Amnesiacs Anonymous: Part 1

Posted on Sat Jan 27th, 2018 @ 8:57pm by Aewia Larani & Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan & Warrant Officer Cato West & Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi

Mission: When Iconians Deserve to Die
Location: Memory Laboratory

When Aewia woke up she didn't remember anything. Again. She remembered that she'd lost her memories before, but that was all she could remember as the bright ceiling lights glared down on her. Sitting up from the padded operating chair, she steadied herself so her head would stop spinning. "Now was that an ice cream headache or too much alcohol? Do I drink alcohol?" She then looked over her all black Intel uniform. "At least I know how to dress, not that it helps in this bright ass place." She then noticed the others that were waking up. "Does anyone else feel like they got hit by a shuttlecraft?"

T'Pral slowly stirred, taking in her surroundings. Where was she? Who was she was the better question. She couldn't remember anything prior to waking up. She looked down at her clothes to see that she was wearing a black and gold uniform with badge that was pointed at the top...and a phaser. She then heard movement and looked up to see others near her waking up with one asking a question. "I do not know..." she replied as she stood. "Where are we?"

Cato grumbled as his eyes slowly cracked open "...Shit hole..." His eyes open fully now, but his body didn't quite move yet. His standard duty uniform was donned, but the collar wasn't quite zipped all the way up. Continuing to stay down, he closed his eyes again and quieted his mind. "Anyone remember anything from before five minutes ago?"

Daytona Ral didn't rise yet. He didn't speak. His eyes darted back and forth under closed lids. Sometimes his face would twitch. Every now and again his head would turn slightly from side to side and his brow would furrow, as though he was trying to puzzle something out. Who was he? What was his name? Was he in the Monastery at Gol? If so, where was Gol and what kind of Monastery was it? Wait, there was bright light...was he in his room at his parents' house? Was he going to meet Tyra this morning? She was so wonderful to be with...his first and only at the time. She was kind to him. Gave him time to...someone was not with him...someone who should be. Was it Tyra? No...that was earlier...he was older now. Yet, someone special to him was missing, someone he cared deeply for...even loved...yes...someone he loved very much...

Daytona's eyes shot open then quickly closed again. He opened them again, slowly this time and realized that the glare was more manageable now. He blinked a few times. There appeared to be a nictitating membrane over his eyes. It was cutting some of the glare and protecting his eyes. He looked at himself. He was wearing an all black outfit of some kind. He appeared to be unarmed. He closed his eyes and put his fingers to his temples and massaged them. So many images in his head. It was as if hundreds of years of memories were trying to reform in his head, all at the same time. The only thing he was sure of was that someone was missing.

He looked around and assessed the people in the room with him. The most dangerous one in the room was clearly the one with the pointed ears. Not only did she give off the impression that she could kick the crap out of all of them, she seemed to have some device on her hip that he suspected was a weapon. The youngish humanoid male and the dark-haired humanoid female would likely require some effort, but nothing too strenuous. Had the dark-haired female punched him once? If so, why? And if she had punched him, why wasn't she dead? The light-haired female...somehow he knew she wouldn't want to hurt him. Who were these people, and what was his relationship to them? The uniforms were vaguely military, though the pointy-eared female seemed to be wearing a different version of it. There were disks on her collar, two solid, one hollow. Curious, he reached up to his own collar. He found four hollow disks. He looked at the others. There were no disks on the collar of the light-haired female. The dark-haired female had two hollow disks on her collar, the male had one. If they were in some sort of military, in theory, he outranked everyone except the pointy-eared female, right?

"Is your weapon functional?" Daytona asked the woman with the pointed ears.

T'Pral drew the phaser and pushed several buttons. "It appears to be non-functional."

It was at this time that Nexi began to stir; she opened her eyes and upon seeing an unfamiliar location she rolled out of the chair and backed away from the others, her eyes darting about looking for an exit. When an exit could not be found, her hand went to her waist for a weapon as she began to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each person in the brightly lit space, but found no weapons on her person. Also, no belt, but why did the lack of a belt suddenly have her heart rate shooting sky high? But seriously, where the fuck were her weapons?! And her jacket- What the fuck was she wearing?! These weren't her clothes! Where was her stuff!!!

"Who are you people and what the fuck have you done to me?" Nexi said in an accusing tone to the others.

Aewia sighed heavily and hopped off the seat she was on to further explore her surroundings, finally getting her bearings and feeling more like her old self. "Obviously we didn't do anything. It was our captors that did whatever they did to us, which seems to be erase our memories. I'm guessing that's just step one in an experiment. They're likely going to either see how we react without our memories, implant new ones, implant each other's memories in us... Or worse... I don't know, I get the feeling I've been in a situation like this before." As she spoke, she stalked around the room a bit like a wild cat, looking at all the vents and mirrors, inspecting each one for monitoring equipment.

She then looked to Nexi like she was going to eat her. "So relax, sweetie pie. At the moment, the odds of any of us in this room hurting you is slim."

Daytona smiled in spite of himself. Why did he enjoy hearing the dark-haired humanoid female put in her place? Did he know her? Was she obnoxious?

"I have no intention of hurting anyone at the moment," he said. "Though I have this...feeling that I am or at least once was very good at hurting people. Be that as it may, I'm not planning on hurting anyone. However, I do want to figure out where we are and if there are others from our group here. There is someone...missing...someone who needs me now more than ever. I have to find her. Why we are here is a secondary concern for me."

