Chronic Paradox

Things had gone wrong.  Terribly, horribly wrong.

Vyra ran down the corridor, timing her passage through each junction with the burst of the scramblers.  She did not use an armpadd, or a complant, or any other external device.  She couldn't: Those would be detected, and would give her away instantly.  She had to time it all in her head.  She was more than capable.  Disciplines inherited as a Deltan, albeit part Deltan, via genetic heritage, helped much.  She was a temporal agent.  She had been trained to do this.

What she had not been trained to do was handle the overwhelming situation in which she found herself.  Being a temporal agent... or, former agent, in her case (what a cruel, unexpected twist that fate brought)... had advantages.  Not anyone could be a temporal agent.  They had to possess certain natural gifts, special insights, which training sharpened to a fine edge.  Upon returning to 2407 – from the year 2387; the planet, Cardassia – she had discovered a different world, unlike the one she left.  The differences were subtle, yet glaringly obvious.  There was still a Federation.  Still a Starfleet.  Everything and everyone existed, that was supposed to exist.  But underneath it all, something was... wrong.  Dark.  Twisted.  Sinister.  Evil.... as if the entire universe had undergone a moral inversion.  It was like looking at everything in a mirror, and almost impossible to believe.  War?  Racism?  Hate, fear, murder, greed... people doing brutal, savage things to each other?  This was not the world she left, when she departed for Cardassia.  This was not how things were supposed to be, in the Federation.  And yet, this was not a different universe, nor alternate timeline.  She knew how to detect those.  This was, indeed, somehow, the world she left.  She saw the quantum scans.  Exactly the universe it was supposed to be.  But how?

It didn't take long to learn that she wouldn't get to the bottom of it with any amount of ease, nor anytime soon.  Trying to check in with the DTI, Department of Temporal Investigations, she discovered her status as an agent had been revoked... her clearance suspended.  She was no longer on the job.  And she was warned, in not so subtle terms: If she asked too many questions, not least of which why that was, she could lose a lot more.  Baffled beyond all bafflement, she left Earth, retiring to her home on Trius IV – to meditate, investigate very carefully, try to see what she could learn from there, and try to understand.

It took even less time to get caught.  They were watching her.  As they came for her... to do what – arrest her? kill her?; she didn't know, and didn't stick around to find out – she beat a hasty retreat, barely managing to escape.  For the past few months, she lived underground, off the scopes, using every trick she knew and even inventing a few, to avoid detection & capture, while digging deeper than she had ever dug, into a mystery that went beyond anything she imagined.

It wasn't easy to learn what she did learn, and it wasn't much.  But it was a start.  It put her on track.  It brought her back to here, on the planet Earth, where one of many roads seemed to lead: Division Five, a segment of Starfleet that should not have existed, represented by a D and a V: In ancient Earth symbology, Roman numerals.  500 and 5.  Five-hundred-and-five member planets in the Federation: That was how many there were, until the Bartokian secession, which spurred a few others to secede.  Federation membership now numbered exactly 500.  What did it mean?  D for division.  V for victory.  Initials of a name: D.V.  Five.  Five major races controlled the known galaxy.  There were other interpretations.  Analysis indicated all had significance; none were incorrect.  But none explained the total, underlying significance: why Division Five existed... what it was about... what were its goals.  And Vyra learned that those who pried too strongly had a tendency to vanish.

As they were now trying to make her vanish.

Starfleet Headquarters was a huge complex, dominating the San Francisco skyline, in the middle of what appeared to be one of the most advanced, modern metropolises on Earth, a beacon throughout the Federation.  Earth was supposed to be a paradise.  Beneath the clean, glimmering surface was something frightening... festering.  It was in the air.  In the way people looked at her.  It was in them.  An influence, permeating the very fabric of nature.  Sneaking into Starfleet HQ – and she was never in Starfleet – was one of the biggest challenges of her life; she was amazed at herself, that she pulled it off.  But it was easier to get in than to get out.  As she went deeper and deeper into the complex, Vyra felt something she rarely did: Fear.  Deltans had a sixth sense about things, some stronger than others.  Being only part Deltan, she inherited less of it, but her inner sense was screaming.  She was close.  She could feel it.  But she also knew that she would not be coming back out alive.

She was scared.  But she had been trained to conquer her fear, to not let it best her.

So be it, then.  If she was to die, she would die knowing at least part of the answer to this mystery.  It was there, at the end of the hall, behind the white, unmarked door.  Her investigation yielded this as one of Division Five's innermost lairs.  A sanctum; a secret room.  What went on here, no one knew, except those who went in and came out.

She had disguised her presence.  But they knew she was here.  She was close.  So were they... coming down the side corridors.  Only moments remained.  If she did everything right, the door would open as she reached it.

She counted off the timing of the scramblers, taking hurried steps with each covering burst.  Five steps left.  Four... three... two... The door opened.

A man and a woman stepped out.  Familiar faces.  Vyra stopped, stunned.

"Rampart?  I thought you were..."

