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Darwin Awards
"I want funny!" screamed the producer of "The Galaxy's Funniest Home Darwin Awards." The Klingon was having a bad day. Then again, to those around him, he was always having a bad day. "Funny, do you hear me? Not stupid, not dull, and if /one/ more cute animal is involved, the moron that passed the submission will become the newest Darwin! Get me something good! Get me something bloody! Get me something where someone /dies/ for once, not just an Honorable Mention!"
Froth rung the Klingon's mouth and spit hit the two cowering technicians. Sure that his point had been made - the bat'leth in his grip dissuaded protest or questions - the producer stalked through the egress from small room into corridor, slamming the door behind.
Silence.
"That went pretty good," tentatively advanced Robbie, human of blond hair and that distinctive pallor associated with too long inside dark rooms.
Robbie's companion technician gave a delicate snort. "We're lucky he didn't take our heads off," answered dark-eyed Lintela, an unjoined Trill. "He never was the best of company, but he's become even worse these last few months. You are blessed you were on vacation the week his warp-capable runabout was 'requisitioned' by the Feds."
Robbie's hum was noncommittal.
The room, little more than an enlarged closet, had one wall hidden with ceiling-to-floor electronics, focal point a limited-depth tri-V screen. Racks of crystals and other recording media lined the other three walls, except for a space for the door and a niche which was a shrine to coffee and all things of a legal stimulant nature. Light strips on the ceiling were dark, but for one emitting a red glow that provided just enough illumination for dark-adapted eyes. The wall-length table ledge which fronted the electronics was heaped with labeled crystals; and a pair of castored chairs served as minor thrones upon which reigned the technicians in their very small domain.
Robbie picked up a crystal from a neat pile next to his elbow. "This one first?"
Lintel's eyes flicked to the object Robbie held in his hand. "Sure, but first, let's review the components of a good Darwin Award." Robbie huffed a sigh. "Hey, this is my literal head on the line, as well as yours, monkey-boy."
Robbie rolled his eyes as he recited words long committed to memory: "A Darwin Award is given to those individuals who protect the gene pool of the universe by making the ultimate sacrifice and eliminating themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving the genetic makeup of all sentient species and improving the chance of everyone else's long-term survival."
"Very good," stated Lintela, "and the components of a Darwin are...?"
"The prospective winner must remove him, her, or itself from the gene pool. Generally this involves death, but allowances can be made for outcomes that involve assimilation or irreversibly affect reproductive. A death that destroys all genetic information is best. Honorable Mentions are awarded to those who don't quite make the big kaput. Or big splash.
"Additionally, a Darwin recipient must, through their own actions, cause the termination. Accidents don't count, nor does influence from omniscient beings. Drugs, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances may contribute to the death, but not to such an extent that all judgment is lost. Somewhere a small voice must be saying 'Maybe this isn't such a good idea.'
"The awardee must be mature enough to exercise sound judgment to begin with. Ignorance is different from applied stupidity. Depending upon species in question, submissions which involve pre-adolescents are disallowed, primarily because ratings fare poorly when children blow themselves to smithereens, even when those children are acknowledged geniuses. Those of a mentally substandard nature are excluded as well.
"Finally, innocent bystanders cannot be harmed. The prospective Darwin must only remove /self/ from the gene pool.
"Did I get everything?"
Lintela squinted at the old-fashioned sheet of laminated paper she held in one hand. As Robbie had covered each point, she had briefly tapped the relevant bullet with a finger. "Yes. Perfect." The checklist was returned to its cubby in the bank of electronics.
"As always," preened Robbie.
Lintel rolled her eyes. "Just put in the first crystal before your head explodes from all that ego."
Robbie chuckled as he placed the crystal into one of several unlabeled slots. The tri-V screen brightened.
*
Title: The Fluffy Bunny Affair
Contact: Linda McFadden, Telanius III Colony
"Doreen, are you sure this is okay?"
"Don't be such a worry-wart, Linda. This is a /zoo/ for pity's sake. It's not like you can get lost or that there is any /real/ danger. We aren't on safari, Linda, right Sissy?"
"I've been on safari, Linda. Roaring beasts and all that sort of racket. Besides, our tour guide is just a few cages over. No harm."
A long, suffering sigh sounded from behind the slightly shaky camera point of view. Linda, amateur videographer taking holiday movies, was absent (and would remain so), but her voice suggested an older lady, recently retired but still active. That mental image fit with the reality which was Doreen and Sissy. The two women, sisters by their familial resemblance, were typical aged, yet spry, specimens in their early hundreds. While medicine and technology had yet to stop the Terran aging process, it had noticeably slowed it such that the pair could look forward to at least another fifty years.
