The Manipulator

Posted on 19 Nov 2015 @ 12:15am by Major Lamar Darius & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D.
Edited on on 19 Nov 2015 @ 12:26am

4,864 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: Terran Outpost - Deck 56, Sublevel 5, Chamber 16
Timeline: MD 07 - 0810 hrs

[ON]

With two interrogations already complete for the day, Lamar was beginning to feel a bit drained. The persistence and refusal of both the Stace lady and the Abbey girl had worn out his patience, and he found himself needing a brief moment to regain his composure and refocus on the next task at hand.

Said task was now the next Galileo infidel in line, and this one would be a challenge for the major. Oren Idris, his PADD read...Lamar couldn't help but swallow a heavy lump in his throat when he read the name. Oren -- his Oren -- had been his loving girlfriend for many months until she mysteriously disappeared, and the two of them had shared many intimate night together. She held a special place in his heart, and he longed for her to be returned to him by the grace of God one day.

The thought of now having to torture her mirror counterpart almost made him want to vomit, but he reminded himself of the need to detach his feelings for her because she was not his Oren.

The reinforced metallic door to the interrogation chamber opened and in stepped Lamar. The tiny room was dimly lit and he squinted to see the thin frame of Oren hanging from her shackles attached to the ceiling. He slowly stepped towards her until he was less than a foot away, then stopped and looked at her more closely.

"Oren Idris?" he asked quietly.

The joints in his arms felt like his arms were being ripped apart and, ridiculously, Oren was reminded of some of the old texts about torture in the early 20th century on Earth. One of the downfalls of his species was an acute awareness of time passing so Oren knew exactly how long he'd been stuck there. All three hours and seventeen minutes of it. The arrival of his interrogator almost felt like a blessing. At the sound of his name, Oren looked up, meeting the Major's gaze.

"Yes, " Oren's voice sounded more like a question than a sentence. He hadn't had much contact with Darius on the Galileo, but it was still strange to think of him as an enemy.

The first thing that struck Lamar was the deeper tone of the woman's voice. It sounded similar, but something about the inflection and tonality was a bit...off. He looked at her more closely and took notice of her features. Her hair was shorter...her clothes were...men's garments? And her chest...

His eyes creased with confusion and he reached out to touch what should have been a pair of curvy breasts, but was instead a flat chest. How could that be?

Lamar then looked down to her waist where a pair of curvy hips should have been, but instead, he saw none of that. His thoughts whirled inside his mind and he struggled to process what he was seeing. "You are not Oren Idris," he answered, now angry that he had apparently been deceived. "Tell me your real name. What kind of imposter are you?," he demanded.

Oren flinched away (as much as his position allowed) from the contact, his feet shuffling against the floor as he attempted in vain to put more space between himself and Darius. At the harsh tone, he stared up in confusion. "What are you talking about? I am Oren Idris..." he replied. Looking up at Darius again, Oren blinked against the harsh light as it fell against his face. For all that seemed to be missing on his body, there was certainly nothing unfamiliar about Oren's face. It was just as beautiful as Lamar remembered it, that last night she disappeared.

He grinded his teeth and clenched his fists. He heard her voice again, and it sounded so much like the Oren he knew. Her beautiful green eyes were the same as well, along with soft facial features and plush lips. Lips that he had always longed to kiss every time he had seen her.

His face creased in visible pain, and he reached down to his belt and unclipped his PADD. With the speed of urgency, he quickly brought up a series of past holopics that he had taken with Oren while they were together, and he held them up to show to the...whatever it was in front of him.

"No, this is Oren. My girlfriend and best friend!" he said with conviction, showing her the pictures of what Oren could only describe as... Well, himself. Except it wasn't himself. Unable to help it, Oren leaned forward slightly to take a better look. The image showed Oren, but a different Oren. She was clearly a she, or what most people would attribute to that pronoun. Her face was exactly the same but her hair was longer and darker than Oren's own. She was wearing a two piece orange bathing suit which left little to the imagination. Oren's eyes trailed over her breasts, down her slim, feminine figure before finally settling on the tattoo next to her belly button. A hollow star. He stared at it, transfixed by it for several moments before being broken out of it by Lamar moving the paDD, impatient.

"Explain this!" he demanded.

"Uh..." Oren hesitated, at a loss for words. Swallowing hard, he looked up at Darius. "Gender reassignment surgery exists?" he said simply.

Lamar did a double take and shook his head to clear whatever nonsense had just been said to him. "A gender what?" What was this, some sort of sick joke?

