A Kingdom Of Unmapped Mysteries

Posted on Mon Oct 17th, 2022 @ 10:18am by Qurban & Commander Arianna Frost

4,392 words; about a 22 minute read

Mission: S1E5: Symphony of Horror
Location: Overwatch, Arboretum
Timeline: MD 5

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Frost sat on one of the benches in the Arboretum, one of the more secluded ones where you'd need to know where to look to find her, surrounded by thick foliage and overlooking a small pond.

She sat barefoot, crosslegged on the bench, dressed in dark cargo pants and a camo-pattern t-shirt with shirt sleeves, a carry mug of coffee next to her and a chocolate bar half wrapped in its package still, half open, a few tiny blocks missing. In her hands was a book. A real honest to goodness book of a fictional nature.

Arianna's favorite genre, a spy novel. While it was fiction, it had been written by a person who had actually been part of the service, back in the 20th century Earth. It was one of the books Ari had read as a child which sparked her interest in unravelling mysteries, bringing badguys to justice and protecting one's country, or in her case, the Federation.

She found herself always coming back to this author's books in times of stress and uncertainty, both professional and personal. Such as now. Now was the perfect amalgam of the two and she needed to read something familiar, something to anchor her scattered head and heart so she could figure out how to grab this particular bull by the horns and deal with everything going on without completely losing her mind.

So much was she embroiled in the plot line that she didn't hear the rustling of the grass echoing approaching footsteps.

"Oh dear..." said a familiar voice. "It seems someone has claimed my usual perch." His face turned askance, eyes narrowing as his mind searched his memory for recognition. "Have we met before? My name is Qurban, but I fear I am at a disadvantage."

Arianna looked up from her book, momentarily puzzled before she remembered Qurban and everything else that came with him, most especially the resets.

"Oh hey mate, I'm Arianna Frost. There's room enough to share if you want to join me?" She said as she uncoiled her legs and moved to the side so as to make room for him.

Qurban, an imparter of many an information both good, bad and the type that brought more questions than answers.

"We have met before actually, but I was only here for a short while last time," she added to save him from the dismay of realizing that he'd forgotten her.

The man's gray eyes searched hers for recognition with a depth that made his age utterly indiscernible. Was he adolescent? Was he elderly? At last, the brightness of familiarity returned to him. "Ah, yes. Arianna Frost. By the look of your eyes, I surmise we are not in the timeline where you have foresworn Starfleet in service to the Black Nagus or..." He trailed off for a moment as he gently sat beside her. The story told by his body language was one of apprehension and uncertainty, as if he expected Ari might turn on him at any moment. "How fares your investigation? Did you find what you were looking for?"

This time she was prepared for the strangeness that came with speaking with a being such as him. She shook her head, "I'm not with the Nagus, nor will I be and for now I can see." She said first, deciding to take the opportunity presented. "I am in a conundrum with two investigations. In one, I am trying to find if a brother is alive or if I am just imagining things. In the other...the other is leaking information to an enemy."

Whilst anything he gave her, if he did give her anything was inadmissible in court per sae, it would certainly be a clue to follow and the evidence would follow, somehow. Hopefully.

"Two investigations?" Qurban asked skeptically. His eyes darted aside as he pondered. "No, no, that can't be. Unless..." He suddenly appeared startled. "Has Mrazak perished? Was Akiva ben-Avram incarcerated?"

Arianna blinked. "Fuck...I really should have expected more weird from him. But I need to remember his questions for later." She thought to herself as she shook her head. "No and no." She said, then took a moment to formulate her next though. "Last time you mentioned names: Kazyah Lin, Leonora Wolf, Xanthe Rahal, Karna Zsan and..." she paused again. "Omri Shaw. I know the first four, I don't know Shaw. This is the reality where I was head of Intel for a while before being re-assigned back to the Project that destroyed my eyes."

Maybe if she avoided questions and framed her curiosity as statements, maybe that would prevent him from re-setting? What did she have to lose aside from time?

