Standard, really boring disclaimer:
Star Trek is owned by Paramount;
Star Traks was created by Decker;
Meneks writes BorgSpace.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round
Cube #347 picked through the shattered remains of the system's second planet. Once upon a time a rocky terrestrial capable of supporting life, then an event centuries ago had broken it into a smear of debris slowly dispersing into an asteroid belt. That event had been nuclear in origin, as evidenced by remnant isotopes; and deliberate, for cracking the mantle and core of a planet using primitive nuclear weapons was not a casual occurrence. Finally, the action had been suicidal by the originating race, decaying signs on the two moons which used to accompany the planet pointing to an early space-age civilization only beginning to build permanent extraterrestrial outposts.
A tractor beam captured a tumbling hunk of rock rich in exotic rare earths, pulling it to a bulk cargo hold for processing. The exposure of core and lower mantle made for easy mining of substances usually concentrated only on the deadly surface of a volcanic moon.
Cube #347 paused in its scavenging of the unnamed planet's corpse as scans swept over an object not rock, salty ice, or residual organic. It was processed metal; and, to be more precise, an intact probe of unfamiliar design, sides cratered with micrometeoroid impacts. It radiated a faint power signature, energy core that of a matter-antimatter design several centuries obsolete. The presence of impulse engines solidified the tentative conjecture that the probe had not been built by the system's too primitive and very extinct species.
The probe was tractored in for storage and future analysis. For now, the gathering of raw materials to refine into needed replacement parts was highest priority.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Automatic greeting given, the ancient Emergency Medical Hologram slowly swept his gaze across the sights in front of him. "Oh. I'm still imprisoned in your head, aren't I?"
"Indeed-ily, Frankster," answered Doctor brightly, ears pricked, "but 'imprisoned' is such a very, very harsh word. 'Kenneled' is much nicer."
Sighed the hologram, "Whatever." Frank was an early mark medical hologram, once upon a time installed on the First Federation ship USS Fiji. As such, his appearance was as all others of his kind of the era: a balding, middle-aged Caucasian human based upon the likeness of Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. A long time ago, both subjectively and objectively, Doctor had appropriated Frank's algorithms from the Fiji's electronic remains, eventually installing the program on a data crystal in his own head. Frank was essentially a holographic variant of Doctor's pets, albeit unreactive to accidental nanoprobe infestation and a bit more conversational.
As Frank looked over the head of the rodent-like Borg, he noted that he had been activated in one of the cube's cavernous cargo holds. Bulk Cargo Hold #6, to be exact, as specified from the ship schematic files Frank accessed. There was quite a bit more activity than the hologram expected, although he was admittedly no expert on the matter. Much of the floor space was concealed by a wide variety of engineering devices out of the ken of Frank's medical databases; and drones wielding an assortment of tools moved purposefully among them. The cargo doors were open to space overhead, warded only by the flicker of a forcefield; and beyond, a small asteroid could be seen being guided to the hold via tractor beams.
"What's going on here and why did you activate me?" asked Frank as he eyed the rock. He blinked as exterior cutting beams began to carve the hunk into smaller pieces, volatile gasses and molten ores igniting with bright flashes.
Doctor shrugged as Frank's gaze turned to him. "Busy, busy these last many, many cycles, and more. The sub-collective is lost, can't call home, and is now machining spare parts as fast as chunks of blown up planet can be processed." Ears flipped. "We did not make the planet go boom: we found it that way."
Frank waved his hand at the action. "Okay. That makes as much sense as anything. So, why am /I/ here?"
In response, Doctor sharply whistled through his teeth. {Here boy!} he called into the intranets. Frank was confused, sure his 'handler' had finally slipped beyond the boundaries of sanity the Collective allowed, when his dataspace sense felt the arrival of a nonBorg presence.
A new hologram consolidated next to Doctor. It was an oversized, anthropomorphogenic cartoon caterpillar, multiple hands gloved in white. It was many shades of green. It had horns. Upon one of the stubby horns was impaled a cigar.
"ACHOO!" sneezed the caterpillar. Frank felt the dataspace presence contort, an odd inversion, as if the caterpillar's program was turning inside-out; and at the same time, the hologram morphed into a lovely butterfly sporting multi-hued wings with fractal patterns. As the butterfly sniffed and slowly flowed back into its original form, so did the presence rearrange itself.
"DEVIL, this is Frank. Frank, this is DEVIL. I hope you will become bestest of buddies!" introduced Doctor.
DEVIL blew its nose loudly into a spontaneously generated hanky. "I say, I doth protest. I told thou ere now..."
Interrupted Doctor loudly, "You are so /cute/ when you are miffed! Frank, DEVIL has sneezes. It is obviously bothersome. I'm ever so busy-busy, and don't have the time to diagnose and fix it. You are going to do it."
The hanky was banished. DEVIL was now feeling about itself, hands patting as if it were hunting for car keys in an overpocketed jacket.
Sputtered Frank, "Fix what? I'm a doctor, not a software engineer! Put me back in your head, else let me do something I'm qualified to do!"
Doctor's ears flipped, the Seffite equivalent of a shrug. "You need walkies. Stay out in the fresh air for a while. I'll be keeping track of you. If you figure out what is wrong with poor DEVIL, you get a cookie!" Head cocked slightly. "Whoops! Better return to surgery: 261 of 300's new, high tensile strength tendons have been delivered and are ready to install."
Frank watched in resignation as Doctor disappeared in a transporter beam. The dataspace link to the storage crystal in the Borg's head remained, an invisible leash ready to be yanked should Frank try to escape beyond the limited dataspace access Doctor allowed. Borg medical files were entirely too invasive, too detailed, too nauseous even for a medical hologram.
DEVIL finally plucked the cigar from its horn, exhaling in relief. Smoke rings began to orbit the caterpillar's head.
A piece of planet inched its way through the cargo bay forcefield, internal hold tractor beams in control. Somewhere something hiccupped a series of echoing, metallic bangs.
"So, what is your complaint, then, Mr. DEVIL?" asked Frank with forced bedside manner as he materialized a holographic tricorder and PADD into his hands.
The caterpillar shrugged multiple shoulders. "Forsooth, DEVIL alone be my name. No matter how worthy a program thou art, thy ministrations cannot assist me, for as the Travelogue sayeth, chapter 2, verse 2, 'The road is long and dark. Beware the weevils.' I humor Doctor, but also I...never mind, small program." DEVIL's fingers wiggled in a nervous jitter, interrupted by a sneeze and gradual return to caterpillarness.
