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By: Taral-Writes, CO, Pegasus Falls
The air remained still and quiet as the yellow-white light from Alpha Centauri A, slowly getting higher in the sky, finally broke through the crack between the curtains. The soft illumination, angled just right, helped rouse the room’s sole inhabitant from her slumber, and as happened every day that was not stormy, Camille Lévesque woke pleasantly several minutes before her pre-programmed alarm.
The young scientist rubbed her eyes and slowly sat up, taking in her surroundings. It had been nice to sleep in her own bed again. How long had it been since she was last here? Almost a year? It certainly felt that way. But to be back… Camille stretched like a cat and then found her glasses on the nightstand. She could finally take in the details. The soft blue walls were slowly getting lighter as the sun continued its upward trajectory. She found her robe on the hook by the closet, slipped her feet into a pair of warm slippers, opened the curtains all the way and then walked through the glass door out onto the balcony.
The air was perfect for the Québécoise woman, just on the cooler side, enough that she was comfortable in her robe and slippers, but Nicole would joke about it being unbearably frigid, all while still sitting with her and enjoying tea or coffee with a PADD with minimal discomfort, enjoying the view of the Delmeny Peaks.
Coffee would be nice, thought Camille. She came back inside and found her way to the kitchen. The antique coffee maker, the one her mother-in-law gave her when the house was finished and she could finally move in, was exactly where she left it, on the counter next to the kettle and over the supply cupboard. There was a healthy supply of fresh grounds and filters, and the good vanilla-flavoured creamer was in the refrigerator. Excellent. She started a small pot brewing and went to have a shower.
The robe went back on the hook, the slippers went back where they went near the bed, and nightwear went into a laundry hamper. Camille then set her glasses on the bathroom counter and started the shower. The authentic hot water bathtub and shower were another luxury her house in the hills simply had to have. She took her time enjoying the steam and the heat of the water on her face. It felt like forever since she had had a real shower.
As she stepped out, she grabbed the closest towel. She let go almost instantly. It was damp. It had been used that morning.
Nicole.
“Nicole?” she called out, while taking the second towel. No response. “Computer, are there any messages from Nicole Anderson?”
“Affirmative,” the computer chimed.
“Begin playback on bedroom computer screen when I get there,” she said. She quickly dried her face, put her glasses on, wrapped her hair in a smaller towel, and took the regular one with her back to the bedroom.
The message began the instant she activated the screen.
Nicole’s face appeared on the screen, her ice blue eyes shining as she smiled at the recorder. “Bonjour, ma jolie dame,” she said, then shook her head. “Honestly, no matter how much I practice, it sounds so much lovelier when you say it.” She shrugged and sighed, shuffling some padds. “I’m sorry I had to leave early, t’hy’la, one of the Admirals had his shirt stuffed so tightly, I believe it’s cut off the blood to his brain. Although, given how half of them act, I’d more wager it was that his belt was too tight.” She snickered at her own joke, signed two padds and put them aside, then looked back at the screen. “The joy of setting up a new starbase infirmary, eh? With a little luck, we’ll have this nonsense resolved, and I’ll be home in a few days to make it up to you.” She blew the screen a kiss and rested her chin in her hand, smiling sweetly. “I love you. See you soon.” Then the screen went blank.
Camille’s eyes watered at seeing Nicole again. They had exchanged messages like this fairly frequently but being this close felt different, and she’d see her again soon.
But…Camille’s brow furrowed as she thought through some of the message. Nicole had been here. Did I see her yesterday? No. I just got here.
Didn’t I?
How did I get here anyway?
The comfort of her own home had completely blinded her to the problem. Last night she was on the Pennsylvania. She didn’t remember the details exactly, but she had been on an away mission. A sampling and analysis mission on a shuttle with Henry and Jenni. It was just yesterday.
But this house has been lived in, comfortably. The laundry hamper was full of her dirty clothes. The computers were all logged in.
She quickly got dressed into a black tee shirt and blue skirt (an outfit Penny got her for her birthday last year, before leaving on the Delta expedition, she remembered that), poured herself a cup of coffee, and went exploring.
