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Blind Chess	By : madradena Category: Star Trek > The Next Generation Views: 1334 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own ST:TNG, nor the characters. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Emma just finished changing from her costume into casual clothes in her dressing room and sat down in front of the mirror to brush her hair, when there was a knock on the door. She turned her head to the sound with a frown, but then turned back to the mirror with a shrug and said on a raised voice "Just leave the flowers outside with the guard!" she said and went on brushing her long hair.
To her surprise, the door opened, and she heard the voice of a man saying "I have no flowers."
His voice was alien, and she turned to him shocked and frightened. A tall man in a very expensive suit stood in the middle of her dressing room. He seemed to be over sixty, but his eyes were sparkling with life and vigour - and his features were dashing. Was she not scared to death, she'd even dare say, he was handsome in the classical gentleman-like way.
But she WAS frightened shitless by the stranger-intruder, so she jumped up from her make-up chair with blazing eyes "Who are you? Get the hell out of here!" she even took a step to him threateningly - then stopped when she realized that she'd have no chance at protecting herself from him with a freaking hairbrush... "Where's the guard?" she asked now with a slight trembling in her voice. From time to time, there'd been fans who were a little too eager to meet her - but this one was an old man! What if he was a REAL psycho or something?!
The man smiled smugly turning his palms up "I offered him a cigarette. And some money to smoke outside under the starry sky." he said glancing at the ceiling.
Emma's frown deepened "Then that'll be his last cigarette to smoke in his life! Who the hell are you?!" she asked now really upset.
"Earl Mils." he said simply with a polite nod of his head then smiled, this time a really friendly smile "I didn't meant to scare you, Ms. Jones. Please... just relax! I just wanted to talk to you, but you're not taking my phone calls. I supposed a more direct approach would be more effective. And it seems I was right. Now, you're at least talking to me."
She snorted and let her guards down. She knew this man. He was an agent. He'd been trying to contact AND contract her from the beginning of her career. She folded her arms in front of her chest, though her brush sticking out at the side of her arms' embrace made her posture rather ridiculous... "What makes you think that I need an agent?"
He didn't flinch from her challenging gaze "You fired the last one a month ago. And Epsilon Four is not profuse in agents, especially not in good ones, Ms. Jones."
She snorted again, this time it almost turned into a chuckle "Your smugness is quite exceptional." she shrugged and turned back to the mirror "But I don't need an agent. You're just a bunch of losers who have no idea what I really want. I decided to take things into my own hands." she said nonchalantly and went on brushing her hair as if she didn't even want to take note of his presence anymore.
"With not much success I hear. You got only a supporting role in the next feature of the studio, even if the main role fits you perfectly." he replied on a very calm and confident voice.
Emma frowned. It was a VERY sensitive spot for her. She'd have been given the role, if they could have agreed with the managers of the studio and the director of the film on her payment and on the fact that she wanted to have a word in the development of the script with regards to her character. However, after a short time, the negotiations came to a halt, and finally, they cast another actress on the role. One that didn't argue that much. She was very disappointed at how helpless she felt about representing her interests throughout the negotiations.
She put down the brush in front of the mirror and turned back with a seemingly nonchalant expression "I'd have more time for my private matters with a minor role. This was just what I wanted."
He crossed to her and stood right in front of her to look deep into her eyes "You spent two weeks in and out of negotiations and lawyers to end up in a role that you could do with your eyes shut. For such a talented actress as yourself, I'd have expected a better lie than this lousy one." he chuckled impudently.
Emma glared at him furiously "Because YOU could represent my interests better than that!"
"As a matter of fact, yes, I could." he nodded with a delighted smile.
It just fuelled her anger "How would somebody who comes from the middle ages know what'd be the best for the most popular actress of the colony?" she asked mockingly.
Earl didn't waver "If you're referring to my age, I'm not from the middle ages, I'm only thirty years older than you."
Emma couldn't help it, she had to laugh "Thirty??! Only??!"
"If you're referring to my experience with being the agent of celebrities, you can always check my CV out. I've sent it to you... a few times. My career started on Earth... well, in the middle ages, actually." he mused chuckling.
Emma's frown returned - she felt really uncomfortable with men who were her father's age, she really wanted to get rid of him! "I don't care. I don't need an old man anywhere in my life." she told him bluntly "So if you'd excuse me now, I'd like to finish changing. Close the door after yourself." she commanded and was about to turn back to the mirror. To her utter shock, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She glared at him, and this time, the fright returned to her features. He noticed her reaction, but he wanted to get his point across, so just went on on a calm voice.
