Viviana Morgante, praised creator of holographic roleplay games and old friend of Riker, arrives on the Enterprise and introduces him, Deanna and Data to her latest fantasy creation. Unfortunately, the computer apparently goes nuts, cutting off the...
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[Original story formerly published in paper by the Star Trek Italian Club, which graciously granted permission to publish it digitally. Cover and drawings by Chiara Falchini.]
Chapter V
Meanwhile, inside the holodeck, or the dimension in which they had inadvertently slipped into, the four adventurers weren't able to come to terms about what had just happened. Riker sat down, a little weakened by the pain in the shoulder, and Viviana frowned.
"Deanna", she said slowly, approaching the Betazoid, "if Will has been really injured, would it be possible that you could really heal him with your magic?"
Deanna stared at her like she had gone mad, then she glanced at Riker, who was holding his arm.
"Well, the impossible already happened – Will's wounding, I mean", she reasoned, more by herself than talking to the other woman, "At this point, why not?"
She went to her friend, concentrated for a moment, then she laid her hand on his injured shoulder; he jumped involuntarily.
"Stay still, Will", she said in a reassuring tone, then murmured a word and traced a hieroglyph on the wound, touching it with feather-light fingers. Riker suddenly made a stunned face:
"Hey, the pain's gone!"
They unwrapped his shoulder and discovered the wound had disappeared, without leaving even the slightest trace of a scar, like the stabbing never occurred.
Viviana's eyes almost popped out their sockets.
"Exactly as programmed in the game!", she gasped, "When the sorcerer uses his thaumaturgy power on non-playing characters – of course, because the program does not allow injuries or illnesses of the playing characters – there is no trace left, no convalescence, no remaining weakness."
Data achieved immediately the logic conclusion:
"It seems that fantasy has become reality through and through."
The four of them stared at each other; Deanna was disquieted as she had been only a few other times in her life, and Riker and Viviana didn't feel different.
"This means we are entrapped in this imaginary world?", the Counsellor asked in a low voice. Viviana looked around, troubled.
"Yeah", she confirmed in a grim tone, "and the worst thing is, it's not only imaginary any longer."
"Yet there has to be a way out!", Riker snapped, "If only we could figure out what happened... Any idea, Data?"
"Not yet, sir", the android answered, "I have no tricorder to examine the situation, nor did I notice useful evidences, so far. Except...", he tilted his head sideward, as he did when he made some leap of imagination, what was contrary to his original, purely deductive programming, "Some microseconds before we would be assailed, I noticed a minuscule quantum fluctuation in the atoms composing the holograms, like... passing through a space-time tear. However, my inner sensors do not detect dimensional differentiations, neither in space, nor in time. Substantially, this brings me to the conclusion that we are still on board the Enterprise, but in some sort of reality bubble, different from the normal one we have set off from. We are not able to access our reality anymore, and probably those who remained there are not able to access this one."
