{ Weaving Stage VII: Prisoner }
Jim was looking into his (illegal) Romulan Ale rather than drinking it.
Leonard came into the abandoned conference room, attempting unsuccessfully to unfurrow his brow.
"You alright?" He asked Jim.
"The crew's in chaos, the ship is stalled..." Jim sighed shaking his head and putting the glass on the table beside him.
"And then there's this Khan Part Two business," Leonard added, sitting down and rubbing his eyes. "Global war criminial from the stone ages..."
For a moment neither of them spoke, but rather looked outside the porthole they faced, a window out onto space. Leonard finally gave voice to the statement that lingered between them.
"She may not be a criminal."
"I have to side with Spock on that one, Bones," Jim looked at him grimly. "What are the odds she isn't? How the fuck is that logical?"
"You taking that instead of the sleep medication I gave you?" He nodded toward the ale.
"No," a coy smile curled Jim's lip. "I planned to take them both so I could enjoy this view as a drunk."
"Smart-ass..." Bones chuckled, taking the glass and swiftly downing the blue drink.
"That was mine."
"My patient was at risk so I had to remove the obstacle," Leonard joked.
Another wave of somberness crested.
"...I couldn't drink it," Jim admitted, turning back to the porthole. "I kept thinking..."
"...'I need my wits about me.'"
"Yes."
Silence lounged in the room with them, and the weight of their situation grew heavier.
"My turn," Kirk eventually spoke, sitting back at the table with Leonard. "What do you think of her?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you've dealt with her as a doctor, you dealt with Khan as a doctor. You saved her life, you were the first person she spoke to. There had to be time for an impression."
It was Bones' turn to sigh.
"Look, Jim, you want me to come out and say it like a corn-fed-fool? I will: she's too sensitive. She's too obedient. It doesn't- match."
"Khan obeyed at Q'ronos."
"Khan never obeyed," Leonard countered. "Khan schemed. Khan was patient. He allowed us to take him prisoner on that moon, you know that. He knew we had something he wanted, so he waited, he schemed, and then he pounced. Khan obeyed like a tiger obeys a hunter- he was waiting to attack." He chewed on his tongue a moment before saying, "Look, you know I hate to admit these things, but we need to follow Spock's most recentinstinct on this. That girl-."
"She's not a girl, she's a full-grown woman!" Jim corrected irritably. "She's not some helpless Sleeping Beauty, she's the associate- the wife of a World War criminal dictator!"
Bones waved his hand impatiently, "I get it, Jim, but hear me out- she's got something screwy going on inside her brain and Spock's the only one who can interpret it. You need to get him to talk."
Almost on cue, the doors pulled into the doorframe and Spock entered the room.
"Ears burning?" Leonard smiled.
Spock gave Bones a significant look before he asked, "Did you tell him?"
Jim turned away from the window. "Tell me what?"
Leonard and Spock weren't done yet. The doctor focused on sending him a very negative expression before answering, "Your blood sample has changed."
"...Changed? That was more than a month ago."
"Well, it changed, dammit all if I can explain it yet, maybe my mother can!" Leonard glowered again at Spock. "It's from that tox screen I did for your insomnia and the vivid dreaming...your white blood cell count is rising-."
"So I'm sick."
"-No. A large amount of white blood cells usually means an infection of some kind, but they aren't reacting like that. Your cells are all working extra efficiently, like they're at triple capacity and-."
"Khan's blood is changing me," Jim finished for him.
"Dammit, can I say one fucking word!" Bones cried, smacking the tabletop in exasperation. "It isn't changing you- you're so damn paranoid about that- but it may be changing the way your body functions. It's been over a year since the transfusion and there are no major medical warning signs."
"Except for the white blood cells."
"Dr. McCoy kept a sample of your blood before the transfusion of Khan's blood," Spock explained, "so he could examine an original sample against the new one."
"And you compared both of those to my tox screen sample?" Jim looked at him grimly.
"Yes," Leonard nodded. "That's how I noticed the differences. It's nothing to get excited about, but I'd like to get some new blood from you so I can rule out anything else."
"Fine," Jim shuffled uncomfortably and threw out a distracting subject: "Spock, Bones thinks you're our key to unraveling Averly's case. You want to comment on that?"
