Fic: Into the Dark (R) (2/4)
Into The Dark (2/4)
By isis_uf
Rating - R (possible NC-17 somewhere later in the series)
Word Count - 10k-ish
Warnings - Angst with a side of hope, canon-ish (whole series and Final Break), adult themes, references to violence and murder, mild cursing, rampant metaphor use, abuse of imagery themes, one or two probably incorrect internet translations of English to Spanish dialogue
Warnings for series - Whole series (including Final Break) spoilers, violence, (probably) sex, cursing, death, het (canon pairings), classical literature and mythology references, questionable knowledge by the author of science, medicine, code-breaking and the mechanics of shady multinational conglomerates who secretly rule the world
Author’s Note - This is the first of four planned stories that don’t directly violate canon, but take place after Final Break in an attempt to make it more palatable (and, to me, more poetic and satisfying). It will likely be several months before I begin to post the next story (to be titled “Five Minutes to Midnight”). Please understand that it’s plotty and detail-oriented and I want to have it well underway before I post any of it anywhere so that I can avoid backing myself into a corner.
On another note, Michael’s birthday is non-specific because they couldn’t get it straight in canon (I did research it, I swear). I had to make up Lincoln’s, too. The tone and storytelling style of these stories should shift some from story to story. That’s intentional for a variety of reasons. Huge thanks to andacus for the beta, the idea-bouncing and everything else (as always) and to foxriverinmate and jennaxrose for the fact checking and encouragement.
Disclaimer - If it belonged to me I would have established that Christina Scofield had an horrific sociopathic evil twin that took her place after the lovely mother of both Lincoln and Michael died of liver cancer sometime in the 1980s. Since that didn’t happen... you know that nothing Prison Break related belongs to me.
Summary - In some ways, Michael is dead for 1507 days. In a lot of the same ways, Sara and Lincoln are too.
( Day 3, Day 67, Day 122, Day 210, Day 339, Day 365... )
Day 661
“Got any plans today, dad?” LJ asked uneasily, resting his forearms against the kitchen counter while Lincoln rooted around the refrigerator, sniffing some orange juice before apparently deeming it good and swigging some straight from the carton.
“Sure. Got a report due to the boss by eleven and a board meeting at two. Then I’ve got an appointment to get my hair trimmed after work. Not much, just a little around the ears,” he said screwing his face at his teenage son. “What the hell kind of question is that, LJ?”
LJ rolled his eyes dramatically, telegraphing his patience running thin. But when he spoke, his voice was oddly soft and tolerant.
“Come on, dad,” he said gently. “For real.”
“Course not,” Lincoln replied, still looking at his son as though he were maybe crazy. “Do I ever have any plans.”
“Yeah... exactly,” LJ grumbled, once again sounding like the teenager he was.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Lincoln bristled, putting the orange juice carafe back and slamming the fridge door with a little too much force.
“It means... It means, what ever happened to the dive shop idea, dad?” LJ asked.
“I don’t even dive, LJ,” Lincoln countered, ignoring the point as he crossed his muscled arms in front of his chest.
“That’s not the point!” LJ railed. “It was something. It was a goal. It wasn’t... being a beach bum for rest of your life.”
“It was never my plan, okay?” Lincoln argued, voice towering over his son’s. “I was never the one with plans.”
“Right...” LJ huffed, laughing humorlessly. “It was Uncle Mike’s plan and now that he’s gone you’re just standing in place like you’re waiting for directions.”
“Son, you want to watch what you say to me right now,” Lincoln seethed, voice low and blood rushing to his face.
“Two months from now I’ll be off to college,” LJ reminded him. “It’ll be you and Sofia and Sara and the baby. I’m not saying this to be mean, dad. You’ve just gotta have something other than playing house with Sofia and trying to keep Sara from falling apart to keep you going.”
Lincoln didn’t respond, his blood pressure still raging angrily at his son’s comments but at least able to sense the boy’s intentions hadn’t been misplaced.
“Some days keeping Sara in one piece is a full-time job,” he said finally, a retort and an admittance rolled into one.