Doreen, peering into the cage which had so caught the trio's attention, was the taller of the featured duo. Her black hair was just starting to fade to gray, and her wrinkles weren't too pronounced as of yet. Holiday outing attire consisted of a tasteful black and light blue pant/blouse combination...ruined by a horribly out-of-style, false flower be-decked hat on her head. An overlarge leather purse was clutched under one arm.
Next to Doreen stood Sissy. Sissy's perfect posture evoked images of a younger woman who had spent many decades in the world of Starfleet, topping out at a comfortable, if low, specialist rank. She had opted for a one-piece jumpsuit of charcoal, terrifyingly offsetting an obvious dye job of brilliant red hair. Like her sister, she held tight to a purse the size of a small child.
A coughing roar prompted Linda to swing her camera to the left, stopping upon a group of fifteen or so people crowded against a safety rail blocking access to an open pit. Upon a speaking platform stood the guide, clothed in traditional khaki safari-ware and too distant to determine race. The voice, however, was male; and the guide was bellowing out important facts about the Fanged Ferocity of Fatulb IV such as amount of meat able to be eaten in a single feeding (35 kilograms) and its reputation as a man-killer in its native environment. The wayward trio had not been missed.
"Over here, Linda," impatiently called Doreen. The camera view shifted in response to the order. "I wonder why this cage is here? It doesn't seem to fit in. It is so primitive!"
Sissy snorted. "It's probably a joke, Doreen. Look at the occupant, after all. The guide'll stop here last and give some big spiel, talk it up, and then get a laugh...and extra tips. I've seen it before. Once I had shore leave at this colony where..."
As Sissy expounded a mini-adventure forty years ago, Linda zoomed in on the cage in question. It was primitive to the point of cruel antiquity: no force fields, no naturalistic habitat, few creature comforts for the animal within. Instead, it was a rectangular cage with a cement floor and three sides of steel bars. The back of the cage was a plain gray wall with seams denoting a keeper's door and a slot to push out food. A token railing and small moat kept visitors sufficiently distant such that outreached fingertips could not touch bars. Tied to cage bars and railing were signs, a couple of which announced the display to be "Fluffy Bunny," but most variations upon "Danger" and "Keep Out."
And the occupant?
Sitting in a compact shape in the middle of the enclosure, wiggling its pink nose, was a fluffy bunny. White. Its fur was of a luxurious, angora quality; and its ears were miniature radar dishes which swiveled at the slightest sound. In size it was, maybe, thirty centimeters from nose to tail, easily small enough to squeeze out of the cage had it been so inclined. Nearby was a metal platter upon which were the remains of a vegetarian menu.
The Fanged Ferocity roared again. The fluffy bunny's nose stopped twitching as its ears rotated, then it shook itself and took a small hop forward.
"This is a predator zoo. Maybe the guide will beam in a beast to eat it?" ventured Sissy, who had halted her story when it became apparent none were listening.
The camera pulled back slightly to include the two sisters again.
Doreen opened her humongous purse and began to feel around inside. "I've an idea! I've a carrot in here, somewhere. Let's see if we can get it over here." The words were followed by a triumphant snigger as she pulled a carrot, complete with feathery top, from her bag.
"What about the 'Do Not Feed' signs?" asked Linda from behind the camera.
"Piffle," dismissed Doreen. "Sissy, help me climb over to the cage."
"Yes'm," answered Sissy. She assisted Doreen with ducking under the railing, then leaping the two meter moat. The security system was not complex. Shortly, Doreen squatted next to the cage, pushing the orange end of the carrot into the cage. Sissy remained behind the railing.
"Here bunny, bunny, bunny."
The fluffy bunny blinked, then turned to face the caller. Hesitantly it hopped forward once, twice, then stopped. The lure of the carrot prompted it to continue after a short rest. The camera tracked the bunny's halting progress, occasionally panning sideways to view Doreen, but always returning to the animal. Finally it was tentatively reaching out to nibble at the treat.
Doreen snatched the carrot out of reach. Off-camera, Sissy laughed. In the cage, the bunny blinked in confusion.
"Over here, bunny," said Doreen as she shifted the carrot to the left several bars. As if the vegetable was a magnet, the bunny's head followed. It hopped off in pursuit.
Again the carrot was taken away. Nose twitched in annoyance.
Doreen moved to her right a pace and inserted the carrot again. "Nice bunny. Stupid bunny. I've a treat for you."
The teasing continued several most times, cumulating with the bunny bonking its head against a cage bar. As the rabbit dazedly gazed around, Doreen stood from her crouch, carrot in hand. Sissy could not stop laughing; and even Linda's chuckle could be heard. "This is boring," announced Doreen as she faced the camera. "Let's catch up with the group."
Linda gasped and Sissy abruptly stopped laughing as behind Doreen the fluffy bunny appeared to levitate. As it hovered mid-air three meters off the ground, another shape faded into view. It was large, features indistinct, form suggesting a biped with ample claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. A long tentacle protruded from its face, elephant fashion, ending at the incredibly lifelike lure which was a rabbit.