This time McCoy gave the aggitated expression to Kirk.
"What- is that tattling?" Kirk snapped.
Spock wrinkled his brow and exchanged another significant look with the doctor. Jim recognized the expression and snorted irritably, looking away. He wasn't some fragile thing and neither was their prisoner.
"My opinion this far," Spock answered. "is inconclusive."
Kirk rolled his eyes.
"Averly is obviously very intelligent with many talents and augmented abilities she is not telling us about."
"You think she's more than some psychic?" Leonard asked.
Spock nodded emphatically, "Absolutely."
"What did you read from her mind, Spock?" Jim questioned, leaning back in his seat. It was a weird question.
"Read?"
"You said a few days ago that her mind 'called' out to you," Leonard added.
It was Spock's turn to shuffle uncomfortably, pursing his lips just the slightest bit as he lowered himself into a chair.
"When she first woke, she started to panic," He described. "Like a person standing on unsteady ground, she reached out for stability and apparently found me-."
"'Stable'."
"Yes, it isn't uncommon for Vulcans to have a calming effect on those who also possess mental talents." He paused. "It is a grievous violation of privacy to share such glimpses into others' minds...however, considering the circumstance, we have no choice."
"Then get on with it!" Leonard quipped.
"I saw her apprehended at the Hayagrivan border, just as she said," Spock explained. "...apprehended by Khan himself and the government after his unsuccessful attempt to let her go."
"Khan tried to let Averly go?"
"He would later say he had been ordered to shoot on site, however, when he had his chance, he did not take it."
Spock withheld certain details he had seen, personal information that wouldn't quite help their situation. Details such as Khan holding Averly in a daisy-ed, sunny meadow and telling her so instant was his love, his awe at her beauty that during that muddy, dark night he couldn't bring himself to shoot a nymph. Spock was sure such personal information would not help them, so he kept the romantic scene to himself- among other things.
"Averly was apprehended though, despite his efforts. Whoever she had been attempting to rescue was killed. She was taken to a high-security holding cell for 17 days. Khan later explained to her that Hayagrivan experts were deciding whether to kill her, hold her for ransom, or brain-wash her to join their ranks as, at the very least, a 'meat shield'."
"You saw all of this in a moment?" Kirk was astonished.
"Memories are transferred to the brain more quickly than most electrical signals in the body," Spock spoke as if his ability was nothing more than turning on a light.
"The specialists were, at first, unaware of her intelligence and attempted to befriend her as if she were a refugee from a starving country. She was in a small cell for 17 days before they offered her a room with better amenities under the guise of friendship, with actual motive being manipulation. For over two months, Averly was exposed to various 'mind control' methods, but she proved very resistant. She was then subject to much more violent methods of 'forced coersion'.."
"That bastard!" Leonard exclaimed.
"Khan was not one of the specialists dealing in mind control," Spock contradicted. "Of course this account is subjective, like all memories, but in Averly's mind, she discovered he was a member of an elite military squad working mostly in guerrilla warfare and espionage: a very high rank in the Hayagrivan government. She thought of them as 'the Hayagrivan KGB'. I researched the reference; the KGB were the secret police of the Soviet Union, infamous during the 20th century's 'Cold War' for its extreme stance on communism and the country's nuclear weapons."
"Like the C.I.A. from the same time, but more corrupt," McCoy added with obvious prejudice.
"How the- how did she escape?" Kirk asked.
Spock took a deep breath.
"Khan." He answered. "For weeks after her capture, he submitted inquiries and engaged in illegal activity to determine her condition. He continually petitioned to have her set in his custody. When Averly's unique skills were documented and proven, he used the information to further his attempts of removing her from the 'thought-control' programs. He told her such talents would be erased had she remained in 're-education', and that he-." Spock paused, omitting the glimmer of evidence he had seen in Wrenne's mind that indicated that Khan wanted to "rescue" her because he loved her, because he could not determine why she-
"You glimmer, beloved. How could I ignore that?"
"...he wanted to recruit her into his 'C.I.A.'" Spock finished. The "glimmer"- whether Khan had been lying or not, it was Wrenne's own intimate memory that he did not think necessary to reveal.
"Did she change sides?"
"I do not know," Spock exhaled, almost masking his frustration. "That was all. I tried to examine her further, but she has very advanced defense abilities when it comes to her mind."
