The Sands of Time (A Star Trek: The Next Generation Fan Fiction)

Chapter Ten

I was in the middle of a rather intense game of pool when the room suddenly went quiet. I was in the middle of spectacularly missing a shot, so I waited until the ball had definitely missed the pocket to look up and see what had happened. By the time I did, the two uniformed guards were already halfway across the room and walking toward me.

"Miss Lawrence, please come with us."

Uh oh. I glanced around at Brick and Jordan, who had joined us. They look a little concerned, but not particularly worried. That was a good sign; from the way they acted it didn't seem as if people suddenly just went missing after being taken away by guards. Okay then.

I handed my stick to Jordan and followed them outside into the hallway.

"You've been assigned quarters in the women's B-block," they said. "Room 14B. Curfew begins at 2200 but it's been requested that you retire early."

I stared at them. "Oh. Okay, yeah." I glanced up and down the corridor. "Where's B-block at?"

They pointed down to the right. "Around the corner to the right. Men's are on the left."

"Thanks." I frowned at them. They looked...normal. They were wearing the grey uniforms common to military personnel, but other than that, they didn't look particularly dangerous. When I was a teenager, the guards had been terrifying. Not just in that they were armed and dangerous, but that they had genuinely seemed to hate everyone they were guarding.

"How can I tell which room's which?"

They glared at me. "The signs?" one of them finally asked.

I glanced at the door to the common room we had just left. Written on the doorframe above the door, small letters spelled out "Common Room 3."

"Ohhh. Thanks..."

I glanced between them and then turned down the hallway and walked in the direction they had pointed. Now that they pointed it out, I noticed the next door was labeled "Common Room 2." Walking down the hallway was still spooky, even though I now knew at least a little of what was behind the doors. This level, at least, seemed fairly straightforward. Somewhere in this place, though, I knew there was a cell block and who knew what else. I wasn't going to start singing its praises just yet.

The hallway came to an end and I turned to the right. About halfway down the hallway, the only door on the right appeared, labeled "Women's Block." Inside, I found another two hallways, one with a B posted above. Peering down the long hallway, I got the strange impression that they were trying to make it homey. Instead of the white metal in the hallway, this floor was covered in a tan carpet that matched the walls. The doors were still nondescript, but it reminded me of the Enterprise, which I never would have considered an improvement before. I explored down the hallway until I came to the door marked 14B, the second door from the end. It slid open when I pressed the button and I stepped inside, glancing around me quickly to see if this was actually a real living quarter or some strange trick. It was real, from what I could tell. Two beds were lined up end to end on the far wall with what looked like two dressers on the right wall. When I stepped forward, the door behind me closed and I noticed another door to my right, leading to a bathroom. A couch with an armchair and coffee table along with a round table with two chairs completed the room.

It looked like someone had tried to make it homey in theory, but when transferred to the room it came out looking mismatched to the rest of the level. Even the common room had been more comfortable than this. The sizable dressers and the comfortable looking chairs made it far too permanent and the matching everything gave it an almost frightening institutional feel.

Despite this, I sighed and sat on one of the beds. Both were made with tightly tucked blankets, but one held a bright orange pillow and a stuffed animal, one of the only things that actually made the place look lived in. The other one had to be mine. I lay back on it, closing my eyes tightly against the glow of light from the ceiling. Everything today had happened too fast. The way everyone I'd talked to accepted the place and considered it home had started to blur my original conviction that it was a house of horrors. I didn't put any stock into anything Grey said, whether or not he believed he was doing the right thing with either the blockade or this place didn't matter. He was wrong. But Otten's and Brick's and Cort's feelings actually did matter, and they considered this a blessing. I knew anything was better than the camps they had been living in, but it was more than that. Being moved here was the absolute best case scenario for them, there was no thought of being able to leave or find a life outside.