<FWG> <Meridian> Karma's Payment, Part 4. (Zach Auron)
- From: Jason Ziredac <ziredac@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: fwgalaxy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:25:09 -0800 (PST)
Karma's Payment
by Zach Auron
Shawna Kenton
&
Jack Leirone
4.
?Are you ready?? Shawna asked, stepping inside Zach?s cold, dark quarters
again. Looking back she saw him nearly cowering against the opposite wall in
the hallway. Waving her hand to her she said, ?Come on. It?s okay now.?
?I?m sorry,? Zach breathed with a hush. ?It?s been a while.? His unease was a
tremble, like the smoke of a campfire escaping the canopy of the forest.
?And now it?s all safe. I got all three places you mentioned. Everything bad
that lived here is gone, all purged, and this room is ready for some clean
life.? She held out a hand for him to take, a lifeline back onto the boat,
taken in from the sea he?d been treading in for the past few weeks. Months it
had seemed, almost a year. Only weeks.
The sight of a hand being held for his grasp was just as foreign as the tune
he thought he was imagining, coming from around the hall?s bend. He almost
shook his head and called himself crazy when he saw Shawna?s face exemplifying
surprise and wonder, and a slice of fear to top it off. Good, he thought, a
little more time to gather myself before I go back into that room, clean as it
may be.
Shawna nearly had tears in her eyes, but only in that funny way when she?d
heard a ghost story that was a bit too real. That noise had made her think of a
teakettle when it first began to sound, and when its tones took form and lined
themselves up to fit into her memory she stopped cold, still holding her hand
out for Zach, still with one foot in the door, still with a rapidly beating
heart. Her only thought was: Who in the world, in this time would be whistling
?Stand By Me??
And it made perfect sense when the whistler rounded the corner. Jack Stark
Leirone. Man of wonder.
?Hi, Shawna,? he said, offering that almost arcane grin of his and a bow of
the head. His white, chromatically blind eyes shifted to Zach, who was
slouching and leaning against the wall. What he thought they were doing, Shawna
could give limited guesses. ?Hi, I?m Inspector Leirone. I?m hitching a ride on
your ship here. You are??
?Doctor Zachary Auron,? Zach replied.
?Pleasure to meet you, Doctor. Are you head of Medical??
?No, that?s Doctor Armstrong. I mean? I?m sorry, Doctor Armstrong died?that
was such a compulsory response?my superior is, er, Ethan Chastain.?
?Right, right,? Leirone said, watching the subject bounce away like a
traveling tennis match. ?Am I interrupting anything??
?Where did you learn that song??
As if he had just been asked, Where did you learn to blink like that?, he
leaned in to ask her what she meant, and then caught himself. ?Oh, yeah, right.
?Stand By Me? is actually from your time. Well, not your time, but?your
parents? time? Is that right? Anyway, that song?s just a time-enduring classic,
just like a lot of them. Some of those old standards have withstood a lot of
years. My girl, Abby, she somehow got a hold of some original Tom Waits
records.?
?Tom Who??
?You mean you don?t know who Tom Waits is? Weren?t you telling me about Miles
Davis? Oh, Shawna, forgive me for saying so, but you have got to listen to some
Tom Waits. Order it on the computer; last I checked his entire catalogue was
available in the music databases we have available to us. This is so unreal. I
whisper a tune from the twentieth century and I ran into you. Like I summoned
you or something. And now I?m telling you about music from your time!? He
laughed, having a terrific time. ?If you two are going to, er, spend some time
together, you should listen to, oh, perhaps Heart of Saturday Night. Sets a
good mood.?
Shawna?s hand was shockingly still out in order to take Zach?s and lead him
into a freedom he could live in. She looked down and retracted it. ?Oh, no,
it?s not what you think. I, uh, redecorated his cabin and I?m surprising him
with it.?
Luckily, she had taken some liberties with Zach?s décor, giving it a good
1900s flare so he could impress all the ladies he?d doubtlessly be drawing in
with his newfound salvation. Zach?s face was of shock and worry, not knowing
she was telling the truth, and Jack?s was of perked intrigue. ?You redecorated
a cabin in your spare time? People are trying to rebuild a broken crew, and
you?re flattering doctors?? Sideways he gave Zach a jester?s wink.
?Well no,? Shawna said, trying to save face. ?I happened to walk by and I saw
it was so empty, like??
?That?s really enough, Shawna?? Zach tried to say.