"You couldn't break in again?" Jim asked, rising to order another drink from the simulator.
"No. I am quite sure I would need her to open her mind voluntarily."
Kirk sat back down rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"So...what does this tell us about her?" He thought aloud.
McCoy and Jim both looked to Spock, who sighed. "She is- or must have been- compassionate...she may still cling tightly to those morals and sensitivity, however, we can't ignore the fact that she underwent a large amount of mind alteration. Averly may not be who she used to be."
"I thought the brain-washing didn't work," Leonard commented.
"The basic 'brain-washing' had no effect," He corrected. "She had a much longer period of fierce 'forced coersion'."
"How many synonyms for 'brain-washing' do you know?" Kirk chuckled.
Spock ignored him, "I could not perceive how long she was treated this way, but I did find that her mind lingers on the trauma. Her experiences very well could have turned her violent...and her mind centers around her affection for Khan- perhaps even her faith in him."
"Possibly violent...possibly loyal to Khan..." Jim shook his head, overwhelmed.
Weaving Stage II: Hunt
He had come up on us like a tiger.
Silent, sudden.
We had a procedure set for if we were discovered. She abandoned it immediately though. I screamed after her but she had crumbled like wet paper.
Too much pressure.
He had appeared at the end of the aisle we were sifting through.
The plants tall like a cornfield, but with blossoms of fushia and bright orange- no type of organism I had ever seen. Eranja said they were condensed versions of opium and cocoa, creating an incredibly addictive hybrid of opiates and cocaine.
Like an idiot, I had taken a sample of the petals to bring home as proof of even more dangerous biological engineering.
I still thought I was going home...so naïve.
And so damn stupid.
Following a clap of thunder, he appeared- Glinting black and white stripes of shadow cast along the orange plants, like the eerie spectre of a tiger.
His face was terrifying, baring all the darkness and death he symbolized with that giant weapon at his side.
So stupid. I was ridiculously stupid- challenging a gigantic, corrupt empire. There wasn't anyway I could've made a difference.
Eranja slipped away as effortlessly as a serpent.
Or Kah.
"Eranja!" I screamed after her. "Procedure!"
As if procedure had any value to the tiger who hunted us.
While I was a child, my mother always read me The Jungle Book. I'd never imagined Shere Khan as a coward, even though that is the "correct" interpretation. I saw him as a blazing flame of man's lost ferality.A romantic savagery locked away in our minds. The wildness we'd left behind as a sacrifice for civilization.
And I saw that fire burning, burning bright in the orange fields that night.
It wasn't romantic.
It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
His face seemed hollowed by shadow, madness, and spilt blood. In that moment, I crumbled just like Eranja- crumbled into the role of prey.
But I didn't forget procedure: I rolled into the aisles of vegetation on my left, stumbling and bumping helplessly down the nearby ravine. The rocks cracked like icy baseballs over my head and bones. I saw stars and lost all my breath.
Procedure followed the previous reconnaisance of the area:
Roll into the ravine and play dead among the rocks at the bed of the dried Satluj River, then await for the 1:15AM release of the Beas River aquaduct (used to water the fields), and allow the Beas' tide to carry you across the Pakistani border where Pakistani officials will await your arrival.
Because the Satluj was supposed to be a dry ravine, a dead river.
What we didn't know was that the Hayagrivan border-patrol flooded sections of land if they detected suspicious activity.
Satluj River never was dead.
I plunged into a full ravine, an overflowing river, dazed and breathles-
-ice cold, muddy water.
It stabbed into my lungs.
Even from under the water, I felt the thunder outside clap again.
I half-expected to feel the grasp of the Shere Khan soldier.
I was sinking lower and lower. I was going to die in the water that should have carried me to safety.
So I kicked.
Spending the energy would kill me, but I kept kicking.
I broke the surface- shocked to greet the night air as I coughed up gritty water and swallowed the night air in ragged gasps that passed down my throat, hard as marbles.
I couldn't even feel the burning-bright tiger watching me from the north side of the riverbank.
I'd fallen to the ground, slumping against the earth as I hacked my lungs dry. Mud smeared against my cheeks as my body spasmed wildly with each cough. Stupid, but at some point I worried over ruining my clothes.
