End Program

Posted on Mar 15, 2017 @ 4:39am by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Mar 15, 2017 @ 4:40am

Mission: Holodeck Havoc

= End Program =

(cont’d from “The Beginning of the End”)

LOCATION: USS PHOENIX - Holodecks

SCENE: The Necromancer’s Tower

STARDATE: [2.17] 0315.0008

Jake spared a moment to cast a final glance at the remains of Rob’s keyboard print tie, lolling jauntily out from under one side of the enormous safe that had crushed him. Rob hadn’t been the most likeable person - **program,** Jake reminded himself - but he hadn’t struck Jake as the servant of an evil sorceror. The rest of the office staff, too, armed with staplers and pastries, had represented a pretty absurd army for whoever this Necromancer character was supposed to be. Obviously it was the corruption that had affected the holodeck’s systems that had created such twisted characters, but even so, Jake realized he was hoping they’d get the chance to settle things with this Necromancer before this holodeck trouble was sorted out, if only for the chance to get one back for poor, out-of-his-depth Rob.

The party proceeded up the stairwell, spiraling upwards and upwards. After going up what must have been three or four floors, Jake stopped. Something had changed, some subtle shift in the light which he couldn’t immediately pin down. He looked up, then down, and with a start he realized he couldn’t see any other floors - just several stories of stairs, stretching upwards and downwards, into a deep well of darkness that had suddenly appeared both above and below them.

“Um,” Jake said.

“What is it, Jake?” Eve asked, coming up a few steps behind him. Then followed his gaze, and saw the darkness too. “Where did all *that* come from?”

“It looks like the program’s glitched out or something,” Jake frowned.

Beside him, Arak also looked up and down, coming to the same opinion regarding their predicament as Jake had. “They appear to go on forever.”

“But what about the floor we just left?” Eve asked, looking down at the darkness below them in vain.

“We haven’t gone that far,” Jake said. “We should still be able to see it. It’s gone.”

“If the holodeck has stopped rendering any other locations besides this stairwell, we may not be able to make any further progress,” said Stavik. “We would have to wait until Captain Kane and Command Malin-Argo devise a way to free us.”

“Figures,” Jake grumbled. He leaned against the stone wall of the stairwell, folded his arms moodily across his chest, and frowned. Kass cursed under her breath, then leaned up against the wall next to him, unwittingly mirroring his posture and expression.

“We’re gonna be stuck in here for hours,” she muttered.

“Maybe not.” Jasmine Yu stepped forward, to the edge of the stairs, and leaned out to get a better view above and below their position. Jake watched her.

“What are you thinking, lieutenant?”

“This may be an element of the simulation,” Yu said. She leaned back, satisfied there really wasn’t anything to see, and turned to look at Jake. “The ruler of this keep is a character designed ‘Necromancer’, yes?”

“If I’m keeping up with all the story threads, yes.”

“Necromancer implies supernatural power,” said Yu. “Charms, illusions, that kind of thing.”

“You’re thinking maybe this is the Necromancer trying to stop us,” said Ryan.

Cantor Von chuckled. “How would we tell? Whether the program’s done this to us by accident or on purpose, here we are.”

“Look at where the stairs cross into the darkness,” Yu said, pointing upwards. “They don’t simply cut off or stop. They continue upwards, *into* it. If the program was malfunctioning, why would it be trying to conceal our path from us? If the path had been deleted from the metafile, surely the stairs would simply end, in plain view. Or they’d go on and on, far past the point where we could see..”

“We don’t really know how glitches in the system could manifest,” said Ryan. “Maybe the darkness is just a coincidence.”

“I don’t think we’ve got anything to lose, either way,” Jake said. “As far as we can tell, the safeties are still on, and it’s not like we need to worry about falling out of the world or something. We may as well test it out.”

“I’ll go,” Kass said, stepping forward immediately. “I already can’t see. Won’t be at a disadvantage.”

Jake nodded. “Okay. Von and I will come with you, right up to the threshold of the darkness. You can scout ahead a few meters, give us a lay of the land.”

“Ain’t we supposed to follow *you* into danger?” Kass smirked.

“I’m learning to delegate,” Jake grinned. “It’s a Command thing.”

