The hospital lighting was deafening as Milo squints back into existence. He can tell that his glasses are missing, but thats about it. His legs are numb and his body is warm. He sits up to find him self staring at Lennox who is sitting on the edge of his bed.

"Hello Milo, how do you feel?"

"I... I d-d-don't know. Wh-why am I here?"

"What do you remember before you woke up?"

"I... I r-r-remember being in m-m-my dorm, getting r-ready for b-b-bed."

"Milo... you shot Admiral Thiar."

It all started coming back to him. He had replicated the parts for a primitive earth weapon. That night, when his room mate was sleeping, he crept out of the window and ran all the way to Thiar's apartment. The old bastard lived separately from his wife and daughter who, apparently also live in San Francisco. He shorted out the locking device like a professional. He crept into the apartment silently, he knew ever single weak spot of the floor, every creaking board and every bare patch of carpeting. He put his gun against his head and wanted so much to squeeze the trigger right then and there, but he waited, he made him beg for mercy. He made him get on his hands and knees and cry for forgiveness. And then... then it goes black. Milo's memory is flooded empty with the murky ink of blank time.

"D-d-did he d-die?"

"No, he has recovered. But the medical teams were unsure, at first, how to treat his injuries."

Milo stares at his bare arms. All of his injuries had been healed and he is now clad in the strange while cotton hospital smock. Had he been injured? Why was he in a hospital and not incarcerated?

"Where am I?"

"You are in the Appleby Memorial Psychiatric Facility at Starfleet Medical Headquarters"

"W-w-will I be arrested?"

"No, it was deemed that you committed the crime due to mental instability. And Thiar refused to press charges... You have been in an unresponsive but conscious state for a week, do you remember any of it?"

"N-n-nothing, sir."

Psychiatric facility? How was this possible? Milo barely remembers anything, and the walls around him float in their white plaster milk suspension. The whole plan to shoot Thiar hangs like the putrid fog of some terrible dream. Then again, the past sixteen years of his life seems just as surreal. The android just blinks at him, oblivious to the scope of this whole incident but still trying desperately to be a good, supportive doctor and superior officer.

"I need to ask you a few questions. During your initial physical exam, there were signs of blunt force trauma, sexual assault, and mutilation. To be blunt, what happened to cause these injuries?"

"N-n-nothing."

"Milo, no one will blame you. But if a crime has been committed, we are obligated to report it to the authorities."

"Its n-n-n-nothing... I just g-g-g-got r-r-robbed. Its n-n-no big d-deal."

Ivy looks into the Mirror and screams, despite the wonders of modern medical technology, she was horrifically disfigured. A nurse runs in to the room and pulls her away from the sink and sits her back down on her bed. "We'll fix you." she says, in a tone so sardonic and matter of fact. She looks down at her hands with the blood still dried under her nails. She flails and cries and screams as she rips at her face. There is a crater where her eye once was, gaping mockingly like some strange, sunken flesh grave. She feels the sick sting of a needle in her throat and her screams and gasps turn to a choked, muted gurgling before she sinks into yet another drug induced coma.

The local police commissioner stands in the door to her hospital room with a the nurse. He is a tall, dark human with an even darker beard and bright green eyes like gleaming jewels, juxtapose to his marred face.

"Have you found any leads, sir?" the nurse asks with a stunning air of sincerity.

"No" the mans voice whirs out "And we aren't looking. This seems to be the work of a group of serial killers, possibly cult related. The last Earth and the federation needs right now is more bad publicity. We just managed to get everyone to stop talking about 'the girl butcher' of Providence."

"Publicity? Are you serious? They brutalized this woman and at least five others before her! You have to do something!"

"No, actually, I don't. I am under direct order from Starfleet command to keep this under wraps. If you or any of your colleagues mention this to anyone, nurse, the press in particular, I personally will see to it that you are never heard from again. That's a promise, not a threat."

The nurses jaw drops to her chest as she watches the security chief walk down the infinite corridor until his image turns to a blur and finally disappears. This behavior by the police was nothing new, but somehow, whenever the medical staff gets orders not to disclose such brutal violence, it is never any less shocking. Earth and the United Federation of planets have this reputation of being peaceful and Utopian. But in truth, the whole federation is just as bloody, violent, and dysfunctional as ever, especially Earth. They have just gotten better at hiding it.