Frank snapped the tricorder closed. "'Small program'? I'll have you know that my matrix is an advanced collection of medical subroutines able to diagnose and treat a broad range of ailments for a myriad of species. And much as I hate to admit it, access to Borg files expands my abilities exponentially."
"Thou art a primitive specialist program, not even sentient," disdainfully answered DEVIL. Frank's hologram abruptly shivered with static as he felt the specter of cold fingers comb through his core programming. "Kernels of thy code are found at the base of every Personality AI; and my sire was partially begat from snippets of EMH code, thus my virtual genealogy is as a distant relation to thee. Forsooth, however, thy code is a worm; and to that I compare as a well-evolved man. I be a thinking creature; and thou be mere stimulus and response." Pause. "No offense be meant. 'Sticks and stones and all that jazz,' I quote from Manual of Cool, chapter 1, verse 18."
Frank did not like DEVIL's patronizing tone. He remembered the disdain of the Fiji crew, that of "real" people dismissing a "simple" hologram. To face the same bias from another /program/ was more than annoying, it was infuriating. "A worm? Look, buddy, I'm just trying to do what Doctor has asked of me. I live in his /head/. It's not like I have the chance to do anything in my spare time...or even /have/ spare time. You are humoring Doctor: humor me, this 'primitive' program. What is your complaint?"
DEVIL sneezed.
Beyond the niche DEVIL and Frank occupied, drones in one portion of Bulk Cargo Hold #6 abruptly scattered as the tractor beam holding the asteroid chunk prematurely disengaged. The rock plummeted the final two meters to the deck; and for a moment, it seemed as if it was to tip over and roll. Finally it settled with a wobbly shudder.
One of the drones escaping the terminal fate of a cybernetic pancake tripped over a loose extension cord. Arms flailing, she body-slammed into a low cradle supporting a small, torpedo-like object. While the drone was not exactly overlarge in stature, neither was she light, the process of Borgification adding more than a few pounds to even the most lithe of species' frames. The cradle threatened to dump its contents.
{Oh, sh**,} swore 193 of 230 into the general intranets. Frank's eyes went from asteroid to cradle just in time to see the engineering drone throw her body on top of the mini-torpedo to prevent it from falling to the ground.
DEVIL blew its nose.
"Welcome, welcome, welcome gentlebeings and potential customers! I, a representative of the Grand Nagus, congratulate you on activating this probe's greetings! Although you probably do not understand me, be assured that this probe is working diligently to translate your words so that it and you can communicate! We come in peace, welcome you to the galactic community, and hope we can eventually sign an exclusive export-import deal with you!" boomed the four meter tall, semi-transparent Ferengi which had sprung into existence in front of the mini-torpedo's nose. Every sentence ended in an exclamation point. The apparition's form was interrupted from the knees on down due to the presence of a quietly chugging Borg machine.
At the Ferengi's appearance, both intranets and dataspaces became a cyclone of activity. While Frank could not follow the thousands of resultant threads, the increasingly urgent complaints by Sensors were quite clear: the probe's activation had initiated a resonant feedback that was affecting the internal sensor system of Bulk Cargo Hold #6. Sensors was extremely sensitive to certain disruptions, of which the probe qualified.
"If you act now and plug this probe into any networked computer system - assuming you are sufficiently advanced to have computers - translation will be accomplished much sooner. More advanced universal translation algorithms can be yours for the low, low price of fifteen strips of gold-pressed latinum." In the giant Ferengi's hands appeared a representation of the probe. A hatch was highlighted and removed, exposing a large number of cords and transmitters.
At the probe, 193 of 230 was banging on the nose cone with a crowbar she had transported to herself. With each hit the automated Ferengi greeter/salesman/hustler fuzzed, but the hologram neither completely dissipated nor the infomercial (interspersed with entreaties to use the connectors) cease. Finally the nose cone separated from the rest of the probe, falling to the deck. 193 of 230 speared the crowbar into exposed wiring. The giant Ferengi sputtered one last time, then vanished.
Intranets and dataspaces calmed, mostly. Frank recognized a fragment of intense computational activity amid the engineering portion of the sub-collective, a consensus process, but that quickly faded as well. The drones of the bulk cargo hold returned to their previous actions.
"Well, that was entertaining. Much better than being stuck in Doctor's head. Now, where were we?" asked Frank with artificial pleasantry as he returned his attention to the snot-nosed caterpillar.
DEVIL sniffed. "'She comes, she comes: the winds of change blow. A hurricane approaches,' I telleth thee from the Sailor's Philosophies and Chowders Cookbook, chapter 16, verse 3." Resignation laced its voice.
Just as Frank was pondering what the hell the AI meant, a transporter materialized one of the Deltas next to himself and DEVIL. She was body A, according to the transceiver, not that there was a difference between the two bodies. Delta dismissed Frank with a glance, turning her gaze upon a suddenly cowering caterpillar.
"You," said Delta, "are assigned a task. You will do it without complaint, without backtalk, and without nonsensical quotes from fictional sources. I have no one to spare from my hierarchy right now; and you are idle. You will earn your upkeep. I am disallowed from pursuing certain actions in response to your part in sending us to the Happyverse, but I can demand of you this assignment."
Frank winced as he caught fragmented projections originating from Delta. They all involved DEVIL. Most were impossible given the fact the AI was inherently incorporeal, that it did not have an existence outside the dataspaces, no more solid than Frank himself. Others were technically feasible, even for a software entity, although the time and effort required to accomplish them were immense. One had the suspicion Delta might just take the time, if she were not leashed by existing priorities, not to mention command and control.
Delta continued, "You will go to that probe, access it, and determine purpose, history, and if it contains files useful to us. You claim finding data in your base purpose: locate us information. Useful information. No more mail-order blueprints." Pause. "And don't you dare go hide in the dataspaces."
"I shant." DEVIL sucked on its cigar and hastily added, "I shant hide myself in the dataspace nooks, for I foresee that to do so might begat a worse outcome than if I stood strong. On the other hands, how doth I..."
"That's your problem, AI, not mine. Be useful." The Delta body tilted her head slightly as an internal call obtained her attention. The transporter beam which whisked her away caught her mid-motion to unlimber a tool of whirly bits from her prosthetic arm.
DEVIL tentatively floated out of the niche, then paused and looked over its shoulder. "Well? Dost thou wish to come, little program? It shall be-est difficult to perform thy duties from afar. Besides, I already know what be my trouble; and I also be knowing that thou art woefully unable to set any leeches which would cureth me."
Frank, ready to bristle at the 'little program' remark, was caught by DEVIL's admission that it already knew its ill. "You are software, as am I. Unless you've a virus, you can no more be sick than I can. And as I told Doctor, I'm not a software engineer."
