211: Wren

By Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
80312.1530
Seven Years Before The Magic Feather

-= San Francisco , California , Earth=-


Rada’s footsteps were all that he could hear as he walked cautiously down this eerily quiet little street. During the nights leading up to this and in those which would follow; it had been and would be full of much noise and much violence. There were still many visible blood stains on the floor and the walls but Rada knew he couldn’t go home tonight for a place so populated as the Academy could well be much worse.

There was some kind of mass insanity taking place for much of the localised Terran population which seemed to involve them ostentatiously displaying their allegiance to one of two groups through use of certain coloured clothing, spending a lot of time kicking near spherical objects at one another and participation in some kind of alcohol consumption based rituals. Rada wasn’t sure why this was but from all of the information he could gather it seemed to be some how related to an event which was taking place tonight and which involved the gathering of both parties for the viewing of said event.

Due to this fact he had decided it was best to get away from the Academy to find a place less occupied. This place seemed to be some kind of neutral ground as it held no decoration in any of the colours which the respective sides had decided to drape themselves in.

He removed a cloth from his pocket and used it to push open the broken door which seemed not to have even registered his approach, upon removing the cloth he saw that it had already changed to a much darker colour as a consequence of the dust. After folding the cloth inward and placing it back in his pocket, he scanned the room and concluded that it was completely deserted. That was a relief.

He proceeded to take a seat at the bar, turning around to observe that the remainder of the undamaged lighting was active and the faded sign informing him that this place was open was indeed displayed.

He decided to enjoy this silence and he just sighed as he slumped down in his chair.

“What can I get you?” came a very startling voice.

Rada jumped internally approximately two metres but just casually turned around to face the voice. It was a young woman, possibly a couple of years older than Rada with long back hair tied back into a pony tail.

“It’s okay,” she said with a wink, “I won’t bite.”

Rada wasn’t aware that he had shown any shock to make her assure him it was okay and also wasn’t sure if he’d just seen a wink.

*Great, now I have to figure out what they have here and try decide what’s the best choice from a list of things I’ve never even heard of. Why can’t they just tell you what they want to cook?* thought Rada.

“I’ll get you the steak,” she stated emotionlessly and then just stopped waiting for Rada’s reaction.

*Most people would be annoyed by this.* Rada reminded himself and asked himself *Should I pretend to be?*

He decided not to and just smiled saying softly “That sounds great.”

“So, you decided not to then?” she asked with a smile.

“Decided not to what?” asked Rada before realising and thinking, *You’re a telepath, aren’t you?*

“Yes, I am, but try not to say it so loudly. I wouldn’t like anyone to overhear,” she replied, laughing in a way which made Rada smile.

This was certainly unusual for a telepath, to openly use their ability with a non-telepath upon first meeting. Rada knew that most people would have difficulty feeling comfortable around active telepaths meaning that most would actually hide it away at least until after they had tested the waters.

“…and YOU are weird,” she added.

“How do you mean?” Rada asked putting on his best act of confidence now and speaking aloud.

“Your emotions contradict your mind, I sense calm from you and yet your thoughts speak a very different story. So either you’re nuts or you’re something very, very similar to nuts,” she explained with genuine curiosity in her voice.

“Let me guess, you’re a Betazoid?” Rada asked with a smile, deliberately changing the subject and hoping she didn’t realise that his calm was in fact simply part of a well developed façade.

“I’ll ask the questions here,” she answered and then staring deeply into his eyes asked cheekily, “or do I have to scan your mind?”

“So, that’s a yes?” replied Rada, changing the subject once again. “Everyone around here just assumes that any humanoid Empath they meet which could plausibly be Betazoid is Betazoid. From what I’ve seen of you; if you weren’t Betazoid then you would have been compelled to point that out.”

She was impressed by this deduction. It was at this time that she realised that she could no longer hear Rada’s worried thoughts and concluded that he must be somehow hiding them from her. She knew that that type of thing should take a lot of practice for a Terran and should certainly not have been found in one so young. She was certainly intrigued.

“Alright, you win. I am Betazoid but only on both my parents’ sides,” she replied with a wry smile and then asked “And what about you?”

