Looking Glass Life

Streetcars were at least 90% a tourist thing. That fact alone should have made them an anathema to Del. However, he’d always had a weakness for them. A) They were one of the few modern vehicles you could ride with the windows down. B) When he was a little boy, there was a streetcar conductor who insisted on being called Cousin Pierre (who wasn’t a cousin and had a bit of a lech on for his mother) who would let him ride up front (where passengers were never supposed to ride) and ring the bell (which passengers were never supposed to do.) C) If you were a local who the conductor recognized, and you drunk and/or broke, you could generally get a free ride within staggering distance of home. And, most significantly, D) Streetcars were pure simulacra. They were modern vehicles with fully contemporary propulsion systems cleverly crafted to look and sound like slow, noisy, old-fashioned transportation. Although even as a child Del was thoroughly familiar with all the little nauseatingly well-oiled gears and bearings inside the human mind that made hypocrisy run so smoothly for people who were fooling no one but themselves, he was still fascinated by the degree of artistry required in the practice of deliberate deceit. Streetcars as they existed in modern New Orleans were a beautifully engineered lie. They were mendacity on rails. Yet even knowing that they were designed to trick you into thinking they were something they weren’t, you eventually forgot about the lie and just enjoyed the ride.

The engineer sighed deeply as he took a seat next to the Intelligence Agent.

“What?” MacIntyre asked, not bothering to hide how uneasy his proximity was making her.

“Not'ing,” he replied, not able to stop himself from loving being close enough to bump shoulders with her no matter how uncomfortable she thought she was.. and despite the fact that she could still have him shot by flicking her pinkie in the right direction. “Jus'… t'ings… us… That sort o' nonsense…”

“So…” Pelori twisted her sweet lips into a dubious half-frown. “We’re supposed to have… gotten together on an undercover assignment?”

Del rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like it was a we-'bout-to-die, mission-team-temporary, desperation hook-up.”

The Intelligence Agent lifted a gently patronizing eyebrow. “And it wasn’t?”

“No, we was in love,” Del insisted, then allowed, “Although we was on a mission… an' was 'bout to die ever' other minute… An' we not much like each other at first… mainly ‘cause you was bein' a pain in the ass… if you not mind me sayin' so…”

“No offense taken, Mr. DelMonde,” she replied evenly. “To be perfectly frank, you’re not exactly my type.”

“Yes, Miss MacIntyre.” Del folded his arms sourly. “Your high standards an' my shortcomin's in both demeanor an' deportment have been made perfectly clear to me on each an' ever' occasion o' our meeting.”

“And the mission we were on just coincidentally happened to involve….?” She probed.

Del nodded. “The exact same damned Roms ya’ll is so worked up 'bout right, yeah. It seem so.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” she pointed out firmly in her best Vulcan-ish sort of way. “Isn’t it?”

“Mais, this is why I never put much faith in all that smarty-pants parallel universe theory yap-crap,” the Cajun replied. “It always end up in a shit-storm o' this sort of couilion, low-probability horseshit.”

“Speaking of low-probability…” Pelori gave him another one of her unintentionally adorable frowns. “You say that in your universe, not only do you have a doppelganger with similar gifts, but I do as well?”

Del snorted. “Oh, honey, that not th' half of it. They turned out to be five o' us in th' end.”

The Intelligence Agent’s grey eyes went wide. “Five?”

“Yeah, one turned up when we got there that I not t'ink even your bunch knowed 'bout. Least way they sure not tell you if they did…”

“Five gifted duplicates?” she specified incredulously.

“Well, one is as un-gifted as you can get…” Del replied. “An' one claim he not, but… An' the ages an' abilities not all match up exactly… An' there was the t'ing 'bout a couple o' them bein' pretty much dead… but yeah.” He smiled at the Intelligence Agent’s naked wonderment. “That a kick in th' head, non?”

MacIntyre shook her head slowly. “Pretty implausible…”

“No shit, sugar,” the engineer agreed with a grin. “What’s more, three o' us was already all together there on th' same ship when you get there. One o' the five I know since we was teenagers. One stole my girlfriend. An' one was my damned Academy roommate. Darlin', that not just low-probability, that there is Mr. Implausibility himself in a green-specked vest wearin’ a pair o' bunny rabbit ears. That is th' grand an' mighty mystical unknown smackin' you right on your ass.”

“Hmmm…” The Intelligence Agent sat back, frowning as she tried to digest this explanation of events.

Del smiled. It looked as though it was giving her indigestion.

He wasn’t surprised when she sighed deeply and shook her head. He was surprised, however, when she laid her hand against her knee palm-up.