"You know what...I've heard of your kind before. They almost destroyed your precious 'Federation'." He stared hard at her, for it could be the only explanation. "You're a changeling. And your race failed to take over your own universe so you came to ours to infiltrate it!"

Oren couldn't help it. He let out a short laugh at Darius' words. Surely, the man was joking, if the idea of Oren being a changeling made more sense than the simple idea of one changing the gender. Feeling impudent (not to mention taking leave of his senses), Oren said the following.

"Scan me then." The tone he used, fiery green eyes staring up defiantly at Lamar hit close to home. Almost too close.

Part of him didn't want to believe what she was saying, and that part of his psyche was so dominant that he didn't hesitate to whip out the tricorder attached to his belt. The other half of him, however, was terrified of what she had just said. The repercussions of which would possible tear his heart in half.

He held the device up to the suspected changeling and watched as the lights flashed while scanning and recording biological data. The process didn't take long, but it was the longest 30 seconds of his life.

When the scan was complete, he stared at the results. A dead glaze washed over his eyes and he stumbled backward momentarily while his brain attempted to process what he was seeing. Oren was not a changeling. And she was not a Human. She was...an El-Aurian -- a sworn enemy of the Terran Empire, and she was not really a she. Her biological data revealed male reproductive parts plain as day for any amateur tricorder user to plainly see.

"...What...what is this?!" He looked back up at Oren with pained eyes. The implications of everything he had just learned were now seeping into his thoughts, and he felt like he wanted to vomit. "You are supposed to be Human!" he yelled at her.

Oren flinched. For a moment, he considered asking Lamar if they'd ever met before. Clearly, all of his information was incorrect. His mind workedworked, trying to figure out some explanation for the information presented to him. The fact that the Mirror Oren was clearly female didn't phase him much as Oren had never truly identified with any gender so the idea of one version of him tipping to one side wasn't as shocking one would imagine.

But why would she lie about being human? As he wondered this, there was only one explanation.

"Maybe she didn't want you to know... " he said, hoping to somehow soothe the pain he could feel from the man.

The major's eyes slowly drifted towards the floor and darted from side to side while he searched for logical answers. A few long and silent moments passed while he eliminated the impossible and began to focus on the probable, which was the most painful thing he had ever encountered. "...She was a spy..." he whispered, barely audible if not for the confined and intimate nature of the interrogation cell.

'Well, this is awkward, ' Oren thought, looking at Lamar and trying to focus over the tension in the room. He also tried to fight hud instincts to reach out to Darius in comfort. Eventually, he gave up.

"I'm sorry, " he said, the words making him feel better once they left his lips.

Darius finally looked up at Oren, this time with a new set of features. Those of a dangerous and unforgiving man. The shock of his former girlfriend betraying him combined with her alter-self now in the room meant an opportunity for retribution. Lamar had never been good at dealing with loss...or anger, or betrayal, and it all eventually came out in the form of anger. He finally snapped.

His large and heavy fist lashed out and struck Oren across the side of his face, after which he clasped the alien's throat in his hand and began to tightly squeeze.

"If she was a traitor, then so are you!" he suddenly raged.

Oren didn't make a sound beyond a simple whimper before the metallic taste of blood filled his senses. As Lamar grabbed his throat, Oren began to struggle, kicking.

"Give me your command codes and tell me your rank and serial number," he now demanded, loosening his grip just enough for the man to answer. "Why are you here in our universe? Reconnaissance? Espionage?"

Through the haze of blood and lack of oxygen, a strange series of thoughts entered Oren's mind. He blinked against the sensation of something brushing against his mind. Eventually, Oren glanced up at Darius with a look that was almost familiar.

"You're...you're not supposed to hit people in the face...it makes their mind foggy," he suddenly heard himself say before the sensations overwhelming him were swept away.

Lamar did a double-take as the words swept through his mind like a hot knife. He had heard them before -- those exact same ones. And in the exact same voice, but they had been from the other Oren. "...What did you say...?" he asked.

Breathing loudly to catch his breath, Oren tried to make sense of what he was feeling. "I...I think she said that..." he said slowly, as if trying out the words for himself. The thoughts and feelings going through his mind in the last few days had felt oddly familiar, almost like a more intense empathic connection.

She had. But how the hell could this Oren know? What was this trickery? Unless... "Are you...her?" he hesitantly asked. Maybe she had gone on some sort of covert assignment and had cosmetic surgery, and now didn't want to reveal herself for fear of being monitored. Or maybe Holliday was testing him and his resolve, seeing if he would be willing to torture his girlfriend if needed.

