Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch
| Star Traks: Boldly Gone | |
| Episode name | Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch |
|---|---|
| Season | 2 |
| Episode number | 4 |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker, Anthony Butler |
| Year | 2500 |
| Stardate | Irrelevant |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Respect Your Elders [BG] |
| Next in series | Transparent Motives [BG] |
| Previous in timeline | Respect Your Elders [BG] |
| Next in timeline | Transparent Motives [BG] |
So just what's been happening to Cabral since his capture by the Associates? And what is this mysterious Department Five he was dunped into? These questions just might be addressed in "Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch..."
Summary
This story picks up right after Cabral is connected to Department Five by the Associates back in ‘’Yes, We Do Indeed Have Something To Declare!’’.
Cabral finds himself without his casing, just a brain laying on a wood floor covered in peanut shells. Neureena, the Local Area Supervisor for Department Five, comes over to him and tells him to visualize having legs. She herself appears to be a six-lobed mauve brain mounted on a pair of legs. Cabral is able to concentrate and form legs, then look around at his new location, which is oddly like a country-western bar where many other legged-brains are line dancing. Neureena explains that the dancing helps them coordinate their efforts as they perform their assignment, which is to contemplate the word “of.”
Cabral refuses to participate, so Neureena gives him a night to settle in. She takes him to an empty plot of land and explains that he can form it into any kind of dwelling he wants. He creates a very simple shelter, saying that he has no intention of getting comfortable there. Overnight, though, Cabral gets cold and end up making several improvements on his new home, both for comfortable and aesthetics.
The next morning, Neureena takes him to an auditorium where several brains, including her, put on a show with several songs relating to “of.” Cabral gets up in the middle of it and shouts at the brains there to stop thinking about “of” and instead focus on more important questions, like how many departments are there and is escape possible. He is dragged from the auditorium by two other brains and taken to an empty room, where he is dumped into a glass box without the arms or legs he had formed. He is left there alone and incapable of any movement for what seems like days. Neureena finally appears and tells him that if he continues to behave badly, she will see to it that he spends the rest of his existence kept like that. She then sends him back to him home.
The next day, Neureena goes to Cabral’s and finds that he has enlarged it even further, including adding a second story and a jacuzzi. She attempts to seduce him, but he resists. She then takes him to a large warehouse where the other Department Five brains have gathered. He spends the day working on “of” with a group of brains.
That night, though, Cabral begins working on seeing through the simulation where he is being held and getting into the base code. After starting small and building up slowly, he is finally able to get into the code enough to free himself from the simulation. He finds himself back in the Associates facility where he was actually being held. He phases through the floor and out into open space. After eluding two Associates ships attempting to recapture him, he goes in search of the Anomaly.
Once there, Captain Reginald Bain welcomes him aboard, and he is soon back in Science Lab Four with Dr. Natalia Kasyov. Almost immediately, the ship is attacked by the Associates, and when Cabral tries to engage the anti-singularity drive, nothing happens. Kasyov believes that he has betrayed them and storms out.
Cabral hears explosions, then nothing. He cannot reach anyone over the comm system. Then Neureena walks into the lab. None of Cabral’s escape was real.
He is completely broken by this. Understanding that there is no escape from Department Five, he focuses on the meaning of “of.”
Featuring
Author's Comments
I wrote a parody of the 1960's TV show "The Prisoner" in Star Traks 2: Sorry, Wrong Number, but this story pulls from the show in a more serious way. Cabral's ordeal here is reminiscent of some of the techniques used on that show to break down Number 6, and part of the speech he gives in the auditorium is a riff on Number 6's, "Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment, and will die here like rotten cabbages" line from the episode "Free For All." And the end escape that didn't actually happen is a bit like what happens at the end of "The Chimes of Big Ben."