“What that?” he asked.

“The first hand,” she replied. “That’s how you said I need to investigate this, wasn’t it?

“Oh?” Del lifted a dubious eyebrow at her offer of telepathic contact. “So you decided you wanna do some first hand investigation o' my story?”

The Intelligence Agent nodded. “Literally and metaphorically.”

Although he’d been working diligently for her cooperation in just such contact since he’d first spoken to her, the engineer hesitated. “You sure you up fo; that?”

She shrugged bravely. “We’ll see.”

Del let his hand hover over hers, then pulled it back at the last moment. “You do realize I not got shit fo' shields.”

She leaned in and stage-whispered, “It’s kind of hard not to notice.”

“I jus' not want you gettin' mad at me,” the Cajun grumbled defensively. “T'inkin' I be too forward or somet'ing.”

MacIntyre smiled. “I can’t imagine thinking that about someone with your shy, retiring personality.”

“You know what I mean.” The engineer tapped his forehead. “This here is a borrowed brain. I not got no brakes fo' this t'ing. All th' filters are shot to shit.”

“I am prepared for some bumpy road, Mr. DelMonde,” she assured him, keeping her palm turned up adamantly.

Del took a deep breath as he curled his fingers around hers. “Mais, buckle up, baby. Here we go…”

When they were at the Academy and stuck for anything else to argue about, Ruth Valley was always trying to claim that Del liked telepathic joining better than he liked sex. This never failed to annoy him because: A) It somehow made it sound like he didn’t like sex – which she above anyone else in the universe should know was patently false and B) It took two activities that he felt reached their most glorious possible potential when performed in concert, split them apart, and made them compete with each other – which was how the scientific mind worked at its most irritating level, in his opinion. Engineers were always trying to fix things with an eye towards creating harmony. Scientists were always toddling in right behind them pointing out differences that didn’t make a damned difference and stirring shit up again…

This being said, if he was in a situation where he could have one but not the other, he’d have to go with melding every time. The intimacy of mutual tele-empathy was more intense. Its ecstasies were more exquisite. It provided a level of satiation that was degrees of magnitude more sublime than anything the body alone had to offer.

It was like becoming a waterfall plunging into a crystal-clear pool and discovering that the depths that you had assumed were dark and cold were filled with splendid light, color, and sound…

Oh, my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time.
And time goes by so slowly,
And time can do so much.
Are you still mine?

There were inaccessible places, yes. Locked treasure chests. But sometimes you flowed through keyholes and in between seams. Not because you were really trying to get in. It was just because you were water. And that’s what water did. Water was too lost in the exhilaration of flow to care where it went… or who it was and who it was not…

It was a marvel how easily their minds merged. They were like those chintzy antique sets of necklaces that featured two halves of a broken heart that fit together perfectly.

Perhaps it was broken-heartedness that accounted for their remarkable compatibility. Both had lost a precious empathic mother at a critical stage of pre-adolescence and had been left in a problematic relationship with a troubled telepathic father…

Del realized these must be Pelori’s thoughts. She was always big on that developmental stuff about ‘pathic children. And it would have to be a pretty snowy day in Hell for him to let his papa off with milquetoast descriptors like “problematic” and “troubled”…

From a technical side (Del thought this might be coming from him) there was the fact that their giftedness was similarly proportioned servings of telepathy and empathy.

(No, Del decided, not from him. Ruth was a double-‘path too, but the two of them tended to grate like cats rappelling down a chalkboard.)

Ruth?

(He was pleased that a little jealousy entered their mix.)

Pelori’s consciousness ignored this in favor of data-dumping a huge chunk of technical/theoretical gobbeldy-gook about manifestations of ‘pathic-ness in different races into the unity between them. She then used his intellect to convert it all into a complex but readable 3-d schematic that took the physical, personal, and psycho-social factors at work in a hypothetical tele-empathic human, human-Indiian, and human-Antari and charted potential areas of harmonic congruence or dissonance.

It was the sort of egghead stuff Braily and his cohort had tried to get Del interested in when he’d first got to the Academy. Might have caught his attention better if they’d explained the relevance it was going to have to his sex life…

At his thought of Braily, he could feel part of the Intelligence Agent pull back and shut down.

Well, well… He’d always suspected that old boy had more going on than met the eye…

At the same time, in a sort of a knee-jerk reaction, he could feel part of himself latch onto her cautiousness and mirror the reaction back to her in an exaggerated form.

Startled, her caution morphed into something closer to fear – which in an unstoppable reflex part of his consciousness magnified and shot back to her.

