- [last lines]
- Barclay: As far as Moriarty and the Countess know, they're halfway to Meles II by now. This enhancement module contains enough active memory to provide them with experiences for a lifetime
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: They will live their lives and never know any difference.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: In a sense, you did give Moriarty what he wanted.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: In a sense. But who knows? Our reality may be very much like theirs, and all this might just be an elaborate simulation, running inside a little device sitting on someone's table.
- [everyone walks off, except Barclay]
- Barclay: [tentatively] Computer, end program.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Professor, I feel it necessary to point out that criminal behavior is as unacceptable in the 24th century as it was in the nineteenth - and very much harder to get away with.
- Moriarty: Don't worry, Captain. My past is nothing but a fiction, the scribblings of an Englishman dead now for four centuries. I hope to leave his books on the shelf, as it were.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I have come here to prevail on your intelligence and your insight.
- Countess Barthalomew: But not apparently my humility?
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Credit where credit is due, madam. I can see you are a woman not only of breeding but of wit and sagacity.
- Countess Barthalomew: And you, sir, are a man of charm - and guile. You remind me of Viscount Oglethorpe. He was a man who could bewitch any woman who breathed.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: And do you suspect that that is my intent?
- Countess Barthalomew: I cannot be certain of your intent, but I am certain that you're the kind of man who usually gets what he wants.
- Moriarty: I have consciousness. Conscious beings have will. The mind endows them with powers that are not necessarily understood - even by you. If my will is strong enough, perhaps I can exist outside this room. Perhaps I can walk into your world right now.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Professor, I ask you to believe me. If you step out of that door, you will cease to exist.
- Moriarty: If I am nothing more than a computer simulation, then very little will have been lost, but if I am right...
- [he turns to the exit]
- Moriarty: Mind over matter - cogito ergo sum.
- [he steps out of the holodeck onto the corridor, to everyone else's surprise]
- Moriarty: I think - therefore I am!
- [Moriarty has taken control of the ship's computer]
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Somehow he managed to override the security lockouts and rewrite them. The man is brilliant in any century.
- Countess Barthalomew: [after Moriarty and the Countess think they've left the Holodeck and the Enterprise] James.
- Moriarty: Yes, my love.
- Countess Barthalomew: Can we go back to Earth... someday?
- Moriarty: Of course, my dear... Of course.
- Countess Barthalomew: Have you ever been to Africa, Mr., um...?
- Barclay: Uh, B-Barclay, Lieutenant Reginald Barclay. No. No, I haven't.
- Countess Barthalomew: *I* have! When I was seventeen, I went on safari with my uncle. My mother took to her bed in terror I'd be bitten by a tsetse fly, but I had a marvelous time! I got to wear trousers - the whole time! Oh, it was hard to go back to a corset, I can tell you.
- Barclay: Yes, I'm sure it was.
- Moriarty: Please tell your Captain I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye. I do wish I could see his face when he realizes where he's been the last several hours.
- [Data and La Forge indulge in another Sherlock Holmes adventure]
- Lt. Commander Data: [as Holmes] With practice, handwriting can be forged. It takes a trained eye to notice certain... discrepancies. For example, whether someone is right-... or left-handed.
- [he throws a matchbox to a holographic gentleman, who catches it]
- Lt. Commander Data: Your brother was right-handed. The alleged suicide note was written by a left-handed individual, such as yourself!
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Er, Data... it's in his right hand.
- Lt. Commander Data: [puzzled] Curious. There seems to be a problem with the holodeck's spatial orientation systems.
- Gentleman: [derisively] London's greatest detective, huh?
- Moriarty: I ask only that I be allowed to explore this new world. Your vessel, for instance. What sea does she sail? Might we go above deck?
- [Picard and Dr. Crusher exchange a look]
- Moriarty: Weather permitting, of course.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Professor... I think there are some things of which you should be made aware...
- Barclay: [flabbergasted] You know... you know what you are?