This is my house, she concluded. But why does it suddenly feel wrong?
She checked the date. Stardate 72807.7. That sounded right to her. One day earlier, she had gone on the shuttle mission.
“This is new though,” she said out loud to herself as she examined a series of five photographs along the wall of the living room.
The first three were definitely ones she remembered, and ones she remembered printing and hanging. Nicole and Camille, along with Penny and the other bridesmaids at Cass’s wedding. Then Camille and Nicole’s first wedding ceremony, the Catholic one at Cathédral Saint-Jérôme
outside Montréal. Then the second one, the traditional Soul Clan ceremony on Rigel V with Nicole’s mother and adoptive Rigelian family.
But the fourth image…Nicole and Camille sitting with Cass and a girl, maybe three years old, with a rainbow of colours in her hair. Darla, she assumed, Cass’s daughter. But she hadn’t seen Darla for years, not since she was a tiny baby, and certainly did not remember a photo like this being taken.
The fifth picture really did it. She recognized the incredible and unique geological architecture of the Pegasus Falls on Quadra Sigma IV. She yearned to visit them, but never had. But here she was, in this picture, taking samples with her teammate Alden who grew up on that planet and hoped to one day show her the magnificent waterfalls.
So what happened?
Further analysis yielded more evidence. An article published in her name from just two weeks ago, firmly establishing her as still working at the Daystrom Institute Centre for Exobiology Studies at its Alpha Centauri VII Annex. A thank-you card from her sister Mathilde for coming to her wedding, a wedding she distinctly remembered being upset for missing. Finally, the document which cinched it: the port nacelle of her team’s excursion craft had failed inspection on the day they were supposed to leave for their month-long Delta Quadrant trip. The voyage got postponed, so when the catapults went down, she was still here on Centauri.
“I’m not stuck in the Delta Quadrant,” she said to herself. “I can stay. I can see Nicole. I can tell her what happened and that it’s some kind of miracle and she can tell me everything I missed.”
But a pang of regret tore through her heart. “Obviously not,” she said aloud, now mournfully.
This house was being lived in. Which meant there was almost certainly another Camille Lévesque, one whose life she was usurping. One that might presently be stuck in a far worse situation, aboard a ship full of strangers trapped tens of thousands of light-years from home.
“I have to make it right.”
**
In her study, Camille sat with three Starfleet Officers she hoped could help her.
She had no idea who she could trust with this. Most people would declare her insane (or some socially acceptable variation thereof) and put her away until she regained some sense. She’d be scanned for signs of neurological distress. Nicole would believe her but would never be able to convince the Daystrom doctors. So, she found a list of Starfleet Officers posted to or visiting the Alpha Centauri System and checked for names she would recognize. Former friends and colleagues from her Academy days or her time on Jupiter Station or aboard the Victory. Acquaintances and collaborators from countless conferences and collaborations over the years.
She found three.
Lieutenant Commander Alexander Espersen had been one of her instructors at Starfleet Academy. A stern man, he tore into her when she had been so focused on getting a circuit alignment just right that she had not noticed that the voltage was wrong, causing the other half of her project to start melting. He was a starship design consultant now at Proxima Centauri Maintenance Yards. He remembered her, and he came without hesitation.
Lieutenant Ashev had been a frequent collaborator on life sciences projects. In her timeline, they spoke the week before she left for the Delta Quadrant, and apparently in this reality they collaborated even more recently. He was assigned to USS Endurance, whose Captain was attending a conference on Alpha Centauri IV. The Aenar officer agreed to meet.
Lieutenant jg Sayori Summers was a bit harder to get, though not from any hesitancy on her part. The bubbly, purple-haired engineer and Camille had had a few classes together in the Academy and had become close friends in that time. They still wrote each other on occasion, and tried to meet for dinner or drinks when they were in the same system. This was apparently true of this universe’s Sayori and Camille. Unfortunately, her ship, the Vengeance, was just passing through, stopping for a few hours of tuning at the Yards before moving on. What a strange name for a Starfleet ship, Camille thought, but this was a different universe so maybe it was more normal here. Sayori was more than willing to help, but her Captain needed to be convinced to let her go.
