The Wild - Chapter One
Master Post here
Chapter One
The blood was slick between his fingers, sweat made his eyes sting and he breathed heavily, forcing the oxygen his muscles needed to continue moving deep into his lungs, he had to keep moving, had to keep fighting.
A fist connected with a chin, ribs cracked under an elbow, a leg swiped out and someone to the left fell. Eliot couldn't keep from grinning. Turn. Twist. Spin. Elbow connected again, quickly followed by a backhanded blow. Only two left. When he swiped his forehead he felt the blood sticking and he could only imagine what he looks like. Bloodied, dirty and grinning like a lunatic.
The two remaining thugs apparently decided they would have a better chance together and attacked at once. They didn't. A dodge, a step and a push and one tumbled into the other, making it easy for Eliot to knock their heads together and making them crumble into a tangled heap.
He almost didn't notice the sting in his adrenaline high. He did notice how heavy his limbs got through and before all faded to black he cursed whoever invented the tranquilizer gun.
***
pain
restraints
bright lights
oblivion
***
When Eliot woke up he was alone. He slowly opened his eyes and then closed them again when he recognized the unrelenting darkness. It was the darkness that only comes from a windowless cell. He didn't want to stop and think about what it meant that he could identify that kind of darkness so easily.
Keeping his eyes closed to protect himself from sudden brightness he tried to move, tried to find his bearings in the darkness. Some careful flexing and twisting told him that his hands and feet where unbound but a rather substantial chain where attached to a collar around his neck.
"Like a fucking dog..." His own voice sounded rough and unused and he wondered how long he'd been out.
The other end of the chain disappeared into the wall, the length was such that he could walk around the room but just barely. He found a toilet in one corner, the cot he woke up on and a door, sealed shut, in the middle of the wall opposite where the chain was attached. He found no way out.
After a while he found out what the chain was for. He couldn't say how long he'd been awake when he felt the tugs, first a light one - as if to warn him - then one harder, pulling him towards the wall until he was standing with his back to it. He heard a metallic sound and then he was stuck. The chain had been locked with something and that meant he could't move his head at all. He felt a pinch at the back of his neck and then everything faded to a diffrent kind of black.
Running, running, running though woods painted with scents; moonlight caressing winter bare trees; cold air ruffling fur and carrying messages; a faint howl, far away, steers him right and he runs.
When he woke up in the dark again he was confused by his furless limbs before he remembered. The chain was still there but loose now and he could smell food, his stomach rumbled loudly in response and sniffed the air he rolled off the cot, landing in a crouch. The movement caused his head to swim a bit and he wondered just how long he has been without food.
He found the plate on the floor near the door, the cell was still pitch black so he only had his nose to rely on for figuring out just what it was they where serving him. The food didn't seem to have many spices and something was decidedly off with the scents, like there was something in there that should not be paired with what appeared to be mashed potatoes, meat and carrots. Eliot sniffed the air above the plate. The odd smell seemed chemical in nature and it wound itself mostly around the scent of the potatoes. His stomach growled at him again and he echoed it himself.
"Won't be any use starved to death..." he muttered as he felt around for some kind of utensil. Of course there was none and he couldn't help but admire his captors. They had obviously done their homework, he did know at least ten ways to kill someone with a fork after all. Eliot shrugged his shoulders and sat down, grabbing the plate. He decided to forgo the potatoes to begin with just in case they where drugged and it wasn't just a badly cleaned pot or some other harmless thing.
The meat was badly over-cooked and the carrots where just a step from disintegrating into tasteless mush but it was food and before long it was all gone and his stomach was still growling. Despite the chemical tint the potatoes where starting to seem mighty tempting.
"If they wanted to kill me there would be easier ways. I'm probably just imagining it anyway..." He knew he was making excuses for himself. All his experience was telling him to trust his gut, trust his nose, but hunger still raged inside of him, drowning out everything else. So he decided to chance it. He didn't think it could get any worse.
It got worse.