Rada lent forward and rested on his elbows, lacing his fingers together with both thumbs meeting under his chin, “I’m Angosian but don’t hold that against me,” he answered then added after a brief pause “My name’s Rada.”

“I’m Wren, the name that proves that parents shouldn’t be allowed to name their kids.” she replied.

They were both smiling falsely and smiling truly whilst secretly wondering at the same time.

Considering her words Rada couldn’t help but wonder if they had more in common than either would care to admit. He focused intently on trying to get some type of read from this woman. He was really just trying to shatter his fantasy, it is strange how sometimes the fear of losing a dream can motivate us to wish to see it proven false before it starts, but in this case it remained solid.

It occurred to Wren that she had forgotten the steak and she began to wonder why it was that she was finding it so difficult to move away from this young Angosian.

It occurred to Rada that it would be polite for him to interject now and to suggest that he liked her name and yet....he simply couldn’t.

This moment was viciously shattered by a group of alcohol soaked Terrans bursting through the door. Wren was quite surprised as she realised that she had been completely distracted from sensing them. They were singing a song about their victorious sporting team and after realising that Rada was not dressed in their team colours they decided it was time to confront him about it.

“Hey, you!” one of them said as they all stomped up to surround Rada ,“It seems to me as though we have a problem here,”

“Oh, what’s that?” Rada replied calmly but Wren sensed something different from him now.

“You aren’t showing your support for your local team and we think that’s bloody unpatriotic!” their leader continued loudly, all of their eyes were fixed angrily upon Rada, the leader squatting down to look Rada in the eye.

Rada just let him continue him rant, he figured it was probably the safest option.

“So, here’s what we’re going to do!” he continued whilst tilting his head from left to right in an intimidating manner, “You are going to take off one unpatriotic item of clothing until there’s nothing unpatriotic left on you,” a couple of them laughed and their leader shot them back a hate filled glance for not taking this seriously, “and if by then we’re not convinced of your patriotism then we’re simply going to have to skin you to see if there’s anything patriotic underneath.”

“I see,” said Rada calmly whilst elongating the word see, his mind racing at a previously unheard of warp factor trying to think of a way out of this. He noticed that Wren had placed a drink beside him and said “Just let me finish this first,” whilst picking it up and quickly sculling it. He had hoped that Wren had possessed the kindness to fill it with some alcoholic agent to numb the pain but it seemed she hadn’t. Wren, it appeared had left the room.

One of the men grew tired of waiting, grabbed Rada by his shirt and threw a bone shattering punch. Rada however didn’t feel anything. He looked around and realised that his surroundings had suddenly changed.

*I don’t believe it,* he thought, his eyes rapidly darting from side to side and his breathing becoming rapid *I must be dead!*

His heart was almost beating out of his chest as he kept turning his head from side to side taking in his location. All he knew was that there were plenty of dusty old shelves around him covered with various jars and bags which looked as though they could have predated the replicator.

Rada turned suddenly as a door creaked slowly open and a figure emerged from it into the dark little room. The form came into better view and Rada realised it was Wren.

She had a rather sizable smile on her face and said, “This is my stockroom, if this looks like heaven to you then you just have to see my bedroom,” then winked at him again.

Rada looked at the bottom of the glass and realised that there was a communicator attached to it.

“You had me beamed out,” he said, his words slightly obscured by his rapid breathing.

“Yes, I did” she laughed, walking with her hands behind her back, each step loudly clacking on the time tested floor, and explained “A friend of mine works at a transporter-hub and quickly arranged a site to site transport for me,”

Rada just took a second to process the fact that he was still alive then said the only two words which came to mind. He said “Thank You.”

He was at this moment slightly distracted by fears that the panic attack he had just experience from believing he was dead had left his emotions completely unhidden for just a single moment, he exhaled and calmed himself down.

“I liked that,” Wren said with a smile in a clear reference to that brief moment.

Rada was a little bit lost for words and just nodded.

“I kind of regret saving you so quickly though.” She added with that wry smile returning, “It would have been much more fun to have waited until after the unpatriotic clothing removal.”


Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012