The thing, beneath its natural chameleon camouflage, was fluffy and white.
The beast was also incredibly pissed off. It wanted that carrot, and it wanted that carrot /now/!
"What?" asked Doreen, face scrunched in confusion. Sissy pointed with one shaking hand, other frantically searching for a sidearm long since returned to Starfleet upon retirement.
The fluffy bunny charged, reaching through bars with lure and arms, pulling Doreen against the cage. The camera shook, but remained glued to the action as the fluffy bunny worked for its carrot. The screaming howl of emergency alarms blared from the top of the cage....
*
Robbie and Lintela watched the film to its grisly conclusion. They had seen so much blood and gore and dangling intestines before that they were inured. At best, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 4. Finally the recording ended and Robbie removed the crystal.
"It was bloody," offered Robbie in critique, "and the woman is definitely Darwin material, that of which was left. It fits all the tenets."
Lintela thoughtfully commented, "I don't know. Technically, you are right. However, remember what the Boss said about cutesy stuff? The bunny might have a bit too much adorability factor right now for him. I don't relish being decapitated."
Robbie shrugged. "How about the 'Definite, But Not Now' pile, then?" As Lintela murmured her agreement, the crystal was dropped in an unlabeled box, one of many. Robbie then randomly plucked the next recording from the submission pile and slipped it into the appropriate slot. Once again, the monitor brightened.
*
Title: Auditors, Editors, and Critics, Oh My!
Contact: Eyreen, Main Quantum Complex
An eyeball. Another eyeball. A pair of lips. A hand nervously rubbing thumb and forefinger together. A jostle, then an extreme close-up of something pink with tiny veins, revealed a moment later to be a pancreas. The scene was vaguely reminiscent of an anatomy textbook, but each body part quite mobile without benefit of the body. The camera slowly panned over what was standing-room only in a vast auditorium, walls lost in mysterious misty vapors and "peopled" by a large number of body bits.
There was no hack-and-slash quality to the scene. It was an orderly gathering of persons, bits of persons...er...a gathering, anyway.
The white noise of countless conversations - most of them taking place without an obvious speaking orifice - filled the audio channel.
"If I may offer a bit of criticism," said a voice nearby, but unseen, "I think you would get better blocking in this situation if you used a wider angle lens."
The view swung to focus on a pair of purple lips, smirking. The nasty grin disappeared as the lips curled into a sneeze, then produced an audible snuffling sound.
Called a brown-irised eyeball over the snarfing, "Ignore Lips. It's a Critic and it can't help itself, sometimes."
The camera waggled up and down in silent agreement.
"I wonder what this is about?" questioned the nervous hand. It somehow wore a tool belt around the middle it did not have. "I've kept up with my work and my accounts are straight. Except for a certain Board I won't name, I thought everything was running smoothly. I really should have forced a reset."
Soothed a green-irised eyeball, "They're Auditors: they don't need a reason. I remember a billion years ago when they descended because someone didn't pay for a candy bar in the cafeteria. A Board malfunction is minor in the greater scheme of things."
Lips sneered again. "That wasn't me, Iris, so you can stop any insinuation. Everyone knows chocolate gives me hives."
A second pair of lips - no make-up - pushed its way into the gathering. "What a nightmare. No rumors, though, other than those already voiced. My normal source hasn't heard anything, and it as a big ear in the audio engineering department. Thumbilina over in editing did try to tell me about a weird quantum ripple only she felt, but you know how she is."
"Ditzy," said Lips. "Where's my decongestant?"
"Oh, sorry." Several pills were passed over. Lips quickly swallowed them. "You aren't the only one with an odd cold."
The brown-irised eyeball swiveled in a way reminiscent of a headshake. "This isn't right. We are not susceptible to disease...that defeats the point of being omniscient and all that jazz. I've /never/ heard of a Critic, Director, Editor, Producer, /anyone/ becoming sick."
"Then why do we acquire sick days on our paystubs?" asked Iris.
The potential metaphysical implication of sick leave for an entity which did not become sick was drowned in the squeal of a microphone. The audience collectively winced. The camera swung around to focus on a stage at the forefront of the auditorium. Slowly the conversational volume dropped until it became an expectant almost-silence broken only by the errant sneeze, cough, and sniffle.
On the stage stood (floated) a cowled black robe. Something bulked out the material, but what it was could not be discerned. Likely it was another body part, but amid the chaos one could not tell if an esotoric anatomical bit was missing from the gathering.
I BET YOU ARE WONDERING WHY YOU HAVE BEEN BROUGHT HERE TODAY, began the robe. The clothing did not speak aloud, yet words were present. There was a hollow quality to them which had nothing to do with acoustics; and no hint of echo was present despite the size of the auditorium.
"Get on with it, Auditor," muttered the low voice of Lips, off-camera, followed by a hacking cough.
