FUTURE'S END
Episodes 50 and 51
Part C

 

Los Angeles. Janeway and Chakotay discreetly follow the tramp. Janeway: "He appears to live on the street. That pushcart seems to contain all his belongings." Chakotay: "From what we can tell he spends most of his time putting up literature about the end of the world."

A muted com. signal sounds. Janeway clicks her combadge. "Janeway here." Kim, via comms: "Captain, we've got a problem. We received a signal from the surface. It looks like a standard greeting designed for extra-terrestrials." Janeway, via comms: "We've been detected." Kim, via comms: "It looks that way. We tracked the signal to an observatory about 20 kilometres from your location." Janeway, via comms: "Transport Paris and Tuvok to those co-ordinates."

Kim, via comms: "I can't do that right now, not without going into a lower orbit. The main pattern buffer is offline. B'Elanna says it could take a couple of days to repair." Janeway, via comms: "In that case, transmit those co-ordinates to Mr Tuvok's tricorder. He and Tom will have to get there using more conventional means." Kim, via comms: "Aye, Captain. Kim out."

Paris: "Nobody walks in Los Angeles, and they don't have much of a public transportation system. We're going to need some wheels." Janeway: "Do what you have to do. Find out who sent that message and get more information. Have we been detected, how many people know about us. We cannot risk contaminating the timeline." Tuvok: "Aye, Captain." Paris: "See you later."

They leave Janeway and Chakotay, who set off to follow the tramp.

Janeway and Chakotay follow the tramp to an alleyway, apparently the tramp's makeshift home. But the tramp notices them and turns defensively. Tramp: "Who the hell are you! This is my stuff!"

Janeway: "It's alright, we don't want your stuff. We just want to ask you a few questions." Tramp: "No, no, no, no, no more questions, no." He rails: "No more surveys. Damn social workers coming around all the time. No, I don't need your advice, I don't need your-"

Suddenly he stops. He recognises them! "Voyager! I knew you'd show up! This is all your fault, this is all your doing!" Janeway: "Captain Braxton?" Chakotay scans him with a tricorder.

Janeway looks inside Braxton's tattered top and brings out his 29th century Federation combadge. Braxton, snatching back his combadge: "I told you to turn off your deflector pulse but you wouldn't listen to me! Voyager - fools!"

Janeway: "Captain, what's happened to you? The last time we saw you-"
Braxton: "I was a younger man, confident in my mission. But you wouldn't listen to me, no, you were too concerned with yourselves!"
Chakotay: "You were trying to destroy us."
Braxton: "I was trying to save billions of lives! To stop a chain reaction that started with Voyager! It's too late now. All things are set in motion. The temporal explosion will occur! The end is coming! The future's end."
Janeway: "Captain, how long have you been here in the 20th century?"
Braxton: "Oh, too long. Thirty years. Too long."
Chakotay: "And yet we just arrived. Why?"

Braxton: "Pure chance. And when you knocked my navigational system off course there's no telling where we may've ended up." He rummages through his meagre possessions that are inside the car wreck. "Who's been here?! Who took my pencils?!" He moans loudly to himself: "Oh, always something missing. Oh, always trying to steal things. Oh, greedy people. Post-industrial barbarians!" Janeway: "Captain, we want to help you, but you've got to give us more information. You said that Voyager causes the explosion."

Braxton: "Yes. No. Mmm, yes. That's the paradox, my dear."

He draws on the wall with a piece of chalk. "A leads to B leads to C leads to A. Juvenile minds. Oh, how can I make you understand, huh? A: there's an explosion in the 29th century. Debris from Voyager's hull is found in evidence. I go back in time to destroy you. B: you try to stop me, disabling my weapon which causes me to crashland back here in the 20th century. C: someone in this century steals my timeship and launches it."

Braxton continues: "They go into the future, and once there they make one critical mistake which causes a temporal explosion, that takes us all the way back to A - there's an explosion in the 29th century - the cycle of causality is complete!"

Janeway: "How do you know all this? What evidence do you have that it will be your timeship that causes the disaster?"

