Julian strolled purposefully toward the Promenade, but he felt something inexplicably drawing him to the brig. He'd had ample time to ponder the attempt on his life, and he suspected this was nothing more than a normal reaction formation, a textbook case in fact. He combated the anxiety caused by fear of his own assassination by becoming obsessed with it.
Only minutely comforted by this diagnosis, he knew he had to physically go down to the brig and see her - that was all there was to it. Classic solution to a classic case. After his fear was raised to an intolerable level by confrontation of the enemy, tension would be released and Julian would be free
once more from sleepless nights and anxiety.
Turning resolutely toward the brig, Julian comforted himself by remembering all he'd ever learned on the subject of implosion. It was something considered as barbaric as bloodletting, but effective nonetheless.
"A phobic patient is placed in a situation in close proximity with his fear, and as his anxiety level reaches unacceptable, the fear is suddenly released and all is well again," he quoted aloud from his high school psychology course.
His steady pace brought him to the brig all too soon. Without stopping, Julian requested (and was subsequently granted) permission to see the prisoner. Being a senior officer certainly had its benefits. No one would ever suspect him of anything peculiar. As chief medical officer, too, Julian had often been called down to the brig to examine prisoners. These prisoners were mostly of unknown species, or at least they looked ill enough to call a doctor.
The prisoner, neither ill nor foreign looking, looked up as she heard the first of four force fields being lifted. It was probably that commander again, or even worse, that Bajoran first officer or the changeling security guard. By the time she heard the third force field being lifted, she'd ascertained that
it was a male, slender in frame, probably about 177cm tall. Before the door to her cell opened, she knew it was Julian.
"Hello, Doctor Bashir," she said quietly enough to disconcert him. She sat with her back toward him, facing the wall.
"Hello, Aliesa Retspan, if that's who you really are." Julian paused as the door slid shut behind him, a mark of finality ringing metallically as the minute force resonated through the nearby Cardassian architecture.
"So let me cut straight to the point," Julian began, choking down his fear. "Who sent you to kill me?" Funny, she didn't look like a killer from the back of her. In fact, the only thing about her short, subtly soft form that moderately suggested anything out of the ordinary was her fiery red, waist-length hair. It hung down loosely, hopelessly unkempt, but striking all the same.
"I have nothing to tell you that they probably haven't told you already," her voice cracked icily.
"Well, that makes conversation a bit difficult then, doesn't it?" Julian retorted. "Why don't we start with your name? I'm Julian Bashir. I'm sure you knew that much already. And you are Aliesa Retspan, I presume?"
She shrugged her shoulders casually. "If you'd like. OR I could also be Nerissa de Rossi, or Veronica Legado…I suppose you want my real name, though." She paused. "Lena Martin." Her voice softened, having muttered this last declaration in such a way that convinced Julian of her honesty.
"Hello, Lena," he replied quietly. "Where are you from? I'm from Earth, on a little island called-"
"You're from Sussex in Great Britain…your address was 23 Bennet Close and your room faced the South so it got a lot of sunlight," Lena interrupted calmly. "I know everything about you."
Julian said nothing. After all, what could you say to someone who knows everything about you?
"Your parents were Richard and Amasha; you're an only child, you were born in 2341…Jung says you're an INFP, and you like Tarkalean tea."
This was starting to creep Julian out. Sure, his parents' names, his birthdate, his previous address; even his Jungian personality type would be public knowledge. But the fact that she knew he liked Tarkalean tea…it was well known around the station, but elsewhere who would care enough to know? An assassin, he answered himself wryly. It made him wonder what other things she knew-and this worried him.
"Oh, and about your little 'secret?'" she asked, as if she could read his mind. "I know about that, too. But don't worry, I won't tattle on you. After all, birds of a feather flock together." She smiled smoothly to the back of the wall.
