A/N: Thank you pallysAramisRios for reviewing!

Chapter 3

Rios woke up feeling groggy again. He lolled his head to the side and saw Vandermeer was still there, sitting in one of the chairs at the table across the room.

"How are you feeling?" his former captain asked.

Rios slowly sat up, bracing the side of his head with one hand. "Like I drank two bottles of Saurian ale."

Alonzo's mouth twitched and he stood up to walk to a cabinet or something, Rios was having trouble following his movement. A minute later, a cup of water was put under his face. Rios took it with a small nod of thanks and sipped carefully.

"Don't worry, your head will be clearer soon."

"I thought it was all a dream," Cris murmured, looking up with watery eyes at the man he'd loved like a father. He couldn't believe his pops was back.

Vandermeer nodded soberly. "The last ten years were the dream, but it's time to wake up from the nightmare."

Rios shook his head. "I can't believe that stuff about Admiral Picard and Soji."

Alonzo sat beside him on the bunk. "Let's not jump to that, then. Let's start from the beginning."

He pulled a control device from his pocket and pressed a button. The room suddenly transformed into an almost exact replica of the ibn Majid's mess hall, save for the original room's sparse pieces of furniture.

Rios frowned. "This is a holodeck?"

"I had the emitters installed when we started planning to bring you in to tell you the truth," Vandermeer said. "But I think it's better if you see it for yourself."

The holo program started playing as the mess doors swished open, and Jana and Beautiful Flower walked in. They smiled directly at Rios.

"Commander Rios," Beautiful Flower said. "Come, sit with us."

"No," he murmured, shaking his head. "No, I don't need to relive this."

"Yes, you do," Vandermeer urged. "You need to see the truth."

A spiky lump constricted his throat, but Cris reluctantly stood up and went over to sit with the synths. They were engaged in friendly chatter, though he couldn't clearly hear what they were saying with the blood roaring in his ears as his anxiety ramped up. He'd relived this moment a thousand times in his head, knew it all by heart.

The doors opened again and another, younger Vandermeer walked in. Rios started to stand, but his limbs felt like lead. Vandermeer pulled his phaser and shot both synths point blank. Cris turned his face away.

Vandermeer then turned to him. "I had to," he said in a broken voice. "I received a Black flag directive. If I didn't follow orders, Starfleet Security was prepared to destroy the ibn Majid with all hands on board."

Cris remembered what he'd said next, those horrible words. He knew the script but couldn't repeat them, couldn't let his pops hear them for real. "Don't," he whispered instead.

Vandermeer's expression twisted with grief the same way it had when Rios had laid into him for what he'd done. It was all preprogrammed.

"Stop!" he shouted, surging to his feet and whirling on the other Vandermeer. "You said this wasn't real, so make it stop!"

There was the sound of phaser fire and a body dropping. Cris clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into the flesh of his palms.

Alonzo walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you went through that. But that's not the way it happened."

He clicked the control button and the room reset. Jana and Beautiful Flower walked in, invited Cris to sit. His body trembled as he stiffly retook his seat, tensed for whatever was about to happen.

At first, it was the same, with the synths smiling and chatting. Then the doors opened and Vandermeer came in. But instead of walking up to them and shooting, he sat down at the table too. Cris watched in bafflement as things seemed normal, friendly. Until Jana abruptly turned to Alonzo sitting beside her and jabbed a hypospray into his neck. Alonzo's eyes rolled back and he immediately collapsed.

Rios reflexively tried to surge to his feet, but Beautiful Flower grabbed him in a headlock from behind. He bucked and struggled, but the synth was too strong. Jana stalked around the edge of the table, her expression no longer kind but devoid of all emotion. Rios strained harder as she drew closer and placed her fingers against the sides of his temples. Her touch was like lightning through his skull, and Rios screamed, but Beautiful Flower clamped a hard hand over his mouth, muffling the sound. He couldn't breathe, and the pain was so excruciating it felt like she was physically pushing her fingers into his brain.

His vision started to swirl, morphing back into the events of Alonzo murdering them, him and Cris fighting about it, and Alonzo killing himself in front of Rios. The synths suddenly dropped him on the floor where he was left gasping and writhing, the two versions overlaying each other in a painful, dizzying whirl.

Then the holo program shut off, bringing him back into the plain room, though agony was still radiating through his body.

Alonzo walked over and knelt next to him, but Cris recoiled from him sharply.

"Why did you do that?" he asked hoarsely, chest compressing at the unexpected cruelty from the man he trusted.

Vandermeer looked down at him sadly. "So you would know the truth."

