NEW: TNG Echoes and Voices [PG-13] 1/1 NEMESIS SPOILERS
Djinn
Author: Djinn
Contact: gl...@erols.com http://users.erols.com/gleen/Djinnslair.htm
Series: TNG
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Codes: Post-Nemesis, P
Archive: ASC, yes. Anywhere else, ask first.
Disclaimer: Trek characters and universe belong to Paramount/Viacom. I'm
just playing.
Summary: - A character reflects on life after the events of the movie. If
you like dark, you'll like this.
Thanks to: Rabble Rouser for the beta!
SPOILERS: This is fanfic based on STX:Nemesis. If you haven't seen the
movie and don't want to be spoiled, bail now!
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Echoes and Voices by Djinn
I look in the mirror and I see him. I see both of them. Shinzon. And
Locutus. They live, warped and twisted and always there. On the other side
of the mirror. On the other side of my soul. They will never leave me.
They are me.
I close my eyes. I don't want to look at the reflection. Don't want to
think about Shinzon impaled on that rod, pulling himself closer to me. The
sound of flesh tearing, the smell of blood, the feel of his breath...my
breath on my cheek. Such hatred. Such passion. The echo he called
himself, but he was vivid, more vivid perhaps than I am...than I have ever
been. More alive. His hatred for me, for humans, for Earth animated him,
gave him the energy to go on even as his body destroyed itself. He would
bring down an entire planet...even if it was the last thing he did. And it
would have been.
I see Shinzon's face in my dreams. He stares at me with red eyes and
nostrils flaring with the pain he refuses to acknowledge, and I stare back.
Unable to move. Then I see his face suddenly tear open as a Borg implant
erupts out of the wound, another rips through his chest. An assimilation
tube emerges from his hand, a hand he holds out to me. As the tube pierces
my artificial heart, I hear in my mind the voice of the Collective, "Welcome
home, Locutus."
"Welcome home, brother," Shinzon laughs, even as his tortured skin changes
to the mottled gray of the Borg. "We are ever one."
It is a nightmare I have had since the Collective took me. But in the past,
it was my face that the Borg hardware pierced through, my hand that reached
out for my friends and assimilated them as they screamed. I thought it was
the worst nightmare possible. That I might still have Locutus inside
me...that the Borg had not been driven out as completely as Beverly thought.
But now the nightmare is worse. Locutus may have always been inside me.
The destroyer that Locutus was, the architect of Earth's destruction...of
the genocide of the human race...perhaps he wasn't brought by the Borg?
Perhaps he was inside me already? The potential for him carried within my
DNA. I looked at Shinzon and I saw Locutus...and I saw myself. Was I a
killer? Was I the driven, hate-filled man I saw crawling inch by tortured
inch on that stake? Was I Locutus all along?
It paralyzed me then, as the seconds went by, and I stood and stared at
Shinzon's body kept upright only by the heavy metal rod I had put in his
path. His body nearly touched me, would have touched me if I hadn't pressed
myself against the wall. I could not move, could not make myself go find my
phaser. I just stared as the computer counted down to annihilation for me
and for all those I held dear. I stood and waited, and wondered which of us
was indeed the echo. What if I was? What if the voice was meant not to
speak in the measured tones of a diplomat but in the strident commands of a
dictator? What if I was meant to usher in Armageddon? What if Jean-Luc was
a fluke and they were the real voice?
I would have stayed that way forever. Catatonic, frozen in self-doubt, in
horror at what I had come up against, at having to kill my echo even as I
realized the sound of his voice would never leave me. I was weak...or
perhaps I was strong enough to want to die. It might have been better. Who
knows what the next manifestation of the destroyer could look like? Who
knows how many might die under the hands of one that echoes my soul?
But I did not die. My friends did not perish. Most of them did not
perish...one man did. Man...I use the term accidentally, then deliberately.
Man. Data the man. Data had become a man to me. Like some fine, tall form
of Pinocchio that the blue fairy had turned into a real boy. And until that
moment I had not realized it. As he slapped the emergency transporter on
me, I could not find words to tell the man before me to stop, to beg him to
stop. If I had, what would I have said? Would it have been along the lines
of: "You go back, Data, the universe needs you more"? Would I have
resisted, if I hadn't been so weak? Would I have thought of a way to save
him?
Data thought I was worth saving. I must make sure that he was right. But
how do I know that I can do that? How do I know that Shinzon isn't inside
me right now? Isn't working with Locutus? Both of them whispering to the
part of me that sleeps in the deepest, darkest corner of my soul. I can
feel Locutus now, closer than I've felt him since those days after I was
freed from the Collective. I hear his voice inside me. I hear the voice of
the Queen, lulling me into that fugue state from which only evil will
emerge. I must resist.