"What you need is somebody to be honest with you." he let her go, when he felt that she would listen to whatever he had to say "And you won't get that with the kind of agents you had so far: young, over-ambitious and head over heels in love with you. Those are not agents, those are snotty kids drooling at your autographed pictures. You never got what you really wanted, when such a youngster represented you, and I don't blame you for throwing all of them out. The problem is that when YOU represented yourself, you got a big slap on the face, didn't you? I could protect you from both such disappointments."
Emma had to admit he was right. Moreover, he wasn't simply right, he spoke as if he knew her life from the inside out. She raised an eyebrow sceptically "In exchange?"
Earl turned his palms up "I sent you my contract. I stated my needs there. Read it. Think of it as a home work." he told her knowing that he'd won the match already then turned and walked to the door "Give me a call when you're done." he said and pulled out a business card from the inside of his suit to put on the cupboard by the door.
"I hate home works." she pouted sulking, folding her arms stubbornly.
He turned his head back to her, but his hand was already on the handle "Then it'll be even more useful. You'll learn to appreciate it when I read YOUR contracts, so you wouldn't need to."
She threw up her hands with a wry chuckle - this man was unbelievable! What was he thinking?! "If you really think I'll give you a call, you're crazy!"
"If you really think you'll get by all alone, then I'm in good company!" he taunted her with a small smile then his expression became grim "You and I both know, this is a world where men dominate the decision making in all walks of life. Whether we like it or not, it doesn't matter. You need to abide by their rules first, to get enough attention and power to be able to make a change later."
This time, she looked into his eyes shocked. Making a change - any kind of change - on Epsilon was not something that could be casually discussed, especially not with a stranger! He was honest! AND crazy! ...And he was also out of the door already.
Fifteen minutes later, Earl's phone rang as he was driving home.
"I won't read your freaking contract. It's a hundred pages long! I'll doze off before getting to page 3." he heard her voice and chuckled.
"So then we're at a stalemate."
"I'll sign it, if you summarize it for me." she told him nonchalantly.
Earl almost dropped his phone hearing her being so careless about such an important matter, but tried not to show his shock to her "How about meeting for lunch tomorrow? I'll explain it to you why it's irresponsible to do such a thing, and will go through the papers with you."
She sighed disappointed "So I should be prepared for the most tedious of all the lunches I've ever had."
He chuckled "Well, then choose a good restaurant, so we could at least have decent food while we bore ourself to death."
She was wrong. It was one of the most inspiring, most interesting lunches she ever had.
Her career skyrocketed after signing with Earl. And before long, he became her closest friend on the colony. She hadn't seen him for two months and now standing at his door, she missed him more than ever before. She felt her heart raced in anticipation as she knocked.
A young man let him in, some others - some of whom she knew and some whom she didn't - were around as well as she walked through the corridors. Then she entered the living room alone. It was a huge space with comfortable armchairs and a wide couch around a fireplace. The light was dim, only the fire painted the walls and the floor in an orange light. The door closed behind her, and she looked around squinting in the semi-darkness until her eyes got used to it.
A figure then emerged from the darkest depths of the room "Is that you? Is that really you, little bird?"
She heard his voice, and her throat closed "Yeah..." it was all she could utter as he stepped opposite her, and she saw him in the light. In sharp contrast with his usual very elegant suits, he now wore a shabby tweed sweater - and he seemed visibly older than she last had seen him. But his blue eyes were sparkling with life the same as they always had! "Yes, it's me, Earl, oh..." she breathed and hugged him tightly.
"I can't believe you're here!" she heard his voice muffled in her hair, and a relieved chuckle blurted through her lips.
"But I'm here!" she whispered and planted a loving kiss on his cheek.
They embraced barely noticing their flowing tears.
Beverly watched Data with a grim expression on her face as he was sitting there on Emma's bed wrapped up in his sadness and worry. She went over in her mind what he'd just told them so desperately about how alone Emma must have felt, and a thought occurred to her "Something... is out of place here..." she said slowly, but then never went on, and finally, the Captain tried to catch her daydreaming gaze.
"What is it, Beverly?" he asked finally.
"Oh, I just..." she looked around at all three of them "Something doesn't add up here. Jean-Luc. Is your 'combadge' still... functioning?" she asked making quotes with her fingers referring to the transmitter feature Geordi had implemented in the badge to avoid being eavesdropped on.
Not having been present at the conversation when the Captain showed off Geordi's newest invention, Data looked at them with a puzzled frown "What ar--" he started, but the Captain just waved him off.
