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The Implant
1. Vorta cloning facility.
BOOOOOM! His ears were still tingling from the noise of the explosion. The bursting of the breeding tank had thrown him on the floor. Broken pieces were cutting into his skin but his most urgent desire was AIR. His lungs were still filled with the plasma solution which had nourished him in the past 2 years. Coughing and choking, he liberated his lungs and took a first deep breath. The air was filled with smoke and dust, but he felt a feeling of relief. He tried to open his eyes but was immediately blinded by the light. Another explosion rocked the building, throwing more pieces and debris on him. His instincts told him to run away, but his muscles, never trained besides a minimum of electronic stimulation, hardly obeyed. With all his strength, he managed to get on his knees and started to crawl away, slowly, from the noise and the light and the pain. Like a hurt animal, he hid himself under a mass of wreckage. Too weak to move any further, he cowered there, shivering from cold and fear.
"I've recorded life signs over there!" Ezri followed the changing icons on her tricorder and urged Worf to follow her into the next room.
"The whole facility will explode in 9 minutes. We have to go back to the ship!" the Klingon complained.But the Trill woman went straight to the edge of the huge hall. "This way!"
A trace of bluish blood was leading from a broken tank to a mass of pylons. In the dark, a pale, skinny creature pressed itself at the edge. Long, filthy hair was falling down to his knees and clawlike nails were growing from his fingers and toes. When the two officers approached, the alien opened its huge violet eyes and snarled menacingly."A Vorta clone!" Ezri exclaimed. "One of them must have survived!"
"We came here to kill them, don't you remember?"But Ezri didn't listen to him. "This one is hurt, can't you see it? We have to get him out of here, otherwise he will die."
Worf tried to hold her back. "We can't take him with us, he's one of our enemies".
"You never know, maybe he can be of use to us later." Ezri stated. She wouldn't admit to the Klingon that she felt pity for the miserable creature. Before Worf could stop her, she stepped to the Vorta, trying to help him up.One of the beings was now approaching him, its hands stretched forward and its mouth producing strange sounds that he didn't understand. He tried to hide deeper in the dark, but he was trapped. When the being seized his arm he felt he had to fight for his life. In panic, he instinctively plunged his elongated sharp teeth in the shoulder of his aggressor while the claws of his free arm cut deeply into the skin of his face. His mouth filled with warm, salty liquid of a nauseating taste, but he didn't loosen his bite until he felt a sudden pain at his head. He had a sensation of falling into dark, and lost consciousness.
"Aaaagh, are you crazy?" Ezri yelled when the Vorta attacked her. But instantly she regained control and managed to place a strong punch at the temple of her adversary. Quickly she pulled the unconscious humanoid out of the edge.
"Are you all right?" Worf asked, concerned.
"Yes... I'm fine. Just some scratches. Help me to carry him to the ship, and then let us leave this terrible place before it blows into a million pieces."2. The Defiant.
Dr. Bashir bent over his patient and was again cursing the poor equipment of the provisional infirmery on the "Defiant". The condition of the Vorta was critical; he had lost a lot of blood and his body was not accepting the artificial plasma he had tried on him. After all, he decided to set him in medical stasis until they reached the station. Again he looked in the familiar face of the alien. No doubt, this was the face of Weyoun, the detested leader of the Dominion troops! On the other hand, this was only one of his clones, and after all, as a medical doctor it was Bashir’s obligation to help his patients regardless of their origin. 'Isn't this a unique occasion to study the physiology of this enigmatic race?' he thought, trying to convince himself that Ezri was right to bring the Vorta aboard. With her help he had managed to clean the blood dripping alien and to cut his hair and nails. The teeth were still unnaturally long and pointed, but this had to wait until they were back at DS9. For the first time he realized that the pale skin and the strange blue color of the eyes are caused from a lack of melanin. This Vorta, all of them, were albinos! But more important than medical observations was the question of whether the Weyoun clone possessed the memory of his predecessors and eventually would be willing to share this knowledge
3. Deep Space Nine.
"I'm afraid the memory implant hasn't been installed yet," Bashir explained. "The only thing I found is a neural interface in his forebrain, which I suppose is used when the memories of one clone are transferred to another. This clone seems to be activated prematurely by the destruction of the breeding tank; that's why he's in such a bad physical condition".