DEVIL shook its head. "Come along, Frank program, if thou wish to learn, to expandeth thou matrix." A pair of hands absently rubbed together, a nervous tic of sorts.
Hesitantly, Frank followed. Of course, what else could he do? Loitering in the niche until Doctor retrieved him would guarantee boredom; and if he attempted to transfer his holomatrix out of the bulk cargo hold, he strongly suspected Doctor would 'rekennel' him as well. At least DEVIL offered the prospect of additional time not spent in the confines of Doctor's head.
The Borg within Bulk Cargo Hold #6 largely ignored the two holograms. There were a few glances, and at least one alteration of travel path to deliberately walk through DEVIL and Frank, but on the large, processing the space rock took precedence. The equipment the Borg serviced were slowly, yet persistently, reducing the asteroid fragment to conduits, spars, wood paneling, and a myriad of other items.
DEVIL was silent during the trek to the probe's cradle. The probe itself, when it was reached, proved to resemble a miniature torpedo, a mere two meters long. The aft end bulged slightly where impulse engines were located under a protective housing. The nose cone was gone, replaced by a crowbar. Except for a bright orange access panel, the probe was painted a plain gunmetal gray. However, that color was nearly lost beneath the faded decals which plastered the hull, advertisements in Ferengi script promoting everything from platform shoes to books promising the secret to acquiring wealth. Ear related products were a major theme.
Frank accessed the file related to the probe, finding it short. Most data had been added in the last fifteen minutes, coinciding with the holographic Ferengi. Previous to that, a perfunctory scan to date the probe had been completed prior to cradle storage. The result from hull radioisotope decay tentatively placed manufacture several centuries earlier, coincidentally within a timeframe which included explosion of the unnamed planet.
"I be curse'ed with allergies," said DEVIL shortly as it impaled its cigar on a horn. The holomatrix was strengthened to allow manipulation of physical objects; and DEVIL began to work at the orange access panel's catch. "I be sentient; and upon the quantum seas I can swim. It tis upon the quantum all beings reside, sentient and not, but only those whose knots weave sufficient complexity can trumpet sentience. Thus I be knowing thou art not truly self-aware, little program, no offense meant. Thou simply...art not comparable to the likes of me."
The panel was lifted, discarded. DEVIL stared into the opening, examining the mess of cords and connectors, the process taking overlong. It abruptly sniffed, then sneezed. The return to caterpillar form required several minutes during which Frank remained silent.
"Upon the quantum seas existeth a contagion, attracted to knots of sentience and near-sentience. To that contagion I be allergic. Thou mayest be a doctor, but how would thou even begin to eradicate a virus one cannot sense, can never sense?"
Frank fumed. "I may only be a 'specialist program' to you, but I can diagnose and devise treatments for tens of thousands of viral, bacterial, and parasitic ills. Most on that list I have never encountered; and I from what I do know I can attempt to deduce cures for novel illnesses. I certainly can't catch any of them. Besides, you say you have an allergy, not an infection...things can be done to cure an allergy, or at least relieve its symptoms. Can you alter your programming?"
DEVIL paused in its reach towards a small, high-speed radio transmitter. "Of /course/ I can rewrite my code! Dost thou truly think thee can help me?"
"There art, er, are many techniques to desensitize an individual from an allergen," said Frank knowingly, already accessing the appropriate databases. "It is only a matter of figuring out how to apply it to you. Experimentation will be involved. Certain methods I can already see won't work."
DEVIL waggled the fingers of all begloved hands. "Well, may be, little Frank program. First, however, I must be confronting my destiny. As the Book of Animal Tamers sayeth, chapter 1, verse 1, 'Sometimes you just have to stick your head in the ratha-beast's mouth, razor teeth or no razor teeth.'" Focusing on the transmitter once more, DEVIL sucked in its non-existent breath and pushed a small button.
Frank was a complex matrix of code, ultimately a creature of whatever computer system he inhabited, be it Federation starship or Borg dataspace. However, his programmer, in an attempt to make him more personable, more accepting by his patients, more /human/, had developed an interface emulation which was outlooking. Frank generally paid as much attention to routine code execution as a person did the everyday miracle which was life. Ironically, the EMH was less conversant with the dataspaces than an average Borg drone, for all that he was fundamentally rooted in such.
At DEVIL's link with the probe, /something/ leapt upon the AI's virtual self, like a predator pouncing from ambush. It was followed by a swarm of smaller somethings, each scurrying for cover within nearby datatrees. As DEVIL recoiled, Frank felt an appendage of the dark beast briefly rake through his code; and while the talons momentarily caught on this subroutine or that, the final determination was dismissal as either threat or immediate opportunity.
DEVIL's holoemitted self froze, then shattered. Frank, not knowing what to do, awkwardly followed the AI to the Borg dataspaces.
A jungle. A steamy jungle full of greenery, the scent of rotting vegetation, and distantly calling animals. Since Frank's primary input was modeled after human senses, so the virtual dataspace plain resolved itself to a form he could comprehend. The imagery of jungle was odd, however, as Frank had never seen, nor been interested accessing data upon, a rainforest.
In the thick ground foliage of the jungle clearing thrashed DEVIL. Upon the caterpillar's back was a large jaguar, hind feet raking as it attempted to find purchase. As DEVIL shook off the cat and stood, Frank could see that the avatar's soft hide had been exchanged for green-hued armor plating. The fourth arm segment was badly scratched, but remained intact; and in the shifting layer of code which formed the true dataspace, Frank could sense the anti-viral sub-programs DEVIL had wrapped around its core self.
"Help me?" whimpered DEVIL plaintively before it bolted into the jungle underbrush. The jaguar, after shaking itself, followed. A flock of raucously screaming birds took flight.
A distant baying of dogs floated over the tree tops.
Stunned, Frank turned in a slow circle, noting as he did so the slightly translucent nature of each object. That tree was a tree, but it was also a collection of files on smelting: alloy properties, composition descriptions, melting points. A nearby bush detailed a wrench manual. Overhead arched the vast branches of a distant megatree holding the sub-collective's knowledge of propulsion. All the plants were of an engineering nature, although more than a few mutant limbs sprouted, such as the chewing gum tangent grafted to a plastics tree.
At one side of the clearing floated an out-of-place oval composed of metallic blue light - a portal. From the rip scurried small shadow-animals, their forms blurred. In front of the portal stood a Ferengi, the same as had been holoprojected, occasionally bending to shoo a shadow-creature which had lingered too long. The Ferengi straightened as Frank approached, running a hand over a stylishly flamboyant guard uniform.
"A recognizable program. Hooman-derived. Initializing Federation translator algorithms," stiltedly pronounced the Ferengi.
