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“And it took a hundred years to reach the Federation?” Jim asks, scrolling through the four-line missive from Starfleet Command and wondering where the rest of it is.
He likes to think the shitshow over Altamid was the moment at which Command decided he was worth extending an olive branch to, as a captain and a hero, although Jim hates using that word, but receiving directives like this reveals a lack of confidence on both sides.
He doesn't want to question the brass, per say; despite the reputation of his formative years (his twenties, okay, he means his twenties), Jim does aspire towards a happy coexistence with the top dogs up at HQ. He wouldn't be Starfleet if he didn't think everybody could be relatively civil with a teensie bit of effort – and these orders from Command are just oozing effort.
He flips his PADD over just in case he missed something: a sticky note, a data chip, a whole other PADD.
“Correct, Captain,” says Spock. “Ninety-six years and twenty-one days to be precise.”
Jim waves his hand. “I don't think four years is going to make much of a difference to the Horizon. Even if she did manage to avoid catastrophic failure after sending the distress call, none of the crew would still be alive. We're looking for a ghost ship.”
“Who's to say she didn't just turn tail back to the planet?” Bones asks. “Maybe they tried to lay low there for a bit, wait for help to arrive.”
“Given what we know of the technological advances of the time, it is highly unlikely the crew of the Horizon believed assistance from the Federation was forthcoming,” Spock says.
“So someone else could've picked up their distress call before we did.”
“But they never made it home,” Sulu interjects. He glances at Jim; they are thinking the same thing. “The Horizon is lost. When we went down on Altamid, we did everything we could to get back again. If someone helped them, then why didn't they make contact again? Where are they?”
Bones harrumphs. “Y'all making it sound like that Krall fellow all over again,” he says, prompting grim looks from around the table. He saves an apologetic look for Jim, “Maybe we should be hoping their hull exploded or something, made ‘em all dead without feeling a thing.”
“Optimistic of you, Bones.”
He rolls his eyes at Jim's dry tone. “You said it yourself: it's been a hundred years –”
“Almost a hundred years,” Jim interrupts, before Spock can do it and undoubtedly ruffle Bones’ feathers.
“Yeah, yeah, almost, a hundred, whatever: this isn't a rescue mission. I can't be the only one who don't want to get shot outta the sky again. Three times will be taking the piss.”
“We're not getting shot out of the sky again,” Jim replies, sounding more confident than he feels. Command might beat him with that olive branch if he breaks another Enterprise, especially less than a year after she was rebuilt.
But Bones has a point. As soon as Jim climbed out of that Kelvin pod on Altamid, getting the crew back to Yorktown was the only thing on his mind. He has to assume the captain of the Horizon was of the same mind – and not, say, of Edison's mind: warmongering and without hope; or like Khan.
Desperate and afraid is a powerful combo. Not that he thinks Khan ever actually felt fear – or cared about anything except his ego.
Some people still accuse Jim of that. As though hoping he had done enough to save his crew while dying in the decontamination chamber of the warp core wasn't terrifying enough.
Well, what do they know? Jim shakes those thoughts away: there's a distress call to investigate.
“Spock, Uhura, get me all of the information you can on Sigma Iotia II, especially anything around the time the Horizon dropped by. Chekov, see if you can plot a series of theoretical courses the Horizon might have taken after she left orbit; Scotty's lot can help you out with the specs of the ship. Sulu, get us there. Stay on alert. If something looks funny, just get us out. Bones is right –”
“Of course I am.”
Jim smiles. “We don't want a repeat of Altamid. We have orders to investigate the Horizon's distress call, but that's it. With any luck, we shouldn't need to go near Sigma Iotia II and we're definitely not making ourselves known. Dismissed.”
##
To borrow a metaphor from Bones: locating the wreck of the Horizon is like trying to find a kernel in a farmer's field; near impossible, blindingly tedious, and at no point guaranteed that a chicken hasn't ambled over and eaten it.
Jim doesn't even know for certain if they are looking for a wreck. There is a chance the Horizon made it safely out of the Sigma Iotia system and crashed or thrived somewhere else, never again attempting contact with Starfleet. Maybe they chose not to or maybe they couldn't. Maybe the Horizon is another Franklin and her crew mutated and still waiting for rescue. The analysis of their distress call and Chekov’s calculations conclude it is a slim chance, but Jim supposes it is a chance.
A debris field isn't any easier to find. Even with the Enterprise's state-of-the-art technology, she is a science vessel first and a search-and-rescue vessel third, or maybe fourth. She has a much easier time locating and documenting organic material than a hundred year old shards of a ship.
“I concur,” Spock says, when Jim says as much. “In line with the crew manifest that Lieutenant Sh'vherrin has obtained, we have been scanning for Human remains. As of yet, scans have returned no results.”
“Maybe that's a good thing,” Sulu mutters, steering carefully at the helm. “Wasn't the last hundred year old person Starfleet found out in space Khan?”
“Khan was cryogenically frozen and a bastard,” says Bones, which is a ‘yes’ in the Doctor McCoy speech of holding a grudge.
“Let's loop back around to Sigma Iotia II,” Jim says, before the mood can sour at the reminder of Khan's war path. “Chekov, pick another one of your flight paths. Set a course.”
“Yessir.”
“Lieutenants,” Jim says to the communications station, where Uhura and a blue-shirted, blue-skinned archivist are deep in conversation. Lieutenant Sh'vherrin's antennae swivel around before he does. “The Iotians – What have we got?”
“It might be best to show you, Captain,” Uhura says. “The Horizon uploaded various data packets to CLUSTER while in orbit over the planet. Here's an image taken of a large settlement…”
Sigma Iotia’s surface is reminiscent of Earth. Jim knows he isn't the only one thinking that; it is the first and only thing to jump out to him from the photograph. At a guess, he would say the Iotian civilisation was pre-industrialisation as well as pre-warp (at the time of the Horizon's arrival, that is, who knows about now), although he wouldn't put money on it. Just because he can't see something he would consider a bustling capital city doesn't mean the Iotians aren't smarter, wiser, and more technologically advanced than them all.
Maybe Bones’ idea about the Horizon turning back to Sigma Iotia II isn't so far-fetched.
Then Uhura shows him the second image.
“That's Chicago,” Jim says.
“That is a composite image we took of the same location forty minutes ago.”
Jim isn't in the habit of calling bullshit on his senior staff outside of the relative privacy of his ready room or in front of the entire Bridge, but Uhura's claim is so unbelievable that he can't help himself.