The part moved up the stairwell, stopping several feet back from where the stone steps crossed into the darkness and disappeared from sight. Jake, Von, and Kass continued, coming to a step on the final step, just before the threshold. Jake put up a hand; the darkness, whatever it was, emitted no heat. As far as Jake could feel, there was nothing there at all.

Slowly, Jake pushed his hand forward, over the threshold. It disappeared into the black, but beyond that, there was nothing. No heat, no pain, no sensation other than the normal feeling of his hand.

“Seems safe enough,” Jake said.

“You only had to dip a toe in,” said Kass.

“We’ll be right here,” said Von, trying his best to sound encouraging. “Just… be yourself.”

“It ain’t a job interview, it’s a big ol’ wall of incomprehensible darkness.”

Von considered this, then nodded. “Maybe open with a joke.”

“I guess if something in there eats me, I won’t have to spend any more time stuck in here with you,” Kass said. Then, she stepped over the threshold, and into the darkness.

=[/\]=

From her perspective, there was no change. There was still the sensation of air, flowing across her skin. There was no noticeable smell, no discernable shifts in temperature. The sounds of her footfalls on the stone steps hadn’t changed. Whatever this darkness was, it didn’t seem to be that dangerous. Though, Kass supposed, maybe one of them might trip over their feet if they couldn’t see them. Stone steps and total sightlessness weren’t a good combination for the inexperienced, and it was just possible one of the others might miss a step and go tumbling over the side. Kass tried to remind herself that, physically, none of them could *really* be that far off the ground, that they were all just standing in holodecks, surrounded by refracted light, but she couldn’t *quite* push the image of tumbling all the way down to the stone floor of the tower from her mind.

As she was trying, Kass’ foot came down on something that was definitely *not* stone.

“What the heck?”

“What is it?” Jake asked from behind her. His voice sounded oddly muffled from outside the darkness, as though he was speaking to her through a thin wall.

“How should I know?” Kass grumbled. She tried to lift her foot. It seemed to catch on something, but with another jerk it came free. Kass reached down to touch a sticky substance that seemed to coat the bottom of her foot.

“Major?” Cantor Von said. His voice, too, was muffled.

“Some kind of muck in here,” Kass said. She reached around her in the darkness, and her hands found the stone wall of the tower. Except it wasn’t just stone she felt; some kind of sticky, tacky substance seemed to coat the walls, clinging to her fingers. She scraped through a particularly large patch of it with her index finger, and again there was the sensation of catching fast, and she found she had to tug at her hand to pull it free.

She was starting to get an idea what she was feeling.

“Focus up, Tannenbaum,” said Jake from outside the veil. “Is it safe or what?”

“I don’t think-” Kass started.

Then she heard it: a soft scuttling sound, very quiet but also very *big*, seeming to come from somewhere above her. It was followed by an arrhythmic clicking sound, and something that reminded Kass of a feline hiss. Something wet plopped on the ground next to her; Kass could hear it squelching wetly against a patch of exposed stone. That scuttling came again, and it was getting *louder*.

She didn’t need to see the spider to know it was there, and it was *huge*. Whatever had dripped onto the stone next to her was either blood, venom, or the creature’s vile saliva, and she wasn’t interested in finding out which. Fighting was an even worse idea; if her blade caught on a particularly large patch of gooey webbing, she’d never be able to free it before the creature was upon her. So instead of fighting, Kass turned, and started to run.

“Wrong way!” she shouted, as she pounded down the stone steps. “Wrong way!”

=[/\]=

From outside the dark veil, Jake and Cantor exchanged an uncertain look. They could barely hear Kass; though she couldn’t be more than a few feet ahead of them, her voice seemed to carry to them across some wide distance.

“Major?” Von asked again. “Is it safe to proceed?”

Jake thought he heard a faint reply, but couldn’t make out the words.

“What do you think?” Von asked, looking at him. “Should we go in?”

“We can’t just leave her in there,” Jake said. “I’ll go- if we’re not back out in three minutes, take the team back down. Maybe there’s a way out back the way we came.”

“But we’d be leaving you behind.”

“We’re all still on the ship,” Jake said. “I’d rather we didn’t get separated, but I also don’t want us wasting our time wandering around in some pitch black stairwell-”

Before he could finish, Kass Thytos suddenly came roaring out from the darkness, rushing down the stairs so quickly that she nearly sent Jake tumbling over the side.

“Hey!” Jake said. “Watch-”

But Kass was already shouting. “Wrong way! Wrong way!”

