LIFE LINE
Episode 144
Part D

 

Zimmerman: "You!!!" Doctor: "Remain calm. Emotional outbursts will only aggravate your condition." Zimmerman: "I'll tell you what's aggravating my condition - YOU!" Doctor: "If you'd let me examine you-"

Zimmerman: "I'll report you to the Medical Ethics Board-" Doctor: "Doctor-"

Zimmerman: "Save it for your hearing!"

Doctor: "If you weren't so stubborn you'd see I'm only trying to help."

Zimmerman: "I don't want your help! Why won't you leave me alone!" Doctor: "Because, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I care about you." Zimmerman: "You weren't programmed to care. You were programmed to hold a scalpel." Doctor: "I told you, I'm not the same EMH you created 6 years ago." Zimmerman: "Of course, you can sing and dance. I should install you in a Ferengi nightclub."

Doctor: "The Voyager crew appreciates my attempts to expand my program." Zimmerman: "This isn't Voyager. It's my lab, and in my lab you're still just a hologram!" Doctor: "A hologram you created. A hologram who owes you his existence." Zimmerman: "Is that what's keeping you here? Some twisted sense of obligation? Well, let me assure you, you don't owe me anything."

Haley signals: "Doctor." Zimmerman: "Yes, Haley. What is it?" Haley: "You have a visitor."

The door opens. Deanna Troi stands in the doorway. Troi: "Hello, I'm Deanna Troi. Which one of you is Dr Zimmerman?"

Zimmerman is suspicious. To the Doctor: "Deanna Troi - another one of your tricks?" Troi: "Excuse me?" He pinches Troi.

Troi: "Ow!" Doctor to Troi: "He thinks you're a hologram." Troi to Zimmerman: "I can assure you I'm quite real." Zimmerman: "Well, the last beautiful woman to walk in here turned out to be him!" Doctor: "I'll take that as a compliment." Troi: "Well, I can assure you I'm quite real." "Oh." Zimmerman hastily closes and ties his dressing gown.

Troi: "Did I come at a bad time?" Doctor: "Your timing couldn't be better. The patient is suffering from acute anxiety, normally associated with terminal illness. It's made him agoraphobic, paranoid and extremely antagonistic."

Troi: "I see." To Zimmerman: "Mind if I sit down?" Zimmerman: "Please." As she does so she notices the iguana.

Troi to Zimmerman: "Reg tells me you won't let the Doctor help you." Zimmerman: "He's a Mark 1. He's obsolete. I'd be safer in the hands of a Klingon field medic!" Troi: "I understand he's developed a promising treatment." The Doctor nods his agreement.

Zimmerman: "If you're a Borg drone. He's threatening to use some kind of ghoulish assimilation technique. It's not fit for a lab rat!" Docor, infuriation rising: "You won't even look at my research. From the moment I arrived you've berated me, treated me like an antique. Well, let me tell you something, antique or not I took a huge risk coming here, plead with my Captain, leave my ship without a surgeon." Troi: "Doctor, imagine that your program was seriously damaged and the only person who could repair you was an engineer from, say, a hundred years ago. Would you feel comfortable with that?" Doctor: "If he were skilled, intelligent, creative." Troi: "Honestly, Doctor? A hundred years ago?" Doctor: "Well, I suppose it would give me pause."

Troi, to Zimmerman: "Now, put yourself in the Doctor's shoes. Imagine you were asked to treat someone you cared about, say, an EMH Mark 12." Zimmerman: "There is no Mark 12."

Troi: "But if there were and you wanted to save his program. He probably wouldn't let you near him. He wouldn't care that you'd won the Daystrom Prize for Holography. From his perspective, you'd be out of date. But what if you knew you could save him?" Doctor: "Thank you, Counsellor, for extending that olive branch. I'm willing to see past our differences, if he is." Zimmerman: "Alright. He can start by purging the plasma conduits on deck 6." Troi: "Dr Zimmerman."

Zimmerman: "I will not put my life in the hands of a primitive!"

Doctor: "You'd need a phaser drill to get through that thick skull of his!" Zimmerman: "Get out!"

Troi: "Gentlemen-" Zimmerman: "Oh, spare us your psychobabble!"

Troi: "I came here thinking you were opposites sides of the same coin, identical but different. Now I see you're both exactly the same: you're both jerks!" She marches out.

Leonard the iguana echoes: "Jerks."

In the living quarters. Troi: "I'm starting to think you called the wrong Counsellor, Reg."

Barclay: "No, you'll figure something out, you always do." Troi: "Things are worse now than when I arrived. Lewis won't come out of his lab and the EMH is hiding in a holodeck." Barclay: "He's feeling homesick. I, I let him use my Voyager simulation and its seems to be cheering him up." Troi: "A hologram, fighting to save the life of his creator, who just so happens to be the same man his own personality is based on. Think I'd need a whole team of therapists just to get them in the same room."

Haley has just replicated coffee ice cream and now presents it to Troi. Haley: "Mr Barclay says this is your favourite ice cream." Troi: "I hardly deserve it but thanks. You're a hologram?" Haley: "How do you know?" there is a comment about the flavour of the ice cream in the PERSONAL LOG entry for this episode

Troi: "I'm an empath. I haven't sensed any emotions from you. When were you first brought online?" Haley: "Nine years ago."

Troi: "No offence, but you're more antiquated than the EMH Mark 1 and yet Lewis seems to listen to you. Why do you suppose that is? Were you here when the Mark 1 was created?" Haley: "Yes." Troi: "Any idea why Lewis made him in his own image?" Haley: "Maybe you should ask him." Troi: "I did. He evaded the question. I was hoping you might know." Haley: "He was extremely proud of the Mark 1. He used to dream about hundreds of holograms in every corner of the Quadrant, saving lives. He put so much of himself into its development. I suppose it only seemed natural that it should look like him too." Troi: "But the Mark 1 failed to meet Starfleet's expectations." Haley: "He was devastated." Barclay: "He locked himself away, in this lab, for 2 years trying to repair the defects. Finally he just gave up, started from scratch, a whole new matrix." Troi: "The Mark 2." Barclay: "Followed by the Mark 3 then erm Mark 4. He, he was obsessed with perfecting it." Troi: "But none of the later models resembled Lewis." Haley: "He made that mistake once, he wasn't about to repeat it."

Thoughtfully Troi eats her ice cream. "And now after all this time a Mark 1 shows up. It must be like staring in a mirror at a reflection you don't want to remember."