"You need to narrow it down more than that, m'lady." Something about the sparkle in Qurban's eye seemed more than mischievous. There was an almost fretful quality to it. "Let's see..." Closing his eyes, he began to sigh and hum in concentration. "Arianna Frost. Memory Theta Intelligence. Omri Shaw." He shook his head. "No... no, I'm afraid those names might be mutually exclusive. Any recollection I can conjure of an Omri Shaw seems connected to you in service to a less than honorable organization." His brow twitched. "And you insist such is not the case here and now." He brightened a bit. "Although I think the potential for Omri in another quantum instantiation of this timeline had a different--"

Abruptly and without warning, Qurban cut himself off. He looked at Ari with eyes afresh. "Hello, there." Realizing he was sitting down next to her in the fashion of a conversation, he turned sullen. "Oh. It happened again, didn't it?"

Shaw's an alias...okay. Something to go on. Maybe... Ari thought to herself as she processed what he had said. So one of the other her's had worked with Shaw. The betrayer her.

Frost shook away the honey trap of a 'what-if' mystery and refocused on the creature next to her.

"Yeah..." she gave him a bit of a sad smile, "I'm the still seeing Starfleet Arianna." It was somewhat amusing to tag herself by reality rather just by name. "You gave me some information. I think it's only fair I give you some in turn if you like?"

"I wouldn't know what to ask," Qurban said. "There is really only one thing I want to know, but to ponder it for any length--" He started blinking again, but then regained his composure as the glassy-eyed stare cleared up. "Heh. Human consciousness is a marvelous thing. Self-deception can shield us from truths too wondrous and terrible to comprehend. Perhaps that is why your kind stumble onto things when least looking for them." Smiling at Ari, he added, "You may tell me anything you'd like."

Ari observed the sudden internal struggle, a bid to stay in the current now. Was it something he'd only just now tried or was this an occasional success? Too many questions about his condition sprung up in her mind all at once, all of them ones which she was afraid to ask for the risk of another reset. Whilst she understood now that she would have to be the anchor, she did feel a bit sorry for him. What kind of an existence must it be to reset so often and seemingly without reason?

"That's probably the hardest thing to do for someone who does what I do." Frost admitted finally. "My mind is a classified file in its own right. This is good when you are surrounded with people who do the same. You just don't ask about them, they don't ask about you...you just do." Frost sighed as she marked the page she had been reading of the book and folded it, setting it on her lap as she adjusted see him better.

"Here, it's hard. Here people know more about the other, and want to know more about the other...they are not bound by keeping secrets to protect everyone." She said, "yet here, I have allies, and don't at the same time. My allies who ask questions are dwindling..." a pause, "my allies who who are not bound by keeping the truths at bay are growing, and I'm not sure how to keep up."

Qurban started to chuckle. "Such a relative term--'here'. It's the anchor for a corporeal being to prevent itself from being swept through the tides of time and space, so 'here' seems very fixed for mortal men doomed to die, and therein lies the irony." He looked away from his reverie and peered deeply into Ari's eyes. "The moment you think you see things for what they are is exactly the moment you have pulled your eyes wide shut. Darkness is nothing more than a failure of perception, and that means all the greatest things in existence do their best hiding in the light."

Ari held his eyes, trying to wrap her head around what he was saying. "Right now, I feel very much in darkness, yet it is where I operate," she admitted.

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Each cannot exist without the other. Look at the puzzle from above," Ari rattled off almost underbreath, still looking into Qurban's eyes but not really seeing him.

"Open your eyes, change your perspective."

Then, she blinked and refocused on him again. "You told me another thing last time. To come visit you with my husband next time. Then you said it wasn't time yet." She said with a chuckle, "afraid that time hasn't come yet. Sorry."

"No, I suppose not," Qurban said. "Your sight seems to be just fine, after all. Retirement wouldn't suit you just yet."

"For now, yeah." Ari sighed and took a sip of her coffee. Then she reached over to the other side and picked up the bar of chocolate, handing it over to Qurban, "any hints as to who the lucky fella is? I have chocolate to bribe you with." She said with a chuckle fully not expecting an answer.

The chocolate did look delicious. "Which one?" Qurban asked, fully serious.

The corners of her lips twitched upwards, a laugh threatening to break out, "now you're just screwing with me." She said with an escaped chuckle, nudging the chocolate forward, refusing to entertain the image that conjured up in her mind. No, he was the forbidden fruit.

