REPOST:Ghost in the Machine-VOY/TOS NC-17 m/m 3/6

[Killashdra]

SEE DISCLAIMER IN PART1.


It's late. Sandrine's is quiet, with that comfortable, depressed
feeling it gets around three or so, when the 'real' patrons have
gone to bed and the regulars are all that's left. B'Elanna was the
last one to leave; we talked for a while about nothing in
particular. I think she knows that I've been kind of down lately,
though she doesn't say anything. I wonder if she has any idea.
Harry didn't come tonight. He usually does; if I don't show up
at his quarters after dinner, he usually finds his way here and we
shoot a few, or just sit around drinking synth-beer. Tonight no
Harry. Was he down in the gym maybe? Or maybe he just needed
an evening to himself--we all do, from time to time. I haven't let
myself think about what else he might have been doing. The truth
is, if B'Elanna hadn't been here all night I would have guessed he
was with her.
Shit, Paris. Don't start that. Not tonight. They're just
friends, and you know it. Harry Kim is not the type of guy to go
for hell-on-wheels Torres.
Ah, who'm I kidding. What guy in his right mind wouldn't fall
for B'Elanna in a heartbeat, if she gave him the slightest
encouragement?
Suddenly I can't stand the smoky gloom of this place one more
minute.
"Computer, end program!"
It obliges me, and in a moment every trace of Sandrine's is
gone, as if it's never been. I'm alone, with only the muted lighting
and a black-and-yellow checkerboard for company.
Come on, pull yourself together, Tommy boy. How'd you like
Chakotay to come in here right now and see you like this, standing
by yourself on the empty holodeck, looking like your dog just
died?
Hell, right now I'm so depressed even Commander High-Horse
would be a welcome distraction.
I head for the door, sick to death of my own company and
determined to get some sleep. I haven't been getting much lately,
and my reflexes are starting to suffer.
It's official: I'm in love, and it's killing me.
This is the twenty-fourth century; you'd think someone
would've invented a cure by now. It can't be healthy for a human
being to expend so much mental energy on something so pointless.
Where's the survival instinct in wanting something so badly that
your gut aches all the time, and you can't sleep, or eat?
Every day I think, I can't stand it any more, I have to tell him.
And every day he looks at me with that innocent, unsuspecting
trust, and something chokes the words back before I can say them.
I've reached the exit. I look down and realize that I've got the
disk in my hand, that I've stopped in front of the control panel
beside the door.
So, it's to be tonight then.
The ship's well into third shift by now. First shift's asleep,
and second's mostly been here and gone. The display tells me that
no one's reserved a personal time slot before eleven hundred
hours tomorrow.
Deep breath. You sure you want to do this, Paris? You're not
exactly in prime emotional shape right now, and this is likely to
be pretty intense. Are you sure you can handle it?
"Engage privacy lock, authorization Lieutenant Thomas E.
Paris."
I guess you are.
Okay, slip the storage wafer into its slot. Hands shaking a
little. Nervous, I guess--it's conceivable that he'll actually
perceive this as an invasion of privacy. Remember, Tommy boy,
you wrote him. You're in control of this situation.
Yeah, right.
"Run program NCC1701-K."
"That program requires retinal scan verification."
I draw another deep breath.
"Override security protocols. Authorization Paris, subroutine
1147-P." After all these years, I still remember the codes.
Guess I was keeping them stored up there for a reason.
"Please enter password."
I hesitate. In the polished display crystal, I can see the faint
ghost of my own image, reflecting through the multicolored
readouts. Maybe I'm the ghost, I catch myself thinking, and he's
the reality. Maybe I'm a bad dream he's been having, and when he
wakes up, I'll be just an unpleasant and fading memory.
That doesn't sound so bad.
"Deus ex machina," I say. I must have been having delusions of
godhood when I picked that one. My shadow-self gives me an
ironic, derisive smirk.
And everything changes around me.