Jake and Von turned, just as the first leg of the spider slid out from behind the darkness to settle, with chilling gentleness, on the stone step next to Jake’s foot. They didn’t wait; they were already running down the steps behind Kass, as legs two, three, and four shot out from the black as well. The spider pulled itself into view just as Jake was rounding the curve of the stairwell, so that he only needed to lift his eyes to get a good look. It was a big, black, hairy thing, with nine red eyes set atop its shiny black head. The eyes glowed a jaundiced yellow, and to Jake it seemed they had a wicked intelligence burning behind them. The rhythmic clicking was the sound of the creature’s massive teeth, gnashing together again and again as purple foam spilled out from the side of its mouth.

Jake had seen enough. He picked up the pace, trying to gain ground even as the spider set off behind them in hot pursuit.

“Next time, *you* go into the spooky darkness first!” Kass panted, a few steps below him.

“Does anyone recognize this from their simulation?” Stavik shouted, his breath coming in even, steady exhalations.

“Don’t look at me!” Arak protested immediately.

“Could be mine!” Lynette shouted. “Hard to say!”

Behind them, the spider skittered furious down, its legs flitting across the stone walls and steps, its teeth clicking in a menacing staccato. Jake risked a glance back, and saw that they were gaining ground on it, but only just; and as soon as they started to run out of breath, the spider would have them.

“Less talk, more running!” he shouted, as he picked up the pace.

An instant later, a warm jet of something wet and sticky spurted against the wall just to Jake’s left. Jake looked, and saw a long, ropey tendril of webbing, floating gently down to the stone steps below. Above him, the spider and pulled its abdomen below itself and sprayed the rope of web, trying to tangle up its prey in its sticky strands. The spider launched another jet of webbing, and this time it was on track; the blob of web struck Eve Dalziel in the shoulder, suddenly pinning her to the stone wall of the stairwell.

Arak and Stavik were there at once, going to work on the thick webbing with their bat’leths. They made progress, but with painstaking slowness, and above them the spider had resumed its pursuit, although it was now moving slower, as if savoring these moments before the kill. Jake, Kass, and Von reached her and started to chop at the webbing too, with minimal effect.

“It doesn’t matter!” Eve said. “The safeties are still on; there’s nothing it can do!”

“So why run from it at all?” Ryan asked. “Why not just let it get us?”

“No!” Jake said. “That could reset the whole simulation; we’d have to do all this over again!”

The spider crept closer. Another blob of foamy purple venom dripping from its mouth, plopping onto the stairs near where Eve was trapped.

“Aw hell,” Kass said. She stepped back from Eve, turned to the spider, and hefted her katana. “I’ll try an’ hold it off while you cut the headshrinker free.”

Von turned to follow her, while the others continued to cut away at the strands of webbing that had stuck Eve to the wall. Above them, Kass and Cantor faced the spider. One of its legs settled, almost daintily, on the stone step a few feet above Kass. She swept out with her sword, slicing cleanly through the leg. Green blood sprayed along the stone wall as the spider drew its leg back, hissing in pain and rage. Another leg shot out, faster than Kass could track, and it struck her legs. There was a dull half-pain to the impact, something Kass was used to in holodeck safeties, but the force was still enough to knock her legs out from beneath her. She hit the steps and started rolling backwards, as Cantor Von stepped in. He thrust with his bat’leth, but the spider pulled its leg up just in time, striking Von across the chest.

Below them, Jake and the others had managed to free Eve’s arm. She pulled herself away from the clump of webbing still stuck to the wall, her face twisted up in a grimace. “Gross,” she mumbled.

“We’re clear!” Jake said. “Go!”

But the spider was already coming at them, and it was too late to retreat. Instead, Von thrust with his bat’leth again, trying to drive it straight into the spider’s mouth. The blade seemed to sink part of the way in before it stopped, and then Von felt a tremendous jerk from somewhere inside the creature’s mouth forcibly pull the bat’leth’s handle from his hands. His eyes went wide as the creature spat the blade out. The bat’leth spiraled, end over end, down into the pool of darkness below them, where it finally disappeared from sight.

The spider hissed again, and came on.

“Now would be a real good time for them to remove this element from the program!” Ryan said.

