[Spacecraft - Picard's subconscious]

(Hologram of the sun.)
PSYCHIATRIST: The true sovereign of nature. Giving life. Allowing life. And yet we know it will be the thing that one day swallows us all.
PICARD: Ahem. Shall we, er, get back to it then?
PSYCHIATRIST: Oh, yeah, let's. Let's, shall we? Yes. So, forgive me, I'm just, I'm rarely in the sky. Where were we? You were, er, humouring me, I think. You have a fear of enclosed spaces, was the last thing you said to me.
PICARD: I don't mean to do your job for you.
PSYCHIATRIST: Yeah. Naming your fear's not my job.
PICARD: But analysis is. So, shall we?
PSYCHIATRIST: Of course. Proceed.
PICARD: The man who hates enclosed spaces spends his life in the infinite cosmos. Ha! Ah, it's almost too obvious.
PSYCHIATRIST: Isn't it.
PICARD: But then, the man chooses a life on a vessel where his only access to the outside is... holographic. Now the man becomes more interesting.
PSYCHIATRIST: Does that concern you at all? Does that bother you in any way? You're not very interesting.
PICARD: It's not my job to be interesting.
PSYCHIATRIST: But aren't we more than our jobs? Maybe not. Maybe not, in your case. Even your closest friends call you Captain. So, er, Jean-Luc? Who's he?
PICARD: This line of questioning is absurd. I've been humouring you for the last 40 minutes.
PSYCHIATRIST: Look, this is just a routine psych evaluation. No need to get het up. You seem... you seem to be a little uneasy.
PICARD: You are making me uneasy, if we're being truthful. This is highly unorthodox. It's as if you're looking for something, anything to... pull me apart.
PSYCHIATRIST: Well, for your information, we've actually been here for 20 minutes, not 40. To put a point on it, you need to give me something. And if you don't want to talk, that's fine. I have to tell someone that I spent an hour with you. So, in the meantime, we're just stuck here. Know any good jokes? Okay, tell me a story.
PICARD: I beg your pardon?
PSYCHIATRIST: A story. Like a kid's story. Like a children's story. Any kind of story. It can be a simple exercise to help with opening your mind.
PICARD: I wouldn't know where to begin.
PSYCHIATRIST: No. (hands him the holo-sun) Why don't you begin with that? Make something, you know...
PICARD: Once upon a time... there was a queen with fiery red hair.
PSYCHIATRIST: Like the sun. That's very good. Carry on.
PICARD: And she... was female.
PSYCHIATRIST: Telling stories, not really your thing, is it?
PICARD: No. But it was hers.
PSYCHIATRIST: Who?
PICARD: The Queen... with the red hair.
YVETTE [OC]: I suppose you win, said the prince to the evil sorcerer. Oh, but just one more thing.

[Greenhouse]

(Painting on the glass windows.)
YVETTE: The Sorcerer, poised to reduce them to fractions of dust, stopped. His magic was gone, stolen back in the very manner he had arrived by it in the first place. Beaten at his own game, he melted, and all was right again. In time they would forget he was ever there, but they would never forget the lesson. There is no better teacher than one's enemy.
PICARD [OC]: She was quite an unusual queen in how she chose to spend her days, telling tales. Perhaps it was because she knew her time with him was borrowed.
YVETTE: You're like your father. Expression comes from his hands, not his mouth.
JEAN-LUC: I don't want to be like him.
YVETTE: It's not all bad, my love.
JEAN-LUC: I want to be like you.
YVETTE: Nevertheless, you're a prince. You must learn to lift people up in times of grave danger, to lead them with inspiring speech.
JEAN-LUC: I'll never be able to do that.
YVETTE: But you will. I know, because I know the future.
PICARD [OC]: In a way, she did. Like an animal, she could feel danger in her bones before anyone else in the room. Perhaps she was magic, or that's what happens when you live in a world where monsters are real.
(The beings in the painting move slightly.)
YVETTE: I want you to understand how deeply I love you. No matter what your life brings, if I know you forever or if I know you for moments. In every breath, who you are is who I am so proud of you for becoming.

