The Direction of the Wind, Part IV

Posted on Wed 2nd May, 2018 @ 8:11pm by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran & Elizabeth Anderson M.D.

1,149 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Orchids and Jazz
Timeline: Evening of the day that Hermes docks.

I am going to miss seeing Elizabeth once I go incognito, Damion thought as he chewed a bite of the mouthwatering ham steak that he'd ordered. He smiled at her now, enjoying a comment she had made, and tried to memorize every detail of her face. He couldn't bring anything of his own life with him once he went undercover. He would have to immerse himself in the created personality of his legend, a character he hadn't even created yet, as he didn't know what his mission was to be. That meant taking no photographs of her with him, no looking up her image on any databases, just to see her face. He always had to presume that anything he did while undercover was being observed by someone. One slip, and an enemy could trace his friends or loved ones and harm or kill them if his cover was blown. Damion had no intention of permitting that to happen.

Just like hiding from a gang back home. I'm a ghost. You don't see me. You don't know I'm there unless I want you to know.

"I like the jazz they play here. Thanks again for bringing me," Elizabeth said between songs. She took a drink of water, putting her glass down and folding her arms on the table before asking, "Your thoughts seem ... troubled. Could I, in my official Counselor's hat, help in any way?"

Asking the question allowed her to watch Damion's expression. Of course, she already had an album with dozens, perhaps hundreds of memories of him, but what could a few more hurt? He was likely to be gone a long time. Making friends wasn't something that was programmed into an EMH. Though she was becoming something else ... or something more, anyway, that was not a skill she had. Going over her recordings of all their meetings didn't explain how she and Damion had become friends. It had just happened somehow, and there was nothing repeatable about it.

"So you are going to keep the Counselor hat?" Damion asked in a light tone. "I should knit you one," he said, grinning. It faded as he realized she wasn't buying his attempt at deflection. "Just trying to hold your image in my mind's eye for as long as I can," he admitted. "I don't know what this job is going to be, but it's best if I don't have any evidence of my personal attachments with me--and I hate that. It--never mattered, before; not the way it does now."

Anderson nodded her head. She comprehended what he was saying, but she wasn't sure she understood it. The problem with not actually being biological was that she didn't think in the kind of layers that carbon-based life tended to develop. She had binary coding ... basically on or off, yes or no. All the chips in the world hadn't completely changed that. Logic didn't always work when she was faced with something that wasn't logical.

"I hear you saying that you want to remember me, because you can't have a picture or holocube with you," she said after a few nanoseconds had passed. "It could show something out of character for the you which you have to become, could be the thing that costs you your life. I think you are also saying that it matters to you that you can't take something personal to who you are now, because we're friends."

"Yes," Damion said. "But I'm more concerned about it costing you your life. Whether you're an AI or a biological life-form, same difference. You're alive enough as makes no never mind, to me."

Elizabeth hesitated, then decided against telling him that part of the deal with the Starfleet experiment included downloading everything she was to a database in case something happened to her, or she went wildly off track living on her own. Starfleet had the right to reincarnate her in a new model, though if she survived 2 years, the database was to be wiped clean. Not that she trusted Starfleet, so she had taken precautions to see that it was. The AI had also extracted a written contractual obligation that, should she not survive, any new model which received her data would not look like her, sound like her, or carry the same name. What good would it do Damion to know any of that?

"I expect I'll be fine here on the starbase. It might be huge, but it's still Starfleet. Not much gets by them. You are the one going to an uncertain life," Anderson pointed out. "Make sure, whatever it takes, that you come back, or I swear I will haunt you forever." Elizabeth smiled, to lighten the mood.

Damion smiled back and laughed, wanting to lighten the mood, too. After all, they were here to have fun, not to be maudlin. "Cross my heart and hope to spy." He sipped from his water again. "So you'll go into business as a private counselor, or do something else? If you think of it, the possibilities are endless for you. You could do anything that takes your fancy."

"Yes, but I don't have enough experience to have any fancies," Elizabeth shrugged. "I know medicine and I know counseling, and taking everything together, I prefer counseling. Right this moment -"

With poor timing, Serena stopped by their table. "Miss Lantz will be out wandering in a few moments, and I've alerted her that you'd like to speak with her. Could I get you a lovely piece of Death by Chocolate for dessert?"

"What's in that?" Damion asked. "I ordered the Black Forest cake, but I might be persuaded."

Serena checked her PADD, and nodded. "So you did, and I'd say it's a coin toss which one is the better dessert. Ours has three layers of a very rich chocolate cake alternating with layers of dark chocolate mousse and chocolate sugar cookies, and then topped with light and dark chocolate ganache and finally shaved dark chocolate.

"Now, to compare, the Black Forest cake is four layers of a dark chocolate cake, each topped with cherry pie filling and rich cream cheese frosting. The top has the shaved chocolate again, and fresh Bing cherry halves in a circle around the edge."

Elizabeth thought they both sounded quite fine and suddenly was inspired to suggest, "Why not one of each, and we'll share both?"

"That sounds like a good idea," Damion said. "I like trying new things." He had no idea what ganache was, but if they served it here, it was probably tasty. And why not live a little before going undercover?

Serena nodded and headed off with the revised order. Elizabeth picked up her glass of water and said, "A toast to trying new things?"

Damion beamed at her and touched his water glass to hers. "To trying new things."

 

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