Lieutenant Commanders Vernon Reid and Jakrin Holv walked through the throng of merchant stalls and transient visitors on their way deeper inside the shopping district. Vernon had a small PaDD clutched in his left hand, and despite his insistence upon it when he’d first had the impulse to pay the promenade a visit, no phaser on his hip. Jakrin was armed, not with a phaser, but with a tricorder nestled in a pouch on his hip in case they encountered something that might require a deeper investigation.

The two men weaved through the crowd of people, their eyes searching for the little inconsistencies in traffic patterns as they went. The pair were trying not to make it obvious what they were looking for, it would have done their search little good to tip off whatever being was lurking around should it be hostile in any way. It took some time, thanks to the even larger volume of foot traffic than when the twins had visited, for the two officers to reach the starting point of their target search area.

“What are the chances of us running into this thing in the same place it was hanging out the day before, you think?” Vernon asked his friend in a low tone.

“If I were a betting man,” Jakrin said with a small shrug, “Twenty to one odds… against.”

Vernon sighed, “So not impossible but very improbable, got it.”

“You asked,” Holv said with a chuckle. “So what’s the plan now that we’re here? You want to chat up some of the store owners while I sweep around with the trusty tricorder pretending to look for power fluctuations or some other official sounding excuse?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good enough plan. Call it ‘structural integrity checks’, that way if you start scanning benches or counters, it doesn’t look so weird,” Reid said with a smirk.

Jakrin nodded with a conspiratory grin, “Yeah, wouldn’t want to go looking for power on an overhang. Good plan. I’ll start over there where the girls first saw it and work my way down to you.”

Vernon nodded and made his way to the first stall that had seen the void in foot traffic the day before. The same Tellarite that he’d seen in the security feed was once again standing behind the counter, hawking his wares to anyone who would listen. When he caught sight of Vernon strolling over, he straightened up just a bit.

“Commander,” the Tellarite said with a grunt and a nod.

“How’s business been?” Reid asked as he rested his hands against the corner of the stall.

“Could be better,” the merchant shrugged dismissively, “What brings you all the way in here? Usually just the locals and some maintenance folks wander around here.”

“And what makes you think I’m not a local?” Vernon retorted with a hint of offense in his voice, “I’ve lived on this station for years now. Wife even runs Ember’s on the other side of the promenade.”

“Oh! You’re Tessa’s man!” the Tellarite said with a hearty chuckle. “Then that does make a whole lot more sense why you’d be knocking around here.” The merchant leaned over to get within earshot of Reid before asking, “What’cha really looking for?”

“Anything weird that’s been happening in the area the last few days. Seen anything lately that just doesn’t make sense but you’ve been shrugging it off like your mind was playing tricks on you?” Reid inquired in a similarly low tone.

The merchant sank back and scratched at his scruffy chin for a few moments before his brow drew down, “Now that you mention it… yeah…”

“Oh?” Vernon hunkered down on the counter, his face the very picture of interest.

“Last couple days, been seeing people walk around… nothing… Didn’t think much of it at the time, figured someone spilled something they didn’t want to step in or what have you. When you asked it that way, it stood out in my mind as something I should’ve paid more attention to,” the Tellarite explained.

“Did this… nothing… visit your shop?” Reid pressed.

“No, can’t say…” the man stopped in mid-sentence, “It did… yesterday in fact. Minute it moved on customers started walking up again. I can’t remember why I stopped calling out for customers… I just did. Is there something going on around here?”

“Can’t say for sure,” Vernon sidestepped the question, “You’re the first one I’ve talked that’s said anything. Very well could just be nothing.”

“You don’t think it’s dangerous, do you? Some invisible critter on the hunt or something…” the merchant asked with narrowed eyes.

Reid let out a chuckle, “No, I can assure you that no one’s come up missing or hurt in the last week around here. We’re not chasing any monsters you need to be worried about.”

The Tellarite didn’t seem convinced right away, but still let it go, “Supposin’ I’d have heard about missing folks before you. Know pretty much everyone that has a shop all the way up and down this block.”

“Good to know,” Vernon said with a smile, “And thanks for the info.”

“No problem. Tell your woman I said hello,” the merchant said, giving Reid a polite wave before going back to calling out for customers.

Vernon continued down the concourse, stopping by a few other shops along the way and finding that the same conversational formula he’d used on the Tellarite was effective with the others. The initial denial, followed swiftly by doubt, then a flash of realization occurred almost as if it were being read straight from a script. By the time Holv caught back up to him, Reid was already at the storefront that the girls had experienced their showdown with the being.

“Unfortunately,” Jakrin sighed, snapping shut his tricorder, “There isn’t any significant trail that I can pick up. Whatever this person is, they don’t leave much in the way of a trace to go by. How’d you make out?”

