Consequences "
By: Krystal, Hologram, [RNPC]
Maxine Lucinda Tapert, Computer Specialist, [PC]

Stardate: 58208.12 0330

Maxine didn't move from the floor for quite a while. She just laid there, looking up at the computer core and pondering the very whacked out and sometimes pretty damn scary ass dreams she had. She chalked the last one up to two things: Getting so bloody mad at Krystal, and over-using her neural implant until the thing became irritated. She should have known better in both instances. She had a really, really wicked temper that she worked hard not to lose specifically because stuff like this happened when she did. Moreover, she knew better than to overuse her implant because it gave her migraines and she knew it did something totally whacky to her neural pathways.

It wasn't until the blood from the cut above her temple trickled into her ear that she finally moved to get up. She had to do it in stages because the pounding in her head kept making her lightheaded. Max was a fighter if anything and she finally got into a position where she could actually look for the first aide kit. She knew there was one somewhere in the computer core because there was one in every department. Or at, least she thought there was.

"Do'h..." She'd been staring at the case attached to the wall for several minutes before the emergency first aide emblem finally registered on her dulled senses. "Roight piece o' work y'are, Maxie," she grumbled as she got it down and concentrated on cleaning the blood off her face and haphazardly slapping a Band-aid on the cut in the hopes it would stop bleeding. She didn't even touch the neural implant, but she did scrounge through the kit until she located some pain meds.

Maxine gazed up at the core as if it had suddenly become public enemy number one. Of course the fact that it wasn't the *computer* who'd had the nightmare but herself, never occurred to her. A rather sad testament of the inability she often experienced to think of herself as a separate entity from the computer. "Y'bloody traitor," she told it as she sat back down in front of her terminal.

"God..." she folded her arms on the console and laid her head down on them. She had a massive headache. Her implant was throbbing, the cut in her head was throbbing, and her brain felt like warm milk toast mixed with spastic Klingon blood worms. She rubbed her face and reached over to press a command on her terminal. Several key taps later and a separate, independent diagnostic program began running checks on the Zion's computer systems, picking up where she'd left off.

"Krystal, get your pixie butt in here," she commanded once she activated the AI's program on her computer.

The hologram popped into view with a spray of golden dust the moment Max opened her mouth.

"Oh Maxie!! Don't be mad any more!!! Please don't be mad!!! I didn---- Oooohhh. you're bleeding!! MEDIC! MEDIC!!."

"Stop." The command was spoken so sharply that the little pixie stopped talking immediately and sat on the console like a petulant child.

"Did y'run the diagnostic?" Max asked.

"Affirmative."

"And?"

"It's stuck in a loop."

"What?"

"It's stuck in a--"

"I heard y'the first time." Maxine was speaking very slowly.

"Reboot."

"WHAT?" Krystal squealed.

Maxine winced and closed her eyes.

"Silently, Pixie. Reboot. Silently."

"But--"

"Zzstt!" Max snapped her fingers and the holographic avatar disappeared in a puff of golden dust.

Max peeked open one eye in time to see the little pixie poof from sight.

"God I love doing that."