Admiral Thiar awakes from a deep and stirring slumber to a familiar presence and an audible "click", He feels a cold, circular pipe pressed to his temple and his eyes snap open, only to trace the outline of a black figure standing above him.

"Milo! What the hell are you doing!"

Milo grins and Thiar knows it despite the pitch blackness of the room.

"Y-you know d-d-damn well! D-d-do you know what th-this is against y-your head? A Luger P08 pistol... an ancient earth w-w-weapon. And unless you d-do exactly as I s-s-say... I w-will blow a hole st-str-straight through your h-head."

"Put that thing down Milo, someone might get hurt."

"Don't t-t-tempt me! Now get out of th-th-the b-bed and on your kn-n-ees, I want you to beg me for m-m-mercy."

Thiar gets out of his bed and on his knees as he is told, he can tell that Milo Sharpp is quite intent on what he said. But never in Thiar's life has he begged for anything.

"I said b-b-beg!"

One day earlier...

"How did your test go, Mr. Sharpp?"

The androids voice was as clear and calm as ever as he smiled down at the slight young cadet. Milo tries his best not to seem utterly terrified and fails miserably at the task. He hates working at the hospital, but Dr. Lennox had somehow managed to talk him into it.

"I th-th-think i f-failed."

"Oh... well, better luck next time, as they say. You need to take neuropeptide readings today from all of the patients on this wing. The correct equipment is in storage room Alpha-7."

Sharpp nods silently and walks to the storage area. The hall is covered in doorways, each leading to a different storage room. The artificial sunlight bleeds all of the color from the walls, leaving it all in strangled, dead shades of gray. He finds the way to room Alpha-7 and enters, the door whispering open at his feet. The lights are already on as he walks in, the walls are catacombed with shelves and ancient paper files. There is an adjoining office which is obscured behind a window. The glass is set to opaque and the door to the office is locked. Milo hears voices from the inside and quietly punches in the code to make the window opaque on one side only, their side. He manages to learn a lot of things this way about the hospital administration, but is shocked by whats behind the glass today.

The room is set up much like a makeshift morgue with pale blue light and walls so white they appeared to be composed of the bones of slaughtered angels. Dr. Stein and her younger brother, a nurse at the hospital, embrace each other, filthy naked and beaming red, smeared with blood. There is a corpse on the porcelain slab that has been severed at its joints, a male human with bright bright, glassy eyes, staring at Milo through the dead glass. Stein feeds her brother a piece of carved away flesh as he begins to lick down her body and between her thighs, biting at her pale, bloodied skin the entire way down. Milo watches frozen in disgust as Stein takes an old style surgical scalpel with a steel blade and begins slashing at her brothers back with it as he buries his face in her. Blood gushes from his skin and Stein cackles, every spike of laughter echoing madly from the walls. She licks the blood from her lips as she stares through the glass into Milo's eyes. She can't see him but she knows that there is a voyeur in their midst.

Milo starts running backward, knocking over a tray of petri dishes before running right out the door, pausing only long enough to notice that it was marked Alpha-6. He starts running again, his feet flailing, trying to cover enough ground to carry him far far away from what he hoped was just a very sick hallucination. His eyes are closed and the air is cool as is rushes over his face and through his uniform, when suddenly he feels a familiar hand grasping his shoulder and stopping him dead in his tracks and his legs give way under him. He opens his eyes to see Admiral Thiar smiling at him, that disgusting, plastic grin and almost certainly painted pink lips stretched over shards of shrapnel that he masquerades as teeth. His breath is always possesses a metallic sweetness to it, his red, glistening tongue runs over his teeth.

"What are you running from, cadet?"

Milo didn't know why he bothered asking a question that he already knew the answer to. The Betazoid's grip only tightens and Milo's pupils turn into deep, waterless wells despite the harsh lighting. He doesn't have time for this. He has work to do, and he wishes that the Admiral would stop coming to visit him at the hospital. "Why me?" he wonders, avoiding eye contact with the endlessly tall betazoid with the grayish hair and round, teddy bear face. Without words the admiral starts walking, never for a moment letting go of the hostage forever in his grasp. They walk through hallways and for what seems like an eternity before reaching a long row of administrative offices. Thiar leads Sharpp through the door of the third office and sits him down in a dark, cushioned velvet chair, before turning the lights on.

