The following story takes place between the DS9 episodes "Inquisition" and "In the Pale Moonlight", shortly after Julian Bashir and Luther Sloan first crossed paths. Narrative contains reference to William Sadler's role in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
A shadow crept up behind Luther Sloan. As he saw on the monitor readout screen that the files he was inputting would replace files being deleted in no less than a minute, he prayed this person behind him was not Jack or Lauren. Jack would think Sloan, posing as a computer maintenance technician at the Daystrom Psychiatric and Mental Health Institute, was doing more than just routine weekly maintenance. Lauren would try to flirt with him and distract him from his real work. Patrick, on the other hand, would try to make friends with him. Sloan would have to make up plausible reason why he didn’t have time to make a new friend and slip out as quickly as possible. And though he was a child at heart, Patrick was very perceptive and would sense Sloan was up to something more sinister. Thankfully, the shadow was too thin to be Patrick’s, and too short be Jack’s or Lauren’s.
Sloan turned around and saw Sarina, the eerily silent one. She stared blankly not even remotely aware of the presence of another person. Sloan was able to hide his anxiety at possibly being discovered as he ascended from the chair behind the desk. “Hello, Sarina,” he said quietly. “You don’t know me, but I know you. I’m an acquaintance of Doctor Bashir’s. I know he’s rather fond of you…and the others in your little circle. But then, I know a lot of things; things that would frighten a great many people if they weren’t kept secret. About forces in this universe that even your genetically enhanced brain could not comprehend in your current state.”
Sarina just stood still, staring at the microscopic imperfections in the wall behind Sloan. That she didn’t walk away said to Sloan that she was still absorbing what he was saying to some very small degree even if she didn’t outwardly acknowledge him.
“Makes one wonder how the mind of someone in your condition works,” Sloan continued, clasping Sarina’s right hand with his. “Being trapped within yourself, unable to make sense of everything going on around you. But the good doctor is looking for a way to free you from that prison you can never escape. He’ll soon find a way to make you as normal as the rest of us, but with an intellect far greater than those of humanity’s greatest scientific minds.”
Sloan let go of Sarina’s hand and strode towards the door. Sarina drooped her head staring at the floor. She then began taking small steps, not seeking any particular destination pondering that mysterious man’s cryptic words.
“Where is it? Where is it?!”
Jack was at the computer terminal that Sloan was working. He had tried to no avail to find the files he and his group had accumulated on the Dominion War. He had tried a few file retrieval programs in order to salvage some of them. Nothing was working. “It’s all gone!” Jack exclaimed. “All of it. Everything we had worked on in the last five months.”
“What were talking about last time?” Lauren asked, while staring at a padd that had an image of Sloan on the screen. But rather than Luther Sloan, the name on the padd was William “Willie” Grimm, a computer technician working at the institute.
“Something about bringing the Romulans the war,” Patrick offered.
“Right, right,” Jack added, wagging his right forefinger in the air and pacing back and forth rigidly. “We need to convince the Romulans that the Dominion is a threat to them.”
“’We' need to convince the Romulans’?” Lauren repeated, keeping her gaze on the padd. “Nobody at Starfleet will take us seriously after what we tried to pull on Deep Space Nine. Why would the Romulans listen to us?”
“Not us directly,” said Jack. “But we did project that the Senate would abandon the non-aggression pact at the next annual plenary session. If they were convinced sooner, that would really take the Dominion by surprise, wouldn’t it? Hm, hm? The question is how?”
A new readout suddenly appeared on the computer screen that caught Jack’s attention. He saw something so fascinating on the screen that he was completely ignoring what Patrick and Lauren were saying. The continued to debate back and forth whether the Dominion’s use of the Neutral Zone to ambush Federation ships would be an advantage to Starfleet.
“None of that will matter when the universe ends,” Jack called to them.
“What do you mean ‘when the universe ends’, Jack?” Patrick gasped with an expression of horror.
