Christine gave the closed door of the holodeck a skeptical look. She'd heard wonderful things about this new technology, but she hadn't had a chance to try it out for herself yet. She had experienced virtual reality before, but that had always involved wearing special glasses and motion detectors. Apparently, the holodeck didn't require either of those things, but she couldn't comprehend how it could generate the environments without them.
She was a little bit nervous when she knocked on the door, and it wasn't because this was her first time using the holodeck. It was what she was going to do in the holodeck that gave her cold feet.
The door whooshed open, revealing Nyota. Her long black hair was tied back in its customary high pony-tail, and she wore casual athletic wear. Christine blinked at her for a moment, surprised that Nyota managed to make the loose, stretchy garments look good. Looking down at herself, Christine decided that she looked most similar to poorly packed sleeping bag-- lumpy and misshapen.
"Hey!" Nyota greeted her, flashing a perfect white smile. "Ready for your first dance lesson?"
Christine grimaced. "As ready as I'll ever be," she said hesitantly.
Nyota looped her arm through Christine's and lead her into the room, the door hissing shut behind them. "Don't worry, you'll be great!" Nyota told her encouragingly.
Glancing around, Christine got her first look at the holodeck. It was a fair sized room with a high ceiling, entirely void of any features other than the door, a digital panel on the wall near the door, and a grid of narrow white lines crossing the uniform deep grey that covered the entire room, top and bottom.
"I've never been in here before," Christine said. "How does it work?"
"You're going to love this," Nyota said. "It's amazing! Watch this," she said, leaving Christine in the centre of the room as she trotted over to the panel by the door. Her fingers danced across the interface, making quick selections through what Christine assumed was some kind of options menu. She looked around at the walls, expecting to see some kind of picture materialize on them.
She blinked, and in that time the world had changed. She spun around wildly, looking around and feeling like she had just been transported to an entirely different place. Only, she hadn't felt herself being transported, nor did she see the tell-tale particle beam that came with it. And to top it off, Nyota was still there.
"What is this?" Christine asked, breathless. She couldn't help but keep turning slowly, taking in each and every inch of the environment they were now in. It was still a room, but it seemed larger now. She couldn't tell if it actually was larger or if it was an illusion caused by the floor-to-ceiling mirror occupying one of the walls. The other three walls were panelled in wood. Large windows draped in sheer white curtains allowed a wide swath of warm sunlight to bathe the smooth hardwood floor. A large, impossibly clean crystal chandelier hung above, filling the room with light speckled in rainbow droplets. One wall had a railing-type bar along it, and the walls were decorated in large framed paintings of graceful dancers. A line of simple chairs were set against another wall.
"What do you think?" Nyota asked after allowing Christine ample time to take it all in. "Do you like it?"
"This is amazing," Christine said. "How does it..." she wandered over to the window, reaching out to the curtains. She was surprised when she could actually feel the gauzy material, as if it were actually real. Beyond the window was a view high above a bustling street. She could see the shapes of people and cars down there, and could see the trees swaying in the breeze. "This is all just the computer?" She asked, unable to believe that none of this was real.
"Pretty cool tech, right?" Nyota said as she joined Christine at the window. "I got Chekov to help me build this program. This was my mom's dance studio. I only remember being there a couple of times when I was a little kid, but we were able to reconstruct it from old pictures."
Christine looked at her in amazement. "You mean you can just... make these?" She asked, awestruck. "I thought they just came with a few settings and that was that."
Nyota shook her head. "No, you can make your own programs," she explained. "Some are simple environments, like this, but if you're really savvy you can program games, like the kind we played using those old VR sets."
"Wow," Christine said. That was all she could say, she was speechless.
Christine took a long moment to appreciate the technology, and wonder why she hadn't tried it out sooner. Then, she came out of her thoughts and turned her attention to Nyota. "This is a really cozy dance studio," she said. "Is it really the same as your mom's?"
Nyota nodded. "Everything is the exact same," she said. "Except my mom isn't here, and the chandelier is always freshly polished."
"So, you learned how to dance from your mom?" Christine asked, wondering why Nyota had only been in this room-- the real one --only a few times.
"I had a couple lessons from her," Nyota said. "But she died when I was six."
"Oh," Christine said, her face flushing with guilt. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know."
Nyota smiled softly and shrugged. "It's alright," she assured Christine. "But this room is one of my earliest memories. When we got the holodeck, I knew I had to recreate it."
"It must be really special to have this," Christine reflected.
"It is," Nyota agreed. "I never really knew my mom, but standing in her studio-- even if it isn't the real thing --makes me feel closer to her." She gave a good natured scoff at herself. "Listen to me being all sentimental."
"No, it's... that's beautiful, Nyota," Christine said. "I'm happy for you. That you can have this."
She took another look around the room, recontextualizing it in her mind. It was no longer just a dance studio, it was Nyota's mom's dance studio. Now that she was thinking about it, the paintings on the wall stood out to her. She realized that they all featured the same woman. She hadn't noticed this detail before, since they were all in different poses and outfits, and just seemed like typical studio decor. But they were certainly all of the same person now that she was paying closer attention.
"Is that your mom, in the paintings?" Christine asked.
"Yeah," Nyota said, smiling softly with nostalgia. "My grandmother told me that my mom wasn't the type to decorate her studio in big paintings of herself, but my dad had all of these commissioned as a surprise when she first opened a studio of her own."
"She's beautiful," Christine said. She wasn't just being polite. The woman in the paintings was the epitome of beauty and grace, and she got the feeling that the painter hadn't had to do any exaggerating. "She looks just like you," Christine realized out loud.
Nyota's lips flattened into a thin line as she tried to fight back a flattered smile. She looked down at her feet, brushing an invisible strand of hair behind an ear. Christine realized that Nyota was blushing! And now, Christine too began to blush as she realized that she had called Nyota beautiful-- and in no uncertain terms.
For a long minute, they stood side by side, gazing at the paintings and pretending that they weren't both blushing like school-girls. Then, Nyota turned to her. "Well, I think we've put off your lesson for long enough," she said.
The uneasy feeling from before returned to Christine. She looked down at Nyota's feet. "I hope those shoes are steel-toed."
Nyota laughed. "They aren't," she admitted. "But I don't think I'll need them to be."
"If you say so," Christine said. "So, where do we start?"
"I was thinking we'd start with the two-step," Nyota said, then glanced down at her own shoes. "You'll be fine, so long as you don't turn it into the two-stomp."