“It goes both ways,” LJ replied bluntly. “And Uncle Mike would have been the first to tell you that one broken support can’t hold up another for long.”
Linc stared at his son for a long moment, faced with both the reality of the situation and the truth that his boy had grown up somewhere between suburban Chicago and the Costa Rican beaches.
“Yeah, well, he always was a bit of a know-it-all, so he probably woulda been the first to say that,” Lincoln said, shooting for humor but missing his mark slightly.
“He was also usually right,” LJ pointed out.
“Yeah...” Lincoln echoed. “He was also usually right.”
*
Day 904
The carpet was awash in a sea of primary colors, toys strewn about in a way that had proven hazardous to Sara’s toes time and again. Somehow, Mikey seemed to make sense of all of it, always knew what toy was where and even threw a bit of a tantrum if Sara tried to move his blocks before he was finished playing with them.
He was a sweet boy, her almost-toddler, most of the time. But he was also a solitary one. Self-sufficient, his pediatrician called it, and while Sara was at times grateful for her son’s ability to entertain himself, she also worried about his lack of interaction with others. He was driven, single-minded, and seemed happiest playing by himself with blocks or puzzles or crayons. Always proud of his creations, he’d show off his scribbles or block towers with a wide, toothy grin but he rarely wanted help or even conversation as he focused on his task.
“Michael, are you almost...” Sara’s voice trailed off as she placed her teacup back on the coffee table and watched her son work.
Intensely focused, the little boy added to his sprawling block structure with precision and clear intent. And Sara found herself holding her breath as she watched, throat drying out and heart-rate speeding up as she really studied the way he fit the pieces together.
“Knock, knock,” came a voice from the screen door and Lincoln let himself in without awaiting a response. “Where’s my favorite neph... oh, he’s playing with blocks.”
Sara didn’t even glance up at her company, if Lincoln could even be called that at some point, semi-permanent fixture that he was in their household. She chewed her lower lip roughly and watched her son, anticipating with certain knowledge where he’d put the blue block currently sitting in his chubby little hand.
“Do you suddenly zone out staring at blocks too, Sara?” Lincoln asked with amusement, finally drawing his sister-in-law’s attention.
“When was Michael diagnosed with LLI?” she asked with no preamble, her voice thick and heavy.
“Uh... before mom died... or disappeared, whatever. Just before we thought she got sick,” Lincoln replied. “I guess he was like seven or so? Why?”
Sara nodded mutely, glancing back at her son.
“How early can they test for it? Do you know?” she asked finally.
“Sara, why?” Lincoln asked, glancing at Michael and back to her. “You’ve got no reason to...”
“The blocks, Linc. Look at the blocks,” Sara replied.
“So he’s good at blocks. He likes them. So what?” Linc said off-handedly.
“Really look at them, Linc,” she shot back, looking up at him with wide, worried eyes.
Red, blue, blue, yellow, yellow, yellow
Red, red, blue, blue, blue, yellow
Red, red, red blue, yellow, yellow
“It’s a pattern,” she laughed bitterly, running her hands through her hair as Lincoln’s brow furrowed in twin concern. “My God, Linc. He’s not even two yet and he’s building patterns. That’s not normal.”
“So? He’s smart. You’re smart. My brother was smart. It’s not surprising that your son’s an ivy league shoe-in is it?” Lincoln asked.
“It’s more than that and you know it,” Sara countered, eyes boring into him, daring him to contradict her. “My son’s father and grandmother both had LLI and they both had brain tumors that could have killed them. If he has LLI too... Linc, I think he needs a CAT scan.”
“Give it a decade, Sara. Or two, even,” Lincoln counseled. “Maybe you’re right. It certainly can’t hurt anything to check, but he won’t hold still now and it’ll just scare him. And if Michael and Christina are anything to go by, he’s got nearly thirty years before it would even be an issue.”
Despite her overwhelming need to protect her child from anything, everything that might hurt him, she knew Lincoln was right. She closed her eyes and nodded fiercely, as if trying to convince herself of the truth she already knew. She only stopped nodding, her eyes opening back up when she felt a tiny hand settle on her knee.