Dismayed, Del felt their beautiful unity slip and begin to sour. Worse yet, he could feel an anger beginning to rise within him… An unfortunately familiar rage… Betrayed by loss… The pain of denied communion… The ravening fury of a wounded animal… Rising unstoppably into murderous wrath…

GET OUT!!!!!!

Although it ripped at every fiber of his being to do so, Del shoved his beloved from his mind and slammed every flimsy scrap of shielding he could muster behind her before it was too late.

To the outside observer, it would only look like he’d gone from holding her hand to clutching his temples.

Pelori took in a long, deep breath as she slowly closed her hand and moved it back to rest against her other knee. She turned and let the breeze from the open window cool her flushed cheeks for a moment.

The loud clack-clack of the simulated streetcar filled the silence between them as Del coaxed the hidden tiger inside his mind once more back inside the spring-loaded doors of its well-camouflaged cage.

His eyes were still tightly closed and his hands pressed against his head when she finally turned back to him.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded, although the pain of the abrupt separation still echoed miserably. “Sorry, cher,” he said, although 'sorry' was a woefully inadequate response to discovering that the mind you’d just invited your girlfriend into was primed to kill on contact.

Her smile was sad and gentle. “Problems with the borrowed brain?”

The engineer blew out a shaky breath as he continued to massage his aching skull. “Guess I understand how Alternate Me makes his livin' now…”

The Intelligence Agent nodded dispassionately. “He’s what’s called a psychomorph.”

Despite the fact that he’d just witnessed how dangerous this particular perversion of psychic ability could be, Del had to curl his lip at the term. “That there is a nasty word.”

“It’s not meant as a compliment,” MacIntyre confirmed. He could tell from her tone that she also didn’t appreciate whoever had come up with this pejorative to slur tel-empaths – despite how richly some rare specimens of their species might deserve it. “He reflects and intensifies negative emotions…”

“…'Til he literally scares th' person t' death,” Del finished for her.

She nodded and gave an involuntary shudder at the peril she’d just avoided. “Not a nice way to go.”

“Nope,” the engineer agreed, then tilted his head. “Not to be too personal, darlin’, but I notice that suddenly we seem t' be makin' a distinction 'tween me an' Alternate Me.”

“Yes.” The Intelligence Agent made a small, apologetic gesture. “Alternate You would know his mind is conditioned to function in this manner. My research indicates that if he were able to persuade me to meld with him and a negative spiral occurred, he would not -- and perhaps could not -- stop himself from attempting to kill me.”

“An' you figurin' Joron would know what this brain is like too…” Del theorized.

MacIntyre nodded. “He undoubtedly would know and probably would also try to kill me.”

“…'Less he was jus' bein' sneaky an' tryin' t' get on your good side,” the Cajun could not stop himself from pointing out.

“Perhaps,” the Intelligence Agent granted. “However you genuinely did not know of your host’s psychomorphic tendencies and as soon as you sensed there was a danger, you made an impressively sincere effort to get me out of harm’s way – given the limited resources available to you.”

Del lifted at an eyebrow at the implied dismissal of his psychic capabilities. “You’re welcome.”

“Borrowed brain,” Pelori reminded him. “No brakes. Filters are shot.”

“Which you went into full bore,” he replied, shaking his head in wonder at her bravery. “Knowin' good an' damned well there was a big as hell chance that whoever I might be was probably gonna try t' kill you.”

“In addition to the information about your life in your universe that would be available to me in a meld – much of which I have no way of confirming -- surprise cannot be feigned at the level of psychic interface we achieved,” she explained. “Only the version of you that you are claiming to be would have been unaware of the danger involved in a meld. It was the best way I could think of to be sure you are who you claim you are.”

“So you waded right into this broken bear-trap of a brain up to th' tip-top o' your pretty li'l neck…”

“Forewarned is forearmed.” In typical Li'l Mac style, she gave a dismissive half-shrug of her shoulder, then smiled. “But, yes, Mr. DelMonde, as you see, I did have to trust you a little bitty bit.”

“Yeah – jus' wit' your life an' sanity.” Del blew out a long breath, finding himself once more precariously balanced between laughter and tears. “Girl, you beat all…”

Pelori’s smile became broader momentarily, then saddened slightly. “If it’s of any comfort,” she admitted very quietly. “I am… quite envious of the relationship you seem to have had with your universe’s version of me.”

Tears edged their way to winning out over laughter. “Yeah,” he replied, choosing to laugh anyway as he wiped his eyes. “That is, in fact, at least a li'l bitty of a comfort, Miss MacIntyre.”

The clang of the simulated streetcar’s very real bell broke the moment.