Braxton: "Ah, I spent thirty years answering that very question." Producing and spreading out a large tattered and aged piece of material on which he has drawn and written lots of technical information: "Ah, yes, when the explosion first happened, my sensors recorded a whole variety of chronometric data. The pulses were highly chaotic. At first I thought it was a warp core implosion, but then I found debris from Voyager and my theory seemed to be confirmed. It was you. But then someone here stole my timeship and it started to dawn on me. If someone were to fly my timeship into the future without recalibrating the temporal matrix then that could cause the kind of explosion that I witnessed in the 29th century!"

Janeway: "So it really wasn't Voyager after all." Braxton: "No. No, no, I reconstructed all the chronometric data as best I could remember it and it proved I was right. My ship causes the catastrophe."

Chakotay: "Which raises the question, who has your timeship?" Braxton: "Starling. Henry Starling, C.E.O. Chronowerx Industries. Philanthropist, entrepreneur, outstanding citizen, ha! When I crashed in the year 1967 I made an emergency beam-out but he found my ship before I did in some remote mountain range. Ah, I've been following this corrupt little man ever since, tracking his movements. He's become too powerful. I can't get close to him. Of course, you can't accomplish anything in this wretched century. Nobody here listens. Do you know that once they put me in a mental institution and filled me with primitive pharmaceuticals!"

Chakotay: "Maybe we can help you find Starling and your ship, and get us back to where we belong."
Braxton: "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Janeway: "Why not?"
Braxton: "Haven't you been listening? A leads to B-"
Janeway: "Leads to C. Yes, we heard you. Why shouldn't we try to stop Starling?"
Braxton: "Because somehow you're involved in the disaster. That's why I found debris from Voyager's hull plate at the explosion. You will be destroyed as well."
Chakotay: "Now that we know what's going to happen, maybe we can pick it up-"
They are interrupted by a police siren and a police car arrives. Janeway and Chakotay quietly move away from Braxton.

A police officer gets out of the car. Officer, in a friendly way to Braxton: "Hey, Captain, how you doing? Understand you've been putting these signs up around the city again." Braxton: "Oh, no, no no no, not me. I would never do that."

Officer: "Why don't you walk over here and we can talk about it."
Braxton: "Stay right where you are, quasi-Cardassian totalitarian!"
Officer: "No need to get upset about this, we just want to talk to you about the signs. Now there've been a few people complaining."

Braxton to Janeway: "Captain, tell them I'm not crazy. Tell them I'm from the future. They came from the future too, you know." Janeway gives a slight shrug. She and Chakotay know they only have to keep quiet for the officer not to believe Braxton. Officer, humouring him: "OK." Braxton to the officer: "They came in on a starship." Officer, deciding not to humour him any more: "Alright."

Braxton to Janeway and Chakotay: "Traitors!" Suddenly he dashes away. The officer gives chase, calling into his radio: "This is unit 247, in pursuit of suspect..."

The officer's partner in the police car reverses at high speed to join the pursuit. The sound of the policeman and the police car fade with distance.

Janeway to Chakotay: "We'll have to worry about him later. Right now we've got to find Starling." They start to head off, but presumably return to pick up Starling's schematic.

Chronowerx headquarters.

In his Chronowerx office, Starling is on the telephone. Starling: "We're not quite at the Little Green Men stage yet, but believe me, you'll be the first to know. What I think we have here is an over-enthusiastic young lady. I'm afraid she's exaggerating. We don't have anything, not yet. Thank you, Professor." He puts the telephone down

Starling goes over to the pinball machine. As he plays, he says to an employee by the name of Dunbar: "You know what that little brat did? She emailed a friend of hers at JPL, who called his professor at CalTech. She's a security risk. Go to Griffith, get the data, get rid of her." Dunbar: "Yes, sir." Starling: "Dunbar!" Dunbar, about to leave, turns to listen. "If it's true, if they're here, it's only a matter of time before they find me. There's no telling what capabilities they'll have. You may have to use the weapon." Dunbar: "I understand." He leaves.

Tuvok and Paris arrive at Griffith Observatory which is located in the Hollywood Hills.

Paris parks by the pavement and they get out.

Tuvok: "Perhaps we should find a more suitable parking place. This is, after all, a stolen vehicle." Paris: "Nobody's around, Tuvok. We're fine." Tuvok: "A taxi-cab would have been less worrisome and more ethical." Paris: "We haven't stolen anything. We borrowed a car and we'll return it to the dealership as soon as we can." Tuvok: "I was referring to the ethics of time travel." Paris: "Somehow I doubt that taking a test-drive is going to alter the course of the universe."