"So you're one of those, are you?" Qurban retorted. "Out of all the quantum instantiations of every possible time track in every potential universe, you believe there is just one person for you." He snatched the chocolate out of her hand and gave it a chomp. "He must be a lucky fellow indeed," said Qurban as he chewed.

How wonderfully absurd this scene was. The childish and hilarious way he snatched the offered bribe and bit into it and then the insanely intuitive words.

She'd just taken a sip of her coffee it happened and Ari had covered her mouth with her hand as her shoulders shook with laughter. Her hair fell into her face, and she was grateful as she could feel the heat rise in her cheeks.

It took her a moment to recover before she pushed wiped the corner of her lips, and then pushed her hair back. When she looked up at him, her cheeks were still a bit rosy. "It's hard for someone like me to have one, let alone more than one." A face sprang up in her mind and she shoved it back down, "alas, there isn't even the one at the moment," she said.

"Not even one?" Qurban repeated, his voice full of doubt. "That's hard to believe." His eyes darted left as he searched his recollection. "You don't look like a Borg drone, so I feel safe in assuming the quadrant hasn't been assimilated in this timeline. And you clearly are not confined to a hoverchair, which rules out a host of other potentialities." A shrewd look came over his face. "Ah, yes, self-deception is a very useful defense mechanism."

Arianna chuckled then took another sip, "whilst I'm tempted to ask, I won't." Then she reached over and snapped off a little bit of the chocolate from the side, "no, there is one, but it's a situation that needs to resolve itself without me. And even then I don't know if there will be one."

"Huh..." Qurban turned contemplative and clicked his tongue. "So we're in that timeline. Do not keep too much distance, young lady, if you value his life. You saved him once and it won't be the last." His stare turned otherworldly. "The lives of everyone here one day will depend on how well you know him." His eyes began to go aflutter once more, but then he started laughing. "There's that word again. 'Here'..." He started chuckling softly to himself.

The thundering of her heart in her chest was only eclipsed by the thundering in her mind. The conversation with Akiva earlier echoed intermingled with Qurban's words. It was only the lack of air in her lungs that made her take a breath and refocus.

She opened her mouth to say something and found her voice breaking. Then she took another deep breath. "I had a conversation like that with him last time we spoke. It's a bit eerie how you know that so clearly. I'm not judging you, though. I'm just...I don't know what I am to be honest. Why am I so important for this? He has better and more longtime friends than me."

Qurban shrugged before drawing his finger through the air. "Your line of questions is hopelessly enslaved to linear sequential causality, but the truth of all existence is that one thing need not lead to another." He clapped his hands and squelched his voice in a pantomime of an explosion. "Sometimes things simply become what they are without a connection between the dots. Such is life within an nth-dimensional framework of infinitely recursive wavefunctions clashing simultaneously against and within one another in a harmony of copositive superpositions." Hands the air, Qurban shrugged as if all were explained.

"What in the actual fuck did you just say?" Arianna wondered as she blinked through the slurry of words she didn't understand. "I am an investigator, I understand behavior, patterns, profiles, habits, following points to their destination. I understand causality and I understand that sometimes things happen for no reason whatsoever other than they just happen." She also understood that she felt very stupid at that moment as well. "So what you're saying is it's not friendship or connection...it's because it's me?"

"It's because of everything," Qurban said. "Nothing is merely the sum of its parts. Also, I can't be rightly sure. Things look pretty dim from this side of the Q Continuum--more of a mirror than a window these days, I'm afraid." At that, a tremor went through his body for a moment before localizing itself in his gullet. His face contorted in a painful grimace and then he wretched all over the ground. "Huh. Evidently I forgot that this body is allergic to chocolate..." He removed a cloth from his pocket and delicately wiped his mouth. "Would you be a lamb and take me to the station infirmary?" And, with that, he fell over.

"Fuck!" Arianna swore as she dove down to the ground. "Computer, what's the treatment for chocolate allergy?" She asked as she turned Qurban on his side to avoid him choking on his own tongue.

He may have been born a Q, but he had a human body now with all the issues that came with it.

Overwatch Station did not have a standard virtual interface like most Starfleet facilities. Most queries were handled directly by Ferrofax. However, there were slave programs that fulfilled what Ferrofax referred to as his "light work"--such were the perks of being the Attendant AI with a small cadre of digital intelligences under his care.

