Head Games

Posted on Nov 08, 2015 @ 2:07am by Lieutenant Eve Dalziel & Selyara Chen
Edited on on Nov 08, 2015 @ 2:07am

Mission: Civil War

“Head games”

(Cont. “Ghosts in the Machine” )

* * * =/\= * * *

“Well I don't really know her, I only know her name

But she crawls under your skin, you're never quite the same, and now I know

She's got something you just can't trust

It's something mysterious…” - Invisible Touch, Genesis

* * * =/\= * * *

Location: USS Phoenix

Stardate: 2.15.1107.

Scene: Security

[[Sir, there’s a Miss Chen out here for you. Uh. She’s frankly a bit terrifying. Do you want me to, uh.]] Barton’s communicator chirped. Barton grimaced. This was a duty that he was not particularly looking forward to.

One of the first things he’d done after he’d gotten settled in the Security department had been to go to Selyara’s little bolt hole near Computer Core 3 with some of the engineers to remove her belongings and relocate them to her assigned quarters and disconnect her computer hardware from the system. An Ensign Elgin had been assigned to help him and despite the fact that he knew she was a very recent transfer, he couldn’t shake the feeling of familiarity. The engineer had gotten a little testy with his furtive glances. When he admitted that it was because he thought he knew her from somewhere she’d grinned broadly and said that she knew why, but that she wasn’t going to tell him because it’d be funny to watch him when he figured it out.

That had been the easy part. Now he had to inform Selyara that she was no longer welcome in her hidey hole, that furthermore she was being barred from the ship’s computers, and that her movements would be restricted to those of a normal civilian.

“Go ahead and send her-” Barton didn’t even finish his sentence before the door to his office and Selyara stormed in, slamming her hands down on his desk. The surface shook under the force of her hands and Barton flinched slightly and met Selyara’s eyes involuntarily. He instantly regretted it, she was seething. Her anger was a palpable thing that surrounded her, and he could tell she was very close to losing it, which frankly was a terrifying thought. How could he defend himself against something he couldn’t touch? Madder than a wet cat sprang to mind.

“You!” Selyara snarled, her eyes narrowed. “You locked me out of the computer. You restricted my access to the ship. I can only assume that this is a mistake, one that you intend to fix immediately.”

Barton didn’t allow himself to betray the fact that she was making him nervous as hell. He could feel his palms sweating. Her hands were bare and it would take only a moment for her to reach over and take his mind and turn it into a puddle of jello. For the moment though she didn’t seem inclined to turn the altercation physical, she just looked like she wanted to make him very very very sorry.

“Not a mistake, Miss Chen,” Barton put on his most annoyingly reasonable tone of voice, and met her eyes again, this time prepared for the psychotic rage lurking in them. “You’re a civilian. The amount of freedom you had on the ship was well beyond what the regulations allowed. Furthermore you were overtaxing the power conduits in that area with your non-regulation computer equipment that you had slaved into the computer core. I don’t think I need to explain to you that that was a security hazard, do I?”

“Didn’t take long,” Selyara spat. Of all the rejoinders he had planned for, this was not one of them. It took him a moment, during which he stared at her with what he was sure was a slightly dumb look on his face. She smirked at him. “Didn’t take long after you put on that uniform to gain an over-inflated sense of superiority and completely forget what you are.”

“WHAT I am? I’m not some goddamn animal.” Despite his best efforts she was starting to get a rise out of him.

“No, because an animal is only vicious and cruel for a reason. Senseless sadism is purely the realm of sentient creatures. No, you, my dear James, are a criminal. You’re a criminal, and you are NOT better than me, even though your change in fortunes has implanted your head firmly up your posterior,” Selyara said primly. She straightened up and removed her hands from the table.

“No, I am better than you.” The words came unbidden from Barton’s mouth before his brain managed to catch up to him. “I’m better than you because I actually give a damn about what I did, and I actually care about making it right.”

What happened next he felt he probably deserved. She slapped him hard across his face. Her touch was like acid on his cheek. The anger (and hurt?) rolled down her fingers into his skin, his nerves, to his brain. The psychic sting hurt more than the physical blow, although with the strength of a Vulcan behind it, the slap was more forceful than one would usually expect from an angry woman. It would likely leave a mark.

“How dare you,” Selyara’s voice was thick with anger. “You know damn well I’m trying. I tried to help you, and I gained nothing from that. Less than nothing, considering the complete opposite of thanks I got from you.”