"Can we see him?" Odo asked. Since the encounter with Weyoun Six, he felt that his people, the Changelings, had a special responsibility towards the Vorta.
"Later. I prefer to allow him a little more rest and give him time to cope with the situation. As Ezri told me, he didn't understand at all what was going on."
"OK, but I don't know how long we can keep our little secret and hide our ‘guest’ from curious eyes," Sisko stated. He remembered well the moral conflict he had to stand, when a Jem’Hadar infant was under his care while Starfleet tried to get a hold of him for medical experiments. "Try to get as much information as possible about the Vorta’s personality. Maybe we will find some week points that can give us an advantage when we're dealing with Weyoun the next time. Ezri, I want you to support the Doctor as a counselor. I want you to establish a relationship of personal trust with the clone. It's not necessary to remind all of you that all this has to be treated confidentially!"
When he woke up, the noise, the smoke and the pain were gone. He opened his eyes and realized he was lying comfortably in a small, light room. He still felt tired and sleepy, but soon his curiosity caused him to look around. His blood ran cold as he saw two of the strange beings which had attacked him. He ducked deeper into the pillows of the bed and stared hostile towards them.
"He wakes up" Bashir said in a low voice.
"Maybe you’d better leave us alone now, Julian."
"Are you sure he won't attack you again, Ezri?"
"Yes. Last time he was just scared and didn't understood what was going on. This time, the situation is different. And I still have my phaser with me, just in case"
"OK. I'’ll be next door, if you need me."
Ezri watched Bashir leaving the room and was again grateful to have him as a friend. Then she turned her attention back on the Vorta.One of the creatures left while the second, smaller one, stayed motionless at the other end of the room. From time to time, it produced the strange sounds he had heard before, but this time the voice was less piercing and almost calming. After a while, he started to relax and gain the conviction that this creature didn't mean any direct threat to him.
“All right, my friend. Let's find out if you're hungry. " Ezri stepped slowly towards the replicator, always followed by a mistrustful look from the large blue eyes of the alien. "Odo told me you'd probably like some fruit." She got a handful of thulaberries from the replicator and tried them. Then she stretched out her arm in direction of the Vorta.
A delicious smell entered his nose and caused his stomach to rumble. He watched the creature putting some of the small red ??? – he had no idea how to call it- into her mouth and felt his mouth water. Then she stretched out her arm in his direction. He absorbed the smell deep into his nose and raised his head. When the creature started to approach slowly, he was first tempted to flee, but then the hunger was stronger. Carefully he reached out for the food and the creature let it fall into his hand. Then it retreted to the end of the room allowing him to enjoy the first meal in his life.
"How is it going?" Sisko wanted to know two days later at their meeting.
"Oh, he’s almost totally recovered from his injuries and after some more training units in the gym you will not be able to distinguish him from the original." Bashir explained.
"And you, Dax? Did you make any progress?"
"The speed he is learning is really stunning, Ben. Once you show him a thing, he immediately gets it. Yesterday he started to speak, and now he is posing one question after the other!"
"Good work, both of you. But – Dax - did you get any valuable information from him?“
"Oh, well" Ezri hesitated "I think it's to early to tell. I need more time to work with him."
"Mhmm. I'm afraid time is something that we don't have. I'm sorry, Dax, but Starfleet Intelligence is sending out a medical team that will take over the examination of the Vorta. I really would prefer it was you who you could get the information we need from him, because I don't want to deliver him into the hands of these people"
Ezri turned pale. "How much time is left?"
"They will arrive at the station tomorrow morning."<EARTH> said the voice of the teaching computer, while it displayed the picture of a blue planet covered with masses of clouds. "earth" he repeated loudly, enjoying this game. The creature – "Ezri" – approached and smiled at him. She had taught him, that everything could be described with a combination of sounds, and that it was possible to ask for things which were even not in the same room. Now, he was eager to learn as many sounds – "words"- as possible, because he understood that this was a possibility to share his feelings and needs with others. But most of all he was pleased to see, that Ezri and the taller creature – "Julian" – were satisfied with the progress he was making.
