Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek.
AN: I apologize for not updating in a week (due to health issues, but on the mend now). Beta readers are the best, I have a few chapters to cluster as updates soon, and I am incredibly thankful for your reviews! The fan fiction world can be intimidating but your encouragement is great at alleviating that!
Chapter 10
Fitful over Kevin's mysterious disappearance, Lenore lingered a bit too long in an awakened state and failed to fall asleep when her weariness finally surfaced. Kevin had left an impression upon her usual grounded self. How could she be so concerned about a someone after such a short acquaintance? He appeared as equally drawn to her as she was to him.
I will not forget our laughter over the replicator. She'd not laughed like that in a long time.
After two hours of tossing and turning, cursing herself for not doing anything to help find Kevin, Lenore heard the sweet voice of Ayhan, the three year old girl she'd held on her lap yesterday.
"Miss Lenore."
"Lights."
Nothing was amiss in her room. She was alone. Perhaps the strangeness of the place was getting to her. Lenore padded over to retrieve a robe and as she tied the knot around her waist, Ayhan's voice demanded her attention again.
"Ayhan?" Surely, Lenore's fascination of the children encouraged her illogical response of talking to no one. I'm calling for a child who clearly is not even in my room. I need sleep.
As she returned to her bed and was about to slip her feet underneath the covers, her name was called again, with great diligence.
"We need you, Miss Lenore."
She sighed. I must be crazy. With a groan, she pulled herself back out of bed. She should be obedient, since she was a guest, but that certainly wasn't in her nature. She'd seek out the little girl.
If she found out she was needed, indeed, by the waif-like Vulcan, Lenore would be happy to accommodate. A few minutes later, dressed warmly in her street clothes in case she ended up in a precarious situation (like, having to run and hide because she was breaking the rules), she opened her door just a crack. The corridor was subtly lit but all was quiet. Security outside the Wing was heavy, but as this was a peaceful facility, and security within the floor itself was scattered. A tall Vulcan shadow appeared down the hall. Lenore moved behind a column, shielding herself from discovery.
"Miss Lenore, go down the corridor, turn left. Two doors on the right." It was another child's voice, perhaps Delvok, one of the older children.
"Hurwy," said Ayhan.
Lenore could not understand why the children chose to call her with their uncanny telepathic abilities. She was seventeen and eccentric in her own right, but hardly knowledgeable of their world here on Revlair. Come on, Lenore, where's your sense of adventure? The shadow grew smaller, well over 100 feet away, and Lenore took to flight in the opposite direction.
"Hello?" Lenore whispered after she reached the door. A seven or eight year old girl tugged at her arm. "Prisu? I heard Ayhan."
Prisu nodded. "She wanted you to come. We almost all did."
Almost all?
Ten of the fourteen children of the Green Gate stared at her. Ayhan held one finger in her mouth.
"What do you want from me?"
The eldest of the group, at eleven years of age from Lenore's notes, was Delvok holding a device. A comm.
"We need your help." Delvok handed her the comm.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" It was the first time she held one, and her hands trembled. For some reason, I feel trepidation.
"It's specialized for emergencies, but Ayhan told us none of us can use it. It has to be you."
"Who gave it to you?"
"The Ambassador." Delvok said.
"Why me?"
Delvok looked at Ayhan. Prisu put her arms around the girl who seemed too young to be so knowing.
"Ayhan has a special gift," Prisu stated. "We all do, but Ayhan told us you have to contact the Ambassador after you see where Kevin is."
Lenora sighed. "I don't know where Kevin is. I don't know where to look."
"He is in the basement of Wing D," said Delvok.
"How would you know this? Why wouldn't you tell any of your caretakers?" This truly is a conundrum.
Prisu glanced at Delvok. "We do not trust them all," she said. "And Ayhan trusts you," she added. Why does Ayhan's word mean so much to them? She is three years old!
Ayhan put her other hand in Lenore's and tugged at her. She led her over to a chair. After Lenore sat, Ayhan climbed on her lap. The child was cold, of course, and Lenore fought the urge to tremble at her touch. The room was colder than she imagined, even for the children of the Green Gate.
"How do you know where Mr. Kevin is?" She cocked an eye at Delvok who had a most un-Vulcan expression of guilt.
"I like following him around," mumbled Delvok. "I trust him. He makes us feel safe. Therefore, I placed a microscopic chip in his favorite pair of shoes." Lenore blinked at him. "A tracking device."
Lenora was not expecting that. "Really? You know how to do that?"
"Yes," Delvok said. "And he has been in that basement since this morning. It is not a place we have ever been, but we did find the passageway Ambassador Spock told us about when we first came here. It's secret but you can try it. We fit when we used it a few months ago."
Try.
And if she didn't try, what would happen to Kevin, who had been stuck in the basement all this time?
And if she did, why did the children not trust everybody? What would she find down there?
Ayhan tugged at Lenore's curls and took her finger out of her mouth. Lenore was taken aback at her sad eyes. "Cap'n sick. Not help Mr. Kwevin in time."
"Captain? Is there a captain of a ship coming?"
All the children nodded.
Lenore stared at Ayhan. "Why is he sick? And why do I have to do this?" The small child held such intelligence behind her eyes. Lenore could see this now. A knowing. Visions? Or something else?
Ayhan shook her head and a small tear ran down her cheek. Lenore brushed it away tenderly.
"Prisu?" The older girl had been quite the conversationalist before but also shook her head. Lenore stared hard at her.