The fuck? Sweetie Pie? Nexi was no one's sweetie pie! And yet, there was something familiar about this girl... "I can't be here..." Nexi suddenly said. "I don't- I don't know why, but it's dangerous... I think I'm dangerous..." Her eye stared darting about as if trying to search her mind for the reasons why. "This is wrong, I can't be here," she reiterated, so certain of this even though she couldn't remember why.

Aewia staled off to stare into one of the full wall mirrors, then touched a finger to it. Her fingernail met her reflection perfectly with no gap, indicating it was a two way mirror. "Look in the eyes of every person here, sweetie pie. We may not have our memories, but we're all dangerous. I can smell death on every single one of us."

"Right," Daytona said. "Well, perhaps we should try and cobble together a few weapons and then see if we can figure out what's on the other side of that door? Since we have no idea why we're here and no idea where here is, I wouldn't advise just opening the door. The atmosphere outside this room might be hostile, if there's even an atmosphere to be hostile. Could be a vacuum."

Nexi gazed into Aewia's dark eyes; she knew this girl somehow... And she could recognize that everyone here was dangerous, but there was something else, another element of danger, something inside her. Could this girl sense it as Nexi could? A malevolence swimming in her veins...

"That," Nexi said, pointing to T'Pral's phaser when Daytona mentioned cobbling together weapons. "I can fix it."

T'Pral tossed the phaser at Nexi. "If you can, it would be appreciated." She felt unsure about the woman as she paced around the cell. She could feel anger and fear within her. She felt as if she should be able to control it but it was eating away at her. 'Who did this to me? Why? When I find them, I am going to rip their throats out with my bare hands!' she thought as she fought a losing battle with her emotions, which she couldn't explain why they were eating away at her so strongly.

Nexi caught the phaser and quickly popped out the power pack; it should have bothered her how she even knew how to remove the power cell, but she wasn't going to worry about it too much with more important things to worry about... Nexi held the power cell in her hand, rubbing her fingers over the contacts on the end. She held it firm and focused, and soon sparks began to grow around her hand, but where Nexi was expect a soft golden current, the power arcing off her hand was red and it was hurting her! "Fuck!" Nexi gasped out in surprise at the pain biting at her hand, causing her to drop the power cell. With a wince she shook her hand. "What the hell!" Nexi said. She looked at her hand and it was still sparking; this wasn't possible! "What's happening to me?!"

Aewia let instinct take over as she quickly crossed the room and took Nexi's sparking hand, her mind reaching out to soothe the other woman's. She let the electricity flow into her, tingling every nerve ending. "Calm down and relax. Just let it go and everything will be ok."

Daytona stood up when the dark haired humanoid woman screamed. He went over to her. He felt a strange sensation pass through him as he got closer to the current the woman had generated. He looked at his hands, then held them out in front of his chest, palms facing each other, about six inches apart. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Slowly, first one stream, then another, then several more, electricity began to arc between his hands. He opened his eyes and lowered his hands, letting the electric currents fade.

"I think I know what you were trying to do," Daytona said. "I believe I can do the same thing, but not for the same reasons you can."

He picked up the phaser and brought it over to his chair. Slowly and carefully, Daytona opened up the phaser and removed it's core. It took a moment, but he seemed to recall which end to apply which charge to, almost as if he had done this before. He began feeding the phaser core power from...wherever this power was coming from.

"This might take a few minutes at least," he said. "It's basically a jump start, but I'll need to feed it power until it starts producing its own. Too much, too fast, and I'll fry it. Even then, it is going to take a while to fully power up."

"That's what I was trying to do," Nexi murmured to Daytona as she looked into Aewia's eyes. "How are you doing that?" she asked the girl as the sparks began to subside. Wait, this was clearly a woman, but for some reason in Nexi's mind, this was a young girl... "And why do I trust you?" she continued, her voice softening; this trust wasn't coming from whatever calming effect Aewia was doing, this was from within Nexi herself, she simply trusted this girl for some reason.

Aewia spoke softly as she firmly massaged Nexi's hand. "I... don't know... I think we share some sort of bond. I trust you as well, or I wouldn't have even done this."

Having slowly sat up and watched the show, Cato kept utterly silent watching the events unfold. The woman who attempted to repair the weapon evoked some sort of an emotion response out of him. Oddly enough it made him feel very, very uncomfortable. Hearing the other man talk about about being very good at hurting people made him smirk. Continuing the trend of keeping quiet, he sat quietly with his back up against a wall.

"Just another minute or so and the core should start charging itself," Daytona said. About a minute later, he turned off the juice and reassembled the phaser pistol. He went to hand it back to the pointy-eared...Vul...can...the woman was a Vulcan...and he...his people were related to hers in someway...regardless, he handed her her weapon. It struck him as odd that he would feel comfortable handing over the only actual weapon they had to someone else. Perhaps it was because he could manipulate electricity...and perhaps other things as well? "Here you go. Though I get the impression you can do some serious damage without this."

"That mirrored wall is two way. If the door is locked, it might be easier to break through." Aewia added as she finished massaging Nexi's hand.

Daytona walked over to the door. He examined the panel next to it for a moment. Finally, he selected a button and pressed it. The door opened.

"Well," Daytona said. "It wasn't locked and we weren't sucked violently out the door, so there's an atmosphere and we're not dead from asphyxiation, so I am assuming the air is comparable to that of our home planets. Shall we?"

