by Melanie
"How could I forget that interlude?" Chakotay rubbed his jaw where Paris had hit him during his performance as "Paris the Malcontent" before he left Voyager.
"What if...." Neelix slid forwards to the edge of the couch. "What if Tom were left in charge of Sickbay and he saved someone's life."
"Excuse me?" the EMH gasped, clearly affronted at the suggestion.
"No, no, hear me out," the Talaxian begged. "Tom is uncomfortable being in Sickbay, right? He is worried he can't cope with what he will be confronted with there. What if it were proved to him he could cope?"
"And precisely how do you plan to orchestrate this? Put me offline and phaser one of the crew?" Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.
"No, of course not, Doctor. I-"
"Because you'd have to do something drastic to get him in there, believe me."
"What if it were Harry or B'Elanna was sick?" Chakotay asked.
"Cucumber."
All eyes snapped to Seven at her seeming non sequitur.
"Naomi Wildman. Lieutenant Paris once was called away from a project we were working on to go treat her. He told me, she absolutely refuses to permit the Doctor to treat her."
"I don't know why, but she prefers Mr. Paris to do it," the EMH stated haughtily.
"She might be proper incentive to lure him back to Sickbay. Perhaps another case of indigestion from chewing on her crayons."
"I thought she had stopped that," Neelix, godfather of the little girl in question, interrupted.
"For a while, yes," the Doctor confirmed, "but I doubt it will continue."
The Captain frowned. "No matter who the designated patient was you'd literally have to make them sick though. The diagnostic equipment would make it impossible to fake an illness."
"And Ensign Wildman, Mr. Paris, and I have spent so long trying to cure her of that habit. If we suddenly told her to forget what we had said and do it again-"
"She would not understand the mixed messages she was getting," the Captain finished for him.
"The simple solution is either to program the equipment to return false readings or to use a holographic representation of the specific patient," Tuvok interjected. "The holoemitters in Sickbay can be used for that purpose. However that would be missing the point. The root of Mr. Paris's problem is not Sickbay; it merely is a symptom. His problem appears to be a need to feel more certain about all aspects of his life, not only one. If it is his future which is of the greatest concern to him, then it is upon reinforcing the potential positive outcome of that future any efforts must concentrate."
With that pronouncement, the Vulcan began to outline his idea.
-------
As she undertook her long journey to his position, she maintained the link to him that she had forged, without his knowledge, upon her first sensing his existence in the Universe. Part of her wished there were another method of finding him than that link. Because of her efforts to keep him in her mind, the sound of his screaming and images from her first, one-sided encounter with him haunted her waking thoughts and nightmares haunted her sleep as she was certain they did his. Some times, when she was awake and the sounds and images almost were absent, she would be able to return to her deep meditation, hoping he would revisit the place where she learned of him, hoping she might then be able to learn more about him. Yet he never reappeared there. She spoke at length with the animals, the "spirit guides" as they referred to themselves, but they still knew nothing more about what had occurred than she did.
So she patiently awaited the day they would meet in person to confirm or eliminate him as the one she sought. In the meantime, she endured the nightmares like the one he was having at that very instant. It was not the worst of the atrocities she had witnessed through his eyes. Disjointed fragments of scenes of violence, destruction, death, all had assaulted her without mercy and made no sense. She only hoped they did not destroy him before she could reach him.
-------
It was so long ago now. So much had happened in the interim, all leading inexorably back to what occurred on that biobed, in The Treatment Room in The Lab at The Centre. "The Maltreatment Room," a part of his mind snarled, that was what they should have called it.
At less than two hours old, he was at an age most would insist the average humanoid would neither be able to remember nor focus his or her eyes. True, there were no clear images of that hated place. His dimly aware mind only processed the blinding lights and the pain. Oh, the pain. It felt like the very inside of his head was on fire.
The scene shifted forward eight years. Now he stood in an anteroom to the Treatment Room. Beside him stood one of The Protectors, Alpha Two, his proud creator and principle controller. He listened as Alpha Two painstakingly explained each step of the process being performed on a three-day-old Bolian girl on the other side of the transparent aluminum window.