A small girl sits in the chair beside him, no older than seven. She wears only white panties and her flowing brown hair drapes over her shoulders and back. There is a red cloth gag in her mouth but she doesn't struggle. Her black betazoid eyes focus in on the terrified cadet. Her ankles and wrists are bound with nylon rope in front of her and Milo just stares, refusing to meet the stare of Aret Thiar. He feels the man take his hand and place an object in it. Cool, smooth and metallic, lest than a millimeter wide. A knife of some kind, a scalpel? He looks down, and it looks almost identical to the outdated little blade used by Dr. Stein earlier. He looks at the object and then back up at the little girl and back again. Thiar sits down in a chair across from the two of them, grinning. A truly, sick individual.

"Computer, lock doors. Now, I would like you to meet my daughter, Luna. Luna, this is my favorite student, Milo Sharpp. Now, Milo, you have a scalpel in your hand and a beautiful, naked little girly sitting next to you. I want you to cut her... start at her nipples."

"No!"

"That wasn't a request, it was an order."

"No! Y-y-your sick! I w-w-wont hurt her!"

"Mr. Sharpp! Need I remind you that I have enough evidence to have you expelled from the academy and sent back to Luna!"

"I d-d-don't care! I won't d-d-do it!"

"You're a stuttering fool, Milo. You will suffer for refusing my orders, rest assured."

Thiar forces the blade from Sharpps hand and begins to trace the outline of his daughters chest with the blade, ever so carefully. Halfway down he jabs the blade into her skin, leaving a fatty gaping wound in its wake. The girl cries out in pain but her eyes are dead, completely devoid of emotion. Milo's stomach turns to knots at the shrill sound of her cries and it takes everything in his power not to vomit his intestines all over the floor. His head starts spinning and the lights in the room seem blinding. He covers his face, he wants so badly to help the girl. But he can't, he can't even help himself. He could tell someone about all of this but they would never believe him. He has tried before and was laughed at.

"Get out."

The admirals order is clear and direct and Milo obeys, unable to look at the girl on his way out. He drags himself across the cool plastic wall, trying to keep his balance, trying not to completely lose control of his faculties. He can't finish the days work, not like this. The halls are blue white and glowing, twisting like some massive network of blood vessels through the nondescript building. There are patients in beds and bureaucrats behind desks. All oblivious to the young cadet who can't decide whether his life was truly this disturbing, or if everything that has happened is a simple figment of his imagination. But he feels the pain and bears the scars, he knows that he couldn't be that fortunate. Reality seems to be trickling away like blood from his fingertips and there is nothing he can do to stop it.

When he reaches the desk he tells the shift manager that he isn't feeling well. He tries to make it sound authentic and convinces her not to give him a medical scan. As he leaves the buildings he scans the bushes and makes sure he isn't being followed, not that there is anything he could do about it even if he was. The air is cold, most the people he see's are wearing coats and hats and he is wearing his cadets uniform. He never was a fan of lycra, but unfortunately he had no real need for any other kind of clothing. He stares at his feet as he steps on the wet leaves. It had been raining and was dark now. The sidewalks still sheen with water. A cool, feminine voice calls him from a shadow and he stops in his tracks. Its the Vulcan from that morning. She wears a long cloak and buries her hands in her pockets.

"You seem troubled, young man."

Milo blinks up at her dumbly and just stares, afraid to talk. Afraid to stutter like a fool in front of such a majestic, intelligent being.

"Violence is never the answer, but there are times where one must take actions to protect themselves and others. You should not let him harm you."

Before Milo could respond, she was gone. For the rest of his walk home, her words played over and over in his mind. She was right, he knew that much, but what could he possibly do? It was then that he developed an idea. When he gets back to his room he sits at his computer console and begins extensive research on weaponry. He needs something unusual. Something simple that he could assemble himself without suspicion. He finds a device he likes and begins to replicate the necessary components. Within several hours it is nearly complete and his roommate arrives home, obviously irritated by his presence. The Klingon gives his usual greeting of a snarl and curses under his breath before peering over the humans shoulder with curiosity.

"What have you built this time, patok?"

Milo smiles and looks up at the beastly young man with a new founded sense of pride.

"J-j-just a g-gift f-f-for someone."