“You VIOLATED my mind,” Barton sprang to his feet and slammed his fist onto the desk. They glared at each other, their noses nearly touching.

“Would you have preferred that I let you kill all those people? Because you were going to. I know it, you know it. I may be strong, but do you really think I could have stopped you any other way? I thought I was helping you. I meant to help you.” Selyara took a step back from him, and Barton realized that he’d just gained the upper hand, though not necessarily in a way he would have liked; He had genuinely hurt the woman’s feelings. Her expression hadn’t changed, but the little bits of her mind that still remained in his twinged with sympathetic pain. Even if they hadn’t been there, he would have felt empathy. He’d been in the same boat more times than he’d cared to count, ruining lives as he tried to fix problems.

“You forced me to take your help. You didn’t give me a choice,” Barton modulated his voice to a less strident tone, the brunt of his anger waning. “And you wouldn’t stop when I asked. I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know what it would be like, and I wasn’t ready. You invaded my mind with no regard for my personal boundaries, and it was traumatic.“

“I am… sorry.” She said it as though the words left a bad taste in her mouth, but there was an underlying current of regret in them that seemed genuine enough. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I think you know now that even I have a line I won’t cross. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt that you would not be able to live with yourself if I allowed you to kill them. So.”

“So. Why don’t you tell me what happens now? How long are you going to be in my head?”

“I don’t know. I can count on one hand the number of times I have performed a meld that was not one way, and I have never ended one improperly. You could ask Doctor Foster to give you a dose of Lexorin, or you could have the Vulcan doctor Suvek do a corrective meld, that might help. I do not know.” She paused and clearly couldn’t help herself. “You know, you wouldn’t have had this problem if you hadn’t gone stampeding through my mind like a bull in a china shop.”

“Well, see, I wanted to know what turned you into such a bitch.” The conversation was frustrating to Barton. Just when he thought they were beginning to see eye to eye and he’d seen a glimpse of a decent person lurking behind the smugness she seemed to flip a switch and became ten times more insufferable.

“Well now you know. Do you feel better for it? Was it worth it? Because it sure as hell wasn’t for me. I had everything under control until you went tearing through everything, leaving bits of your mind everywhere to whisper little nagging thoughts and shine a light on every single emotion I have left.” She stopped short of actually accusing him of being instrumental in Embry’s breaking her, but the look on her face said she felt he bore the brunt of the blame. They stared at each other with the contempt that only intimate familiarity could breed. They broke eye contact and Selyara turned to look out his windows at the view outside. She was quiet for a long moment, then turned back. “You do realize that by taking away my computer access, you have negated my very reason for being here? I can’t collect intel on the Neo-Essentialists if I don’t have the tools to do it. I need to have full access to your computers and the communications arrays so I can connect to my servers and networks, and time so I can analyze them.”

“You can have access. But only from the console in here, and only under my direct supervision during working hours.” Barton said finally. She made a face.

“Eight hours a day? Are you kidding me? That leaves sixteen hours of time that I have no access.”

“Take or leave it, Selyara. Your choice.” Barton knew from her glare that while she’d accept, she was not pleased in the slightest.

“Fine. But you’re going to regret this,” the woman snapped and turned on her heel. “I will see you first thing tomorrow morning.”

* * * =/\= * * *

“She don't like losing, to her it's still a game

And though she will mess up your life,

You'll want her just the same.” - Ibid.

* * *=/\=* * *

Scene: The Vulgar Tribble

Eve walked into the Vulgar Tribble, preparing herself for a tough hour or two. She’d been paged by the barman, John Doe, who explained that Selyara was there and behaving strangely. From what he’d said, the Barman had known Selyara from when she’d been posted on the Discovery and as such was loathe to report her behavior to Security. So instead he’d called her to see if she could assess the situation.

Selyara was seated in a window booth, a pile of electronic equipment spread over the table, busily assembling something from the pile of junk. She was absorbed in her task, and ignored Eve as she approached.

“What are you doing?” Eve asked, watching with fascination as Selyara welded a few circuits and bio-gel bits into an isolinear chip.

