What Did You Say?
Rated PG-13
The holiday had arrived and he did not have a date for the special dinner Neelix was having in the mess hall that night. He had procrastinated because he was afraid of her answer, yet Chakotay encouraged him to ask Naomi to dinner.
Icheb gazed at her across the makeshift classroom as he took a deep breath to build some courage.
“Hi, Naomi,” he said as he approached her.
“Hi, Ichy,” she replied.
“You know, it’s funny,” he began, “most people I would mind calling me that, but you…” he never finished his sentence. The thought that it sounded like an affectionate nickname for him when she said sounded too mushy.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean any offense by it.” She told him. “I always thought it fit you well.”
“It’s OK.” He took another deep breath. “Um…” He shuffled his feet as he looked down at the floor feeling nervous. “Would you like an escort to Neelix’s holiday dinner tonight?”
“Are you asking me out?”
“Um… No! I mean, yes. Yes, I am and I would…” he paused and then continued, “be overjoyed if I could be your escort.”
“OK, but do me one favour.”
“What is that?”
“Stop talking like Seven, please,” she asked him. “I like Seven, but she is Seven and you are not. You are supposed to be a teenage boy, so why not act like one?”
He was confused. “How does a teenager act?”
Naomi thought for a moment. “I’m… I’m not sure, but from what I overhear the adults say, they were pretty wild in their teens and had a language of their own. Whatever that means.”
“I don’t know either.”
“We could maybe find out. Tom Paris has some holodeck programs from the past,” she informed him. “That might give us a clue as to how teenagers are supposed to act.”
“That sounds like fun,” he said. “So, when do we schedule the time to commence the fun?”
“I asked you to stop that!”
“Well, we do need to schedule it don’t we?”
She did not like that he was again sounding like Seven instead of being himself, but he did have a point in wanting to set a time for meeting in the holodeck. “OK, how about around 1600 hours?”
“1600 hours is an appropriate time for fun to commence.”
“ICHY!”
“WHAT?”
She shook her head and said, “Nothing.”
1600 hours arrived and Icheb was waiting for Naomi at the door of the holodeck. He arrived a little early so he just stood there, feeling stupid, as he waited for her.
He saw her walking down the corridor, “You are punctual.”
She sighed. “Thank you.”
She only wished he were the average teenager, but she also realized she was not the typical teen either. The fact they were the only ones on board made it an unusual situation, as though they were unique in the universe, but she knew that was not true, for she heard the adults talking about how sheltered the children were from others. So as teens they were not the only ones in the universe.
“Computer, please initialize Tom Paris’s program 1968.”
“Program loaded and ready. Please enter when ready.”
The doors slid open as they approached and then closed behind them after they entered, but once inside, Naomi screamed as a loud blast sounded.
“AH!” She looked around and saw a battlefield with people shooting and bombs flying through the air. “COMPUTER! FREEZE PROGRAM!” She turned to face Icheb. “This was not what I had in mind.” Then she addressed the computer, “Computer, what is this?”
“Vietnam, 1968.”
“I didn’t want that,” she said adamantly.
“Please specify parameters.”
“Um…” she paused to think. “United States, 1968, teenage hangout.”
The computer bleeped. “There are no such parameters.”
“United States, 1968?”
“Please specify specific area.”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Clarify.”
“Um…” Icheb made an attempt to clarify. “A scenario with young people?”
The computer bleeped and the holodeck changed to a college scene, where students were sitting in a large hall, and chanting “Hell no, we won’t go”.
Naomi looked at Icheb and said, “Well, they don’t look like they are our age, but let’s sit down and find out what they are doing.”
“Hey! Wassup?” one of the longhaired young men asked them. He was wearing a headband and multi-coloured clothing.
“Huh?” They both asked.
“How’s it hanging?”
“Hanging?” Naomi asked puzzled.
“Dude! Your girl is so not with it.”
“Well…” Icheb replied, “She’s new to the area. So, what are we doing?”
“Oh man! It’s a sit-in. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“What memo?”
“For the protest,” he said. “Dude! We’re protesting the Establishment.”
“What for?” he asked.
“Hey, don’t tell me you are one of those sell outs. Way uncool!”
“No, no. We’re not sell outs,” he said not having a clue as to what the man was talking about.
“Icheb,” Naomi dragged him away from the crowd and whispered, “I don’t know about this. I can’t understand a thing he’s talking about. Do you?”
“No. Maybe this was a bad idea.”
Suddenly, smoke filled the room and people started to scream and run, but instead started choking and their eyes started filling with tears.