Pain tore through his body, muscles clenched, spasmed and strained. It felt like his bones were moving and something was shifting in his eyeballs. He screamed, screamed, screamed until his voice broke and blessed blackness enveloped him.
Behind his eyelids the light was red, red like newly spilled blood and when his eye was forcibly opened the brightness cut like a knife. He heared voices, the speech sounded like gibberish, rising and falling like the waves of the ocean. Every part of him hurt, he could feel bands holding him tight against a smooth rigid surface when he tried to move. The fuzzy bright shape that leaned over him moved to shine it's sharp light into his other eye which hurt just as much. The pain was getting to him and he attempted to disconnect from himself, disconnect from whatever they were doing to his body and protect his mind. He knew enduring would be is only chance, knew that he had to keep from breaking to have a shot at getting out of here. Before he managed to get to safe place in his own mind he heard something that chilled him to the bone and ripped him back to reality. A scream, not his own - a female, accompanied by a weak scent of someone he knows. Parker. Oh God. Parker was here.
***
"Nate, I can't work with you hoovering! Seriously, you need to be somewhere not here."
"Well have you tried-"
"Yes, yes and yes. I am searching everywhere I can and a few places I shouldn't be able to."
"And..."
"Nothing, not a trace."
"Show me the videos again."
"You've watched them like a million times already."
"I know that Hardison, show them to me again"
The hacker tapped a few buttons and two different CCTV-recordings began playing on the screens. One showed Eliot fighting off the gang of thugs before falling to the tranq-dart. The other featured Parker. They'd picked her off the street; she had been walking towards Nate's apartment, hands in her own pockets to keep from picking other peoples out of habit, when a man in non-descript black clothing fell into step with her. Just as she noticed him he extended a hand and she flinched like he pinched her. The grainy image showed her trying to turn towards her attacker but before she could even finish the movement her legs gave out. The man in black gathered her up in his arms as a dark van stopped and the two of them disappeared into it. The whole thing didn't take more than a minute.
"You haven't been able to follow the van?"
"You know I haven't - they used decoys and probably switched cars too." Didn't mean he hadn't tried. He had followed every dark van he could find in the Boston traffic that whole day as far as he could and still nothing.
Nate sighed in frustration as Hardison went back to checking all the different search algorithms he had running. It was a bit like looking for a needle in a stack of needles but maybe they would get lucky.
"I'll find you. Somehow I'll find you... please be alive."
***
She floated in darkness, warm comforting darkness. Somewhere on the outside her skin was pricked by needles, her throat was blocked by a tube and her eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling but in here, in her special safe place, nothing could harm her, nothing could find her. In here, in her head, she was safe.
***
Eliot thought that this waking up hurting in a pitch black cell was really getting old. The collar was still secure around his neck, his clothes where still missing and once again there was the scent of food in the air. As he lay perfectly still on the cot he thought about escape. They really hadn't made it easy for him, after taking stock of his options he figured his best bet would be to try and stay awake when they came to take him to the bright room, he couldn't be sure but in there they might remove the collar, at the very least they would have to detach it from the chain.
Figuring that dodging the needle in the neck might be a bit much even for him the drug-laced food where his second option, if they used the same chemical every time he might be able to build up a resistance but if they didn't hiding the food while still seeming to eat it could work. Unless they where monitoring him with heat sensitive cameras. Eliot cursed to himself. Too many variables, too many things that could go wrong.
He rolled off the cot again; his muscles felt exhausted, worn, like he'd been training hard for a week so he adjusted his plan. He wouldn't be able to do anything if his body didn't behave as it should so he found the middle of the floor and started a basic kata. As he let his body flow through the familiar movements he felt some of the weariness fade as his blood carried oxygen through every muscle. As he kept going he discovered that the weariness was retreating faster than he ever thought possible and for the first time he wondered exactly what it was they are doing to him.
After a good while of awakening his body he settled on the floor to eat. His nose revealed that he was getting fish this time, asparagus on the side and the same mashed potatoes as before. The chemical smell was still there as well but he couldn't be sure it was the same as the day before.