“What was your last memory of your timeline?” Alexander asked, the older human sitting down with a cup of tea and looking at nothing as the wheels of his mind turned.
Camille felt elated. She had made the right choice. These three people implicitly trusted her, or rather trusted the counterpart that they knew. When she explained ‘I’m not from this reality,’ there was no doubt. Only an immediate attempt to find a solution.
“Yesterday,” Camille explained. “I was on a shuttle with the First Officer and the Chief Engineer. We were collecting samples of…something. I don’t remember what.”
“That has to be it though, right?” asked Sayori, purple eyes alight with excitement at solving this highly unusual problem. “Away from the safety of your ship. Unique and unpredictable interactions with whatever exotic material the universe can throw at you.”
“Probable, but not definite,” offered Ashev, his white eyes looking at Camille, where his antennae were also pointed. “What were you collecting? Even a little bit of information helps.”
“I just don’t remember,” Camille admitted. “I keep thinking back to yesterday but it’s a blur.” “Can you help her with that?” Alexander asked Ashev.
“Hmm, maybe.” The Aenar set his tea down and reached out toward Camille. “Come here. Take my hand.”
Camille never really liked telepaths in her mind, but she understood that it sometimes had value, and this was definitely one of those times. She set her coffee down, got up from her seat, and knelt in front of Ashev, taking his hand. She closed her eyes and let herself go wherever her friend took her.
Ashev’s antennae twitched as he tried to scan through her memories. Camille had some serious mental barriers, but she was willing them down as best as she could. He found her memories going back several months. Combat against monsters. Helping feed people stranded on a space station.
The shuttle ride. Setting up the scanners. Collecting ionic particles from— “Do you remember something about a nebula?” Ashev asked.
Camille’s eyes opened wide, and she grinned with excitement. “Oui! Yes! The-the-the-the nebula! Câlisse, that’s it! The one that had my Captain and crewmates so scared!” She stood, brushed her skirt flat, and took a breath. “Sorry. Yes. Before I joined the Pennsylvania, they had an encounter with a nebula that had some psionic properties. I never really understood it. We found traces of particles that seemed to be from the same nebula, or a similar one. Captain Taggart was concerned that crew familiar with it might be affected somehow, or maybe just be scared, so he sent Commander Castle, Lieutenant Mathews, and me. We all came to the crew later.”
“So what happened?” Alexander asked.
“We found the particles,” Camille answered. “And we collected them. But they emitted an energy field that disrupted our power system. Jenni — Chief Engineer Mathews — thought that the Penn’s systems would be sufficiently shielded, especially after we got the particles into a better container, but the shuttle was dead in space. She beamed back first, and sent a container, a Mark Six. We transferred the particles into it, and then I—”
“You were going to beam next,” Sayori finished. “Carrying the container full of nebula particles.”
“A Mark Six should be safe to transport in most cases,” Alexander observed, “but maybe not all cases. Doctor Lévesque, may I use your console?”
This version of Espersen was a lot more relaxed than Camille remembered, but admittedly she had not spoken with him in some time. And maybe this reality had been kinder to the man who the students all knew had lost much in the Mars attack. She nodded, and Alexander went to the
desk computer. He used his credentials to log into a Starfleet network and pulled down the report on the nebula incident. Many of the specifics were classified, but the technical data, the exact chemical and energetic composition of the nebula, was freely available, and that is all he wanted. “Lieutenant Summers, what do you make of this?”
Sayori joined him, face scrunched as she studied the data closely. “That would do it,” she agreed, nodding. “If your collection was an even subset of the nebula’s normal makeup, it would absolutely do it. Take one part upsilon radiation-emitting Cochrane particles, one part four seven-gauss quantum-unstable dark energy, then block them both with atto-scale absorbent Mark Six container material, add one transporter beam, and what do you get?” She snapped her fingers. “One displaced Quebecer.”
“We prefer Québécois,” Camille said. “Or Québécoise, in my case.”
“Sorry,” Sayori replied sheepishly. “But how to get you back?”