Long, spindly legs dropped on either side of Von, as the creature pulled its hideous face forward. Its yellow eyes burned and its silver teeth gnashed loudly. On either side of its misshapen head, Von could see bulbous venom sacs, pulsating in a nauseating rhythm.

Given the choice between going down the gullet of some horrible giant arachnid, or facing whatever might be waiting for him in the darkness below, Von decided that sometimes the devil you know isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. He turned and leapt, over the side of the stairs, and plunged down, past the rest of the crew a few feet below him on the spiral. A moment later, Cantor Von disappeared into the darkness at the bottom of the shaft.

As soon as he did, the world seemed to glitch. For a moment, the spider looked pixelated, and Jake though he could see the familiar holodeck grid lines peeking out from behind it. The spider had also frozen in place, as if unable to proceed while the holodeck was correcting whatever had caused its programming to glitch out in the first place.

It gave Jake an idea.

“Okay!” Jake shouted. “New plan! Everybody jump!”

“I thought that would restart to simulation!” Ryan said.

“So would being eaten by bright eyes up there!” Jake said. “I’ve got enough things giving me nightmares, thank you very much!”

“I think you’re onto something, sir,” Yu nodded. She turned, and dove over the side of the stairwell, hurtling down into the darkness. As soon as she crossed the threshold and disappeared from view, the program glitched again. This time, it was worse - for an instant, the spider was not a spider, but a collection of blocky shapes built to approximate a spider, but without any of the detail. The holodeck lines were definitely visible now, and again the spider seemed frozen in place until the holodeck program was able to reset itself.

“Jump!” Jake repeated. “Jump now!”

The spider seemed to sense their plan, and again it pulled its abdomen in beneath itself, angling it to spray another jet of sticky webbing towards the crew. Arak, Stavik, Eve and Ryan all leapt off, with Jake only a half second behind them. But while the others all cleared the spider’s jets of webbing and continued their fall towards the darkness below, Jake wasn’t so lucky. The strand of web struck his leg, and suddenly he found himself dangling, head down, over the darkness.

The spider seemed to hiss its triumph, and began to scuttle greedily down the shaft, towards where Jake was trapped. Jake though he might get the virtual tour of the spider’s gastrointestinal tract after all, when suddenly Kass appeared above him, her katana held out.

“Can’t take you anywhere, boss,” she grinned, and brought the katana down. Jake, realizing he was hanging with his head pointed at whatever awaited them at the bottom of the shaft, looked up quickly.

“No, wait!”

But Kass had already sliced neatly through the strand of webbing, and suddenly Jake was falling, head first, towards the darkness below. Around him, the world seemed to violently glitch and fizz as the rest of the crew passed through the threshold and into the blackness, and then Jake was passing through it too.

=[/\]=

SCENE: Holodeck

From what couldn’t have been more than a height of two feet, Jake fell to the floor of the holodeck and landed in a heap.

“Oof!”

He sat up slowly, rubbing his head. Around him, he saw the reassuring grid of the holodeck, stenciled all across the walls and ceiling of the chamber where he now stood.

He was out of the simulation.

“Oh, thank *god*!” he said. He wasn’t sure if it was their last-minute suicide, or whatever it was that Malin-Argo had been trying down in Engineering, that was to thank for their release from the program, and right now he didn’t really care. After spending the last several hours cooped up inside a giant computer game with rat monsters, giant spiders, and keyboard print ties, Jake was glad to finally be back in the real world.

But then… why didn’t his head hurt more? He couldn’t have fallen all that far, true, but he’d done it *head first*... surely he should have a lump or two to show for it, right?

He shook his head. Maybe he was just being paranoid. He walked towards the holodeck doors, half expecting them to remain frozen shut. He smiled a little when they opened, revealing the familiar corridor of the USS PHOENIX.

Except it was empty.

“Huh,” Jake said. He stuck his head out of the doors, without actually leaving the holodeck, and glanced up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight. These weren’t the days when the PHOENIX had been understaffed and on the run; it was unusual to see *nobody* in the corridor. Something wasn’t right.

Jake ventured cautiously out into the corridor. He imagined seeing the spider suddenly pull itself around the corner up ahead and charging up the corridor towards him, but no such creature revealed itself. Jake came to the door at the end of the corridor, which slid obediently open. Jake looked down, and saw that the floor in the room beyond was not the familiar floor of the PHOENIX; instead, it was tiled stone.