"Don't have to tell me twice," Nexi said as she headed straight for the door. "Gonna get my ass the fuck out of this creepy place..."

Daytona sidestepped just in time to avoid being bowled over by the dark-haired humanoid. He looked at the others.

"I have to go," Daytona said. "There's someone...someone who needs me. I'm going. It would be best if we stick together, however, that is up to you. Good luck."

Daytona turned and left the lab.

"Be careful and watch for traps," Aewia added as she too left the sterile monitoring room. She then saw why the room wasn't locked. the outer room was filled with bloodied surgical devices of all sorts, some of which was freshly used. Along a far wall was a series of screens and control systems with holographic versions of each of them displayed prominently, their names and biological data scrolling beneath.

Nexi didn't even balk when she saw all the blood, she saw another door and went straight for it. She didn't care that she saw a profile of herself on the wall or whether or not it contained any familial connection to the blond woman who had helped calm her, she wanted out of here, so she tested the door. It opened without any protest, but she was quick to close it again. With a shudder and a deep breath, she opened the door again and then went through without waiting to see if anyone would go with her.

The room was filled with dozens of Iconian cloning tubes. Each one was active and in various stages of cloning the members that had had their memories erased. Purple and red lights lit the tubes from the top and bottom showing the partial bodies as they formed with inky black blood and organs - not from a child to adult stage, but growing whole as an adult and looking very demonic in the process. Several of the more whole ones were moving a little and seemed coherent in the tubes and were leering at Nexi with glowing red eyes as she moved into the room.

Daytona was looking over the names and biographical information and not paying attention at all to...Nexi...her name was Nexi. Staff Warrant Officer. He caught the his reflection on the glass of a monitor near him and compared his face to the holographic images. His name was Daytona...Daytona Ral...Chief Warrant Officer...age...422??? Memories of lifetimes past swirled around Daytona's mind, just out of reach. Daytona reached out an put a hand on one of the consoles to steady himself. Cato West...Warrant Officer, special operator...commando-type. Wildcard. T'Pral Jordan. Half-Vulcan, half-Human. Lieutenant Commander. So, he was right. The Vulcan was in command.

Aewia was more interested in the medical equipment and was poking around with a series of devices that looked like they had something to do with their missing memories. Finding records of the processes performed in the medical computer used, she was able to at least figure out that the loss was temporary and reversible, but not how. She also found that one of them had had a far more invasive cranial surgery prior, which explained the bloodied equipment. She just wished she knew which of them was 'Aewia'.

Cato had gotten up and followed the group out, the display with their information on it was of little interest to him. Following the woman (Nexi) that had elicited an emotional response from him earlier. Stepping into the room behind her, his eyes scanned the room “Looks like we missed the party.”

"This is bad... this is really bad," Nexi said as she looked at one of the more complete clones. She felt drawn to it, or something within her was drawn to it... She raised her hand to the tube and the clone mimicked her movement, then it raised its other hand and she felt compelled to reciprocate. It felt like she was being drawn in, she couldn't pull away! Her heart began to race and her breath quickened. "You guys need to get as far away from me as possible," she warned the man following her.

Seeing herself in a tube being cloned sparked a rage within T'Pral. As she stared at it, the anger inside her grew until she was seething. The anger seemed to be raw, unchecked. "Who did this?!" she screamed and before she knew it, her fist connected several times with the glass until the fourth strike, the glass in the tube cracked, green blood beginning to splatter her knuckles and ignoring the pain, she continued.

As Aewia continued her search, she spotted a belt-like device hanging on the back of a chair that seemed sort of familiar somehow so she grabbed it and tossed it over one shoulder. She also found a database entry for something she assumed was some sort of beam weapon that could unscramble their brains and restore their memories, but that part was rather confusing. What wasn't confusing was that there was a purple glowing double barreled gun of some sort inside of a cryo-vac unit that matched the description in the database so she abandoned the computer terminals she was looking through and unsealed the unit to get at the gun-like device.

"Aewia?" Daytona asked. There was a holographic image of the light-haired young woman with her name and vital statistics listen next to it. He eyeballed her measurements. They matched. "Is that a weapon?"

When the woman didn't respond, Daytona coughed and got her attention, then pointed to the image of her with her name next to it.

"Your name is Aewia," he said. "According to this data, the dark-haired young woman with the malfunctioning electric hands is your sister, Nexi. That device you are holding looks like a weapon. Based on the design features here, the people that built this place were similar to us. It stands to reason that their weapons would follow a similar design, form following function. Is it a weapon?"

"I'm Aewia..." Aewia realized that she was apparently the one that had had the invasive brain surgery in the medical logs she had seen and her demeanor darkened even further. She then looked down at the gun-like device that she held. "These medical computers claim that this has something to do with the recovery of memories. I take it those displays have data on who we actually are. Is there any indication as to why they would have performed extreme brain surgery on me?"

"I didn't dig that far," Daytona said. "I'll check now."

Daytona went back over to the console with the holographic displays and looked at it for a moment. Tentatively at first, and then with more certainty, he began to work the controls. The display with the five amnesiacs on it moved to one side and reduced in size and another display popped up. Surprisingly, he seemed to be able to read the language, but it didn't look like the one he had been speaking. Was it another language he spoke? No. It seemed more natural to him than the one he had been speaking, more like it was his first language. He touched a few more controls and the information changed a few times until it appeared to be in the language that the group had been speaking earlier. It was called Federation Standard. Was he a citizen of this 'Federation'? A wave of dizziness came over him again as vast amounts of memories again swirled around in his head, again just out of reach. He shook his head to clear it.

