CHAPTER 24

QUARK DIDN'T KNOW what made him feel worse. The fact that Captain Sisko had been kidnapped by crazed Cardassians who might soon have the means to conquer the galaxy, or the fact that his holosuites were wired into the station's main computers and apparently had far more computational capability than he had ever dreamed of, let alone charged for, in the past ten years.

He lightly moved his finger toward the open area at the front of his holding cell and marveled again at the sudden shock of the simulated security forcefield. “Amazing,” he said.

“Oh, be quiet,” Odo grumbled.

The changeling was sitting on the edge of the bunk at the back of the cell, holding his head.

“Well, I see you're back to being your old self,” Quark said.

“Quark, I'm warning you . . .”

“No need. No need. In fact, I'm going to be especially nice to you while we're in here.”

Quark loved the way Odo looked up at him then. The constable was so easy to bait.

“And why would that be?” Odo asked, sounding as if he already regretted saying anything at all.

“Because we're finally in a position where everyone will have to listen to me, and you can't walk out, or threaten to haul me off to your office.”

“You're babbling,

Quark.” Quark went back to the cell opening and called out to the others. “Excuse me! Can I have everyone's attention, please?”

The cell across from Quark's held Bashir, Kira, and Jadzia. Jake and Nog were in the cell to the right. They all stepped forward to the limits of their own security forcefields to look at Quark.

“We're listening,” Bashir said. The doctor sounded exhausted. Or frustrated. Or hungry. With hew-mons, Quark knew, it was difficult to tell.

“Well, I just wanted to remind everyone what Odo said about what happened to him on the Day of Withdrawal.”

Quark heard Odo get to his feet and come up behind him.

“Let it go, Quark. I got stunned by a looter. I missed the whole day.”

But Quark shook his finger at his nemesis. “Uh, uh, uh. Not so fast. When Dr. Bashir asked if you were sure, you launched into a most convincing story about how one of the things you missed was Gul Dukat scurrying off like a vole deserting a ship seized by bailiffs.”

Odo glared at him, but said nothing. Quark knew it was because there was nothing he could say. Not now.

Quark finished the conversation by calling out to the others. “But even I remember when Gul Dukat left, because it was early in the day, before the fighting broke out. So if Odo remembers coming down to the Promenade to break up a fight, then he has to remember Dukat's leaving, so one way or another, he's hiding something—which means he's lying to us!”

“Happy now?” Odo asked.

“I'll be happy when you admit you can't remember what happened to you on the Day of Withdrawal.”

“Then you'll never be happy again,” Odo said, and walked back to the bunk and sat down with a grunt.

“Quark!” Jadzia called out to him. “This might not be the time to revisit the past. We should try and find a way to shut down this simulation.”

Quark put his hands on his hips, thoroughly miffed. “Oh, I get it. I get caught in a small white lie like, I thought you wanted me to keep the change, or, I logged the payment into your account yesterday—it must be the computer, and what happens? Everyone points their fingers at me like . . . like suddenly my pants are on fire. Typical Ferengi, you say. Isn't that just like Quark, you say.

“But catch Odo, our constable, our shining exemplar of truth, justice, and the Federation way, in a lie of supernova proportions, and what do you say?” Quark raised his voice in a not very convincing parody of Jadzia. “This isn't the time to revisit the past.” He turned his back on everyone. “Well, I'm sick of it.”

His ears tingled as he heard Jadzia sigh. Then she called out, “Anyway, Quark, you must have some kind of override on your holosuites. Can't you try shutting it down?”

Quark raised his hands to the simulated ceiling. “Don't you people-get it? This isn't one of my holoprograms. My prisons have chains on the wall, metal rings on the floor, a complete selection of whips and restraints for every taste, and your choice of beverage. I have no idea where this came from.”

“Could you at least try?” Jadzia asked.

Quark huffed with impatience. “Computer, end program. There, are you happy?”

“Try an override, please.”

“Computer, this is Quark. I need an emergency shutdown in holosuite A.”

“Please state your password,” the computer voice replied.

Quark froze. How could he reveal his password to . . . everyone?

Odo seemed to be able to read his mind. “Quark, you can change your password later. We need to get out now.”

Quark cleared his throat. “Computer . . . this is Quark. Password . . . and I don't want to hear any snickering,” he suddenly warned his audience. “Password . . . Big Lobes.”

Quark rolled his eyes as Nog covered his mouth and seemed to go into either a gagging or a coughing fit, Quark really didn't care to think which.

“Big Lobes authenticated,” the computer confirmed. “Emergency shutdown procedure is not available.”

“What?! Why not?” Quark demanded.