“This new file that just came up describes all the different theories about the ultimate fate of the universe, hm, hm,” Jack explained. “While the Big Bang is the most plausible theory as to the beginnings of the universe, not everyone agrees on whether the universe is finite or not. There’s the big freeze or heat death. Big Rip. Big Crunch. Big Bounce. False Vacuum. All very fascinating.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Will you listen to yourselves?” Lauren scoffed, throwing down the padd and sitting up. “Nothing like that will happen for trillions, if not billions of years.”
“Today, it’s trillions of years from now,” Jack responded. “Next thing you know, it’s only a matter of weeks. Something has to be done to stop it, sooner rather than later.” He turned his gaze away from Lauren with a scoff and focused Patrick’s attention back on the computer terminal, despite the older man’s panicked expression. “The most popular theory," Jack continued, "seems to be the so-called "heat death of the universe". A state of entropy will be possible for the next ten to the hundredth years. Afterwards, the universe will run out of enough matter to create new celestial bodies.”
Patrick gasped in terror as he considered the idea of an endless state of non-existence.
Continuing to stare at the padd, Lauren snickered at another one of Jack’s playful attempts to frighten Patrick.
“This is funny to you?!” Jack snarled storming the sofa. “This is a very serious matter.” He snatched the padd from Lauren’s hands, flung it on the floor, and stomped on it five times with this right foot. He then presented the padd, now with a shattered plexi-glass screen, to his cohort. “How do you like Mister Grimm now?” he gloated. They were once romantically involved until Lauren decided Jack was not a good enough lover for her. Since then, Jack had taken to metaphorically injuring Lauren’s imaginary boyfriends. Damaging the padd with “William Grimm’s” picture was one such example.
The exchange diverted Sarina’s attention from the part of the wall she was poking with all five fingers on her right hand. She continued staring blankly in the direction of her peers wondering what could have happened to all that data on the Dominion War. Then it came to her. That man Lauren was pining for and who claimed to know that doctor from Deep Space 9 might have tampered with those files. Not that it mattered now with Jack so heavily caught in the possible heat death of the universe. At least, he was no longer fixated on a topic that nearly led him and the other two in her circle to commit treason.
***
Section 31
Section 31
A shadow crept up behind Luther Sloan. As he saw on the monitor readout screen that the files he was inputting would replace files being deleted in no less than a minute, he prayed this person behind him was not Jack or Lauren. Jack would think Sloan, posing as a computer maintenance technician at the Daystrom Psychiatric and Mental Health Institute, was doing more than just routine weekly maintenance. Lauren would try to flirt with him and distract him from his real work. Patrick, on the other hand, would try to make friends with him. Sloan would have to make up plausible reason why he didn’t have time to make a new friend and slip out as quickly as possible. And though he was a child at heart, Patrick was very perceptive and would sense Sloan was up to something more sinister. Thankfully, the shadow was too thin to be Patrick’s, and too short be Jack’s or Lauren’s.
Sloan turned around and saw Sarina, the eerily silent one. She stared blankly not even remotely aware of the presence of another person. Sloan was able to hide his anxiety at possibly being discovered as he ascended from the chair behind the desk. “Hello, Sarina,” he said quietly. “You don’t know me, but I know you. I’m an acquaintance of Doctor Bashir’s. I know he’s rather fond of you…and the others in your little circle. But then, I know a lot of things; things that would frighten a great many people if they weren’t kept secret. About forces in this universe that even your genetically enhanced brain could not comprehend in your current state.”
Sarina just stood still, staring at the microscopic imperfections in the wall behind Sloan. That she didn’t walk away said to Sloan that she was still absorbing what he was saying to some very small degree even if she didn’t outwardly acknowledge him.
“Makes one wonder how the mind of someone in your condition works,” Sloan continued, clasping Sarina’s right hand with his. “Being trapped within yourself, unable to make sense of everything going on around you. But the good doctor is looking for a way to free you from that prison you can never escape. He’ll soon find a way to make you as normal as the rest of us, but with an intellect far greater than those of humanity’s greatest scientific minds.”
