Waking up is hard to do
[Note: This is seriously backdated.]
It's dark. Dark and enveloping, in the same way that water is wet and drowning. It's no comfort, no help, because there's something profoundly wrong with it being dark.
It shouldn't be dark.
It means he's not awake. And as his conscious thought processes seep into the equation, he begins to become pretty certain that he was in fact awake just a few moments ago. Driving. Heading out of ...
Michigan?
He needs to make sense of this, he decides sluggishly; but as his mind pulls him from the mire of oblivion, he's reminded that very little has made sense in the last hour or so since he got here.
Michigan. Dearborne. Fiona. He was here for Fiona.
Even when you're waking up from a stupor, it's never a good idea to move instantly, because you never know who's watching. Most of your training as a spy involves learning how to override the natural instincts that humans have evolved over thousands of years, and it's not easy. Staying still means you can gather information without the risk of having a guard kick you back into that dark place you just crawled out of, minus perhaps a few teeth. And information, when you're in this business, is priceless.
He doesn't open his eyes yet, instead choosing to take in an analyse what his other senses tell him. Hearing: he can hear the ambient sounds that tell him he's outside, somewhere. And he's sitting -- well, slumped. With his face against ... wait. That sensation is a familiar one. Wasn't he just -- ?
His eyes now snap open. Blinking briefly to adjust to the light now streaming in, he focuses with some difficulty on where he is. Inside. He's in a ... car. Soft seat. His face is resting on a steering wheel.
And a moment later after that assessment, he realizes: He's in his Charger. The colder Michigan air is washing over him through the shattered windshield. A little more listening determines that he's alone, and he straightens sharply, his hands coming up to grab at the steering wheel as he does so, as if getting a grip in a literal sense will somehow enable him to get a grip on events metaphorically.
He's back where he started. Without Fiona. In his damaged car, which has been, apparently, moved back onto the street from where he started this escapade. He narrows his eyes at the street in front of him.
Psychological warfare is a tricky but very effective business. Keeping someone unbalanced and disoriented is a well-known precursor to an interrogation. By the time you start asking questions, your target is desperate and fragile and receptive to any offer you care to make. It's a technique cultists have been using for decades, stoking the insecurities of vulnerable individuals before offering them what appears to be the perfect solution to everything.
A really good way to induce short-term amnesia is the use of a common drug called Versed. It's used everywhere for medical procedures, it's cheap, and therefore insanely simple to get hold of. It's easily administered, takes effect fast, doesn't stick around in the system for long, makes your subject agreeable to control, and you can make them lose huge chunks of time and memory in the process.
Versed it is. The question would be how it was administered; but he's touched any number of things he's not familiar with. Perhaps something in Fiona's car. He doesn't know where she acquired it, after all. It would fit with the timeframe. Remotely triggered into the closed interior, it would take perhaps a few minutes at most to kick in. The question would then have been how they were removed without crashing the car.
Or if Fiona was in on it, and was the one who dosed him.
She's not here. That's a possibility he has to entertain too. He glances down, and notes that his knuckles are turning white as he grasps the steering wheel. He resists the urge to swear out loud. Whoever this is, whatever it is they want, they're playing a well-orchestrated game, and they're not going to reveal themselves until they're good and ready. Or until he provokes them enough to do so.
Provoking it is. He sets his jaw-- still sore from slamming into that steering wheel so recently-- and pushes open the driver's side door. He has to check and see if the cache he brought with him was also put back into the trunk.
It's dark. Dark and enveloping, in the same way that water is wet and drowning. It's no comfort, no help, because there's something profoundly wrong with it being dark.
It shouldn't be dark.
It means he's not awake. And as his conscious thought processes seep into the equation, he begins to become pretty certain that he was in fact awake just a few moments ago. Driving. Heading out of ...
Michigan?
He needs to make sense of this, he decides sluggishly; but as his mind pulls him from the mire of oblivion, he's reminded that very little has made sense in the last hour or so since he got here.
Michigan. Dearborne. Fiona. He was here for Fiona.
Even when you're waking up from a stupor, it's never a good idea to move instantly, because you never know who's watching. Most of your training as a spy involves learning how to override the natural instincts that humans have evolved over thousands of years, and it's not easy. Staying still means you can gather information without the risk of having a guard kick you back into that dark place you just crawled out of, minus perhaps a few teeth. And information, when you're in this business, is priceless.
He doesn't open his eyes yet, instead choosing to take in an analyse what his other senses tell him. Hearing: he can hear the ambient sounds that tell him he's outside, somewhere. And he's sitting -- well, slumped. With his face against ... wait. That sensation is a familiar one. Wasn't he just -- ?
His eyes now snap open. Blinking briefly to adjust to the light now streaming in, he focuses with some difficulty on where he is. Inside. He's in a ... car. Soft seat. His face is resting on a steering wheel.
And a moment later after that assessment, he realizes: He's in his Charger. The colder Michigan air is washing over him through the shattered windshield. A little more listening determines that he's alone, and he straightens sharply, his hands coming up to grab at the steering wheel as he does so, as if getting a grip in a literal sense will somehow enable him to get a grip on events metaphorically.
He's back where he started. Without Fiona. In his damaged car, which has been, apparently, moved back onto the street from where he started this escapade. He narrows his eyes at the street in front of him.
Psychological warfare is a tricky but very effective business. Keeping someone unbalanced and disoriented is a well-known precursor to an interrogation. By the time you start asking questions, your target is desperate and fragile and receptive to any offer you care to make. It's a technique cultists have been using for decades, stoking the insecurities of vulnerable individuals before offering them what appears to be the perfect solution to everything.
A really good way to induce short-term amnesia is the use of a common drug called Versed. It's used everywhere for medical procedures, it's cheap, and therefore insanely simple to get hold of. It's easily administered, takes effect fast, doesn't stick around in the system for long, makes your subject agreeable to control, and you can make them lose huge chunks of time and memory in the process.
Versed it is. The question would be how it was administered; but he's touched any number of things he's not familiar with. Perhaps something in Fiona's car. He doesn't know where she acquired it, after all. It would fit with the timeframe. Remotely triggered into the closed interior, it would take perhaps a few minutes at most to kick in. The question would then have been how they were removed without crashing the car.
Or if Fiona was in on it, and was the one who dosed him.
She's not here. That's a possibility he has to entertain too. He glances down, and notes that his knuckles are turning white as he grasps the steering wheel. He resists the urge to swear out loud. Whoever this is, whatever it is they want, they're playing a well-orchestrated game, and they're not going to reveal themselves until they're good and ready. Or until he provokes them enough to do so.
Provoking it is. He sets his jaw-- still sore from slamming into that steering wheel so recently-- and pushes open the driver's side door. He has to check and see if the cache he brought with him was also put back into the trunk.