"Dead?"  Jordan Rampart, her former partner, regarded her with a dour expression.  "No... but you are."

Vyra turned in time to see the weapons, pointing at her from every direction.  The last thing she saw was those weapons, opening fire.

Rampart waved a hand at the smell, looking down on his former partner... what was left of her.  He shook his head and tsked.  "What a mess."

Alongside, Vor'ana stroked his neck, gazing down with cool, casual, Romulan detachment.  "The tip of the iceberg, my husband."

People weren't supposed to come back from the dead.  Death was supposed to be it.  The end.  Permanent.

Well, she certainly had a handle on that, didn't she?  And here she was, contributing to it.  At only twenty years old, about to become the biggest mass murderer of her time.

Stories had circulated for years, about people who did in fact beat death.  Computer searches always turned up a few ready, notable examples from the history files – names like Kirk, Spock, others... almost always, strangely, Starfleet people.  As if those defiances of nature occurred only in space, where they were present.  As if it only happened to them.

It seemed part and parcel of the Starfleet job description.  The strange, the bizarre, the inexplicable.  The impossible.  Then, also, reinforcing it... there was her father: a man who had beat death more times, seemingly, than anyone could count.  His name: Stephen April.  Her father.  Except, in the end, death finally got him.

Or did it?

It was nowhere more evident, or disconcerting, than in the form of the woman in the doorway.  Her mother.  Her mother, who had, by all reports, died... and yet, was somehow here, standing in the door, talking to her, asking, "Stephanie, are you listening to me?"

"Yes, mom, I'm...."  She couldn't finish the sentence.  As soon as 'mom' came out, she hesitated, unsure if she was truly addressing her mother.  She couldn't look at her.  Was it her mother who came back, or... someone, or something else?  It was too eerie.  Stephanie had cried, when her mother died; she had arranged a funeral; she had attended that funeral.  She was certain the odd blonde guy at the ceremony, someone she had never seen before – probably one of her mom's Starfleet friends – knew something about the affair, from the way he talked, but didn't say.  Starfleet had a name: The secret fleet.  They loved their secrets... 'classified', 'top secret' and all that.  It made her heart skip a beat, to be here, now, in the same facility with her.  Her mother.  If one parent beat death, could the other?  It almost made her sick inside.

Her mother and father.  Both in Starfleet, where the strange, bizarre, inexplicable happened, as a matter of daily routine.  She had no interest in that kind of life, and she was glad.  She wouldn't be able to take it.

"Steph... hey."  The woman bearing her mother's name came in to stand beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.  "What is it?"

Stephanie slid out of the chair, away from the computer, away from her.  Her skin wanted to crawl.  "Don't do that.  Okay?  Just don't."

"What, you don't want me to touch you?"

"I'm sorry, mom... I mean... this is... I..."  Her hands moved around aimlessly.  She wasn't sure what she wanted to say; what she should be doing or trying to do.  It was hard to think.  "This is... I'm just... having a hard time, accepting this."

Brenda Shoemaker stared at her daughter, shocked and a little hurt.  She recovered and hid it well, a forced habit, watching Stephanie, who watched the floor, glancing up once or twice.  Her mother shifted weight to one leg, arms crossed, adopting that 'I am Captain Brenda Shoemaker' pose: A pose of authority.  Stephanie knew it well.  She grew up under it.  She expected her to start tapping her foot any second.  Tucking loose strands of brown hair behind one ear, her mother said, "Which part?"

Stephanie wanted to burst into tears and laugh at the same time.  The laugh won out.  "All of it.  I mean, the wolf...."  The wolf.  Her self-styled 'animal guide'.  Talking animals.  Spirits.  Demons of air and darkness.  That such things could happen, in an age of technological sophistication, where everyone supposedly knew everything...... there was something hilarious about it.  She didn't know what.  And what amazed her more, it was, according to what she had learned, appeared to her father, in his last days.  That was unnerving.  If it came to her father just before he died, was Stephanie next?  "And then," she told her mother, unable to hold it back, "to be told my dad isn't alive... but then he was—"

"He wasn't—" her mother started, a little too sharply... tone reprimanding, all too familiar.  The woman calling herself Brenda Shoemaker bit her lip, took a breath and settled down.  "He wasn't your dad."

Stephanie lifted her chin, not exactly glaring back, but giving her domineering mother that mutinous look that said she didn't like to be dominated.  She was never sure if she got it from her mother, or her father, or both.  "—and then he's gone, too, before I get a chance to meet him, to at least see what he was like..."

"It was a clone," Brenda repeated.

"How?  How was he a clone, mom?  You can never tell me that, how you know."

Brenda's shields faltered.  Her arms loosened; she shifted on her feet.  "I can't tell you how.  If I could, Steph, I would."  She glanced away.  "Believe you me, I would.  I'd like to know myself."

"I just have to take your word for it," Stephanie supplied.