"Apparently, you suffered brain damage," Daytona said. "It appears to have been intentional, someone else's intention, not yours. There are...some very gruesome details in here, which I'll spare you. It appears that this facility is automated to a certain extent. There is a sort of...artificial intelligence that manages the day to day functions. That AI seems to have detected the damage to your brain and repaired it. I don't think it automatically did what is in that room over there. I caught a glimpse from here when your sister opened the door. My eyesight is apparently quite good. Regardless..."

Daytona adjusted the controls again and yet more information appeared.

"Yes," he said. "I am correct. Watch."

The other information disappeared and was replaced with a holographic image, albeit smaller than real life, of experiments being conducted. The lead scientist appeared to have a similar appearance to Daytona and T'Pral, but...something was off. He gave off a malevolence that was incredibly disturbing. And he seemed familiar to Daytona, but, like the rest of the information he had discovered, he couldn't place why it was familiar.

"Do you recognize this man?" he asked Aewia.

Aewia stared at the man in the hologram for several long moments. She had a feeling she should know him, but she just couldn't remember. Looking down at the gun-like device, she fingered the control mechanism on the back of it. It didn't have a traditional trigger, but an indentation on the back to trigger its use. The computer made it sound really complicated, but in the end, it seemed that all there was to it was a simple point and click interface.

Figuring she should test it out first, she aimed it at the floor before any of them, then clicked it on. A sort of energy ball formed at the end of the two barrels, then fizzled out. "I don't know who that man is, but I think this device might give us enough of our memories back to help us figure it out. Do you want to go first, or would you rather I be the lab rat?"

Daytona seemed to hesitate, then came to a decision.

"I'll go first," he said. "As I have said, there is someone I must find, someone who needs me. I can't do that without my memories. I am ready when you are."

Aewia pressed the business end of the device to Daytona's forehead. "See you on the other side," she said, just before pressing the activation switch. There was a brief glow around Daytona's head, then the device shut off automatically after a couple seconds.

Daytona's eyes went wide and he clutched his head, screamed and fell to his knees, overcome from 422 years of memories flooding into his head, then fell over on his side. He lay there, twitching for a moment, then another, then, slowly, regained his composure. He rose and adjusted his uniform. Tears were running down his face. I a period of just a few moments he'd discovered he had a daughter, and then that she was gone. He remembered friends and lovers past, then remembered that they were gone, either because they'd grown apart from him or because they'd died, some from old age, some through violence. What snapped him out of it was one overriding thought. Akira. He tapped his commbadge.

"Zhuri, Ral. Akira, please respond," Daytona said. When he didn't get a response, he tried the ship. "Ral, Hera, please respond. Ral, Telvan please respond."

He tried Mal and Clio as well and got nothing. He reached out and took the 'gun' from Aewia. He pointed it at her.

"Brace yourself," Daytona said. "This is probably going to hurt."

Without giving Aewia a chance to protest, Daytona pulled the trigger.

Aewia's eyes widened as what seemed like two sets of memories crashed into her head at once at full force, painfully knocking her to her knees. All the memories she had lost of her younger years, her early days in Starfleet, her years as an Intel agent, her torture and incarceration, her rescue and time aboard the Hera... And memories of floating inside a glass jar... Several years on end of it. Now and then the master would visit and talk to her, but she couldn't make out anything inside of the fluid filled container...

Breathing heavily, she stared wide eyed at the door leading into the room the others had gone into. "I think we may be very fucked."

"I assume you don't mean 'fucked' in a good way," Daytona said. "Strange. I feel like being well and truly fucked in the good sense of the word is exactly what I need right now. But I don't have time for that now, and besides, it's not you I want to be well and truly fucked by. Hold one moment please."

Daytona turned and walked into the room where the sound of breaking glass was coming from.

Meanwhile, in the cloning room, things were going from bad to worse. Nexi's presence in the room was stirring all the nearly completed clones to action, and as T'Pral beat on one of the tubes until cracked, the clones figured out they had the means of escape and began to beat on their tubes from the inside!

"Fuck! No no! No no no!" Nexi said as she finally broke the spell drawing her in, backing away cautiously. She quickly tried the door that would lead out, but it was locked. "We need to get out of here, NOW!" she said as she ripped the wall panel off the wall to see if she could crack her way into the system and trick the door into opening; they may need to see if they could escape through the mirror in the first room if she couldn't get this door open...

Without warning Daytona walked into the room and effortlessly shot Cato, Nexi, and T'Pral in the head with the 'memory gun', one right after the other in rapid succession. After they all doubled over, Daytona switched the gun to his off hand, grabbed T'Pral by the jacket, and dragged her back to the other room. He returned to the room of horrors twice more, first for Nexi then for Cato. Once he had them all secured he went over to the panel next to the door to that room and studied it for a moment. It was similar to the one they'd used to exit the operating room, only this one now displayed it's controls in Federation Standard. The AI was learning. Daytona quickly closed and locked the door. He turned back to Aewia.

"Put the belt on your sister," Daytona said. "Now."

Aewia then realized what the belt slung over her shoulder really was and scrambled to get it secured around Nexi's waist. "Fuckin twatwombles, Ral... How many are there? I know he cloned demon versions of me, but how many demon versions of the rest of you are there?"