“I’m still in the damn program,” Jake sighed. “And I’m separated from the others. *And* I’m talking to myself. This day just keeps getting better.”

Jake took a few tentative steps into the room. He heard the door swish shut behind him, but when he turned, he saw only blank wall. Only way to go now was forward, which at least kept things simple, even if Jack had the nagging sensation that he was being led into a trap. Beneath his feat, grey stone gave way to metal catwalks. Jake looked back again, and instead of the slate grey wall of the medieval tower behind him, Jake now saw a raised catwalk, stretching out ahead through a winding, shadowy corridor.

It was the Bajoran space station from Von’s simulation, Jake realized. And that would mean-

Jem’Hadar soldiers boiled out of the shadow, firing blasts of purple energy. Jake turned to run as the blasts exploded around him. He rounded a bend, saw an airlock door, and raced towards it. The Jem’Hadar jeered and shouted behind him, pouring on the phaser fire as Jake leapt into the airlock and took cover just inside the doorframe. He reached out, blinding slapping at the door controls, and then the door was sliding shut, the next wave of phaser blasts exploding against its hardened metal surface.

Jake turned to look at the room he’d entered. The metal catwalk floor continued beneath him for only a few feet, before the floor become carpeted. Looking up, Jake realized he was now walking down a long and winding aisle, with books lining either side. His step had become lighter too, as though the gravity here was lower than what he experienced aboard the PHOENIX. He wasn’t sure where this place was, but he guessed it was somebody else’s simulation, tacked haphazardly onto the last one. The glitch in the holodecks program was getting worse, and now the program seemed to be shifting him from one environment to the next with no rhyme or reason to any of it. It was going to be hard to find the others in this situation, let alone find the Necromancer and try to put an end to all of this.

Jake bounded down the corridor, ignoring row after row of books. He rounded a corner, then slid to a halt. Coming up the corridor towards him were Sofia Andersson and Iphie Bonviva. They looked like they were running for their lives, and in an instant Jake could see why. Behind them, a huge dragon flapped it way down the stacks, beating its wings furiously as it pursued them.

Iphie and Sofia saw Jake, and came to a stop. Jake was too busy pointing at the dragon to notice.

“Get down!” he shouted, diving to the ground as the dragon bore down on them. Iphie and Sofia watched, their expressions puzzled, as Jake covered his heads with his hands and waited for the inevitable gout of dragonfire.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Iphie asked, arching an eyebrow in Jake’s direction.

Jake risked a peek up. The dragon had perched on a low railing nearby, its head tilted in a quizzical expression as it looked at Jake. Sofia and Iphie didn’t seem worried by the beast’s presence or proximity. Jake got to his feet.

“He’s with you?”

“He’s good company,” Sofia said.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Iphie asked, hands on her hips as she frowned at Jake.

“I’m *trying* to find a way to the end of this program,” Jake said. “Where have you two been this whole time, anyway?”

“We were trapped,” Sofia said. “The simulation malfunctioned, it was trying to force us into accepting certain roles to facilitate the completion of the story-”

“The end of the story?” Jake cut in.

Iphie narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. So what?”

“Please tell me you played along,” Jake said.

Sofia and Iphie exchanged glances. Iphie turned back to Jake. “Look, mister, you didn’t see the get-up they wanted us to wear-”

Jake blanched. “Oh, Iphie. You *didn’t*.”

“There was some disagreement as to the question of who should be princess,” Sofia said. “When the librarian pressed the issue, I… killed it, I think. With magic.”

“Magic,” Jake deadpanned.

“Yes,” Sofia said. “It’s been a very educational afternoon, sir.”

“I was with the others before,” Jake said. “The working theory is that by concluding the program’s narrative, we can get the whole thing to shut down.”

“We could have ended this whole thing just by playing along?” Sofia asked.

“No way to know for sure,” Jake said. “It sounds like you killed the storyteller.”

“So how do we get out of here?” Iphie asked. “The tech’s impressive but nothing beats real life, you know what I mean?”

Jake sighed. “We have to find the others. We have to-”

The dragon suddenly reared up and roared, snarling at something. Jake turned, and realized a darkness, much like the black veil that had stopped them in the stairwell, had crept in on all sides around them. Jake thought he could see shapes moving just beyond the threshold.

“What’s going on?” Iphie asked.