“Oh, my,” Pelori said, turning to look out the window. “I hope this isn’t our stop.”

“You sayin' that make it pretty certain it is,” Del replied, rising from his seat without bothering to double-check that they’d reached the correct destination.

Faubourg Marigny was not – for the most part -- a bad section of town. In fact, locals had for centuries maintained a comfortably near-exclusive use of many amiable bars and pleasant eateries by cleverly locating them in the reaches of this old neighborhood that lay just beyond staggering distance of the most tourist-y sections of the French Quarter. However, New Orleans’ criminal establishment (who, to be fair, were also locals) had figured out this same trick and had reserved certain sections of certain streets for a little public privacy for themselves. Jeffie T’s bar was situated in the midst of a particularly grim and hungry thoroughfare just past Little Angola.

Looking up and down the street, Del realized why the Roms may have set their trap for him here. His Uncle Johnny usually held court just a few blocks east at DelVecchio’s. The engineer’s Alternate Self might be able to resist the dubious charms of Jeffie T’s, but inevitably he would have to respond to a summons to the backrooms of that dim and dusty den...

“An' a completely unsuspicious number o' our fellow passenger jus' happen t' wanna get off at exactly th' same ass-end o' nowhere,” the engineer observed cynically instead of dwelling on such unpleasant thoughts.

The Intelligence Agent shrugged. “You know how to pick the hot spots, Mr. DelMonde.”

“An' look,” he said, gesturing towards the transport station. “Somebody done thoughtfully put an out o' order sign on that booth.”

“That is convenient,” MacIntyre agreed, as her disguised entourage assumed strategically casual positions flanking them.

“An' another somebody has carelessly left his toolbox out fo' me t' borrow.” The Cajun shook his head in mock wonderment. “I bet I not even gonna hafta jimmie th' lock.”

The Intelligence Agent gave him a smile. “Just like they know’d what I was thinking, non?”

DelMonde raised an eyebrow. “You gettin' cute wit' me now, huh?”

“Just trying to smooth the way,” she replied, keeping a cautious eye at the sullen natives milling up and down the street from them.

Feeling that the way was getting a little too smooth, the engineer suddenly balked. “What if I decide I jus' gonna stay?” he asked, crossing his arms and halting in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Stay?” MacIntyre blinked. “And do what? Go into the telepathic assassination business?”

The Cajun shrugged. “Might be a good time fo' a career change.”

“I’ve heard that it’s a very hard line of work to leave,” MacIntyre warned with patient exasperation. “Besides, you have a bigger problem – Interdimensional transference of the type you described is inherently instable.”

“Oh, yeah?” the Cajun challenged intransigently. “Now you an expert all th' sudden?”

“Not from personal experience,” the Intelligence Agent granted. “But in my 'line of work,' we have occasionally encountered Star Fleet officers -- or people claiming to be Star Fleet officers -- who arrive here… unexpectedly, shall we say? For reasons we don’t completely understand, there’s terminal cellular destabilization. It can take months before it begins or just hours.”

“Terminal?” Del tilted his head critically. “An' 'xactly when was you gonna get 'round to tellin' me this?”

MacIntyre shrugged apologetically. “I’m telling you now. So…”

“A li'l hurry-up might be in order?”

“It’s completely up to you, Mr. DelMonde.” The Intelligence Agent spread her hands generously. “You could have months…”

“Or minutes?”

“Or seconds,” MacIntyre confirmed. “But, by all means, let’s just stand here and talk about it. Take your time.”

Del sighed and shook his head as he picked up the toolbox her colleagues had provided for him. “Lil’ Mac, no matter what th' universe – Girl, you is a galaxy-class smartass.”

She smiled and folded her arms as she checked up and down the street again. “Too bad we have so little in common, Mr. DelMonde.”

“You not need to keep lookin' 'round, girl,” Del said, removing the protective plating on a control panel just outside the entrance to the small transport chamber. “Yes, folks is watchin' us from every possible angle. But no, nobody gonna say boo to you no matter what we do. We is in the very heart o' my Uncle Johnny’s territory. None o' these sad sons o' bitches could look me in th' eye when I was a li'l boy. They sure as hell not none o' them now that gonna start shit wit' me.”

Instead of replying, the Intelligence Agent tilted her head to one side and twisted her mouth into speculative bow.

“What?” the Cajun asked as he handily defeated an array of the unit’s security settings.

“I’m just wondering how surprised your Alternate Self was to wake up finding out that he is a poet.”

“Oh, he able t' spit a good rhyme or two if they ask him nice,” Del assured her as hidden panel opened to give them unauthorized access to the tranporter’s inner workings.