Julian's blood ran cold. Of course she didn't know about StarFleet's investigation on him; that had been covered up so that not even most of the cabinet knew about it. But she had known about the genetic engineering, and lord knows who she'd told. His place in StarFleet was already precarious, and he didn't want to knock it off-balance with some stupid assassin. Angry, he called for the guard.
Lena made no move as he left, still silently facing the back wall.

*
Julian sighed, tossing and turning in bed. He'd missed Miles O'Brien's visit; the only activity he'd participated in since 1500hrs was thinking about Lena. What did she mean, "birds of a feather flock together?" Obviously she knew a lot about him, frighteningly so, but he knew nothing about her. Had she been genetically engineered, too? And why did she seem so smoothly guiltless?
Disentangling himself from his sheets, he dressed and moved to the doorway. He smiled at the security guards, engaging in a heated discussion of Klingon philosophy. They stopped, embarrassed, to acknowledge him. "Hello, Doctor Bashir."
"Hello, Moore and Aphlan. I'm just going to stop in at the replimat for some Tarkalean tea."
The two lieutenants smiled and nodded. They knew as well as anybody how much Bashir liked that tea.
It was only a few minutes before Julian found himself talking to the security guard. Luckily, this was a different shift and the guard would not have known that he came to visit that afternoon. Wordlessly, the guard opened the force fields, then the door, leaving Bashir to talk with the prisoner.
She sat facing him this time, her back resting easily against the wall.
"Don't you ever sleep, Doctor Bashir?"
"Don't you?"
Lena smiled sweetly. "I don't need to, not much, anyway. My brain is advanced enough to know how to rejuvenate itself without requiring eight wasted hours."
"I don't know whether to call you lucky or cursed," Julian replied coolly.
"Me neither, actually." She seemed like she was in the mood to talk, maybe even about herself. Julian jumped on the opportunity.
"So how old were you when you stopped requiring sleep?"
Lena smiled again, as if she knew exactly what Julian was up to. Even so, she answered, "I was about 12."
"Really?" Julian asked, truly surprised. "I'd have thought you'd have passed the ideal age for operation by then."
Lena shrugged. "Anything is possible for desperate parents with money."
Julian chuckled dryly. "I do know that much."
Sighing and picking at a fingernail, Lena continued unprompted. "Of course they abandoned me right after the operation. They wanted a very specific level of intelligence, you know. They wanted a pliable mind to be their young protégé, but not one that exceeded their level. The master is always uneasy when the pupil surpasses him. Once I explained Mehz's theories of alternate universes to them, they decided it was over and they just dropped me."
Not wanting to interrupt her sudden burst of talkativeness, Julian just hoped his silence would be perceived as sympathetic.
"I wandered in and out of institutions and foster homes…nobody really wanted me. It's amazing, but people only truly love the ones that need them, and of course I didn't need them. It wasn't my job to make them feel important. I could pretty well fend for myself."
She paused again.
"Then Dreuer found me." She stopped, as if expecting him to know who Dreuer was. When he made no sound of acknowledgement, she continued. "Dreuer heard I was good with numbers, so initially he picked me up to throw off his losing streak. I helped him win 16 bars of gold pressed latinum before he suspected anything strange about me. I told him everything. Everything…
"He threatened to kill me if I told anyone else. Then he brought me to this dark basement and cut my head open. I couldn't even scream because they'd shoot me if I did. They didn't use any anesthesia because they told me, 'you can't feel your brain,' but I felt it. I felt it all the way from the first incision they made through my forehead to the last stitch they sewed. I looked like a monster. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror anymore. They shaved off all my hair and I had this huge scar running all the way around the top of my head, from my forehead to my parietal sutures."
This was slowly beginning to make sense to Julian. She was genetically engineered far too late as a child, and her parents had left her because they were in way over their heads. That Dreuer had found her and he'd removed her frontal lobe. It was the ideal combination of mental alteration. Without a frontal lobe she could feel no remorse, no guilt. She was the perfect assassin.