Stardate: 80722:2241
Title: "The Wall Inside"
Author: Ravien Lox
Time: Some days after "The Projection"
Scene: Head Counsellor's Office, Relentless


In a brief flicker of blurry light, Relly appeared in the counsellor's room, wearing a grey, otherwise colorless civilian uniforms. Farchild, the counsellor for the night shift, raised his eyes excitedly and took off his HD video game so that he could do some real work. The Relentless was one of the few Federation starships its size that had been staffed with three counsellors, of which he was the senior member. Unfortunately for him, he wasn`t quite so popular as the younger, more attractive blond that was assigned noon duty — the whole male crew was drawn to the way her athletic figure was snugly welcomed by her uniform. Nor could he compete with his tall, dark and intensely evil-in-a-cool-way subordinate who ran the morning shifts. In fact, Relly was just about one of his only customers other than the non-human species that respected the elderly.

As such, he decided the crew would be better served if he took the night shift and made the other two report to him on every little emotional crisis the crew had faced in the past year.

Relly though, was a remarkable patient. With no distinction between conscious and subconscious in A.I., the little girl deliberately chose her dress code so as to suit her emotions at the time, whether she understood those emotions or not. Farchild was at last grateful for his long years of research into the psychology of clothes, since years of working around uniforms had caused him some despair as to whether he`d ever get to use such training.

"Hello Relly!" He said excitedly, leaping energetically as he would with any patient. "Please take a seat while I get my notes ready."

The Counsellor, like all counsellors, ordinarily preferred to keep his notes in datapadds for optimum efficiency. However, since there was a risk that Relly would read his notes that way, Farchild had elected to replicate a copy of the exact notebook used by his personal hero; Freud. It was damned cumbersome to use, but he loved practicing his handwriting for the first time since elementary school.

"Counsellor", the girl said, obeying his request to sit.

"Now, what is the major distress?"

Without the usual preamble, Relly told him of her conversation with Ensign Ravien Lox, the elusive Science Officer whom Farchild most wanted to meet. He'd never interviewed a Trill personally; forget having one consciousness and subconsciousness, the race's actions were undoubtedly a concert of disparate subjective impulses, growing more complex and primal with each generation of hosts. It was no surprise that such an old consciousness would be at odds with such a virgin one.

"I see," he said after she explained. "He insinuated that you were a malfunctioning computer."

"Yes," she said. Her body language was no help to him. Her emotions appeared in other ways.

"Well," Farchild said, "what do you think about his words?"

"There is a 88 percent probability that they are correct."

Farchild shook his head. "You can't pin down semantics with a percentage, Relly. You have to think outside of the trap that his words make for you."

Relly blinked. "He frustrates me. He gave me an unsolvable equation."

"Right, the question of your existence. Not knowing for certain about yourself causes you to doubt yourself. You lose faith in your purpose, in your own causation. But here's the crux - living with that uncertainty is something all mortal intelligences must bear. There is no certainty that you are truly what you think you are."

Relly's eyes widened as his words continued to hit home in the processors of her computer brain. "Nor is there any certainty for me about my purpose in life. You should thank Lox for calling you a malfunction. In a way there is nothing more qualifying to mortality, to life and conscience, than being flawed in some way."

Relly turned and looked past the wall of his study, seeing as the ship computer saw. To her, a wall was no obstruction. But for once in her short existence there was a wall that she couldn't see past, a wall inside herself. Farchild knew where she was looking. She was looking at Lab 3.

Relly's image appeared on the screen again, and in his dark room Ravien laughed like the mad scientist he was. He laughed and laughed, for he hadn't slept in days, and no one had bothered to check on him either. That lonely realization had driven him into a kind of hysteria, and being visited first by his greatest enemy on the ship was no help. But that wasn't why he was laughing.

"Ensign Lox?" The shameless, ugly computer that he called Relentless said.

"The research," he said, guffawing into his scraggly new beard. "The research is complete."

The Relentless computer watched him with awe as he continued in mad comprehension.

"It was so simple, so simple all this time. But I won't tell you, my little malfunction. No. Only the Captain must here of this."

He stopped.

His eyes burned. His mind felt ready to burst out of his skull. His whole body was feverish. What a secret he had found! What knowledge! But suddenly a new thought crossed his mind.

Could he even tell the Captain something this dangerous?

Alas, orders were orders.


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Ensign Ravien Lox
Science Officer
USS Relentless
NCC-11966
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