"I need more information. Something. Please."
"When she acts like this about what she has seen, you cannot pry. It means you have a destiny. A destiny to do good," Prisu explained after a moment. Ayhan got off Lenore's lap and pressed herself into Prisu's body.
"It's okay, Ayhan." Lenore told the child. "I'm not mad that you can't tell me everything. I just want to help the best I can."
"We will show you the passageway. Ayhan said Mr. Riley is in trouble and to contact the Ambassador. He will be tell you what else to do. The captain who is sick is our friend."
"What is the Ambassador's name?"
"Ambassador Spock."
Ambassador Spock. Okay. I can remember that. Wait...
"Delvok and Ivek," Lenore said to the two oldest boys. "Can I talk with you? Privately?"
Silently, Delvok lead Lenore and Ivek to the side living space and closed the door.
"You wish to know if we are safe."
This Delvok kid is smart. "Yes. It seems to me that if a scientist has been kidnapped and is being held in a basement of a facility which contains children, I better see to it that you fourteen children are out of harm's way. If you cannot trust your caretakers-"
"Not all, but some," Delvok interrupted. "Ambassador Spock and Captain Kirk were not in charge of creating this place, but they made changes when Section 31 coerced the captain."
Coerced? Section 31? What in the world?
"Which ones can you trust? Can you go to them now to ask for help?"
"Not without getting them killed," mumbled Ivek.
Lenore blanched. This is not good.
"So, you have to act as if all is normal, just as they are with you?" This is insane. These children need to get out of here.
The boys agreed. "Yes."
"This Captain Kirk, would he help you leave the Green Gate? If I could contact him with the comm?" Lenore held the device out, wishing she knew exactly what was it she was supposed to do. She was sometimes clever, always a bit precocious, but never always clever. What was she to do?
"He would, but Ayhan said his mind is sick and he is not able to." Ivek said sullenly. "I don't like what else Ayhan said so-"
"Hush, Ivek!"
Lenore jumped at Delvok's loud command. "Something else Ayhan said?" She curiously asked Delvok, since Ivek had thus crossed his arms in a defiant expression.
Delvok, too, refused to answer that particular question. "Remember what Ayhan said. You have a destiny to do good."
Lenore had no choice to listen to the boy, question all that Ayhan said about her destiny, and let them outfit her with more knowledge about the comm than she ever desired to learn. After that, and giving Ayhan a hug, she left the children against her better judgement. They gave her more reason to believe Kevin's life was in danger then their own.
The passageway, hidden in one of the columns in their same wing, was just inches broader than her body. If she'd been any taller, she'd be hunched over entire distance and getting a crick in her neck. As it was, Lenore did not appreciate the claustrophobia it gave her. It was not an adult escape way. Lenore wondered if the Ambassador or Captain Kirk had anything to do with it. The children trusted this Spock and Kirk, and if Spock and Kirk did in turn, the passageway could indeed be some sort of escape route for the child residents of the Green Gate.
She followed it until it became so narrow she had to turn sideways, just as the children had warned.
After a few minutes of following the passage in such an uncomfortable way, she saw the steps.
It's time. You can do this, Lenore.
She held the comm loosely in her left hand and gripped the rail by the steps with her right. Down she went, one step at a time into darkness. The comm's light gave just enough to see each step as she came to it. There were 25 total. She reached the bottom and turned right, just as Delvok told her to. And kept walking. The passage wasn't so narrow anymore, and Lenore hugged the wall when some small creature slithered past her feet.
"Keep going, Miss Lenore." It was Ayhan's voice.
The child was so courageous to talk with her like this, Lenore could not help felt a bit of pride for just knowing her.
"Okay, Ayhan. I will," she whispered, coming to the tiny door Delvok told her about. You've got to be kidding me. The door was about one and half feet high and obviously she had to crawl through it and after that creature thing just slivered by her, Lenore was not in the mood.
"Miss Lenore."
With a sigh brimming to the surface, she got down on her knees and opened the door with a slight tug. The comm had to be protected so she put it in her back pocket. She went cautiously at first. Until she heard Kevin's voice.
"Please. Don't do this."
Underneath the tormented words, that was Kevin.
Her blood boiled, thinking of what could be happening to him. Her head pounded, and for a moment, she lost her way.
"Kodos, don't."
Kodos. Oh, God. Lenore had heard about Kodos. It was always in student books, always that significant cultural discussion students had plenty to say about but not enough empathy. However, her active mind had often taken such tragedies to heart. She had stuffed her mouth with food for a week after that, gaining about ten pounds. And then cried another seven days. She had no one but her roommate who had helped her through, but she managed.
But, Kevin? Kodos?
She scurried then, trembling with the comm. Pressing a few numbers but not all. She knew she had to wait to see what was going on, from the vent.
Lenore got there but pressed her eyes shut. She heard bones cracking and Kevin's scream simultaneously. She gave a small cry, her hand flying to her mouth to suppress the sound.
"Tell us where the others are."
That voice.
"Those two names. Now."
The next moment she wished she to God she'd never been born. She would have pried her eyes open with a knife to confirm the owner of that voice. It was a voice she only heard her father use once, to swear after finding out her mother had filed for divorce. It was the voice then that made her blood go cold.
It was the voice now she saw belonging to a man torturing the hell out of Kevin Riley.
Ayhan was wrong. Her destiny was not to do good. Her destiny was to do anything she could to stop her father.