“Priority override is in effect during state of emergency. This simulation will run for an additional two hours, thirty-three minutes, or until terminated by Prefect Terrell.”

Quark shrugged, totally defeated. His lot in life. “Well, that's that. The station's computer is controlling mine.”

“But it can't be in complete control,” Nog said with sudden inspiration. “For this simulation to exist, the station's computer has to be using subroutines from your computer.”

“So?” Quark said.

“So,” Nog answered as he stepped to the back of the holding cell he shared with Jake, “maybe one of those subroutines is the safety override, which means these forcefields might be just for show.”

Quark wasn't impressed with his nephew's idea. “And how do you expect to find out if—”

“Nog!” The shout came from Jake as the young Ferengi charged forward to test his theory and—

—hit a full-power forcefield that threw him back against the far wall of the cell with twice the force with which he had launched himself.

Quark saw his nephew slide unconscious to the deck with a soft moan as his headskirt slid up the back of his head until it flopped forward to cover his face like a baby's sleeping bonnet.

Quark sighed. “That's Starfleet initiative for you.”

He looked out past the Security Office to the doors to the Promenade. As gloomy as it was out there, in the abnormal blue Cardassian lighting Quark remembered so well and hated so much from the old days on the station, he could see simulated people walking back and forth. Bajoran slave workers and Cardassian soldiers, mostly. It was a very realistic effect, but it was still only window dressing. “If this simulation is so accurate, I wish we could get one of those pedestrians out there to come in,” Quark sighed.

Odo snorted. “If it's an accurate simulation from the Occupation, no one will. This wasn't the favorite place on the station for Bajorans or Cardassians.”

“Or Ferengi,” Quark said.

And then the main doors slid open and someone entered.

“Anyone home?” a familiar voice shouted.

Quark stared in amazement, along with everyone else in the holding cells, as a human in a tuxedo four hundred years out of style strolled into the cell area, smiling with blinding white teeth.

“Vic!” Quark burbled.

“Hey, gang,” the holographic mid-twentieth-century lounge singer said as he gazed around the room. “Looks like you cats could use a cake with a file baked in it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't care,” Quark said. “Ya gotta get us outta here!”

“I know, I know,” Vic said calmly. “You're innocent, right?”

“We're more than innocent,” Odo said. “We've been put here by the real criminals who are now running loose.”

“Oh, I believe it, Constable. A straight arrow like you'd never end up in a joint like this.” Vic looked over to see Kira and smiled at her. “Unless it was on accounta some dame. How ya doin', sweetheart? Stretch still treating you right?”

“Vic,” Kira said, “how can you be here?”

Vic shrugged. “Ya got me, dollface. There I am, up on stage at my joint, singing my heart out for the blue-rinse set, next thing I know the lights start flickering and the power goes out. Well, management's not too upset, 'cause they've got lots of battery lights to keep the gaming tables going, but me, I got no mike. And the ice is starting to melt.”

“Vic,” Odo said, “I'm sure this is all fascinating, but could you go back to the center office, and open the little drawer to the left of the chair, right under the display screen.”

“Is that going to help get the power back on?”

It was suddenly all too much for Quark. “How can you care about power when your program wasn't even running? When we came up here, all the holosuites were off except for this one.”

“Quark, bubeleh, I keep hearing you people say the holosuite's off, how can I keep hanging around? But I gotta tell ya, Vic's is the original we-never-close baby. Now how that works, I don't have clue one. I'm just a hologram remember, and it sounds like you have issues you need to take up with the big guy upstairs.”

“The big guy upstairs?” Quark asked.

“Felix,” Vic explained. “My programmer.”

“Vic,” Odo pleaded. “The drawer.”

“You got it, pallie. What exactly am I looking for?”

“An optolithic data rod,” Odo said.

Vic held up his hands. “Whoa, slow down, Stretch. I'm strictly a twentieth-century hologram.”

“It's going to look like a pencil,” Jadzia suddenly said. “A fat, transparent, green pencil. Like it's made out of . . . oh, what was it . . . Plexiglas!”

“That new space-age plastic. Sure, I'm with ya.” Vic stretched out his arms to make his white cuffs show against his black jacket. “Little drawer, ya said? On the left?”

“If you would be so kind,” Odo said.

“Always willing to do a favor for the customers.”

Vic walked out of the holding-cell area. Quark heard him whistle one of his twentieth-century songs. Something about “that old black magic . . .”

“How can this be possible?” Kira asked wonderingly.

“Vic's stepped into other holographic simulations before,” Bashir explained. “If his program's being affected by all the computer disruption that's going on, it seems to make sense that he might go looking for a cause.”

