Sorry it's a few days later than planned. But it is finally complete! Thank you to every one who reviewed the last chapter, or any of the earlier chapters. It's great to know there are people out there reading. As always, the characters are not my own and I don't make any money.

Chapter 8

Bridger looked over the figures had Ford received from Lucas every day just he'd ordered. Something was wrong with them. But the longer he spent staring at list of times and duties the more and more he failed to work out what that wrong something was.

The boy was sleeping. He was eating. He was working on all the right projects and doing all the right things. It just wasn't easy to fit Lucas into that role.

'Commander, how long should it take someone to realign the sensors on Jr.?'

'Two hours, sir, I checked all the time logs against the UEO standards…' as he said it Bridger felt the final pieces of the puzzle click into place.

'Since when does Lucas do anything that is standard?' Westphalen asked.

'And the rest of this fabrication is probably just as accurate,' Bridger slapped the files down on his desk.

'Which means?' the doctor prompted.

'I have no idea,' Bridger said, 'but I intend to find out right now!'

He reached Mammal Engineering and threw the door open within a minute.

Bridger saw Lucas scramble to switch the screen off and spin around as the door thudded against the bulkhead. The teenager looked even worse than the last time the Captain saw him.

'Switch the screen back on,' he ordered. If Lucas didn't want him to see it then that was where he should start this interrogation.

'What?' Lucas asked.

'Switch the computer screen back on,' the Captain repeated.

'Why?'

'Because I told you to.'

'And that's a good reason?' Lucas demanded.

'Right here, right now, while I'm your Captain, you bet it is, kiddo.'

Lucas's jaw set.

Okay, diplomacy. Bridger could do that if he really had to. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he counted to ten.

'There's nothing that can be on the screen that could shock me,' Bridger said. Please let it be nothing more sinister than a dirty web site. That would be so easy to deal with. He'd had that conversation with Robert a long time ago. He could do that conversation without blinking.

Lucas blushed and turned away. 'It's just a project I'm working on. It's nothing to do with you.'

'Something you don't think I would approve of?' Bridger guessed.

Lucas shrugged.

'Switch the screen back on,' Bridger told him again.

Lucas sighed. 'Captain, I'm catching up with everything that I fell behind on. It won't happen again.'

'That's good to know, but it doesn't explain what's wrong with you lately.'

'Nothing is wrong,' Lucas said, he pushed his hair back out of his eyes and then rubbed a hand across his eyes in a move filled with exhaustion.

'You should stick to the truth, kiddo, it's easier to remember. Besides you're a terrible liar.'

Lucas sighed. 'You just never give up do you? If you want me off the boat, just transfer me and get it over with. You don't have to look for excuses.'

Bridger found himself momentarily lost for words. His mouth opened and closed with such a good impersonation of a tuna fish even Darwin might have been fooled. 'You don't want to stay on the boat?'

He watched the moment where Lucas's tight hold on his temper slipped from his tired grip. 'Does it matter?' the teenager shouted. 'It didn't matter to my father when he sent me here, and it doesn't matter to you now. One thing about my father – at least he had the balls not to try and pretend otherwise.'

'You didn't answer the question,' Bridger pointed out, 'do you want to stay on the boat?'

Lucas's eyes really flashed at that. 'Sorry, Captain, begging never has been my style. I'll start packing my things.'

'Yes or no, Lucas; Do you want to stay on the boat?'

'Yes! Okay? Are you happy now? Just leave me alone!' turning his back on his Captain, he grabbed his bag and began stuffing things in it at random.

He threw open several drawers and grabbed at the content. As the clutter shifted under his hands several packets of pain killers were revealed. Bridger pick one of them up. 'Lucas?'

Lucas didn't say anything.

A shot of pure dread shot through the Captain. 'What are these?'

Lucas glanced over his shoulder. 'Read the label,' he snapped.

'And just what did you intend to do with them?' Bridger tried to swallow but his mouth was dry. He knew that Lucas hadn't been that happy lately but he had never thought… it had never occurred to him that Lucas might be that depressed.

Lucas laughed. 'Don't flatter yourself, Captain. My father didn't manage to drive me that far in sixteen years, you certainly didn't manage it as many months, even with half the UEO helping you.' He paused for a moment and the Captain saw him weigh up if he should continue or not.

