The End of This Road [3/4 - Group Three]

Posted on 11 Mar 2021 @ 12:18pm by Lieutenant Commander Natalia Reyes & The Narrator & Lieutenant Alexandra Dering & Lieutenant Cole Dering M.D., M.S.

964 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Quagmire

At the end of the corridor, they found another room. This one was was also stone with bed-like shapes surrounding the edges, although there wasn't anyone on any of these beds.

There was, however, someone else in the room now.

It was a woman, seemingly human, standing in the center of the room. She was wearing some sort of old world clothing that wasn't easy to identify, with long blond hair hanging in braids and eyes--one bright blue and one white, vaguely swirling with what seemed to be stars. The woman smiled.

"Congratulations! You've made it!" she said, clapping her hands together once. "Welcome!"

Lexi stopped, eyes fixed on the woman for a second. Something about this whole thing made her very uncomfortable. Who was this being and what did she want from them? Why all the riddles? It was like an episode of that old 1960's Batman where the Riddler sets them to a riddle or ten for an hour before Batman, amazingly, figures them all out -- what was he, some kind of computer! -- and stops the plan. But this was worse; this woman had powers that were right up there with Q or that being Kirk's Enterprise ran into -- what was his name. Anyway, it didn't make her feel... pleased? Was that how the woman expected them to feel?

Not saying anything yet, she pulled her eyes away from the 'woman' to look at the rest of their surroundings. Nothing too impressive 'stared' back at her, so she looked at her team then back to the 'woman'. "Um... not to sound like a bad guest, but who are you? And what is all of this?" Guest was not really how she felt, but it was the proper way to speak to someone with the power this being obviously had. Wasn't it?

With a strange incredulous look on his face, Cole pointed sideways over to Lexi as if she had taken the words right out of his mouth.

The strange woman smiled and spread her arms wide. "This is my home," she said grandly, then she chuckled. "For the moment, at least. Don't you like it?" She put her hands on her hips and looked around. "I suppose it is a bit drab."

It was all stone. So. Drab was one word for it.

Lexi didn't think insulting the lady was a good idea, but what could she say really? The woman herself had called it drab. She shrugged lightly. "Well, it isn't much on creature comfort, but I guess that's a really relative thing, isn't it? I mean, what's comfortable to one species is hideous to another. So whatever makes you comfortable..." She was rambling a bit, trying to qualify her initial statement lest the woman take offense and put them somewhere less... user-friendly.

"I like the way you think," the woman laughed. "But it could be...a little more comfortable." She looked around, blinked a few times, and suddenly the room went from stone furniture to much more luxurious furnishings.

That caused Cole to raise one eyebrow as he started thinking he'd been right. "So why are we here?" he asked.

She shrugged a little. "So we can get to know each other," she said as if this wasn't surprising or weird at all. "Well..." She tilted her head coyly. "I know you a little. Lieutenants Alexandra Dering, Cole Dering. Lieutenant Colonel Natalia Reyes. You--" To Reyes. "--are from here. You know. I'm not really interested in you." She waved dismissively before smiling at the Derings again. "You two, however... I know how far from your home you are. I'd love to hear about where you come from."

"Well, there's a lot to tell," Cole stated. His brow was furrowed with uncertainty. "Anything specific you would like to know?"

Lexi looked over at her husband, smiling slightly at him. He had been so quiet, she had begun to get worried. There was this little alarm screaming in the back of her mind, but she tried to ignore it for the moment. This woman knew so much about them already, then how was it she needed to ask them for more? Maybe she'd gotten this much from their minds, but since people didn't generally go about thinking about where they were from as a matter of course, she needed to get them to think about it? Or maybe she'd gotten it from the ship? But if that was the case, she could have gotten everything about the Federation from it too. Those were not exactly top secret files.

But there was more, something off. The way the woman just... manipulated the environment seemingly by thought. Was she this universe's version of Q or some other similar being? There were so many questions and not enough answers. Lexi didn't like this sense of imbalance.

"He's right," she told the woman, "but we don't know anything about you either. Hell, you're ahead of us in the information department. You know our names and where we're from, but we know exactly nothing about you." Her tone was calm and matter-of-fact. She was not trying to annoy the woman or push her. She just felt that it needed saying. "I propose an information exchange."

"Be glad to!" the woman exclaimed. "Let's--"

Very abruptly, the woman's head tilted like an animal who'd just heard something. She held still, like she was listening, and then she smiled. Her attention turned back to those in front of her, and she smiled. Her eyes were glowing now, though. (Entirely unknown to this group, the same thing was happening to every group trapped in this strange place.) "Someone just said the magic word." She winked her pale eye, and everything went white.

 

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