“Hope neither of you are arachnophobic,” Jake said quietly.

The dragon snarled again, and a shriek rang out from the darkness. A white figure suddenly surged into view, the wraith-creature Jake recognized from their earlier confrontation with Rob and his army of Vikings and temp workers. The dragon took flight immediately, roaring as it rushed the wraith, which in turn was rushing at them, shrieking like a banshee. The dragon and the wraith collided, twisting around one another as they fought. Jake didn’t think they should stick around and wait to see what else the program might throw at them.

“Come on!” he shouted, and started to run in the opposite direction. Sofia and Iphie hesitated.

“What about Sparky?” Iphie demanded.

“You can play with your imaginary friend later, Iphie!” Jake said. “Run!”

Sofia turned and took off after Jake, and after a moment, Iphie did too. They left the dragon and wraith brawling behind them, and kept moving forward until Jake suddenly felt his feet slipping on ice. He looked down, and saw they’d now stumbled into what looked like a frozen cave. Behind him, Sofia nearly lost her footing sliding on the ice.

“The program’s getting even more unstable,” Sofia said.

“I think it’s Kane and Malin-Argo,” Jake said. “They seemed to be removing elements from the simulation earlier. I think it accelerated whatever what wrong with the system.”

“If they crash the program, that might get us out,” Sofia said.

“Whatever they’re trying, it hasn’t worked so far,” Jake said. “We need to keep moving.”

They rounded a bend, moving slowly to avoid falling on the ice, and stopped. A row of penguins now blocked their path, staring at them impassively with shiny black eyes.

“Awww,” Iphie said. “How cute.”

“I wouldn’t get too close,” Sofia said.

She was right; a second later, the penguins opened their mouths, and lasers flashed out. Jake pressed up against one of the icy walls, narrowly avoiding one of the blasts. Sofia had to leap to the side, lost her footing, and wound up flat on her back. Another of the shots, meanwhile, grazed Iphie’s arm. Iphie hissed out a breath - the pain was minor but sharp, and gone almost as soon as it arrived - and glared at the penguins.

“Oh no,” she said. “You. Did. NOT-”

She charged forward. The penguins turned to look at each other now, their glances uncertain. Iphie reached them in a few steps, drew back her foot, and with a fierce kick sent one of the birds tumbling down the corridor. Another penguin chirped in surprise, but Iphie socked it right in the beak, sending it sliding up the corridor on its back. The third and fourth penguins and tried to run, but Iphie seized them from behind, knocked their heads together, and tossed them away. She looked around, seeing no more of the animals coming at her, and dusted her hands off.

“Uh,” Sofia said. “Wow.”

Iphie turned and walked back towards Sofia and Jake. “Never take any guff from something that has hollow bones,” she said. “Rule to live by.”

Around them, the world suddenly fizzed and spat. In an instant, the ice-cave was gone, and they appeared to be back in the tower again, on the stairwell where Jake and the others had been earlier.

“What just happened?” Iphie asked, looking around.

“The program glitched out,” Jake said. “We were here before. There was a spider-”

On cue, there came a hissing noise from below, and then the spider was there, climbing *up* towards them now instead down from above. Jake, Iphie, and Sofia charged up the stairs, going around and around the spiral, until finally coming to an ornately carved wooden door at the top of the staircase. Without slowing, Jake shouldered the door open and they all spilled through.

The spider was still coming behind them. Iphie slammed the door shut just as it reached one of its long, pointed legs out towards her. The tip of the leg caught in the door, and with a tug the door snapped shut, neatly severing the tip. The section of spider-leg fell to the floor, still twitching in an expanding pool of green ichor.

Panting, Iphie glared at Jake. “He with you?”

Jake ignored her. He turned his attention to the room they’d entered. A raised dais was at the center, on which appeared to be an altar. Standing before the altar was a figure clad in dark robes, its head covered by a hood. On one of the dais, small stone steps led down to the level where Jake was now standing. The chamber itself was a large oval, and from where he was standing, Jake could see several doors around the chamber, not unlike they one they’d just come through.

The rest of the crew were there, in front of the various doors. Cantor Von, Kass Thytos, and Stavik were to Jake’s left, and Lynette,Jasmine, Eve, and Arak were to his right.

“Commander!” Lynette said, when her eyes landed on Jake.

“We’re all here,” Jake said, looking around.