"You were slightly younger than she is when you received your Implant, AlphaOmegan 41783," Alpha Two informed him in the matter-of-fact tone of voice he and his fellow Vulcans all had in common. "Even as small as The Implant is, a momentary pain is felt when it is inserted into the brain. If you watch the monitor, you shall see the process."
As he was conditioned to do, AlphaOmegan 41783 obeyed and watched the monitor on the desk before them. At first it showed only a subatomic scan of normal brain tissue. Then it changed as the microscopic device was beamed into the centre of the girl's cerebrum. With in a split second it had settled itself in its new home and spread out to establish subcentres throughout her brain.
Suddenly, The Implant vanished. AlphaOmegan 41783 briefly narrowed his gaze, eyes still on the monitor.
Had Alpha Two been anything other than Vulcan he would have scowled at that.
"It is cloaked," the boy concluded, frown lifting. "So any medical scans which are done will not stumble across it."
"Yes. AlphaOmegan 41783, you must learn to control your emotions and outward displays of said emotions. When you were confused by the disappearance of The Implant just now, your confusion showed on your face. You must not permit this to continue. You must subjugate your emotions and any such displays. If I could see it, you can be certain an enemy would. It gives the enemy an unfair advantage if it is simple to know what you are thinking merely by looking at your face." Alpha Two then intoned the words that would follow AlphaOmegan 41783 into his other life as Thomas Eugene Paris. "Never permit anyone to know your true thoughts or feelings or they will find a way to use them against you."
"I will do better, Alpha Two," the child responded automatically in a monotone of his own.
"See that you do. I do not wish to have to resort to Re-Education as the means of your achieving this necessary skill."
Another leap forward. This time it was a sixteen year leap and not to The Treatment Room or the anteroom. This time it was the Re-Education Room.
"Do you understand?!" Alpha Three growled at the bloodied and exhausted twenty-four year old strapped into the chair in the centre of the chamber.
Alpha Four stood silently off to one side of the door watching the Re-Education of their fallen angel. Alpha Two's star pupil had failed them. His Romulan brows lowered in a frown. It was inconceivable. AlphaOmegan 41783 had been perfect, the best of all the AlphaOmegan soldiers. Except for the routine corrections that had to be made to his behavior as he matured, there never had been a call for a Re-Education on this scale.
Alpha Two entered the room. His eyes evaluated the young man barely conscious and trembling uncontrollably. His eyes took in the frustrated look on Alpha Three's already fierce Klingon face. He turned to the Romulan with one brow raised in mute inquiry. He did not like the shake of the head he received.
"I should have been informed the moment he was recaptured," Alpha Two censured Alpha Four.
"You were busy with Alpha One discussing the Gamma Quadrant situation," the Romulan explained calmly. "The Re-Education had to begin as soon as possible."
Alpha Three stomped over to them. "It's
not working. I have injected him with seven doses of the burayte so far and he still had not surrendered control."
"Perhaps, Alpha Three, you should abandon that approach," Alpha Two said suggested.
She cast her narrowed gaze back to the prisoner. "Are you trying to say he's become immune to the burayte?"
"Or built up a tolerance."
"Impossible," Alpha Four scoffed. "Unlikely, not impossible. Because it never has been done before does not mean it cannot happen. The proof may be right before you. They have been conditioned to respond to the burayte yet he has not."
Alpha Three glared at the hypospray in her hand then looked inquiringly at Alpha Two. "So what do you suggest?"
"I suggest you let me handle this."
They looked at him appraisingly.
"He was not Awake until you brought him in?"
"No," Alpha Four answered. "It was Tom Paris that we captured, not AlphaOmegan 41783."
"Good."
Alpha Three snorted. "Don't be so relieved. Have you seen the visuals the retrieval team brought back?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then you can see as well as we can that the two have overlapped. Tom Paris clearly desired revenge for what Camet did to Owen Paris and AlphaOmegan 41783 provided the means by which he got that revenge."