[Chateau Picard]

YVETTE: Hurry.
(They run to the cellar, which has become a dungeon.)
YVETTE: Hurry! Go. Go! Get up.
(Yvette is dragged away by an invisible monster.)
JEAN-LUC: Maman!

[Clinic]

RAFFI: What's going on in there, JL?
SEVEN: Are you ready?
RAFFI: Uh-huh. Yeah.
SEVEN: Jurati's still MIA, so we're gonna use the Sirena's sensors to try and track her combadge, given her slightly ualarming behavior.
RAFFI: Her singing.
RIOS: Kissing.
RAFFI: Sorry, what now?
RIOS: Ask her.
RAFFI: Urgh. Just be careful, okay?
RIOS: You sure that'll work?
TALLINN: Not in the slightest.

[La Sirena]

(Beaming aboard.)
RAFFI: Is she out of her mind? Kissing Rios? Look, if that whole thing starts up again, I quit the gang. No, seriously, I don't think I have it in me.
SEVEN: Ha!
RAFFI: What? Oh. Oh, you and me? Nah, see, we're... we're totally different. No, our pain's beautiful and tragic, and everyone loves hearing about it.
SEVEN: Absolutely.
RAFFI: Plus, we're the main event. Now, Jurati and Rios, they're like a side story.
SEVEN: And obviously you know how the main story ends.
RAFFI: What, you mean once we're through all this shit? Well, the premonition I'm having is... us old, and we sit on park benches, tripping teenagers on floaty things with our canes.
SEVEN: I'm better at it than you.
RAFFI: Of course.
SEVEN: Initiating scan for Jurati's combadge.
(Console goes blank, then comes back on.)
RAFFI: Whoa. What did you do?
SEVEN: Nothing. I tried to access the ship's optical data network, and it kicked me out. And now I'm locked out.
RAFFI: By who?
SEVEN: Not who. What. This encryption isn't human by design. It's Borg.
RAFFI: The Queen? What the hell did she do to our ship?
SEVEN: I don't know. But if we can't get access and something's wrong with Jurati, we're never gonna find her.
RAFFI: Not to mention this ship is our only way home.

[Clinic]

TALLINN: Parental controls disabled. This should allow me into his mind.
RIOS: What you said. Er, take his lead, let him show you how to help him out. How?
TALLINN: Leap of faith? It's kind of how I roll. I'm hoping it makes sense when I get in there.

[Dungeon]

TALLINN: What is this?

[Subconscious]

PSYCHIATRIST: Do you need a moment?
PICARD: I'm fine. I wasn't aware Starfleet employed psychologists like you anymore.
PSYCHIATRIST: Well, Starfleet, obviously, judge and jury of all things meritorious.
PICARD: Is that resentment?
PSYCHIATRIST: It's true, the human version is clearly a lesser model. But there are those who have built such walls around their wounds even a Betazoid can't get a read.
PICARD: (laughs) You're implying that's me.
PSYCHIATRIST: Well, you never finished your story.
PICARD: Sometimes a story ends with a boy lost and alone in a dungeon.
PSYCHIATRIST: Right.
PICARD: What are you writing?
PSYCHIATRIST: Only that you're hopelessly bleak. I'm actually recommending that you be relieved of your command position immediately, lest you take the crew on a suicide mission just to feel something. There are a thousand ways to die out there.
PICARD: What did you say?
PSYCHIATRIST: Come on, Jean-Luc. Dig deeper.
PICARD: Fine. The boy was alone in the... No, wait. He wasn't.