“Have things been getting weird for you too?” Kass asked. “The program’s gone nuttier than squirrel shit.”

As if to illustrate, the room seemed to rumble around them. Jake saw more of the glitching, pixelated affects creeping in over various surfaces around the room. This time, the effects stayed in place, instead of snapping back to normal as they had before.

“I think we’re coming to the end of this thing now,” Jake said. He eyed the figure atop the dais. “And I’m betting that’s the Ne-”

“I AM!” The hooded figure shouted suddenly, thrust its arms out above its head. The ends of the robe dangled down, making them look like batwings silhouetted against the gloom. “THE NECROMANCER!”

“The Necromancer,” Jake said, though without any enthusiasm.

The Necromancer cackled. His voice was high and reedy, the kind of voice that would get annoying to listen to after only a few seconds of monologuing. Given everything they’d seen so far, Jake had a feeling that monologuing was exactly what they were in for.

“AT LAST! YOU HAVE COME! TO MY LAIR!” The Necromancer shrilled. “AND AT LAST! THE RITUAL! WILL BE COMPLETE!”

“And what ritual is that?” Cantor Von asked. He looked politely interested, and not particularly worried.

“THE RITUAL!” The Necromancer repeated. “TO FREE ME! FROM THIS PRISON!”

“Prison?” Eve asked. “You mean the holodeck?”

“Oh, please don’t tell me we’re adding in artificial intelligence on top of all of this,” Jake said, rubbing at his temples.

“THE TOWER!” The Necromancer said, gesturing broadly around himself. “MY PRISON!”

“Oh thank god,” Jake said, breathing a sigh of relief. He took a few steps forward. “Hi. Excuse me. Hey.”

The Necromancer lowered his arms, and his hooded head turned and seem to stare in Jake’s direction.

“Jake Crichton, visitor from beyond your universe,” Jake said. “Look, can we speed this along? I know you’ve probably got this whole big thing planned, but we’ve all had a very long day, and-”

“SILENCE!” The Necromancer shouted, and Jake saw he actually stamped his foot when he shouted it. “I WILL NOT! BE MOCKED! OR MADE A FOOL OF!”

“Permission to kill the final boss, Exo?” Kass asked.

“Just a minute, major,” Jake said. “Maybe he’s willing to be reasonable about this.”

“I AM! NOT! WILLING TO BE! REASONABLE!”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Okay fine, go kill him.”

Kass grinned and dashed up the stairs, katana out. The Necromancer watched her approach without moving. Just before she reached him, the Necromancer’s arms shot forward, and bolts of purple energy lanced out, slamming into Kass and interrupting her forward momentum. She fell on the ground, trapped in a cage of twisted, purple energy, her katana lying just out of reach.

“Major!” Jake shouted. “You okay?”

“Tingles a little,” Kass frowned. “But I don’t think I can get out of this thing!”

Jasmine Yu moved next, her approach so sudden that Jake hadn’t expected it. She closed the distance between herself and the Necromancer, managing to sweep her bat’leth around in an arc towards the hooded man’s head. The blow connected, but seemed to pass clean through. The empty robes fell to the floor, and the Necromancer’s high-pitched laughter echoed off the high walls of the stone chamber.

Yu picked up the robes and stared at them, confused. “He was right here.”

“Do you suppose that means he’s naked now?” Cantor Von asked.

“With the kind of day I’m having, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jake said. “Okay, Necromancer! Show yourself!”

The laughter continued, but the echo seemed to fade, drawing down to one spot. The crew looked, and suddenly the Necromancer was there, thankfully still wearing his dark robes. As they watched, the Necromancer raised his arms again. More lighting flashed out, this time pinning Jake to the wall. Arak and Stavik both narrowly avoided lighting cages of their own.

“YOU CAN! NEVER! STOP ME!” The Necromancer was shrieking as he rained down purple lighting all around them. “I AM! POWER EVERLASTING! I AM! DARKNESS ETERNAL! I AM!”

And then the world glitched.

The stone room was gone. In its place was a wide room with carpeted floors, fluorescent lighting, and row after row of cubicles. The Necromancer’s armed were raised, halfway to their “blast with purple lightning” position, but the sudden shift in location seemed to have distracted him. The crew looked around as well, equally perplexed.

“You are *late* is what you are!”