“That’s the Chicago River. I know that river. I've lived near there.”
“It is a settlement that bears striking similarity to the Earthen city of Chicago,” Spock says, as though they aren't all looking at the same photograph.
“You call that striking?” Bones asks. He throws his hand towards the main viewscreen. “That's a carbon copy!”
“You’re telling me that's Sigma Iotia II?” Jim asks, his face scrunching as his crew return equally incredulous confirmations. “How? No – the Prime Directive. The Horizon visited before the Prime Directive was established. They must have interfered with the cultural development of the Iotians.”
“Interfered? That's Chicago,” says Bones. “Did they drop a tourist pamphlet into their laps?”
“Reports from the Horizon document the Iotians as an imitative species,” says Spock. “However, I can see no logical reason for a Federation vessel to dedicate vital storage capacity to ‘tourist pamphlets’.”
“Maybe it was a film,” Bones says. “Maybe they had a little sleepover. Maybe someone on board could draw Chicago from memory an’ thought, ‘hey now, ain't that a swell idea?’”
“And Command had my head for stopping a volcano,” Jim mutters. At least he had tried to be inconspicuous on Nibiru. Sure, the natives might have caught a glimpse of the Enterprise, but at least he hadn't dropped a history textbook while running for his life.
He waves Spock and Bones apart. “Gentlemen, please. Less bickering, more sciencing. I don't suppose the Iotians developed warp capacity in the last hundred years?”
The thought of Chicago as Sigma Iotia's hub for intergalactic travel is a ludicrous one. It's Chicago. Jim can't say whether he wants the answer to be yes or no.
“Initial scans do not indicate such,” says Spock.
“Fantastic,” says Jim, feeling anything but. He loves his job, really. Really really really. Some days, he's even paid enough to look his past mistakes dead in the eye.
If he could go back in time and redo Nibiru, he would. He would be less trusting of Khan and more wary of Atlamid. He would never have wrecked his ship on a planet so far away from home.
He hopes they find the Horizon. He hopes they met a swift and decisive end, and didn't suffer, and didn't turn into Edison or Khan.
“Let's keep our distance. Chekov, maintain course. Uhura, shout if you hear any radio beacons. I can't imagine the battery life on those things will last a hundred years, but who knows. We're still working under the assumption the Horizon broke up before attempting an emergency landing. If anyone can find me evidence otherwise, then we'll have to take a closer look at Sigma Iotia II.”
##
There is a crash site.
“Fifty kilometres out,” says Sulu, bringing it up onto the viewscreen. “Chicago would have seen it come down.”
“Poor suckers,” says Bones. It is not entirely clear who he means: the Horizon, the Iotians, or the away team Jim is no doubt going to have to send down.
“Launch probes,” Jim orders. He hits a button on his chair. “Scotty, I need a small team to investigate the wreck of the Horizon and give me their best guess at what went down. She's planetside. Brief your men, but no-one's beaming down until we’ve got a clearer picture of what’s going on. Uhura, schedule a senior officer's meeting as soon as those probes are flying.”
“Yes sir.”
“I dinnae suppose we could gather the debris in the cargo hold, Captain? I could have a lot more eyes on it for yer then.”
As much as Jim would like that, “I think the Iotians would notice us beaming one of their relics out of existence.”
“Relics!” Scotty cries, loud enough that everybody on the Bridge hears him. “We don't know if she's that, sir.”
The Horizon wreck could be an Iotian jungle gym for all they know. Jim rubs his forehead, reminding himself that he loves his job, even when it feels like he spends sixty percent of it cleaning up other people's mess.
“She might be to them,” he says. “She's been there a hundred years: that's a piece of their history. Your men can look, Scotty, but we can't remove anything from the site. Understood?”
“Aye sir. I was just hoping to get me hands on her, that's all.”
“You can put yourself on the away team if you want, Scotty.”
“No offence, sir, but those English bastards'll have me first.”
Jim spins around to the communications station. “Lieutenant Sh'vherrin, please ensure Commander Spock has everything you’ve compiled on the Horizon’s visit to the planet. Spock, I want a comprehensive overview of Iotian society ready for the meeting, along with any hypotheses you have based on initial probe readings. Bones –”
He finally turns to his oldest friend, who is rocking back onto his heels in anticipation. Jim sighs.
“Just get it off your chest.”
“You had to say if!” Bones cries, the floodgates stuck open somewhere between outraged and amused. “Murphy's law, that one, Jim! And now we're going to beam down and risk the Prime Directive all over again!”
“Are you putting yourself onto the away team, Bones?”
“Damn straight I am. You got another coroner on board? Besides, it's not like Spock'll let you beam down on your own and someone's gotta keep you two outta trouble.”
What a gratifying vote of confidence from his Chief Medical Officer, truly. Jim tries not to smile too much.
“Well, I can't argue with that.”
“On the contrary, Captain,” Spock interjects. “There is substantial evidence to refute this claim. Statistically, Doctor McCoy's presence correlates with an increased likelihood of an away team encountering unscheduled dissonance resulting in retreat.”
“I'll show you unscheduled dissonance,” Bones warns. “I think you've ignored some extraneous variables in your calculations there: I'm a doctor!”
“I am well aware –”
“Gentlemen,” Jim interrupts, laughing at their age-old push and pull: Bones’ thunder and Spock's unshakeable desert waves. “Save it for the ready room. We'll all beam down and keep each other out of trouble, agreed?”
“As though that has ever worked,” Chekov stage-whispers, making Sulu laugh.
##
The Science department assures him that the atmosphere of Sigma Iotia II is comfortably hospitable for Humans, but that doesn't stop a sweat prickling at the base of Jim's neck when they beam down.
He is ninety-five percent certain, in his case, that the safety of his crew and integrity of the Prime Directive are the reasons for the narrowing of his throat, although the same cannot be said for Bones, whose worries exists on another plane entirely to Jim's and are currently honed in on the collar of his shirt.
“How in god's name am I supposed to work in this thing?” he asks, fussing with the knot of his tie as the away team navigates the hill to the crash site.
It is, perhaps for simplicity's sake, an away team of well-dressed, if extremely dated, men. Procurement had not been impressed with the last minute request for seven period-accurate pinstripe suits – apparently the Enterprise isn't programmed to replicate British wool, who knew – and had outright refused to produce a wardrobe of nineteen-twenties womenswear in anything less than twenty-four hours, unless you all want tennis skirts, sir.