“Mama? I builds,” a little voice said, big blue-green eyes shining up at her with tremendous pride.
“You did, Michael. I see,” Sara said, forcing a lightness to her voice that didn’t come naturally. “That’s a really great building, buddy.”
“See, Uncle?” the boy asked, toddling over to Lincoln’s hulking form and pointing at his creation.
“Rockin’ job, little dude,” Lincoln replied, holding a hand up for a high-five. “I really like the colors.”
“Good colors,” Michael nodded solemnly. “Is good.”
“He’s smart, Sara,” Lincoln said again, looking back at her. “He’s good. Better than good, even. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she replied, knowing all the while that - unlike Lincoln - she certainly would worry about it.
*
Day 1179
It had been so long since adrenaline coursed through his veins, so long since he’d felt anything other than despair and frustration, that he almost didn’t recognize the feeling at first. It was a heady rush, hope surging through his circulatory system, feeling as though he might be closer to freedom every time his heart beat.
Crouched against the wall, Michael occupied the sole space in his room that the observation cameras seemed unable to survey. Overhead, the whir of the surveillance camera spinning in search of him was proof enough that this first step of his very risky plan had been a success.
The irony of literally backing himself into a corner hadn’t escaped Michael.
An alarm started up forty-five seconds after he’d taken up residence in the small, private space that defied observation. Calm and staccato, the klaxon was deceptively innocuous, a world away from the blaring sirens of Fox River, and it set his nerves on edge even more.
He counted off in his head, his first real measure of time in the incalculable span of his existence spent in this place, as footsteps echoed steadily down the corridor. Two minutes and thirty seconds after he’d stepped into the void, the door to his cell of a room flung open and two men strode inside.
“Step away from the wall, Scofield,” one of them demanded, weapon drawn and trained steadily on him.
Hands clenched into tight fists and body curled in on itself as he sat with his back against the corner, Michael didn’t respond, instead thudding his head rhythmically against the wall and keeping his wide eyes fixed on the empty space to his left.
“Shit, he’s fuckin’ lost it,” the guard said, lowering his weapon a bit.
“What the hell did they think would happen?” the other guard spoke up. “Keep someone caged up like that without anything or anyone to interact with for years on end, sure he’ll go batshit eventually. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
“Just go get the doc,” the first guard responded. “He’ll pump him full of something, prop him up and put him back to work.”
“Yeah,” came the reply. “Be back in ten.”
Footsteps faded down the hall and Michael fought against the tensing of his muscles, the need to act, for as long as he could, counting down from two hundred in his mind before moving. Then, like a coiled spring, he shot into action. Palms sweaty but fingers tight around a syringe of tranquilizers he’d stolen, he plunged the needle into the inattentive guard’s arm, taking him down with relative ease in mere seconds.
The door was open. The door was open. He was unguarded for the first time in memory, the door was open and the clock was ticking.
With a deep breath and a heady rush of freedom, Michael ran.
The incapacitated guard’s gun tucked in his waistband, Michael plowed down the hallway at a breakneck pace, heading away from the infirmary where he knew a guard and the doctor both were, heading away from the lab he sometimes worked at. As breakout plans went, this was easily his most haphazard and most likely to fail. There were no blueprints, was no way to surveil the surroundings.
He pushed open the first fire escape door he found, but passed the threshold, instead continuing his progression down the hallway. Another fire escape came into view as soon as he rounded the corner and this time he darted through the door and up the stairs he found there.
There was no sound of footfalls behind him and for the first time in recent memory, Michael found himself genuinely hopeful. This could work. This was working. He’d get to the roof, survey his surroundings, shimmy down the side of the building if he was lucky, steal a car and go. He’d have to get in touch with Sara or Linc fast, for their own safety, but he could do that. He would do that.