"I didn't take time to count," Daytona said. "T'Pral had already cracked the tube of one of her clones by pounding on it. It and the others, the remotely coherent ones at least, seemed to realize that the covers to their tubes were made mostly of some kind of glass-like material, something that could be broken if you were strong enough. If I were a demonic Iconian mad scientist, I would have used transparent aluminum, considering how dangerous those things likely are."

"Unless he has a budget," T'Pral joked, looking at her bruised and battered hand more calmly now. It wasn't broken but had she been a human, it likely would have been shattered.

"Welcome back, Commander," Daytona said. "So, there don't appear to be any other exits from this area, just through that room of horrors. How's that phaser core's power level coming along? I have a feeling it's going to come in handy."

"The phaser is sufficently powered," T'Pral replied, checking the phaser power level.

"Every... fucking... time..." Cato grumbled, catching his bearings and standing to his feet. "I swear to god Daytona, you fuckin' sucker punch me one more time... Memories back or not..." he coughed a bit from the hit with the memory gun. "Why don't we get the fuck out of here before those things bust through the transparent aluminum. Any objections to that?"

"We've been over this, Cato," Daytona said. "Last time I had orders and I obeyed them. As to your questions...there. Now we won't be stumbling around blind."

A holographic map of the sphere appeared. Four areas were lit up.

"I scanned for commbadge signals," Daytona said. "This is us right here. I believe that these two groups are made up of the crew of the Hera. This smaller group appears to be on the move. Based on their movement, I'd venture a guess they are looking for us. As you can see, there is a maze of corridors between them and us. As Mister West has stated, it would be best if we started making our way towards them before those tubes break open."

He pulled a device that looked like a cross between a small PaDD and a small tricorder out of one of his pockets. Using it, he downloaded the map files.

"Aewia," he said. "As Cato stated, we need to unass this location RFN. Can Nexi walk? If not, we'll have to carry her."

Unlike the others who seemed to have come around rather quickly, Nexi had not yet show any signs of waking.

Aewia pressed a hand to Nexi's cheek and concentrated on her mind. There was still so much turmoil and she sensed so much more than just Nexi in there now... "I think the black blood complicated things so she's going to take a while longer. Cato, can you carry her out of here? You have the highest chance of survival if she accidentally summons a demon dog or something when she does wake up..."

"Then let's go. I will take point," T'Pral said, drawing her phaser and moving towards the door.

"Aewia, Cato," Daytona said. "You're next. I'll bring up the rear and try to keep those things off of our backs."

Aewia was far from defenseless, but her body wasn't what it was - she almost couldn't believe she'd been so out of it for so long. She had her mind back though and she was going to do everything she could do to protect her sister, the same as her sister did for her. She just needed a makeshift weapon... Grabbing a length of testing cord off of one of the tables, she wrapped one end around her right hand and held the other end in her other hand. She had her weapon for now. Nodding, she took up her position.

Without hesitation, Cato stooped to pick up Nexi, unafraid of the potential dangers that resided within her unconscious body. He knew the black blood was dangerous, but he also knew that Nexi was strong, strong enough to hold back the blood. Once he was certain he had a good hold of her, he nodded to the others that he was ready to go.

Before they could get moving, from the room with the tubes, the sound of shattering glass could be heard, followed by the rushing of fluid and several wet plops. Only a few seconds later, patchy wet hair and red eyes on a demonically misshapen clone of Aewia's face could be seen peeking through the door at the party, silently watching them as more glass could be heard cracking.
When Aewia woke up she didn't remember anything. Again. She remembered that she'd lost her memories before, but that was all she could remember as the bright ceiling lights glared down on her. Sitting up from the padded operating chair, she steadied herself so her head would stop spinning. "Now was that an ice cream headache or too much alcohol? Do I drink alcohol?" She then looked over her all black Intel uniform. "At least I know how to dress, not that it helps in this bright ass place." She then noticed the others that were waking up. "Does anyone else feel like they got hit by a shuttlecraft?"

T'Pral slowly stirred, taking in her surroundings. Where was she? Who was she was the better question. She couldn't remember anything prior to waking up. She looked down at her clothes to see that she was wearing a black and gold uniform with badge that was pointed at the top...and a phaser. She then heard movement and looked up to see others near her waking up with one asking a question. "I do not know..." she replied as she stood. "Where are we?"

Cato grumbled as his eyes slowly cracked open "...Shit hole..." His eyes open fully now, but his body didn't quite move yet. His standard duty uniform was donned, but the collar wasn't quite zipped all the way up. Continuing to stay down, he closed his eyes again and quieted his mind. "Anyone remember anything from before five minutes ago?"

Daytona Ral didn't rise yet. He didn't speak. His eyes darted back and forth under closed lids. Sometimes his face would twitch. Every now and again his head would turn slightly from side to side and his brow would furrow, as though he was trying to puzzle something out. Who was he? What was his name? Was he in the Monastery at Gol? If so, where was Gol and what kind of Monastery was it? Wait, there was bright light...was he in his room at his parents' house? Was he going to meet Tyra this morning? She was so wonderful to be with...his first and only at the time. She was kind to him. Gave him time to...someone was not with him...someone who should be. Was it Tyra? No...that was earlier...he was older now. Yet, someone special to him was missing, someone he cared deeply for...even loved...yes...someone he loved very much...