"You did that on purpose," accused Iris. "You sprayed me with your spit deliberately."
The two were shushed by hissing remonstrations.
WELL... The Auditor trailed off as the microphone squealed again, then once more as it attempted to begin a second time. The robes called something undecipherable to the right wing. In response, a hand scuttled onto the stage. "Junior Technician" was obvious in its cringing posture, as was "Short Straw."
"Poor fellow," whispered the voice of the nervous hand. "Lefty just never gets a break. Admittedly, it's not too bright, but still...."
On the stage, Lefty quickly dismantled the microphone, dropping tools as the Auditor did a credible imitation of tapping toes. The more impatient the Auditor became, the more fumble-fingered was Lefty. The audience watched with nary a twitter, attention riveted on the spectacle.
Lefty suddenly paused.
A distant HURRY UP and WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? was caught by the camera's microphone.
The hand sneezed. At the Auditor. Capacious amounts of snot showered the robe.
Snickers arose from the audience, inevitably from those far from the stage.
"Not good," muttered the unnamed brown-irised eyeball. The camera shook back and forth in a gesture of regret.
"Sorry, sir. Sorry, sorry, sorry, oh-so-sorry," squealed Lefty from a suddenly revitalized microphone, functional despite its multi-piece reality. Lefty conjured a greasy rag from somewhere and began to rub at the Auditor, spreading the snot and mixing it with an oily, black substance. "Let me..." Sneeze.
"Ugh," exclaimed the hidden camera operator.
A paralyzed Lefty stared, figuratively speaking.
ENOUGH, YOU ABOMINATION. I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GET THIS DRY-CLEANED, AND DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE DRY-CLEANING IS ANYMORE?
Lefty sneezed a third, and final, time, adding to the already impressive mess.
THAT'S IT.
A darkness oozed from the Auditor. It wasn't a fog, nor a shadow, but instead the essence of pre-Big Bang night prior to the birth of the first star. As it enveloped the Auditor and Lefty, the front ranks of the audience drew back, causing a ripple effect that propagated backwards, jostling the camera operator. The horrible screams that wafted from the blackness, audible without microphone amplification, was accompanied by the sounds of rending flesh and breaking bone. The front ranks contracted further.
Darkness surrendered to light slowly.
On the stage, the Auditor was alone. No Lefty was present, although its tool belt remained, forlornly abandoned.
I THINK WE'LL TRY THIS AGAIN, WITHOUT A MICROPHONE, said the Auditor, perfectly audible.
*
"There's more to the recording," commented Robbie, yawning. He scooted his chair backwards the half meter necessary to reach the coffee pot.
Replied Lintela, "That was /total/ drek! Crap of the highest order! Not only was it obviously the product of a computer, but it wasn't even funny. Or believable. Or modeled well. Eyeballs? Lips? Hands? Not a drop of blood anywhere. The pre-screeners are probably having a laugh over that one, sending it to us. Is there any notation on who previewed it?"
Robbie returned to his previous position, full mug of caffeinated liquid in hand. He removed the crystal from the bank of electronics and squinted at the serial number burned into it. A few finger taps on a PADD next to his elbow was not rewarded. "Not in the system. Of course, who is going to admit to sending it up? Shall I round file it?"
Lintela grunted. "Round file." She smiled as the crystal was tossed in a wastebasket labeled 'Crap.' "Next!" she called. "And this one better not be decapitation fodder for us."
Instead of a crystal, Robbie picked up a small optical disk commonly used by certain Second Federation agencies. It wasn't the first time a submission had originated from the government, nor that agency time had been used to prepare it. In fact, some of the most memorable Darwins were the product of governmental disingenuity. The disk was fed into the appropriate slot.
*
Title: From Here to G'floo!
Contact: Stan Smith-Watson, Traffic Control, Mono Beta Station
A busy scene. The limb of a station as viewed from a camera mounted on the structure. At a distance, ships transit left to right, down to up, near to far. Vessel sizes range from giant cargo complexes to tiny one-being station scoot-a-bouts; and from the myriad distinctive designs, this station is in the middle of an important Second Federation travel route.
The camera centers on a glint, a sparkle of angled metal, then smoothly zooms in. The speck resolves itself to be a Klingon battle cruiser moored to a buoy. Approaching its port flank is a brightly painted runabout which has a disturbing tendency to drift off course before overcorrecting to its original vector.
A small window opens top, mid-center of the view. Within the picture-in-picture, a bored human sits, visible from head to mid-chest. His uniform is that of Second Federation Starfleet, parking enforcement division. Pips denote an ensign.
"This is station control to unidentified shuttle," says the man, voice as unremarkable as face, "please alter your heading from present course to one not intercepting that Klingon warship. You will then properly ID yourself."
A second overlay appears, this one in the lower left corner. An angry Klingon stares into the camera pick-up. "Get your mangy little ship away from my vessel before I destroy you," he snarls.