“Screwing with Barton’s head,” Selyara said icily, not stopping. “Teaching him a lesson, a demonstration about why it was a terrible idea to take away the one thing that was keeping me busy. He thinks he’s won one over on me, but in truth he’s just forced me to make all the trouble he thinks I’m capable of out of sheer boredom. That over-grown lump of man-child puts on a Starfleet uniform and thinks he’s suddenly better than me? I wish I hadn’t helped him. If I’d know he’d be a thorn in my side, I would have let him kill all those people. It’s not like I enjoyed going into that cesspool he calls a mind. But he’s going to be sorry.”

“There’s a war on, and you’re tying up time and resources messing with James Barton out of spite?” Eve sat down and tilted her head trying to figure out the purpose of the device. “What are these anyway?”

“Nothing. Or maybe they are something. I can’t tell you, now can I, because you’d only tell Barton,” Selyara said pragmatically. “Besides, I am not thinking of it as tying up time and resources so much as being helpful and assisting with impromptu security drills.”

“And you’re doing this because you’re bored.” Eve stated with a sigh. A Vulcan intellect without direction and buoyed by the near-mania of Selyara’s tentative grip on sanity was a dangerous combination. Selyara’s devices were most likely harmless or at the most irritating, but there was always the chance that they weren’t, or that she might escalate the situation if it didn’t amuse her sufficiently.

“Because I no longer have access to the computer cores. So I’m cut off from my networks and my data streams, and frankly people here aren’t interesting enough to occupy my time. Idle hands are the Devil’s tools and all that. It’s Barton’s fault.”

“Will you stop doing that if I find another way to entertain you?” Eve asked casually, setting the trap. She’d been wanting to have a session with Selyara since she’d first come on board, and the woman’s meltdown on the bridge with Embry had only intensified Eve’s desire. Selyara stopped what she was doing and put down her tool, finally meeting Eve’s eyes. Trap sprung.

“Counselor, I know everything about myself. Telling you about myself is not interesting to me. I’m not interested in a counseling session, even such an adorably oblique one as you are attempting to initiate. Not to mention, even though I am narcissistic, I don’t actually like spending time talking to people who dislike me,” Selyara said dryly, her lips looking amused.

“I bet I can find a way to hold your interest. You collect information, why don’t we play a little game: Quid pro quo, Clarice,” Eve’s lips curled into a smile. Selyara hesitated, then her green eyes locked gazes with Eve’s.

“I beg your pardon?” Selyara cocked her head at Eve who shrugged, her palms up in the air.

“What I mean is, I think perhaps you might be amused enough to forget about tormenting Barton for now if you play a little game with me. I’ll answer all those questions you’re dying to ask, but for each response, you have to answer one of mine. The first one to chicken out or not tell the truth when answering loses,” Eve knew from the expression on Selyara’s face that she’d won. She’d noted the woman’s obsession with games and winning, and she knew that a challenge such as she’d just posed would certainly interest the telepath.

“I go first. Tell me, Miss Dalziel: Why do you pretend to be Human?” Selyara pushed the pile of junk away from her and gave Eve her full attention.

Eve almost smiled. The other woman would have to work a lot harder if she were trying to offend. “From the age of six I was raised by a Human father and a Bajoran mother. Both of them were Starfleet. As I guess you’re already aware, I’m Cardassian. But that doesn’t mean I fully identify with any of those. They’re shared parts of who I am.”

“Then why the change in appearance?”

“People can assume a lot by taking you only at face value. By the time I was sixteen, I was tired of it. The stares, the ridicule. I wanted social interaction and to be approachable. Certainly important traits to have when sitting in the Counselor’s chair. And later, with my occasional responsibilities in Intel, it allowed me to be of better service. It’s impossible to quietly observe and fade back when one is the focus.” Before Selyara had a chance to launch another follow up, Eve continued. “Okay. My turn- You were raised on Earth, and by all accounts you used to be very good at pretending to be Human. Why don’t you anymore?”

“Because I am not,” Selyara said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I spent so much of my life pretending to be Human, denying what I am. Surely you don’t believe that you think like a Human, do you? I can force myself to act as one, but my emotions will always be stronger than theirs, I will always have the telepathic and empathic abilities which Humans can’t even begin to understand what having them is like. Once I shed all my ‘humanity’ I was able to reach the full potential of what I could do. Now, as for you, Eve: Why did you switch from Intel to Counseling?”

“I’d like to think I could go back to Intel when I wanted, career permitting.”

