A/N: Thank you pallysAramisRios, SnidgetHex, and Lauraline94 for reviewing!

Chapter 6

Agnes's heart had plummeted into her stomach at Emil's pronouncement. This couldn't be happening.

While the others continued to discuss the situation, she slipped away and went back into the med bay where Cris was pacing in agitation. When he saw her, he immediately moved forward, only to bump against the force field. His expression tightened.

"Agnes, let me out."

A spiky lump constricted her throat. "Cris…you're not well."

"I am. I've never been clearer." He looked at her beseechingly. "Agnes, you have to trust me."

She shook her head, pained.

"Agnes, you were right from the beginning," he went on. "The synths are a threat to us all. We have to stop them. You can help me stop them."

"That was Oh's mind meld. I know better now." She inched closer to the field. "Is that what the Romulans did? Some kind of mind meld? Think, Cris, you know this is wrong."

"There were no Romulans."

"We found evidence."

He banged a fist against the force field, making Agnes flinch as it shimmered and zinged. "The synths are doing it again! Manipulating things."

Agnes backed away, shaking her head. She'd been where he was, thought the exact same thing, had believed it with full conviction. It had scared her, when she'd been the one committing murder for the righteous cause. And it scared her to see Cris in that mindset now.

"Agnes," he pleaded, but then the others returned and he backed up in the alcove, expression hardening again. "You can mess with my memories, but my captain will come for me again," he said staunchly.

Raffi stepped forward. "Where is Vandermeer now?"

"A safe place where the synths can't get to him."

"It would help us a lot if we could speak with him," Seven put in.

"I don't trust you," Cris said scathingly and slapped his hand against the force field as evidence.

"We're sorry about that, baby," Raffi responded. "It's for everyone's safety."

He snorted.

"Rios," Picard tried next. "If Captain Vandermeer is still alive, Starfleet should know about it. He should be able to come home."

"But he can't because of you," Cris spat venomously. "After what your kind did to him, nowhere is safe until all synths are destroyed."

"How can you believe that after everything we went through on Coppelius?" Picard asked.

Cris scoffed. "That was all staged, a show for the Federation to make the synths look like victims. But you've been the masterminds manipulating the chess board the entire time, since the attack on Mars."

Seven shook her head. "We are not going to win this with logic."

"You said chemicals messed with his brain," Soji said to Emil. "Can you counteract them with something?"

"Not without knowing exactly what was used and how," the EMH replied. "The traces in the scans are not enough to determine those specifics, and there are too many possibilities and combinations that could have disastrous results if implemented incorrectly."

"Then we have to find out where Rios has been," Soji concluded.

Emil nodded. "A sample of the drug cocktail used on the captain would be the best way to figure out exactly what caused his altered state, and potentially how to restore him."

"I suggest Soji and Picard make themselves scarce in the meantime," Seven said, "since you're the triggers for Rios right now."

Soji looked downtrodden but nodded, and she and Picard regretfully exited the med bay, along with the others. Agnes glanced back at Cris. She hated seeing him like this, though, so she went with everyone else.

Seven, Soji, and Raffi went up to the bridge and began combing through the ship logs for clues on how Cris had been taken and where. Agnes, Picard, and Elnor could only stand back and watch.

"I talked to him only a few days ago," she said quietly. "I thought something was off but I didn't say anything."

"You had no way of suspecting this," Picard told her kindly.

It didn't make her feel better, though.

Raffi perked up and swiveled in her chair. "There's no record of that transmission here. It must have come from wherever Cris was being held. Can you get the device you received the call on? Maybe I can trace the source back from that."

Agnes nodded, eager to do something to help, and so she hurried to her quarters to get the PADD.

Rios stood tensely in the med bay alcove, watching everyone's movements through the skylights carefully. He could see them all up on the bridge, leaving him with only the EMH as a guard. When it seemed they were going to stay up there, he began to softly sing the lullaby to give La Sirena a reboot.

Emil spun around from his work station, eyes wide for a split second before he flickered off. The lights dimmed down, and the force field dropped. Rios hurried from the alcove to the medical replicator and punched in the code for a neural toxin. As it materialized, he grabbed a hypospray to load it into and then sprinted out of the med bay just as the power came back on with the system restoration. He knew he couldn't take them all on at once, so he made a sharp turn to make his way into the depths of his ship. He had to try to finish this. He couldn't let his pops down.