Her face turned again to that angelic kindness that he had endured after he
had loaned her his heart. Zach wished Shawna was his daughter. She was a little
too young for him to have those kinds of feeling for her, but he wished she was
part of his family nonetheless. She said, ?Jack, this man here saved my life.
He went beyond the call of duty?he?s done that, what twice now??to ensure my
heart was safe. And he did that by giving me his.?
?I don?t know if you?re being poetic or literal here,? Jack said, getting a
real kick.
?Her heart was failing and the tissue around it was scarred so awkwardly and
her body is slightly less evolved than the rest of ours that it had to be a
manually inserted heart instead of a holographic projection,? Zach explained.
?To answer your question, she?s being literal.?
?Well way to go, Doc,? Jack celebrated, patting Auron on the back. ?I didn?t
mean to interrupt your little surprise, Shawna. I was just passing through.
Have a good one, and congratulations on the new pad, Doc.? Striking up a
standard-sounding sax line from something Shawna would later recognize was from
Waits? album Foreign Affairs, Jack strode happily down the hall, his
angel-white coat flagging after him like a million trails of smoke.
Zach and Shawna then went into the cabin before them, and they discussed many
little things while Zach explored his new surroundings. (A Chinese rug). (A
fresh glass candleholder). They talked about the oddities of the strange new
inhabitant of the Meridian, the ostensibly omnipotent Jack Leirone. With much
excitement they talked about the new crew, and with much sadness they talked
about the old crew, the ones not continuing their journey hopping from star to
star. (A painting of a golden wheat field chasing a deep blue shadow of a
mountain). (A poster for something called Casablanca).
Zach pointed to the illustrated Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and asked,
?What is this??
?That,? Shawna said, finishing up a fetch of water from the replicator, ?is
something they don?t teach anymore. See, back in my day,? (said the
nineteen-year-old to the thirty-year-old) ?they actually had classes in high
school that taught all the classic films. This one was one of my favorites.
Figured you could have some pop culture hanging about so when you?re
entertaining some fine, young, new crew-ladies you can impress them with your
knowledge of true art.?
?Well we?re still taught the classics as well,? Zach informed. ?But I, uh, I
haven?t seen Casablanca.?
?It certainly doesn?t seem like they teach it,? Shawna said, clicking her
teeth with her hands on her hips. ?Casablanca is one of those tragedies, one of
those things that Hollywood stopped making. Made our society too sad. Made the
people less pacified. Anyway, your main character and the love of his life?well
they don?t?I don?t want to spoil it for you. Never mind. You?ll see what I mean
when I say it?s not a Hollywood ending.?
?A Hollywood ending is something I wouldn?t understand.?
?Fine,? Shawna said, searching for a new term. ?It?s not a fairy-tale ending.?
Zach looked at her semi-severely. ?Uh oh.?
She defended herself, and the film, ?No, no, no, it?s still a great movie.
Order it up, watch it sometime. You?re off duty right now, right??
?Right.?
?And you don?t have to be back on until tomorrow, right??
?Right.?
?Then sit back, put your feet up, and watch the movie.? So Zach Auron sat and
watched Casablanca, made in 1942 on black-and-white film starring Humphrey
Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Amazing, he thought, that he could watch people
acting that were born over four-hundred years ago. Even beyond that he was
amazed that a piece of that ancient history was on the ship with him,
introducing him to this movie, and to a new way of life.
That piece of ancient history didn?t stay and watch the movie, however.
Before the ship took off in the next week, she needed a little bit of shore
leave, having been robbed of it when the Meridian was robbed of her during the
Cardassian attack. She said, ?Goodbye,? and stepped out into the hall, where it
seemed an awkward conversation struck up between her and some guy who?d just
happened to be outside, waiting for her maybe.
By the tragic end of the film, Zach was feeling quite himself, the old
drudgeries of misery shaken off him like drops of water from a leafy plant in
the tropics. He replicated some iced Chai, replicated another, and felt
completely revitalized, reborn, and decided he?d do something he?d rarely ever
done before: take a walk in a serene holographic setting down on one of those
Holodecks. This new life was strikingly more comfortable than the last one, and
now the only thing to do was to start making repairs on the connections between
himself and the other members of the crew.
One more distraction would come to Zach Auron, though, upon meeting with some
trepid engineers taking a feet-up in the lounge, making light conversation and
gaining friend points. Those engineers would passively reveal their location,
planet-wise, as if Zach should have already known?he should have already known,
save for his detox fatigue?where they were.
It would just so happen that one planet over, was Andrecia herself.
---------------------------------
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