"Does anyone know his name?" An unknown man spoke.
"I do! I do. It's Miles. Here, let me talk to him."O'Brien recognized this voice.
"Miles? Miles, it's Rick." Miles felt a gentle hand close around his forearm.
"Rick." O'Brien mumbled. He opened his eyes but the light forced them shut again, leaving only an instant during which he could glimpse the faces leaning over him. A flurry of words followed, some directed at him, but most just whispered snippets of separate conversations.
"We're going to get you to the infirmary."
"Here, let's lift him."
"Poor son of a b****."
"You ever seen worse than this?"
"I don't think so."
"No organ damage or internal bleeding. He'll recover."
"Did you see those cuts? That's gotta be from a knife— they're too straight—."
"Easy now."
Four men formed a sort of human stretcher and began to lift O'Brien. One of them pressured his left leg, and he cried out.
"Put him down put him down!"
"Leg is broken," O'Brien managed. "Left leg."
"You heard him. Be careful with his leg. And try to keep it straight."
"Got it."
"Don't worry, Miles, we've got you this time."
They carried him across the yard, down the stairs, through the grey hall, and into into the infirmary where they placed him carefully on an examination table. He looked around. His eyes had adjusted to the light, but from pain or epinephrine or both, his mind still swam in a peach fuzzed version of reality.
"Thank you," O'Brien said to no one in particular.
Somebody squeezed his hand.
The jarring voice of a guard fell liked dropped glass in the room. "All non medical personnel report to cells immediately."
He watched as the owner of each kind voice joined an indistinguishable wave of wordless obedience.
"Miles."
The sound of his name reclaimed his attention.
"I'm doctor Rick Weldon."
"Rick." Realization. "Rick." A moment to catch his breath. A second moment to articulate. "Thank you for helping get me back here."
Rick didn't respond immediately. Instead he drew a deep breath through his nose, as if preparing for some plunge.
"Miles. You saved me."
When O'Brien offered no answer, Rick continued. "You know nothing about me, and you saved me anyway. Miles. I— There's no way to thank you properly, but I thank you."
"Well I knew something — I knew your name." O'Brien's dazed mind decided that this information was very important to the conversation, though he couldn't quite decide why.
"And knowledge of my first name was enough to justify self-sacrifice?"
O'Brien thought. For a second he forgot the question. He had to think some more before he could remember it and choose a response. "Apparently."
Rick retorted with an amused chuckle. You're a good man, aren't you?"
O'Brien wasn't sure exactly what criteria Rick was using to judge "goodness" so he just said, "I try to be."
"Both of you," the overseer yelled across the room, "shut up if you know what's good for you."
The two obeyed.
Over the next hour, Rick tended to O'Brien's injuries. He cleaned and covered the cuts on O'Brien's face. He applied a balm to the burns. He took an X-ray of the broken leg. If they'd had access to better medical supplies, Rick would have patched up O'Brien's leg with a quick osteo-fusion surgery, but given the situation, an old fashioned cast was set around O'Brien's shin and knee. Eventually a buzzer went off, apparently signifying the end of a shift, and the doctors left reluctantly for their cells.
Rick was soon replaced by another man whom O'Brien half recognized from their gatherings on the field. They didn't speak, of course, but this new physician said enough with the gentleness of his hands and the kindness in his eyes. Occasionally, the doctor would squeeze O'Briens shoulder or clear the hair from his face. Human contact, even in such small ways, filled something that had been draining from him since his first night in a cell.
After the second doctor, came a third, but by then O'Brien grew tired and the hour was late. Though he couldn't see it from his spot in the windowless infirmary, the sky had darkened to a mature dusk, just paces from the edge of night.
After the third doctor left, nobody came to replace him. That makes sense, O'Brien thought, they wouldn't want any prisoners out of their cells at night.
The only people in the infirmary now were the four injured prisoners and the overseer, who sat in a padded chair with his legs propped on a small desk. A certain sense of security left along with the doctors. Supine, in pain, and immobile, O'Brien felt horribly vulnerable to the
unpredictable inclinations of his Cardassian guard. He's not going to hurt me, O'Brien attempted to reassure himself. Not even Cardassians would attack somebody in such pathetic condition. He could hardly get the thought through his head without scoffing at its naïvety.
As uncomfortable as the Cardassian's presence made him feel, O'Brien eventually fell asleep, lulled by the relative softness of his cot and the quiet hum of the ventilation system. He drifted off with the delicate hope that he'd wake up to the gentle urging of a doctor and not the harsh shriek of an alarm.
As it turned out, he woke to neither.
O'Brien's mind slunk from unconsciousness until, at last, he was fully aware of a finger tapping impatiently against his arm. It had to be a finger. Either that or a smooth, slender stick. He was at once curious and afraid. Why would somebody disturb him in this way? What could they want? What might happen if he pretended to stay asleep? Not wanting to reveal that he was awake until he'd ascertained as much as possible about the situation, O'Brien kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed.