But I jerked into alertness at the sound of a gunshot.
Eranja.
I don't know why I screamed. I barely knew her. But I felt my throat stretch and pull and scratch as I grieved through spontaneous, unreigned rage- clawing at the soft clay beneath me.
It was futile- it was all so futile-!
When I opened my eyes, I realized the tiger soldier had been with me all along-
-watching me?
The hollowness in his face was gone- that terrifying distortion, the wildness, and brutal violence was gone. Replaced with an odd shine, like trickles of dreary sunshine reflecting against snow clouds.
He raised his head but lowered his weapon.
"Leave," He had ordered, as if I were genuflect before him, begging for mercy. "Leave or I will kill you."
Did he think I was a Hayagrivan?
Without another thought, I scrambled up and away- my now barefeet slapping loudly against the dirt. I was soaking, muddying the ground and slipping with every step. I could still smell fresh mud. My long skirt, weighed down with water, was slumping off my hips and down to my thighs.
I didn't have the luxury of readjusting my clothing.
I was back in the orange fields of unknown, narcotic plants, burying myself in the rows of the field. I heard a sound blend in with the grumbling thunder, and too late I realized it was the sound of a helicopter.
Stunning, unnatural light exploded around me in a condemning exhibition.
"STOP. You have illegally entered this region. Surrender yourself now."
I was flustered and sealed in.
Frantically, I ran in a circle- reaching out for an imaginary escape-
The helicopter roared over me, repeating its message in Hindi, Chinese, Russian, Japanese…
There was no where to go. The helicopter might as well have lowered invisible walls- I could run, but they would follow with that damn light! I hadhad my chance- my miracle- Shere Khan had let me go-
-there were no more miracles left.
Off in the distance, a short, dark shadow of a man.
"435-7K, take her now."
Before I turned around, Khan the tiger had me in his hands and I couldn't even squirm. I tried to slump and shrink away, drop my weight, stamp on his foot, kick him in the balls- but he pressed his thumb into a muscle in my shoulder and I felt my body go limp.
The instant I felt his touch, he had already shackled me.
There was a sharp bite- a shot? a dart?- and I fell immediately.
My life-
my life is over.
I never thought I'd die this way.
Everything around me vanished and I felt my body collapse.
Jim and Wrenne jolted awake around the same time.
In his quarters, Kirk put his head in his hands.
In the brig, Wrenne held herself tightly, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
This situation was getting the best of him. He needed to pump up his approach.
She was here, not in Hayagriva, she repeated the thought to herself. She felt the texture of the blanket over her legs, she felt her dry skin against her fingers.
Here, not Hayagriva.
He wasn't this weak! Even after The Vengeance's crash into the Academy- even when he was in the hospital, he didn't have nightmares- let alone ones so vivid. The option of telling Bones floated into his head again, but he shook it out like water stuck in his ear.
Not in Hayagriva, not in Hayagriva-
The jail was too much for her. She was going to crack.
No, no, no, no, no.
She'd survived Hayagriva. She'd survive this, despite the wall closing in around her- siphoning out the oxygen-
Claustrophobia, claustrophobia, she reminded herself, This is just a symptom. This prison atmosphere was pulling her out of her body back to that stall of a cell in in that God-forsaken country.
But this wasn't that cell, she knew that.
Not in Hayagriva; Hereandnot in Hayagriva.
At least this cell was nice. As nice as a cell could be...
"Hi, Bones, I'm having scary dreams can you help me?"Jim shook his head, feeling humiliation over an imaginary scene. Spock and Bones were already waiting for the sign that he was nuts- that "Khan Part Two" would be too much, that he would break. He could tell from the way they looked at each other with a concerned, "I told you so" or maybe even: "Did you see that? He's crazy."
The captain lifted his head and looked down at his hands. He didn't feel like a different person...
He was still James Tiberius Kirk. Just James Tiberius Kirk under a great amount of stress.
He lied down again, repeating in his head: James Tiberius Kirk, James Tiberius Kirk.
Leonard had never seen anything like it. There were extra fibers along each side of the double helix, all with accompanying pairs beyond any medical category- and even more seemed to be growing in Jim's DNA.