[Dungeon]

LOCUTUS [OC]: I am Locutus of Borg.
PICARD [OC]: You are dangerous. They're only victims. You make them what they are. I'd rather die than bend to your way of life.
TALLINN: Picard?
PICARD [OC]: No! I would rather die as the man I was than live the life I just saw.
(Monster roars.)
TALLINN: So, this is your mind sober. I bet five-drink Picard is a blast.
(She searches and finds a boy.)
TALLINN: Hello? I'm trying to help someone. You seem to be on his mind. Why are you down here by yourself?
JEAN-LUC: Because I can't leave. She always said if we get separated to stay put.
TALLINN: It's okay. Who said?
JEAN-LUC: My mother. I have to stay put, or she won't know where to find me.
TALLINN: Well, you're the only one down here, and you seem pretty stuck, so I'm thinking maybe I should help unstick you. How do I do that?
JEAN-LUC: I'm not leaving without my mother, and you can't just find her. You'd have to save her.
TALLINN: All right. Then let's try that.
JEAN-LUC: A monster took her, and everything down here is on his side.
(Doors slam shut.)
JEAN-LUC: Come on! This way!

[Subconscious]

PSYCHOLOGIST: The hour-long evaluation is complete. You may terminate your session now. Go on. Go on. Back to wherever it is you're hiding from yourself. I can't say I wasn't warned. You're stubborn. It's one of the things I was told about you.
PICARD: You've been told things about me? Inquired about me specifically? I've had enough. What is this? Something else?
PSYCHIATRIST: Define something else.
PICARD: Something... else. Something else is happening here, and this is not real. Or it is, but it's...
PSYCHIATRIST: Ah. Maybe, but it's all within your control. Ironic, isn't it? We're all here for you, Picard. Only you can stop it. Say something real. One real thing. Why do you think we're here?
PICARD: Because... I'm stuck.
PSYCHIATRIST: We are.
PICARD: What does that mean? And who are you?
PSYCHIATRIST: I'm a studier of the human condition. You are a captain. Ethical, diplomatic, cultured. An affinity for the arts, intellectual thought, and yet perpetually untethered in the ways of the heart.
PICARD: Untethered? Relevance.
PSYCHIATRIST: Why do you find it so difficult to be open, Jean-Luc? To let people in? You hold them, you hold everyone, at arm's length. Lest... lest what? Perhaps there's a version of yourself you're hiding. Something you're afraid others will see. A darker version, perhaps? A secret shame. A guilt. What is it? What is it you define yourself by?
(Loud banging.)
PICARD: What is this? What is this banging?
PSYCHIATRIST: I think we both know where that's coming from. The ever-righteous Jean-Luc. You like others saying it. You need others to say it, because if they do, then that allows you to push the truth away for longer. You're so obsessed with virtue, Jean-Luc, that the very story you're telling me is one of good prevailing over...
PICARD: Stop! I never said anything like that. And you don't know how it ends.

[Dungeon]

JEAN-LUC: We need to get to the white door. It moves. It's not always in the same place, but she's behind it. She always is.
(Smoke curls over the floor, a horned demon grabs the boy, then another grabs Tallinn.)

[Clinic]

RIOS: Cool EVA suit. Hope you're up on your zero-gravity combat training.
TERESA: He's nine.
RIOS: A spaceman.
TERESA: Better. His babysitter flaked.
RIOS: Oh, we borrowed some clothes from your lost and found. I... I hope that's okay.
TERESA: How's the patient?
RIOS: Who, Picard? Oh. He's fine. Can we talk first?
(The door is locked.)
TERESA: Honey, Mama's going to use some bad words, okay? I've held back from asking you so many questions, but this is my clinic, and you don't lock the goddamn doors of my clinic. My keys.
RICARDO: You didn't even say the good swear words.
RIOS: Just, er... keep an open mind.
(Teresa walks in to see Tallinn with white eyes and Picard twitching.)
TERESA: What the hell is this?
RIOS: A procedure.
TERESA: Why are you walking toward me like a serial killer?
RIOS: I need to explain something to you without breaking Time.

[Dungeon]

MONSTER: This is not your journey. You're not supposed to be here, so no one will miss you when you die.
TALLINN: Let him go.