Shinzon said it. Resistance is futile.
But I must resist. And the Queen is dead in any case. Or at least my
Queen. Somewhere another lives on. I don't want to think about that. I
tell myself that she lives only in my mind...that the voice of the
Collective sings only in my mind. Nothing more than the echo of what once
was. Shinzon was the echo of what never was. The life I didn't lead. The
hardships I never knew. He was me without the ease. My life turned upside
down and colored black. And he hated me for it. Resented me. But he hid
it well...at first. And at first, I was captivated by him. Fascinated.
Intrigued. How vain I was. I thought it was me. And it was. Just not the
me I wanted it to be.
I suddenly understand Will's reaction to Tom Riker. The strangeness of
coming up against yourself and finding that you are not quite what you
expected. The need to reach out, while at the same time feeling an odd
repugnance that colors every reaction and makes you want to draw back. You
speak and your own voice answers. Only not your voice...not my voice, for I
didn't grow up in the Dilithium mines, I didn't breathe the corrosive vapor
for so many years. I didn't live with broken bones; with a face so battered
it bore little resemblance to my own. I did not live that life.
But what if I had?
The echo was deeper than the voice. More strident. Louder. And never
louder than when he whispered our death, as he pulled himself to me. His
voice rushed over me, overcame me. I could do nothing except stand mute as
I watched my evil twin die. My evil self. Myself. I watched myself die.
I killed myself. I killed. I am a killer.
I am not a killer.
Deanna is worried about me. She can sense the way my thoughts turn these
days. She comes to me and urges me to talk. "I know what his touch felt
like," she says. "I can still feel him in my mind." I had hoped she was
free of him. But her eyes are haunted and she has lost the spark of joy she
used to exude. She is trying though, for Will's sake, for her marriage's
sake. She tries to resurrect the old Deanna and to some extent she must be
succeeding because Will acts as if nothing is wrong. She doesn't want to
worry him, so she comes to me instead. She comes to me and talks and tells
me what she feels because we share the fear that Shinzon will be with us
forever. I think, in time, the residue he left inside her mind will fade.
I think she will lose the terrible burden of his touch. And I envy her for
I think that I will not. For how can I? His touch inside me is not
foreign; his touch inside me is familiar. It is the touch of my own hand,
my own mind, my own soul. It is the cold, hard sensation of the mirror when
you lean your face against it and know that you touch something that is both
the same and the opposite as your own face. When you get that close, you
can feel everything, but you can't see anything, you can't make out the
details.
I look out the viewport at the space dock and wonder when I will pull away
from the mirror enough to gain perspective and again make out the features
of my echo without feeling this sense of dread and resignation. I hope that
I will someday be able to look in the mirror and see Jean-Luc Picard and not
Shinzon...and not Locutus.
But until that time, I try to envision Data. I close my eyes and imagine
how he must have looked when he destroyed the Thalaron weapon and the
Scimitar with it. Cool, serene, emotionless...and underneath perhaps there
was a spark of resentment, a moment of yearning for the life he was
sacrificing. I imagine in my mind that he waited till the computer had
nearly reached zero before firing, that he wanted to squeeze out every
possible second left to him. That he did not want to end his life at all.
I imagine that Data spent his last moment not wanting to die. I try to tell
myself he didn't know the meaning of despair. I wonder if that's true.
I asked B-4 the other day if he understood the nature of sacrifice. He gave
me the sweet confused look that he has worn since Data died. He does not
understand. He may never understand. I have to accept that. But somewhere
in my heart, I want to believe he can become what Data was. That he can
become more noble, more a man than the childish machine that I visit daily.
I have to believe that it is his destiny to be more than the echo.
Just as I struggle to be more like the voice he is modeled on. More like
the man who believed in me enough to risk everything to save me, to save us
all. I push back the despair I feel and try to be useful. I walk down the
hall and smile and nod and pretend. I make believe I am happy and every now
and then, I am. I make believe that I look forward to the future Data gave
me, and every now and then, I do.
And then I look in the mirror.
FIN
--
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow, BTVS
Check out Djinn's Lair for Star Trek, Buffy, and X-Files fanfic
http://www.erols.com/gleen/Djinnslair.htm
Remove the SLAYER from my addy to send me mail.
Shaka
Djinn
"Shaka" <shakas...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:a4ccfc53.02122...@posting.google.com...
>
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> Loved this exploration of Jean-Luc's darker sides.
Thanks, Shaka! I had fun exploring his angst. LOL!
Djinn