Reaching the top of the stairway, he opened the door and ran through in one swift motion, finding himself immediately plunged into the black of night and blissfully fresh air. The stars shone brightly overhead but he wasn’t about to stop to admire them. He propelled himself to the edge of the roof to get a better look at his surroundings, ignoring the white paint beneath his feet as he went.
The pitch black of night bled out over the horizon in every direction with no hint of a city or civilization. A glint of something caught his eye in the distance after a moment and he stared at it with no small hint of desperation. It might have been a car or something headed his way. But as his eyes adjusted, he looked again overhead before his eyes drew back down to the horizon.
The moon. It was moonlight glinting off of water.
He rounded the edge of the building, hoping to find something, anything, other than water down below. But it was all in vain. They had him on a damn island in the middle of nowhere and escaping his damn room of a prison only meant he’d escaped into a much larger prison.
He laughed humorlessly, a manic noise, finally spotting the harbor and finding no boat in it before looking down at the white markings on the concrete beneath his feet that he’d dismissed earlier. He was standing on an empty helipad.
“I’m surprised you didn’t try this earlier, Michael,” said a droll voice that Michael knew too well.
He turned and trained his gun on the doctor who was flanked by three guards. The doctor raised his hands in a ridiculous, non-threatening gesture as the three guards pointed their weapons straight at his head.
“We’d expected this a year or two ago,” he continued, taking a step forward. “Not now. Tell me, Michael. Why now? What changed?”
“Opportunity,” Michael replied blankly.
“It was a very poor choice, Michael. A very selfish choice,” the doctor said, his tone reminiscent of a parent scolding a small child. “There are consequences to your actions, you realize.”
Michael stiffened in response, panic rushing through him at the thought of what these people could do, what they had done in the past.
The doctor pulled out a cell phone and Michael’s heart caught in his throat.
“Put the phone down,” Michael demanded, too-clear images racing through his brain of things The Company had done to people in the past. “Put it down.”
“I don’t negotiate with hostages,” the doctor said smoothly, hitting a button on the phone.
He was out of options. Out of options and desperate. Any second the man in front of him was going to order some agent somewhere in the world to hurt his wife or his son or his nephew or his brother, maybe even order their death, just to get him to stay in line. Taking the reason for hurting them away was the only recourse he had, the only chance to keep them safe. Resolved, he raised the gun to his own temple, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
A resoundingly empty click was his only response.
“Really, Michael,” the doctor chided. “We know you better than that.
“Yes, I’m here,” the doctor continued, turning his attention to the phone. “I’m afraid we’ve had an incident.”
“Hang up,” Michael half-begged, half-demanded, taking a step toward the doctor as all three guards cocked their guns.
He was pretty sure those three, unlike the one in his hand, were loaded.
“Hang up and I’ll do what you want. I’ll work on your project. I won’t try anything like this again. Just don’t hurt them,” Michael implored.
“Do it,” the doctor ordered, crisply hanging up the phone as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
“I know you won’t try anything like this again, Michael,” the doctor soothed. “Do you know how I know? Because I make good on my threats. Your nephew is about to have a very bad night. He’s at a bar just off campus at the moment and someone is - oh, just about now - under the impression that he was hitting on the wrong girl. He’s about to get dragged outside and have a few ribs broken, maybe a punctured lung and a pair of black eyes, too.”
Guilt and hatred weighed heavily on Michael, frustration gnawing at his soul as he knew, knew what was happening at that very moment to someone he cared about so very much, but completely incapable of doing anything to stop it.
“Next time it won’t be your nephew and it won’t be a few nights in the hospital, Michael,” the doctor promised darkly. “I find this all quite distasteful - as a doctor. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t force my hand and make me do this. But if I need to, I will remind you quite thoroughly of exactly what happened to little Cameron Mahone.”
Michael couldn’t breathe with the weight of all of this sitting in his chest. The crisp night air lingered just a breath away, but he couldn’t will his lungs to take a long-dreamt-of deep breath.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he agreed quietly. “And I won’t try this again.”
And for the first time since he’d woken up to find himself in this hell of a place, he knew that was entirely true.
