Near the Table

Computer, time. Whew boy. It almost seems like the Taurus is never going to get here. They are finally nearing us, but that Jem'Hadar problem has got them stuck. I'm almost getting comfortable on this station, you know ? Are you asleep ? Hey. Oh, nothing. I was just getting to the weird part.

Get this: Jacob disappeared one day about a year later and that was after we had had a sort of thing going, almost since the day we met. Two months later, I'm in the holodeck, running a twentieth century program from a city called New York, which is funny, since I grew up in a place on Trill called Nieue Yorque. I wonder if the Progenitors or the whomever seeded the galaxy with our DNA -- yeah, you too -- added in some words and phrases that were special to them, like 'engage', or 'oh', or 'nuiorc'. Might be interesting to do a study on something like that. You think that would fall into the realm of scientific investigation -- I guess I could request that the Taurus' culture specialist try to gather some data on something like that, huh ? Oh wait, am I getting off topic again ?

I think I was in the holodeck ? All right, we guess who I run into ? A man named Vincent. Let me tell you several odd things about this man. Not human, he looks Caitian. Sounds like Jacob when he speaks. Has a woman he is romantically involved with who is not only drop dead gorgeous and out of this world looking, but is a superficially genetic duplicate for me. Except for the spots, of course -- but that's just superficial. I know, I know, I know. Sounds like I made it up, right ? I didn't. I would let you borrow the program for proof, but the Daystrom Institute has it right now.

They are studying what they refer to as its 'unique properties'. I went ahead and stepped into the program, subbing for Catherine, his woman. Being as he was a holodeck character, he did not even notice -- not that he would have anyway, except for the spots, the uniform, the hairstyle and the carriage. All right so maybe he might have noticed something a little off. But as it was, he did not. I carried on like that for months, while the Passageway was still lost. I got really into it.

Really, really, into it.

They call it holoaddiction. I would just let you look it up and find out what it means, but they tell me that the more I talk about it, the less likely it is that it will happen to me again. Basically, in my mind, I was supplanting the life I led with the one I led in Nieue Yorque, on the holodeck. It was the most important to me. To make a long story a little too short I overdid it. A lot.

I have heard of people going overboard on the holodeck, but not many as bad as I did. They say it was the result of several strains, and that's really the only reason I can still wear this uniform to this day. See while the Passageway was finally en route back to Federation space, and almost there, I was locked in the holodeck, living my life. Hiding from being lost in space, hiding from constantly foraging for food energy and supplies, hiding from the loss of Jacob, hiding from taking care of a group of people who were looking increasingly haggard and daily more despairing.

The crew had no food for days sometimes, had no counsellor for a much, much longer time, and had to fight and fight and scrimp and save continuously. Well, I found that I somehow knew my way around the power systems of a starship better than most of the Science and Engineering staff aboard. I was so far into my problem that I had forgotten that I was even Trill. I believed, or maybe thought that if I believed hard enough, that I really was Catherine Chandler. Imagine, your crew is finally making it home after being cut off from Federation space and civilisation for what seems like eons, and you have your chief medical officer locked in the main holodeck living out her favourite fantasy.

Imagine you can not even shut off the power without shutting down main propulsion, which would be unthinkable due to the fact that the holodeck is where your CMO has re-routed the boot sequence for main propulsion to. Suppose someone snuck up on the ship ? I cannot even imagine how haggard everyone around me was. I was not even around them.

I myself was sleeping on lush pink pillows, dining with the well to do attorney community of Greater New York (mainly hot dogs and pizza), and sojourning every now and then to the ancient Chinese underground tunnels beneath the city. I was horrible, and I had no idea.