Luther could remember well the last time he had cried, even if it had happened a long time ago. He was only four years old by then, and still, Luther could remember it vividly. Apparently, he wept a lot when he was a baby. He had been weak and not much intelligent, and the other kids had taken too much fun of him. His mother had found him crying after that last day in his first school, and had promised him that it would not happen again. "You're going to be the smartest boy, son" she had assured him, "the fastest and the strongest. No one will ever pick on you again."

His parents had taken him away from Earth and to a distant colony, Adigeon Prime. When he had left the outer world and gone back to another emplacement on his homeplanet, he was not the same Luther Sloan, even if he still kept his appearance and name. He was too young to understand what DNA resequencing was, even if his enhanced brain could now comprehend concepts that his inborn limited mind would have never allowed him to, but his parents never hid to him what had happened in the colony, and he was always reminded to keep quiet. After all, bioengineering was outlawed in the Federation.

Four years old. It seemed an eternity away. But here he was, the proud invincible Luther Sloan was crying again, and the salty tears wet his face, and his hospital gown. He sat at the floor in defeat, leaned against a bulk. The padd was forgotten at one side, but he still had the scalpel in his left hand. He caressed his exposed skin with it and drew blood. He did not actually feel the pain; he did not really care.

Where do you start from when you suddenly discover that all your life has been a lie?

Luther wept for his parents. He had not shed a single tear for them at their funeral, when they had died in a transporter accident when he was a teenager. It was not that he did not love them, but emotions had seemed distant then, as if they were alien to him. His mind was too full with brilliant ideas and ambitious plans he had for himself, and his thoughts swept away everything else. Sorrow was supposed to be a strong emotion, and grief, but he hardly felt them.

Until now. Because now Luther realized that all these many ideas he had had and that had ruled his life may have actually never been his. Maybe most of them were inducted to him, were placed in his mind by someone else.

Maybe his parents' accident hadn't been an accident, after all. It has been a way to isolate him, to make him more malleable.

Luther let the scalpel fall from his hand, and with both hands caressed rhythmically his short hair. He sobbed.

In the machiavellian laboratory, all his actions were registered, all his conversations, all his thoughts, even his dreams. He had had access to their recordings, specifically encoded so they could be transferred into his mind. And now he had to wonder if they have been taken from his brain to the lab, or from the lab to his brain.

After all, how many times had he played with others' minds? How many times had he made them live in false realities or had he forced them to believe in facts that were only his own creation?

Reality was fragile, he had always known that. Reality was more fragile than he ever thought. Because suddenly, tormenting himself with the fact that he had been manipulated since he took a step into Adigeon Prime, he realized he had never taken that step.

Only hours ago, he had laid in the empty tank, just as the other man. He was not Luther Sloan. He was just his clone. He was just one of the many DNA samples waiting to be given life in the container.

Luther cried for his parents, and for all the mistakes he had done in his life, but it was actually a life that he had not lived. It was only in his head, and it just seemed real.

It was real. It was real if he was. Because Luther Sloan was the only name he had, and he was not a fake. He was a human being, just as the one resting in the tank, and he was alive.

And he had been cheated, as the real Luther Sloan, if there had ever been one.

Section 31, Luther Sloan' biggest enterprise, was probably his biggest lie. All the projects, all the missions he had lead for the organization were probably never his. His first desire to join Starfleet, to serve in Starfleet Intelligence, was ever his? Or was it just the path his master had planned for him?

Because now he had to admit that Luther Sloan was just a pawn, or several of them. Since his early childhood, he had probably danced to another person's tunes. He had a genius IQ, but had been a complete fool.

He remembered that supposedly casual encounter with his Romulan associate, Koval. Drily, he tried to laugh at his own ingenuousness, but he choked. Koval had planned that meeting very well, as well as the rest of his life.

He pressed his temples with all his strength, his hands shook. His already red eyes burst in tears once more. I have been such an idiot… All his life, as he remembered it, he had served the Federation, even if his unorthodox manners were not always approved. However, in truth, he had just worked for the Romulans. He had been the perfect mole, because he did not know he was one.

A grimace formed in his lips, recounting his life, taking in the people he had gotten into Section 31 and his many missions. He wondered if any of those assignments had really come to a good term, or if all of them, including the most insignificant, had been considered in Koval's scheme.

Then, a shimmer of light shone in his eyes. His situation was so surreal, that suddenly it came to his mind that it all could be false, just a nightmare that would go away if he only was able to wake up. He picked up the scalpel again. Just a dream, he reassured himself. Just another mental suggestion as those I create, he told to himself. His right hand directed the point of the blade to his left arm this time. A dream or not, I'm going to wake up. Luther pressed the scalpel on his flesh. His wrist's veins pulsed against his light skin. He gritted his teeth. Life and death, they had always been a game for him. He gripped his weapon and pressed in; blood poured out again.