( ...Day 1255, Day 1320... )
( ...Day 1479, Day 1507 )
By isis_uf
Rating - R (possible NC-17 somewhere later in the series)
Word Count - 10k-ish
Warnings - Angst with a side of hope, canon-ish (whole series and Final Break), adult themes, references to violence and murder, mild cursing, rampant metaphor use, abuse of imagery themes, one or two probably incorrect internet translations of English to Spanish dialogue
Warnings for series - Whole series (including Final Break) spoilers, violence, (probably) sex, cursing, death, het (canon pairings), classical literature and mythology references, questionable knowledge by the author of science, medicine, code-breaking and the mechanics of shady multinational conglomerates who secretly rule the world
Author’s Note - This is the first of four planned stories that don’t directly violate canon, but take place after Final Break in an attempt to make it more palatable (and, to me, more poetic and satisfying). It will likely be several months before I begin to post the next story (to be titled “Five Minutes to Midnight”). Please understand that it’s plotty and detail-oriented and I want to have it well underway before I post any of it anywhere so that I can avoid backing myself into a corner.
On another note, Michael’s birthday is non-specific because they couldn’t get it straight in canon (I did research it, I swear). I had to make up Lincoln’s, too. The tone and storytelling style of these stories should shift some from story to story. That’s intentional for a variety of reasons. Huge thanks to andacus for the beta, the idea-bouncing and everything else (as always) and to foxriverinmate and jennaxrose for the fact checking and encouragement.
Disclaimer - If it belonged to me I would have established that Christina Scofield had an horrific sociopathic evil twin that took her place after the lovely mother of both Lincoln and Michael died of liver cancer sometime in the 1980s. Since that didn’t happen... you know that nothing Prison Break related belongs to me.
Summary - In some ways, Michael is dead for 1507 days. In a lot of the same ways, Sara and Lincoln are too.
( Day 3, Day 67, Day 122, Day 210, Day 339, Day 365... )
Day 661
“Got any plans today, dad?” LJ asked uneasily, resting his forearms against the kitchen counter while Lincoln rooted around the refrigerator, sniffing some orange juice before apparently deeming it good and swigging some straight from the carton.
“Sure. Got a report due to the boss by eleven and a board meeting at two. Then I’ve got an appointment to get my hair trimmed after work. Not much, just a little around the ears,” he said screwing his face at his teenage son. “What the hell kind of question is that, LJ?”
LJ rolled his eyes dramatically, telegraphing his patience running thin. But when he spoke, his voice was oddly soft and tolerant.
“Come on, dad,” he said gently. “For real.”
“Course not,” Lincoln replied, still looking at his son as though he were maybe crazy. “Do I ever have any plans.”
“Yeah... exactly,” LJ grumbled, once again sounding like the teenager he was.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Lincoln bristled, putting the orange juice carafe back and slamming the fridge door with a little too much force.
“It means... It means, what ever happened to the dive shop idea, dad?” LJ asked.
“I don’t even dive, LJ,” Lincoln countered, ignoring the point as he crossed his muscled arms in front of his chest.
“That’s not the point!” LJ railed. “It was something. It was a goal. It wasn’t... being a beach bum for rest of your life.”
“It was never my plan, okay?” Lincoln argued, voice towering over his son’s. “I was never the one with plans.”
“Right...” LJ huffed, laughing humorlessly. “It was Uncle Mike’s plan and now that he’s gone you’re just standing in place like you’re waiting for directions.”
“Son, you want to watch what you say to me right now,” Lincoln seethed, voice low and blood rushing to his face.
“Two months from now I’ll be off to college,” LJ reminded him. “It’ll be you and Sofia and Sara and the baby. I’m not saying this to be mean, dad. You’ve just gotta have something other than playing house with Sofia and trying to keep Sara from falling apart to keep you going.”
Lincoln didn’t respond, his blood pressure still raging angrily at his son’s comments but at least able to sense the boy’s intentions hadn’t been misplaced.
“Some days keeping Sara in one piece is a full-time job,” he said finally, a retort and an admittance rolled into one.