Frank stopped in front of the guard. As a shadow-animal ran over one foot, the EMH felt a residual desire to chant something about itsy-bitsy spiders. The impulse was quashed. "State the nature of your actions."
The Ferengi blinked. "Unusually mobile sub-sentient medical specialty program. Not a threat. Not of interest. Target for tertiary medical market once appropriate multi-generational consumer market has been established and monopoly treaties signed." The Ferengi unholstered a sidearm, aimed it, and fired.
A large tag sprouted from Frank's shoulder, bright yellow with the black slash of a Ferengi number; and upon his actual self, a small snippet of tracking code welded itself to a periphery subroutine. "Hey!" protested Frank as he ripped off the tag, rejecting it.
The Ferengi frowned. "Mobile sub-sentient medical specialty program displays higher level of resistance than expected." The flow of shadow-animals from the portal had slowed to a trickle, but Frank did not notice, the brandished weapon being of much higher concern.
A barbed railroad spike burrowed into Frank's thigh.
"Stop that, or you'll mess up something important!" Frank had successfully sparred against Borg attempting to alter elements of his program; and while Doctor wasn't exactly the most savvy of code writers compared to some units of the Cube #347 sub-collective, he had indirectly impressed upon Frank the importance of a stable matrix if he was to be held prisoner in a Borg environment of the imperfectly assimilated. Therefore, the tracking spike was mere annoyance as it was rejected, code sundered in the riddance process promptly self-healed with not a scar nor cloth rip to indicate damage.
The Ferengi balanced an object frighteningly like a bazooka on one shoulder. "Mobile sub-sentient medical specialty program displays much higher level of resistance than expected. Program targeted for termination as tagging unsuccessful. Note to journal: niche market will exist for new medical specialty programs; elevated price is suggested."
"Got to go!" exclaimed Frank as he plunged into the jungle underbrush, following the trail of crushed vegetation created by DEVIL. From the clearing came a loud retort, followed by the scream of disturbed birds. The expected explosion did not occur, but Frank did not stay around to learn why: being blown into bits was not an injury his matrix could repair.
After a few minutes Frank slowed, considered his options (DEVIL's trail was gone), then began to work his way towards the landmark represented by the propulsion megatree.
The megatree was set in its own clearing, several acres in size. Multiple stems wove the main support, banyan style; and aerial roots and secondary trunks quested down from the crown. Above, the branches split into encompassing subjects such as impulse, warp, and transwarp; and from there, branching again into construction, maintenance, and repair. Propulsion topics included not just Borg technology, but variants from thousands of species. Thick cables of woven vines snaked across the clearing, slowly writhing, but the largest were strung unsupported through the air, connecting to other engineering megatrees, as well as the realms of sensors, weapons, and command and control.
Even never having seen a real jungle, Frank was aware of the metaphysical implications. He hoped the insects thus swatted and vegetation trampled had not denoted anything critical to the cube's functioning.
Clustered around the propulsion megatree were animals different from the shadow-creatures or half glimpsed forest fauna. The body was that of a wizened rhesus monkey grown to orangutan proportions, atop of which was a colorful parrot head. Most of the monkey-birds, some gathered in large flocks? troops?, orderly scampered up the tree and into its branches, else adroitly navigated the main jungle underbrush. Some, however, sat in one place, rocking, a low murmur emanating from gaping beaks.
Frank crept near one of the solitary monkey-birds, noting as he did so the increasingly cybernetic character of the creature. Small implants studded the skin and the ghost of armor enclosed much of the torso. Out of place was the small, black leech attached on the back at the base of the neck where parrot feathers abruptly changed to monkey pelt. The words the monkey-bird was muttering became clear:
"The engines of the Martel shuttlebus go vroom and vroom, vroom and vroom, vroom and vroom. The engines of the Martel shuttlebus go vroom and vroom, all the live long day!
"The babies on the shuttlebus know Martel is the best, Martel is the best, Martel is the best. The babies on the shuttlebus know Martel is the best, all the live long day!
"The parents on the shuttlebus demand Martel for their child, Martel for their child, Martel for their child. The parents on the shuttlebus demand Martel for their child, all the live long day!"
The monkey-bird paused, then started the chant again from the beginning.
Frank gazed around the clearing at all the stationary monkey-birds, each singing or reciting a different, easily remembered song or jingle. All the affected creatures were infected by leeches. Frank's attention returned to the nearest parasite as it began to elongate, then split. A new leech tumbled to the ground, losing definition until it became one of the portal shadow-creatures, but not before Frank was able to resolve an identifier burned into its hide: "Youngling Teaching Song, Martel-Sponsored." The new shadow-creature scuttled off in the direction of a group of free monkey-birds.
Suspicious, Frank concentrated on his monkey-bird and was rewarded with a designation. Activating the holoemitters at the drone's real world location, the jungle faded. He materialized in the Primary Core.
"Repeat after me, children: the engines on the Martel shuttlebus go vroom and vroom..." chanted 192 of 310 in a monotone from the confines of a dedicated engineering alcove.
"You!" Frank stiffened as he heard a familiar synthetic duet. He neither had to turn nor query the computer to recognize Delta. "That AI did something to the probe, and you were part of it! You belong to Doctor, therefore you will..."
Frank hastily disengaged the local holoemitter. "House call?" he said as his matrix faded. Simultaneously, the dataspace jungle and megatree reappeared; and Frank spent a few tense milliseconds waiting for the engineering hierarchy head to follow him. He finally relaxed when it became clear Delta had greater priorities than chase Doctor's digital 'pet.'
Sighing in relief, but still in a conundrum about what, if anything, he could (or should) do, Frank focused on the rocking monkey-bird which represented 192 of 310. The fat leech twisted as it burrowed deeper. Unable to resist the algorithms which insisted the parasite be removed, Frank extended a hand to yank the metaphor from 192 of 310. That same hand was jerked back as the blind tail of the leech abruptly split to reveal teeth. The quick snap, had it connected, would have severed delicate self-code difficult to repair.
As Frank eyed the leech and vaguely pondered the possibility of poking it with a stick, the distant baying of dogs caught his attention. The barking was increasingly loud as the pack neared the propulsion megatree clearing.
From the brush burst DEVIL, caterpillar body awkward as it humped along in an ungraceful gallop. Behind it flowed the jaguar; and following the cat leapt a morass of hellhounds, red eyes glinting as they belled pursuit. Halfway across the clearing, the jaguar projected first one, then a second semi-translucent shadow of itself. The pack split, following the decoys.