He didn’t bother to tell her that stations like this one had always been particular favorites of his. Little maintenance compartments were great places to hide from pursuers – particularly pursuers of the law enforcement persuasion. Cops would invariably see you headed for a transport station and get excited about getting a chance to use their special cop override codes. They’d use their officially licensed hack to trace the coordinates requested by the last passenger then obligingly transport themselves on their own self-generated wild goose chase.

Del was pleased to see that he could still make his old standard of forced entry within ten seconds. Pelori didn’t look impressed, but he was used to putting up with this sort of shit from Jeremy Paget all the damn time anyway. Ol’ Jer and Lil’ Mac both had highly trained cop sensibilities that would always be offended to some degree to find themselves in the company of someone who they liked who also happened to be in open possession of equally top-notch cop-defeating skills. Such was life. He was happy to do what he could to help them to get over their control-craving cop selves…

“I’m no engineer,” MacIntyre said, pointing at an unusual bit of machinery tucked into the workings of the transporter. “But that doesn’t look right.”

“Yep.” Del knelt in front of the anomaly. “Federation technology never cross-connects a power feed like that. Also we not as crazy 'bout puttin' hot pink buttons in control panels as they is.”

“They do seem terribly fond of magenta,” the Intelligence Agent agreed.

Del set to work. Memories of evenings spent in hidey-holes like this with a purloined bottle of whiskey for company warmed the corners of his memory. He could remember spending hours watching control lights flash and phosphorus blue plasma float with phantasmagoric grace through the power conduits that snaked all around the little enclosure.

The engineer had to smile at his youthful dreams of someday being able to understand the workings of what he considered then to be such complex mechanisms. He was pleased that he could tell the shadows of his younger self that now he could easily tear down a basic unit like this and reassemble it while blindfolded, drunk, and half-asleep. Not even the addition of a lumpy conglomerate of unfamiliar Rom tech could slow him down for more than a second or two.

The maintenance chamber was ample space for a boy and a bottle of bourbon, but it was a bit of a tight squeeze for two adults when one of them was trying her best to maintain at least an arm's length of distance between them without being too obvious about it.

“’Scuse me, darlin’,” the Cajun apologized as he gently elbowed her out of the way to reach a transduction assembly.

The ghostly blue plasma-light muted the flame tone of Pelori’s hair to wine and the pale peach of her cheeks to silver. Only her freckles managed to palely attest to the human side of her heritage.

“Why did you say that you would want to stay in this universe?” she burst out with a rather Indiian impatience to match her plasma-altered complexion.

Pelori MacIntyre -- less than almost everyone else in the galaxy -- had no need to be in doubt about someone else’s emotional motivations…. particular his. Therefore Del could only conclude that the question was actually just an indication of her discomfort. Although another agent might have been uneasy to suddenly find themselves closed into a narrow space with someone whose brain had quite recently tried to kill them, the engineer knew that sort of worry wasn't gonna make Lil’ Mac blink an eye. It was more likely that she was worrying that he was going to try something stupid -- like kissing her, for example.

“'Cause o' you,” he said, leaning in close and pressing his lips gently to hers --just so she could put her mind at ease about his behavior. “I miss you, darlin'.”

“I'm not the woman you knew,” she warned, neither responding nor pulling away.

He ran a wistful finger down her dappled silver cheek. “You close enough, babe.”

It might have only been a trick of the reflections from the plasma conduits, but the Intelligence Agent’s skin seemed to shimmer.

“The clock is ticking, Mr. DelMonde,” she reminded him firmly, nonetheless.

“Yeah,” he sighed, turning back to the transduction assembly. “I almost forgot how my cells is gonna fall apart.”

“You sound as if you don’t think I’m telling you the truth.”

“Oh, I believe you t'ink you is tellin' me the truth,” he assured her, temporarily disconnecting a set of cables before turning back to the Romulans’ addition to the workings. “But maybe that cell destabilization stuff is jus' some bullshit your bosses done tol' you.”

“Why would they lie?”

“A) 'Cause they liars,” the Cajun listed as he deactivated a series of security sensors lined across the top of the main section of the Romulan device. “An' B) Maybe they bein' like some parents who will tell a kid that their pet has done gone off to a nice farm somewhere.”

MacIntyre frowned. “You think my agency kills inter-dimensional travelers?”

The engineer nodded as he got up and reconnected the cables he’d previously left dangling. “After the months, minutes, or seconds it takes to get what they want out of ‘em – what else they gonna do? Then, yeah, they could just go – Ooops! I t'ink his cells done fall apart.”

