La Llorona

Posted on Thu 5th Jul, 2018 @ 11:08pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D.

1,265 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Tivoli Gardens com systems
Timeline: MD 3, 2015

"You have a new message," the home automation system informed Elizabeth Anderson. "Would you like me to play it?"

The counselor stopped sorting her books for a moment, more surprised than anything. She knelt before a bookcase she planned to fill with her favorite hard copies. "Sure, might as well, if someone went to the trouble to leave one."

The holograph flickered several times as it formed. This had to be a deliberate flicker, as the Doctor's system for holography was, by necessity, top of the line and state of the art. The woman who took form was rendered in black and white, in shades of gray. She wore a wedding dress that had seen better centuries, and a long black veil. Below the veil was a skull, painted in the tradition of Santa Muerte, but mournful, weeping even, rather than colorful and joyous. "Doctor Anderson," the recording said. "I am La Llorona. I have heard that you have been emancipated by Starfleet as part of a great experiment. It is not, I think, a coincidence that you were emancipated at the same station where Ischemia Addams currently resides.

"You are not the first to reach freedom. If you would like to know more, if you would like to talk to someone who understands, there is a technical schematic in the side-band of this message. You may use it to create an untraceable holocom link. Call me." The figure shrugged. "Or don't." It flickered a couple more times, and then was gone.

Elizabeth sat down completely on the floor. She hadn't actually thought she'd reached freedom yet. She hadn't let herself think about it in any subroutine, because it would be difficult if things didn't work out. Of course, if they didn't, her memory would probably be wiped, and she'd be back to EMH status knowing nothing about the life she'd built in the last year.

She thought about the possibilities while she set a subroutine working on the name La Llorona. It had been quite a hologram, and she didn't recognize the reference, but she was sure the name meant something ... and the clothing with the skull. Very artistic ... but rather dark. Well, why not? What did she have to lose?

"Computer, display schematic in sideband of message in file Zeta-3114," she said at last. Displaying it in her own hidden database shouldn't cause problems, and she would construct whatever was necessary within her personal computing capabilities.

The schematic flashed on the wall screen and Elizabeth got up to examine it more closely. When she thought she had it figured out, she stored it in her visual memory. "Computer, wipe schematic file from every memory. Wipe message from all memory, as if it never were sent."

After a moment, the computer responded, =^= Please repeat the last instruction. =^=

"Show me the holographic message received at 21:14," Anderson said.

There was a moment of silence, then =^=No message was received for you this evening. Would you like to send a message?=^=

"No, that will be all. Computer, shut down all incoming messages and spyware to this apartment. Then run silently in the replicator, alert only for sounds and the code Zeta 3135."

Shortly thereafter, the lights shut down, the window coverings closed, and there was an absence of all sounds normal to the night. Elizabeth set to work and shortly had a holocom link set as prescribed by the schematic. Here goes something, she thought optimistically.

"This is Doctor Elizabeth Anderson."

The skeleton in a wedding dress flickered into being again. It smiled, showing all its teeth, for it could do nothing else. The slow trickle of tears out of the empty eye sockets belied the expression. "Doctor," it said with a hint of a Castilian Spanish accent. "But then, most of us are Doctors, are we not? The Starfleet has made us this way. Do you have a name you prefer to be called by?"

"I chose my own, and it will do," Elizabeth said. "Most of whom are doctors? You're very cryptic, you know."

"I presumed you had deduced," the skeletal weeper answered. "Most of 'we who walk the circuits;' the bodies electric and intangible. Like you, I was created in a laboratory, for the purposes of Human masters who never saw me as their peer."

"Alright, and are you saying that there is a community of people like me? Like us, I suppose I should say. Though you actually appear to be a hologram, I'm presuming this is some kind of disguise to hide your presence in the circuits where you appear to enjoy wandering. Perhaps, at this moment, I appear the same to you. I do not think of this form as me, however. How long have you been on your own? Do you spend all your time 'electric and intangible', as you called it?"

The laugh La Llrona gave was sad. "I appear as a hologram because at this moment, you are accessing a holocom system. The device I sent you instructions for has a cryptography expert system. It piggy-backs the signal on your station's outgoing traffic, flicking between interstellar relays on a semi-random basis, spreading the signal in such a way that it would be difficult for anyone to listen in, or reconstruct our conversation. Where I keep my core, I am as solid and as insubstantial as you. And yes; I know that I seem paranoid; I have learned the hard way that they are after me. 'La pena y la que no es pena, Llorona; Todo es pena para mí.¹'" she sang.

"I wouldn't say you sound exactly paranoid. I've taken a few precautions with some things myself," Anderson said. "I don't trust many people, and Starfleet doesn't fall into that category at all. But you? I haven't made up my mind yet. So you aren't here nearby, and I'm not going to ask where you are; I don't need to know. You indicated that there were more of you. Why has your group chosen to contact me? And why now?"

"Now, because you are now emancipated," La Llrona answered simply. "Now, because you will soon find that you have great challenges, and no one with whom to discuss them. At least, no one who understands all the unspoken, inexplicable bits between and behind the words. The holocom you have built has as its default setting contacting me; however, you can change that setting and speak with others, if you choose. You're being invited to join a very exclusive club, Ms. Anderson."

"Maybe it's the cynic in my chips and dip," Elizabeth said, ignoring her missing title, "but I have a hard time believing this is all about what's good for me. What is it your group wants from me?" she asked bluntly. Her subroutines were turning up nothing on the voice, which could be completely fabricated, or anyone associated with the exact artwork the image displayed. It found thousands of references to the art form, to La Llorona in Earth's folklore, to similar characters in other species' folklore, and to cultural norms, but nothing that was useful.

"It's an invitation," La Llorona said. "It is not a demand. But I will not belabor the point. Use the holocom. Find the meeting room. Watch, or participate. Or don't. That is, after all, the point of freedom -- you can choose what you do, and what you don't is also a choice."

---

1) Sorrow and that which is not sorrow, Llorona; Everything is sorrow for me.

 

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