He saw the decision in Lucas's eyes as that stabbed back towards him. 'When the next idiot to do my job boards, make sure he knows what he is letting himself in for,' he took a pad of paper from another draw and flung it at Bridger. 'You were so proud of working out the ones I gave Ford were fiction? That's the real version, Captain. Before you pack me off you might want to take a moment and work out how many people you'll need to replace me.'

Bridger caught the pad. He scanned the first page and then the second. 'When was the last time you slept?' he asked as he flicked through page after page.

Lucas gave another of those bitter, humourless laughs. 'That's that thing where you actually lie down on a bed and close your eyes for more than five minutes, right? You'll have to refresh my memory – it was that long ago.'

'If you had too much work…' Bridger began.

'Then what?' Lucas demanded.

'I could have changed that,' Bridger said.

'What would have changed? Would my father have stopped sending me work? Would the UEO keep our science budget going? Would you start on all the paper work to add one more man to the project? Would the computers stop breaking down? Would the scientists learn to work their own equipment? Yes, please tell me, Captain, what would have been so different if I had told you that I'm doing the work of a dozen men and usually more?'

'I would have found a way to help you,' Bridger said.

'I found my own ways,' Lucas said, he picked up a packet of the painkillers and tossed them at the Captain. 'These are all empty,' he said, 'because even I can't type for days straight without something to ease the pain.'

'Dr Westphalen?' Bridger began.

Lucas laughed. 'Who do you think set the electronic locks on the security systems in med bay, Captain? There isn't anywhere on this boat that I can't get into.'

'You took these from med bay?'

'Yes,' there was no guilt in the teenager's voice.

Bridger rubbed his own eyes in unconscious imitation of Lucas's new habit and let out a sigh. 'Sit down.'

Lucas stayed standing. Bridger pushed some of the junk off his bed onto the crowded floor and sat down. He tapped the bed next to him. With obvious reluctance Lucas sat.

'You could have come to me with this,' the Captain said.

'And had another, you're a genius Lucas or, you're a member of this crew Lucas, or whatever, lecture? I didn't have time to sit through any of your talks.'

Bridger still flicked through the reports Lucas had submitted to Ford. 'No wonder you're exhausted,' he observed.

Lucas snorted and slumped back against the bulkhead.

'Does your father always send you this much work?'

Lucas shrugged sleepily. 'When he thinks I'm slacking he does.'

'I thought you missed him?'

Lucas blinked at him, 'why would I miss him?'

'You've been different since you saw him on shore leave.'

'Apparently people who have time to go to the Pleasure dome aren't working hard enough to reach their full potential,' Lucas shrugged. 'I appeared to have time on my hands. He filled it up. And then there was this programme to write before they cut the science budget and then there was the Trewfori project and…' he trailed off making it quite clear he could carry on the list if he had the inclination or the energy. He shrugged again.

Bridger looked at the lists and all the hours Lucas had already devoted to Trewfori. 'I thought you were going to go slow on the Trewfori project?'

Lucas gave a heart hearted laugh. 'You really have no idea just how long a time consuming programming job takes, do you? Even at this rate I'll be lucky if I finish it in months.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I did tell you, you just didn't want to hear me. You just decided I was slacking off and to get rid of me,' he glanced very briefly at his Captain, 'I heard you and Westphalen plotting in med bay.'

'I wasn't talking about sending you off the boat for ever, Lucas. Just an extended period of shore leave.'

Lucas shrugged again but the nonchalance was obviously fake. 'Whatever.'

'I think it is a better idea for you to remain on the boat and for us to keep a proper eye on you,' Bridger said. He didn't miss the happiness in Lucas's eyes, but he still wasn't surprised when he heard Lucas's next words.

'I'm not a child, I don't need someone to baby sit me.' But the words were already half slurred with sleep and Lucas's head was slumping towards the pillow.

Bridger stood up and as Lucas dropped into a sound sleep the Captain picked his feet up and put him to lie properly on the bed.

He looked around and found a blanket to tuck around him. Lucas lay though it all dead to the world. Bridger saw Darwin in the aqua tube and picked up the vo-corder.

'Darwin? Watch Lucas. If he wakes up come and get me.'