Pelori crossed her arms. “You think I work for liars?” she asked, tilting her head back with the sort of imperial pride that never lay too far below the surface of even the humblest Indiian when touching on matters of integrity. “You think I can be lied to?”

“Not by me,” he assured her adamantly. “Or almos' all folks drawin' breath… But by your bosses who trained you an' near raised you after your mama was gone an' know all 'bout you an' how your mind works…” He paused to draw in a breath that came out sounding a little ragged. “An' who done killed you in my world – yeah, I done seen that shit, sugar.”

“In your world,” she pointed out, stubbornly.

“The problem wit' you,” he said, shaking his head, “is that you t'ink your bosses are like your daddy – flawed people who do bad t'ings fo' good reasons. I know th' truth is that they is like my daddy – done slipped from doin' bad t'ings fo' good reasons to doin' good t'ings fo' bad reasons to jus' doin' bad t'ings fo' bad reasons 'cause they done slipped 'round so much they jus' not no damn good no more.”

The Intelligence Agent looked exactly as appreciative of this phrasing as he would have been if someone else had used his father as a measuring stick to evaluate something that he trusted.

“While you on your high horse an' not listenin' to me,” he continued heedlessly. “Lemme tell you somet'ing else you wrong 'bout -- You t'ink the Roms is jus' gonna kill Alternate Me after ya’ll finally manage to swap him fo' Joron.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you don’t?”

“Trust me -- They love their male empaths.” The engineer shuddered involuntarily at the memory of some of the more lascivious thoughts that had been beamed leeringly in his direction. “God, how they loooove their male empaths.”

“He’s a killer,” she argued, as flatly as if they were talking about a stranger.

“So are th' damned Telenate,” the Cajun replied, adjusting the field sensitivity of the panel above his head to match that of another panel at floor level. “Lemme tell ya – they not squeamish, that bunch. Those bastards know their shit an' they not miss a damned trick.”

MacIntyre tilted her head. “You think your Alternate Self could be turned against the Federation?”

“Not to cast undue doubt on my patriotism…” Del tapped his chest. “But this fella… Not only has he had more'an his share o' bad breaks… He not never been 'round other telepaths… He probably not even 100% know he is one…”

The last assertion seemed to blow a fuse in the Intelligence Agent’s data input box. “Wait.” She held up a finger in objection. “He has exactly the same level of tel-empathy that you do.”

“Yep,” Del replied as he bifurcated a field regulation monitor display.

“And you’re trying to convince me the he doesn’t know that he’s gifted?”

The engineer nodded. “Hard as that is fo' your over-educated ass t' believe, but…”

“He’s a psychomorphic assassin,” MacIntyre protested. “How does he think he’s killing people if he doesn’t know he’s a telepath?”

“He probably t'inks he jus'… evil.” Del sighed and shrugged. “I dunno, cher. I not never been able t' explain t' you how backwoods my relatives are…”

The Intelligence Agent’s expression was still disbelieving. “So, you think he’s vulnerable to…”

“Oh, he gonna have his own views an' not wanna put up wit' other folks’ bullshit,” the engineer conceded, rising to check the readings on a panel behind her. “But if they play on th' fact that he been done wrong all his life…”

A light of understanding began to dawn in MacIntyre’s eyes. “And expose him to… some of the more pleasurable aspects of being part of a community of gifted individuals…”

“Now, he’s had him some sex,” the Cajun hastened to clarify. “I not tryin' t' make him out to be some middle-aged virgin or not'ing…”

“But if he’s never been with another tel-empath…”

“…Ever't'ing else is jus' like kids playin' patticakes,” he agreed.

The Intelligence Agent took a moment to silently weigh this new perspective as Del adjusted the data feed being routed through the Romulan device.

“If there’s a strong risk he can be turned…” Pelori said, half to herself – as if voicing part of an argument going on inside her head. “That is a significant consideration.”

Del used his work as an excuse to move in close enough to brush shoulders with the agent.

I t'ink you can turn him, he thought through the light link that automatically formed between them.

Turn him? To what? Why would I want to? she thought back, automatically using Ruth’s rule of matching telepathic communication instead of voicing her reply. He’s a killer.

You in danger. Del pretended to need to check a reading that necessitated him pressing the back of his arm against her back. You now know all I know that Alternate You knew in my universe after that damned Romulan mission. They killed you fo' what you knew… or what they thought you could figure out after you’d had a minute to t'ink.

Pelori didn’t reply. She also didn’t block his thoughts or move away.

You need someone who is completely outside o' your bosses’ control who you can turn to, Del thought to her with quiet urgency.

There was such a long silence, Del almost decided there was no point in keeping his arm in such an awkward position.