Daytona's eyes shot open then quickly closed again. He opened them again, slowly this time and realized that the glare was more manageable now. He blinked a few times. There appeared to be a nictitating membrane over his eyes. It was cutting some of the glare and protecting his eyes. He looked at himself. He was wearing an all black outfit of some kind. He appeared to be unarmed. He closed his eyes and put his fingers to his temples and massaged them. So many images in his head. It was as if hundreds of years of memories were trying to reform in his head, all at the same time. The only thing he was sure of was that someone was missing.

He looked around and assessed the people in the room with him. The most dangerous one in the room was clearly the one with the pointed ears. Not only did she give off the impression that she could kick the crap out of all of them, she seemed to have some device on her hip that he suspected was a weapon. The youngish humanoid male and the dark-haired humanoid female would likely require some effort, but nothing too strenuous. Had the dark-haired female punched him once? If so, why? And if she had punched him, why wasn't she dead? The light-haired female...somehow he knew she wouldn't want to hurt him. Who were these people, and what was his relationship to them? The uniforms were vaguely military, though the pointy-eared female seemed to be wearing a different version of it. There were disks on her collar, two solid, one hollow. Curious, he reached up to his own collar. He found four hollow disks. He looked at the others. There were no disks on the collar of the light-haired female. The dark-haired female had two hollow disks on her collar, the male had one. If they were in some sort of military, in theory, he outranked everyone except the pointy-eared female, right?

"Is your weapon functional?" Daytona asked the woman with the pointed ears.

T'Pral drew the phaser and pushed several buttons. "It appears to be non-functional."

It was at this time that Nexi began to stir; she opened her eyes and upon seeing an unfamiliar location she rolled out of the chair and backed away from the others, her eyes darting about looking for an exit. When an exit could not be found, her hand went to her waist for a weapon as she began to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each person in the brightly lit space, but found no weapons on her person. Also, no belt, but why did the lack of a belt suddenly have her heart rate shooting sky high? But seriously, where the fuck were her weapons?! And her jacket- What the fuck was she wearing?! These weren't her clothes! Where was her stuff!!!

"Who are you people and what the fuck have you done to me?" Nexi said in an accusing tone to the others.

Aewia sighed heavily and hopped off the seat she was on to further explore her surroundings, finally getting her bearings and feeling more like her old self. "Obviously we didn't do anything. It was our captors that did whatever they did to us, which seems to be erase our memories. I'm guessing that's just step one in an experiment. They're likely going to either see how we react without our memories, implant new ones, implant each other's memories in us... Or worse... I don't know, I get the feeling I've been in a situation like this before." As she spoke, she stalked around the room a bit like a wild cat, looking at all the vents and mirrors, inspecting each one for monitoring equipment.

She then looked to Nexi like she was going to eat her. "So relax, sweetie pie. At the moment, the odds of any of us in this room hurting you is slim."

Daytona smiled in spite of himself. Why did he enjoy hearing the dark-haired humanoid female put in her place? Did he know her? Was she obnoxious?

"I have no intention of hurting anyone at the moment," he said. "Though I have this...feeling that I am or at least once was very good at hurting people. Be that as it may, I'm not planning on hurting anyone. However, I do want to figure out where we are and if there are others from our group here. There is someone...missing...someone who needs me now more than ever. I have to find her. Why we are here is a secondary concern for me."

The fuck? Sweetie Pie? Nexi was no one's sweetie pie! And yet, there was something familiar about this girl... "I can't be here..." Nexi suddenly said. "I don't- I don't know why, but it's dangerous... I think I'm dangerous..." Her eye stared darting about as if trying to search her mind for the reasons why. "This is wrong, I can't be here," she reiterated, so certain of this even though she couldn't remember why.

Aewia staled off to stare into one of the full wall mirrors, then touched a finger to it. Her fingernail met her reflection perfectly with no gap, indicating it was a two way mirror. "Look in the eyes of every person here, sweetie pie. We may not have our memories, but we're all dangerous. I can smell death on every single one of us."

"Right," Daytona said. "Well, perhaps we should try and cobble together a few weapons and then see if we can figure out what's on the other side of that door? Since we have no idea why we're here and no idea where here is, I wouldn't advise just opening the door. The atmosphere outside this room might be hostile, if there's even an atmosphere to be hostile. Could be a vacuum."

Nexi gazed into Aewia's dark eyes; she knew this girl somehow... And she could recognize that everyone here was dangerous, but there was something else, another element of danger, something inside her. Could this girl sense it as Nexi could? A malevolence swimming in her veins...

"That," Nexi said, pointing to T'Pral's phaser when Daytona mentioned cobbling together weapons. "I can fix it."

T'Pral tossed the phaser at Nexi. "If you can, it would be appreciated." She felt unsure about the woman as she paced around the cell. She could feel anger and fear within her. She felt as if she should be able to control it but it was eating away at her. 'Who did this to me? Why? When I find them, I am going to rip their throats out with my bare hands!' she thought as she fought a losing battle with her emotions, which she couldn't explain why they were eating away at her so strongly.

Nexi caught the phaser and quickly popped out the power pack; it should have bothered her how she even knew how to remove the power cell, but she wasn't going to worry about it too much with more important things to worry about... Nexi held the power cell in her hand, rubbing her fingers over the contacts on the end. She held it firm and focused, and soon sparks began to grow around her hand, but where Nexi was expect a soft golden current, the power arcing off her hand was red and it was hurting her! "Fuck!" Nexi gasped out in surprise at the pain biting at her hand, causing her to drop the power cell. With a wince she shook her hand. "What the hell!" Nexi said. She looked at her hand and it was still sparking; this wasn't possible! "What's happening to me?!"

