That had to qualify as absolutely, positively, the worst shore leave I've ever had! Johnny thought to himself as he thought about his release from sickbay nearly a month before. Fortunately, having been in good physical condition and having received what care Valdago, Dana, and Sandra could give him aboard the alternate Virgo had helped speed his recovery.
Others, however, had not been so fortunate. Benton had laid comatose in sickbay until only yesterday; the wounds Johnny's alternate inflicted upon him had almost cost the security chief his life. Johnny had made it a point to stop by Sickbay everyday after his duty shift to check on Benton even though Dana had assured him it was not necessary; that she could notify him if there was any change to Benton's condition.
Johnny didn't know why he was doing this... Perhaps it was because a version of him had caused harm to one of his best friends. Perhaps it was because he hadn't been there for Jenara when she needed him, and was trying to ease his conscience by being there for someone else.
Or perhaps there was a part of him he needed to confront. As much as Johnny hated and feared to admit it, what he had learned about his alternate was not entirely far from what lay inside him...
"Doctor," Johnny asked Dana, "I've got a favor to ask of you."
"Certainly, what can I do for you?" she replied.
"My alternate from the Kullinari universe: do you know if they saved his neural engrams? I'd like to study them."
Dana went to her desk and checked her terminal. "Yes, they did. Why do you ask?"
Johnny thought for a moment. "Call it discovering one's inner child. I had a second minor in psychology back at the Academy, and I've always been interested in the concept."
"I don't like the sound of this..."
"Don't worry about it! If I run into any difficulties, I'll let you know as soon as possible!"
Still dubious about the whole enterprise, Dana sighed and sent the data to Johnny's office terminal.
A half hour later, Johnny stood at the entrance to Holodeck Two. "Computer, initiate program Chee 52."
<Working. Program ready.> The holodeck door hissed open. Inside the familiar yellow grid on black indicated the holodeck's neutral state. Exactly what Johnny wanted: no distractions.
In the middle of the room stood the image of a man, about Johnny's height and build: in fact, an exact duplicate of Johnny. His face, however, looked harder and was more heavily scarred, the result of many fights which may or may not have been in the line of duty. The uniform he wore looked more appropriate for John Phillip Sousa than a Starfleet Marine. His hair was longer, about shoulder-length, and tied in a knot behind his head. Only one difference existed between the simulacra before him and the monster who had terrorized the Virgo a month earlier: the influence of the Kullinari parasite had been subtracted from the alternate Johnny's neural engrams. Johnny wanted to see what this man was really like.
"So, you're the one who was running around here pretending to be me," Johnny said.
The alternate Johnny laughed. "One could say the same thing of you," he commented. "You've no idea what you've been missing out on, hiding from your true self!"
"If what I've heard about you is any example, then I'd just as soon miss out on my true self!"
The alternate Johnny laughed again, a deep, malevolent laugh. "Do you realize what you could have had? Power, influence, any woman and any thing you could possibly want! You've controlled what is truly you and ended up one of thousands of Starfleet officers: an accomplishment, but nothing truly great. Now me, I am a truly free man, accountable to no one!"
"Except for me," Johnny replied. "You almost killed Benton and would have killed others had he not stopped you. Why? He posed no threat to you!"
"Because I could! Is there any other motivation? And what do you know of my other plans? I could have gone directly to the Captain's quarters and assassinated him. I could have gone to your troops and taken your place..."
"They would never listen to you! You would have been found out!" Johnny replied. If nothing else, Maxon's telepathic abilities would have spotted the difference immediately. Though two bodies could be exactly identical, two minds could never be perfectly matched.
"Then I would have had to deal with them, of course. A little anesthezine gas in the environmental system, or a hypospray, and soon the bodies are out the airlock. Mutiny isn't as hard to deal with once you've abandoned any pretext of ethics. Young man by the name of Zelansky found that out a few months ago."
The fact that you had to deal with a mutiny led by an idiot like Zelansky gives me hope for the other universe, Johnny thought.
The alternate continued, smirking. "And then there's Jenara... I'll bet you're still pursuing her, aren't you? I've had her for months now: one of my finest concubines, I'd say. She proved most tractable after a bit of... gentle persuasion. I wonder how the Jenara in this universe would respond to such persuasion. Perhaps I would have found out."
Johnny wanted to attack this pathetic excuse for everything he'd ever hoped to be. But that would have been giving in. "But you didn't find out. Benton left you bleeding to death in a Jeffries tube before you could even get as far as my quarters! You may be brutal and extreme, but you would never have lasted more than a day in this universe because you haven't the slightest idea how to control yourself. You've as much business being here as a Klingon at a yeibichai singing... less, if you ask me."
"Nobody talks to me that way, nobody!" the alternate yelled as he charged at Johnny. Johnny stepped out of the way as the hologram stumbled past.
"I generated you to learn more about me. I've learned something, all right: what I would have been had the balance shifted just a little bit. I was a bastard when I was younger, but I grew out of it. I grew up. Beyond all the bluster, all the bravado, you're just a spoiled little brat whose temper tantrums have only increased in scale and effect!"
"You sound like my father; he didn't last long after talking that way to me, and neither will you!" the alternate yelled, taking a swing at Johnny. Johnny stepped back, and kept going.
"Maybe I do, but that's because I listened to our father. Hard to believe that we're both of the same stock, but then again we are what we make ourselves. I made my mistakes and moved on, learning from them. You've embraced your mistakes and wallow in them. I was wrong: we are nothing alike. You share my face, my body, my DNA, but you are not me. You're nothing more than my ghost, and you belong once and for all in Ghostland. Computer, end progra..."
Johnny was cut off as the alternate tackled him. The two struggled, rolling about on the deck. Johnny took a hard blow to the jaw, shook it off, and responded with a kick to the belly of his alternate. The alternate collapsed, and Johnny kicked him in the ribs several times, finally picking up the hologram and delivering a hard right cross to its nose. Its nose broken and bleeding badly, the alternate finally dropped to the deck, grasping at its broken ribs.
"Go on, finish me. You know you want to!" the alternate goaded.
"Yes, I do. I would be lying if I said otherwise. I would love nothing more than to beat the living crap out of you and shove you out an airlock. But then I would become you. Nietzsche said it best: 'Stare into the Abyss, and it will stare back into you.' I've had enough of the Abyss for one lifetime. Computer, end and delete program Chee 52; I've had enough of this... thing!"
The battered, bleeding hologram faded from existence.
Johnny felt as if he was seeing a piece of himself fade from existence. Perhaps he was. But it wasn't a piece he never really wanted after all.
He straightened his uniform and left the holodeck. He had important things to do.