Chapter Text
Garak usually woke up abruptly. It was a habit that training had instilled; if there was any discernible period of time between asleep and alert, it was one that could be used to stab him.
That was what made this time so odd. He felt as if he were stumbling through a fog, or moving underwater. Every limb was heavy, and his eyelids sticky, unwilling to open.
His head hurt, or maybe every part of him did, and his head was just the loudest. The ache pulsed.
There were voices, far in the distance. He tried to push towards them, but the sounds were muffled, unintelligible.
“He hasn’t woken up yet, but his readings have stabilized.”
What language was that? Not Cardassian.
“We can start to wean him off now that his leukocyte levels are back to normal, but we’ll need to do it slowly.”
Federation Standard. Why were they speaking Federation Standard?
“Two cc’s lower to start?”
Bajoran, with the soft consonants and dropped word ends of a northern accent. Federation and Bajoran, together?
“Even slower. I think we ought to begin with one and see how he reacts.”
Federation aid to the Bajoran rebellion? He had to tell Tain, had to warn him before…
Garak slipped under again.
The next time he awoke, he was more lucid. He was able to process more of his surroundings, including a variety of ambient beeps in different pitches, and a low, thrumming hum in the background. He was in a room with some kind of machinery, but not equipment he immediately recognized by sound.
He was on a bed, but not a Cardassian one.
What had happened?
Information, Elim, is your greatest resource.
He was in an unfamiliar space, likely not of Cardassian design, with no memory of the events leading to this moment. Had he been knocked out or drugged, and then taken somewhere? Not the style of one of those brash guls he had alienated, but the Tal Shiar certainly made use of such a strategy. He hadn’t heard of it from Starfleet intelligence, but it was not out of the realm of possibility. Also possible was a Bajoran resistance cell, although not likely; they would more probably bind him with ropes and leave him on a cave floor, and they had no significant technological resources to speak of.
The binding was another point to consider; Garak could feel no restraints. He subtly stretched, testing, but did not hit anything. Of course, he might still open his eyes to find himself in a cell or surrounded by a forcefield. It wouldn’t do to rule anything out.
The scents were sharp and chemical, vaguely reminiscent of the hospital he had been to after Tzenketh. A laboratory, perhaps.
Garak risked opening his eyes a crack. His first impression was blinding light. The brightness suggested a torture specifically designed for sensitive Cardassian eyesight. His captors knew the weaknesses of his species.
He opened them further. The ceiling was predominantly gray, but inset with an array of blue and yellow lit panels. Presumably, the light would be increased even further if he did not comply with his captors’ demands or interrogation.
The walls were gray as well, topped with angled arches, and dotted with square white lights and display panels. It looked, curiously, like Cardassian architecture. Was this some kind of simulation, then, meant to make him think he was among allies?The Order had never invested in such technologies, deeming them impractical given the enormous consumption of power and computer memory, but others had made different determinations.
Noise. Garak stiffened, but didn’t try to sit up. Until he knew more about his circumstances, it was preferable to have his captors think he was still incapacitated.
A stranger entered. A woman, Bajoran, with light colored hair and some kind of purple uniform with orange shoulders. He didn’t recognize the symbol on her chest.
“Mister Garak, you’re awake! How are you feeling?”
It was all wrong. Why a Bajoran, in an unfamiliar uniform, and why address him in such a manner? Perhaps the simulation technology was not well refined. If an artificial intelligence were mining his brain for information, it might still struggle to put the pieces together in a coherent way.
“As well as can be expected,” he equivocated. It seemed to be more or less the response the Bajoran anticipated.
“I’ll go get Doctor Bashir,” she said. “He’ll want to talk to you himself.”
Garak nodded and watched the Bajoran leave the room. If she was armed, her weapon was well-concealed.
Then, tentatively, he raised his arm over his head. It didn’t hit any force fields, nor did there seem to be any physical restraints. In all likelihood, they had given him a sedative or a neuroparalytic and thus didn’t think they needed to worry about limiting his movement. The best course of action, then, was to continue giving the illusion that he was affected, until he could ascertain the facility location, the number of guards, and this room’s position relative to a transporter array.
He studied himself. No obvious injuries, although not much of his body was visible. He appeared to be dressed in a purple and orange shirt, the same colors as the Bajoran woman but arranged differently, and had a sheet pulled up to his waist. There were no insignias, on his clothing or on the bedding.
The Bajoran returned, this time with a human man. He was tall and distinctly young, and the badge on his chest immediately identified him as part of Starfleet. While Garak hadn’t seen this exact uniform before, he knew how fond the Federation was of color-coding their officers. Blue, like this man wore, meant scientific and medical divisions.
Upon seeing Garak, he smiled. It was unnerving.
“Good morning, Garak,” he said, although it was unclear if that was a real reference to the time of day or an idiomatic reference to Garak’s involuntary sleep. In one hand, he held what appeared to be a tricorder. “I’m going to take some scans and see what the readings look like now that you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
Confused. Dry-mouthed. Achy. Irritated. None of which, of course, Garak had any intention of saying aloud.