“It goes both ways,” LJ replied bluntly. “And Uncle Mike would have been the first to tell you that one broken support can’t hold up another for long.”
Linc stared at his son for a long moment, faced with both the reality of the situation and the truth that his boy had grown up somewhere between suburban Chicago and the Costa Rican beaches.
“Yeah, well, he always was a bit of a know-it-all, so he probably woulda been the first to say that,” Lincoln said, shooting for humor but missing his mark slightly.
“He was also usually right,” LJ pointed out.
“Yeah...” Lincoln echoed. “He was also usually right.”
*
Day 904
The carpet was awash in a sea of primary colors, toys strewn about in a way that had proven hazardous to Sara’s toes time and again. Somehow, Mikey seemed to make sense of all of it, always knew what toy was where and even threw a bit of a tantrum if Sara tried to move his blocks before he was finished playing with them.
He was a sweet boy, her almost-toddler, most of the time. But he was also a solitary one. Self-sufficient, his pediatrician called it, and while Sara was at times grateful for her son’s ability to entertain himself, she also worried about his lack of interaction with others. He was driven, single-minded, and seemed happiest playing by himself with blocks or puzzles or crayons. Always proud of his creations, he’d show off his scribbles or block towers with a wide, toothy grin but he rarely wanted help or even conversation as he focused on his task.
“Michael, are you almost...” Sara’s voice trailed off as she placed her teacup back on the coffee table and watched her son work.
Intensely focused, the little boy added to his sprawling block structure with precision and clear intent. And Sara found herself holding her breath as she watched, throat drying out and heart-rate speeding up as she really studied the way he fit the pieces together.
“Knock, knock,” came a voice from the screen door and Lincoln let himself in without awaiting a response. “Where’s my favorite neph... oh, he’s playing with blocks.”
Sara didn’t even glance up at her company, if Lincoln could even be called that at some point, semi-permanent fixture that he was in their household. She chewed her lower lip roughly and watched her son, anticipating with certain knowledge where he’d put the blue block currently sitting in his chubby little hand.
“Do you suddenly zone out staring at blocks too, Sara?” Lincoln asked with amusement, finally drawing his sister-in-law’s attention.
“When was Michael diagnosed with LLI?” she asked with no preamble, her voice thick and heavy.
“Uh... before mom died... or disappeared, whatever. Just before we thought she got sick,” Lincoln replied. “I guess he was like seven or so? Why?”
Sara nodded mutely, glancing back at her son.
“How early can they test for it? Do you know?” she asked finally.
“Sara, why?” Lincoln asked, glancing at Michael and back to her. “You’ve got no reason to...”
“The blocks, Linc. Look at the blocks,” Sara replied.
“So he’s good at blocks. He likes them. So what?” Linc said off-handedly.
“Really look at them, Linc,” she shot back, looking up at him with wide, worried eyes.
Red, blue, blue, yellow, yellow, yellow
Red, red, blue, blue, blue, yellow
Red, red, red blue, yellow, yellow
“It’s a pattern,” she laughed bitterly, running her hands through her hair as Lincoln’s brow furrowed in twin concern. “My God, Linc. He’s not even two yet and he’s building patterns. That’s not normal.”
“So? He’s smart. You’re smart. My brother was smart. It’s not surprising that your son’s an ivy league shoe-in is it?” Lincoln asked.
“It’s more than that and you know it,” Sara countered, eyes boring into him, daring him to contradict her. “My son’s father and grandmother both had LLI and they both had brain tumors that could have killed them. If he has LLI too... Linc, I think he needs a CAT scan.”
“Give it a decade, Sara. Or two, even,” Lincoln counseled. “Maybe you’re right. It certainly can’t hurt anything to check, but he won’t hold still now and it’ll just scare him. And if Michael and Christina are anything to go by, he’s got nearly thirty years before it would even be an issue.”
Despite her overwhelming need to protect her child from anything, everything that might hurt him, she knew Lincoln was right. She closed her eyes and nodded fiercely, as if trying to convince herself of the truth she already knew. She only stopped nodding, her eyes opening back up when she felt a tiny hand settle on her knee.