“Ah Man!” one person choked. “It’s the fuzz!”
Icheb choked out, “Com… pu… ter. Freeze… program!”
The two slowly recovered from the tear gas and Naomi finally said, “Well there is the 70s.”
“I don’t know,” Icheb replied. “This might not be such a good idea.”
“We can only try to find out what teenagers are supposed to be like.”
“Yes, but Commander Paris doesn’t seem to have any programs with people our age,” he replied. “Which makes sense, because he is an adult.”
“Let’s try at least.”
“OK, but I still say this is a bad idea. Besides, doesn’t he have any holiday things related to the time period?”
“I don’t know,” Naomi twisted her face with uncertainty. “Computer, Christmas, 1975”.
“There is no such program available.”
“1975?” She questioned the computer.
Once again, Naomi and Icheb found themselves in a war zone where people were running and screaming, as fire and smoke surrounded them. Helicopters flew in the air as they attempted to land on a large building. A mass of people ran towards it, while others attempted to scramble over a large fence to safety.
“OW!” Naomi screamed as someone quickly ran past her and knocked her down to the ground in a daring attempt to jump the large barbed wired fence.
“NAOMI!” Icheb scrambled over to where she fell and knelt down beside her. “You alright?”
“Yes,” she slowly rose as she rubbed the back of her head and observed all the running people. “I think so. Where are we?”
The computer bleeped and stated flatly, “Saigon border, April 30, 1975.”
There was a loud whistle hurling from the sky as people continued to scream and rush past them in hopes of rescue or escape and Icheb screamed, “COMPUTER! FREEZE PROGRAM!”
“What the hell was that?” Naomi asked with horror on her face.
“I think it was hell,” Icheb replied, terror still on his face, as he helped Naomi up off the ground.
“Well, that’s not what I wanted either,” Naomi complained. “Computer, isn’t there anything in the 1970s in which young people are having fun?”
“Scanning”, the computer informed. “There is a roller rink program set in 1978. No specifics, except Roller Disco.”
“No violence?” Naomi urgently asked.
“None specified.”
“We’ll take it,” Naomi stated with urgency.
The song “Do the Hustle” played as people rolled and danced on skates around the rink.
“Well, what size?”
“Huh?” Icheb responded.
“What’s your skate size, kid?” a young man asked them from behind a counter.
“Oh um… 14?” he shrugged, just grasping at a number.
“7, I think,” Naomi replied.
“OK, cool! Give these a go.”
“Thanks,” the two of them chorused as they took the skates and then went to a bench to put them on.
“’Cool’ seems to be a word people use,” Naomi noted as she listened to the people who rolled past them on the rink.
“Hey! You narked me out, man!” one boy said to another boy and pushed him down.
“That was so uncool! Take a pill and chill, before we get in trouble,” another boy said to the angry one. As he looked at the boy on the floor, he put a hand on the irate boy’s chest in an attempt to hold him back.
“I’m already busted, thanks to this dork. This turkey narked to my mom,” the angry kid stated.
“Hey, Jelly Brain!” the kid who was knocked off his skated shouted, “I was only trying to help, ‘cause you’re the one who was smokin’ the hippi letace.”
“Yeah, well,” stated the irate boy, “I’m callin’ ya out! Meet in five minutes behind the rink.”
“Ah, get bent! Will ya!”
“You’d better meet me, ya jive turkey!” Then the kid walked away, but as he did, he continued, “Because either way, your ass is grass!”
“Man, he’s flipped his wig,” stated the boy on the floor as he attempted to stand up on his skates again.
“Ah, forget him. Check out that chick over there. She’s cookin’!”
Naomi and Icheb looked at each other, until they suddenly asked each other in unison, “What did they say?”
“I don’t know,” they shrugged.
Then Icheb said, “I think that one boy wants to fight the boy he pushed to the floor.”
“Well, I think that is obvious, but what were they talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“OH MY GOD!” They heard a girl shout as she bent at the waist while rolling on her skates. “GAG ME WITH A SPOON!”
Another child rolled by and shouts to his friends, “Watch me bust a move.”
The kid fell down and his friends laugh as one said, “Crash and burn is more like it. Man, you can’t skate!”
“YOW ZAH!” the DJ shouted over the intercom. “For all you far out, cool dudes and dudettes, let’s get ready to boogie! I’m Venus and I’m spinnin’ the tunes for y’all tonight! Here’s “I Wonder Why He’s the Greatest Dancer”!”
“Hey, let’s crack the whip!” someone shouted.