Sloan let go of Sarina’s hand and strode towards the door. Sarina drooped her head staring at the floor. She then began taking small steps, not seeking any particular destination pondering that mysterious man’s cryptic words.
###
“Where is it? Where is it?!”
Jack was at the computer terminal that Sloan was working. He had tried to no avail to find the files he and his group had accumulated on the Dominion War. He had tried a few file retrieval programs in order to salvage some of them. Nothing was working. “It’s all gone!” Jack exclaimed. “All of it. Everything we had worked on in the last five months.”
“What were talking about last time?” Lauren asked, while staring at a padd that had an image of Sloan on the screen. But rather than Luther Sloan, the name on the padd was William “Willie” Grimm, a computer technician working at the institute.
“Something about bringing the Romulans the war,” Patrick offered.
“Right, right,” Jack added, wagging his right forefinger in the air and pacing back and forth rigidly. “We need to convince the Romulans that the Dominion is a threat to them.”
“’We' need to convince the Romulans’?” Lauren repeated, keeping her gaze on the padd. “Nobody at Starfleet will take us seriously after what we tried to pull on Deep Space Nine. Why would the Romulans listen to us?”
“Not us directly,” said Jack. “But we did project that the Senate would abandon the non-aggression pact at the next annual plenary session. If they were convinced sooner, that would really take the Dominion by surprise, wouldn’t it? Hm, hm? The question is how?”
A new readout suddenly appeared on the computer screen that caught Jack’s attention. He saw something so fascinating on the screen that he was completely ignoring what Patrick and Lauren were saying. The continued to debate back and forth whether the Dominion’s use of the Neutral Zone to ambush Federation ships would be an advantage to Starfleet.
“None of that will matter when the universe ends,” Jack called to them.
“What do you mean ‘when the universe ends’, Jack?” Patrick gasped with an expression of horror.
“This new file that just came up describes all the different theories about the ultimate fate of the universe, hm, hm,” Jack explained. “While the Big Bang is the most plausible theory as to the beginnings of the universe, not everyone agrees on whether the universe is finite or not. There’s the big freeze or heat death. Big Rip. Big Crunch. Big Bounce. False Vacuum. All very fascinating.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Will you listen to yourselves?” Lauren scoffed, throwing down the padd and sitting up. “Nothing like that will happen for trillions, if not billions of years.”
“Today, it’s trillions of years from now,” Jack responded. “Next thing you know, it’s only a matter of weeks. Something has to be done to stop it, sooner rather than later.” He turned his gaze away from Lauren with a scoff and focused Patrick’s attention back on the computer terminal, despite the older man’s panicked expression. “The most popular theory," Jack continued, "seems to be the so-called "heat death of the universe". A state of entropy will be possible for the next ten to the hundredth years. Afterwards, the universe will run out of enough matter to create new celestial bodies.”
Patrick gasped in terror as he considered the idea of an endless state of non-existence.
Continuing to stare at the padd, Lauren snickered at another one of Jack’s playful attempts to frighten Patrick.
“This is funny to you?!” Jack snarled storming the sofa. “This is a very serious matter.” He snatched the padd from Lauren’s hands, flung it on the floor, and stomped on it five times with this right foot. He then presented the padd, now with a shattered plexi-glass screen, to his cohort. “How do you like Mister Grimm now?” he gloated. They were once romantically involved until Lauren decided Jack was not a good enough lover for her. Since then, Jack had taken to metaphorically injuring Lauren’s imaginary boyfriends. Damaging the padd with “William Grimm’s” picture was one such example.
The exchange diverted Sarina’s attention from the part of the wall she was poking with all five fingers on her right hand. She continued staring blankly in the direction of her peers wondering what could have happened to all that data on the Dominion War. Then it came to her. That man Lauren was pining for and who claimed to know that doctor from Deep Space 9 might have tampered with those files. Not that it mattered now with Jack so heavily caught in the possible heat death of the universe. At least, he was no longer fixated on a topic that nearly led him and the other two in her circle to commit treason.