Selyara’s lips curled in a wicked sneer, she clearly had forgotten Dalziel hadn’t even hit 30 yet. “We all think we can go back, child. But that doesn’t count as an answer. Why are you here?”

Eve was reluctant. “It’s going to sound like a cliché.”

“Clichés can be the truth, sometimes.”

“Because I’d rather put people back together than tear them apart.”

“It sounds like something Foster would say, if he ever stopped being such an ass. But I fear a counselor never really puts people back together again. All they do is glue the pieces back and teach people how to hide the cracks so everyone else can’t see them. Or do you think that you can actually fix any of the lost souls on this ship?”

“They fix themselves. Or they don’t. I’m just the facilitator.”

“So you might or you might not actually serve a purpose here. You must be so proud.” Selyara’s eyes were losing focus and while the intent was obviously to be mean, she said in such an absent way that it lacked any sort of real impact.

“If the slate were wiped clean and you were given a Starfleet commission tomorrow, would you take it? And if the answer was yes, what job or duty would you most like to perform?”

“Slates are never wiped clean, Miss Dalziel. I had thought that I wanted exactly that, but after all that’s happened, well I see that Starfleet will never have a place for me. It’s for idealists, it’s for dreamers, it’s for idiots like Michael who do the right thing even when it isn’t the smart thing. I look at you all and I see sheep, stupid, idealistic sheep who need someone to watch over you all. Besides, if you look at the notes in your file on me, I’m sure you’ll see ‘does not play well with others’ written in capital letters. I want to see Edgerton gone as much as you do, but he does have a point.” Selyara’s eyes searched Eve’s face, a faint smile on her mouth. Eve was sure she was making fun of her now. “The galaxy is not a lovely place. There are more Limbos than there are core worlds, and danger lurks everywhere. But then, if you were Intel, you know that as well as I do. Speaking of, what was the biggest mistake you made in the field?” Selyara watched as Eve’s face became more serious. There was a few more moments of silence. “Don’t tell me you’ve given up already?”

Eve huffed. Being honest had never been difficult, but knowing the woman next to her could tell if she wasn’t still made things complicated. “I made lots of mistakes, but I guess the worst was when I lost control.”

“Lost control of the mission?”

“Not exactly. I lost control of my emotions, my actions.”

“That’s an easy way to die.”

“Lucky for me, and my handler, that I lost them at the right time. They needed someone to go into beast mode and I obliged. But it still doesn’t change the fact that it could have gone pear-shaped so easily.” Eve looked at Selyara’s hands. “You were given an amazing ability, but you also paid a handsome price for it. Was it worth it? Would you give it back, knowing what’s happened?”

“Absolutely, I loved having my mind destroyed. I love looking back at all my memories and feeling nothing for them. I loved being in jail, and I especially loved finding out that no one in the galaxy gave a damn about me. What a stupid question Miss Dalziel,” Selyara sneered. “It only looks like an amazing ability to someone who doesn’t know what it does to your mind.”

“Which is?”

“How would you like to know exactly what someone thought of you? How would you like to walk through a crowd and every time someone accidentally bounced into you you got to hear their thoughts? You can’t trust anyone when you know what they’d really like to do to you, or their ulterior motives. There’s a reason powerful Betazed telepaths are almost always insane. You can’t be exposed to others thoughts without beginning to lose your own identity. My turn. Have you ever killed someone?”

Eve was still trying to digest Miss Chen’s harshness. “For someone so completely miserable you appear to have capitalized on your situation to make as many others as possible just as miserable. Yes. I’ve killed someone. When I started out, that’s what Starfleet wanted me for. That was my job.”

“Miserable? I’m not miserable.” Selyara blinked, looking surprised. “I’m simply nostalgic for innocence lost, as it were. I lack the capacity to be miserable. Do you know how you make a sociopath, Miss Dalziel? Well, naturally you know. You are a former intelligence officer after all. The process is much the same as black ops training. If I may, I have a guess as to the real reason you quit -”

“I *didn’t* quit.”

“Fine, whatever. Why you allowed yourself to be assigned to desk duty, then.” Selyara’s voice had grown bored as though she was certain she would win and had already started to mentally check out of the conversation.

“You and the Captain served together before. His concern for you while you were trapped by Embry on the Battle Bridge was clear. Were you in a relationship with him?”

