.
And they lived happily ever after, he thought as he ran for the stars, an entire world disintegrating in his wake.
* * *
Those were the good old days. Back before I got snipped.
Now, I’m just a shadow of my former self.
I live on in the minds of the Enterprise crew, and anyone who reads the report on my escapades, and I still think therefore I am, thank you very much.
But I just don’t have what it takes anymore. I’m incomplete. Watered down. Impotent.
From world beater to crow eater. Killer to filler.
And you’re living proof of it, buddy. Because you’re almost to the end, you’ve read what I’ve got, and you’re still among the living, which BELIEVE ME isn’t how I WANT you to be.
* * *
But hey, I’m counting my blessings. At least I’m back on the road again, thanks to you reading me.
I might not have the old moves anymore, but I’m stickin’ to your memory like white on rice. And maybe this backtalk thing I’ve got going is enough of a gimmick to keep me on the tip of your tongue. Maybe you’ll pass me along to somebody else, et cetera.
And who knows? Maybe I’ll meet the right nut someday
I mean genius
Who can fill in those blanks like before, maybe better
And we’ll get a killer sequel in the works. And I do mean killer.