“OK, I don’t know about you, Naomi,” Icheb began, “But I think I have already had enough. People rolling around on four wheels, talking unusual, and fighting. This isn’t right.”
At that moment, a couple in their early twenties rolled by trying to do the Disco tango on skates. They were a bit awkward, but managed to stay upright as they rolled past people on the rink.
“And it’s not quite what I had hoped,” Naomi said with disappointment. “Computer, end program.”
The two sat there in the silence of the holodeck. The dark grid was a stark contrast from the loud music and shouting people of before.
“It’s quiet now,” Icheb stated with relief.
“Yeah,” Naomi replied with a sigh. “Hey, why don’t we talk to Commander Paris. Maybe he can give us some ideas.”
“Affirmative.”
“ICHY!”
“WHAT?”
“Hey, wait,” Naomi stopped and had a look of realization. “Maybe we do have our own language.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not like the adults, except for maybe Seven, but maybe we do have a lingo that is all of our own.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Let’s just go to dinner and forget about it,” Naomi insisted. “I think we can make it on our own without worrying about how kids talk now or in the past. Besides, Neelix is going to be serving soon.”
The two arrived at the mess hall and saw people filing in for Neelix’s big dinner. As they entered arm in arm, Neelix greeted them as soft Christmas music played in the background, “Naomi, Icheb, I hope you are having a happy holiday.”
“It is within acceptable parameters,” Naomi replied with a giggle and then looked at Icheb.
“Naomi?” Icheb asked with a look of surprise on his face.
“I told you we have our own language, Ichy,” she smiled and winked at him. “I’m ready for some chow.”
“Naomi, what are you doing?” Icheb asked.
“Don’t you get it?”
“Let’s sit down and you can explain it to me.”
Neelix was confused and scratched his head as he said, “Well, you two have fun and enjoy the feast.”
“Affirmative,” Naomi replied.
“Now who’s acting like the computer?” Icheb asked as they sat down at a table.
“Don’t you get it, Ichy?”
“No.”
“We don’t need any program to teach us to talk like teenagers,” Naomi insisted. “We have and can create our own language with what we have already. All we have to do is listen to everyone around us and make it our own slang.”
“Gotcha!” Icheb brighten with understanding as he borrowed a term from Tom Paris.
“Now you get it,” Naomi smiled at him from across the table.
“OK everyone,” Neelix brought in a large turkey and sat it on the captain’s table. “Captain, you want to do the honours of cutting the turkey this year?”
“I’d be glad to, Neelix,” Captain Janeway replied as she took the tools to cut the turkey from Neelix and began to slice the turkey.
“Naomi, could you hand me some cranberries?” B’Elanna asked. “We seem to be out over here at our table.”
“Download in progress,” she replied as she winked at Icheb and gave B’Elanna their cranberries. “They’re radiation poison anyway.”
B’Elanna looked at Tom with confusion and after she received the cranberries, she placed them on their table, leaned over to Tom, and asked in a low voice, “What’s up with them?”
“Don’t know,” Tom whispered back. “Maybe it’s some weird stage or something.”
“Gee, I don’t know which is worse,” B’Elanna began, “Your blast from the past holo-programs or their bizarre language they’ve suddenly seemed to have developed. Will you listen to them?”
“It’s just a stage, B’Elanna,” Tom replied. “I’m sure they will eventually snap out of it. Besides, didn’t you have some way cool far out slammin’ terms when you were a kid?”
“I never was a kid,” B’Elanna said indignantly.
“I think our young ones are truly teenagers now,” Janeway said to Chakotay. “They make no sense, yet they understand each other.”
“I know,” Chakotay replied with an amused smile. “Sort of brings a little warmth to the season seeing them act like normal teens.”
“Let’s depart this dock,” Icheb finally said to Naomi.
“Um… I think that needs a little work,” Naomi replied, “But I’m ready to beam out.”
They stood and started to leave, when Icheb stopped Naomi.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I had a lot of fun today and well…” he paused and pointed to the ceiling with a mischievous grin and then prepared to lean in to give Naomi a kiss.
“Mistletoe?” Naomi’s eyes got wide with panic as she looked at the adults surrounding them. “ICHY! GROSS!” and then started to run out of the mess hall. “Not here!”
“Well, that’s one word we all understand,” Captain Janeway laughed with the rest of the adults.
“Yes, but I think we can quit worrying about our younger crew members,” Tom Paris assured everyone with a grin. “They seem to be normal after all.”
“Maybe not being at home for so many holidays isn’t so bad after all,” Chakotay replied with a smile.
© Mriana December 2008