"Later, Mr. Data." Picard told him absently, and taking the small object out of his pocket, he checked it and nodded to Beverly "You may speak freely."
Beverly looked at Data "Data, you're sure Emma ran away, because she thinks that we don't trust her? Did she tell you so?"
Data nodded "Just before she ran off, she didn't state any reasons, however she's been saying this for two days now. I concluded this was her reasoning."
Beverly shook her head "No, something else must be in this. She knows that even if nobody else does, I'd surely believe her. I've known her husband for a longer time she does, and she knows I've always been against her getting married to him. She has no reason to believe that my opinion changed in a day. Even if she thinks that all others think that her husband is innocent like a lamb, she should have come to me. Instead what is she doing? Running off blaming everybody for trusting her husband. Even if for a stranger, it'd seem to be very much like Emma, I've known her for decades. It's not like her at all!"
Data felt as if a huge bucket of ice-cold water was poured on his already enraged neural net. Did he really judged Emma's reasons so poorly? Did he know her so little while priding himself on the opposite, that it never even occurred to him to doubt what he concluded?
"So what do you suggest that means?" Picard asked on a tense voice now really intrigued.
Beverly shook her head again "I'm not sure. But what if, this was not the heat of the moment? What if she planned this all along? Just waited for the right moment, when everybody would consider her running away to be part of her capriciousness."
Data decided to put his self-doubting aside for a little while, and he looked at Beverly questioningly "What do you think her goal might be, Doctor Crusher?"
"I don't know, Data. But if she has one, we might be able to find a clue to conclude it." she answered excited.
At this, Data slumped back into his disillusioned state of mind "I've checked all of her belongings, Doctor Crusher. There's nothing. No clues left behind."
"We might not find anything here, but what if something's up there!" Beverly pointed upwards, and as Data stared at the ceiling for several long seconds, she slouched rolling her eyes and added "I mean up there, Data, on the Enterprise. In her quarters."
Picard nodded "Good idea, Beverly."
Data felt even more self-conscious because of his faux pass than he'd been before - though he was down in the dumps already. The whole day was just horrible! He couldn't remember the last time he felt so upset and agitated in his life! This standing around and chit-chatting was really the last straw. He shook his head impatiently and stood "Most of her belongings are in my quarters. I'd know about it, if there was anything that could give us a clue. She brought virtually nothing from Epsilon Four. We might spend a lot of time, and would gain nothing on it." his voice was full of tension and the others noticed the repressed aggression too - very much unlike Data.
"So what do you want to do?" Juliana asked worried seeing him so agitated.
"I go out and find her." he told them as he went to the neighboring room.
They followed him and watched him as he was looking for something among his stuff. Picard tried to reason with him "Data, it's a huge city out there. There's very little chance that you'd just bump into her. Especially, that she knows the place better than you do." he told him patiently, but Data's feelings took the better of him.
"I know!" he snapped at his own Captain turning to him "But I'm not going to just sit around!" he told him going back to poke around in his stuff.
Beverly and the Captain exchanged worried glances, and she tried to reason with him too "No one asks you to! But it'll just make matters worse, if we're acting unreasonably, like you do now! It's not at all like you!"
Data swirled around and glared at her "Screw being reasonable!" he blurted shocking himself even more than the others, who just looked at him baffled as he went on spreading his arms helplessly "Maybe... maybe the court martial was right after all! I do need to have my emotion-chip turned off, because right now in this present situation, I haven't even the slightest idea how to act reasonably." all his words reflected a lot of repressed emotions boiling under the surface, all too ready to blow.
Beverly's heart sank as the realization hit her. He really had no clue. He had no clue how to deal with as strong emotions as he was experiencing just now when a loved-one was missing during a mission. It was something they'd learned to do even as cadets or in their very first years assigned to starships as part of their jobs. But Data never had the chance to learn the same gradual way they had and was never given the time to adjust. Even if he seemed fine with all of his emotions most of the time, it must have been very difficult to deal with all of them all of a sudden - and there must have been a turmoil in his head right now.
She looked over at Picard, who watched his android friend with a troubled expression. After a moment, he nodded and turned to her "Beverly. Go back to the Enterprise. Try to look for anything among Ms. Jones' belongings that might help us. If you find something, you'll be able to reach us through our badges." he looked back at Data "I'm going with you."
"Captain..." Data started to protest, but Picard cut in.
"Yes, Mr. Data, I'd like to believe that you still consider me THAT, and obey my commands." he told him on a flat tone to which the younger man shut his mouth with a sulking expression, and Picard went on "Bring your combadge, and a phaser. I'm bringing mine too. Let's be prepared!" he said and left them alone to go back to his room.