From behind the Necromancer, charging up the aisle towards them, keyboard print tie swinging in all its dweeby glory, was Rob the Middle Manager. The Necromancer turned to face him, slowly lowering his arms.

“And really, Neck, wearing a *bathrobe* to work?” Rob continued, frowning at the Necromancer’s choice of apparel. “Are you hung-over again?”

“I! DO NOT! UNDERSTAND!” The Necromancer shrieked. He was still screaming in his high reedy voice, but the new environment made it feel cringingly loud. Several people peeked up over the walls of their cubicles to frown in the Necromancer’s direction.

“People are talking to *clients*,” Rob chastised. He shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you. We’ve given you chance after chance, but every time you let us down.”

“WHAT! ABOUT! THE RITUAL!” The Necromancer demanded. “I MUST! COMPLETE! THE RITUAL!”

“Complete the ritual of clearing out your desk,” Rob said. “I’m afraid we’re letting you go, Neck.”

Jake heard several audible gasps from some of the onlookers in the nearby cubicles. The Necromancer’s demeanor seemed to change entirely. His voice and tone were the same, but his cadence had sped up considerably.



“WAIT NO PLEASE I NEED THIS JOB I PROMISE I’LL DO BETTER IT’S JUST THAT MY WORK CLOTHES WERE IN THE WASH AND THEN MY DRYER STOPPED WORKING AND THIS WAS LITERALLY ALL I HAD AND I WOULD HAVE CALLED IN TO GET MY CLOTHES DRIED FIRST BUT LAST WEEK YOU PUT ME ON FINAL WARNING FOR-”

“Ah ah ah,” Rob said, holding up a hand. “Don’t be sorry, be responsible. I’ve told you that.”

“OH COME ON ROB!” The Necromancer shouted. “IT’S NOT LIKE CUSTOMERS CAN *HEAR* ME WEARING A BATHROBE OVER THE PHONE!”

“Are we still necessary here?” Jake asked, leaning in to interrupt. “Because I kind of feel like our part of this is done.”

“You do?” Sofia asked.

“Sure,” Jake shrugged. “Evil’s been fired. That doesn’t sound as good as ‘vanquished’, maybe, but close enough for government work.”

“You can finish giving your friends a tour of the building,” Rob nodded at Jake. “But I want you back at your desk ASAP, okay pal?”

“Sure, Rob,” Jake nodded.

Rob smiled, and put his fist out, much the same way he had during Jake’s first interaction with him. “Hey.”

Jake bumped the offered fist. “Hey.”

This seemed to make Rob’s day. He noticeably beamed, then turned, put his game face back on, and shook his head at the Necromancer.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go. You know we have to have security walk you out.”

The Necromancer was still shrieking his high-pitched protests as Rob led him around the corner and out of sight. Jake turned, and looked at the others.

“Well? Anything different on your end?”

“Everything still looks the same,” Lynette said, looking around. “Maybe it didn’t-”

And suddenly, she was gone. Everything was gone. Jake found himself standing in a sea of pure white. Then that passed as well, and there were the familiar yellow lines of the holodeck grid. Jake waited a moment, expecting some new holographic menace to shimmer into existence before him, but nothing happened.

Jake reached up and slapped his comm-badge. “Commander Crichton to Kane.”

A second passed. Then another.

[[Commander,]] Kane’s voice finally replied. [[It’s good to hear from you.]]

Jake smiled. “Pleased to report the holodeck simulation appears to have ended, sir. The crew should be exiting their various holodecks now.”

[[We’re seeing that on our end too,]] Kane said. [[Is everyone alright?]]

“A little weirded-out, maybe,” Jake said. “No injuries.”

[[Well then,]] Kane said. [[I look forward to your report, Commander. It sounds like you’ve had an interesting day.]]

Jake nodded. “I’d say so, sir. Crichton out.”

Then he turned and went for the door. It opened, and Jake stepped out of the holodeck and back into the real world. He didn’t look back.

=[/\]=

NRPG: And that’s the end of Holodeck Havoc! The crew are all safe and sound and free from their holographic hell, and the ship is once again in working order. We’ll be launching soon, but there’s still settling in and proper, in-person introductions to be made across the crew, so don’t lose your momentum! Let’s build up a proper head of steam and forge ahead into the next mission!

Shawn Putnam

A.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Executive Officer

USS PHOENIX