Cris pushed himself up onto one elbow and gripped his head with the other. His brain still felt like it was on fire from Jana's touch, even though that had just been a holographic projection.

"They're going to do it again," Vandermeer went on. "It's just a matter of time before you see or overhear something you shouldn't, and then Soji or Picard will crack open your mind and move things around to their liking."

Cris's breaths were coming shallow and rapidly; he couldn't believe that. But he couldn't shake the memory of pain and terror.

"Come on," Vandermeer said, gripping his arm and helping him off the floor. "You should rest after that. I know it was difficult." He led Rios back to the bunk and eased him down.

Cris's head was spinning so wildly that he quickly passed out.

Agnes frowned at the interference coming through the comm link. "Are you sure everything's okay?" she asked.

"I'm dealing with some computer glitches," Cris's voice answered, slightly distorted. "So I might be a day late picking you all up."

"Oh, okay. There's still some sight-seeing the kids would like to do," she said.

"I'll be in touch," Cris said and abruptly disconnected the comm link, leaving Agnes staring dumbly at the blank screen that'd been black for the whole conversation.

A very stilted conversation, at that. And before now it'd been three days of transmission silence. Agnes had been trying not to worry when she'd finally gotten a connection through, but that exchange hadn't served to alleviate her concern. Cris hadn't sounded right, but if something was wrong, why wouldn't he have told her? But without being able to see his face, she couldn't say for certain anything was wrong. Maybe he was just busy with those glitches. Agnes hoped they weren't serious and the holos would be able to help.

Guess she'd just have to wait for him to pick them up and then try to have a more open conversation with him.

The next time Rios woke, the sensations of pain and dizziness were a bit duller. He sat up on the bunk and looked around for Alonzo, who was already standing beside him with a cup of water.

"I'm sorry for having to put you through that," he said remorsefully. "It was the most efficient way to break through the synths' reprogramming."

Rios gulped down the water, coughing on it. "All this time," he murmured.

Alonzo clasped his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault, kid."

"Where are Jana and Beautiful Flower now?" he asked. "If they didn't die?"

He hadn't seen them on Coppelius. Except for Jana's twin sister.

"I don't know," Vandermeer answered. "But there are two synths we know about who are conspiring against the Federation, and we know where to find them."

Rios's brow furrowed in confusion until he remembered. "Picard and Soji."

A part of him was still resistant to the idea that they could be enemy agents working right under everyone's noses. But so many things had fallen into place so perfectly…could it all have been arranged? A master puppet show they'd all been pawns in?

"Do you think it was coincidence?" Vandermeer asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Picard hiring you to take him across the galaxy in search of Soji."

Cris frowned. "What? No…Raffi gave him my name. He didn't know who I was at the time or what happened on the ibn Majid."

Alonzo leveled an earnest look at him. "Don't you see? He knew Raffi would call you. Another piece to recruit into their twisted game. They chose you on purpose, Cris. To bring up old wounds and play on them."

Rios rocked back, dropping the empty cup to catch himself on the mattress. His head was reeling again.

"They've been using you this whole time," Alonzo went on. "And when you wanted to stray from the plan, they overruled or manipulated you into falling into line, didn't they?"

Rios's throat tightened as he thought about Soji trying to hijack his ship, and then using Jana as emotional leverage. And Picard, always wanting his way and making demands.

"Why?" he choked out for the umpteenth time. "Why do all that?"

"Because they have no conscience, no soul. Hell, for all we know, Soji could be Jana in an upgraded synth body."

Rios flinched at that possibility. Soji did know things only Jana did…

Vandermeer grabbed Cris by the arms fervently. "Help me stop them," he pleaded. "Help me avenge all the lives they've destroyed, including mine and yours, and help me save countless others."

Cris swallowed hard. He hated this, hated that this could be true…was true. And he honestly didn't know which was worse—his pops committing suicide because of something Rios said, or that it was all a false memory to trick Rios into abandoning his old man.

He nodded shakily.

"Say it," Vandermeer urged.

"I- I'll help you," Cris said. And just like that, some of his anxiety and distress immediately started to settle.

"Say what you will do," Vandermeer prompted.

Rios blinked rapidly, his head feeling strange again, but he focused on getting the words out. "I will kill the synths."

"Which ones?"

There was a small hitch in his chest as he replied, "Picard and Soji."

More numbness settled in, calming him.

"To save the galaxy," Vandermeer finished.

"To save the galaxy," Cris repeated, and the rest of his cloudy thinking evaporated as a firm resolve set in. He knew who the enemy was and what he had to do.

He was a Starfleet officer to the core, after all.