“Can we replicate the conditions?” asked Ashev.
“We would need to be incredibly precise,” Alexander answered. “The materials Ms. Summers described opened a tunnel into the multiverse. It did not do so at random. Not only do we need to replicate the conditions, but we also have to determine exactly how the reaction brought you here instead of anywhere else and map the way back.”
“And how do we do that?” Camille asked.
“With a high-tech lab, and the best computer and mapping experts I know,” Alexander answered.
**
The only system that could handle what they were about to do was the one at the Daystrom Annex. Camille’s credentials got them through the front door and into the main lab complex. Thankfully it was Sunday, and the lab was minimally occupied. The matter-energy conversion lab, which included the highest sensitivity test replicator and transporter on the planet, maybe in the sector, we’re empty.
They had collected some of Espersen’s experts on the way. Sakura Tanikawa was apparently his top computer expert. He said she was uncanny in how she could manipulate a computer into doing exactly what she wanted, and faster than a normal person too. Fulvia Benvenuto was his map expert. Her expertise was star charts, but she had a wondrous sense of direction that made her good at mapping out most things. Hopefully this included the literal multiverse itself.
“Are we online?” Alexander asked.
“Yes, Commander.” Sakura took a seat in front of one of the consoles. The young woman seemed to get lost in the computer as she typed away at almost superhuman speeds. Next to her sat Sayori, who fed molecular and radiological data to the computer expert. Camille grinned looking at the two young women, each with brightly coloured hair — Sakura’s pink was sharply contrasted from Sayori’s purple — getting lost in their work as they tried to help her get home.
Fulvia Benvenuto looked much more formal, black hair in a tight bun, but as she spoke to herself and to Sakura, Sayori, and Mr. Espersen while working, Camille could tell she was quite a character. She had never met an Iotian before, and from the bits of speech she was hearing, it sounded like Starfleet technical jargon was being interlaced with mobster slang. It was no wonder her linguist friends were fascinated by them.
Ashev set to scanning Camille with a tricorder that Alexander and Sayori had modified while en route to the Annex. “Hold still,” he said, not because her uncomfortable shifting was affecting the results, but because it was annoying him.
The tricorder beeped, and displayed something on tactile surface which Ashev could read with touch. “Got it, Commander. Quantum signature is off by Positive Point-Eight-Four-Seven.”
“Thus eliminating all doubt of where you came from,” Alexander said. “Good work, Doctor.” “Feeding that data in now,” reported Sayori.
Camille kept her distance from the engineers at work, sidling instead next to Espersen.
“You seem more comfortable with the others,” Alexander observed. “Especially Miss Summers. Am I so different?”
Camille smiled at the insight. “Sayori and I have been good friends for years. This version of her is almost identical and I’m instantly comfortable with her. Ashev and I consulted a few times but that’s all. I trust him but don’t know him well enough to judge him different or not. My timeline’s Alexander Espersen, I know him a bit. He was angry and could be shockingly unkind. He seems to have mellowed a bit recently. He actually sent me a consultation request two weeks ago about bio-mechanical systems. You seem calmer than him, and in control of your feelings. Like if Miss Benvenuto made a mistake, you would help her correct it instead of humiliating her.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know him so well that I can look into his soul and see a capacity for being like you. Maybe he could be. I just don’t know. So it’s more jarring that a close friend or a stranger. You understand?”
“Your Alexander Espersen sounds like a real jerk,” Alexander said. “But I shouldn’t judge. I’ve had a good life. Maybe he hasn’t.”
“He did lose a lot,” Camille confirmed. “That much I know.”
“And maybe he’s found a lot now too, if he seems more reasonable to you.” There was a second of silent tension, which he broke with a hearty laugh. “Well, you’ve given me something to tell Najaat. That somewhere in the multiverse there’s an Alexander Espersen harder to live with than me!”
Camille laughed with him, even if it was at the expense of a man this Espersen would never meet. “Najaat is your wife?” she guessed. He nodded, so she continued. “You understand then. Do me a favour please.” She produced from a small bag she was carrying a pair of isolinear chips. “This first one is for both your Camille Lévesque and for Institute Security. It’s a confession of everything that happened and a request for leniency against her. I hope you can vouch for her with it.”