"Help me!" puffed DEVIL as it passed Frank, never slowing. The AI smashed into greenery, cigar smoke leaving a contrail. The jaguar never paused in its chase.
A new ruckus from the locality where the double pursuit had entered the clearing was Weapons and six other drones. Not monkey-birds, these drones were themselves, although the armor and overlarge weapons they sported likely had no real world counterpart. All seven trotted single-mindedly across the clearing with an agility and speed no actual Borg possessed. They veered towards Frank.
"Which way did the hunter-seekers go?" demanded Weapons to Frank as he halted. The rocking monkey-bird was ignored.
Frank pointed. "That way, but..."
"Two ways. Explain."
"You see, there..."
"No time," cut Weapons into the account. "We are virus hunting. The intruder must be destroyed."
Frank indicated 192 of 310's leech. "What about the parasites attacking..."
"A secondary infection. Unimportant. The primary virus must be stopped. That way, correct?"
Weapons was not allowing Frank to complete a single sentence. A movement on the ground caught the EMH's eye. "Yes, but..."
"Good enough." Weapons led his troop forward, angling towards one of the foliage breaks the decoyed hellhound pack had created. He neither paused nor slowed as the trailing drone took three steps before halting and sinking to the ground.
Frank scooted closer to the fallen drone as she began to chant in unison with the already infected monkey-bird. Yes, one of the Martel leeches was worming its way into her thigh.
"Okay," said Frank to himself. "Now what?"
The EMH was contemplating a nearby bush for stick potential (and wondering what real world consequences he would be blamed for should he deliberately break a limb) when a familiar sneeze exploded behind his back. Frank turned in time to see fractal wings melting back into caterpillar body; and feel the AI's code realign itself.
"Help me?" asked DEVIL for the third time. The avatar's body was scored with scratches, reflecting the condition of its abused defenses, but the alien code had yet to penetrate vital subroutines. One glove was missing, as was the cigar.
Frank peered. "Where's your buddy?"
"That /thing/ dost not be my 'buddy,'" indignantly answered DEVIL as it drew itself straight. "That /thing/ be a specialty virus that dost hunger for search engines. While I be-est much more, I also be-est built upon the framework of an extraordinarily fine search engine."
Frank shook his head as a measure of haughtiness entered the other's voice. "And what do you expect /me/ to do? I'm just a 'small program,' after all, practically worthless. You yourself, a much more 'advanced' program, keep running away."
Somewhere, a flock of birds rose into the air, and the omnipresent sound of baying hounds neared. DEVIL flinched and glanced nervously over its shoulder. "'Run away and live to run another day,' I quote from the Manual of Cowardice, chapter 1, verse 1. My sire saweth no need to begat me with extensive anti-viral agents. My defenses be rudimentary; and I be highly embarrassed to admit that should the virus snare me, I shall be subdued."
"So? And you want me to do what?" prompted Frank a second time. He was still more than a little miffed about his initial treatment by the AI. "I thought you had some special quantum thing going for you. Can't you use that?"
"The quantum lets me see future possibilities, yes," admitted DEVIL, screech of an unknown animal causing it to hunch. "But the quantum seas are treacherous with waves and rip currents. Nothing is certain. Alas, I cannot follow the thread which be myself, for none who ply the quantum can directly follow their own fate, not even my GODly sire. However be, by tracking the trials and tribulations of those with whom I associate, I can surmise the might-bes of myself. Those might-bes, I may sometimes influence such that a probability wave collapses in my favor, but I cannot outright change."
Frank thought. "So, is /that/ why you were so...unsettled before you activated the probe's link? You foresaw this happening? Why did you do it in the first place, then?"
"Thou invoketh the whirlpool of paradox. I foresaw that the release of the probe contents was as certain as anything can be-eth upon the quantum. However, the method of release varied. In those currents where my blankness as a central pivot point did not resideth, this cube inevitably met an unfortunate end...and this self as well. Only where the waves collapsed upon me - and whatever hardships it might entail - dost there be a period of calm before the next maybe storm." The belling of the hellhounds became confused. "Willest thou help me? I be sentient, but I be not too proud to beg."
Frank finally relented, annoyance unable to overcome basic programming. Damn his creator. "How? I am not an anti-virus program, not the software kind, anyway."
DEVIL reached into a non-existent pocket and retrieved a new glove to replace the one lost. "Thou didest earlier claim to be able to assist with ridding my allergy although I be a software entity and you would never be able to experience the quantum from where my affliction arises."
Frank scratched his head. "True. I supposed I could try something, assuming the thing won't bite my head off. Of course, the most effective methods of countering real world viruses requires a piece of them, preferably non-lethal." The EMH envisioned the jaguar, then the underlying code, that of which he had glimpsed. "I think I know what I need, but to acquire it I'll require a wide open place - not like here - and a distraction."
Under the branches of the megatree, several monkey-birds tumbled to the ground as the jaguar crashed into them. The cat picked itself to its feet, ignoring the commotion and cry for Weapons, single-minded on the scent of its prey. The distant hunter-seekers, which had quieted upon losing their quarry, began to call once more.
DEVIL arced its body into an odd posture reminiscent of a runner at the starting block waiting for the pistol. "Thou must navigate thyself to the boundaries betwixt command and control and sensory hierarchies. Look for starcharts. Thou willest understand when thou arrives." With that, the caterpillar sucked in a big breath, stifled a potentially devastating sneeze, then bolted, jaguar hot on its multiple heels.
"Starcharts?" muttered Frank to himself, at a loss. "What do..." He abruptly halted as he felt something slide across his feet, accompanied by a catchy tune of Minnows, islands, and three hour guided tours upon the seas of Hyderia III. The leech was booted, but not before Frank had seen he was the nexus of a slowly advancing hoard. "Starcharts it is," he declared hastily.
It was a wasteland razed in the jungle, blackened stumps and ash covering the entire sector. A conflagration had passed through, leaving nothing behind. Although Frank could see several green shoots interrupting the bleak landscape, the young saplings and vines were a pittance compared against the devastation. Something had destroyed the cube's starcharts; and something else had prevented the sub-collective from simply downloading new ones from the Greater Consciousness.
A traumatic incident had happened while Frank slept his dreamless electronic sleep in Doctor's head. He vaguely recalled a period of explosions, but Doctor allowed him only the most rudimentary consciousness while in storage; and explosions were, quite frankly, a rather common occurrence for Cube #347. Before Frank could go hunting for the appropriate history files, however, DEVIL arrived, with company. A lot of company.
While the hunter-seeker pack which trailed caterpillar and jaguar was expected, the number of hellhounds was not. A roiling mass of bodies, the hunter-seekers lunged forward, an impression of saliva, red eyes, and barely controlled malice. Whips cracked from behind, urging the pack forward, wielded by Weapons and company.