"I...No, I'm not..." Oren said, shaking his head. "I've just been feeling strange since we came here...hearing things, feelings things....I think I feel...Oren. Your Oren," he explained, feeling insane just speaking the words. Clearly, the stress of the last few weeks was getting to him.

"You feel her?" What in the name of all that was holy was going on, and how had he stumbled into the most confusing interrogation he'd ever participated in. "Explain!"

Oren sighed. "I'm El Aurian. I feel things, from people, but..." he paused, trying to find a way to explain his feelings well, in a way a non-empath would understand. "I've been feeling things when I'm alone, from just...nothing. That never happens, except since we came through the breach. I've been hearing someone praying...a woman's voice, but like mine. I don't know how to explain it.," Oren shook his head finally, giving up on that trail of thought. "She's angry. I'm never angry."

He wasn't quite sure that he believed him, but his feelings for her were slowly getting the best of him. "...Why is she mad?" he wanted to know. "And where is she?" That perhaps, was the biggest question.

"I don't know where she is, " Oren said immediately, not wanting Darius to get the wrong idea. " I just know she's usually angry. Or nauseous. Like she's on something." Oren still remembered how many times he'd thrown up in the past week, waking up at odd hours in a cold sweat.

"Can you send her a message? Find out where she is and tell her that I'm here?" There had to be a way, and if this other Oren was able to somehow sense her feelings -- no matter how strange it sounded -- then there should be a way to get through to her.

"It's not a comm system, " Oren told him, looking unimpressed with Darius' understanding of how the empathic mind worked. "If this is a two way system and she can feel what I feel, she's going to be in a lot of pain..." Oren thought about how he doubted the other Oren wanted anything to do with Lamar, considering she left in such a way. Still, why was she so unhappy? Oren... What did you do?

Lamar thought about it for a second. If she could feel what the other Oren was feeling...wait, no that was some type of trick. It had to be. An easy reason for the man to get out of an interrogation. But...he knew things...things he shouldn't know, and as much as Darius wanted to not believe him, something instinctively told him that he was telling the truth.

He reached up to the magnetic shackles securing Oren's wrists and deactivated them, sending him falling to the floor. "If you try anything, I'll kill you," he said, driving home the point that the interrogation was not finished. He simply wanted to do it for her sake.

"Tell me more about her. Tell me everything you can 'feel' from her."

Oren rubbed his wrists soothingly as he immediately slipped down to the floor. He didn't look up at Darius and instead wrecked his brain trying to remembered all of the ill feelings he'd gone through in the past week. Although he hadn't been particularly stable himself, there were definitely some things that stood out.

"She's not happy, I know that, " he said softly. "She's with someone who makes her feel angry but... Ugh..in a good way? That makes no sense," Oren shook his head.

Sighing exasperatedly, Lamar shook his head with displeasure. He walked up to Oren and grabbed the cuff of his collar, then pushed him firmly against the wall in a threatening manner. "Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. I don't want to hear your excuses...tell me who she's with and what you mean. Focus!" he said, shaking him firmly.

Oren sighed in frustration, looking up at Darius. This manhandling was getting old, he thought, his mind trying to not take this whole situation so seriously. "I can't just focus and find out where she is. I'm not telepathic, I'm an empath and not a good one. I can just feel things from her. Sometimes I hear the things she hears or says but that's only happened once or twice."

He struggled against Darius grip for a moment before relaxing. His jaw still ached but, mind working, Oren finally looked up and met Darius' gaze for the first time since they met.

"Try harder!" He furiously shook Oren again, not believing any of his excuses in the slightest.

Still slumped against Darius' unrelenting grip, Oren's mind worked frantically to try and find a solution. What could he possibly do to figure out what his alternate self was doing? He struggled a little against Darius, as if maneuvering into a more comfortable position before relaxing. A beat, and then Oren felt something shift in him. Instead of focusing inward, Oren looked up at Darius, focusing on him.

He heard his shallow breathing, the adrenaline coursing through his system. His grip was firm, but felt unsure in his desperation. Then, Oren's green eyes once again met Darius, as if staring into his very soul as the El Aurian tried to get a read on him. What he wanted.

Letting out a grunt, Oren began to struggle against him. "God, you're terrible at gathering information," he suddenly said. "You might actually think about using the carrot once in a while."

For the second time now, the man in front of him spoke in the words of his girlfriend, only this time the tonality of his voice almost perfectly matched hers. It was hard for Lamar to ignore it especially when he looked into the man's eyes and saw his mirror self, the lovely Oren that he had come to love.

"Stop that!" he shook Oren even harder. "Where is she? Tell me!"