Soji was going through the data at the operations console when everything suddenly went dark for a moment before coming back on.

"Was that the Romulan glitch?" Elnor asked.

Soji frowned and tapped the controls. As far as she'd been able to tell, the code for that had reached the end of its function with its initial execution.

Memory came rushing in as she remembered when she'd tried to hijack La Sirena. She thought she'd been clever erecting a force field around the bridge so no one could stop her, but Rios had a safeguard in place.

She swiveled in her seat. "Oh no."

Raffi quirked a questioning look at her. "What?" But then she seemed to suddenly remember the incident as well, as her eyes widened and she bolted from her station.

"What?" Elnor echoed as they all rushed back down to the lower deck to the med bay, only to find Rios gone.

"Activate EMH," Raffi snapped.

Emil flickered on. "What is the nature of your—oh."

"What happened?" Picard asked.

Emil sighed. "The captain used his override sequence to briefly reboot the ship, which deactivated me and dropped the isolation field."

"Dammit," Raffi cursed. "How did we not see that coming?"

"Where did he go?" Agnes asked worriedly, looking around the empty bay and mess just outside it.

"The ship isn't that big," Picard replied. "We should be able to find him easily."

"Yeah, but he knows every nook and cranny of it," Raffi said.

"And he's disabled the internal sensors," Seven reported from the computer terminal.

"Do- do you think he'd try to kill all of us?" Agnes asked shakily.

Emil grimaced and shrugged, which was not reassuring. The truth was they didn't know how far Rios would go under this brainwashing.

"We know what he wants," Soji spoke up. "I'll go out and present myself as a target to lure him out."

"That's too dangerous," Picard protested. "He's determined to kill you."

"And I've already defended myself against his attack," she pointed out.

"Ah," Emil interrupted from where he was looking at his own computer terminal. "The captain replicated a deadly neural toxin on his way out."

Soji's stomach tightened. Shit.

"To undo his own brainwashing?" Agnes put in tentatively.

"Doubtful," Raffi huffed.

"I'll still go out there," Soji resolved.

"Not alone," Seven replied. "Emmett, we could use some help."

The ETH materialized. "Que?" he muttered disinterestedly.

"Rios has been compromised by Romulan agents," Seven explained. "He's trying to kill Picard and Soji. Soji's willing to go out as bait, and we need you to back her up and apprehend him."

Emmett's brow furrowed and he didn't look thrilled about hunting his own captain.

"I am declaring Captain Rios unfit for command via medical override," Emil spoke up. He turned to Raffi. "Which would pass command to you."

"What, me?" she sputtered. "Why not JL?"

"With yours and the captain's history and how much time you've spent on this vessel, he considers you his second in command," Emil answered.

"Oh. Okay." Raffi nodded to Emmett. "Find Rios and bring him back here."

Emmett nodded grudgingly and strode out of the med bay. Soji followed.

"Be careful," Picard called after her.

Emmett pointed to the upper deck. "Weapon."

Soji nodded and trailed him up the steps so he could arm himself with a phaser, which he set to stun. He then arched a brow at her in signal of readiness.

"Okay," she breathed. "Hang back out of sight if you can. He probably won't come at me unless he thinks he has a clear shot."

Soji then took a breath and strode down the next corridor. She thought her synth senses would be enough to give her warning as she kept them peeled and carefully trekked up and down the deck. But she did not expect a wall panel to come flying off and Rios to launch himself out of the crawl space within. He was tackling her to the floor before she could react.

She flailed in a tangle of limbs and managed to catch one of his arms and hold his grip at bay. She could have thrown him off in that moment, all the way across the corridor and into the wall with enough force to break his spine. But she couldn't do that; and so she struggled to rein in her strength and not hurt her friend.

The madness in Rios's eyes was frightening, and she spotted a hypospray coming down toward her to jab her full of poison. But then a phaser shot struck Rios in the torso, stunning him. Soji scrambled out from under him as he toppled, knocked out. She snatched the hypospray up and swiftly unloaded the cartridge.

Emmett walked over, expression grim, pistol hanging in his hand.

"Thanks," Soji told him.

He gave her a clipped nod and then looked worriedly down at Rios.

Soji felt the same. There had to be a way to get him back.

And she wasn't going to stop until she found it.