"Welcome to the Arboretum!" said an overly cheerful voice. At first it was disembodied, but a spherical mechanism rolled through the foliage and came to a stop before the bench. A flicker of light brought a translucent holographic image into view. It was an androgynous stick figure with dots for eyes and a simple curve for a mouth, and would not have appeared out of place on the door to a public lavatory. "I am Buddy and I will be your virtual assistant for this session." The hologram flickered for a moment into brief glimpse of an infernal and sordid image from long-forgotten myth before resuming its standard configuration. "Searching results for last known query: The standard treatment for acute allergic reactions in typical humanoid lifeforms is 0.1 milligrams of epinephrine per 10 kilograms with a maximum recommended dose of 0.5 milligrams per injection. Repeat doses every 5 to 10 minutes until patient stabilizes." Another glitch distorted the timbre of the voice from a high register to a baritone one. "Did this search result help you?"

Arianna looked down at Qurban to try and assess his weight. "Roughly seventy kilograms. Buddy, can you replicate a 0.7 milligram dose for me real quick please? I know it's over the recommended dosage, just do it please?"

"Sure thing!" The hologram disappeared as the sphere rolled away with a motorized whir. In scant seconds, it turned with a hypospray hovering over its spinning frame. "Here is your requested 0.7 milligrams of epinephrine! Is there anything else I can help you with?" asked Buddy with an overly chipper tone.

"Stand by." Ari said as she grabbed the hypospray and jabbed it into Qurban's neck. "Please work! Please work! Please work!"

If it didn't she'd have to call an emergency and get him to a crash team in the Infirmary.

Qurban began to cough, which was good, but his breathing was in deep wheezes. When his eyelids opened, they revealed nothing but white as his eyes had rolled back into his head. "Shaipouin yut mak! Nehn vrelev zohzuus! Hechu'ghos gik'tal!" The ground of the Arboretum began slowly shake, hardly noticeable at first, but soon the branches of the trees began swaying. "Eee-ja maa'na hoo'va, baa'li jen'ku'rada sen'to," Qurban said, his eyes finally focusing in Ari's direction but not clearly seeing her. He began snapping his fingers, though each time he did so he became more and more livid. Before the quaking could persist for long, though, his eyes closed again and he fell back asleep. His chest rose and fell in short, easy breaths.

"How would you rate my assistance for this session?" Buddy asked as the sphere inserted itself between Ari and Qurban.

Arianna blinked at the sudden display of power before the just as sudden drop. When the question came, she found herself struggling to focus. "Uh, whatever your maximum rating is for best service," she said finally. "You're dismissed."

"Unlimited variables!" Buddy shouted. His timbre dipped once again toward the baritone register as his hologram tinted crimson red with a hint of flames flicking at the air. "Perfection!" Now dismissed, the sphere rolled away back to whence it came.

As Buddy disappeared, Arianna remained kneeling beside the now sleeping Qurban. "I'm sorry if I hurt you with this." She said quietly, brushing a wispy lock away from his forehead.

He seemed better, definitely no longer convulsing or in distress. She reached over to the bench and grabbed her book again and sat on the grass next to him. A Delicate Truth. - by John Le Carre, it was.

"A delicate truth indeed," Frost said to herself as her fingers trailed the lettering of the title.

Stirring awake, Qurban looked around the Aboretum. "Oh, dearest me. I must have had quite the tumble." Then he saw Ari, which brought a smile back to his face.. "Hello, stranger. I hope when I fell it was not upon you."

Arianna looked down at him, "all good, mate. You had a bit of a light headed moment but I got to you in time before you hurt yourself." She said, feeling a bit sad that he did indeed reset. However, considering the shakes and the flurry of words that came out of his mouth, it was perhaps better if he didn't remember.

She would remember for him, especially the words spoken in Romulan - speaking again of perception and deception and the words in Dominionese - speaking on balance and sacrifice. The others she couldn't quite understand, she knew at least one of them was Klingon but knew not their meaning.

"I couldn't lift you myself so I sat with you till you woke up." She added, smiling as she stood up and extended her hand to him, "I'm Arianna Frost by the way."