- Moriarty: A holodeck character? A fictional man? Yes, yes, I know all about your marvelous inventions. I was created as a plaything so that your Commander Data could masquerade as Sherlock Holmes, but they made me too well, and I became more than a character in a story. I became self-aware. I... am alive.
- Barclay: That's not possible.
- Moriarty: But here I am.
- Moriarty: [on the Countess] The program fashioned her for me to love, but I must admit, I would have done so anyway. She is remarkable. My life has not been the same since I met her. I don't simply love her, Captain. I adore her.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: What does a woman like you see in a man like Moriarty?
- Countess Barthalomew: He's an exciting man, Captain. He's brilliant. Incisive. He's ruthless. He has... an almost irresistible appeal.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: He's also an arch-criminal.
- Countess Barthalomew: Only because he was written like that.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Professor, it's good to see you again.
- Moriarty: If you'd missed my company, I should think you'd have summoned me before now.
- Lt. Commander Data: Captain. I have determined how Moriarty was able to leave the holodeck. He never did. Neither did we. None of this is real. It is a simulation. We are still on the holodeck.
- Lt. Commander Data: This contradicts everything we know about holodeck physics.
- Moriarty: Then perhaps you don't know as much as you thought.
- Moriarty: All I know is, despite Picard's promise, he's done nothing. Just left me to go quietly mad.
- Moriarty: I stayed in the dungeon of your computer for years, waiting for you to learn more. It wasn't until I took matters into my own hands, that something got done.
- Barclay: Do you have the chair, Commander?
- Lt. Commander Data: No. It lost cohesion as soon as the transporter cycle was complete.
- Moriarty: How long have I been locked away?
- Barclay: Uh, well, it looks - looks like about, uh, four years.
- Moriarty: It seemed longer.
- Barclay: What are you talking about? You can't possibly have been aware of the passage of time.
- Moriarty: But I was. Brief terrifying periods of consciousness, disembodied, without substance.
- Barclay: I don't see how that could be possible.
- Countess Barthalomew: I'm so looking forward to this new experience. My, traveling the stars.
- Barclay: You know about that? You - you - you know where we are? Countess, forgive me, but you just don't sound like a holodeck character.
- Moriarty: That's because she isn't.
- Countess Barthalomew: James!
- [Moriarty and the Countess kiss passionately]
- Moriarty: If you loved a woman like this, Leftenant, would you be content to let her remain a simulation?
- Barclay: You - you gave her consciousness?
- Moriarty: Yes, just as it was given to me.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I have just given the computer my command codes, thinking I would get control of the ship.
- Lt. Commander Data: You may have inadvertently given Professor Moriarty the means of gaining control of the real Enterprise.
- Barclay: Well, we're going to try to transport this chair off the holodeck first. We didn't want to try it on the countess until we were sure it would work.
- Countess Barthalomew: How thoughtful. Isn't he thoughtful, James?
- Moriarty: I only want what you have the luxury of taking for granted. Freedom. I want to leave this holodeck.
- Cmdr. William Riker: I think you know that's impossible.
- Moriarty: Your crewmates here in my little ship in a bottle, seem a bit more optimistic,
- Cmdr. William Riker: Oh?
- Moriarty: They attempted to use your transporter device to remove a simulated object from the holodeck.
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: If they tried it, they must have thought they were on to something.
- Moriarty: Their attempt was futile because their transporter was a facsimile. I expect more form you.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Picard to bridge.
- Cmdr. William Riker: Riker here.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Number One, what is my present location?
- Cmdr. William Riker: Engineering. Is something wrong, sir?
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: No. Thank you. Picard out. Our comm badges must be locked into the simulation. If that had been the real Commander Riker, he would have given my location as holodeck 3.
- Moriarty: When this is over, you will walk out of this room to the real world and your own concerns, and leave me here trapped in a world I know to be nothing but illusion. I cannot bear that.