Kenneth Dumaka sipped on a tall glass of citrus flavored synth ale while observing the patrons around him. He had chosen a table on the upper level of the lounge, providing a sprawling elevated view of the diversity that was Deep Space 9. A Cardassian built station, commanded by a Federation officer, administered by Bajorans, frequented by an array of Alpha quadrant visitors. On top of that, the station played host to whatever traveler emerged from the wormhole linking the Alpha to the largely unknown Gamma quadrant. Then there was the Ferengi bartender, who was more than a bartender. According to his file-Section 31’s file on this particular individual was quite extensive-the Ferengi’s hands were in every cookie jar linked to criminal activity on the station. How he managed not to leave a trail of incriminating crumbs remained a mystery that left the best Sec 31 analysts scratching their heads in befuddlement.

A tall distinguished looking Starfleet officer with a clean shaven head and a neatly trimmed goatee entered the lounge.

Ken’s eyes narrowed unfavorably. Benjamin Sisko. A dangerous man he was. Dangerous because he one of very few individuals outside of Sec 31 that knew of the organization’s existence. Indeed, it was because of Captain Sisko that a Sec 31 operative died during the final phase of the Dominion War. The man had declared war on Section 31and committed precious time and resources hounding a highly valued agent when he should have been strictly focused on crushing the Founders. Another Starfleet fool, blinded by the all encompassing glare of Federation benevolence.

Ken grinned to himself at how much his outlook had mirrored that of his mentor, Howard Jordan . He was even beginning to sound like the man.

Benjamin Sisko took a seat at the bar. Ken watched the captain and allowed his imagination to take flight. He had perfect line of site from his shadowed perch overlooking the first level. And he was armed with a phaser made of a composite undetectable to station scanners. How easy it would have been to eliminate this troublesome spur in Section 31’s heel. Of course, Ken’s homicidal musings were pure fantasy. Section 31 was not in the habit of sanctioning Starfleet officers or any person philosophically opposed to its reason for being. Such behavior would amount to political assassination. Protecting the Federation from existential threats was Section 31’s sole mandate. The organization clung to its own set of values that made exceeding that mandate highly unlikely. Which was why Benjamin Sisko remained in the land of the living.

A shadow fell across his table. Ken looked up to see a nondescript  male human standing in front of him.The man looked to be in his early forties. He wore the type of ruddy, oversized garb that implied employment on a waste scowler…implied being the operative word.

An unruly mop of reddish brown hair framed the man’s borderline cherubic face. He slid his hands in the pockets of his thick overcoat and bared teeth in an irreverent blending of smile and smirk. “Interesting place this is, friend.”

Ken took another sip from his glass before uttering the response code. “Depends on what you consider interesting.”

“You should check out the holodecks for starters,” the man replied. “The owner of this joint has some programs that’ll make your toes curl.”

That was Ken’s que. He leaned back as if considering the other’s suggestion. Finally, he pushed his glass aside and stood. “I’ll have to see for myself.”

A grave look from the man dimmed his casual demeanor but for an instant. “Holodeck 14.” Then he gave a humored salute, turned and walked away.

Ken hesitated briefly, his gaze following the stranger’s descent down the staircase leading to the first level. He then ventured toward the holodeck suites, hoping that whatever holodeck 14 harbored would resolve the mystery of why Howard Jordan sent Ken to this eccentric watering hole at the edge of civilized space.

Ken passed several people in the gaudily patterned corridor leading to the holodecks. Some were heading to a particular suite, others departing. No one seemed to pay him any attention, which was exactly what Ken wanted. In fact, a few individuals appeared to go out of their way to remain inconspicuous. Ken wondered for a voyeuristic second what programs they had experienced to make their toes curl.

Traces of levity vanished when Ken came upon a pair of double doors marked 14. The doors slid open as if they were attuned to his presence. Ken poked his head into a dimly lit room. There were three persons inside the room. Two humans, male and female, and a hulking creature with the face of a nightmare and a savage disposition to match his appearance. A Narcissin.

Ken gawked as if he’d happened upon a menagerie. The Narcissin was encased upright inside some sort of transparent box. Dials and switches ran in a vertical strip along the box’s edge from the Narcissin’s chest down to his waist.

The woman, dark, alluring and fancifully bejeweled, wore a shimmering green dress that clung to her incredible curves like a captured breeze. The man was stocky with snow white hair styled in a crew cut. His single piece brown suit was the latest in civilian Earth fashion. He didn’t look that much older than Ken.

“Quickly, come in,” the woman beckoned.

Ken stepped inside with alacrity but remained just a few feet within the doorway. The doors slid shut behind him with a low hum.

“I’m Zanine,” the woman announced. She did a head tilt toward the man. “That’s Tyrus.”

It was clear to Ken, from Zanine’s sparse garb that she was working her cover as one of the bar’s—hostesses—to put it euphemistically. Tyrus must have been acting as her ‘client.’

Ken didn’t ask. The two humans didn’t divulge.

“As you’ve probably guessed, the Narcissin is our prisoner,” Zanine said with a look bordering on a smile. “Closer,” she prompted with an indulgent frown.

Ken started forward, wary of the confined humanoid. “What…what’s his name?”

“His name is not important, at least for your purposes” said Tyrus. “I will tell you that he was a notorious arms dealer. His most heinous act occurred when bandits under his command attacked a small Federation research station, killed 39 of its occupants in cold blood and stripped the place to its bare bones. He sold some of the station’s technology and research data, salvaged from its computers, to the Dominion.”

The Narcissin suddenly rammed into the fortified glass of his confinement in a fit of rage. The enormous box shuddered, but remained firm on its wide support. The glass held steady beneath the prisoner’s bone shattering impact. “Human trash!” he bellowed. “I’ll tear your miserable hides limb from limb and skin you like a desert ox!”

