The next morning Khan was perched on his bed drawing when he heard footsteps. He put down pad and pencil and waited.

Admiral Marcus appeared outside the transparent aluminum door, flanked by Dr. Marin and four guards. "Admiral," said Khan, getting up and walking closer to the door. A couple of the guards shifted uneasily at this.

"Khan," said Admiral Marcus. "Glad to see you're feeling better. Just how much experience do you have with engineering and weapons design?"

"Enough," said Khan. "old." So Marcus needed weapons... Humanity never changed much, did it? Khan wondered who Marcus was fighting, not that it really mattered. What mattered was getting him out of his cell and his crew out of those cryotubes. He'd get his vengeance on Marcus for treating him like an animal later.

"Good," said Marcus, smiling. "We can certainly get you up to speed. I'll send the relevant information to your PADD. I want you ready to do something useful by next week. If you do well with it, I may even let you out of this cell."

"Yes," said Khan, then realized he had a problem. What day was it? "Day...to. "

Admiral Marcus merely looked confused.

Khan tried again. "Day week?"

"Oh, today's wednesday. I want you up to speed next wednesday."

Khan nodded, internally cursing his difficulty with words. It was maddening, and it made him look weak.

Khan spent the next week reading and rereading the PADD. He discovered to his horror that he kept forgetting information, especially if it was stored in words. He drew everything he could as diagrams or rewrote it as equations. If there hadn't been so much riding on it he would have enjoyed the challenge of learning the changes in technology. Warp technology looked fantastic... if only he'd had it back in the '90s the Augments would have been ruling an intersteller empire by now!

Dr. Marin left Khan almost completely to his own devices, much to Khan's relief. That meant he wasn't wasting energy restraining himself from attacking the man. The broken wrist Khan had given him in his escape attempt wasn't nearly enough to pay for the man's behaviour. The man should have more sense than to cage and mistreat an Augment.

One week to the day, Admiral Marcus returned and quizzed him on what he'd learned. Khan could tell he was pleased with the results, even if he had to answer some questions by drawing them or using mathematical equations and a few just plain weren't answerable without better language skills than he had.

"Well done," Marcus said finally.

Khan waited for him to continue.

"There is a ship that is a pet project of mine. It will need to be bigger, faster and better armed than anything we currently have..." Admiral Marcus began to explain the Dreadnought project.

Khan nodded as the Admiral explained what he was trying to do. It certainly sounded like an interesting project. Evan would have loved it. Not that putting something like that in the hands of Admiral Marcus seemed like the best of ideas, but that really wasn't something he had much choice about for now.

"I'll send you the details here for now, but if you produce something interesting I might give you more freedom. IF I do, you'll have to be under another name, of course."

"Free family," said Khan. A false name? If it got him and the others free he'd even forget about taking vengeance on this fool.

"Your family? Oh, you mean the Botany Bay's crew."

Khan nodded.

"I'll think about it. You'll have to do a lot to earn that."

Khan stared at him, wondering how far he could trust him.

"I can't just release all of you into earth's population. You'd stick out like sore thumbs and it would be my head on a pike if anyone found out, let alone if one of your lot hurt anyone. No, you'd need to leave federation space entirely."

"Botany Bay try."

"Yes, you did, I suppose." Admiral Marcus fell silent. "Very well. If you do everything I ask, produce the weapons I need and help me win the war against the Klingon empire, I will provide you and your crew with a ship at the edge of Federation space and you will take it and never return."

Khan smiled, one which actually reached his eyes. "You do... this, I design weapons."

"Yes."

Khan nodded.

"Welcome aboard, Agent John Harrison," said Admiral Marcus. They both smiled.

Khan spent the next three weeks going over the systems suggested for the Dreadnought class and trying to fix problems or find improvements. At least, that was the main thing he was doing.

They actually got him to see a speech therapist, although he only seemed to be making limited progress. It was still vastly better than when he'd woken up and she seemed to think it might keep improving with time. Given his augmented healing abilities, Khan thought she was probably right. Still, Khan found himself thinking forward to when he would see his people again, and dreading their reaction to the changes in him. It would still be worth it just to see them again and to get out of here.

He also had to get used to answering to 'John' or 'Agent Harrison' and learn how to behave as a member of Section 31. 'John Harrison' was a Section 31 agent who'd recieved a brain injury on a mission and turned to his other specialty, weapons design. He would still have to put up with a guard/watcher/handler, with the explanation that his injuries meant that he needed extra oversight, but his abilities were too valuable to go unused.

Overall, Section 31 seemed operate in a similar manner to how intelligence agencies operated in his day. He couldn't really say much about specifics seeing that he'd never been part of one before.

One interesting thing he learned was that much of what he'd seen so far and had experienced would be considered both illegal and immoral by the rest of society. Interesting, and something it might be very useful to remember if Admiral Marcus played him false.