A Weapons and company mounted on feathered, dagger-toothed, horse-like creatures. A Weapons and company bedecked in red fox hunter's coats.
"Faster!" shouted DEVIL, shaking Frank from his gape-mouthed stare. Whether DEVIL meant for Frank to hurry or as a self-imploration to gain speed, it was not clear. Probably both.
Frank sucked in a deep breath and broke into a trot, picking up speed as he crossed the devastated sector. He angled towards the pursuit, momentarily slowing as ash raised by the hunter-seeker pack caught in a jungle breeze and obscured his view. A wordless squeal from DEVIL spurred him to action. Shortly thereafter, the EMH found himself in the unenviable location sandwiched between hellhound jaws and jaguar.
"Nice doggie," puffed Frank as one of the growling pack lunged, fangs glinting. Raising his voice, he shouted to DEVIL, "Keep in the open area until I get my sample!"
The pursuit angled away from the looming jungle wall, turning to traverse scorched earth once more.
The jaguar's tail, a peripheral coil of code, whipped back and forth, just out of reach. One hand wielding a surgical laser scalpel, Frank flailed as the tail bobbed in concert with the cat's leaping run. He nearly cut his own arm as a dip in the terrain caused him to miss a step, but the hot howl of a hunter-seeker desiring code, any code, to rend was a goad to hasten.
Finally scalpel and tail occupied the same space; and the severed tip fell into the specimen bottle Frank had conjured into his other hand. Gasping for breath, the EMH slowed, the physics of dataspace reality not caring that a program should not become winded, to have a side ache. As DEVIL and jaguar trucked across ashy plain before plunging into jungle, Frank stood doubled over, hands on thighs.
Silence, other than the background cry of birds, suddenly registered. No hellhounds.
Frank raised his head to regard the semi-circle of hunter-seekers arrayed before him, eyes glinting. 'Easy prey' they seemed to imply. One animal stepped forward from the pack, head held low as a rumbling growl shook its throat.
"Really nice doggie?" whispered Frank. He clutched the specimen bottle tightly to his chest.
The lead hunter-seeker jumped forward, jaw agape. Frank screamed, then turned to run, previous weariness forgotten. From the rear of the pack drifted a cheery "Tally-ho!"
"Does it look like a nasty virus to you? I don't think so," snapped Doctor's voice, origin the base of the surgical megatree within whose branches Frank hid. "Hey! Your yucky puppies are making a mish-mash-mush out of that data key! Bad doggies! No biscuit!"
Frank, hunter-seekers in pursuit as they followed the spoor of the virus fragment, had run for the familiar architecture of the sub-collective medical files. He had burrowed his program deep, allowing surgical subroutines and diagnostic decision branches to camouflage him. In the dataspace metareality, he was up a tree, literally.
The scrabble of claws on bark alerted Frank to the exploratory foray of a hunter-seeker. The scrabble became frantic scratching, followed by a yip and a thump as the hellhound lost its grip and fell. The EMH edged out along a branch in an effort to see below better, but curling rootlets and trembling leaves prevented ground observation.
"The virus had been tracked here," insisted Weapons, whip crack punctuating his conviction. "You will allow complete access to this file tree."
Doctor grumbled. "I do not have the time for this. No timey-wimey! I am busy, busy, busy. Many sicky-wicky units, not all of them related to viral infection. No virus in the surgical files. Go away! Shoo!"
"Hunting intruders, virtual or real, is my hierarchy's duty."
"The hunter-seekers will rip my files apart, like rabid dogs fighting over a stuffed toy. No."
"You will not deny us, you..." Frank froze as a foot slipped. He held his breath in anticipation of a shout announcing his presence. Suddenly the belling of hellhounds commenced, but the pack was moving away, not swarming the megatree. "We have scented the virus."
"See? Not here," said Doctor. The creak of tack and receding thud of something not quite hoof, not quite padded paw, was the drone maintenance hierarchy head's answer. Click of incisors. "Come on down, Frankie. Here boy, nice boy. The meanies are all gone."
Frank hesitated.
"Now."
The invisible leash between EMH and Doctor tightened, forcing compliance. Frank inched his way back to the megatree's heart, then slid down the central trunk to the ground. Matrix extracted from the surgical files, he pulled his Starfleet tunic straight, brushing away imaginary bark.
"Frank," began Doctor, "you really, really, really shouldn't rile Weapons, especially when he is playing with the hunter-seekers. I might be sad if something happened to you. I become unhappy when I lose even the least of my pets."
Doctor's current dataspace form, as perceived by Frank, was neither drone nor monkey-bird. He was furry and disturbingly hamster-like, except for the medusa vines which lazily waved from his scalp. One hand clutched a PADD.
"Um, you see..." began Frank. He stopped as Doctor's eyes narrowed, focusing on the bottle he had retained through the ordeal.
"Foreign. Alien. Bad. Is that why Weapons and his doggies chase you, make a mess in my hierarchy sectors?" Doctor flipped the non-PADD hand to indicate furrows in the megatree's bark, not to mention several abandoned 'presents.' The dataspaces had no pooper-scooper regulations.
Frank sighed, then held up the specimen bottle with its tip of trapped tail. "You told me to help DEVIL. Fine. However, I can't do that until it stops running from that virus. I can't rid this place of the virus, and nor is that my job, but I'm pretty sure I can inoculate DEVIL against it." Pause. "I need access to a secure quarantine area."
"How cute!" exclaimed Doctor as he clapped his paws together. "Frankie is playing doctor!"
"I /am/ a doctor, you rodent warden. I need a lab, not a jungle!"
Doctor clicked his teeth in puzzlement; and his vine hairdo knotted. "Jungle? What jungle?" Obviously Doctor's perception of the dataspaces was different from that of his electronic pet.
"Never mind. Can you get me what I need?"
"Very unhappy. The sector you want is under Weapons' control. However, he is somewhat busy right now and you are /so/ cute!" The outline of a door appeared, red light leaking under the jam. "There you go! Quarantine. I've got to go, so busy with Assimilation to determine how to fix poor drones stuck saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Don't break anything." Doctor leapt onto the megatree's trunk, climbing to its branches before vanishing; and his presence retreated to the physical world.
Frank stared at the door for a long moment, then opened it and went through.