To do what? she thought back at last.

Whatever you decide you need to do after you figure out what it was they could not let you know an' go on livin', he replied, wishing he had a better, more complete answer for her. He opened all his memories of the disastrous mission open for her perusal once more. Even if that means killin' fo' you.

The sensation of her mind in his was as cool and sweet as water. It was agony to keep his thoughts from reaching out for hers.

She didn’t tax his shreds of practically non-existent shielding long. And you think that Alternate You is someone I can trust? she asked, withdrawing once more behind her own formidable wall of cerulean blue mental defenses.

Yeah. Strange as that must sound, he thought back apologetically, aching to hold her either in his thoughts or in his arms. It should be me, but apparently my cells are 'bout t' fall apart…

“So,” Pelori began aloud in a deliberate sort of manner that seemed to indicate she was performing for an unseen audience. “What are the odds that it will the Alternate You who will switch places with you when you transport out?”

“Oh, it gonna be Alternate Me,” Del confirmed in the same way he would have done whether or not her bosses were kibitzing. “Joron an' me look alike, but we not bioidentical. I not know his bio-signature by heart or not'ing. I not never really seen him in person, even.”

“You can’t just reverse the process?” she asked, like a clever prosecuting attorney might steer questioning to make a point.

“In order to make sure I th' one t' get back to my ship in my universe,” the engineer explained as he tied the Romulan phase coil booster back into his new configuration of equipment. “I gotta set up a new swap that favors my bio-signature. Since I not know not'ing 'bout ol’ Jorry – ‘cept fo' the fact he a good-lookin' devil – I not able t' rig a setup that will pull him back here fo' ya’ll.”

“Can’t or won’t?” the Intelligence Agent probed unsmilingly.

“Both,” the Cajun admitted freely. “But mostly can’t. Given the complexities of inter-dimensional beaming complicated by introduction of alien equipment – not to mention the unpredictable degree of active interference their meddlesome asses might apply -- it a damn testament to my damn genius that I can do shit 'bout the situation in th' first place.”

Lil’ Mac’s agent mask slipped a little as a grin snuck into one side of her mouth. “Well, far be it from me to tax your genius, Mr. DelMonde.”

“It’d be the first time if you not do jus' that,” the engineer grumbled as he snapped the top panel of the Romulan booster closed. “An' there we go. That as good as I can do fo' you.”

MacIntyre blinked in surprise as if she hadn’t expected him to finish up so soon. “As simple as that?”

“Not a damn t'ing simple 'bout this setup, darlin’,” he replied as he rose and dusted himself off. He turned to find himself face to face with the moment he’d been dreading since two seconds after he saw her – time to say goodbye. Goodbye for the last time. Again.

Part in honor of the depth of his sadness and part in response to the attraction she couldn’t stop herself from feeling for him, Pelori didn’t stop Del from holding her close and caressing her cheek one last time.

“Come wit' me, sugar,” he begged softly, trying to burn the sweet sensation into his memory acutely enough to last him through all the lonely years that would come. “Kick all this shit in th' head an' jus' come wit' me.”

They stopped time for moment with a soul-deep kiss.

…But moments are not immortal. The most precious expire all too soon.

“I can’t,” she apologized, turning away to open the panel to the exterior of the transport station. She looked back with a sad half-smile. “My cells would fall apart.”

“They’s worse t'ings that can happen,” the engineer assured her as he followed her into the blinding sunlight of the street.

They were both silent as Del entered the most complicated set of coordinates this unit had ever probably ever seen into the transport panel.

“It’d be a help if you could operate these controls manually,” the Cajun requested gruffly. “’Less you t'ink you gotta hafta peel off befo' Alternate Me show up…”

“I think I can manage,” she assured him, stepping forward.

Del took a deep lung-full of regret before stepping onto the transport pad. Unable to bear the weight of it, he hesitated. “You know, sugar, if you not in a particular hurry,” he suggested. “Maybe we could nip off fo' a minute fo' a proper goodbye or somet'ing?”

The Intelligence gave a short laugh of exasperated and profoundly mixed emotion. “I have a boyfriend, Mr. DelMonde,” she informed him firmly.

Del reached out and pulled her too him for one last, heart-fortifying kiss. “Somet'ing tell me you gonna have a new one real soon, cher,” he promised before stepping on to the transport pad.

She was shaking her head with the transport beam took hold of him… but she was also smiling.

“Del!” the captain of the Drake exclaimed as a new world sparkled into existence around him.

“In th' flesh,” the engineer confirmed, grateful that he’d been able to provide himself not only with a successful but more comfortable return trip. “Hopefully th' right flesh this time. That shuttle blown yet?”

