Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [73]
“Keep your heads low,” he said. “Deanna, you’ll be with me for a ways. I’ll physically show you where the cell blocks are and where your communicators might be, if they’re here at all. Then you’re on your own.”
Odysseus spun the wheel again and the truck veered into another parking garage. He drove among the rows of CS military vehicles for a while, and then stopped.
“First team,” he said. Coyote, Gunabibi, and several other Dissenters disembarked. Each embraced Troi as they left.
“All done. This will wake him up,” said Amoret.
She flicked a switch on her blanking equipment.
Picard’s eyes opened. He looked into the faces of Riker, Data, and the red-haired woman who had blanked his mind in the first place.
He put his hand up and touched the electrode-cap on his head.
“Commander Riker … Data … Strange,” he said. “Just a moment ago, I was about to undergo this same operation, in my cell, alone with this woman … and I blinked, and the scene shifted entirely. And now my jaw feels as if it’s been kicked by a horse.”
“Looks good,” said Amoret. “An indication that we’ve restored his brain to its state at the moment the original disk was made.”
“Would someone please explain …”
“Yes, we will, Captain, but I want to try something first,” said Riker. “Bear with me. Complete this, please. ‘To hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image …’”
Picard completed the line.
“’… and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.’”
“Thank you, sir. Glad to have you back.”
“I would like to express my approbation as well, sir,” said Data. “But please excuse me for a moment.” He got out of the van and could be heard pacing around the room.
“Well, I feared the worst had happened to you both,” said Picard. “I saw your capture on Rampart television. But is either of you going to tell me what happened?”
“Sir …” said Riker with a sigh, “you were brainwashed for several hours. It would have been permanent if Amoret hadn’t saved your mind on a disk. We just got finished feeding it back in.”
Amoret smiled in spite of herself. “I looked at some of the things on the disk. I got to know you. That’s what did it.”
“What do you mean, looked at it?” asked Picard.
“Experienced it.”
“And my whole mind was there? Everything? All memories?”
“Absolutely everything.”
Picard thought through the implications of that “everything.”
“Please don’t be embarrassed,” said Amoret as she removed the cap from his head. “It turned me back into a Dissenter. If it had been censored or filtered, maybe it wouldn’t have worked.”
Suddenly all three realized that Data, outside the van, was speaking.
“Murray Hill spicules mogul in pajamas decorated with vermilion arch supports and re-entry vehicles.
Pork-pie hat reflected in the eyes of maggots which she produced from her wallet as an alibi.
Praying mantis protocol for Pińa Colada of scorn and hate, of scorn and hate, accompanied by redness and irritation.
The flying binky formed under his upper lip while the President breaded a group of marmots.”
The three humans peered around the sides of the van and saw the android with his back to them. They couldn’t see what he was doing, but by the movements of his shoulders he seemed to be manipulating something in his hands.
He continued to speak in the same incomprehensible vein, but took one of his hands away from his mysterious hidden task and gestured for the people behind him to get away.
They looked at each other for a moment, baffled, but then Picard and Riker herded Amoret back into the van. From inside, they heard his utterances continue for another minute. Then there was the sound of a slamming door.
Riker looked around the side of the van.
Data faced him now, but one of his hands was behind his back.
“Data,” said Riker, “are you hiding something from me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“May I ask why?”
“No, sir. It is vital, sir, that none of you know why, and that you do not