The finger poked more aggressively. Then a hand closed around his arm and shook. Whoever wanted to wake him had no intention of leaving until the goal had been achieved.
O'Brien opened his eyes. A cardassian looked down at him. A familiar cardassian. The one who had tortured him. The engineer's heart could not possibly have prepared for the amount of adrenaline that rushed to accelerate its rhythm.
After almost choking on his inhale, O'Brien summoned the sense to avert his gaze and break eye contact with his torturer.
"You're awake," the cardassian muttered as much to himself as to O'Brien.
The engineer said nothing.
"Just need to make sure you won't move." The cardassian produced several leather straps from a box he'd apparently brought with him. O'Brien realized what the peculiar slits in his bed frame were for. The cardassian pressed O'Brien's left hand into place and bound it secure by slipping the strap twice through the bed frame slits and around O'Brien's wrist then ratcheting the leather so it was taught. The torturer repeated the process four more times, binding O'Brien's opposite wrist, both ankles, and head. The engineer neither moved nor spoke. What good could either do? He certainly wasn't going to convince a cardassian to experiment with mercy, and considering his injuries, a physical confrontation was out of the question. If they wanted him dead, he'd die. If they wanted him bloodied, he'd bleed. In this place, no rules existed. There were no safe zones, no time limits, no fouls, no strategies, no methods, just madness. Nothing here was guaranteed. Certainty was a callous illusion.
O'Brien's mental stamina had trickled dry hours ago, so, too tired for fear, he felt a wide nothingness settle in his chest.
"See." The cardassian was talking again. "The doctor did a nice job with your burn. Given enough time, it might heal entirely. And we wouldn't want that." The torturer pealed away the tape and gauze that protected the slick burn on O'Brien's cheek. "I'm just going to touch it up for you."
O'Brien couldn't move his head, and the cardassian was just outside of his peripheral vision. But he didn't need to see. He recognized the burnt metallic odor of a welding torch. He knew the sound of igniting gas.
After a few minutes, the Cardassian's face appeared, smiling down at him, the glow of his heated branding stick rippling in the darkness. Carefully, the cardassian tilted his tool and lowered it like a stamp toward O'Brien's face. The red "C" dipped closer. His pupils followed the instrument. Closer. His eyes watered. Closer. The brand moved beyond O'Brien's view, too close to his cheek for his outward-facing eyes to see. He could feel heat emanating from the crude instrument, and every evolution-born instinct pleaded with him to flee, but O'Brien could do no such thing.
The metal touched him, and he cried out. Reflexively, he attempted to pull away, but his bonds offered no mobility. His cry rose, redoubling, charged and curdled by the searing of his flesh. It had to stop. This had to stop. But it didn't. He screamed without thinking, "Stop!" He thrashed as his restraints. "Please, stop!" In response, the cardassian pressured the brand, and the burning that couldn't have been worse worsened. He couldn't take any more, but more came. A wayward tear sizzled and boiled to nothing against the steel. With a final, tearing heat, the cardassian ripped the brand from O'Brien's skin, revealing a gory patch of burnt blood and seeping membrane and singed flesh shaped more or less like the letter "C." For Cardassia.
The pain didn't end when the brand was removed. His cheek still stung viciously.
"Here." The torturer spoke. O'Brien looked up just in time to see a jug uncapped and overturned. He shut his eyes against the stream of water that cascaded over his face and hair. He didn't waste effort arguing against tears when a second jug was emptied across his abdomen, soaking his blanket and clothes.
"Goodnight, Miles," the Cardassian whispered. O'Brien contained himself until his torturer had gone. Then he cried. Softly, inwardly, he cried and couldn't purge himself of despair.
He was still restrained, and the straps bore uncomfortably against his skin. With his mobility restricted, O'Brien couldn't reorient his broken leg or relieve the crick developing in his neck. Around him, prisoners shifted and beds creaked. The commotion had undoubtedly ushered everyone into an unsettling wakefulness. He thought he heard someone getting out of bed, maybe to help him, but the overseer, who'd watched the entire ordeal from his chair in the corner, growled at whoever it was to get down, and the sound stopped.
For three hours O'Brien lay in his puddle. In its sodden state, his body retained little heat, and the night's chill grew teeth. To keep warm, he would have liked to curl up, guarding his heart with knees drawn snuggly to his chest, but the bonds made that impossible.
Even in his discomfort, O'Brien was tired enough to slip through the stages of sleep. He was about two thirds conscious when the morning shift started, and five doctors were allowed into the infirmary.
Somebody was walking toward him. Then the paces stopped. They'd seen him.