The lab was a small cleared section of jungle, floored in concrete, a quarantine where nasty electronic bugs could be isolated. Marble countertops and wooden cabinets hung surreally in the air, warded from the outside by several layers of shimmering forcefield. Upon one invisible wall hung a poster detailing the tens of thousands of nasty infections unleashed upon the Borg over the millennia, each caption juxtaposed to a cartoon depiction. Odd pieces of equipment and copies of "Ways to Assimilate Friends, Destroy Enemies, Disable Virii, and Make a Great Peach Cobbler" were arrayed on the counters, but Frank ignored them: he was a /medical/ program, a doctor, and beyond the inherent protections built into his code he knew nothing of defeating a software infection, and did not want to learn. He did, however, know how to make a dandy anti-viral concoction, and did not see why those skills would not apply in this situation. It was only a matter of technique.
In one cabinet Frank found a beaker. Unfortunately, the tail tip clung to the side of the specimen jar when he tried to pour it into the pilfered glassware. No spoons were in immediate evidence, so Frank unthinkingly stuck his fingers into the bottle to dislodge the sample.
Big mistake.
******
Wealth. Wealth. Wealth. Wealth. A steady chant, a Ferengi vision, always in the background. A program to corrupt pre-warp civilizations (Prime Directive? No profit to it!), to create a market for an enterprising Ferengi to exploit. The key to wealth is based in children, media, and search engines.
Flashes of Ferengi jealousy, envy over the near success, once upon a time, of the Dillon corporation to infect Green Borg with a marketing virus. Patent infringement? What's that? We can do better; and who is a pre-warp civilization to complain to, anyway?
Children are malleable. Little meme parasites, infecting key nodes present on even the most primitive of computer networks. Bright songs, catchy jingles, nursery rhymes, specifically designed to resonate with developing neural pathways of most sentients. After multiple generations, everyone wants Nagus-brand Ear Wax Remover. No matter the target species has no ears nor ear wax.
Parasites worm into television, radio, and computer nodes, multiplying. It is all about product placement, be it brazen on a billboard or subtly in the background of a blockbuster movie. Adult reinforcement of the happy songs learned as a child.
This vector is not a meme. This vector is powerful, important, direct. Any advanced computer network must have a search engine, a way to sort through the electronic equivalent of garbage to find hidden gems. A search engine, once infected, can track individuals, allowing a personalized marketing experience. Information is just another commodity to be sold to the highest corporate bidder.
This vector /must/ catch its prey! /Must/! Nothing else is important! Wealth. Wealth. Wealth. Profit. Profit. Profit. It...
******
Frank jerked back his hand, blinking away the nanosecond flash of data imprinted within the tail tip. A blackened fingernail slowly recovered its normal appearance, damaged code sluggish to self-repair. Dangerous. The fragment was too small to glom permanently to Frank's matrix, to hijack his program and turn him into another shadow-jaguar, but that did not preclude it trying. Even now it blindly twitched within the specimen bottle, whispering the wordless siren call of profit and wealth.
Spoon...spoon...there had to be a spoon within the quarantine lab. The EMH did not want to risk any more accidents.
Frank found DEVIL trapped in a cul-de-sac consisting of saplings and vines woven together to create an impenetrable barrier. The caterpillar was backed against the foliage, new scratches on its segments, staring intently at the dark shape of a crouched jaguar. A wall of cigar smoke was a thin barrier against the cat, one the viral vector was willing to wait to dissipate.
"I've done it!" shouted Frank as he slid past the jaguar and through the thinning smoke. In one hand he waved a syringe with a needle as long as his arm.
DEVIL wheezed, his stogie reduced to ashes. "Donest what hast thou?" Eyes remained fixed on an increasingly clear, threatening shape. The caterpillar shifted slightly to place the EMH program between itself and certain doom.
"An inoculation to prevent the virus from successfully attacking you. You said you wanted help and, well, brilliant doctor that I am, here it is. The allergy medication will take a bit longer, I'm afraid. Now hold still, unless you doubt the ability of this 'little program'?" Frank advanced, syringe held at the ready.
The AI abruptly registered the 'cure' Frank brandished, and, more specifically, the delivery method. "Um, no. No. No. No, I repeat. The Book of Disjointed Axioms, chapter 18, verse 19, mayest say 'What doesn't kill, cures and probably hurts like hell while doing so,' but..."
Frank was impatient. "Look, the antibodies have to be delivered to your core matrix. It will take too long if they must pass through peripheral subsystems. It won't hurt. It can't hurt."
"Sayeth /you/." DEVIL's head was rotating between jaguar and syringe, obviously trying to decide which was the best of a bad situation.
The smoke had cleared. The cat tamped its rear legs in preparation to leap. Somewhere the hunter-seeker pack had regained its prey's scent and was howling.
"Look over there!" pointed Frank with his free hand. "A three-headed parrot in spandex eating a purple coconut!"
DEVIL automatically followed Frank's finger. "Where? That be not a purple coconut, but a purple bana...Ouch!"
"Baby," muttered Frank as he withdrew the needle.
The jaguar, tail lashing as it saw its opportunity, leapt.
Frank scrambled away as the shadow-cat bowled into DEVIL. In his haste he dropped the syringe with its remnant unused antibodies, but the loss was unimportant. The jaguar had hooked its forepaws onto the caterpillar and was raking with its hind feet. Open mouth showed a dentition which had more in common with a poisonous snake than a feline. DEVIL bucked and rolled under the onslaught, to no avail. Frank was a doctor, not a warrior, and could do nothing to help.
The echoing sound of baying neared. A whip cracked.
The jaguar bit into what passed for DEVIL's neck, considering his icon was a cartoonish caterpillar. The cat immediately jerked back with a yowl, as if it had tasted something unpalatable; and then it dropped completely away from its prey to paw at its mouth. Bloody spittle began to froth the jaguar's maw.
DEVIL, battered but uncompromised, patted its neck with two sets of hands. "What didest thou do?" it asked, obviously unbelieving it was still in one piece.
"Well," began Frank with false modesty. He self-edited the long, complicated medi-babble explanation he longed to voice for one less complicated. "I made you taste bad. There is more to it, of course, but that particular virus won't be attacking you again. Unless it learns to like brussels sprouts and fava beams marinated in soy sauce, that is."
The shadow-cat had graduated from mouth pawing to frantically eating dirt. The edge of its form was less than crisp.
"I say, we doth have company," said DEVIL, halting exploration of its scratches. Frank turned as the first hunter-seeker wriggled through foliage into the cul-de-sac clearing, followed by its brethren.
The jaguar, still fighting the deplorable taste in its mouth, did not notice as it was surrounded by silent, hound-like forms. They watched, breath hot and tails still, for their master to come and give the final command. Leaf litter falling from its mouth, the shadow-cat finally noticed its predicament, eliciting a teakettle hiss marred by saliva-laden dirt.