So, the suits. Jim has worn a fair number of suits in his life, mostly for Starfleet, and mostly his dress uniform, but never one with a tie or a fedora.
“It’s a precaution, Bones. Just in case we’re spotted.”
“Spotted, sure. You ain't letting that happen. Why is this waistcoat so itchy?”
In Bones’ defence, Jim isn't altogether pleased about the dress code either. He wishes the shoes were more practical. One wrong step on a rock and he feels like he might break his ankle. If Sigma Iotia’s hospitals are just as time-warped as the rest of the planet then landing himself in one is the last thing he'll need. Bones would break every rule in the Prime Directive just to get him some proper medical care.
Sigma Iotia II hasn't just rebuilt Chicago from the ground up, they have done it early twentieth century style. If anybody except Spock had broken the news during the senior officer's meeting, Jim would have assumed it was a joke.
Hopefully, fifty kilometres out is far enough to avoid detection from the Iotians. For now, the crash site appears deserted, but even from the top of the hill, looking down upon the crater the Horizon created as she slammed into the ground, Jim can see that people have been here to tear through her for scrap.
“Kirk to Enterprise. Still got eyes on us?”
“Eyes and ears,” Sulu replies. “Tell the Doc he's won me ten credits.”
Jim swivels around to see Bones with a thunderous expression, stuffing his Macclesfield tie into his pocket.
“One word, Jim, and I'll strangle you with it.”
Jim shares a look with Spock, who looks impeccable in a brown suit, and utterly unfazed (Vulcans, man), and then says to his communicator, “Keep a lookout while we head inside. I'll check in on the half hour.”
They trek down into the crater. There is more to look at, after a hundred years, than Jim was expecting. The hollowed hull reminds him of following Chekov into the smoking remains of the Enterprise on Altamid, unsure of what he will find. She had seemed an entirely different ship, laying in that earth: blackened and shot to pieces, a downed animal instead of a home.
He and Spock had flown back to Altamid, afterwards, to oversee the recovery efforts. Jim had been hospitalised after Khan's attack on San Francisco and hadn't seen the Vengeance raised. As he watched the Enterprise's disk dangle on those steel cables, a small part of him had been glad Marcus had died before he saw what became of his ship. The Enterprise, at least, was rebuilt on Yorktown. The Vengeance was torn down for parts.
“Spock. Know your way around a Daedalus class?”
Spock lifts his eyes and brows to the spherical decks of the Horizon’s main body, through which light and dust is filtering down. It is an oddly designed ship. Jim isn't sure what Starfleet was thinking, attaching engines to a gigantic ping-pong ball, but maybe people will be saying that about the Enterprise's disk shaped hull in a hundred years time.
“I studied the blueprints from Lietuenant Sh'vherrin,” Spock replies. “However, I believe much of it is redundant. Many of the lower decks appear to have been crushed at the moment of impact: we have entered on the eleventh deck.”
Jim hadn't noticed; he doesn't have a Vulcan’s superior vision. It is gloomy here, even with Sigma Iotia’s red sun spilling through the wreckage. The once silver walls are green with moss and rust. An engineer flicks on a torch as the team ventures further in.
Jim hangs back, and Spock stays with him. He trusts Scotty's men to do their work without micromanagement, and he trusts Bones will wander off no matter what anyone says.
“Eleven decks, huh? Do you think we can reach the Bridge?” Jim asks.
“With significant risk, yes,” Spock says. “It is unlikely to be functional.”
“Functional isn't really the point. Which way, do you think?”
Spock clasps his hands behind his back: his way of sighing, and it makes Jim smile. Then, despite clearly disapproving of misadventure, he steps forward to take the lead on the search for the Bridge.
“This way, Captain.”
##
“Definitely been ransacked,” Jim says, running his fingers over the broken consoles on the flight deck.
All of the buttons and wires are gone, the screens, the intercom, even the cushions from the chairs. Scratches on the surface suggest they were cut or yanked out by inexperienced hands. Anything left looks like it was destroyed in the crash and deemed too useless to salvage. The communications station is almost unrecognisable. Everything is covered in dust except for the jumbled evidence of footsteps, four sets, which must be fresh.
“Still pulling it apart, even after a hundred years…” Jim says, patting the Horizon sympathetically. “Do you think anyone survived the crash?”
“It is a possibility,” says Spock. “We have not encountered any Human remains.”
That’s true. Jim hadn't noticed that, either, so intent on finding the Bridge, but now it seems obvious.
He flips open his communicator. “Kirk to McCoy. Bones, should there be… bodies?”
“Skeletons, if anything,” Bones replies, his voice crackling around the hallowed Bridge. “And yeah, there's a bunch of them. They're all piled down here.”
Jim winces. “No grave?”
“I can have a look outside in a mo, but no. Just a pile. Guessing the Iotians didn't know nothing about Human burial practices. Or didn't care.”
“Contemporary reports from the Horizon did not indicate any animosity between the Iotians and the crew,” says Spock, stepping close enough to be heard.
“Just calling it like I see it, Spock.”
“We're on our way down,” Jim says, regretting this wayward trip to the Bridge. He should have stayed at ground zero with the crew. “Discover whatever you can about them but – Bones, we can't bury them now. The Prime Directive –”
“I know, I know. It's just a damn shame.”
Navigating back down from the flight deck is slow labour. Jim isn't in his twenties anymore (thank god) but he keeps himself in shape. Spock is, of course, a Vulcan, and thus naturally gifted at everything: superior eyesight, superior strength, he's taller than Jim, slimmer, no nonsense. One twitch of those eyebrows intimidates the ruined decks into clearing the way.
It still takes time. Jim stops somewhere in the twisted bowels of deck seven to check in with the ship. He watches Spock poke around with his sci-tri while Sulu rattles off an update.
They collect two of the engineers from deck nine, and find the last exploring head first in a Jefferies tube on deck ten. Jim doesn't bother asking who wandered off from whom: he knows.
Bones has managed to squeeze himself through the worst of the damage on deck eleven and into a semi-open space. Judging by the enormous gash in the ceiling, Jim imagines it is not supposed to be open. He casts his gaze around what might have been a rec deck or a canteen and thinks he can hear birdsong, rustling, and the faint twitter of birds.
“Nest up there,” Bones says.