"No time like the present..." he muttered as he dug in, starting with the protein and the vegetable. He took a breath before finally eating the laced potatoes, mentally preparing himself for the pain and vowing to try and stay conscious for as long as possible.
The pain was worse this time, maybe because he was expecting it, but he fought it using every trick in the book. Before he finally succumbed to the darkness of unconsciousness he saw the door open and the outline of two people haloed by bright white light.
***
"She won't eat. Just sits there, staring with those dead eyes."
"Think we made a mistake picking her?"
"No, she fits perfectly physically and she is answering well to the treatment."
"If she doesn't eat she won't be for long."
"Use the tube again."
"Are you certain?"
"Of course I am certain, and you better not be question me if you value your job."
"No, sir, I won't, sir. The tube it is."
Parker barely flinched at the first tug on her collar but at the second, harder one, she looked up and stared eerily straight at the hidden camera while moving to stand against the wall to avoid being pulled off her feet. She stared until the tranquilizer did it's work and her eyes rolled up into her skull as her body crumbled into a small heap.
***
"Sophie? Any leads?"
"Nothing. I'm worried Nate, really worried."
"We'll get them back. They'll contact us when they can." He didn't say if they can and Sophie pretended she didnt hear him not saying it.
"I'll try someone else. There is this man in Brussels..."
"Let me know at once if he knows anything."
"Of course. And Nate?"
"Yeah?"
"Please stay safe..."
"Always. You too."
"See you soon."
***
The heat makes the air shiver. Colors flare and fade only to flare again. Rough bark under her feet as she slowly stalks, soft, soft before an explosion of movement and the pray is wriggling in her mouth.
Parker floated towards consciousness, shedding the dream as she went. With wakefulness came the feeling of wrongness, her skin, her eyes, everything was not right. She saw things she shouldn't, like the camera in the corner, like the outlines of things in the dark room, like heat from the plate of food on the floor that made her feel nauseous. All wrong.
As she sat on the cot she thought of escape, she thought of how she could use the wrongness, make it her own. Like she did, like she always does.
***
Eliot started counting the conscious periods. He called them days out of convenience and by the seventh he really wanted to find the cook in this place and kill him, just to bring justice to all the vegetables he had managed to desecrate. He also thought he was going a bit mad. Or madder. Hard to tell.
He was managing to stay conscious for longer now, he knew the two people that came to get him from his cell where dressed in white lab coats and had their faces covered with masks. He knew they got him onto a stretcher and then onto a bed. He knew the pain was not lessening.
The yellow grass flow in the wind, the scent of his prey is in his nose and he moves slowly, surely. Closer. When the time is right he pounces, leaps once, twice and his teeth sink into the neck of his prey.
He woke up roaring in victory. But the blood he tasted was his own and the air in the cell was nothing like the dry winds.
Another mental notch on the wall, another period of consciousness, another plate of badly cooked poisonous food.
***
She wondered if they watched her all the time or just sometimes. She didn't know what she would do if she knew the answer. No windows and no lock on this side of the door. She's good but not that good. As she sat on the cot, ignoring the plate of food as usual, she looked down on her fingers. It was still strange to be able to see in near pitch black but for every not-sleep it got easier, more like her. Just like her skin, somehow it didn't feel so alien anymore, but the most interesting part was her fingers, the way they don't work and still functioned so much better than before.
They were changing her. She could use that.
***
He was pretty sure he was not imagining things now. If he knew one thing it was how his body reacted, how it felt. His life had depended on him knowing exactly what he could and should do when for a long time now and now, now it was different. It wasn't bad different either. Muscles reacted quicker, he recuperated from the periods of unconsciousness faster and he could stay awake longer when they fed him the drugs. They were making him stronger, faster, better... he smiled to himself when the quote made him think of Hardison but then the smile faded when that thought lead to the rest of the team and Parker. Gods, Parker... if they were doing this to him what the hell where they doing to her. The worry and anger made it hard to sit still and he started to pace. He needed to get out or, failing that, to get word out so the others could find him. If they weren't caught as well. Maybe they were waiting for him to bust them all out. Maybe they were all sitting in dark windowless cells trying to figure out how to get out.