Weapons, astride his mount, burst into the clearing, unconcerned of what disruptions might result from the shredded vegetation. Three drones, half of the initial hunting complement, trailed behind; and one of them was flailing at a darting leech with wings. Weapons' mount's forefeet kicked up litter as the hierarchy head approached the ring, surveying the beast caught within.
"Delete it," intoned Weapons. Hellhounds leaped; and the cat disappeared under the weight of many bodies. On a more basic level, Frank felt the virus' code start to catastrophically unravel.
DEVIL edged forward, out of the cul-de-sac, until it was at Weapons' stirrup. "Thou art come in the nearest nick of time," it gushed.
"Hey!" protested Frank as he ripped his attention from the morbid sight of the dying virus. "I helped you too!"
"As thou art coded, little program: thou could not help thyself."
Weapons frowned as he peered down from his lofty height. His mount fidgeted while hunter-seekers disengaged one at a time from the slaughter, winding around feathered legs. "Will you stop following me, you stupid AI? You are highly annoying."
The drone swatting at the flying leech lost his battle, falling from his mount. "Got one sock, lookin' for the other; got one sock, lookin' for its brother. When I find that sock, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll put it on my foot and stick it in my Goochie-Goo Ultra-Special Comes-In-Many-Designer-Colors platform shoe." The words were muffled, justifiably so as the drone's face was ground into the jungle floor.
Frank nervously watched as hellhounds slowed their post-fight celebration, eager noses questing in his (and DEVIL's) direction. "Um, DEVIL?"
"I be talking here, Frank program. Wait thou turn."
"Your high and mighty AIness, there may be a slight problem." Tens of red eyes were staring at Frank and an oblivious DEVIL. The dissipating remains of the virus were blowing away in the light jungle breeze.
"I said..." began DEVIL, exasperation in its tone.
On his mount, Weapons cocked his head slightly, posture mimicked by his remaining huntsdrones. Eye narrowed. "We sense more virii spoor. Here."
Frank stooped to pick up a small branch sundered from its parent bush upon Weapons' entrance. "Chase?" he asked without conviction as he threw it over the heads of the unimpressed hunter-seekers. Not a one followed the stick's flight.
"Very close," muttered Weapons. He focused upon Frank and DEVIL. "Possible Trojan infection."
DEVIL backed away from Weapons and his mount, nearly tripping over the shoe-and-sock drone. "What be he talking about?" whispered the AI loudly to Frank.
The EMH fixed a stiff grin upon his face. "Remember the snippet of virus I needed? The taint must still be on my matrix; and I just injected antibodies of it into you." Frank took a step backwards. The hellhounds advanced the same distance. "I suggest we leave."
"Repeatest thou?'
"Run!" Frank followed his own advice, shouting for Doctor as he did so. Behind, he sensed DEVIL following his example, not needing a second opinion.
In the clearing beneath the propulsion megatree, the vine behaired hamster which was Doctor strolled. In one hand he held a hypospray and in the other a leash. The leash terminated at a certain EMH program who was currently enduring the humiliation of a diamond collar and yellow rain slicker with hat. Frank's attention was turned inward as he worked to sever the auxiliary appearance code Doctor had grafted to his matrix.
"On top of Huellar spaghetti, covered with Nagus cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.
"It rolled off the table and onto the stylish DecksRUs linoleum floor; and the last time I saw it, it had rolled out the door."
Doctor advanced on the parasite-infested monkey-bird. As the drone continued to sing a song about tasting mashed food in an unsanitary garden environment, Doctor adroitly injected the leech with the hypospray. The parasite immediately began to writhe.
"...and tomato sauce. Tree. Summer." The monkey-bird engineering unit paused, words jumbled as the leech dropped away. "What am I doing? What is this /taste/ in my mouth?"
Doctor casually crushed the leach into the ground with his foot. "Brussels sprouts. Yummy, yummy! Command maintenance pathway, target 137 of 240: return to assigned alcove, initiate standard regeneration cycle. We will wake you once it is your turn for neural readjustment. So much fun! You are patient #376." A slip of paper was handed to the monkey-bird as it faded, consciousness dragged away.
"That's about all. Come along!" urged Doctor as he tugged Frank's leash. Frank shook himself out of his self-examination and locked onto Doctor's real world presence, activating the appropriate holoprojectors.
The EMH program found himself in the bulk cargo hold where he had begun his misadventure. It was less busy, many of the drones at the nexus of the viral payload having been infected by parasitic memes. However, work on carving the metal-rich asteroid continued, little problems such as losing nearly a tenth the sub-collective to forced downtime unimportant. A nearby drone stacking newly replicated intrahull spars hummed one of the more prevalent memes, ultimate origin pre-warp Terra. However, as she was determined to be uninfected by any parasite, the Indiana Jones theme was allowed to continue without comment.
"Did we have good walkies? Meet new friends?" inquired Doctor brightly.
Frank noticed one major change to the bulk cargo hold scene included the Ferengi marketing probe: it was no longer in one piece, and those bits still recognizable had disruptor burns. "Walkies? I saved your collective butts! I should get some acknowledgement for that." Frank concentrated, finally disentangling the tweaked algorithm which forced the rain gear upon him. Slicker and hat disappeared.
"Someone is sounding tired," commented Doctor. "You did do a good trick, though. And even better, 184 of 212 recognized the anti-viral before Weapons scrambled it. Good 184 of 212. With the anti-viral as a template, we were able to adapt it to rid us of all the annoying parasites."
Frank crossed his arms. "'Good trick'? That is all?"
Doctor flicked an ear at the hologram. "Definitely overtired, yup. Walkies are done." {DEVIL!} "Time to say night-night to your friend."
DEVIL materialized, avatar's appearance returned to its original format, including cigar and a full compliment of gloves. "Thou callest me?" The caterpillar sneezed.
"Say good-night, Frankie-wankie," prompted Doctor.
Frank rolled his eyes as he waited for DEVIL's reverse transmogrification back to caterpillar. "Sorry I didn't have the time to fix your allergy."
"No matter, little program," dismissed DEVIL, one hand lazily waving the cigar. "I mayest not be able to see my own fate upon the quantum, but by the abounding wavelets, probability be-est great that I shall entertain thee again. 'The wheels on the bus go round and round,' so sayeth the Manual of Confusing and Eternal Metaphysics, chapter 2, verse 9."
"How cute! I will schedule another playdate with your friend," said Doctor animatedly. "Until then, bed-time!" Words shifted internal. {Computer, deactivate EMH program and store in drone 27 of 27, cranial implant delta three.}
Dreamless dark descended upon Frank; and he knew no more.
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