It was the same old argument.  The woman claiming to be her mother looked at her; long, hard, momentarily silent.  She didn't have to say anything.  Stephanie had heard it.  If you want to know what he was like, visit a holosuite.  Read his logs, the books he wrote.  Talk with relatives.  She did all that.  When she was twelve, she made a hologram, a fully interactive one, which she carried around for a while.  Whenever she was thinking about him, she had only to whip him out.  One missing parent, at the touch of a button.  But nothing could take the place of a live, flesh and blood person.  Growing up in a world where she could have anything, the only thing she wanted was the thing she could not have.  She wasn't sure, sometimes, if that was even really it; other men filled that role, but the opportunity was never there, for her to know.  She suspected, believed sometimes, that her mom drove him to suicide, but with no idea, much less explanation how, or why.  Her mom rarely said anything negative about Stephen April.  Stephanie knew she loved him.  Like so many things, it didn't make a lot of sense.

What came next made less.  "And then this wolf-guide says he's not really dead, and neither are you, and while I'm trying to get around that, in you walk, through the door, alive like nothing happened.  What's next?  When's he coming?  How am I supposed to handle that?  Will he approve of this?  You, me, us?  What I've... we've, been doing?  It's all too much, mom!  You people.  You—"

"Us people?"  Brenda raised an eyebrow.

"Stop it.  You know what I mean.  Out there, in space, with all the mysteries and the phenomena, strange new worlds and all that, ooh, aah, you see that all the time—"

"Actually, not all the time."

"Can I finish, please?"

Brenda waited.  Then added, "Don't be sarcastic."

Stephanie gathered herself.  There was one benefit to having Brenda Shoemaker for a mother.  It made her strong... if she summoned it up.  "Here you are, in the flesh, 'mom', and not only back from the dead, but back in your old body... and if you are my mother, you know how hard it was for me to get over that when I was six..."

Brenda nodded.  "I didn't forget."

"...and here I am, and what are we doing?"  Stephanie tossed a hand at the computer.  "Look at this.  Look at me.  What am I doing?  I'm a terrorist!  I'm only twenty!  And I don't even know why!"

"We are not terrorists," Brenda corrected her.  "This is a war, Stephanie; I told you."

"There's been no formal declaration."

"We're freedom fighters," Brenda continued, unabated, "fighting against invaders, the occupation of our planet.  Just like when the—"

"—when the Cireans invaded; I know, mom, I've heard it before."

With empathy for her daughter, Brenda said, "I thought you understood."

Stephanie laughed again, humorless.  "I should have known I wouldn't have a normal life, with parents like mine.  I wish somebody had warned me when I was little.  I might've ran away."

"Steph.  C'mere."  Brenda started towards her, arms open.

When Stephanie was young, hugs made her feel better – especially from a mother who was around so little to give them... always away at work, busy with her career.  And she needed it.  But those days, of soft, warm, fuzzy feelings and comfort, of belief that all was right with the world, had faded, replaced by a growing shadow... a gnawing uncertainty about the future: the world's, her own, her place in it.  She remembered reading her father's Starfleet logs, the ones they declassified, and it was a sentiment he expressed constantly.  Maybe she got that from him.  But it was also partly because of the world they lived in.  There was no denying it.

"No, mom."  Stephanie blocked her advance.  "What I need is time, to figure this out.  By myself."

Brenda stopped, turning up the heat with her gaze.  After a moment she said, "If you want to know your father, take a look in the mirror, Stephanie.  Because you're just like him."

Stephanie started to crumble.  "I'm sorry... I just—"

"Before I go," her mother said, turning to the computer, "I need to know about the status of the weapon.  Is it almost finished?"

Stephanie pursed her lips and blinked a few times, finding focus on the floor again.  Well, she asked for it.  She stepped towards the computer, still not sure entirely why she was doing this.  She felt like a leaf on the wind... a pawn in an invisible game, something that exceeded her, which went beyond her ability to grasp or analyze.  At only age twenty, everything should not be so serious in life.  So grim.  Having a mother like Brenda Shoemaker did that to her, she tried to tell herself – but in the end, it was all about choices... and something else.  Her mother asked if she was listening, when she came in.  Oh yes.  She was listening.  But she didn't fully understand what it was she listening to.

She was a killer.  Why didn't that bother her, more than it did?

"It's complete," Stephanie said, joining her mother.  On the computer screen, DNA chains danced, reconfiguring, breaking apart, reconfiguring.  Everything seemed so simple, so orderly, on that level.  Being a molecular biologist was as much an escape, for her, as it was a profession.  It made more sense than her own life.  "Mom... tell me again why we're doing this."

"Because Earth doesn't belong to them," her mother said simply.

"That's what I thought you'd say."  Stephanie picked up a padd, thumbed a button and handed it to her.  "You might be interested in this."

"What is it?"  Her mother examined the readout.

"Came over the sub-line a half-hour ago.  Someone got inside... learned a few things."

Brenda frowned, then her eyes widened.  "This could be useful.  They sent it here?"

"Yes."

"We should pack up.  Move our base of operations elsewhere."

Stephanie nodded, and let out a sigh.