Eliot shook his head. No. He had to believe they were out there... had to believe they were safe.
He made his move the next time they came. It was easy fooling them into the belief that the drugs had rendered him unconscious, it lured them closer, into his reach, it made them unlatch the chain from the collar. There were two of them this time too and they were definitely not fighters. A sweeping kick, two quick strikes and he was rifling through the pockets of their lab coats before heading out the door. The glaring white light of the corridor hurt his eyes but it didn't stop him. Hoping to gather as much information as possible and silently praying he was valuable enough not to shoot on sight he moved fast, checking doors and noting cameras. As soon as he found an angle where the cameras wouldn't see he tried the phone and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it unlocked and with reception.
Hardison had made them memorize the numbers, first an ordinary telephone-number and then a six-digit code. Eliot had grumbled at the time but now he was grateful. He had just keyed in the final number when an alarm went off and he realized they've done something to his hearing. Before he fell to his knees and covered his ears with his hands he managed throw the phone against the wall, shattering it in a thousand pieces. The blaring of the alarm cut through his head like a knife and he wasn't aware the security has found him until everything went black.
***
The sharp beep woke Hardison up and he sat up sharply. A single key from his keyboard was stuck to his forehead and his neck sounded like a breakfast cereal when he turned his head to localize what the beep originated from. His heart jumped into his throat when he saw exactly which window was blinking.
"Naaaaaate!"
Hardison's fingers flew over the keys and he could barely hear over the blood rushing in his ears. A lead. They finally had a lead. It didn't take long for Nate to get over to Hardison's nest of electronics but the hacker was already far into his lines of code and trace-patterns.
"Did you find something?"
"Not me. Him."
"Eliot?"
"Yeah... used the emergency number, the one I made for all of you."
"So. Where is he?"
Hardison stopped typing and looked up at Nate.
"I'm fast, but I'm not that fast. But thanks for the vote of confidence..." He turned back to his screens, fingers flying and Nate squeezed his shoulder before going to get him a fresh orange soda. It wasn't much, but it was a tiny speck of light in the previous darkness.
***
"Should we terminate the experiment, sir?"
"No, it would be too much of a loss."
"So what are you orders then, sir?"
"Leave him to stew for a while. Let him wonder."
"Yes, sir, certainly sir."
***
This time it was different, no needle and no strange tasting food, just restraints and a short walk through a corridor that most people would see as white but for Parker shifted in colors she'd never seen before. They had given her clothing, pants and a tank-top but her feet and hands were bare.
Automatically she counted steps and memorized numbers of doors and adjoining corridors. The people at her sides are glowing with heat, alive, but their faces look dead to the world. 243 steps, five doors and two intersections later they stopped outside another door with text and numbers on it. She knew she should know what they meant, but they made no sense. Before she could figure it out her left escort presses a thumb against a sensor as her right looked into a scanner and the door hissed and sputtered before opening.
The room looked like an over-sized playground with bars and boxes, swings and ropes filling it. Parker felt her restraints loosen but when she spun to get out of the grip on her arms they pushed her forward and while she regained he balance the door closed she was alone.
"Welcome Parker. Your mission is simple - get to the other side of the room. Begin." The voice boomed from speakers in all corners of the room and Parker flinched. As she looked up she saw a blank square which probably was supposed to hide the people watching her, except she could see them, she could see all three of them standing there looking at her though the shiny glass, glowing red and yellow.
She knew they had changed her, made her different. She could use that. She stared at the people staring at her as she walked towards the wall, as she climbed the smooth shiny surface she wondered if the mirrored glass is breakable and when she got close enough to look the watchers in the eye she tested it. The glass didn't budge but the people behind it flinched and backed up. All but one. That one stared back for a long while before he reached out and pressed a button.
