Chapter V: Unseen Tectonics
Semil raced down the hallway. The hiss of broken pressurized gas piping was only intermittently punctuated by the occasional sparking conduit. Lights flickered in chaotic asynchrony with the pulsing whoop of the alert klaxons. In spite of his light footfalls, he could feel the vibrations in the deckplating as he came to another partly disabled door.
The Vorta wedged himself through the narrow gap as best he could, exerting and straining with his whole body to squeeze through into the next corridor, seemingly indistinguishable from the previous.
It had been only minutes that the jarring alert had presented him this opportunity. It may have been overly convenient, maybe even a test, but even if it didn't result in escape, it could at least provide some answers, maybe even only clues as to the identity of his captors, or his location -- or even the year. That could be a start.
It sure beat the boredom of his daily regimen. He had attempted activation of his termination implant twice in the past week, mostly out of sheer boredom, only to conclude that he didn't even have one.
The labyrinth of corridors didn't even seem all that complicated, but surely he should have come upon something noteworthy. A turbolift, a control room, a transporter room, an airlock - hell, a fully stocked arboretum, even. Anything except these endless drab gray halls.
It had occurred to Semil that even the first rule of daring escapes wasn't even panning out. Pick a direction, and stick with it - increases the odds of finding some way out.
Even an unconfigurable dumb terminal would've been something to work with. At least that could provide some kind of clue. It never ceased to amaze him how many species with networked computing technology always had the most ridiculously poor security protocols.
Another corridor branch. He had counted the number of turns he had made, just to make sure he wasn't circling back. It hadn't been long since he had made it past the first secured door, but there hadn't been signs of anything but more corridor in the time since. It was possible he was planetside, instead of being on a ship, or station; but even then, this had to have been a massive structure for him to not find anything.
Wherever he was, at least there wasn't any sign of pursuit - no guards rushing him, or the telltale dizziness of anesthezine. No other prisoners, or cries for help from behind the locked doors. If this was some sort of attack, or prison break - someone certainly had more pressing concerns.
Another shower of sparks erupted in the corridor ahead of him. He had only caught himself midstride to stop just barely, feeling the heat and singe against his face and forearms as they instinctively rose to shield him.
He lowered them, when it seemed safe to proceed, and that's when he saw her.
In spite of the generally poor condition of their surroundings, he instinctively dropped to a knee prostrating himself. "Founder. I had no idea..."
"Rise, Semil." The Changeling motioned, bidding him back on his feet. "We must move quickly if we are to escape." She motioned him closer, to her side, as she pivoted to stride down the hallway with the assured confidence that all her species possessed.
Semil assumed his place, following behind the Founder at a reverential few paces, but close enough to remain present in her peripheral vision.
"Come, a ship awaits us. But we haven't much time..."
Semil stopped dead in his tracks, unsure and wavering. "I don't... you came.. for me? You haven't also been imprisoned...?" His eyes squinted, not entirely clear as to this newest twist in his circumstances.
The Founder sensed Semil's hesitation, pivoting back to face him. Her face beamed with the knowing assurance that countenanced the humanoid forms that all Changelings seemed to prefer, when forced to interact with Solids. "Yes." She nodded. "I am taking you home. Where you belong. With us." She extended a hand, goading him to continue on in their escape.
"But..." Semil stammered, "...why? Founder, this could just as easily have been done with a platoon of Jem'Hadar. For you to risk..."
"Why is not important." She interrupted "Only that we leave now." She beckoned to Semil again, this time with growing impatience.
It still wasn't right. A Founder had no place risking herself to free him. He knew it, down to his core, with every genetically engineered fibre, muscle, neuron, and tendon.
A cold, chilling thought seized him. It was absolutely abhorrent, and he knew instantly with perfect, crystalline clarity that it had to be true. "Founder? Are you here...?" His throat stuck, and he shivered slightly. "...you're here to kill me, aren't you?"
Through the strobing flicker of the lights, he could tell her face had become impossibly unfeeling. He knew this face. When a Founder didn't have to bother pretending to be anything like a Solid. "We had hoped to know what secrets you divulged." It was clear that she wasn't even bothering to pretend to pity him. "It seems that is no longer a priority here."
Semil almost choked. He was not surprised by her reaction. From the moment Vorta stepped out of their cloning vats, they had already been programmed with a single unerring, inviolable truth. That the Founders had given life, and carried with that gift the absolute moral right to take life away. The gift and dispossesion of life. Any more detailed definition of a God got bogged down in semantics and stupid details.
What surprised him was suddenly remembering the disruptor he had tucked into his waistband. He couldn't quite remember where he had found it, even if it had obviously only been a few minutes prior. He reached down beneath his tunic, and when he raised it back up - only then did he notice it was wielding the pistol. Aimed squarely at the Founder. He had drawn a bead on God.
The Changeling's face softened again. "Surely, this must be the work of torture. What terrible agonies you must've endured." Her hands reached out to him, welcoming and open. "We only wish to save you from this place. Come with me, and I promise you, they can' t hurt you -- they won't hurt you ever again." Her voice became almost musical.
Semil choked as he fumblingly stepped backwards. He couldn't tell if they were tears; Vorta tear glands had largely atrophied with unuse over the generations. Hot stinging in his eyes could just as easily have been from the steam or conduit sparks. That had to have been it. How else to explain the suddenly suffocating lack of air, compressing upon his chest, squeezing him? Words barricaded themselves in his throat. "Founder -- Founder, I..."
The Changeling punctuated another staccato extension of her hand. Her visage grew more wizened, the sadly bittersweet pleading of a grandmother reaching out to a grandchild by sheer force of the gravity of love and compassion. "Semil, come. Come home with me."
Knots in his stomach had grown and proliferated. His outstretched hand gripping the disruptor openly quaked, more than the bulkheads or deckplating. Through the blurriness of his tear-filled vision, her face beckoned with the ecstatic light of god, his God. The God he had been born, and raised, and engineered, and trained, and taught to serve through all possible fates and agonies. Not just one lifetime, at that. Dozens of lifetimes he carried memories of, all prepared to lay down on behalf of the Founders. In enough cases, he had done just that. Died for his faith, over and over on a Karmic wheel in a test tube, spun by a Founder.
Just then, the God left her Solid form, becoming liquid in a lightning-fast instant. Where the Founder had stood, a formless wall of shrieking daggers and jagged needles surged forward at him at supersonic velocities.
His eyes shut just as his index finger pressed down on the trigger.
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Semil shot upright. Darkness enveloped him, as did a cool wetness. His clothes were clinging to him. He reached up to his neck, expecting to find something garrotting him - how else to explain the ragged breaths that felt of fire and toxic ash?
He felt his skin slick and greasy. In the dark, his hands groped their way to his face, to his forehead. The same clammy slippery skin greeted his fingertips there, too.
He looked around as his eyes adjusted, making out the dim outline of his bunk.
His breathing slowed. He shivered in place, trembling from unseen tectonics.