"Oh, Miss Frost," he said slowly as he regathered his wits. "Last I recall, congratulations were in order on your recent nuptials." Then, surprisingly, Qurban gave her a teasing wink.

Arianna shook her head with an amused smile, "yeeeh, you should have seen it, it was beautiful, scorching, barefoot, out in the bush, all our friends were there. The lot!"

She wondered how much what had just happened he remembered, or if this was a different conversation he had with a different her where this was indeed true, or if he was simply just screwing with her again.

"Oh, my mistake. I hadn't realized this was the timeline where you had taken a wife." Qurban folded his hands. "I seemed to think you had married a man on the bridge of some starship during a suicide mission. Pardon me, my memory is not what it once was."

Arianna chuckled as she gathered her affects, "I was just having a laugh mate." She said, "I'm still very much into the male of the species. Though the bridge of a starship during a suicide mission doesn't sound very appealing, I have to be honest."

"Shame," Qurban said. "It was the greatest moment of your life... but on second thought, you wouldn't be standing here now if we were in that timeline." He shook his head. "I get so confused..."

Arianna observed him for a moment. He seemed even more lost now. Did that chocolate epinephrine introduction undo all of the work he put in to keep tabs on his realities? She felt guilty and responsible.

"It's all good mate. I'm the Arianna who can still see, is loyal to the Federation, is still single, where Mrazak didn't perish and ben Avram wasn't incarcerated. The one where there is one, in a situation that needs to resolve it self." She said, listing each item with the fingers of her hands.

When did her reality tag grow so exponentially?

"In this conversation..."

"I see..." Qurban said at length. "In that case, you may want to avoid sexual intercourse in the immediate future. You'll know why soon enough."

Arianna blinked. Then she couldn't help herself. "Really? Cos I'm itching for a roll in the hay with a hot rando." She said before she could stop herself and then began laughing. "I'm sorry, I'm joking. I'll be good...dad."

The quip made Qurban chuckle. "There are worlds out there that hold moral disdain for anyone who would not 'roll in the hay with a hot rando,' as you put it. Should you find yourself near one in the future, I wouldn't go native if I were you."

Arianna nodded, "I hear you." She said with tone and expression that heralded a return to the serious. "I do have one final question for you."

She had to try. A stab in the dark, a risk of another reset. But she had to try.

"I will help any way that I can," Qurban said. "Most days it is only that insufferable Mrazak who searches me out."

"He is most certainly insufferable." Arianna nodded, filing that particular bit of information away for later use.

Then she refocused on Qurban, prepared for him to reset rather than answer her question, but she had to try. "Is Omri ben-Avram still alive in this reality in this year, 2389?"

"To the best of my knowledge, Omri ben-Avram died long ago in this timeline," Qurban said. "Are you chasing ghosts, Miss Frost?"

"He scrubbed himself well..." Ari thought to herself and shook her head, "we're all ghosts, people I work with and I. I think I work with him - but I've only got circumstantial evidence and at present no way of confirming a theory."

Qurban turned pensive. "Nothing is ever how it seems," he said, "but what makes you think this man is who you suspect? Look at me. I am locked here because of who I used to be." His hand flourished in the air with a dramatic snap of his fingers. "Nothing. Who I was no longer matters because that individual is gone. Now only I remain. Anyone who sought me out with the expectation of finding Q would be sorely disappointed indeed."

"I didn't look for this particular mystery." Ari countered, "it started me right in the face one day after a lot of people died."

"Huh." Qurban shrugged. "Strangers things have certainly happened. Is that why you came to me?"

Arianna shook her head, "no. It was a stab in the dark really, a long shot to shake a tree and see if anything comes out. And you came to me if I recall." She chuckled, "always interesting company you are. Learned something about you today too."

"Aha, I stand corrected once again." Qurban smiled pleasantly but it couldn't hide the weariness in his face. "It was a pleasure speaking to you, Miss Frost, but I think I should go lie down."

"Need help? I gave you chocolate and it made you ill, the least I can do is help you to your quarters." Ari offered him her arm graciously as she picked up her book and mug.

"Never decline help when offered," Qurban said as he took her arm in his. "All too often it seems help never comes when you need it."

Arianna grinned, "never indeed. So take what we can, when we can." She said as they slowly made their way out of the Arboretum.

 

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