“Like a bandit,” Vernon said with a brief chortle. “Every shop along their route remembered something weird happening the last few days, but it wasn’t until they were forced to confront it that they made the connection. I know this is going to sound crazy coming from me, but it’s almost like they were all hypnotized…”

“Everyone? Along the entire row? At the same time?” the Bolian asked in perfect deadpan.

“Seems outrageous, doesn’t it? But what if…” Vernon trailed off as he finally looked up to see the small corridor the twins had chased the person down, “Hold that thought. Let’s go check out this dead end.”

Holv nodded and followed his friend between the stores into the small alleyways that had been created over the many years of stores being constructed in the district. When they reached the T-junction that the girls had referenced, then turned to the right just as they had, they were not greeted by a dead end but a passageway that led onward along the back of half a dozen storefronts.

“Okay… that’s weird…” Jakrin scratched at the back of his head.

Reid frowned and started bringing up the footage of the event in question. Luckily, a security node was right inside the junction, so the top-down view was clear. He watched his two daughters make the same turn he just had, but they stopped short just a few steps in. Anna even lifted her hand as if she were touching something solid, but the playback just showed her pressing against air.

Holv had been watching over his shoulder and saw the girls reacting as if they well and truly believed that they had run up against a wall. The two men looked at each other with deepening frowns.

“Hypnosis, you said,” Jakrin said, his skepticism from before all but evaporated.

“Or something worse…” Vernon remarked cryptically.

The Bolian folded his arms across his chest, “So what now?”

“I think the girls and I need to pay a visit to Doctor Vreen…”

Roughly half an hour after leaving the promenade, Vernon was sitting in the small examination room with Annabell and Eleanor, neither of whom knew exactly why their father had dragged them from their quarters in such a hurry. Vernon, for his part, was pacing anxiously in a small circle in the space between the bed and the door and not offering much in the way of explanation as to what was going on.

When the door finally slid open to allow Commander Halda Vreen in, Vernon turned to face the woman with a look of concern deep enough that even the Zakdorn could tell the matter was urgent but not life-threatening.

“Vernon,” Halda said in as much a greeting as a demand for answers.

“I need you to run a neural scan on the girls, compare it to their last visit,” the man relayed, though it was obvious the request confused the doctor.

“You could have done that yourself. You are still a licensed medical officer,” Doctor Vreen said with a slight frown.

“I could have,” Vernon conceded, “But I need someone not invested in this to do it. I can’t look at the results with the impartiality it demands…”

“I see,” Halda said with a tired sigh before retrieving the nearby medical tricorder. She turned the device on and removed the small scanning probe, waving the small instrument in various directions around each girl’s head in sequence. Once the initial scan was complete, she sent the results to the medical database computer for it to run the comparison.

“It should only take a moment for the analysis to finish,” the Zakdorn said.

Vernon looked over to his daughters, “Can you two sit tight for a minute? I need to ask Doctor Vreen about something work related.”

“Is it about yesterday?” Ella asked, her eyes locked on her father’s.

“Maybe,” he responded with an uneasy look, “Hopefully I’m wrong and we’re just wasting the Doctor’s time.”

Both girls nodded silently and started peering down at the floor like it was the most interesting thing they’d seen today. Vernon let out an unsteady breath before motioning for Dr. Vreen to step out with him. After entering the corridor, Reid started heading toward Halda’s office, which compelled the woman to follow him.

“I take it you suspect something amiss,” the Zakdorn postulated once they were in her office and the door was closed.

“It’s a bit of a long story, but the short version is that the twins were on the promenade and saw someone or something that no one else seemed to. I would have waved it off as a child’s prank if the details they had about it weren’t so vivid and organized… and verifiable,” Vernon explained.

“How do you mean, verifiable?” Halda pressed the man.

“Holv and I went down there today and I spoke with about eight different shop owners. Every single one of them followed the same exact pattern of someone who had been influenced by some kind of hypnosis or mind control effects. Denial, confusion, and realization, in that order without any deviation,” Reid outlined.

“Then your request is entirely prudent,” Vreen said, sitting at her desk to bring up the results. The look on her face was enough for Vernon to tell that she’d found something she wished she hadn’t.

“I’m going to run a synaptic pattern analysis on them. I want to rule out any direct manipulation first before we go any further. If nothing presents itself, we can look for passive signs like sensory illusions and the like,” the woman said as she rose back to her feet.

“Until we have the results,” Vernon said, standing in front of the doorway to obstruct her exit, “Just tell the girls I’m being overly paranoid, protective, whatever will keep them from getting worried if they ask about what we’re doing.”