Jim is more interested in the pile of skeletons on the floor. And it is definitely a pile. He would say the bodies were laid here deliberately, rather than all of them having the misfortune of dying in the same place.
He wonders who they were. There is no way to tell.
“How many people are we talking?”
“Couple dozen,” Bones replies. “Hard to say without taking the time to sort the bones. Not the whole crew though, that's for certain.”
“So there's still the possibility of survivors?”
“Captain, there's evidence some of them might have escaped,” says one of the engineers, pointing towards a jagged opening in the hull. “These marks – I think the plating was broken in order to widen the gap. From the inside, I mean. Here and here.”
They trundle over the wreckage: Jim, Bones, and the squeamish engineers trying not to look at the skeletons. Spock is already up in the next layer of mangled metal, inspecting the bird nest.
“Tight fit,” Bones mutters. He scans the plates with his tricorder. “Traces of organic material. Might need to check outside.”
“I will accompany you,” Spock calls.
“Not if you jump down from there and break your foot.”
“An unlikely occurrence, Doctor.” He drops down and lands with a thump. The floor shakes so hard that Jim feels it rattle his teeth. One of the birds peeps over its nest to see what all the noise is about.
Jim rocks his jaw. “Don't go far. And be quick. Keep your tricorders out of sight.”
That leaves Jim and the engineers. And the bodies. He hasn't got a chance of figuring anything out about the skeletons that Bones couldn't, so Jim turns his attention to his men.
“Gentlemen. What have you found?”
##
Jim's communicator beeps not long later: an alert from the ship. He flips it open.
“Captain, we've spotted a party of Iotians approaching your area,” says Sulu. “Four kilometres out.”
“Ping Spock's comm,” he orders, waving for the engineers to follow. “On foot?”
“No sir, vehicles. The oldest looking cars I've ever seen. There's no indication they know you’re there.”
Jim isn't taking that chance. “Prepare for beam out. Spock!”
“We are here, Captain.”
Dust and dirt scatter across the floor as they climb back inside of the ship: first Bones, slipping on an old pipe, and then Spock, steadying him. Spock hangs back as Jim herds the engineers, scanning what little of Sigma Iotia II can be seen beyond the Horizon.
“Trouble?” Bones asks.
“Not yet,” Jim replies. “We're ready, Sulu. Energise.”
They blink in and out of existence. Jim feels a knot of tension loosen in his chest. He steps off the transporter pad and beelines to the intercom to update the Bridge.
“All clear,” Sulu reports. “Welcome back aboard.”
“Glad to be back,” Bones mutters, wrestling with his suit jacket. He throws it at Spock and gets straight to popping buttons. “Can't wait to get out of these darn –”
“Meeting in ten, Sulu. My ready room. Bones!” Jim spins away from the intercom, flashing a grin. “Don't bother changing. You too, Spock. Come on.”
Bones’ face goes through at least two of the stages of grief, maybe three. “We're not going back down there?”
“I believe we are,” says Spock. He folds Bones’ jacket over his arm, nonplussed about the assignment as ‘coat stand’ by their cantankerous CMO. “We discovered further evidence on the outside hull to support the hypothesis of survivors.”
“I know we did but –”
“Then you’ve volunteered yourself to give another presentation in my ready room, Spock,” Jim interrupts, sensing a lengthy lecture on the horizon. There is a time and a place; preferably, not within reach of Bones. “Ten minutes, gentlemen, dismissed. And if either of you are running to the canteen, can you grab me a coffee?”
He would run down there himself but the Bridge is where the action's at. And he really does hate these shoes.
Accuracy be damned, he is going to change into comfier boots before beaming back down.
##
“And yer sure it's a good idea?” Scotty asks.
“We were sent here to find out what happened to the Horizon and her crew,” Jim replies, instead of saying no, not really. “If there were any survivors, then we owe it to them to see this through.”
“But the risks, lad –”
“I know the risks,” Jim says, a bite to his voice. He knew them before Nibiru, too, but thought himself above them: the youngest captain in Starfleet history.
He counts to five before continuing, calmer, “Better than anyone, I think. The Prime Directive demands no identification of self or mission, no references to other worlds or civilisations, and no interference with the social or technological development of the planet. That about cover it?”
Everybody at the table looks to Spock, who says, “Yes Captain.”
“And let's be honest, it's all pointless anyway,” Jim adds, trying for levity. “Not that I have any intention of breaking those rules, but the Horizon's done all that. We've just got to try and not make it worse.”
Again, the table looks to Spock. He nods.
“A crude summary, but accurate. There are multiple definitions of the term ‘interference’, all of which are detailed in the directive's appendices. I can list them, if desired.”
“I think we get the gist,” says Bones. “Don't stick your nose into the Iotians’ business and interfere with anything they've got going on. Easy.”
“Again, a crude summary,” says Spock. “Furthermore, it is redundant to make use of the word in an attempt to define said word –”
“You understood what I meant.”
“More primitive beings than I could have understood you, Doctor.”
“Primitive! Now listen here you –”
Jim watches credit chips swap hands under the table. There is probably a directive about promoting gambling and another one about letting his CMO and XO go at each other's throats for fun, but he says nothing, enjoying the show.
Never let it be said that he does nothing for his crew.
##
The Enterprise beams them into an empty warehouse on the north side of the river: Jim, Spock, Bones, and Lieutenant Hendorff, who looks just about as miserable in his suit as Bones does, but twice as burly.
Hendorff takes point as they step out into the streets of not-Chicago – except that it is Chicago, the historic city Jim once worked and studied in, her clocks rewound by two hundred years.
“Two hundred and thirty-six years, approximately,” Spock corrects, more interested in the oblivious flow of city goers than the startlingly accurate replica of the Reid Murdoch building on the riverfront.
Jim tears his eyes away from that sheen of sunlit windows to try and figure out who or what nearby has allowed Spock to make that estimate. As an ex-local, he likes to think he knows more about Chicago than anyone else on the crew.
“Spock, you can't correct my approximation with another approximation. Most Humans would be up in arms if you did that to them.”
“I consider it an educated guess, Captain, based on the prevalence of particular items of clothing in the crowd around us. The cloche hat was popular at this time.”
There are a lot of women wearing variations of the same colourful, bell-shaped hat. Many of the Iotian women have short hair, too, and boxy jackets over pleated skirts, which is not how Jim remembers the Roaring Twenties from film.
“It would hide your ears better,” Bones says. “Not sure how well you'd fare all gussied up like a flapper though.”