On the view, the shuttle slows, wobbles, but doesn't deviate from its target.
"Unidentified shuttle," begins Traffic Control again.
"Woo-ee!" bursts a loud voice, overwhelming the ensign. A third picture-in-picture has activated, in the lower right, but the feed is lopsided and the primary focus is not the pilot, but a corner of table and a mug which reads 'Universe's Best Boy Toy.' "Hello, people. Just a, um, minute? I'm busy parking."
Roared the Klingon captain, "You are going to park on my vessel! I was here first!"
"Unidentified pilot, desist your track, identify yourself, and wait for instructions from traffic control," sighed the ensign. A muttered "idiot" sounded off-camera, just in range of the audio pick-up.
From the coffee cup: "Hee! Me! Gotta park first. Very important. I gotta park right under the rainbow. Mr. Leprechaun has told me so." On the screen, the runabout nosed into the battle cruiser. A loud clang rang from the feed.
The ensign's face tightened. "Unidentified moron pilot, you are in violation of statute..."
"You have put a dent in my vessel!" screamed the Klingon, drowning out Traffic Control legalese. A large vein was throbbing on the captain's temple. "I just had 'Little Princess Doom-Girl' washed and waxed! You are dead!"
"Doom-Girl, desist. Stop powering up your weapons," said Traffic Control, no longer bored. A hand tapped him on the shoulder, capturing his attention.
Voice: "Leave it. Certain Klingons have become a bit uppity lately. More so than usual, especially after Starfleet confiscated their homeworld's entire antique Ceremonial Fleet for the warp engines. There's talk of succession and re-establishment of the Klingon empire."
"But," protested the ensign, "they are breaking statute 11-betta."
"'They' is a Klingon battle cruiser. 'They' have a record of exploding a supply depot because the blood wine wasn't of the proper vintage. 'They' can blow bloody big holes in us without fear of retribution because our normal Starfleet escort is off chasing rumors of some stupid Borg cube. Do you understand, ensign?"
"Yes, sir."
Meanwhile, the shuttle had backed up, rammed its nose into the battle cruiser's flank a second time, and then a third. It was currently firing its thrusters full, attempting to move an object with much greater mass. "Happy days are here again; rainbows are calling to me," sang the coffee cup voice off-key. "There's a big rock in my way to the rainbow, and then I'll be happy ever more!"
With each hit, the captain's scowl had deepened. Unfortunately, weapons which had been powered down for shoreleave required several minutes to reach full activation. A chime sounded in the background. "Now!" he barked.
A disruptor, awkwardly aimed, sliced through the runabout. It imploded the shuttle's power source, turning the brightly painted vessel into an even more brilliant, if short-lived, fireball. The resulting debris cloud pinged against the battle cruiser's hull, further ruining the wax job. The lower right picture-in-picture was now silent static.
"Problem solved," asserted the Klingon. "Traffic Control: you'll be receiving my bill for damages, detailing, and emotional trauma." The communication was cut.
"Doom-Girl just blew up that shuttle!" exclaimed the ensign, eyes wide, as he talked to the off-screen voice of authority.
Voice: "Try not to worry too much about it. Just envision us with giant holes. Better him than us."
A second voice, feminine, "Sir? Scan reports no survivors" ("No duh," muttered the ensign.) "and too much organic residue to be only the pilot. Spectral analysis is tentatively identifying the substance as refined G'floo!, and a lot of it. Several tons."
Traffic Control shook his head. "Figures. Still, the Doom-Girl did..." The final picture-in-picture disappeared, leaving only a Klingon battle cruiser sporting an unsightly blemish on its otherwise clean hull.
*
The disk ejected into Robbie's waiting hand.
"Put it in the 'Definite' pile," directed Lintela.
Robbie hesitated. "You sure? There wasn't that much blood. In fact, there wasn't any blood at all."
Lintela nodded. "I'm sure. Did you see the second-in-command hovering in the background of the Klingon comm signal? That's the Boss' nephew...has to be. I've heard it from good authority that the nephew was promoted to 'Little Princess Doom-Girl' a couple of months ago."
"I guess there was a resemblance around the head ridges," admitted Robbie.
"You better believe it. The recording fulfills a Darwin - pilot dead, didn't use the best of judgment, was even warned away several times - and with the nephew angle, the Boss'll eat it up."
Robbie smiled in the dim light. "If you say so." The disk was added to a very small pile.
Lintela prompted, "And our next submission is...?"
Robbie reached onto the 'To Do' pile, withdrawing the topmost crystal. He squinted at it - it was of unfamiliar composition, a slight green tinge instead of a normal clear or light blue - but dismissed it as an impurity in the manufacturing process. He dropped it into the play receptacle.
Two sets of eyes focused on the monitor.