“The important thing is,” Jadiza added, “that however he got here, he's going to get us out.”

“Don't be too sure about that,” Vic said. He was standing back in the doorway, holding the optolithic crystal in his hand. “I mean, this is something cats like me can only dream of.” He paused, smiled at everyone until Quark almost screamed with frustration to have him get to the point. “A real captive audience,” Vic said. “Badda bing!”

“Put the fat green pencil in the slot by the door frame,” Odo said.

“Captive audience?” Vic asked. “Anybody? I know you're out there. I can hear ya breathing.”

“Vic,” Jadzia said. “If we don't get out of here as quickly as possible, there's a chance that the station's entire power grid could fail and—”

“I get the picture, Spots. The Big Lights Out.” Vic went to the security operations control panel beside the door, held up the data rod. “Here?”

“That's it,” Odo said. “Slide it in, then punch in this number.”

Vic slid the rod into the memory reader, then scratched his head as he stared at the Cardassian control pad. “Punch it in where?”

Jadzia came to the rescue again. “What's the number, Odo?”

“Fifty-five, twenty-two, eight. Alpha,” Odo said.

Quark repeated it to himself, then noticed Odo frowning at him.

“It's an old passcode. Big Lobes.”

Then Jadzia carefully described the Cardassian symbols Vic would have to touch to input those numbers. “It's all Greek to me, doll,” Vic said as he entered the final Alpha designator.

But at once the security forcefields flickered and Jadzia and Kira and Bashir jumped out of their cells to join Vic, while Jake carefully carried the still-unconscious Nog. Quark hung back to let Odo walk through their cell opening first. Once he knew it was safe, he quickly followed. By then Odo had left the others and hurried into the center office.

Vic rubbed his hands together. “So, whaddaya say you all come back to my place—drinks are on the house.”

“We can't just yet,” Jadzia said. “We still have to shut down this simulation.”

Vic looked alarmed. “Hold your horses. You can't shut anything down while I'm in here.”

“Can't?” Jadzia asked. “Or shouldn't?”

“Ya got me, Spots. I just said the first thing Felix put in my head. You people going to be okay, now?”

Odo appeared in the doorway holding a Cardassian phaser. “We will be soon.”

“What kinda crazy pea-shooter is that?” Vic asked.

Odo adjusted the power setting on the weapon. “A Cardassian Model III phase-disruption weapon.”

“Well, I'm glad you cleared that up,” Vic said.

“Stand back, everyone,” Odo said, then aimed the weapon at the far wall.

“What good is a simulated weapon going to do?” Kira asked.

“You don't spend enough time in the holosuites,” Odo said. “Small props like these are usually replicated, not simulated. This should be a fully operational phaser, and as Nog was good enough to demonstrate, all safety protocols are switched off.”

Quark groaned. “There goes my insurance. . . .”

“You might want to avert your eyes,” Odo warned. Then he fired.

At first, it appeared as if the lance of energy shot out eight meters to hit a wall. But then, that half of the holding cell area began to waver, and finally winked out, as it now appeared that the phaser beam had hit a wall only half that distance away.

Quark grimaced as three clusters of green holoemitters exploded and the entire simulation of the security office disappeared.

“Someone's going to pay for that,” he complained.

“Oh, be quiet, Quark.”

Quark couldn't be sure who had said that, because almost everyone did. Then Quark saw Vic. It was not a pleasant sight.

The hologram was wavering, sparking with holographic scan lines, and going transparent.

“Y'know, gang, all of a sudden, I'm not feeling so hot.”

Bashir went to Vic as if his medical skills might have some use for a hologram. “Maybe you should head back to the club, Vic.”

“You're not just whistlin' Dixie.”

“Uh,” Bashir said, “is that a Yes?”

Vic nodded. “And I thought Rocket to the Moon at Disneyland was an E-ticket. . . .”

Quark looked at Odo who looked at Jake who looked at Kira who looked at Jadzia who looked at Bashir . . . but it was unanimous. Nobody knew what Vic was talking about.

Vic shuffled toward a wall of functional holoemitters and Quark was surprised to see a gray metal door materialize, with a red sign reading EXIT just above it. “See ya in the funny papers,” Vic said, then opened the door and stepped through it. At once, his holographic body stopped shifting and he stood upright. From beyond him, Quark could hear laughter, the clinking of coins, and the sound of a twentieth-century band.

Vic spun around and pointed a finger at Quark. “Next time, pallie, pay the man the light bill.” Then he gave them all a casual salute, the door swung shut, and he was gone.

“I have got to talk to Felix,” Bashir said.

“That can wait,” Jadzia told him.

It was Jake who explained why to Quark. “Now we rescue my dad.”