“Won’t your scanner tell you everything you need to know?” he asked, studying the device intently. The man–Bashir, the Bajoran had called him– pointed it at Garak, but there were no visual indicators of what it was doing and it produced no sensations in Garak’s own body.
“It would be faster if you helped it along. But by all means, if you can stand the indignity of being in the infirmary a little longer, I’m happy to make a guess.”
Bashir’s manner was upbeat and familiar, not outwardly sinister, but that meant nothing. Tain, too, could be friendly when it suited him.
“The greatest indignity is this clothing,” Garak said, intending to reveal as little to his captors as possible. Bashir had the gall to chuckle.
“I’ll make you a deal, Garak. If you come to the infirmary while conscious next time, you can choose what you wear.”
So both Bashir and the Bajoran knew his name. He was not a random Cardassian soldier to them; he had been specifically selected for this purpose, whatever it was. That meant they likely knew he was involved in the Order.
The Bajoran had called Bashir a doctor. Garak decided to behave as if he believed that to be true.
“And deprive you of your fun, Doctor?” He kept his own tone light, matching Bashir’s.
“Ah, yes, my fun. How did you know I enjoy seeing patients with sepsis?”
“Sepsis,” Garak repeated slowly, testing out the unfamiliar phonemes. He was fluent in both Federation Standard and Bajoran, but had never heard the word.
“Sorry, that’s the human equivalent. I have the Cardassian written down but you’d laugh at my pronunciation.”
“But that’s what you believe happened to me?”
“Well, to be technical, what happened was that you wreaked havoc on your body. I might have been able to understand it sooner if you’d told me anything, by the way, because I do happen to know that opioid withdrawal in humanoids affects the effectiveness of the body’s macrophages.”
“Fascinating,” said Garak, to whom this was more or less gibberish.
“Your leukocytes also weren’t behaving themselves, and all of this meant pathogenic bacteria weren’t being removed from your body. You developed a lovely infection as a result, with all sorts of toxins accumulating in your lymph tissues. I’m happy to go into more detail if you need convincing that you should have told me sooner.”
“How could I, if I was unconscious?”
“If you had come to the infirmary when the headaches first started, and just told me about the implant breaking down, I could have stopped it before it got this far,” Bashir insisted.
So. This was meant to be an infirmary, and Garak was meant to have some sort of civil relationship with Bashir, at least to the point where he would have gone to the man about an illness. The convoluted story was probably meant to give an excuse for headaches Garak would now be experiencing as a result of whatever intelligence was rummaging around in his mind to produce this scenario.
“What is my prognosis now?”
“If you agree to rest, keep up your fluids, and don’t put up a fuss when we give you medication, you’ll live.” Bashir might even have meant his tone and expression to be reassuring.
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Garak replied cheerfully, as if he had any intention of ingesting what was probably poison.
“I should probably tell you that Odo is going to want to come by and talk to you at some point. I’ll keep him away as long as I can.”
This was evidently supposed to mean something to Garak.
“Oh?”
Bashir leaned closer, and lowered his voice a touch. “Now that he knows about your past with the Order, he wants to ask you about his unsolved murder cases.”
Ah, so this was the information the simulation’s designers were after. Most likely the Tal Shiar, still trying to sort out his assassinations in his time as the embassy gardener. They had to be desperate indeed, if this was the kind of nonsense they were resorting to.
“Of course he does,” Garak said blandly. Bashir looked amused. He was an odd touch, the piece of the puzzle that didn’t quite fit. Why produce a pretty young human, instead of a Cardassian doctor? Were they hoping Garak was the sort of degenerate who could be seduced by a soft-skinned species with a kind smile when the more traditional manner of interrogations failed?
“I’m leaving you with one of our patient PADDs so you can access the library if you want to read something, but please promise me you’ll stop the moment your head hurts.”
“I promise, Doctor,” Garak lied.
“All right.” Bashir rested a gentle hand on Garak’s arm, and Garak remained limp, resisting the urge to throw it off. He could so easily break Bashir’s wrist, or drive him against the wall and demand answers, but violence against a target was often met with violence in response, and Garak had no weapons to speak of. “Is there anything else you need?”
A phaser, for one thing.
“No. Your care has been exemplary.” Garak took his cue from Bashir’s easy intimacy, making his voice warm and fond. The human flicked his eyes upwards and shook his head once, still smiling.
“Well, now I know you’re lying. Just try to keep out of trouble, won’t you?”
“I always do.”
Garak waited until he could no longer hear Bashir’s footsteps to hack the PADD. (If it was a simulation, there was no point in leaping out the door and throttling people. That would only lead him into further illusions.) The device’s internal clock informed him of the current stardate, but it was all nonsense. Why set the simulation in the future, in 2370 of all years? Perhaps to account for the inevitable inconsistencies, but then did they not expect Garak to wonder about the missing interval? It was shoddy, amateur work. The internal location device told him he was on the station Deep Space 9, which of course he had never heard of, in the Bajoran sector, which made it all the more nonsensical because there was no Federation presence in the Bajoran sector. The military would never have allowed it.
The library that Bashir had mentioned did exist, and it took very little searching to find a promising document about the history of this fictitious Deep Space 9. Garak settled in and began to read.