When the dart hit she lost her grip and fell. The world turned black before she landed.
"So, uhm, I guess it worked... sir" The jangly young man in the lab coat looked at Parker and suppressed a shiver.
"We already knew it worked. We just didn't know how well" The smile on the older mans lips was thin. "She is truly remarkable... truly..."
"Back to her cell, sir?" The burly guard who had caught Parker after his colleague shot her held her in an oddly gentle grip.
"Yes, yes... and leave the light on in there this time. She deserves a reward."
"But, sir, she didn't follow the order?" The young mans knuckles were whitened around the edges of his clipboard. The older man looked at his assistant and smiled cruelly.
"Noo... she did better... so much better..."
***
When Eliot woke up again it felt like he'd been sleeping for a week. Maybe he had, he isn't sure... there was a bandage around his knee and he felt the tell-tale stretch of skin that indicate a healing superficial wound and the rest of his body felt bruised and stiff. As his addled brain woke up more he remembered and figured he must have landed on a piece of the broken phone when he fell to his knees. He couldn't help chuckling to himself - he really didn't get far did he - but the chuckle ended in a sigh as his thoughts went to Nate, Sophie and Hardison... While he did get the message out he wasn't at all sure there was anyone out there to receive it.
More awake now Eliot felt his stomach rumbling, he sniffed the air but found no scent of food, poisoned or not. It's a change of routine and it worried him. Nothing makes it harder to plan than changed routines. He rolled out of bed and started his katas to wake up his muscles.
The familiarity of the movements made his mind relax and drift and soon he found himself thinking of the others again, of Nate and Sophie especially. It's strange, before he might have thought about them in images or sounds but now, now he desperately tried to remember their smells. Sophie was easier, her perfumes, always thoughtfully chosen to match the character she was supposed to play or the mood she was in. Nate is not so sophisticated, he smelled of soap and apple shampoo and that special underlying scent that was purely him. Eliot would have given a lot to just be able to be near them again and frustration made him falter in his movement.
It wasn't this hard before, when he was alone, when there was no one out there waiting for him, no one who knew exactly what it was he does at least. Of course, if this had happened before he would have been stuck, there would have been no one to call, no one who was looking for him. At least now there was a chance. He had a chance.
The chain rattled when he sat down on the cot again, the metal cold against his skin.
"Can't you even give me a pair of pants you fuckers!" The anger felt familiar, like a worn pair of jeans but it fizzled fast with nothing solid to aim it at.
"Pervy shitheads." He muttered to himself and pulled his knees up to lean his head against. There had to be an end to this. Someone was coming to get him. His stomach rumbled. Unless he starved to death first of course.
***
"Yes! Booyah! Finally! Take that evil cell phone monkeys, you're all my bitches!" Hardison barely avoided knocking over his collection of empty soda bottles with his victory dance. It had been a struggle finding the area where Eliot's call had originated from but through some creative manipulation of servers and a call to a very helpful lady who totally had earned some cookies he finally had an answer.
So the area might be a bit on the big side and he had no way of knowing from which part of it the call came but at least it was better than what he had before which was a big fat nothing.
"Nate! Sophie! Pack your shit - we are going to Wyoming!
"You found them?" Sophie's voice was tinted with careful optimism.
"Not exactly but I know where we should look..."
"Hardison, I don't hug you enough!" Sophie apparently decided to remedy that instantly and wrapped her arms around the hacker, holding him tight.
"Hey, I don't mind the hug and all but we still need to get them out from where ever they are being held too... and we don't even know what evil bastards picked them up in the first place." Hardison gently held Sophie and politely ignored the tears soaking his shirt. He didn't like this shirt much in the first place anyway.
"... at least we don't have to sit around and wait anymore..." Sophie's voice was muffled before she raised her head to look at him. "Great job."
"Thanks!" He patted her a bit awkwardly. "Now go pack... and wake up Nate! I can't believe he's sleeping though this!"