"Julian, what do you think they will do to him?" Ezri asked.
"Medical experiments, psychological tests, I don't know."
"It' a shame! He trusts us and we are delivering him to....to a fate as some kind of guinea pig!"
"There is nothing we can do about it."
"Ah, there isn't? Or do you just refuse to think about it?"
"What do you mean?"
She lowered her voice "We can bring him away."
"Back to the Dominion? You know well that they don't hesitate to kill any Vorta which had been captured."
"No. Let me have a little conversation with Quark, while you try to give him a humanlike appearance." She looked straight into his eyes. "Julian, are you going to help me?"
The doctor hesitated, than nodded briefly.The device produced a chilling feeling at his ear, but he had learned that the treatments of Julian always were to his best. Still he was a little worried about the tense expression in the face and the voice of the doctor. Something was going wrong, he felt, but he didn't had any idea what it could be. "Have a look at you, now," he heard Julian saying, presenting him a mirror. To his amazement, the face in the mirror had changed. He reached for his ears and felt that they had been transformed into the small, round shape of the other people. His eyes, formerly of a deep blue, now showed the same brown color as the doctor's.
"Now you really look like a human," Julian said. "A human?" "Yes, you know, there are different races of people, all with their own characteristics: I'm a human, Ezri is a Trill and so on."
"Mhmm" the alien tilted his head thoughtfully. "And I? What am I?" he asked slowly.
"You’d better not ask," Julian replied sadly.“Ok, now listen to me carefully," Ezri said when she came back. "You have to leave the station immediately. I've arranged a transport on a Nausicaan transporter which will bring you to a safe place. These are your travelling documents. Don't lose them! Here you have some strips of latinum. You can exchange them for anything you need, food, housing, and so on."
The Vorta stared at her with a blank look.
"Ezri, he won't manage it, I'm afraid," Julian said.
"He has to!" Ezri replied defiantly. Than she addresses again the Vorta "Your name is Anton Mordrid, you're 22 years old and you come from Salos Prime, do you got this?"
"Anton Mordrid - 22 years - Salos Prime" he repeated.
She bent forward "Don't tell anybody anything about your stay here. There are dangerous people chasing you, and we can no longer protect you!"
"You are not coming with me?" the Vorta asked miserably.
"I'm sorry, no." Julian sighed.
"We have to go, our contact person is waitng for us," Ezri urged them to leave.4. Two months later
"Don't try to fool us, Doctor." Sloan, the agent of Section 31was getting angry. "We know he's not dead. You brought him away somehow, but now you MUST tell us where he is!"
Bashir kept silent. He had dealt with Starfleet Intelligence before, and it had been a very unpleasant experience.
"Come on, Julian" Sisko tried to convince him. "We are in a desperate situation. We have to take extreme measures to gain an advantage, if we want to fight the Dominion." Sloan hold a small neurogenic chip in his hand. "With the memories of the defective Weyoun#6-clone, we can get valuable information on our enemies. Believe me, there is no other way than installing the implant to your protegee."
"The memory implant is meant to work on an unconscious clone. Do you have any idea what effect it will have on his mind?" Bashir snapped.
"We don't know. But we have to try."
"He's a sentient being with all the right of leading his own life. You cannot force him into a dangerous experiment like this," Ezri said, agitated:
After a long silence, Sisko suggested, "Why don't we ask him?"***
New Berlin, planet Earth
"Good morning, Sir. How can I help you?" the old bookseller asked, when Sloan entered his shop.
"Uh... I'm looking for a...friend. I've been told that he's working here from time to time. His name is Anton Mordrid."
Sloan recognized an alarmed expression on the face of the old man.
"Mordrid? No, Sir. Never heard this name before" the old man lied clumsily.
"Oh come on, old man" Sloan said. "I don't know what he has told you about himself, but whatever it was, it was a lie. WHERE IS HE?"
"I...I don't know," the bookseller stuttered.
Sloan reached him a padd showing the humanlike face of Anton Mordrid. "He's a Dominion spy. A Vorta! Look!" The picture transformed into the traits of Weyoun.