“We should endeavour not to find out,” says Spock.
Jim looks closer at the crowd. They look Human, too, which he wasn't expecting. The Horizon's physical descriptions of the Iotians were lacking – or lost with the ship.
He will be the first to admit and regret that, without much in the way of documentation, he imagined a bipedal species similar to Humans, Vulcans, or Andorians, but assuming it and seeing it are two entirely different things.
“Correct me if I'm wrong…”
“They're not Human,” Bones says, a medical tricorder beeping quietly behind Hendorff's frankly envious back. “Look it though, don't they?”
Jim turns to Spock. “When you said ‘imitative’...?”
“We have encountered species with remarkable abilities before,” he says. “Further study is required.”
They split up, agreeing to rendezvous at the Reid Murdoch building in three hours: Jim and Spock to the city hall, and Bones and Hendorff to Cook County Hospital, or the nearest medical centre they can find. Hopefully it is equipped to heal Iotians, rather than Humans, whatever sort of replica it is.
The city hall is only a few blocks away. Jim isn't expecting to find anything of use there, but it is as good a place to start their search as any. If they are lucky, there might be mention of the Horizon in the public foyer, a statue or monument to bounce ideas from, or even just a plaque with a name.
If they are unlucky, the site of the city hall will be a flame-eaten wreck, shot full of holes.
“Ah,” says Jim.
He tips his hat back to get a better look at the damage. The hall's foundations are still standing, but the rest of the building is black wood, scorched stone, and soot. It was not a small building by any means, either: twelve floors, torn down by flame.
He makes to step up to what used to be the front door, but Spock stops him.
“Jim. It is unlikely the local populace is unaware of this incident. Perhaps it would be wise to keep moving.”
Jim steps back, lowering the brim of his hat. “Right you are, Mister Spock. Let's walk.”
They stroll around the block, Jim's hands in his pockets, assessing whatever he can of the city hall's remains. Nobody else gives the ruin a second glance, not even Spock, who has gone back to watching the crowd: watching for anybody watching them. Cars tumble past unawares: cream open-top coupes and rattling sedans.
“Looks recent,” Jim mutters. It smells recent: smoke and ash in the air, and another hot, fatty smell he doesn't want to name. The building probably burned for a day or more on its own, so for the scent to linger… “If they were using this as a governmental building…”
He wonders how many people died in the shooting, or lay dying and unable to escape, their bodies burned to ashes in the fire. He had been fortunate to escape Khan’s attack on the Daystrom room, and the truth is, Jim hardly remembers the attack, but he remembers the way the light from Khan’s ship sliced in through the windows.
“I'm beginning to suspect it's not just the nineteen-twenties’ aesthetics the Iotians have copied,” Jim mutters. He turns away from the bullet-ridden wall and watches a blue sedan roll past. “Anything, Spock?”
“Negative, Captain. However, many of the local populace are carrying what appear to be firearms.”
Jim had noticed that one. These suits aren't exactly designed for concealed carry – at least, not the types of weapons the Iotians are bearing. Jim has a phaser hidden away, just in case. It would be a violation of the Prime Directive just to draw it, let alone shoot one of the native population. He hopes it won't come to that.
“Let's try the library,” Jim suggests, not wanting to linger. Bones will have his head if he gets himself shot. “I'm sure I saw the Cultural Center on the map. If there's a local guide book anywhere, it's got to be there.”
##
“Ah,” says Spock, not looking at the grand architecture of the main library – or the Cultural Center, as Jim knows it; the building still stands Earthside Chicago today – but at the little square of planters and benches before it, all in states of disrepair.
At the centre, there is a statue of a man looking past the Millenium Park and up to the sky. He is wearing the Starfleet arrow. Jim circles it, no doubt looking even less inconspicuous than before.
“Captain Walsh, I'm guessing. Not quite the pose I'd take if I crash landed here. Look, there's a plaque.” He reads: “In memory of the one hundred and ninety crewmen who lost their lives in the crash of the USS Horizon, stardate 2168.126. But that's the whole crew.”
“Indeed,” says Spock. “Perhaps the survivors of the initial impact later died from their injuries. That is a possible explanation as to why the ship was left in such a state of disrepair.”
“And the bodies,” Jim agrees, his mouth souring.
He wonders if Captain Walsh was one of the survivors, only to die in the days after, devastated by the fates of his crew.
There was once a time Jim thought all captains should go down with their ships. It only seemed fair, after all, if killing a majority of your friends, family, and crew was the price. He is lucky to have had Sulu to shove him into a Kelvin pod.
“Damn,” Jim says. “I thought someone might have survived.”
Now, he really wants to see if there are any contemporary records from the crash. The hospital must have treated the crew – or tried to. That seems like the only place to check.
“Come on. Let’s hope Bones has managed to sweet talk his way into –”
The screech of tyres, a crack! from an exhaust. Spock reacts faster than Jim does, dragging him away from the sidewalk as a car veers through the intersection, scattering animals and pedestrians, and throwing smoke into the road.
Men dangle from the coupe. Firearms p-pop-poppop. The car skids around the next block, leaving a black trail of tyremarks and bloodied pavements in its wake. Jim lurches into the road and catches a glimpse of a blue sedan, and then only the victims of its drive-by.
Two men lay on the sidewalk, one of them gurgling. Even from the road, Jim can see the stains of their blood – it is sprayed all over the path and the side of the library, and the smell is intense. An uninjured third man wearing a matching brown suit, as though it is a uniform, throws himself onto the ground and starts rummaging through the dying man's clothes.
At first, Jim assumes he is attempting to stop the bleeding – but no, the man pulls a hand pistol, a wallet, and a blood-soaked packet of cigars from his compatriot, and then scrambles to his feet.
He catches Jim's eye – grim sobriety and disbelief staring back at one another – and then he legs it down the street.
“Hey!” Jim shouts. He tries to pursue, but once again, Spock's quick thinking stops him.
“Captain, we must not intervene.”
“I know that!” He yanks himself free but does not give chase to the thieving man. The other two lay dead; a crowd is drawing near. “Fuck! Forget the library, come on.”
They move on once again, more hastily this time. The adrenaline propels Jim all the way back towards the river, shaking and seething, and on high alert for any grey-suited, sedan-driving men.
The red bricks of the Reid Murdoch building reappear along the riverwalk. Jim looks up at the clock face, hoping more time has passed than he thinks: Bones and Hendorff could be waiting for them already, blissfully unaware of the shit going down in this city.