[Clinic]

TERESA: He's not responding to the lorazepam. We have to take him to the hospital.
RIOS: No, no, no. We... we can't go to the hospital.
TERESA: We are at life and death. I'm not equipped for this. He could die.
RIOS: Equipped. Okay. (comms) Raffi, I need some kind of er, stabilizer, stat. It's for Picard.
TERESA: Who are you talking to?
RIOS: It's... it's for his brain.
(A gizmo is beamed into his hands.)
TERESA: I don't know what's happening.
RIOS: Neural oscillator.
TERESA: Oh, my God.
RIOS: Teresa, just be in the moment.
TERESA: Okay, neural, neural. It... it affects brain waves.
RIOS: Amplitude, frequency, phase.
TERESA: Gamma waves? Are you kidding me? How is this real? Who are you?
RIOS: Focus. You're gonna have to...
TERESA: If you tell me to trust you one more time... Am I gonna kill him?
RIOS: I'm not a doctor but... I trust you.

[Dungeon]

TALLINN: Are you doing this on purpose? You don't want to be unstuck.
JEAN-LUC: What if it's not different this time? What if it's the same as every other time?
TALLINN: You're never gonna know if you don't get there. But if you don't leave now, you could be stuck here forever. And this time, you're not alone.
(She breaks his chains.)

[Clinic]

RIOS: You did it. He's stable.
TERESA: Are you from outer space?
RIOS: No. I'm from Chile. I just... I work in outer space.
(Tallinn and Jean-Luc leave the dungeon and go back into the chateau.)

[La Sirena]

RAFFI: Mmm. At least the replicators work. Wait. You're in?
SEVEN: The lock was based on a cryptographic algorithm I remembered from the Collective.
RAFFI: Good?
SEVEN: I thought Agnes had purged all the Borg programmes from the ship after we crashed.
RAFFI: Landed.
SEVEN: I wanted to understand how she broke into the system, so I called up the last occurrence of Borg code being introduced into the computer.
RAFFI: You haven't touched your coffee. You never don't touch your coffee.
SEVEN: This is what came up. That is definitely Borg code she's implanting. We have to find her, now.

[Subconscious]

QUEEN [OC]: There is no better teacher than one's enemy.
(The psychiatrist's room morphs into Chateau Picard.)
PICARD: You?
TALLINN: Oh, Picard.
PICARD: I... I was not... I was er... My ready room.
TALLINN: What's that banging?
JEAN-LUC: He's a monster.
TALLINN: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
JEAN-LUC: She's in there! She's in there! You...
TALLINN: Hey.
(The Psychiatrist enters.)
PICARD: You've been guarding it all this time. Her.
MAURICE: You lived longer than I did, but I got to keep my hair. Not exactly a fair trade, is it, son?
PICARD: You were relentless, Father. Your cruelty. You ruined her. You broke her.
JEAN-LUC: You're a monster.
MAURICE: Am I? Perhaps. But not in the way you think. You thought you couldn't save her from a monster. Look again.
(He opens a book - a diagram of a brain.)
PICARD: The tunnels. You said, don't go. Thousand ways...
MAURICE: A thousand ways to die down there.

[Memory / Subconscious]

YVETTE: Take what you love. Hurry. Come on. We have to go. It's just a game. Hide and seek down below.
JEAN-LUC: But I'm frightened of the dark.
YVETTE: Yes, but I can't breathe here. We'll go, you and me. I won't be sad. Everything will be better now. You want to be with me? Shh.
(They run into the cellars. Jean-Luc's foot goes through a rotten floorboard.)
JEAN-LUC: Maman! I'm stuck! Maman!
MAURICE [OC]: It was hours before I found you. If you hadn't dropped that pad, I never would've known. Your mother suffered cycles of terrible darkness. An irrational exhilaration. She needed help. But she wouldn't accept it.
YVETTE [OC]: Please, I'm... I'm so sorry. You have to get me out. I love you, please.
MAURICE: No light. Labyrinth. Rain coming. You'd have never made it out, but she... she would've kept on trying.
TALLINN: There was no monster chasing your mother.
MAURICE: No, there was. There always was. But I couldn't save her, either. Not from her own mind.
PICARD: Perhaps I never really knew you.
TALLINN: (to Jean-Luc) You'll do so much with this pain. You'll save worlds with it.
YVETTE [OC]: Let me out, Jean-Luc. Please. Only you can save me.
TALLINN: Wait. There's more to this, isn't there?
(Picard and Tallin wake up in the clinic. Rios and Ricardo are doing chalk drawings on the reception wall.)
TERESA: Not bad.
RIOS: Thanks.
TERESA: I was talking to my child.
RICARDO: He's a spaceman alien that can make things appear out of thin air.
RIOS: You promised, little man. Not cool. First off... I am human.
TERESA: Oh, my God. When someone has to earnestly convince you they're human, you should not have brought them around your kid.
RIOS: You have instincts about me, good ones. I know you do.
TERESA: You know how many times in my life I've been wrong?
RIOS: Not this time.
TERESA: You're loyal to that man. Respect him.
RIOS: You know, I never really knew my dad. He wasn't around much, so... I tend to seek out father figures.
TERESA: What do you mean?
RIOS: Picard. He feels like a father to me, even though I'm not a son to him.
TERESA: His loss, whoever you are.
RIOS: Who do you want me to be?
TERESA: A good guy.
RIOS: I am. And if I wasn't... I would become one, right now.
TERESA: If you're lying, and I brought you around my kid, they will never find your body.
RIOS: Oye, Ricardo. Want to see something cool? I want to show you something.