"We witheld vital information," Spock had a reprimanding tone in his voice as he gazed at the magnified viewer that broadcasted the image of the DNA strands.
"Well for hell's sake, Spock, you saw the mood he was in!" Bones grumbled, shuffling the blood samples back into an organized fashion. "The stress is getting to him."
"...or the new, developing neurons in his brain."
"You're right, Spock," Bones spoke sarcastically at first, "with Jim, we skipped sometruth! Oh wait, there's still a hell of a lot that you haven't toldany of us either! I can tell there is plenty of informatin you are witholding..." He snapped. "...importantinformation about Averly that you learned during your brief stroll in her noggin. Don't think for a second that you've pulled the wool over my eyes- And I'm a doctor, not a therapist! Whatever's eating at Jim's mood will pass just as usual. Besides, can we even be sure his change in behavior is because of something extraordinary? The ship's stranded, the crew nearly mutinous...we're all in shitty moods. The only thing that'd prove the source of any shift in his personality would be a brain scan...you know Jim would take to that like a cat on a hot tin roof..."
"You are a doctor, but you are also his friend."
"We, Spock. We are his friends. Anyway, you yourself didn't seem too eager to start blurting out the details about Jim," McCoy leaned his forehead against his hand.
Spock pondered on that:
"We are his friends."
He found it oddly comforting.
"Doctor," Spock began again. "I believe you did make the right decision...the captain seems rather unstable. Unless you are sure his life is in danger, we best not add more distress to a desperate situation."
Leonard knew that for Spock, it was the closest to a friendly pat on the back as he was going to get.
"Thanks, Pointy," He grumbled tiredly. "Go get some rest or meditation or whatever it is you do...I'll keep up the work... Hopefully, we're just making a mountain out of a mole hill..."
Spock watched McCoy for a moment before he turned and left the medical wing.
He was not about to sleep.
"Commander!" The security officer acknowledged him with some surprise as Spock entered the brig. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Where is she?"
He didn't need to specify. The officer pointed her delicate, blue hand toward the proper cell.
"Commander Spock," She spoke behind him, rising from her station at the observation desk. "I'm sure you're aware that 73 isn't to be questioned outside an official-."
"-I am aware," He answered. "Officer Atch'axah, after what our crew has been through, I'm sure you have confidence that I will handle this prisoner as aptly as I handled John Harrison." Atch'axah nodded and went back to her desk. She typed onto the flat surface of her command board, hacking into the security camera so it would feed a harmless loop while Commander Spock put a creative spin on rules she didn't care for anyway.
"Averly," Spock called, his temper carefully masked in his voice.
She was sitting up on the bench, the blanket pulled high to her neck. She didn't look toward him.
"Wrenne," He remained determined. "It is time you told me about the injections- how the augmented blood changed you."
He saw her shiver.
"Why?" Wrenne asked in a ghost of a voice. Her sight was looking beyond her maximum security cell and into the past.
"A man's life is at stake," Spock answered, straightening his stance stubbornly. "And if you are the empath you claim to be, such high stakes will matter to you. This man is your only hope to be tried fairly. Now tell me about the injections-the 'Augmented Conversion'. Now."
Wrenne wondered why she wasn't crying.
Khan was long dead. She was all alone in a galaxy of a government, and treated like a criminal. But no tears since the interview. No tears with this alien interrogating her about the most painful and yet simultaneously wonderful period of her life.
She shivered again and reached for the steel anchor in her chest- the stronghold that connected her to the fiery, warrioress she'd always wanted to be.
The man in danger...the captain. Wrenne could read that as easily as if it were vibrating from Spock's body.
"Now, Wrenne," He demanded more forcefully.
Did Spock have any idea of the severity of his question? What kind of door it would open?
Wrenne felt her heart tighten in panic just thinking about it.
Space, think of space,she urged.
A lot of comfort came to her in this blank, austere cell when she pictured how she was actually shooting through space.
She wasn't on earth, she was in space.
"I'll tell you," She conceded, almost not recognizing her own voice. "...but only you. And I want some answers in return- otherwise, I won't tell you anything more."
Wrenne shivered again, pulling the blanket even more tightly around her as the realization re-occurred to her:
There was no where to go in space. No where but into darkness.
{ Continued in Chapter Four, Weaving Stage VIII: Order }