No such luck. He would be able to hear that Southern drawl from across the river, he is sure. Chicago's choppy waters are a trickle of a stream in comparison to Bones’ voice when he is worried or mad.
Jim leans against the railing separating him and that icy water. There is hardly anybody else around but it feels too exposed here, his voice carrying down the river. But the press of wet air is enough to cool his rush of adrenaline and remind him of where they are. It doesn't smell like the Chicago he knows, not really. This river runs into Sigma Iotia's largest sea; he can smell the salt, and hear gulls cry.
“We should head back to the ship,” Jim decides. “Blending in and snooping around is one thing, but risking our lives is another. If the Horizon's logs had said anything about the Iotians being an aggressive species…”
“They did not,” Spock says. “However, it is likely that many of the logs –”
A car door slams, startling them both. It is not the blue sedan but a smaller car up on the bridge, and a small woman steps out. Against the grey-brown backdrop of Chicago, she is a spot of colour in a red dress and sprangling of gold bangles, and she leans over the railing of the bridge in much the same way as Jim.
“Hey fellas!” She twirls a key around her finger as she calls down to them, nonplussed by the honking of traffic maneuvering around her hastily parked car. “You the meat Krako's greasers out shootin’ at?”
Jim should have double-checked the language banks before beaming down. His blank face must say it all, for the woman laughs.
“Thought so.” She thumbs towards her car. “Get in or get lead, your choice.”
##
Riding shotgun is a familiar face: the blood-knelt gentleman who lifted his friend's pockets after the drive-by. He sizes them up as they slide along the backseat of the car.
“That's them all right,” he says, a cigar bobbing in his mouth. The thick smog of tobacco doesn't do much to mask the scent of blood.
The car makes a horrible crunching sound as the woman puts it into gear. “Got eyes ain't I? Do something useful with yours and gun for that sedan.”
The man bears his teeth around the butt of the cigar. He looks back at Jim and Spock instead of following the order, and he is rewarded with his head bouncing off the headrest as the woman slams the car down the street.
“Watch it, doll! The Boss don't need your sort of trouble on top o’the rest of this shit!”
She sneers at him. “You don't know nothing ‘bout the Boss, Kalo. I didn't peel your sorry mug off the sidewalk ‘cause I wanted to, did I? I know what the Boss needs and it ain't more lightning –”
While the two Iotians are arguing, Jim flashes a set of Starfleet hand signs in his lap. Friend or foe?
Unclear, Spock replies, just as silently. The man is armed.
It seems like everyone in this city carries a weapon, including Jim. The phaser in his jacket is significantly more dangerous than anything the Iotians might be packing, and he stews on the possibility of having to turn out his pockets once they arrive – wherever it is the Iotians are intending to take them.
Discreetly, he tries the door handle on his side. He doesn't pull it open all the way, but just enough to feel the slack in the mechanism and conclude it isn't locked. He keeps his face neutral and flashes another message:
Jump out?
Significant risk of injury at this speed, Spock replies. He considers the traffic whizzing past and the woman's erratic driving, and then says aloud, “Ma'am, I have several questions. To begin with, would you please slow down?”
She laughs. “Ain't nobody slowing down in this city, baby. Save your questions for the Boss; he'll make time for you.”
She throws the car around an intersection, cutting the curb. Thu-dump goes the wheels and Kalo's head into the window. Then she hits the brake hard, launching everyone but herself from their seats. The car skids into a side alley and goes dark.
Jim blinks at the sudden change in light. The car drums to a halt near the door of a warehouse, which quickly cranks open and permits them in. He reaches for the door handle again and knows he has to make a snap decision: stay or go. Run or play along. Risk his and Spock's lives or more.
Bones and Hendorff are still out in the city. Jim's phaser is in his jacket, and his comm. He isn't wearing any Starfleet insignia but something tells him that doesn't matter: his gut, maybe, although he suspects there is another factor at play.
Fuck. He went back for Spock on Nibiru. He may have learned one lesson that day, but not that one.
He lets go of the handle. He gestures wait to Spock. Then he smiles at the Iotians and says, “I guess we better speak to him, then. Lead the way.”
##
The warehouse backs onto a row of three-tiered offices, just as narrow as they are tall, with shutters pulled down over the windows. The Iotians lead them through a set of heavy-set wooden doors and into a parlor-like space: rugs line the floorboards and soft lamps glow in corners. A pool table occupies a large space, and behind it, oak bookshelves stand guard along the wall. Art and newspaper clippings hang in frames.
Another pair of men approach, weapons drawn. They are wearing identical brown suits and each has a fedora on his head; one of them tips it back to wolf-whistle, presumably at the woman, but judging by Spock's twitch of surprise, maybe not.
“These numbers been frisked?” the other asks.
Kalo starts to reply but the woman interrupts, “They're harmless. Get the Boss.”
The bodyguards huff but don't argue. One of them raps his knuckle on a smaller door across the room. The other one eyes Spock's fedora with a wrinkle in his brow.
A greying man in a pair of black glasses strides out of the back room. He has a split in his lip that opens when he sees Jim and Spock, and then closes when he sees Kalo still covered in blood.
“He hit us, Boss,” says Kalo.
“Then hit him back,” says the Boss in a gruff voice; worn from cigar smoke or shouting, or maybe something worse. He clicks his fingers and Kalo steps back out of the parlor, still in his sorry state. “The rest of you, dangle!”
The other men file out, leaving Jim, Spock, and the woman with the Boss. He opens his arms for the woman to drape herself into, and she does so without a word, her bangles and earrings jingling, and her little red dress riding up.
Jim averts his eyes, but not before he sees something in her gaze that makes his hackles rise.
“Now, you two,” says the Boss, plucking a cue stick from the table and pointing it at Jim and Spock. “You two ain't one of mine. That lout Krako had enough of you?”
“Sure, if I'd ever met the guy,” Jim snarks, hoping he has the right read of the room. “Judge, jury, and executioner is a hell of a first impression.”
“Country boys, are ya? Well, you ain't gotta worry about that with me. The northside's my territory, and it knows Bela Oxmyx is a reasonable man. Pick up a cue, let's play.”
Jim reluctantly grabs a cue stick. He hasn't played pool for a hot second – not since the Academy, when he frequently trounced Bones at Harts.