[La Sirena]

(Three beam in.)
RIOS: Welcome to La Sirena. My ship. My... spaceship.
RICARDO: I'm gonna go touch everything!

[Street]

SEVEN: Do you understand what this could mean? A Borg Queen loose in Los Angeles.
RAFFI: She's not the Borg Queen. Don't say that. She's Jurati, or she's...
SEVEN: Exactly. Is it Jurati with a side of Borg Queen, or vice versa? There. This is last night.
RAFFI: Maybe she's still there.
SEVEN OF NINE: I don't know. I got the feeling a lot of people's lives are gonna depend on us figuring it out.

[Deacons bar]

(A live band is playing. The men playing pool watch Agnes enter, then start thumping the window.)
BARMAN: Whoa, miss, miss! Hey, hey, hey!
(The glass breaks.)

[Clinic]

RAFFI [OC]: All of that happened today.
PICARD: To Jurati?
RAFFI [OC]: Not the kind of thing you want to wake up to, but we're on it.
PICARD: Well, keep safe and keep me informed. I've got something here to take care of. Renee?
TALLINN: She's fine. All quiet. No sign of Q or the new one.
PICARD: For now. Soong.
TALLINN: Picardm you saved her.
PICARD: I feel you and I just made a quantum leap past personal boundaries. Well, mine, without doubt.
TALLINN: Well, how about I give you this much?
PICARD: Romulan. I knew it. You could be an ancestor.
TALLIN: Usually, we're recruited to watch over our own, but on occasion, a similar species.
PICARD: That technology could be very useful.
TALLINN: It has its limitations. Once I switch it off, can't use it again for eight hours. Now I've got to walk around all day, hiding my truth. Are you all right?
PICARD: Oh, yeah. We're losing time. Doing more harm than good. The mission, Renee...
TALLINN: I'm not talking about the mission. All of that was part of Q's plan? That you experience that? That you relive those memories?
PICARD: I have to take that on board.
TALLINN: You know there's more to that story, don't you?
PICARD: Whatever it is, it is irrelevant with what we are trying to fix.
TALLINN: Not if he wants you to know it.
PICARD: There is no better teacher than one's enemy. But I've been letting him control the lessons. Know thyself. That's what he wanted. Know myself. What if the lesson I take is... know him?
TALLINN: I'm not sure I'm following.
PICARD: I always filed Q as unknowable. But here he is, so late in my life, still fixated on me. He needs this trial to happen. He's saying it's about me, but it's deeply personal and urgent to him. If we understand why that is, we can go on offense.
TALLINN: That sounds like you want to summon Q. Flattered, but that might be beyond my capabilities.
PICARD: Yours maybe. But there's someone else.

