Mad Max: The Fury Unleashed "
By: Marp, Engineer, [RNPC]
Krystal, Hologram, [RNPC]
Maxine Lucinda Tapert, Computer Specialist, [PC]

Stardate: 58208.11 1910

It was a new beginning, he thought as he ran through various system checks. Marp smiled happily as he listened to the reassuring throb of the Zion's massive warp core. He was on a new ship and back doing what he should have been doing all along...being an engineer. He had tried being a flyboy on his last assignment, but that turned out to be a disaster.

As Marp was scanning through the ship's power usage logs he noticed an unusually high power drain coming from the crew quarters. He touched several more keys on his console and discovered the quarters in question belonged to Lieutenant Maxine Tapert.

Touching a few more keys at his work station he opened a communications channel, "Engineering to Lieutenant Tapert."

"Yes! I'm 'ere! I'm 'ere!"

"Sorry to disturb you Ma'am, this is Engign Marp in engineering. I am noticing unusually high power usage from your quarters. Is there a problem?"

"Oh 'ell yeah there's a problem! Aaiiiieeeee!" she swatted the pixies who were pulling her hair.

Marp was certain that he could hear giggling in the background. He was wondering if he had interrupted some strange human party. "Do you require assistance?"

"YES! YES! Shut down th' power to my quarters before they pull all my blasted hair out! Now, now, now!" she comm'd back, still swatting at the pixies entangled in her hair.

"Aye Ma'am," said Marp.

While the power was being shut down in her quarters, Max continue to swat at the pixies. "Computer! Execute emergency protocol: Roundup Alpha-Icon. Command authorization Tapert Charlie Zero Zero One Nine Playground," Maxine commanded.

Executing.

"Thank God," Maxine breathed a sigh of relief as her room went dark and the holographic images disappeared. She laid there in the darkness, enjoying the near absolute silence that the lack of power gave her. She reached her hand up and rubbed her fingers over the parts of her scalp that still tingled and hurt from having the hair pulled out of it.

Her silent interlude was brutally interrupted by the perpetrator of the assault on her room and her person.

"MAXIE!! The cops raided us!" Krystal squealed as she popped into view. "My Stud Muffin is goooonnnnneeeeee!!" she wailed.

"Stud muf---" Maxine blinked in disbelief and raised up, only to cry out in pain as she bonked her head on the underside of the bed.

"YOU! Do not speak. Do not even talk to me!" she commanded as she crawled out from under the bed and rubbed at the slight bump that was growing on her head. "I'm so mad at you I could cheerfully delete your program roight now. And not feel a bloody pang of remorse." She stood up and tried to pluck some of the things out of her hair that had been braided and tied into it.

Krystal fluttered backwards and was on the verge of answering Maxine when the computer specialist interrupted her.

"You 'ad a bloody PIXIE ORGY in my room, Krystal!" Maxine accused the hologram as she walked around her quarters in agitation, stumbling in the darkness and stubbing her toe, adding insult to injury.

"I just wanted to have some friends," the pixie's antennae and wings drooped as she was chastised.

"I don't bloody well give a parser rat's fat ass what y'want! You're a 'ologram, Pixie. A 'olographic avatar. You're a bloody computer program with just enough brains to make y'dangerous!" Maxine continued to rant.

"Don't be mad," Krystal sniffed and her wings and antennae drooped even more.

"Well, I bloody well AM mad. You are grounded. G.R.O.U.N.D.E.D." she spelled it out. "Grounded to your PADD until I rework your programming and give you a bloody watchdog. Or maybe just for bloody life!"

"A watchdog? Oh no!!!" the pixie hologram wailed.

"With HUGE bloody teeth! Dragon teeth!" Maxine added because she knew how much the pixie hated dragons. "Maybe even a DRAGON DOG!"

"But! But! But safety protocols were in place! I promise! You can check! Don't do the Dog! Please don't do the Dog!!" the little hologram cried.

"SILENCE!" Maxine rounded on her and pointed a quivering finger at the hologram. Never before had the little pixie seen her creator so angry, and she immediately shut up.

"I am going to The Core to make sure you didn't do anything stupid," Maxine told her carefully, and in an over-controlled voice. "YOU are to stay here. You are grounded to your PADD, and IT is staying here. You have no access to anything other than your PADD. Begin running a level one diagnostics now and keep running it over and over again until I tell you different."

Krystal looked like she was going to open her mouth and say something, but Maxine held up her hand and snapped her fingers. "Disappear. Now," she commanded, and the little pixie simply faded from sight.

Maxine let out a shuddering, exasperated breath that was laced with her residual anger. She gathered her personal computer before she left her quarters and headed to The Core, leaving the Pixie, the PADD, and the room powerless and in the dark.

== 0030 ==

She had been plugged into the Zion's mainframe via her neural implant for hours now as she systematically worked her way through the computer systems, checking for any evidence of malicious code or alien data.

Max yawned as she stood up and stretched before heading to the nearest replicator. "Computer. Coffee, Tapert's Special Espresso Blend. One cup, forty-eight point seven degrees Celsius, add two tablespoons of cream and one tablespoon of sugar." Max had perfected her own replicated coffee that was almost impossible to tell from the real thing. She absently retrieved the cup, her mind still in the mainframe and the Zion's subsystems.

Krystal was right. The safeguard protocols *had* been in place and running. That fact hadn't really appeased Max very much though. She needed to code a subroutine into the AI that would divert any abnormalities somewhere they could be contained and she wouldn't find herself walking into another pixie orgy or a scene from Moby Dick.

She cupped the mug in her hands and took a sip of the strong brew. Her eyes continued to stare at the screen before her, their depths filled with lines and lines of code. Halfway through the second sip something caught her eye and she blinked.

"Whoa. Backup." She sat the mug down and reached up to scratch at the implant. "Stop. Go forward thirty bytes." She continued absently scratching at the irritated neural implant. "Stop." She started using her nails as the itching increased.

Maxine tried to concentrate on the code before her but the itching was becoming more and more of a distraction. "Dammit!" she swore, and tried to disengage the implant. She'd been overusing it, she knew she had. The proof was in the fact that it wasn't disengaging. She frowned and tried again... The itching increased to an almost painful level. This wasn't right. She should be able to disengage the implant from the mainframe before fully forming the thought. Her hand moved up to manually terminate the connection. It didn't work.

The itching became more intense as a dull ache bloomed into life at the base of her skull and began to grow exponentially. There wasn't enough time for Maxine to contact sickbay before she became too lightheaded and disoriented. The pain in her head grew so intense that it finally culminated in a gigantic starburst that consumed her awareness until she ceased to function and all her systems crashed.