Oxmyx goes first. He presses the woman against the pool table and aims around her. He is barely able to line-up his shot but shoots anyway, over-confident and grinning, and bending her so far backwards that she clings to his neck with her manicured nails.
Her laughter is more of a squeal than a truth. It doesn't marry up with the woman who threatened Jim and Spock into her car.
“Perhaps Mister Oxmyx will deem it reasonable to answer the question as to why we are here,” Spock says in a clipped tone. “And if he will allow me to extrapolate: as the city hall is on the southside of the river and therefore is not a part of his territory, is he responsible for its current state?”
“Funny talker, aren't you? You really are a country boy. I’m Mister Oxmyx. You can ask me those questions!”
Spock inclines his head – carefully. That hat is the only thing hiding his ears. “I already have.”
Oxmyx laughs. “What Krako does with his side of things ain't no business of mine – unless he makes it my business, and then that's all on him. You wanna be on that side of business?”
“What kind of business?” Jim asks.
Cli-dunk. A billiard ball drops into a hole.
“The only business,” Oxmyx replies. He clicks his fingers at the woman. “Pour the man a drink, kitten. You know, she's the one who took a slant at you. Like I said, I'm a reasonable man; and she's got the eye for these things.”
The woman slips into the back office and returns with a dark bottle of sherry, which she pours into three glasses. She hands one to Spock and one to Oxmyx, and then she takes a swig for herself from the bottle and presses the last one into Jim's hand, pressing him up against the table, pressing her chest against his, her bracelets to his hips, and her mouth to the shell of his ear.
“Uh –!” Jim tries, drink in one hand and cue in the other. The edge of the table digs into his back. He turns his face away from her ruby red mouth and wonders if it would break the Prime Directive to tip his glass all over her head.
“Don't be shy,” she says, much to Oxymx's amusement. His laughter drowns out most of her voice, especially when she lowers it to whisper, “I know where you're from, country boy.”
She pops open the two buttons on his jacket and slides her hands inside. Jim's heart hammers as she fingers at the butt of his phaser, her face pressed into his shoulder, golden eyeshadow glimmering in the corner of his gaze.
“How ‘bout a drink with me, spaceman? You can tell me why my family ain't allowed to take the run-out into your stars.”
##
The eight-ball game does not continue. The woman makes a show of cosying up to Jim and Jim's clothes (and Jim's phaser, still holstered, whenever he moves) until Oxmyx abandons the business speech and waves them out of the room.
The girl wants what she wants, is all he says about it, laughing and grumbling, somehow amused and enraged. For a moment, it seems as though he might lash out with the cue stick, or put his hands on Jim himself in a less pleasurable but just as threatening way, but then he appears to remember himself or his facade, and swears. I'm a reasonable man!
The woman drags Jim back into the foyer and up the stairs. He is loath to leave Spock on his own and no doubt confused, so he flashes a hand sign as they scramble past and hopes to hell Spock notices it and obeys.
The woman shoves him into a lounge. The decor is plush and green, expensive, and the couch is soft. There is a bar for entertaining guests and shelves upon shelves of wine, sherry, and liquor. It is a bold declaration for the Prohibition era, if that is the kind of business Oxmyx meant, but Jim doesn't have the time to ponder. The woman rips his phaser out from beneath his jacket and flips it about in her hand.
“You still callin’ this a ‘phaser’?”
Jim imagines the next thirty seconds playing out: him, in this stupid suit and tie, sprawled across this couch in this knock-off speakeasy, smeared with sherry and lipstick, and shot by his own phaser. He could tell the truth or lie.
He sits up. The woman watches him but doesn't aim the phaser at him; she seems more interested in it than him.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I got ears as well as eyes, don't I?” she snaps. She flicks the phaser to kill and then back to stun, making Jim's heart skip a beat. “You lot spent a hundred years making this crap shiny instead of comin’ to fix your mess?”
The door clicks open, revealing Spock. The woman points the phaser at him.
“Close the door. ‘Less you want the Boss gettin’ his hands on this thing. It wouldn't take much to show him how to use it.”
Spock hesitates for a moment, searching Jim's face. Then, satisfied with whatever he sees, he closes the door behind him and walks over to the couch, the phaser tracking him all the while.
“She knows,” Jim says.
Spock folds his arms behind his back in parade-rest. He doesn't look impressed from beneath the brim of his hat, but then, he rarely does.
“What, precisely, does she know?”
“I know you're Humans,” she says. “From Starfleet. You were snooping around our ship! Ain't nobody allowed over there without the say-so from my family.”
How she knows these things is one question, and what she may know is another. Jim doesn't have the answer to either of those questions when Spock glances at him for guidance.
We're winging it. If Jim concentrates hard enough, maybe Spock's telepathy will catch it for a home run.
“The USS Horizon is a Starfleet vessel,” Spock says to the woman. Those eyebrows of his are probably twerking, if Jim felt like looking away from the phaser to check. “It does not belong –”
“Don't treat me like I know nothin’,” she spits. “I know you was looking for it; you should have been looking for us!”
“There were survivors,” Jim says, thinking of the Kelvin and realising what it is in her face he recognises. “You're related to Captain Walsh.”
She does not smile. “My great-grandfather.”
“Jesus. You're Human.”
Ha! she cries, stepping up and over the coffee table, scattering magazines, ash trays, and ashes. She jams the phaser into his face.
“I'm not some chump you can lie to, spaceman. You knew! You knew and never came! We send out messages every year –”
“Messages? Who? How many of you are there?” Then Jim remembers the state of the Horizon's Bridge: the ransacked communications station and the missing tech. “You took the ship's radio.”
“My mother did,” she says, beautiful and proud, her gold bangles clattering like shackles. “My great-grandfather just left it there. Left it all there. He saw what his books did to this planet and gave up! Now Oxmyx and Krako are wavin’ their dicks around, running the place.”
That is too much to unpack. Someone needs to roll the Prime Directive into a tube and start smacking Jim with it.
His face scrunches in an attempt not to give too much away. “And I’m guessing you don’t want that.”
She clicks the phaser around again: stun to kill and kill to stun.
“Please, this place is a dive. I want out. It's all just a big con to them, ain't it? They're Iotians. Imitators. They can't dream a dream you don't put in front of them. You’re going back to your ship, right? Take me with you.”
Spock starts to argue but Jim holds up his hand, speaking first. Upholding the Prime Directive is his responsibility as captain, after all.
“We can't do that.”
