"But you're not Kira . . ." The figure shook his head sadly. "You're just a little piece of her. One that he's changed and made into a mockery of everything you were." His gaze become one of pity. "Just an echo; that's all you are. From when you stepped into his world, and left a bit of the real Kira behind."
Her fury rose inside her, but was stifled by the other voice that sometimes spoke for her. "Oh no, Commander," she heard herself saying. "This is the truth revealed, just as the one before had been."
"What did you do to her?"
"Can't you see?" The voice in her mouth drew blood with a needle rather than a knife blade. "Such a nice, strong echo—all I had to do was cut away the soft, weak parts, and expose the diamond at the center of her soul. Don't tell me, Commander, that you didn't know such a thing existed there all along. Didn't you consider yourself to be her friend? Didn't you know how badly she had been hurt, how many terrible things she had seen, and how she thirsted for revenge? Such a purifying emotion, I think." The voice was laughing behind its words; she felt dizzied for a moment, as though each syllable was about to hammer through her brow from the inside. "All I did, Commander, was give her the chance to . . . go with her precious feelings. To expand upon them, as it were. And you might be surprised at how well she did, given the opportunity."
The face of the figure standing before her turned grim. "I think I'm finally beyond being surprised at anything that happens in your little world, McHogue."
"Good for you—" The voice lost its laughing edge. "Then you won't be surprised at what a pure instrument of murder our Kira has become here. Pure, in that she no longer needs to make a distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed, between the strong and the weak, between those who inflict suffering and those who meekly receive it. She's found a better way, Sisko; I've shown it to her."
"You've shown her nothing; she doesn't even exist here. All you ever do, McHogue, is talk to yourself."
No longer laughing, and with an anger rising to match her own. The voice was like broken glass at her lips as it spoke. "Once again, Commander, you've managed to annoy me. I really don't like that kind of talk—especially here. This is my home. I won't have it."
"Why?" The figure looked around the corridor as if searching for someone, before returning his gaze to her. "Because it's the truth?"
"Truth, Commander . . ." The voice had started to fade, to fall back from where it had come. "I'll give you truth." Then it was gone.
She raised her head and looked into the gaze of the figure standing before her. He said nothing . . . but he didn't need to. She saw the worst thing possible in his eyes.
Pity.
Her anger burst forth, unstoppable. Her throat tautened as her head was flung back. Fire leapt from her heart.
She had been born in fire. She remembered that moment, when she had risen into the sky above Bajor, above both the weak and the strong in the refugee camps. A burning angel, rising on wings of coruscating radiance, looking down upon all who deserved her wrath, who deserved death and ashes in their unfleshed jaws. She had risen above what she had thought was a dream, an illusion . . . a lie. And what she had realized in that perfect moment was the truth, the world that was more real than any other, because it had battered free from the most secret chambers of her heart.
Even now, she felt the ceiling of the corridor burst open, torn by the thrust of her shoulders as she mounted higher. Far above the figure that had confronted her, that had dared to say it knew her, knew her name, dared to say that she had any name other than vengeance.
She let her hands spread wide, a white-hot sun in each palm. The firestorm rolled like a churning tide through the corridor, washing away the puny thing that had stood before her. The face that she had almost been able to recognize tumbled away from her. The arm that had been lifted across his eyes to shield them was already ashes, the bone inside crumbling like a charred branch.
Above the fire she had unleashed, above the dead like other dead, she stepped higher, heart singing with a fierce joy, tears turning to steam against her own flesh.
He awoke in pain. Made blind by the brilliance of the light flooding what had been his eyes; his nerve endings were heated wires, exposed from beneath the tatters of his skin.
"That's enough of that—"
As soon as the voice spoke, the wind died, the wind that had carried him helpless in its swirling grasp. His spine had shattered against one of the bulkheads, limbs wrenched from their sockets. A storm, in the space between one scalding breath and the next; there had not even been time in which he could have wished to die.
"I apologize for letting things become quite so rough on you." McHogue's voice spoke out of the darkness above him. "But sometimes people just won't learn any other way. Most unfortunate—but necessary."
Sisko rolled onto his knees, pushing himself up from the floor with his hands. The pain had ebbed out of his body, leaving him weak and dizzy, but able to open his eyes. He could see his undamaged forearms; balancing his weight with one hand, he touched the flesh beneath the uniform sleeve and found it whole and unscarred.
A few meters away, the image of McHogue leaned back against the bulkhead. Sisko could feel the amused gaze resting upon him. "Where . . . where is this?" He lifted his head and looked about the space. "How did you . . ."
"Really, Commander. And after all your boasting about how nothing could surprise you anymore. Once more, I'm disappointed in you." McHogue shook his head sadly. "Did you really believe I'd let Kira—my Kira—just blow you away like that? Like a dead leaf at the end of summer? I didn't even find it all that amusing to watch. I hope you learned something from it, though."
"Nothing . . . that I didn't know already." Stiffly, he managed to get to his feet. Sisko reached behind to steady himself against the nearest girder. "It's all false. These things here . . . these echoes . . . they're all just you wearing different masks."
McHogue shrugged. "That's partly so, I admit. But again, a matter of necessity. And didn't I tell you that I dealt in truth here? It's not as if all those who have entered my presence, both here in the station and below in my city of Moagitty, haven't derived some substantial benefit from their transformation. There's a certain matter of immortality, for one thing; with their essences incorporated into mine, they shall live forever. My victories will be theirs; the universe I create is my gift unto them." His smile returned, but without any trace of mockery. "As I've maintained so often before, I am a very hospitable entity."
"Is this why you brought me here? To boast of your powers?" Sisko leveled his gaze at the other. "You'll have to pardon me if I'm still not impressed. You can parade around in your little world all you want, and go on talking to yourself . . . and it will mean nothing."
"Somehow, Commander, I knew you would still doubt me and my accomplishments. But I didn't save you in order to carry on this running argument. My generosity knows no bounds; you came here, whether you knew it or not, to find something, and it's my wish to make that discovery possible for you." McHogue made a sweeping gesture with one hand, toward the distant end of the corridor. "Continue, my dear Sisko. You're not done yet."
He was alone again; the smiling image had vanished, like a candle flame snuffed out between two fingers. Another light spilled along the passage, from the open doorway he could see farther on.