Darwin nodded. 'Lucas sick.'

Bridger looked back down at the exhausted boy. 'Yes, but we're going to make sure he gets better real soon.'

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

All the senior members of the crew bar one sat around the table in the ward room. Captain Bridger waited with forced patience until they were all sitting comfortably before he stood up to address them.

'Where's Lucas?' Ford asked as he noticed the teenagers chair conspicuously empty.

'Lucas is sleeping?'

Ford frowned, 'I thought this was his shift?'

'Apparently it is always Lucas's shift.' He began handing out copies of Lucas's accurate activity reports and then watched as they read through them in silence.

'This can't be right,' Katie said. 'No-one could keep going like this!'

'Correct. It isn't right and Lucas can't keep going like this. He is under the impression his place on the boat depends upon his doing every single thing that everyone asks of him.'

Crocker shook his head, 'that's not right, Cap, he doesn't do everything…' but he trailed off.

'Would someone like to tell me the last time Lucas failed to do a project someone asked for his help on?'

Glanced past back and forth across the table but no-one had an answer they wanted to share.

'When was the last time any of us asked if he had time to do something rather than assume because of his status as a civilian and his intelligence he had the time and the skills to do anything involving a computer chip?'

He looked around the guilty faces. 'It stops now. Military and science. It stops now. Lucas doesn't do any jobs; he isn't approached to do any jobs, without someone clearing it through either Ford or Dr Westphalen. That includes any projects from outside the boat. I don't care if we have to cut off his access to the outside world and monitor every move he makes on board; he is no longer to only go to man on the boat.'

Ford cleared his throat. 'Captain, with all due respect, how? How do we monitor someone who designs the systems that monitor everyone on the boat?

'Believe it or not, we are the best the UEO has to offer. We are the flag ship, the pick of the crop and every other metaphor you can think of. We can, between us all, supervise one teenage boy.'

They all looked at each other. They could?

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Lucas blinked his eyes open. His automatic reaction was to throw himself out of bed and into his computer chair.

How could he have let himself fall asleep like that? He halted half way though his movement and only just prevented himself from landing in the Captain's lap.

'Captain?' the events of the previous night came back to him.

'Lucas,' Bridger greeted calmly.

Lucas watched him warily. That had been quite a tantrum he had thrown the previous night. He waited to be told his fate. The older man didn't say anything.

'Captain?' he repeated again.

Bridger handed him a clip board with activity rosters on it. Lucas glanced at them, saw his name at the top and studied them more closely. Next to each activity was a second name. 'You're kidding?'

Bridger shook his head. 'From now on you are on medically reduced workload; you only do the work on that sheet. That means you will be where the sheet says you are to be when it says you are to be. If it says you are to be in the mess hall, you will be there, and you'll find someone – the names on the sheet should give you a clue who – there to make sure you are. If you are working in the science labs you will check in with Dr Westphalen, if you are working on a military project you will check in with Commander Ford.'

'But…' Lucas looked at the sheet in horror.

'When you are asleep you'll find someone keeping an eye on you,' Bridger nodded to the aqua tube where Darwin bobbed happily in the water.'

'You're making me have a dolphin as a baby sitter?' he demanded.

'No, you now have an a whole boat full of baby sitters – until I decide that you can be trusted to manage your work load on your own.'

'Wouldn't it just be easier to put a tracker on me so you know where I am in the boat?' Lucas asked with all the innocence a teenager can muster.

'No, since our resident computer expert is on reduced workload, I decided to go low tech on this project. And just so you know I'm serious,' Bridger added. 'The first time you break these rules I'll have Chief Crocker lock you in the brig.'

'What happens the second time?' Lucas asked cautiously.

'I'll have you confined to Med bay. Dr Westphalen takes the medically part of medically reduced work loads very seriously. And it would be terrible if someone felt they had to point out where certain of her medical supplies went missing to…' Bridger trailed off managing to sound far more innocent than Lucas ever had.

Lucas thought about that. He thought about the Doctor's likely reaction. He looked at his Captain and conceded with a nod. 'You fight dirty.'

The End.

Thank you for reading. Do leave a review regardless of what you thought. I don't mind critisism.

The last two chapters of Alcatraz will be posted up as soon as possible.

Cadi.