Earth, 2268

Finally, his mother decided to let him be. The boy tried to go to sleep. After a call from her old boyfriend, she had nearly smothered him with attention. He never liked the guy, but couldn't understand why. He just gave him the creeps, especially when he seemed to stare his way. He hated being afraid without knowing why. He would come to hate it even more.

It began with a knocking inside his refresher. He told himself that, at six years old, he shouldn't pay attention to knocks inside closed rooms. Not him. Not someone of his age and intelligence. For all that resolve, the knocking continued.

"All right--lets do it!"

Reluctantly, he got up. He knew that the monster he sometimes saw in dim dreams wasn't in there. He knew there was no one in there. It was the wind, or whatever. He knew wrong. The door was opened, and a voice cried out.

"Help Me!"

It was a human male about twice the boy's age. He was naked and badly beaten, and bleeding from his butt. David read his mother's unused medical files voluminously, and knew all too well what his visitor's condition meant.

"You--you've been raped. Let me call my Mom--she's a doctor. She'll help you."

The stranger cried out again.

"Find Daddy. They killed Grandma. Marcus, please tell Daddy."

"I--can't. I--don't have a father."

Young David Marcus's heart was about to burst through its chest. The stranger was scaring the shit out of him. The shining intelligence that helped him through so much was now helping him not at all.

"Daddy! I'm in Hell, Daddy! Come Get Me Out Of Hell! Why won't you come get me out of Hell, Daddy?"

"Don't do this to me, fella. You're making me afraid. Please just stop."

"Marcus, the monster is coming. Tell Daddy. Tell him about the people."

David was quickly losing it.

"People!? WHAT people?!"

"The ones who look like people you know, only they talk all slow and funny. They whisk you away, and tell you all kinds of riddles. They're from the Bay Shore. They told me I had to stop the monster."

David shook as he saw moonlight pass through the apparition.

"Monster--the one with three heads?"

The image seemed to coalesce as the older boy woke up from his dreamstate.

"Huh-uh---David--this is important---you have to tell him I'm at The Hall. I don't know how I'm doing any of this but----aaaahahhahahshhsh!!!!!!!!! SHIT!!!"

The image caught fire as the twisted residents of Admiralty Hall began to brutalize their captive again. David didn't waste any time running for his mother's room as the image vanished entirely.

"Mooooommmmmm!!!!"

Carol Marcus responded to her son's cries without hesitation.

"David? David, you look as white as a ghost. Wanna sit here with me while I compose a letter to Captain Kirk?"

"Yeah, so long as I'm not in my room. I'll tell you what happened later."

Carol began.

"Dearest Jim : Despite our differences, I know how much Brianna and Peter meant to you. To lose them both like this in so brutal and mysterious a manner must shake you to your core. Of course David and I will attend the memorial services. I wish I had more to say, Jim. Be strong, as I have known you to be. Deepest Sympathies, Carol Marcus."

"Who were Brianna and Peter, Mom?"

"Oh, no! David, I didn't tell you, even with all the hovering I did? God---Jim's Mother and his nephew were both killed last night, at their home in Iowa. They think it was terrorists."

"Here? On Earth? Is there anything in the vidnews?"

Carol nodded and accessed pictures from vid-reports. The older woman had a kindly face, he thought. He could see her bringing him snacks and drinks. The other picture--the one of Kirk's nephew--made his blood run cold.

"David--what is it? David, you look like you've seen a----"

 David didn't know he was staring at a picture of his own half-brother. He didn't know--yet about another half-brother, named Marcus, or Marc for short--who was just as dead as Peter was alive. He knew merely he was scared out of his mind. Dreams of the three-headed monster now seemed realer than ever. David's voice was breaking so hard, one might have thought he was in an early puberty. Still, he said what he had to.

"Mom--someone was in my room tonight."