*
Title: A Darwin Award Submission
Contact: Anonymous, Somewhere in Beta Quadrant, Maybe
"Is it on? Is it on?" asked a voice, caught between that of man and boy, recently broken and unsure where it will finally alight.
"Just a minute, dude," was the answer.
The view in the camera was Extreme Close-up of a wall painted a dull metallic sheen. It was slightly yellow. The view jumped once or twice, but the only audio the camera registered was that of heavy breathing.
Voice #2 said, "Okay. That's it! Fido, up and record, position one. That's a good Fido."
The view, revealed to be previously cockeyed as the horizon stabilized, rotated 180 degrees and slightly yawed downward to focus on two figures.
"Wicked, Vance!" exclaimed Voice #1. "How'd you convince your sister to let you borrow her camcorder?"
"Who says she knows I have it, Trul?" answered Vance slyly.
Both broke out into loud guffaws.
Vance, a human, was tall with the awkward length of leg and arm which comes with being 16 years old. He had yet to finish growing into his body, and the stylish midnight blue jumpsuit he wore, emblazoned with sports team logos, showed signs that it would soon join the ranks of hand-me-downs. He wore a gold earring in his left ear, and his head was shaved except for a topknot of dirty blond hair. Temporary tattoos of not quite abstract design swirled over his skull and down his neck, demon faces leering when viewed at the correct angle.
Compared to Vance, Trul was shorter, stockier, and looked as if his adolescent growth spurt was putting effort into muscle instead of height. While mostly human, the high forehead with hint of bone ridge suggested Klingon in his not too distant genetic history; and the slight blue cast of skin and slanted, almond eyes indicated another species or three even further back in his heritage. Whereas his friend's hair was blond, Trul's was raven black with reddish highlights, short length spiked into dozens of points possible only by massive application of hair gel.
"Dude," said Trul, "why are we out here in the ass end of nowhere, again?"
"Mom says its for truth and enlightenment and that it'll only take a couple of hours." The camera followed Vance as he flopped bonelessly onto a small couch. "It's some Newest Age cult thing."
"On a Borg cube? Your mom's weird, man, and hot."
"Sick! You are twisted and sick, man!"
"Hey! That's what I'm here for." Trul chuckled and winked at the camera. "I'm also, like, totally bored. A couple of hours? What are we supposed to do for a couple of hours?"
"Dunno. Play games?"
"Like, I've killed the Master Devil Boss in Doom XDLI six trillion times." Silence. "Hey, I know, I dare you to go out into the cube."
Vance did not appear impressed as he contemplated the ceiling. "Yah, like that takes a lot of guts. They ignore you, more of less. Usually. Well, I double dare you to go out into the cube and...and...and steal an implant from a drone."
Trul snorted, dismissing the dare. "And I double-dog dare /you/ - and you can't raise the dare any higher - to go out into the cube and dress up one of the drones to look like a girl. Naked. Like...like Betsi Watts."
Vance abruptly sat up from the couch. "Betsi? How'd you know about Betsi and me?" His eyes were open wide.
"Like, who doesn't dude? Okay, no Betsi. How about Playfem of the Month Juicy Lucy."
"Juicy Lucy? Naked? Like the centerfold?"
"How else, man? I'm sure the replicator can make up the proper prosthetic props. And your sister's camera will take the evidence." Trul absently flipped a hand in the camera's direction, twisting fingers into a rude gesture.
Vance appeared to be thinking. "Fine. I accept...except /you/ have to come with me and help pick out the right drone."
"Sounds fun," responded Trul with a wicked grin. "Besides, I'd die of boredom if I had to stay in this runabout alone."
"Fido, follow, position two," commanded Vance as he stood from the couch. The camera's view swung around until it was "heeling" from a location about thirty centimeters above and to the back of Vance's right shoulder, out of the way, yet able to capture every moment.
The two teenagers left the living room and entered the kitchen niche of what was rapidly becoming clear to be a two-bedroom, long-haul runabout with the living space of a budget apartment. They approached the replicator and in a serious whispered conversation input specifications into the machine. Unfortunately, the camera could not easily distinguish the words, catching one in five as a nearby grill to the environmental circulation system smeared white noise over the audio channel. Similarly, bobbing heads and shoulders prevented observation of the replicator's output other than snatches of pink and a very blond wig. The mysterious items were swept away into two bags.
Chuckles graduated to very unmanly giggles.
"Computer," began Vance, "transport..."
"Whoa!" interjected Trul. "Your mom went over in a skinsuit, not the transporter. Suits are a pain in the butt, but there has to be a reason...other than making her look hotter than she already is."
Vance punched his friend on the shoulder, hard. "It's a Borg cube, man, and the Collective, even. Unless you steal a drone or start a fire or something, they don't care. They'll never even 'see' us, much less worry about a single transporter beam." Vance spoke with all-knowing adolescent attitude. "Besides, a suit's so, well, old-fashioned. And orange. The only suits on this runabout are the orange emergency ones."