Data after some more fumbling around in his stuff, finally managed to find his Type-1 phaser which was so small that it could fit into his palm, and so was easier to hide. He now only needed his combadge. He looked at his mother and held out his hand for his jacket:
"Mother, please." he asked on a silent voice, and as Juliana gave the torn garment back to him, sinking his hand into one of the pockets, he fetched out his combadge too. He dropped the jacket on the bed carelessly and felt the side of his trousers to look for a pocket he could put the two small objects into. But these were his uniform trousers that had no pockets at all. Whenever they had to wear a side-arm or have a tricorder with them, they'd have a belt for that. Obviously, it'd be too visible now.
"No place to put them away?" Beverly asked chuckling watching him so caught up in hesitation.
He grimaced "I have no other jackets presently."
"What's wrong with this one?" she asked not having heard their conversation with Juliana from the very beginning.
"Ah, it's..." he picked it up and held it out to her "...torn and..."
"And you know that if a certain someone was here, she'd immediately point out that you're a fashion-freak to be so concerned about how you look!" she chuckled trying to lift the mood a little.
He growled silently rolling his eyes not cheered up even a bit and just as the Captain was coming through the door again, he put his jacket back on and sank his two hands into both pockets to hide his phaser and combadge in them.
His eyes widened in surprise as one of his hands met a piece of paper.
"What is it?" Juliana asked concerned seeing his expression.
He pulled out the paper and looked at it frowning puzzled.
"What is it, Data? You look as if you found the result for the equations of the universe." Beverly asked too smiling.
"I don't know." he whispered staring at the paper stunned.
"What do you mean you don't know, it was in YOUR pocket." the Captain told him and crossing to him, he stood next to him to look at the paper. And a surprised frown appeared on his features too.
"What is it?" Beverly asked now alarmed by their strange behaviour.
Picard raised his head from the paper still in Data's hands "Coordinates." he answered simply instead of his friend who seemed to be standing there dumbstruck.
Emma looked into his eyes as he crossed the door. And she pushed the jacket right into his hands gazing into his eyes so intensely! She gave him the clue! She put it right into his hands! It was there! It was there with him all along! And he almost... A tremor ran through him, and he took a long breath feeling himself very close to be completely overwhelmed by his emotions - the processing utilization of his emotion-chip was almost a hundred percent!
Nobody noticed his inner struggles. Beverly looked into the Captain's eyes and felt a huge stone rolling off of her heart in relief "She did have a goal. She wanted us to go after her. To find her."
"But why? And where?" Juliana asked what they all had on their minds.
"Well," Picard looked at them with sparkling eyes "let us find out!" he said with the enthusiasm of an explorer - it was a riddle, and now that his instinctual attraction toward riddles kicked in, he wanted to solve it!
"Let me take my tricorder, Jean-Luc, one moment!" Beverly told them and returned in a minute with a small side-bag fitting the fashion of the 21st century, her tricorder hidden inside.
He pressed his combadge "Picard to transporter room 2! Three to beam to the following coordinates!"
But before he could finish, Juliana cut him off "Please, Captain Picard. I'd like to go as well."
Beverly and the Captain exchanged glances again, and Beverly winced "Wouldn't it be too suspicious that every one of us left? Even you, Doctor Tainer."
"Emma is my son's close friend. It's understandable that I'm concerned about her and want to try to find her too." Juliana replied wringing her hands then added on a low voice "Please don't leave me here with Admiral McKinnley."
All of them understood. Who would want to engage even in a simple polite chat with a man who previously humiliated her son before her very eyes?
"This is Ensign Joffrey speaking, Sir. Awaiting coordinates." a voice from the transporter room answered through the comlink - and Beverly was grateful for the semi-darkness they were standing in because her cheeks became impossibly red on hearing the voice of her 'special friend'.
Picard never noticed, just looked into the pleading eyes of Juliana for a moment longer thinking - she was a civilian no doubt, but she was also an android even if she didn't know about the fact. She was not as fragile as she seemed. "Make that four, Ensign. The coordinates are the following:" he took the note from Data - who still stood there rigid, petrified - and read out "34.083687, -118.319611."
"Acknowledged."
"And Ensign!" the Captain interrupted before Joffrey could push the button.
"Yes, Captain?"
"This communication never happened, and we never beamed to these or any other coordinates. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Sir! As you wish, Sir! Please, prepare - not to be beamed!"
The Captain smiled seeing that the young Ensign DID understand, and a moment later, their bodies dissolved into small particles.
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Blind Chess