"I don't know where she is!" Oren insisted, but kept the tone of his voice steady. "I know she woke up when you punched me!" Pausing, Oren blinked up at Lamar, unsure of where the last tidbit came from.

"So...if I hit you...I can communicate with her?" he wondered out loud. It was a crude option but the only thing he could think of at the moment. And he didn't want to cause her any pain, so perhaps a lighter hit or two might work.

"Ugh... You're so stupid, " Oren said, his voice obviously exasperated with him. It was a giant risk, but Oren knew he had little to lose at that point. Still, he was glad he was the only empath in the room and Darius couldn't feel his fear rippling beneath the surface.

"You can't talk to her, but if I wasn't under so much, " Oren looked down at the hands gripping him. "Stress... I might be able to feel something beyond this room."

Lamar resisted the urge to punch him after he spewed his feeble insult. It was only the mention of his emotional state and the prospect of talking to Oren again that made him hold back his anger.

"You want a hot bath or some shit like that? Maybe a four-course meal with some wine and dessert?" he mocked, shaking his head with frustration. "I already unchained you, what else do you want?!"

"Stop shaking me and let me go," Oren supplied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the Universe. "At least let me walk around the room and get my head on straight."

Hesitantly and against the better judgement of everything that was screaming in his head, Lamar slowly released his grip on the young man and took a step backwards to seem less threatening. "Fine. Walk around. I'll be right behind you," he said, not very happy at being coerced even though it was his own decision.

"Yeah, I don't doubt it, " Oren said, rolling his eyes as he moved past Darius. Once his back was turned, Oren quietly sighed in relief, wondering what the hell he was doing. Looking around the small room, he made sure to walk the way he assumed the other Oren would, a slight sway to his hips, his movements precise and intentional while looking free and spontaneous. He was actually pretty proud of himself.

Eventually, Oren's eyes fell on Darius' discarded paDD. "Do you think I could look at that. Maybe if I see more of her, it'll be easier."

"Go ahead," answered Lamar after a quick moment's pause. "You know...she was beautiful. Curvy and sexy in every way, with a great smile. I loved her and she loved me too...and if you don't make this right, I'll kill you."

On cue, without giving himself too much time to think on it, Oren gave Lamar the smile he imagined he was talking about - lips quirked at the corners, pearly white teeth showing, making his whole face light up. "I can totally see why she loved you. You're such a charmer..." he shot back, taking up the PADD and looking through it. The imaged were clearly evidence of how close Oren's alternate self was with Darius. She was rarely in any kind of uniform and instead she wore clothes similar to Oren's but instead of showing off his own dancer's body, hers was curvier, and almost stringer looking one might even say that, if you ignored the lack of attributes in the chest area, Oren's body was even more delicate than that of the female Oren.

Looking at the paDD, Oren cocked his hip a bit, resting one hand on it and he looked through the images, making his figure appear slimmer, more feminine, as he kept his minds eye on Darius.

At first, Lamar shook his head and looked down towards the ground. This entire thing was ridiculous and he didn't know why he'd ever engaged this mirror personality in the first place. But it wasn't a mater of logic or rational thought -- it was the product of a greater feeling which controlled his emotions and made him sometimes do those things that couldn't be explained.

He looked back up and was surprised to see Oren now looking like...Oren. The man's body was postured just as his girlfriend's would be, and his hips seemed inviting and very feminine. A quick glance up to his face in the shadows revealed the same lovely smile she had always shown him, and his green eyes were captivating, to say the least. He had no idea what to say or do, and instead just stared at him.

Oren took advantage of Lamar's state to quickly, but carefully examine the pictures of his female self. With the trained eyes of a man accustomed to reading people, Oren took in the way she stood, the way her arms fell, and especially the way she stared at the person taking the picture of her. Lamar.

Scrolling through them, Oren glanced up at Darius again, licking his lips slowly and deliberately in the way he'd seen Lamar catch Oren doing in one of her photos. Still staring thoughtfully at the paDD, Oren slowly walked towards Darius, his hips still swaying as he did. Silently, he thanked the heavens for his choice of attire for the day. If he'd been in anything tighter, the illusion would be broken and all of his effort would be for nothing.

"She is very pretty, " he said, his voice breathy as he looked up at Darius through his lashes.

"...Yeah...she is..." he mumbled, still entranced and looking into the identical set of alluring eyes that his girlfriend possessed.

Oren smiled seductively, now close enough to Lamar to touch him. Which he did, reaching over and gently smoothing a crease near his collar, making sure to brush his fingertips against his skin gently. "I bet the two of you made quite the power couple. You look like you can handle yourself," he observed idly, leaning a little closer to the much bigger man. "And her."