“Do you not trust your children to remain calm over this?” Halda asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

“They had a… I don’t want to call it a confrontation… but whatever they saw noticed that they were able to see it when everyone else couldn’t, and scared both of them half to death… I saw the footage of it happening. I don’t want them thinking I don’t believe them and think it was all in their minds,” Reid shook his head in frustration.

“I can agree to that,” Doctor Vreen said before moving the man out of the way by his shoulder, “Now let me work.”

Vernon allowed himself to be ushered out of the way but quickly followed behind the doctor, entering the exam room his children occupied a mere three steps behind her. Vreen went about the task of grabbing two synaptic scanning devices and affixed one to the center of each girl’s forehead. The device beeped and flashed at various points throughout the scanning process, but nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. The fact that Halda’s face hadn’t so much as twitched was a good sign that she hadn’t found the evidence Vernon was so fearful she might.

Her follow up came in the form of the retrieval of yet another device, one that she placed against the right temple of each child. This was the scan that prompted a bit of a shift in her demeanor, but judging by how faint it was, Vernon wasn’t nearly as concerned as he would have been during the first test.

“Are we okay?” Anna asked in a weak voice as she wrung her hands nervously.

Halda looked up from her tricorder, “You are. It would seem your father is still as overprotective as he was the first time he brought you girls in for a cold.”

Both Anna and Ella grinned as they recalled the event she’d just mentioned. They had just moved to Starbase 11 and had just spent their first week at school when they caught a common virus. Vernon had panicked as if they had both caught some incurable disease and had hijacked half the Infirmary in his rush to save his ‘babies’.

“Sorry, kiddos,” Vernon apologized with a tired smile. “Guess your old man’s just jumping at shadows. How about you two head on down to Ember’s, I’ll meet you there after I finish up here and we’ll all have a nice dinner together.”

“Okay!” Anna said, hopping off the table and making for the door.

Ella, however, slipped of the table much more slowly, waiting for her sister to disappear before she looked up to her father. “Dad… do you think we imagined it?”

Vernon felt his chest tighten at the question. He wasn’t sure how to respond to such an earnest demand for validation given the circumstances. His struggle to find the right words seemed to rankle Doctor Vreen, because she stepped in front of the man and looked him in the eyes.

“Perhaps you should tell this one something. She inherited your brains, after all,” the Zakdorn pointed out flatly.

Vernon clenched his jaw as he struggled with the implications of it before he finally nodded to the Doctor and turned to his daughter. He knelt down and took her hands gently, looking into her eyes before he finally spoke up. “The tests confirm that you two saw something… something you weren’t supposed to see. Whatever it was, it was making a concerted effort to hide from everyone in the shopping district.”

“You remember that dead end you two found?” Ella nodded softly and waited for her father to continue. “It wasn’t there. Whatever you saw was an illusion of some kind. That’s why I brought you girls here today… to prove that you’d been manipulated somehow.”

“Did it hurt our brains?” Ella asked, looking from her father up to the Doctor.

“No, child,” Halda said firmly, “Whatever it was, it merely fooled you while you were there. It didn’t last more than a few minutes and neither of you will suffer any ill effects from it.”

Ella let out a relieved breath, “Okay, good. I’ll tell Anna everything’s fine. Don’t worry about her, Dad.”

“Why do I feel like you’re the adult in this exchange all of a sudden?” Vernon asked with a sulky frown.

“Remember what Aunt Halda said?” the girl beamed, “I got the brains.”

Vernon tussled the girl’s hair before pushing her toward the door, “Catch up to your sister before she realizes you weren’t behind her.”

Ella laughed and waved to the Doctor before disappearing into the corridor. When the door hissed closed, Vernon got back to his feet and turned around to face Doctor Vreen.

“Did you make that last part up, or was that based on the tests?” Reid inquired.

“It’s the truth. I wouldn’t make up facts just to make that girl, or you, feel better. This is rather disconcerting, however. I ran a search of our database concerning species that use illusionary misdirection or other similar tactics on their victims, but the unique pattern that was left behind shows up nowhere in the database,” Halda responded, her face drawn in concern.

“We’re not lagging behind Starfleet Medical thanks to that ‘Blackout’ fiasco, are we?” Vernon asked.

“No. I confirmed the database version before I ran the scans through it. Not a single match, not even a partial one. Whatever this thing is, it is either something we’ve never encountered before, or it’s something no one wants anyone to know is out there,” Vreen answered flatly.

The Zakdorn’s final statement resonated with Reid in a way that he did not like at all, because it called to mind a briefing he’d read when he had been asked to sit in as Acting Commanding Officer for the station prior to Novak’s arrival. If the events of the last few days were even remotely related, Vernon wasn’t sure how they were going to proceed.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Reid said, though his voice didn’t project any actual gratitude.