Even without a weather control net California would've been lovely the morning Miles found himself, for the first time, apprehencious about going into work. Part of it was worry for the young man he still had a duty of care for, and the other part was worry about his growing involvement in whatever the hell was going on.

You'd be hard pressed to find a Federation citizen, in particular a Human one, who'd admit ignorance was bliss; but maybe there was something in it.

O'Brien stepped off the transporter pad outside the campus and went to the hall, where he was hosting his first lecture of the day, in a complete daze. Half a dozen students must have bid him a salutation en-route and even though he'd responded he couldn't have told you who they were or exactly what they said by the time he arrived.

He was, about twenty minutes or so, early for his class. His promptness was always by design; usually to get ready for the subject ahead, but today it was to see if Doyle would turn up early too; perhaps to explain. (Please let him explain…)

O'Brien was correct that Doyle would show up early, but incorrect that he would come with answers.

"Morning Mister O'Brien," Doyle greeted. Apparently calling him 'Miles' had also been "forgotten".

"Morning," O'Brien said. He stood front and centre of the lecture hall, facing the podium, facing the entrance.

Doyle took a few tentative steps inward, watching his tutor for a change in his expression. When he didn't perceive one would be forthcoming he let his bookbag drop from his shoulder to his hand, and then to the floor at the foot of the first row of seats.

"Morning?" Doyle's retort was delayed, but would've been appropriate had it not sounded more like a question.

"So you're sticking with the Academy?" O'Brien asked. After only giving his student a beat to answer he additionally asked; "You want to serve in Starfleet? You want to be an engineer?"

Doyle: "Yeah, I want to serve."

"You mentioned that last night, but you haven't convinced me."

Doyle seemed to think about that for a minute. The dopiness from the night before was gone; but in its place this mist of satisfaction, of wholeness.

"Do I need to convince you?" he asked. It was a valid question. To the outside observer O'Brien could easily be seen as pushy. He'd visited his student outside of Academy grounds, he'd called his student at some late hour. All of that hit O'Brien in one go and it caused him to pause. Maybe he had misread the situation from the start? Maybe the two incidents weren't linked and Doyle had simply had a change of heart.

O'Brien wanted to back pedal, just a little, now that he wasn't so sure of his stance.

"I just want to make sure I'm not wasting my time," he said. "After all you seemed pretty certain yesterday this path wasn't the one for you."

"People change Mister O'Brien."

"That they do," O'Brien was nodding, (Yeah, I was wrong…) everything seemed ok.

As Doyle reached down to retrieve his bag O'Brien suddenly remembered; the one thing still unexplained. If Doyle's answer was good, or even evasive in the right way he'd let the matter go.

"Are you gonna tell me what was going on between you and those officers then?"

This question gave Doyle pause. A brief respite from the mild confidence he'd been speaking with before. As the silence drew into it's second beat Doyle open and closed his mouth, as if stuttering over the start of his answer. Like O'Brien had asked him a difficult and probing question at an interview.

"Oh," Doyle finally said when he saw O'Brien wasn't about to break the silence, even as it began to turn uncomfortable; like a lettuce leaf turning brown in the heat. "That."

"Yeah, that," O'Brien echoed, his inflection and body language said 'And…?'

Saved by the Bell was an old Earth phrase, and TV Show, that was coined in high schools in North America in the 20th Century originally where students would be asked a difficult question by their teacher; only to be spared answering it by the ringing of the schoolbell which signified the end of that class. Whilst the phrase lived on well into the early 21st Century it's meaning broadened to mean anytime you were saved from anything by something that triggered your immediate exit; sometimes this would be a phone call, or a even a deadline etc. In this instance Doyle's saviour wasn't a school bell but Commodore Barrett.

"Commodore," Doyle said, being the first to see Barrett enter. As O'Brien turned in the direction of the new comer Doyle saw his opportunity for escape and in one swift motion gathered up his book bag and headed deeper into the classroom, which by this point had had a few other students filter in early; passing him and O'Brien unnoticed.

"Cadet Doyle," Barrett returned the salutation with a heavy dose of 'leave us now child' undertone; which wasn't really necessary as Doyle was already looking for an exit.

"You see Chief," Barrett immediately went back to the rank calling. "I told you he'd turn up safe and sound."

Now that Barrett had advanced further into the room O'Brien saw he'd brought an entourage. Two guards entered at a pace behind the Commodore, as if playing catch up, and proceeded to turn to face the entrance; guarding it from some anticipated invader.

"Safe maybe," O'Brien conceded stepping forward despite this emphasis the size different between the Half Denobulan and himself. "But Sound?" he shook his head. "Maybe not."

Barrett smirked, it was a greasy smile. One the bad guy in Biker Mice from Mars would've pulled, or a dodgey mayor in an old soap opera. "Whatever do you mean?"

(It's obvious what I mean) O'Brien thought, (And you wouldn't be here if it wasn't). Paranoid anew the Irishman wasn't afraid of poking this particular angry bear. (What the heck is all of this?) More convinced than ever he'd stumbled into the middle of something, despite what Julian was saying. If O'Brien were a certain super hero, his sense would be tingling.

"I mean he won't tell me why he was kidnapped yesterday."

"Kidnapped?" Barrett feigned astonishment. He did a poor job of it by all accounts. His behaviour was becoming increasingly unbefitting a Starfleet Officer.