[10 Forward Avenue]

GUINAN: Wait a minute. No "So nice to see you, my new old friend. Thanks for sticking around an extra few days."
PICARD: I wouldn't ask if I could possibly keep you out of it.
GUINAN: Ask? Is that what just happened? 'Cause usually asking comes with a question mark at the end of it. You know, an up inflection in tone.
PICARD: But we need answers now.
GUINAN: You can't really want me to summon a Q?
(At a table, with an exotic shaped bottle.)
GUINAN: A long time ago, after a long cold war, my people and the denizens of the Q Continuum struck a truce.
PICARD: Denizens?
GUINAN: Well, I'm not gonna call them gods, that's for damn sure.
PICARD: No, I'm... I'm sorry. Go on.
GUINAN: We El-Aurians believe food and drink unite us, so the truce was made over a bottle. This one. To my people, every action vibrates, every word has resonance. Metal and liquid can capture the half-life of a moment. So when I say the truce was made over a bottle...
PICARD: You mean the moment itself is still inside?
GUINAN: El-Aurians hear the world like music. Dial in the right note, right memory, find the right chord and pluck it back...
(She unstoppers the bottle, whispering voices, the lights flicker, the building shakes. She pours the contents into a glass.)
GUINAN: ..and you can get the attention of the player. In our case, our friendly neighborhood Q.
(And drinks it. Glasses break, chairs go rattling across the floor, bottles explode. Normality returns.)
PICARD: Where is he? What happened?
GUINAN: It didn't... work. I don't understand.

[Outside Deacons]

(Glass on the pavement.)
RAFFI: How do we track something we don't understand? What?
(Seven gets a beer bottle from a rubbish bin and breaks it on the pavement.)
RAFFI: What? What are you doing?
SEVEN: Understanding.
RAFFI: Okay.
SEVEN: Pull it up again, her breaking the window. That rush. Endorphins. She's trying to speed up the process. Nanoprobes multiply, Queen gets stronger, less and less Jurati.
RAFFI: How long before she's strong enough to assimilate others?
SEVEN: No idea. We're witnessing the birth of a new queen. And if that happens, forget butterflies. She'll want to start an empire. She could assimilate every being on this planet. We've brought the Borg to Earth before humanity can defend itself. We're supposed to save the future, but we might have just doomed it. We need Picard.

[10 Forward Avenue]

PICARD: I mean, what happened here?
GUINAN: An El-Aurian summons a Q, a Q appears.
(Someone enters.)
PICARD: Is it him?
GUINAN: Uh-uh.
WELLS: Hello?
GUINAN: We're closed.
WELLS: Oh, it's just the sign says open.
GUINAN: Sorry, owner trumps sign. Good night. It always worked.
WELLS: I... I'm celebrating. One drink and I'm out of your hair, please.
GUINAN: Fine. What? What do you want?
WELLS: Hmm. Well, er, let me think. Let me see.
GUINAN: Allow me. You're the type of guy that orders a bourbon when he really wants a white wine and to cosy up to some boring-ass nonfiction.
WELLS: You're very good.
GUINAN: I've done this for a while. The truth is, there's no reason that I'm aware of, in the history of Time that this should fail, unless something's really wrong.
WELLS: Boy, you really got me pegged. Except the nonfiction part. Me, I'm more of a sci-fi guy myself. You? Not really the spacey types?
PICARD: Most definitely not.
WELLS: Come on. We could all use a dash of extra with all this ordinary. You don't think we're alone out there.
GUINAN: I think we're alone down here.
WELLS: For me er... science is aspirational. Science fact, science fiction. Love it all. Especially the strange, the er... less explainable. And I'm not talking about UFO's scooping up cattle or putting their John Hancock's on cornfields. I'm talking about... well, this here.
(CCTV footage of Picard beaming into Los Angeles.)
WELLS: Wait. Hold on now. That... that...
GUINAN: Funny thing, I used to have a camera system down here. Damn thing glitched so much you'd think this bar was for ghosts.
WELLS: Yeah, yeah. That's probably it. All the same.
MAN AGENT: Federal agents! Hold it right there!
(Picard drops his combadge.)
WOMAN AGENT: Don't move. Hands where I can see them.
PICARD: What is this?
WELLS: Law enforcement. I'm gonna need you two to come with me.