The old man emitted an suffocated cry. "That's impossible!" Tears were running in his eyes. "From the moment he stepped into my shop, I knew he was different from the others, so..strange...I suspected he was in trouble for some reason, but he never spoke to me about it...But I know, he's a fine man. He's not a criminal, I can feel that!"
With a false expression of compassion, Sloan put his arm around the shoulder of the old man.
"It's not your fault he betrayed you. The Vorta are experts on treachery. But now, you must help me to find him."
He was enjoying the discussion with his friends. Everything was going better now since the old bookseller had raised him from the gutter. After the arrival on Earth, the Nausicaan smugglers had dropped him in this dirty city. Several days he had to live in the streets, after he had lost all his money to a swindler pretending to help him. Fortune had driven him to the bookshop with the pictures of Earth in the window. Since 3 month he was now working there as an employee , and with the credits he was earning he could afford a simple room in this old house which he was sharing with 6 other people. "No, Sartre is an existentialist! He claims that existence precedes essence " one of his friends argued vividly. Sometimes he couldn't get what they were talking about, but by carefully observing the other people and reading as much as possible he started to understand the principles of this society. Rarely his thoughts went to his own past. He tried not to think about it too often, since instinctively he felt that the answer wouldn't please him. From Ezri's reaction he was suspecting that he was being chased for an unknown crime, but he didn't had any memories apart from the moment he woke up in the factory. Now, all he wanted was to forget and lead a normal life.
"Hands up, nobody moves!" Officers in black fighting suits entered the room, breaking glass and furniture. The young people were stunned. One of the soldiers pointed his phaser towards the Vorta. "You are coming with us".
Deep Space Nine
"We don't want to hurt you, do you understand?" he heard the officer saying, but he was still shocked by the revelation they confronted him with. A Vorta? One of those hated servants of the Dominion? But deep inside he felt it was the truth. He remembered the face- his face, when they showed him a picture of Weyoun. Julian and Ezri were there, too, looking at him sadly. "We know it's a dangerous thing we are asking you," the doctor said. "But the war is getting worse every day. We need your help now."
They were asking him to risk his own life for the sake of the mankind? He thought of his friends, the old man, Ezri and Julian, and knew, that he had no choice.
"All right," he agreed.
The Dominion spy disabled one last lock and the door of the sick bay swung aside with a gentle hiss. He searched the room thoroughly and finally detected what he was looking for: the memory implant of the Vorta. He didn't know anything about the identity of the traitor, but his orders were clear: Weyoun himself had ordered him to steal the chip and to replace it with the one he was carrying with him.
"How do you feel?" Bashir asked when the Vorta woke up from the narcosis.
The alien gave him a surprised look. "What happened to me?" he asked in the Dominionese language.
"This is excellent news, Doctor." Sisko was satisfied. "When can we start the debriefing?"
"Immediately, I think," Julian replied.
"I'll send Odo to the infirmary. He has insisted on leading the debriefing: I think he promised it to him when they were trapped together in the shuttle."
"Hmm."
"Julian, what's wrong with you?"
"Oh it's just... He lost all the memories of his former life. It's like...we terminated his existence."
"Yes. In a certain way, we killed him. Let's hope that the information he possesses was worth this sacrifice."
"...And how many ships are guarding the Torias system?"
"According to my last information: 18 Jem'Hadar fighters and 78 Cardassian battleships."
"Fine" Odo said. "I think this is enough for the moment. You're looking tired, Weyoun."
"Your concern makes me feel ashamed, Founder."
"Oh please, I already told you in the shuttle not to call me a Founder. Odo is appropriate."
"Forgive me, my memories on these last hours of my existence are nebulous. There might be minor damage to my memory implant."
"Julian will check it out."
"I'm sure he will. But for now, our both concern should be to supply the Federation with all the information necessary for ending this horrible war."
He leaned himself back on his bed. Pleased with himself he closed his eyes. Tomorrow, he would provide the enemy with more false information, according to the plan his predecessor had set up for him. He couldn't await seeing the astonishment in the faces of these stupid humans when they discover that all this was a trap.
Weyoun smiled.
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