“I call a point of order, Lieutenant- I wasn’t finished. I was saying the real reason you allowed yourself to retreat to a comfortable vantage point from behind a desk is that you couldn’t deny your desire to kill. I bet you liked killing.”

“That’s ridiculous.” A shadow fell across her gray eyes.

“Come on Miss Dalziel, don’t try to hide it. You felt proud of yourself when you killed them. You survived, and they were dead. Starfleet patted you on your pretty little Cardassian head for doing their bidding for them, and that made you feel special. Isn’t it a rush, knowing you’re better than them, those sorry dead fools? Tell me about it, Miss Dalziel, tell me about the first time you looked down at the body of the person you’d killed and realized that you didn’t mourn the loss of them as a person, as someone with a mother and father and people who loved them. Tell me how you felt when you looked at them and realized that you weren’t going to remember their face, that you weren’t going to lose sleep over killing them, that you just. Did. Not. Care.”

Eve didn’t, no, *couldn’t* answer the ultimatum right away. She could only watch as Selyara Chen leaned back slightly, watching the show. The Vulcan/Betazed hybrid seemed to know she had won without any trace of doubt. Eve’s lips pressed together, trying to squash any reaction in her face, and only partially succeeding. She cursed inwardly for being so naive. She had assumed Miss Chen could only wreak havoc with her hands, wiping out people’s memories like some would wipe off a dirty kitchen counter. But her words were equally damning. It was as though Selyara had learned from her humiliation at the hands of Embry and was now testing out her newfound skill on Eve.

“I… I was proud. But I also felt trapped. I remember the sound the most. The sound of bones and sinew snapping as I physically overpowered my target. When your task is to kill, it’s a satisfying noise. It was either them, or me, and I wasn’t going to accept defeat.”

“What trapped you, then?”

“Starfleet starting showing an interest in my ‘skills’ about the same time I decided I wanted to follow in my parents’ footsteps. I wanted to be an officer; they wanted a killing machine. By doing what I was told, following my orders, killing, I had given them a perfect example of what I could do for them. They would just keep wanting more of the same thing. But I knew that I didn’t. So yes, I can sleep at night. And to say I won’t kill again would be misleading. But I’m not going to do it just because someone expects it.”

“How noble of you.” Selyara's voice was drier than a desert.

Eve pounded her fist on the table. “It’s not fucking noble, it’s a balancing act. It’s a trade off. Do you remember what that’s like, or have you been intruding in others’ thoughts for so long to serve your own needs that you don’t know how to compromise? Were you like that when you first met Michael Kane? When you fell in love with him?”

“I wouldn’t still be here if I wasn’t trying to help. I could have easily disappeared and been halfway to the Delta Quadrant by now. When do I get credit for that? As for Michael, what gives you the impression there is anything but shared history between us?”

“Are you in love with Kane?”

“Miss Dalziel, I’m shocked you think I’m capable of loving anyone but myself,” Selyara’s smirk was firmly in place but her eyes suddenly looked guarded.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Why don’t you ask Michael? I’m sure he’d be interested to know you take such interest in his personal life. Or did he ask you to ask me? Do you perhaps have a note for me, should I check the box yes or no?” Selyara’s tone was suddenly playful and teasing.

“Still not an answer.”

“Fine, my answer is: You win. I’m bored. I no longer wish to play this game with you, you’ve become trite and predictable. You may go now. Tell Barton if you see him that I’ve left him some presents and he’d better deal with them, however I will still expect him at 0800 sharp to allow me access to my networks.”

Eve stood up, readying to sling a last verbal tirade, then stopped. The truth was, the tête-a-tête had exhausted her. And she knew someone needed to warn Barton, the sooner the better, and Selyara had just declared herself “not it”. Dalziel waited a discreet amount of time for Miss Chen to retreat, then exited the bar herself, her face reset in a purely serious expression. The emotional walls the other woman had tried to tear down were bruised, but still intact. She had been right, of course. The Captain’s love-life was none of Eve’s business. But Selyara’s lack of an answer, or inability to share that answer, couldn’t possibly be healthy for either of them. And the mental health of the crew *was* her business. Under that often aggravating assumption, she headed for Security.


* * * =/\= * * *


A post!


Brought to you by:

Alix Fowler as

Selyara Chen

Queen of the "It's complicated" relationship status, also, a bitch.


Susan Ledbetter as

Eve Dalziel

Lead Cat Herder, er, Counselor

USS Phoenix.