The woman doesn't seem surprised by this response. Captain Walsh was a realistic man.
“Then give me what I need to take the run-out," she says, almost pleading. "It’s that fancy engine, isn't it? He called it a warp coil.”
“We can't give you anything,” says Jim, holding up his hands in what he hopes is a pacifying gesture even in the nineteen-twenties. “Not even knowledge. And even if we could, you have to understand, we haven't come equipped. Starfleet has only just received the Horizon's distress call. We didn't even know she'd crashed.”
Right, she sneers. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I wish I was lying to you. I wish there weren't rules I have to follow. I know what it's like to want to leave a place – to escape.”
“But you have!” she cries.
"Look," Jim tries. “Just – What’s your name?”
She grits her teeth as tight as the phaser. “Líadan.”
“Líadan,” Jim repeats, praying she sees the same thing in his face that he sees in hers. “The other messages won't have reached Starfleet yet. We are – a long, long way from home.”
Her dark eyes sparkle like the bottles on the wall, all waiting for something, beautiful, glass. She tosses her head as he continues speaking: stop, says the shake of the phaser, stop.
Jim does not stop. He says, “I'm so sorry, Líadan. We should have come. We would have come, I promise you. But given what we know of Sigma Iotia II now, no one else is coming. Not from Starfleet.”
Líadan's young face contorts with rage. She gestures the phaser towards – something, anything, Jim has no idea; Spock twists her wrist and pinches her neck, and the phaser clatters to the floor almost as quickly as she does, strings cut into Spock's arms.
Jim had almost forgotten the phaser. He had been shot through by the betrayed look in Líadan's eyes. Those eyes are closed now, makeup smudged, but still Jim looks to them as Spock lays Líadan on the couch.
“Should I have given her hope?”
“In my experience, Humans do not respond well to falsehoods, even those they have constructed on their own,” Spock replies.
He arranges Líadan neatly – like a corpse, god – and then collects the phaser, returning it to Jim.
“We should rendezvous with Doctor McCoy and Lieutenant Hendorff and then return to the Enterprise.”
“Spock, she's Captain Walsh's great-granddaughter.”
“She is native to this planet. The Prime Directive applies.”
Goddamn the Prime Directive. They never should have come down here. They should have conducted their survey shipside and then reported back to HQ without ever stepping foot on Sigma Iotia II. Jim is supposed to have learned something from Nibiru.
“Do you think the Iotians know?” he asks, gesturing to Líadan, gesturing to the however-many other descendants there are of the Horizon crew. The plaque had said all of them died.
“I do not believe so,” says Spock. “The Iotians are described as an imitative species. All surviving records from the Horizon suggest relations were amicable – perhaps too amicable. I suspect the Iotians may have, to an unhealthy degree, idolised the crew.”
Líadan had implied something similar. And, well, just look around: nineteen-twenties Chicago, a carbon copy, right down to the mobsters that nearly tore it all apart.
Why Chicago and not the stars?
Jim leafs open a blind at the window. Oxmyx's men are nowhere to be seen, but too much commotion will bring them running, no doubt. He considers the second story drop: easy enough for a Vulcan.
“Fancy sneaking out? You might have to catch me.”
Spock also evaluates the drop, but with less of that “getting old” despair. If he ends up anything like Old Spock, he is going to be spry for hundreds of years to come, and still getting nagged at by Bones.
He might even see the Iotians achieve warp technology. He'll have to tell Jim all about it once he finally croaks.
“It would be prudent to avoid confrontation with Mister Oxmyx,” Spock agrees, knocking open the window. “Stand back. I will go first.”
##
“Christ, you stink.”
“Thank you, Bones,” Jim says, and he means it.
They hug tighter, normalcy temporarily restored. He stopped noticing the stench of tobacco and sherry on his clothes about an hour ago, but on Bones he smells something else: coppery, muddy, and harried with sweat.
“Trouble at the hospital?”
“Not as much trouble as it looks like you had,” Bones replies, dodging the question. He fusses with the collar of Jim's waistcoat. “Was startin’ to think we'd have to go looking for you.”
“Trust me, you never would have found us.” He claps Bones’ shoulder as they draw apart. “We'll debrief as soon as we're back on board. Lieutenant, hail the ship.”
“Yessir. Hendorff to Enterprise.”
“Jim,” Bones says, a rumbling sound. He hooks his finger into Jim's pocket, keeping him close. “That's blood on your shoes. You injured? Hang on, those are standard issue. How come you –?"
“We almost got mowed down by a drive-by, but no. I’m fine. Couple guys didn't make it.”
Bones’ mouth twitches unhappily. “Well, maybe one of them did. Feels like there’s been shootings happening all across the city today. Every time we blinked, there was another body on the ward.”
“The ward?” Jim echoes, his stomach sinking. “Not a ward you were working on, Doctor?”
“Course not,” Bones lies, like a liar. The tips of his ears burn red. “Oh for – The hospital was all up in hoo-ha, okay? Some guy named Kraken or whatever, I don't know, he was bleedin’ from about a hundred different holes and not a damn person was lifting a finger to help him! So I shouted some till they got their asses into gear, that’s all.”
Those poor suckers. And poor Jim. He pinches the bridge of his nose, fully aware of Bones’ run-off mouth.
“What did you say.”
“Jim –”
“Bones.”
“I didn't. Nothing about the ship or the mission; I do come along to your staff meetings, you know. I might've mentioned the Hippocratic Oath once or twice but they had that back then.”
“They had that back then on Earth.”
We are on Earth, he hears Bones start to say and then stop, jaw clacking together. Now he looks sheepish, as though Jim can blame him for falling prey to this incredible, terrible, faithful rendition of Chicago.
Líadan is half right: the Iotians may not care much for space travel, but damn, they sure know how to put on a show.
“Ah,” Bones says.
“Ah,” Jim agrees with a smile. It could have been worse, he supposes – that he learned from Nibiru, Edison, and Khan. “You're fine. Seriously, wait until you hear the debrief. Lieutenant Hendorff, we good to go?”
“Yessir.”
Fantastic. Explaining this one to the admiralty is going to be fun.
He turns to Spock. “You're not going to file any reports without my say-so this time, are you?”
Shifting his weight is about as sheepish as Spock gets, but it’s enough. He clears his throat. “No, Captain.”
“Good,” says Jim, only to yelp as Bones pinches him. “Oh come on, I’m just making fun – Energise!”