Aewia let instinct take over as she quickly crossed the room and took Nexi's sparking hand, her mind reaching out to soothe the other woman's. She let the electricity flow into her, tingling every nerve ending. "Calm down and relax. Just let it go and everything will be ok."

Daytona stood up when the dark haired humanoid woman screamed. He went over to her. He felt a strange sensation pass through him as he got closer to the current the woman had generated. He looked at his hands, then held them out in front of his chest, palms facing each other, about six inches apart. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Slowly, first one stream, then another, then several more, electricity began to arc between his hands. He opened his eyes and lowered his hands, letting the electric currents fade.

"I think I know what you were trying to do," Daytona said. "I believe I can do the same thing, but not for the same reasons you can."

He picked up the phaser and brought it over to his chair. Slowly and carefully, Daytona opened up the phaser and removed it's core. It took a moment, but he seemed to recall which end to apply which charge to, almost as if he had done this before. He began feeding the phaser core power from...wherever this power was coming from.

"This might take a few minutes at least," he said. "It's basically a jump start, but I'll need to feed it power until it starts producing its own. Too much, too fast, and I'll fry it. Even then, it is going to take a while to fully power up."

"That's what I was trying to do," Nexi murmured to Daytona as she looked into Aewia's eyes. "How are you doing that?" she asked the girl as the sparks began to subside. Wait, this was clearly a woman, but for some reason in Nexi's mind, this was a young girl... "And why do I trust you?" she continued, her voice softening; this trust wasn't coming from whatever calming effect Aewia was doing, this was from within Nexi herself, she simply trusted this girl for some reason.

Aewia spoke softly as she firmly massaged Nexi's hand. "I... don't know... I think we share some sort of bond. I trust you as well, or I wouldn't have even done this."

Having slowly sat up and watched the show, Cato kept utterly silent watching the events unfold. The woman who attempted to repair the weapon evoked some sort of an emotion response out of him. Oddly enough it made him feel very, very uncomfortable. Hearing the other man talk about about being very good at hurting people made him smirk. Continuing the trend of keeping quiet, he sat quietly with his back up against a wall.

"Just another minute or so and the core should start charging itself," Daytona said. About a minute later, he turned off the juice and reassembled the phaser pistol. He went to hand it back to the pointy-eared...Vul...can...the woman was a Vulcan...and he...his people were related to hers in someway...regardless, he handed her her weapon. It struck him as odd that he would feel comfortable handing over the only actual weapon they had to someone else. Perhaps it was because he could manipulate electricity...and perhaps other things as well? "Here you go. Though I get the impression you can do some serious damage without this."

"That mirrored wall is two way. If the door is locked, it might be easier to break through." Aewia added as she finished massaging Nexi's hand.

Daytona walked over to the door. He examined the panel next to it for a moment. Finally, he selected a button and pressed it. The door opened.

"Well," Daytona said. "It wasn't locked and we weren't sucked violently out the door, so there's an atmosphere and we're not dead from asphyxiation, so I am assuming the air is comparable to that of our home planets. Shall we?"

"Don't have to tell me twice," Nexi said as she headed straight for the door. "Gonna get my ass the fuck out of this creepy place..."

Daytona sidestepped just in time to avoid being bowled over by the dark-haired humanoid. He looked at the others.

"I have to go," Daytona said. "There's someone...someone who needs me. I'm going. It would be best if we stick together, however, that is up to you. Good luck."

Daytona turned and left the lab.

"Be careful and watch for traps," Aewia added as she too left the sterile monitoring room. She then saw why the room wasn't locked. the outer room was filled with bloodied surgical devices of all sorts, some of which was freshly used. Along a far wall was a series of screens and control systems with holographic versions of each of them displayed prominently, their names and biological data scrolling beneath.

Nexi didn't even balk when she saw all the blood, she saw another door and went straight for it. She didn't care that she saw a profile of herself on the wall or whether or not it contained any familial connection to the blond woman who had helped calm her, she wanted out of here, so she tested the door. It opened without any protest, but she was quick to close it again. With a shudder and a deep breath, she opened the door again and then went through without waiting to see if anyone would go with her.

The room was filled with dozens of Iconian cloning tubes. Each one was active and in various stages of cloning the members that had had their memories erased. Purple and red lights lit the tubes from the top and bottom showing the partial bodies as they formed with inky black blood and organs - not from a child to adult stage, but growing whole as an adult and looking very demonic in the process. Several of the more whole ones were moving a little and seemed coherent in the tubes and were leering at Nexi with glowing red eyes as she moved into the room.

Daytona was looking over the names and biographical information and not paying attention at all to...Nexi...her name was Nexi. Staff Warrant Officer. He caught the his reflection on the glass of a monitor near him and compared his face to the holographic images. His name was Daytona...Daytona Ral...Chief Warrant Officer...age...422??? Memories of lifetimes past swirled around Daytona's mind, just out of reach. Daytona reached out an put a hand on one of the consoles to steady himself. Cato West...Warrant Officer, special operator...commando-type. Wildcard. T'Pral Jordan. Half-Vulcan, half-Human. Lieutenant Commander. So, he was right. The Vulcan was in command.

