Chapter II: Being and Becoming
The green skin of Doctor Asiliaa glowed orange from the wall of monitors as she hurried along with her progress report. "...and as you can see, he's rapidly regaining complex problem solving, integrated motor skills, language code-switching..."
Colonel K'vot stepped towards the grid to inspect them more closely, his already ridged brow furrowed to focus on each of the recordings being replayed simultaneously. On one, the Vorta was sleeping in his bunk. Semil sitting, seemingly alone in a darkened interrogation room. Semil stretching. Semil dining. Semil at work on a Tarkelian 5D holopuzzle. Semil lying unconscious on an operating table, masked figures carefully inserting probes deep inside his temple.
"All very impressive, Doctor. But you know why I'm here."
"Of course, Colonel." Asiliaa was not used to having to be apologetic to Klingons, to anybody, really. But she, of all people at the facility, knew what was at stake. "The Lethean telepaths have been reporting their 'sessions' proceeding well." She gestured at one of the numerous monitors.
K'vot's attention turned to the screen. On it, Semil appeared to sleep on his bunk. As he squinted into the recording of the darkened room, only then he noticed the faint outline of the figure seated just off the head of the bunk, in the shadows.
"Now, I have little experience with their techniques," she continued. "However, I have every assurance from them that excellent progress is being made." She gestured towards the operating room video. "And the implants seem to have engrafted suitably, and are stablized. The input and output contacts are responding, and ready for programming input."
K'vot grunted his reply. Asiliaa had been working with Klingons long enough to recognize the tone as begrudging affirmation. She used the opportunity to press him, "Beyond that, I cannot say how the conditioning regimen is working. If you would only let us..."
K'vot turned sharply to face the Orion. His brow relaxed in a way she was not used to from Klingons when confronted. Though unable to admit it or even recognize it was happening, she flinched ever so imperceptibly, as the Colonel's towering frame came to loom over her. "Then you are asking me to inform the General that you are again questioning his methods? Deviating from his explicit orders?"
A passive aggressive Klingon, she thought. That must be new. Still, invoking the General was more than sufficient threat.
"Or perhaps you have forgotten your last several failures?" Okay, that one stung, she thought. "The General was understandably most displeased you were forced to destroy those copies. We will proceed with compliance testing in Phase II, as ordered."
Having sufficiently dressed down the Orion, K'vot's eyes returned to surveying the multitude of footage on display. Semil showering. Semil jogging on a treadmill. Semil reading. Semil -- wielding a bat'leth? The Colonel's brow furrowed again as he drew closer to the monitor. "Explain this."
On screen, the Vorta drew the blade back and to his right, winding up a lightning hook thrust at his opponent, a Nausicaan with at least a two foot height advantage.
Asiliaa's composure returned immediately. She was accustomed to brusque attitudes from Klingons. "The holodeck memory core suffered a complete fragmentation failure last month. We recovered only a few programs. The combat training simulations were the only adequate platforms that we could use for the motor skills assessments. As you can see --"
The Colonel held up his hand to silence her. A politeness by Klingon etiquette standards, she told herself. K'vot's face drew even closer to the screen, watching the figure spin and twirl the bladed weapon, now against multiple opponents. She could tell he was studying the movements, with an interest he had not paid to anything she had said.
"This can't... How many of these simulations have you been running?"
"This is level 6B. We only switched to these simulations last month, after the holodeck breakdown."
K'vot's ears noticeably pricked. The training simulations were designed for Klingon schoolchildren -- to supplement their live combat training, not teach it. It took most Klingons their entire childhood to reach 6B proficiency, and this -- pale, weakling petaQ had achieved it in a month.
He scoffed. "Impossible. The Vorta are known to be physically deficient. I would've been surprised if he could hold a bat'leth with both hands, much less swing it at a rock."
"As you can see, Colonel. He's doing much more than swinging it." She motioned to the screen. On it, Semil was dislodging one endpoint of the bat'leth from the rib cage of one fallen Nausicaan, using the momentum to swing it overhead and deliver a brutal slashing blow, straight down through the holographic collarbone of another. As a scientist, the doctor quietly gloated in the data speaking for itself.
"We had discussed the likelihood that the Augment gene vectors would have some effects on physical ability. The previous clones we made from this line had showed improved strength, reflex, stamina, coordination --"
"Which are good building blocks, but hardly the same as skill and talent, Doctor."
"That may be, but we've been seeing extensive synaptic activity arising in his orbitofrontal precortex and amygdala. Local dopaminergic levels and vasopressin have been escalating."
"Meaning...?" K'vot hated having to remind these scientist types to translate, necessary as it was.
"Aggression." K'vot blinked in reply, not fully comprehending. "These parts of the humanoid brain are associated with aggression and impulse control. We theorize that it's from the Augment vectors we recovered from deep storage. The human reports of their early experiments..."
"Do not match our experience with these selfsame constructs, Doctor."
"Yes, but that may represent a species difference. Using these constructs in humans may result in one outcome, in Klingons another, in Gorn, or Nausicaan..." Asiliaa trailed off, clearly excited.
"Doctor, you told us that the Vorta would make ideal subjects for these experiments. Unlike our
Gorn enterprise."
"Only because Vorta were already an engineered species, and top of that, were perfectly suited to the Dominion cloning technology recovered during the war. But don't you see? We're adding human gene sequences. Our results clearly show some element of unpredictability..."
"So this is your excuse for the previous clones behaving so erratically as to doom themselves to termination?"
Again with the jabs. This time, Asiliaa stood her ground. "I'm saying that this is why we need to move up the compliance assessments. The General is never going to get his servile little soldiers if we waste time on clones that we're not certain from the beginning..."
"Enough." This time, K'vot's tone was certainly not polite. "I will make my report to the General. Your progress has been noted, and will be communicated accordingly."
"And what will be your recommendation?" Asiliaa had been reporting to K'vot long enough to know that he was relatively resistant to her innately Orion coercivity.
"We have wasted enough time. I will advise him that there is little reason to hold off on Phase II." Asiliaa grinned smugly at her small victory. "BUT," K'vot continued, this time with a raised finger of warning, "you will not proceed until my return. I will personally be on-hand to oversee the assessments." The Doctor opened her mouth to begin to protest, but caught herself, knowing that she would have to take the victory she'd been granted in stride. The Colonel excused himself from the office, only after her begrudging acquiescence.
She could deal with K'vot later, when he returned. Dealing with predictable Klingon values was easy. It was after all, this new player on the gameboard she was truly interested in.