“Mama? I builds,” a little voice said, big blue-green eyes shining up at her with tremendous pride.
“You did, Michael. I see,” Sara said, forcing a lightness to her voice that didn’t come naturally. “That’s a really great building, buddy.”
“See, Uncle?” the boy asked, toddling over to Lincoln’s hulking form and pointing at his creation.
“Rockin’ job, little dude,” Lincoln replied, holding a hand up for a high-five. “I really like the colors.”
“Good colors,” Michael nodded solemnly. “Is good.”
“He’s smart, Sara,” Lincoln said again, looking back at her. “He’s good. Better than good, even. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she replied, knowing all the while that - unlike Lincoln - she certainly would worry about it.
*
Day 1179
It had been so long since adrenaline coursed through his veins, so long since he’d felt anything other than despair and frustration, that he almost didn’t recognize the feeling at first. It was a heady rush, hope surging through his circulatory system, feeling as though he might be closer to freedom every time his heart beat.
Crouched against the wall, Michael occupied the sole space in his room that the observation cameras seemed unable to survey. Overhead, the whir of the surveillance camera spinning in search of him was proof enough that this first step of his very risky plan had been a success.
The irony of literally backing himself into a corner hadn’t escaped Michael.
An alarm started up forty-five seconds after he’d taken up residence in the small, private space that defied observation. Calm and staccato, the klaxon was deceptively innocuous, a world away from the blaring sirens of Fox River, and it set his nerves on edge even more.
He counted off in his head, his first real measure of time in the incalculable span of his existence spent in this place, as footsteps echoed steadily down the corridor. Two minutes and thirty seconds after he’d stepped into the void, the door to his cell of a room flung open and two men strode inside.
“Step away from the wall, Scofield,” one of them demanded, weapon drawn and trained steadily on him.
Hands clenched into tight fists and body curled in on itself as he sat with his back against the corner, Michael didn’t respond, instead thudding his head rhythmically against the wall and keeping his wide eyes fixed on the empty space to his left.
“Shit, he’s fuckin’ lost it,” the guard said, lowering his weapon a bit.
“What the hell did they think would happen?” the other guard spoke up. “Keep someone caged up like that without anything or anyone to interact with for years on end, sure he’ll go batshit eventually. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
“Just go get the doc,” the first guard responded. “He’ll pump him full of something, prop him up and put him back to work.”
“Yeah,” came the reply. “Be back in ten.”
Footsteps faded down the hall and Michael fought against the tensing of his muscles, the need to act, for as long as he could, counting down from two hundred in his mind before moving. Then, like a coiled spring, he shot into action. Palms sweaty but fingers tight around a syringe of tranquilizers he’d stolen, he plunged the needle into the inattentive guard’s arm, taking him down with relative ease in mere seconds.
The door was open. The door was open. He was unguarded for the first time in memory, the door was open and the clock was ticking.
With a deep breath and a heady rush of freedom, Michael ran.
The incapacitated guard’s gun tucked in his waistband, Michael plowed down the hallway at a breakneck pace, heading away from the infirmary where he knew a guard and the doctor both were, heading away from the lab he sometimes worked at. As breakout plans went, this was easily his most haphazard and most likely to fail. There were no blueprints, was no way to surveil the surroundings.
He pushed open the first fire escape door he found, but passed the threshold, instead continuing his progression down the hallway. Another fire escape came into view as soon as he rounded the corner and this time he darted through the door and up the stairs he found there.
There was no sound of footfalls behind him and for the first time in recent memory, Michael found himself genuinely hopeful. This could work. This was working. He’d get to the roof, survey his surroundings, shimmy down the side of the building if he was lucky, steal a car and go. He’d have to get in touch with Sara or Linc fast, for their own safety, but he could do that. He would do that.
Reaching the top of the stairway, he opened the door and ran through in one swift motion, finding himself immediately plunged into the black of night and blissfully fresh air. The stars shone brightly overhead but he wasn’t about to stop to admire them. He propelled himself to the edge of the roof to get a better look at his surroundings, ignoring the white paint beneath his feet as he went.
