It was only after they turned the corner onto the high street that Danbo remarked, “That’s not fair!”  

Having left Fenton Manour far behind them, a bustling thoroughfare of London-town’s commerce rowhouses stretched out before Danbo and Rals.  Each structure lining the street was taller and narrower than the one before.  Danbo could only assume the architecture was chronologically accurate for the time period –the year 1913– because he knew so little about the planet Earth, let alone its distant past.  From what he had seen of the holo-novel so far, not one of these shops looked half as grand as the Fenton Manor they had left three blocks back.  Rather, these shops were all crammed in side-by-side, much like overpopulated Belross City, back on his homeworld of Barzan II.

Rals flung his arms around Danbo’s waist, hugging him close enough to prop his chin on Danbo’s shoulder.

“Life’s not fair,” Rals retorted in a sing-song.  With the weight of Rals against him, Danbo felt his own body sway under Rals’ power until Rals released him.  

Then, Rals asked, “What does that mean?”  There was a newfound lilt of recognition in his voice.  “What’s not fair?” he asked, as if his understanding of Danbo’s words had arrived on a delay.

“That maid,” Danbo said, pulling Rals aside.  Danbo turned to face Rals on a less-populated patch of granite pavement.  

“How did you charm her into telling you everything about the impending gala?” Danbo asked.

Rals shrugged.  “I couldn’t say.  Her heart is her own.  How might I guess what she chose to see in me?”

The most caring blue eyes Danbo had ever seen were staring back at him.  There was some sign of a realisation crossing Rals’ face: an expression like concern creased the Bajoran ridges over Rals’ nose.  Even under the layers of wool the holodeck had dressed Rals, Danbo could see the physique of a professional wrestler who had never known hunger in his lifetime.  Given the fine crafting of Ral’s formalwear and bowler hat, Danbo had to assume the holodeck had cast Rals as a wealthy and powerful gentleman.  

As if it knew him to the bone, the holodeck had chosen to dress Danbo as Rals’ valet, in a simple shirt and waistcoat.  His lower status in this society, Danbo assumed, was why the locals on the high street paid no attention to the small breather attachments Danbo wore on his jaw, those which allowed him to breathe in an M-class atmosphere at all.

“I’m sorry.  I need to know,” Danbo said dejectedly.  Defensively, he looked away until he reminded himself that Rals had never once issued judgement on him.  Meeting Ral’s eyes, Danbo explained himself by saying, “How did you persuade the maid to offer you a tour of the manor?  You, a stranger?  I practiced the five techniques of a con artist with the driver and he wouldn’t even give me a tour of Lady Fenton’s motorcar.“

Rals punched Danbo in the arm, but there was no weight behind the fist.  His knuckles hardly grazed Danbo’s bicep before Rals took hold of his arm in an affectionate gesture.

“You wanted the driver to take you for a ride, huh?” Rals suggestively asked.

“I’m not joking,” Danbo said and he shook his head once.

Shrugging helplessly, Rals said, “I don’t remember.  I think I listened more than I spoke.  The words came out of me.” –He fished for something in his jacket pocket, maintaining his smile on Danbo the whole time– “I was more focused on remembering what my mother taught me to do if the Cardassians ever came back.”  –From his pocket, he produced a set of house keys and jangled them in the air– “Nimble hands served me in pick-pocketing as well as they served me in medical school.”

Despite Ral’s warm showmanship, Danbo narrowed his eyes on him.

Danbo asked, “Why did you introduce me to the maid as your fiancé?”

After a quick scoff, Rals said, “You were lurking in the alley.  If I hadn’t introduced you, she would have become suspicious.”

“But fiancé?” Danbo said, trusting that the universal translator was communicating the fullest meaning from his native Barzan language to Rals’ native Bajoran.  “You introduced me as your fiancé rather than your husband.“

Squinting back at him, Rals asked, “Is that what I said?”

Cutting through a floorboard with a centrebit and an awl, it occurred to Ensign Danbo that he might as well have worked a double-shift making repairs in the USS Constellation’s Jeffries tubes instead.  It had been disheartening enough when Captain Taes’ had cancelled shore leave.  Emotionally, Danbo appreciated the need for the entire crew to hold hands all together in repairing the ship after the Borg tragedies.  But some small part of him wondered how better he might understand what the Borg had done to him if he could only slow down.

This “Heart Heist” holo-novel was meant to be rejuvenating.  Half of the Constellation’s holodeck library had been deleted when the fleet formation programming was wiped from the computer core.  Upon selecting it from a list, Danbo had been charmed by the notion of losing himself in a time and place where the word “nanoprobe” would be meaningless.  Stealing the Sacred Heart Ruby was meant to be a bit of fun: rooftop acrobatics, seducing burly guards, running around in costumes with Rals.