Alpha Four interrupted her. "I am still wondering how Paris knew about what Camet did to his father. Owen Paris is a Starfleet Officer. The entire incident was classified. He would not have told anyone, even his son, and especially not nine years after the fact. It makes no sense."
"Regardless," Alpha Three continued, "Tom Paris was able to access to enough of AlphaOmegan 41783's skills to track Camet and Meer and evade us, what more of him will he gain access to? If he can't be brought back into the fold-"
"He will have to be dealt with, I agree," Alpha Two concurred. "He knows and is capable of too much to be set free. But permit me to try first. If I am unsuccessful, then the necessary steps will be taken."
Reluctantly, the other two nodded and left. Alpha Two was the man's controller and patron. He did have the most experience with him. If he could not get him back, no one could.
When the chamber door closed, Alpha Two turned his gaze back to the prisoner. The tremors had calmed somewhat. He drew a chair over to the restrained man's side.
"You surprised me, AlphaOmegan 41783," he admitted, propping the sagging head back against the head rest.
The clouded blue eyes tried to focus on his teacher.
"Were you a mere AlphaOmegan you would be dead right now, eliminated because you would not be worth the time and expense of trying to bring you back to us. But Alpha One and I personally made you one of the Chosen Ones." He leaned in closer. "But we are not going to give you up so easily. You are an AlphaOmegan and a Chosen One and we have need of you immediately. No one else is suitable for this duty except you so you are going to come back to us." The Vulcan's hand lifted, fingers splayed and zeroing intently on the human's cheek. "You'll never leave us. You're one of us and we never let go of what's ours."
-------
Tom Paris awoke with jolt and sat up straight, Alpha Two's words echoing in his head. Thrusting his hands through his hair, he groaned and reluctantly opened his eyes.
"Computer, end alarm."
Obediently, the wake up alarm ceased.
"The time?"
"The time is 0630."
Dragging himself off of his couch, he walked through the bathroom, discarding his slept in uniform along the way. His lids remained at half-mast the entire way into the shower. Long hours spent surveying and collecting supplies from the planet they orbited had taken its toll on him over the past week. As expected of all the crew, he had taken his turn planetside, but without the excitement which for him typically accompanied liberty.
'Liberty,' he snorted to himself. That word was a slap in the face for a man who no longer had freedom. It was hard to escape from the harsh reality of his life when the reality went with you everywhere you went. All he wanted right now was eight to ten hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.
*Like you deserve it,* Gul Camet's bitter voice echoed in Tom's head.
And reality was awake again.
Tom rubbed his temples to ease the ache that was forming there as it had every day for the last two months. There could be many explanations for this pain. His lack of adequate sleep. The presence of Camet and the others hiding in his subconscious. The malfunction of The Implant in his brain. Or, the most likely answer, the strain of trying to act like the normal Tom Paris while AlphaOmegan 41783's programmed behaviors were vying for supremacy. All he did know was that only working on his project on the Holodeck could banish the pain completely.
With his knowledge of the intended outcome of said project, Camet was silent during those times. At first Tom had worried the long dead Cardassian would some how force him to reveal his plan before the need to enact it came, if it ever did. Later, he realized Camet either was biding his time or he approved of the outcome so did not plan to reveal all... yet. Tom had no choice other than to continue his preparations and wait him out, not there was much he could do to thwart someone hiding somewhere in the darkest recesses of his memories.
How he wished he never had asked Chakotay to show him how to contact his spirit guide all of those weeks ago. Maybe if he had not felt envious of the Commander's calmness and self-control he would not have touched the akoonah and it would not have shut down The Implant. Maybe then The Sleep would be continuing and he never would have known the awful truth about his past.
*One day this precious crew will know you for what you are,* Camet taunted.
'No,' Tom insisted, 'they won't know because I won't ever tell them. The spirit guides promised me they'd never tell anyone what little they know about me. If no one tells the others, they won't ever know.'