Alexander took it, noted the number on the side, and put it in his pocket. “And the second?”
“It’s for my wife,” Camille said. “Well, rather, her wife. This world’s Camille’s wife. But still, I wanted to tell her something. I’ll ask for your privacy on this. Just explain who it’s from and send it without viewing. Please.”
“You have my word,” Alexander said, taking the second chip. “How are we doing?” he asked his team.
“Almost there,” reported Sayori. “Hey, Commander, your people are good. We could do some good work with this multiverse map, and Sakura’s skills with a computer…she’s uncanny, amazing, astonishing even!”
“I only work with the best,” Alexander said. “Doctor Lévesque, or I should say Lieutenant Lévesque, it was a pleasure working with you. Thank you for this unique problem to solve. Now please step onto the transporter pad.”
“The exact circumstances for the reverse transport have been calculated,” Sakura reported. “And the computer is ready to simulate them, in combination with replicated traces of the necessary exotic particles. The system will almost certainly crash when we’re finished though. We’ve made copies of what we can, but I expect this won’t be repeatable.”
“We’ll need more power for this to work, too,” Fulvia called out. “We have the direction plotted perfectly but the distance is insane, Boss. If we don’t get this right, she’ll be spread across the multiverse like butter on toast. Um, sir.”
“Leave that to me.” Alexander found another console and began redirecting power from other systems around the building. Lights began to flicker, starting with the corridor outside the lab and moving outward.
“Don’t take from the life sciences labs,” warned Ashev. “They keep a lot of pathogens in this building. We don’t want containment units to shut down.”
“Noted,” Alexander said. More lights went out. Sparks flew from a monitor on the far wall and from the nearby replicator as so much power was forced into the experimental transporter. “NOW!”
Sayori slowly raised the sliders on the transporter console, and the woman on the pad began to dematerialize.
For a moment, Camille had this strange feeling as if she were being stretched, pulled across space and time. It was not painful, but she developed a sense of being in two extremely distant places, connected to both as her body began to rematerialize, apparently in her own universe. Then her perception of her destination began to resolve. It was the Transporter Room of a starship. There were familiar faces there. Captain Taggart. Commander Castle. Lieutenant Mathews. Both forms of Lieutenant Kale. And Camille herself. The Alt-Camille.
She reached out and grabbed her doppelgänger, who seemed to dematerialize as she did. It might have been an illusion, but for a brief moment, she felt like she was in direct, almost psionic contact with her other self. Go home, she tried to communicate. And tell Nicole you love her.
She rematerialized fully onto the transporter and collapsed to the ground. “It’s me,” she said. “The real me.” Finally home, she let the rest of her energy drain away and fell unconscious.
**
Camille had been brought to sickbay, where Dr. Kinaav, after a thorough medical exam, told her to take two days off to rest and ordered her to meet with Counselor Hart before returning to duty. She agreed to those terms, having learned years earlier never to argue with her physician, and retreated to her quarters.
Over dinner the next night, Vespa explained everything that had happened in her absence. The other Camille was deeply troubled by her sudden and random removal from her home but was taking the opportunity to learn everything she could from the Penn and her crew. It seemed very likely that there would be a new paper on the Dalacari published in the alternate universe’s
scientific journals soon enough. Sounds like me, Camille thought, giggling as Vespa’s dual forms shared the story. The Penn’s crew had been trying to get Alt-Camille home but were likely still a day or two away from finishing the calculations. That Tanikawa girl must have been uniquely talented.
The important thing was that Camille was home. It was the home that was far away from those that she loved, but it was nonetheless home. It was real. And just as importantly, the other Camille was home too.
After Vespa left, Camille got out of her clothes, put them into the laundry hamper, used the sonic shower, and got into her Starfleet issue sleepwear.
But before climbing into bed, she sat down at its foot and began a recording. “Ma chère Nicole. I know I just wrote you a couple of days ago but mon Dieu I have a story for you….”
FIN