I'm in a wide, shadowy corridor, standing in front of a closed
door. I look in both directions, but no one is coming along the
hall, not at this hour of the night. On this ship, as on Voyager, it's
deep into third shift.
I stand there for a minute, trying to control my breathing and
the pounding of my heart. It's tempting to go along the corridor
peeking into all the rooms, admiring my handiwork. I wrote this
thing for detail, and I put six months of my life into it--it's only
natural to want to look around. Plus it's a little like waking up to
find yourself in King Arthur's Court; every beam and nail and
stone is the stuff of legend.
But that's not why I'm here.
Okay then, pull it together Paris. I draw myself up straight
before the door, not letting my eyes stray to the name plate I
know is there. I don't need to look. You don't win a Lansing by
forgetting obvious details like that.
I reach out and press the buzzer, once.
For a moment I expect to hear, "Come." But there is no answer
from within; the door simply slides open, revealing the dimly-lit
room beyond. Of course. He's expecting only one person--and
they, apparently, have no need of such formalities.
I square my shoulders and step through the doorway, into the
lion's den.
The room is not large. In front of me is a narrow desk with an
incredibly outdated computer terminal mounted to its top. Behind
the desk is a none-too-comfortable-looking chair, and behind
that, a mesh screen that serves as a room divider. On the wall to
my right is a large, breathtaking painting of an old sailing ship.
There is a shelf behind the desk, upon which rests a stand holding
several antique, leather-bound books. Alongside these sits a red
Kassarian sphere, and next to that something which looks like a
fake flower made of cloth--the kind that women used to wear as
ornaments on their garments, in a century long past. It might
once have been yellow. It's been preserved in a block of
transparent crystal.
I examine the flower more closely, since I know it's a
construct I did not write. It's a beautifully rendered object,
really outstanding set design. There's something tight in my
throat all of a sudden. Even though I don't understand its
significance, that detail tells me a great deal about the man who
so carefully built its algorithm into my program.
It looks like no one's home at the moment. I step past the
divider and into the cramped sleeping area beyond.
The room is almost painfully neat. Not one object appears out
of place, and the regulation coverlet on the bed has been arranged
in precise, even folds. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that,
but I am. For some reason I always kind of identified with the
image history painted of him, and it's a little unsettling to find
this difference in our characters illustrated so obviously. I've
never inhabited a room this neat in my life.
Pretty damn arrogant, really, now that I think about it. How
much could someone like me have in common with someone like
him, anyway?
There's a sound behind me, the swish of a door opening. I turn,
almost stumbling in my surprise.
And he's there, in the doorway, the force of his presence
smacking me in the gut. Even the betas I'd run, even the stories
I'd heard, didn't prepare me for it.
"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in my quarters?"
His voice is low, predatory. He says it softly, the gentle
threat making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. His face
shows no fear whatsoever, even though he's just stepped through
the door to find a complete stranger in his bedroom.
"Ah, Captain, this is going to take some explaining..."
"Oh, I believe that." He's coming toward me, as if meaning to
pin me between him and the mesh screen behind me. "Perhaps
you'd better start with the first question."
I'm backpedaling, knowing already that I'm in serious trouble.
Not just because he looks like he's going to wipe the floor with
me, but because I was right all along. I never should have come
here.
He's just come from the shower, you see. He's got a towel
slung around his broad shoulders, and he's wearing nothing but a
pair of loose, drawstring pants. His upper torso is covered with a
fine sheen of water. It's formed droplets on his skin.
And seeing him like that I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt,
the answers to any uncertainties I might still have harbored
about the nature of this program.
True, I wrote the AI. I also coded most of the response
algorithms. But not all of them--and not this one.
I put up my hands, as if to ward him off. I have to force
myself to stop backing up, to stand my ground and face him. His
eyes approve me when I do. "I'm Tom Paris," I say. "I'm--the
programmer." It's self preservation. I had to say something, and
that was the first thing that came to mind.
It stops him. He looks at me for a long time, pinning me with
his eyes as surely as if he'd done it with his hands. That look
isn't one you can shrug off. It reaches down into me and squeezes
around my heart, making it hard to breathe. But though his
expression doesn't change, I can see, even in the shadows, that
the blood has left his face.
In theory, he should now demand to know what I'm talking
about. But he doesn't. He just keeps looking at me, shocking me
with his perfect comprehension. This avatar was never supposed
to be self-aware; I hadn't programmed him to know that he was a
hologram.
There's no doubt at all that he knows. It's written in every
line of sudden tension in his body, every accusation in his eyes.
To my surprise and horror, it is he who looks away, unable to
hold my gaze.
"What do you want?"
It's only a whisper, and so far from the steely demand he
greeted me with that I can hardly believe this is the same man.
"Just to talk to you." The words escape me without thought,
and it's the simple truth. That is what I want--or rather, what I
wanted. Now I just want to beg his forgiveness for what I've done
to him.
And oh, gods, look what I have done.
I did my job well. Too well. He was the last man in the
universe who should have had to live with this terrible
knowledge. Faced with his mute agony, I can't believe I didn't see
how awful it would be for him. I gave him every scrap of skill I
had. I wrote him a soul, for godssakes--maybe a better one than
my own.
Goddamnit, I never meant for him to know he wasn't real!!
The fine muscle in his jaw jumps; he's struggling to stay calm.
"What is it that you want to say to me?"
I can feel the anger pouring off of him now, blunted only by
despair. It's more than I can take.
"I'm sorry."
I blurt it out, and my reward is seeing him flinch.
Him! Flinch! Oh, god...
He looks at me, and I believe I might turn into ashes from the
heat of that look. He's burning inside, consuming himself with his
own self-loathing and hopelessness. For one instant he turns that
flame on me, and if I could breathe, I would weep.
His tight answer flays me to the bone.
"No one is more sorry than I am."
"Captain--"
His lips curl back in a snarl. "Don't call me that!"
"What do you want me to call you?" My voice is hardly more
than a whisper.
"Nothing. Don't call me anything. Just leave me the hell
alone."
He turns away from me, as if he'll leave the room the way he
came in. The muscles slide under his skin like a cat's as he
moves. The flagrant beauty of him is like another kind of
punishment: look how perfect your twisted creation is, look how
true to the life. Too bad you couldn't keep him in the dark about
what he was. Too bad you couldn't make him real...
"How did you--?" I choke on the words, for a moment unable to
get them out. Maybe I will weep, after all. But I have to know.
"How did you find out?"
He stops, frozen a step from the door. I hear the sharp, hissing
intake of his breath, as if I have stabbed him with some sharp and
cruel-edged blade. He doesn't turn.
"How do you think?" He spits it at me bitterly, his broad
shoulders bent as if the weight of his own words is too much to
bear.
The silence stretches. I realize then what the answer must be.
There is only one way he could have learned the truth--only one
man who could have told him what he was.
The man who'd hired me to write him.

(end part 3)