*But we know,* he laughed maliciously and the others in his mind joined in. Though the Gul had taken to speaking for the others now in residence inside Tom's mind, there were occasions like this in which all of them spoke up to remind of their presence. *It all will come out,* Camet continued after the laughter had diminished, *about you being an AlphaOmegan-*
'A rare few know what that is,' Tom interrupted. 'Those who do think we're a garbled historical anecdote from the early days of the Federation. To their minds, if the AlphaOmegans ever existed, they were disbanded over a century and a half ago. Any continued tales of us are chalked up to stories created by conspiracy minded individuals with overactive paranoia. Even the Federation President doesn't know we still exist.'
*-And they'll know what you did to me and my father and the others who were with us.*
'I went temporarily insane,' Tom insisted, forcing back the emotions which threatened him. 'Finding out the truth sent me over the edge.'
*Like they'll believe that when they hear of all the things you did for The Protectors.*
The Gul scored a direct hit as he knew he would.
'I was mentally and chemically conditioned to follow all of The Protectors' orders. They can't blame me for doing what I was ordered to do and in the manner in which I was programmed to do it. Not when I had no other choice in the matter.'
*Like they will care about whether you wanted to do it or not when they know the whole truth. A killer is a killer is a killer. And you are one. One of the most vicious and cold blooded ones there is.*
'It's not my fault. The Protectors made me what I am. I didn't have any say in it.'
*Oh, yes, The Protectors. Your dear, demented leaders who'll want you dead too as soon as they know you're Awake and know all. Alpha Two told you they wouldn't let you go alive. I'll bet they're already planning the little accident which will do you in.*
It was on the tip of Tom's tongue to deny Camet's claim, but after a second thought he did not voice it. There was no hope left that he had been omitted from the EMH's report to Starfleet as an oversight. The hope had died the moment B'Elanna had called him down to Astromet
rics about the message from the Admiral. If his father knew he was alive then certainly The Protectors knew as well. The one truly good thing about the loss of the Admiral's message -- other than he would not have to hear yet again about what a failure he was -- was that any message from The Protectors, which doubtless had been imbedded in his father's, it was lost too. Now they would not be able to issue The Implant new Commands through the message. He actually might have a chance of retaining the life he had created for himself here on Voyager.
*Chance of....* Camet laughed malevolently. *You don't honestly think they'll let you run free? You, their star pupil? One of their Chosen Ones? Surely The Re-Education after the last time you went rogue would be enough to convince you they know you are too dangerous to be let roaming free. Besides, you won't have you precious little life here much longer. Even now, it is becoming harder and harder for you to keep from letting your true self out. Some time soon AlphaOmegan 41783 is going to overwhelm Tom Paris and then everyone will know everything.*
Tom knew he was right. He had been so careful since Awoken, literally and metaphorically, after the disaster with Chakotay's akoonah. And he had fooled everyone for over two months so far. Not wanting to pry, they cautiously had avoided the subject of his missing day and a half. Though he did sense some of them wondered if he were lying, most had swallowed the story he remembered nothing of his experience in the Spirit Realm or why he had been screaming for the majority of the time he was there.
Yet, as the days passed it was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep up the pretence. The effort was becoming too much for him. As most on the ship knew only his joking persona, it was simple to hide the changes in him from them. Trying to keep things from B'Elanna, who now knew him better than even Harry, was a trial. He had taken to the Holodeck to hide from her. And to work on his only hope of evading The Protectors when Voyager finally reached the Alpha Quadrant, he conceded.
*And what makes you think The Protectors will wait that long to get you back? What makes you think they sent a message to no one else? You can't be sure you're the only AlphaOmegan on board. Were they one hundred percent positive of your loyalty to them when they sent you here? Hardly. How could they be after you went rogue? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if The Protectors had placed another AlphaOmegan on board Voyager as back up in case you weren't totally back in line and didn't complete The Mission as instructed. Perhaps even now one of those who did receive a letter from the Alpha Quadrant is Awakening to who they really are as you did and plotting to terminate you for failing to complete The Mission. Remembered what that Mission was, yet?*