Aewia was more interested in the medical equipment and was poking around with a series of devices that looked like they had something to do with their missing memories. Finding records of the processes performed in the medical computer used, she was able to at least figure out that the loss was temporary and reversible, but not how. She also found that one of them had had a far more invasive cranial surgery prior, which explained the bloodied equipment. She just wished she knew which of them was 'Aewia'.

Cato had gotten up and followed the group out, the display with their information on it was of little interest to him. Following the woman (Nexi) that had elicited an emotional response from him earlier. Stepping into the room behind her, his eyes scanned the room “Looks like we missed the party.”

"This is bad... this is really bad," Nexi said as she looked at one of the more complete clones. She felt drawn to it, or something within her was drawn to it... She raised her hand to the tube and the clone mimicked her movement, then it raised its other hand and she felt compelled to reciprocate. It felt like she was being drawn in, she couldn't pull away! Her heart began to race and her breath quickened. "You guys need to get as far away from me as possible," she warned the man following her.

Seeing herself in a tube being cloned sparked a rage within T'Pral. As she stared at it, the anger inside her grew until she was seething. The anger seemed to be raw, unchecked. "Who did this?!" she screamed and before she knew it, her fist connected several times with the glass until the fourth strike, the glass in the tube cracked, green blood beginning to splatter her knuckles and ignoring the pain, she continued.

As Aewia continued her search, she spotted a belt-like device hanging on the back of a chair that seemed sort of familiar somehow so she grabbed it and tossed it over one shoulder. She also found a database entry for something she assumed was some sort of beam weapon that could unscramble their brains and restore their memories, but that part was rather confusing. What wasn't confusing was that there was a purple glowing double barreled gun of some sort inside of a cryo-vac unit that matched the description in the database so she abandoned the computer terminals she was looking through and unsealed the unit to get at the gun-like device.

"Aewia?" Daytona asked. There was a holographic image of the light-haired young woman with her name and vital statistics listen next to it. He eyeballed her measurements. They matched. "Is that a weapon?"

When the woman didn't respond, Daytona coughed and got her attention, then pointed to the image of her with her name next to it.

"Your name is Aewia," he said. "According to this data, the dark-haired young woman with the malfunctioning electric hands is your sister, Nexi. That device you are holding looks like a weapon. Based on the design features here, the people that built this place were similar to us. It stands to reason that their weapons would follow a similar design, form following function. Is it a weapon?"

"I'm Aewia..." Aewia realized that she was apparently the one that had had the invasive brain surgery in the medical logs she had seen and her demeanor darkened even further. She then looked down at the gun-like device that she held. "These medical computers claim that this has something to do with the recovery of memories. I take it those displays have data on who we actually are. Is there any indication as to why they would have performed extreme brain surgery on me?"

"I didn't dig that far," Daytona said. "I'll check now."

Daytona went back over to the console with the holographic displays and looked at it for a moment. Tentatively at first, and then with more certainty, he began to work the controls. The display with the five amnesiacs on it moved to one side and reduced in size and another display popped up. Surprisingly, he seemed to be able to read the language, but it didn't look like the one he had been speaking. Was it another language he spoke? No. It seemed more natural to him than the one he had been speaking, more like it was his first language. He touched a few more controls and the information changed a few times until it appeared to be in the language that the group had been speaking earlier. It was called Federation Standard. Was he a citizen of this 'Federation'? A wave of dizziness came over him again as vast amounts of memories again swirled around in his head, again just out of reach. He shook his head to clear it.

"Apparently, you suffered brain damage," Daytona said. "It appears to have been intentional, someone else's intention, not yours. There are...some very gruesome details in here, which I'll spare you. It appears that this facility is automated to a certain extent. There is a sort of...artificial intelligence that manages the day to day functions. That AI seems to have detected the damage to your brain and repaired it. I don't think it automatically did what is in that room over there. I caught a glimpse from here when your sister opened the door. My eyesight is apparently quite good. Regardless..."

Daytona adjusted the controls again and yet more information appeared.

"Yes," he said. "I am correct. Watch."

The other information disappeared and was replaced with a holographic image, albeit smaller than real life, of experiments being conducted. The lead scientist appeared to have a similar appearance to Daytona and T'Pral, but...something was off. He gave off a malevolence that was incredibly disturbing. And he seemed familiar to Daytona, but, like the rest of the information he had discovered, he couldn't place why it was familiar.

"Do you recognize this man?" he asked Aewia.

Aewia stared at the man in the hologram for several long moments. She had a feeling she should know him, but she just couldn't remember. Looking down at the gun-like device, she fingered the control mechanism on the back of it. It didn't have a traditional trigger, but an indentation on the back to trigger its use. The computer made it sound really complicated, but in the end, it seemed that all there was to it was a simple point and click interface.

Figuring she should test it out first, she aimed it at the floor before any of them, then clicked it on. A sort of energy ball formed at the end of the two barrels, then fizzled out. "I don't know who that man is, but I think this device might give us enough of our memories back to help us figure it out. Do you want to go first, or would you rather I be the lab rat?"

Daytona seemed to hesitate, then came to a decision.

"I'll go first," he said. "As I have said, there is someone I must find, someone who needs me. I can't do that without my memories. I am ready when you are."

Aewia pressed the business end of the device to Daytona's forehead. "See you on the other side," she said, just before pressing the activation switch. There was a brief glow around Daytona's head, then the device shut off automatically after a couple seconds.

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Continued in Part 2