Trul winced. "Dude? Orange?" When forced to choose between the danger of Borg attention and unfashionable color, the former quickly won. "Transporter all the way then, but make sure we're not near where your mom went."
"For sure. I don't want to have to explain this to her; and I have an excellent program to rearrange the transporter log so she won't find out if she checks upon us later. We'll be in and out, and I'll have won your double-dog dare." Gesture at the camera with a full bag. "With the records to prove it."
"Let's go, then!"
"Computer, transport two plus camera to, er, somewhere random on the cube near drone signatures."
The computer chirped; and point of view dissolved, blackened, reformed as the camera was sent to the cube. The resultant picture was typical of a Borg vessel: dim with highlights of electric green. Arrival location was on a catwalk, one of a tier suspended to the side of an open shaft. Alcoves, some inhabited by motionless Borg, filled the wall opposite the shaft. Data pillars with blinking lights and spidery script were present every eighth alcove. A deep hum, nearly inaudible, was the background murmur of the environmental system; and, somewhere, the measured tread of heavy feet on metal echoed.
"Wicked," breathed Trul, eyes shifting back and forth as he took in the sights. He turned and leaned over the safety railing. "Hello?" His voice echoed back. "Wicked!" he shouted loudly.
Despite his earlier assertion that they would be ignored, Vance was obviously nervous. "Stop that," he hissed to Trul. "We've got to do this fast, just in case mom gets back early."
"Weenie," muttered Trul as he turned back to his friend.
Vance pointedly ignored the comment.
A loud hydraulic hiss sounded off-screen, followed by the clank of clamps releasing. "Fido, position four," squeaked Vance as both teenagers scrambled backwards, only to find the railing against the small of their banks. The dark image blurred as the camera obediently re-positioned itself to an overwatch location in the shaft, swiveling to return the pair to center stage. Also caught midstep was a drone exiting its alcove.
The Borg's blue-eyed gaze sightlessly passed over cowering duo and camera as it brusquely pivoted to its left. Deliberate footsteps took the drone away, along the catwalk. The camera's lens followed the form, tracking the figure until it vanished into an enclosed node, a meeting point of alcove tier and internal hallways.
"Fido, focus," whispered Vance. The camera swiveled back to its adopted owner. "See...it never noticed us," boldly asserted the teenager, as if he had not just shrunk back with thoughts of assimilation in his head.
Trul sedately nodded.
Vance rallied. "Let's get this done. Um...how about that one? Fido: focus on point, then return to position four standby." A stabbed finger indicated the alcove adjacent to the one just vacated. The lens zoomed in.
The drone was average size for a humanoid, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor skinny. Black body armor and implants of a distinctly antique nature bulked out the frame. Like all Borg, it (he) was bald and had mottled gray skin. Unusual was the fact that the base species sported four eyes, two pairs one on top of the other. The Borg's left eyes were obscured by various optical implants and prostheses.
Trul protested, "He doesn't look anything like Juicy Lucy. I've heard that some of these cubes have downright sexy drones." The camera had returned to its overwatch viewpoint.
Glancing left, then right, Vance answered, "These ones all look the same that I can tell: blocky. You only double-dog dared me to dress a drone like Juicy Lucy, not actually find one that looks like a starlet out of Sexy Cyborg Monthly. Four-Eyes here will do. Besides, how do you know that it isn't a she?"
"No curves," bluntly stated Trul, oblivious to the fact that 'curves' did not always equate 'female.' He set down his bag with a crinkle.
Vance's bag joined Trul's, then he began to carefully unpack items of a pink and fleshy nature. Also sparkly. Definitely sparkly. The dim interior of the cube was not conducive to good filming conditions for the camera. Vance tentatively touched the Borg on the arm, prepared to jerk away in a run, then boldly shoved a shoulder when there was no response. Satisfied that he wasn't to be immediately assimilated, the dressing up began.
Start with a double pair of huge, wobbly novelty breasts. The massive bosom expanded into jelly-filled wonder amid course adolescent guffaws and a splash of water into the activation opening. When eye-popping dimensions were reached, Trul held the things in place as Vance attached them via a series of straps strung behind the Borg's neck and carefully looped around waist.
Next, a huge phallus underwent a similar assemblage procedure - Juicy Lucy /was/ a hermaphrodite, after all. While the ponderous appendage was easily and quickly set into place using bungee cords and body cement, a much greater production was required to appropriately "position" it. Chuckles and shrill giggles sounded aplenty, drowning out ambient cube noise.
A wig of beautiful blond tresses followed, flowing hair which was utterly out of place on a pale, hairless Borg drone. No matter, because so were the fake eyebrows and eyelashes, not to mention the make-up job which included excessive foundation, rouge, eye shadow, and lipstick.
The drone wasn't becoming Juicy Lucy, but rather her very ugly caricature.