And yet Danbo found himself laying atop a cabinet in Fenton Manor’s darkened downstairs.  He had pried off four of the overhead ceiling tiles, which allowed him to cut through the floorboards of the level above.  That entire floor above was creaking and buckling beneath the weight of the gala’s guests.  Muffled sounds of music and dancing sprinkled down on Danbo, just like the dust falling on his face.

“Time check?” Rals asked, standing at the foot of the cabinet.  He put a hand on Danbo’s shoulder; it felt like an offer from Rals to share his strength.

“Maybe another twenty minutes?” Danbo supposed, “I still need to cut through the floorboards and then the base of the ruby’s display cabinet without setting off the alarm gongs.  You’re confident the concealed wires were connected to magnetic contacts on the glass viewing pane and the top hatch and nowhere else on the display case?”

“I believe it,” Rals replied.  For the gala, Rals was costumed in the robes of a type of spiritual guide who would be considered beyond suspicion in this era.  Even without the cultural context, Danbo felt himself trusting Rals even more than unconditionally.

Danbo asked, “How much more time do you need to distract the local security officers?”

“Intoxicating the guests with absinthe to loosen their perceptiveness isn’t working,” Rals said.  “The manor’s crew refuse to imbibe and the guests are proving to have a remarkably high tolerance for alcohol.  I think it’s time I rejoin the gala.  I’ll close my eyes and surrender to the guidance of the Prophets.  Their hand will lead me better than any plan I could devise.”

“No,” Danbo spat out.  When he saw Rals striding away, Danbo raised his voice in a hushed whisper to add, “No, no, uh, no.  Talk like that is how you go to bed hungry.  If a plan doesn’t work, you try again, or you try the next plan.”

“Thirty minutes!” Rals called back from the doorway.  “You’ll know when.  Trust me.” 

Clasping Rals’ hand tightly, Danbo shouted, “Run!”  

As one, they sprinted from the grounds of Fenton Manor, following the same winding path they had charted to the high street.  The soles of Danbo’s boots felt far slicker than his Starfleet standard issue, but he still ran with all abandon.  The holodeck’s safety protocols would protect him, he supposed, if he were to slip and smash into the pavement.

Keeping pace with Danbo, Rals huffed out between heavy breaths: “Sorry!  ‘M sorry!  Should have listened.  My distraction fell short.  Saw them searching you for the ruby when you left.  Did they get it?  Did they get it??“

Ducking into an alley, Danbo flung himself back against a wall and he clutched Rals to his chest.  He snaked a hand behind Rals’ neck and he kissed him.

“You’re brilliant!” Danbo exclaimed, between kisses.  “The Prophets are brilliant.  If we have kids.  I’ll convert to your religion.  Promise!”

His eyes widening eagerly, Rals asked, “Does that mean you have the Sacred Heart Ruby?”

“I don’t!” Danbo enthused.  He could hear himself.  He sounded just as thrilled and exhilarated as he felt.  “The nurse feigning illness was iconic.  As soon as you collapsed against the display cabinet, you set off the alarm gongs.  I couldn’t trip the alarms a second time when I climbed into the innards of the cabinet.”

Shaking his head in puzzled frustration, Rals said, “So you did get the ruby?”

“No, I thought you knew,” Danbo said.  As before, his intonation betrayed his feelings, and his uncertainty couldn’t have been clearer.  He dragged his palms down Rals’ back and then he clasped Rals’ right wrist between both of his hands.

“I thought…” Danbo said hesitantly, “You know, maybe the Borg DNA the Changelings installed in our brains kept us connected.  Did you not hear my thoughts, my plan, through our private collective?”

Rals’ body stiffened.

“Kosst, no,” Rals snarled.  “That’s all over now.  All the Borg are dead.  They can’t get in our head and Taes promised.  Taes promised Starfleet would find a cure.”

Danbo choked down his reaction to Rals’ tongue lashing.

Forcing out an uncomfortable laugh, Danbo slid a hand up the sleeve of Rals’ robe.  He squeezed Rals’ forearm and then his elbow and then his triceps.  When Danbo withdrew his hand from Rals’ sleeve, Danbo proffered the Sacred Heart Ruby and he shook it in the air, just like Rals had done with the keys.

“I don’t have the ruby,” Danbo remarked.  “Because you do.  While you were rolling on the floor in counterfeit agony,” Danbo said, “I reached out from under the cabinet and tucked it into your–“

Before Danbo could finish his sentence, Rals took hold of him, kissed him again, and said, “Oh, you jewel!”

Rals plucked the ruby from Danbo’s hand and then he tossed it aside, into the dark of the alley.

“You’re the only one I need.”