Darius wasn't sure what to say or how to respond. The two of them were definitely a good couple by his standards, and they were both also strong fighters. The sensation of the man's fingers against his skin sent shivers through him, and he swallowed a lump in his throat as he thought about Oren even more. "Yeah..." he mumbled again.

Still close to Darius, Oren didn't move his face away, and it was a few inches from Lamar now. He looked at him with a mix of sympathy and what he imagined was desire. Going in for the final blow, he licked his lips again to bring Lamar's attention to them. "She misses you... Your strong body," he sighed, resting a hand on Lamar's broad chest, feeling the muscles flex underneath. He looked down from Darius' eyes to his lips, leaning close enough to brush against them with his. "Your lips."

"..She...she does...?" Lamar was at a loss for words. He wanted to kiss her, but the person in front of her wasn't his Oren. But...maybe he was, in some strange way? What was even happening to him?

"Mmmm, " Oren nodded, meeting his eyes again. "I can feel her, reaching for you, wanting to feel you so badly." To emphasise his point, Oren ran the hand on Lamar's chest up until it slid around his shoulder. He pressed closer. "Please," he panted before finally taking the chance and pressing his lips against Darius'.

Lamar found his eyes slowly closing and his mouth tilted to the side. He envisioned her lips pressing against his and slowly parted his own to slip a tongue into her mouth and lap gently against Oren's tongue. His hands instinctively reached around the backside of his frame and slips down from his shoulders to his butt, and he pulled Oren close for a passionate makeout session.

Oren briefly opened his eyes, surprised by the sudden escalation. Recovering quickly, he let put a soft, high pitched moan for Lamar's benefit, wrapping his arms around the taller man's shoulders as he was pulled closer. He returned the kiss eagerly, whimpering in Darius' arms as he allowed the kiss to deepen, caressing his tongue briefly before nipping at Lamar's lower lip. Before he could respond, Oren took it between his, sucking gently to soothe the bite.

It was a strange yet lucid feeling of pleasure which now rippled through Lamar's senses. He continued to kiss Oren in the most loving and affectionate manner, lapping his own large tongue softly against the El-Aurian's while occasionally pulling back to suck on the plush lips that were pressed against his own. His hands continued to subconsciously explore Oren's backside, first starting from the small of his back and then down to his bottom where they began to knead the firm flesh and trace around the curves.

Slowly, under the guise of wrapping his leg around Lamars to pull him closer, Oren firmly planted his left foot behind Darius' right. His breathing becoming a bit heavy as his adrenaline spiked, Oren grabbed the front of Lamar's uniform before swiftly kicking him into his groin and them pushing him away.

First, Lamar's eyes snapped open and went wide. Then, the physical sensation registered, but the pain impulses were on a two second delay, after which he quickly doubled over and grabbed his crotch in agony. He couldn't speak let alone think properly, and a wave of nausea overcame him causing him to vomit all over the front of Oren's pants.

Retching as the smell of the vomit hit him, Oren barely managed to contain himself from vomiting as well. Taking a few deep breaths, he looked down at Lamar doubled over. It was odd how a man could go from frightening and menacing to pathetic in less than half an hour.

Trying to ignore the sick all over him, Oren knelt down by Lamar. Upon inspection, he saw the security baton around him belt, but soon dismissed it. He'd probably end up breaking the man's skull before he found where to hit him to knock him out. Eventually he took the phaser and, upon fiddling with it for a moment, set it to stun.

"Sorry about this, " he said before pointing the weapon at Lamar and firing.

Darius barely looked up in time. When he did, all he was able to see was the distinctive yellow-orange flash of a phaser burst before it struck him and paralyzed his nerve endings and thought processes. His body recoiled from the impact and fell backwards, and he lay splayed on the ground unconscious.

The phaser dropped out of Oren's hand the same minute and the El Aurian let out a shaky sigh, his hands trembling slightly from the adrenaline. Slowly, he lowered himself down until he was sitting on the floor next to Darius' body, his own looking small by comparison. Swallowing the forming lump in his throat, Oren took a moment to gather his thoughts, looking around the room. His eyes soon fell on the restraints that were no doubt still warm from his own occupancy. Glancing down at Lamar, Oren sighed again.

"Well, you're not going to be unconscious forever."

[OFF]

--

MAJ Lamar Darius
Interrogation Officer
ISS Galileo
[PNPC Saalm]

Lieutenant JG Oren Idris
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed

Comments (1)