Unable to catch their breaths, the two teenagers stepped back from their masterpiece to view it. Every time the laughing slowed, one or the other would glance at the drone, starting a new round of contagious fits. Finally, gasping painfully for breath, the two sank onto the catwalk.
"Too" *gasp*wheeze* "funny," breathlessly critiqued Trul.
Vince grinned. "I /am/ the man. And that's one /ugly/ piece of work." He sucked in great draughts of air, then paused. "What the hell's that noise? Fido, track and illuminate."
The view spun as the camera swung 180 degrees. It yawed up and down, incrementally homing in on what sounded like a whining chainsaw caught in a log. A small, but powerful, spotlight stabbed out, focusing on a tier walkway on the other side of the shaft and up one level. There, lined up against the railing, were fifteen drones. All the alcoves behind them were empty. The odd sound was originating from a centipede-like insectoid. It had the distinct tenor of a laugh trying, and failing, to be stifled. As the camera stared at the scene, a transporter materialized two more drones, who avidly and quickly jostled for prime position.
"Oh, sh..." hissed Vance's voice, off-camera, the explicative reduced to a long, drawn out wheeze.
Answered Trul's awe-filled voice, "I didn't know Collective drones could act like that. I wonder..." What else Trul was to say was drowned by the sharp clump of an alcove disengaging clamps.
"Fido: on me!" called Vance.
The camera turned fast enough to see a Borg three alcoves away from the faux Juicy Lucy step onto the catwalk. The drone swiveled towards the teenagers, eye distinctly focusing on them. Then attention slid sideways, turning to boobs, phallus, back to boobs. Facial muscles twitched; and a strained snicker emerged from closed jaw.
"Okay. That's enough. We've had quite a chuckle at my expense, haven't we?" sardonically asked the false Juicy Lucy from her, er, his alcove. The drone was awake, was aware, had turned his head slightly to glare in the snickerer's direction.
Vance stared and stared at the drone, mouth open. He gulped. "We are so outta here. Computer, beam us back to the shuttle, pronto. Computer? Computer?!" Vance thwacked the side of his jaw, the normal location for communicator bone implants.
Trul's head swiveled back and forth, eyes wide. Seeing escape partially blocked, he turned and sprinted with impressive speed in the opposite direction, towards the enclosed node.
Faux Lucy turned attention to Vance. "Not going to work, boy. Your link has been jammed." Alcove clamps disengaged. The drone stepped out and down, naughty bits jiggling.
Cackles, whoops, and very loud hoots floated over from the other side of the shaft.
"Shut up!" shouted the drone. If there was an effect, it was not noticeable.
The scene was too much for Vance. He pelted off after his friend, head down and arms pumping. The camera, not specified to follow, merely pivoted in place to keep Vance in center view. He vanished into the node. A hint of body smacking against something solidly immobile echoed.
The form of the blue-eyed drone appeared in the opening. "And what are we supposed to do with these two? They'll need maturation chamber time at the very least." Pause. Long, appraising stare. Snicker. Expressionless face not so expressionless.
Thump. Clunk. Thump. Faux Lucy entered the view. After glowering at the speaker, he turned on heel to stare at the camera. More jiggling. "Will one of you clowns across the shaft with a tactical suite shoot down that camera? Now. But don't destroy it...I want the recording intact." The command was not spoken loudly, but then again, such was not necessary on a Borg cube.
There was the hiss of air energized by a disruptor. The view darkened, tuned black. End of recording.
*
"That was pretty good," said Robbie amenably. His coffee mug was already half drained. "Funny and featuring two kids of poor judgment not under the influence of anything. Obviously not Collective Borg despite what the kids said, but I think even Whites wouldn't be too pleased about a prank like that."
Lintela shrugged one shoulder.
Blinking, Robbie swiveled his chair to face his fellow technician in the red-tinted dark. "What's wrong now? How can you /not/ like that? Not a fluffy bunny to be seen."
"Well, we don't know if they died. Probably not, but even for assimilation we'd need to be sure to award a Darwin. The submitter was anonymous, so its not like it can be confirmed."
Robbie sighed, then rolled his eyes. "Fine. 'Maybe' pile, then?"
"Sure, why not? It does have its charm."
Crystal pigeonholed, Robbie picked up the next random submission which came to hand. "Let's see." Pause, then a mutter as he shoved the oversized crystal into the play slot. "No, I can't let this rest. I really liked the Borg one. How can the Boss object?"
Lintela eyed her comrade with The Stare. She'd been on the job a lot longer than her junior technician partner. "Move on, already; and I've seen him wig out over the smallest of infractions lately. Remember the 'no sugar in my coffee' incident the other day? They had to hire a whole new serving staff for the cafeteria."
"Oh, yah," replied Robbie as he digested the rebuke. In the end, it was, after all, only a recording; and even the miracles of modern medicine had difficulties with head reattachment surgery. "Okay, next it is."
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