The pitch black of night bled out over the horizon in every direction with no hint of a city or civilization. A glint of something caught his eye in the distance after a moment and he stared at it with no small hint of desperation. It might have been a car or something headed his way. But as his eyes adjusted, he looked again overhead before his eyes drew back down to the horizon.
The moon. It was moonlight glinting off of water.
He rounded the edge of the building, hoping to find something, anything, other than water down below. But it was all in vain. They had him on a damn island in the middle of nowhere and escaping his damn room of a prison only meant he’d escaped into a much larger prison.
He laughed humorlessly, a manic noise, finally spotting the harbor and finding no boat in it before looking down at the white markings on the concrete beneath his feet that he’d dismissed earlier. He was standing on an empty helipad.
“I’m surprised you didn’t try this earlier, Michael,” said a droll voice that Michael knew too well.
He turned and trained his gun on the doctor who was flanked by three guards. The doctor raised his hands in a ridiculous, non-threatening gesture as the three guards pointed their weapons straight at his head.
“We’d expected this a year or two ago,” he continued, taking a step forward. “Not now. Tell me, Michael. Why now? What changed?”
“Opportunity,” Michael replied blankly.
“It was a very poor choice, Michael. A very selfish choice,” the doctor said, his tone reminiscent of a parent scolding a small child. “There are consequences to your actions, you realize.”
Michael stiffened in response, panic rushing through him at the thought of what these people could do, what they had done in the past.
The doctor pulled out a cell phone and Michael’s heart caught in his throat.
“Put the phone down,” Michael demanded, too-clear images racing through his brain of things The Company had done to people in the past. “Put it down.”
“I don’t negotiate with hostages,” the doctor said smoothly, hitting a button on the phone.
He was out of options. Out of options and desperate. Any second the man in front of him was going to order some agent somewhere in the world to hurt his wife or his son or his nephew or his brother, maybe even order their death, just to get him to stay in line. Taking the reason for hurting them away was the only recourse he had, the only chance to keep them safe. Resolved, he raised the gun to his own temple, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
A resoundingly empty click was his only response.
“Really, Michael,” the doctor chided. “We know you better than that.
“Yes, I’m here,” the doctor continued, turning his attention to the phone. “I’m afraid we’ve had an incident.”
“Hang up,” Michael half-begged, half-demanded, taking a step toward the doctor as all three guards cocked their guns.
He was pretty sure those three, unlike the one in his hand, were loaded.
“Hang up and I’ll do what you want. I’ll work on your project. I won’t try anything like this again. Just don’t hurt them,” Michael implored.
“Do it,” the doctor ordered, crisply hanging up the phone as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
“I know you won’t try anything like this again, Michael,” the doctor soothed. “Do you know how I know? Because I make good on my threats. Your nephew is about to have a very bad night. He’s at a bar just off campus at the moment and someone is - oh, just about now - under the impression that he was hitting on the wrong girl. He’s about to get dragged outside and have a few ribs broken, maybe a punctured lung and a pair of black eyes, too.”
Guilt and hatred weighed heavily on Michael, frustration gnawing at his soul as he knew, knew what was happening at that very moment to someone he cared about so very much, but completely incapable of doing anything to stop it.
“Next time it won’t be your nephew and it won’t be a few nights in the hospital, Michael,” the doctor promised darkly. “I find this all quite distasteful - as a doctor. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t force my hand and make me do this. But if I need to, I will remind you quite thoroughly of exactly what happened to little Cameron Mahone.”
Michael couldn’t breathe with the weight of all of this sitting in his chest. The crisp night air lingered just a breath away, but he couldn’t will his lungs to take a long-dreamt-of deep breath.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he agreed quietly. “And I won’t try this again.”
And for the first time since he’d woken up to find himself in this hell of a place, he knew that was entirely true.
( ...Day 1255, Day 1320... )
( ...Day 1479, Day 1507 )