Ken cleared his throat to shield his disquiet. “He had no doubt the prisoner was capable of doing just that. He tried to ignore the railing Narcissin as he cast a studied gaze on the box. “What is this thing he’s in?”

“It’s a device based on a design obtained from the mirror universe,” the woman replied.

“Mirror universe?” Ken’s expression knotted in incomprehension.

Zanine waved a dismissal. “Nevermind. You’ll be briefed on its origins and specs at a later date. For now, as part of your training, you get to see what this fantastic piece of equipment can do.” She turned a dial on the box and the Narcissin stiffened sharply as if in the throes of a massive seizure. A gurgling noise formed at the back of his throat, bursting free in an agonized cry. When Zanine twisted the dial back to its original setting, the prisoner collapsed to his knees, heaving for breath.

In spite of the Narcissin’s crimes, a part of Ken recoiled at this naked display of pain infliction on another living being.

The woman took a step back from the pain box, extending a hand to Ken. “Your turn.”

“What?” Ken heard her perfectly well.

“The time has come for you to step out of the realm of the theoretical and into the realm of application,” Tyrus declared, his gaze cold enough to send an icy ripple through the novice.

Zanine stared at Ken with friendly eyes. What lurked beneath those light brown orbs, however, only compounded the unsettling vibe emanating from the woman’s partner. Suddenly, the Narcissin did not seem so…intimidating.

Ken pointed at the box with an uneasy grin. “The box and the prisoner…they’re holograms.”

“We’re in a holodeck, but I can assure you, the Narcissin and the box are real. We chose this setting because of its secrecy and security. What goes on inside a holodeck stays in a holodeck.” Zanine shot Ken a flirtatious wink.

“The prisoner has information,” said Tyrus. “He remains in possession of a file stolen from the research station. This file contains vital biogenic data, which must not fall into the hands of a hostile power. So, you see, this exercise is also serving a useful function besides acclimating you to the unpleasant tasks which you will have to perform as an agent of Section 31.”

Ken approached the pain box, feeling slightly out-of-body.  His hand reached out unwillingly to clasp the dial. He looked into the Narcissin’s eyes, then turned away at the same instant that he turned the dial. The machine’s monotone drone was drowned out by the Narcissin’s scream. Ken switched off the pain current five seconds later and snatched his hand away, sickened.

“Again,” the woman commanded.

“You haven’t asked him anything,” Ken reminded, more as a stall than out of any concern about interrogation protocols.

“We will,” Zanine stated. “You’re prepping him.”

Taking a deep breath, Ken turned the dial.

Invisible coils of agony encapsulated the prisoner. Ken was about to cut off the flow, but Tyrus raised a hand.  “Leave it on and watch.”

Ken did as bidden. His heart hammered distress at the sight of the prisoner’s thrashing. After a full minute and a half he turned off the pain. The Narcissin rolled himself into a feeble ball, his light brown fur soaked with sweat.

The prisoner slapped a hand against the glass, lifted his head high enough to peer with savage contempt at Ken and spoke in a weak, hoarse whisper. “You…will…not…break…me…”

Something inside Ken rose to the challenge. Rotating the dial slowly, he watched the Narcissin’s writhing form as his horror morphed into illicit fascination. The prisoner’s roaring defiance became a pitiful howl of mercy after a while. Heedless of the Narcissin’s appeal to end his suffering, Ken notched up the pain level. The prisoner slid to the floor, too weak to resist the relentless fire coursing through his rangy body from his scalp to the very tips of his extremities.

A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his trance. Ken turned his head, saw the woman as if for the first time and blinked dumbly. “I think he will answer our question,” she said with grinning eyes.

Tyrus reached over to dial off the pain flow. “Good job,” he praised.

Ken glanced at the sobbing heap inside the pain box and dropped his eyes as a bit of self loathing set in. He realized that he and the prisoner had each lost something during this process…an element essential to who they were. The prisoner had lost his will and Ken, his humanity.

The Narcissin cooperated fully with his captors. Regardless, the craving to torture the prisoner to death caressed the pleasure center of Ken’s brain. Where the hell was this urge coming from, he wondered. Had this beast always lurked within him, lying dormant until brought to the fore by a traumatic event? The psychoanalyst in Ken probed for an answer until interrupted by a tug on his arm.

 “We have what we need, time to go,” Zanine urged.

So buried in his thoughts Ken had tuned out the entire exchange between the Narcissin and his interrogators.

Tyrus’ fingers tapped a rhythm on a keypad below the box’s pain dial.

Instantly, the prisoner’s breathing ceased.

“That’s what we like to call mercy gas,” Tyrus explained as if he were expounding on his favorite hobby. “Invisible, odorless, painless.”

Ken’s eyes flashed alarm. “You’re…you’re not going to leave the body here, are you?”

“Why not?” Zanine shrugged. “Nothing that occurred in this room will be traced back to us. All logs visual or otherwise relating to our visit here have been erased. And we’ve donned enough disguises that no one will ever know our true appearances. Captain Sisko will be stuck with a mystery on his hands.  Given our Narcissin friend’s less than stellar history, I doubt neither the captain nor Starfleet will put their all into solving this case.  Although they’re bound to be intrigued by a piece of mirror universe technology.” Zanine tapped a silver bracelet, which to Ken’s surprise was than a bracelet. “Three to beam out.”  “She tilted her head toward the pain box. “That won’t be a loss. We have more…”

Ken started to speak but a band of light draped across his vision. The next instant his disassembled atoms were zipping through space toward a waiting, cloaked vessel at the mouth of the wormhole.