"You mean arrested," Barrett corrected. Evidently he'd already gotten a story prepared and was here in person to deliver it. (I must've really hit onto something – to send out the big guns).

"Arrested? For what?"

Barrett gave a snorting laugh. "Underage drinking of real alchohol, You know what these students can be like."

"Sure looked a bit more serious than that?"

The Commodore shrugged; "What can I say? I needed to make one example. To scare the others straight."

"Scare them straight?" O'Brien narrowed his eyes, both quizzically and disbelief. "Like you," Miles trailed off; even now he didn't want to bring it up.

"Like I what?" Barrett asked goading his former ship mate. Neither man, nor any of their party, was proud of what they did aboard the CDS Kinak during the war. At least he thought no one was proud, he was beginning to think otherwise of Barrett.

Barrett took his silence as a prompt to continue; "Killing that Cardassian Captain? Setting an example to the rest of his crew what non-cooperation looked like?"

Barrett took a few steps closer to Miles now, his tone not quite conspiratorial but definitely a little lower; implying intimacy.

"Did the trick though didn't it?"

O'Brien scowled, it had worked, but the act was against the principles they'd not only sworn to honour; but also fought to protect. "That was war," O'Brien said, the excuse he'd been telling himself all these years; it was an excuse he wasn't particularly found of. Not just about this but all the horrors of war he'd been in the many battlefields on which he'd fought.

"We are always at war Chief," Barrett turned away and decreased his distance to the doorway, which was still admitting nervous looking students.

"With someone, somewhere. All the actions we take are for the greater good."

Barrett's arguments were starting to sound a lot like; "We were just following orders". It was one of the infamous phrases in modern Human history as a justification for many atrocities, including genocide.

O'Brien was about to counter when he noticed one of Barrett's guards. This time it wasn't the brown haired man who'd apprehended both Doyle and the drunken homeless man, but it WAS the drunken homeless man.

He'd seen plenty of Starfleet Officers drunk, he'd seen many of them VERY drunk. But that man he'd met last night was NOT a Starfleet Officer. At least not when O'Brien had met him, now though…

"You," O'Brien said, his mouth ajar.

Barrett turned back to face his old Chief Petty Officer, saw what he was looking at and immediately realised the mental links O'Brien was making.

"Just what the hell is this?" O'Brien asked, (I am going mad?). Stranger things could happen on the frontier, but here on Earth? Maybe he was going mad.

O'Brien looked back across the dozen or so students that had arrived for class early and were now hanging on every word of the increasingly heated exchange. He recognized most as his best students, always early and eager to please. A few other faces were new, or at least he didn't recognize them; maybe they usually resided at the back of class.

"Who the hell is he?" the second question with the curse in was O'Brien's last in this line of questioning.

As Barrett realised the links Miles was making, and realising the error his personnel team had made in assigning that particular new recruit. He nodded to his guards, who dutifully about-faced and the three concomitantly took different approach vectors on the outnumbered teacher from the Emerald Isle.

There was no shouting. No noise. No phaser fire or crack of laser whips. Two figures, dressed mostly in black, their faces partially obscured by hair or clothing, descended the stairs that allowed access to the back rows of the lecture hall. Their movements were silent and graceful. They were posing as students, two of the faces O'Brien didn't recognize, but they moved like they'd had training.

In seconds it was over.

::::::::

"Wha?"

It had all happened so fast. One minute he'd been having an exchange with Barrett, the next things had escalated, and then… then…

"Where am I?" he shook his head in a vain attempt to focus.

Andreas, a muscular man with a lean face and a number 1 all over hair cut, sat on a long bench against the opposite wall. His skin tone an olive colour that looks as if it'd turn quite dark if it saw much of the sun. The room was dark and Miles couldn't make out anyone else there save from this hulk of a man opposite. The walls were of a beige metallic design (akin to the Enterprise-D) but the lighting was dark. There were no windows.

"Safe," Andreas said, introducing himself: "My name is Andreas, and this – " he gestured into the darkness of the room's nearest corner, "Is my associate Blair."

O'Brien squinted and rubbed his eyes, he could now make out a woman's silhouette in that darkened corner.

"I asked where I was," he said accepting these one-name people as just another part of these wacky few days he was having.

"A Section 31 safehouse," the woman; Blair, answered coming out of the shadows. O'Brien recognised her now as the short haired brunette who had been at the back of his class. "Paris."

"Section 31? I mighta known," O'Brien said, a sneer in his voice and expression, he'd completely glossed over the fact he was now on a different continent. "This is right up your street."

Blair stepped closer. She'd unadorned the all Black outfit he'd first seen her in, she was Starfleet casual now. (Not that she deserved to wear that uniform), O'Brien thought.

"I can assure you Mister O'Brien there's nothing on our," she paused, to add emphasis Miles assumed, "Street."

"So you're telling me?" O'Brien stood, he realised for the first time he wasn't bound, or gagged either come to think of it. He was in the clothes he'd dressed in that morning, and both of these people appeared unthreatening. In fact, hadn't they stepped in when the conversation with Barrett was turning nasty?

"We're telling you Mister O'Brien that what you think you may have stumbled upon is NOT a Section 31 operation. What IS a Section 31 operation is uncovering the truth."