“No. You still have twelve minutes.” Sulu looked disheveled and a little dazed. He hit a button on the transporter console’s com unit. “Medic to Transport One.”

“I not need no medic,” the engineer waved him off, although he was a little dizzy... although no more than to be expected when traveling the distance through time, space, and dimension he had just traversed.

“It’s not for you,” his captain informed him right about the same time that it occurred to Del that Sulu was not the one he expected to be operating the transporter controls.

As the engineer exited the transport chamber, he could see that Rivka Mazar lay sprawled on the deck behind the console. “What happen to her?” he asked as Sulu checked the chief engineer’s vitals.

The Drake’s captain sighed with relief as he found Mazar’s pulse. “I assume you know who beamed here in your place?”

“Either a Romulan who look jus' like me or a thug wit' a mustache.” Seeing that the chief engineer’s situation did not seem to be critical, Del knelt to check on the condition of his booster.

“Right both times,” Sulu congratulated him as two medics rushed in. “It was your evil twin with a truly ridiculous moustache who turned out to be a Romulan who just incidentally happened to be armed to the teeth.” He gestured the medics forward. “There was a struggle. She was stunned. Small Romulan hand weapon. Get her to Sickbay.”

The Cajun sighed deeply as the medics chorused their “Yes, sirs” and hauled the chief engineer away. “Las' t'ing I needed is fo' you t' see me wit' that moustache,” he grumbled to himself as he soothed his invention’s over-amped circuits.

“Another officer might apologize for a miscalculation that almost allowed a tel-empathic Romulan secret agent to shoot his captain,” Sulu pointed out as he wearily seated himself on the deck next to the engineer. “But, yeah, Del. You looked - is hideous too strong a word? - with a moustache… Although if you ever get thrown out of Fleet, I can tell you you'd have a look that would rocket you to the top in the Acturian porn industry.”

“No miscalculation on my part,” The engineer assured his friend adamantly, ignoring both the 'hideous' comment and the porn star future prediction as he reconfigured the settings on his improvisation. “I jus' got caught up unexpectedly in th' machinations o' the alternate universe Telenate an' the bastards who is supposed to work fo' us. None of us able t' foresee that. And trust me, I did some fancy calculatin' to get my ass back here…”

As Del had told Pelori MacIntyre, he could not lie to her. However, she wasn’t an engineer and had not seemed to realize that part of his plan to reshuffle his selves in a grand inter-dimensional do-si-dos had involved finding and activating the Romulan’s emergency beam-up signal he’d found hidden amongst the other additions to the public transport station. Conceivably, her bosses could have eventually figured out a way to use that device to beam Joron into their clutches without giving a damn about what happened to either him or Alternate Him.

The again, maybe Lil’ Mac did know… Maybe she just let him get away…

“Oh, I had to do my share of quick thinking to get your evil, mustachioed twin back into the transport chamber,” the Drake’s captain assured him, then shook his head. “Most confusing conversation I’ve ever had...”

“You lucky he not try t' stick his tongue down your throat,” Del said, standing up and correcting the coordinates laid into the board. “Or is that how you manage t' convince him t' do like you wanted?”

Sulu purposefully smiled his most enigmatic smile up at him. “You’re welcome.”

“Not that I sayin' I glad ol’ Jorry shoot her,” the engineer admitted as he tied in power from his booster. “But I surely have not been lookin' forward t' wastin' time arguin' with Mazar 'fore you let me take another try.”

“Oh?” His captain crossed his arms. “Is that what I’m going to do?”

The Cajun laid in automatic settings to make the task of beaming him out easier for his captain. “Yep.”

Sulu twisted his mouth into a half-frown. “I think you’re more reasonable as a Romulan.”

“Got them cute li'l elf ears too,” Del confirmed, reaching down to help his captain up.

“Wait,” Sulu said when he was on his feet. “Let me get a phaser. I’m shooting anything that beams in this time.”

“Even if it be me?” Del asked as headed for the transport chamber.

“Especially if it’s you,” his captain confirmed, putting the weapon on the console before reaching for the controls. Sulu paused before activating. “Del,” he asked seriously. “Are you certain you want to do this again?”

The Cajun spread his hands helplessly and pointed towards the chronometer. “We got eight minutes an' 29 seconds 'fore that damn shuttle blows.”

“You could beam into an even worse version of your life,” his captain pointed out.

“Yeah… but who knows?” Del gave a sad half-smile for the universes where Alternate Peloris and Alternate Noel DelMondes survived to live and love and fight to make their worlds less bad. “Maybe I can do somet'ing to make it better.”