"It's four in the morning and he's been up at least as long as you." Her words made Alec aware of the weariness in his own bones.
"Oh, right. Well, plane leaves in five hours... I should probably get some sleep too, maybe...."
"Go, get some sleep. I'll pack everything but your electronic stuff. That I'm not touching with a ten foot pole."
"You better not... I'll just... yeah." Hardison barely made it to the sofa before he fell forward. He was asleep before his head stopped bouncing on the pillow.
Chapter Two
Chapter One
The blood was slick between his fingers, sweat made his eyes sting and he breathed heavily, forcing the oxygen his muscles needed to continue moving deep into his lungs, he had to keep moving, had to keep fighting.
A fist connected with a chin, ribs cracked under an elbow, a leg swiped out and someone to the left fell. Eliot couldn't keep from grinning. Turn. Twist. Spin. Elbow connected again, quickly followed by a backhanded blow. Only two left. When he swiped his forehead he felt the blood sticking and he could only imagine what he looks like. Bloodied, dirty and grinning like a lunatic.
The two remaining thugs apparently decided they would have a better chance together and attacked at once. They didn't. A dodge, a step and a push and one tumbled into the other, making it easy for Eliot to knock their heads together and making them crumble into a tangled heap.
He almost didn't notice the sting in his adrenaline high. He did notice how heavy his limbs got through and before all faded to black he cursed whoever invented the tranquilizer gun.
***
pain
restraints
bright lights
oblivion
***
When Eliot woke up he was alone. He slowly opened his eyes and then closed them again when he recognized the unrelenting darkness. It was the darkness that only comes from a windowless cell. He didn't want to stop and think about what it meant that he could identify that kind of darkness so easily.
Keeping his eyes closed to protect himself from sudden brightness he tried to move, tried to find his bearings in the darkness. Some careful flexing and twisting told him that his hands and feet where unbound but a rather substantial chain where attached to a collar around his neck.
"Like a fucking dog..." His own voice sounded rough and unused and he wondered how long he'd been out.
The other end of the chain disappeared into the wall, the length was such that he could walk around the room but just barely. He found a toilet in one corner, the cot he woke up on and a door, sealed shut, in the middle of the wall opposite where the chain was attached. He found no way out.
After a while he found out what the chain was for. He couldn't say how long he'd been awake when he felt the tugs, first a light one - as if to warn him - then one harder, pulling him towards the wall until he was standing with his back to it. He heard a metallic sound and then he was stuck. The chain had been locked with something and that meant he could't move his head at all. He felt a pinch at the back of his neck and then everything faded to a diffrent kind of black.
Running, running, running though woods painted with scents; moonlight caressing winter bare trees; cold air ruffling fur and carrying messages; a faint howl, far away, steers him right and he runs.
When he woke up in the dark again he was confused by his furless limbs before he remembered. The chain was still there but loose now and he could smell food, his stomach rumbled loudly in response and sniffed the air he rolled off the cot, landing in a crouch. The movement caused his head to swim a bit and he wondered just how long he has been without food.
He found the plate on the floor near the door, the cell was still pitch black so he only had his nose to rely on for figuring out just what it was they where serving him. The food didn't seem to have many spices and something was decidedly off with the scents, like there was something in there that should not be paired with what appeared to be mashed potatoes, meat and carrots. Eliot sniffed the air above the plate. The odd smell seemed chemical in nature and it wound itself mostly around the scent of the potatoes. His stomach growled at him again and he echoed it himself.
"Won't be any use starved to death..." he muttered as he felt around for some kind of utensil. Of course there was none and he couldn't help but admire his captors. They had obviously done their homework, he did know at least ten ways to kill someone with a fork after all. Eliot shrugged his shoulders and sat down, grabbing the plate. He decided to forgo the potatoes to begin with just in case they where drugged and it wasn't just a badly cleaned pot or some other harmless thing.
The meat was badly over-cooked and the carrots where just a step from disintegrating into tasteless mush but it was food and before long it was all gone and his stomach was still growling. Despite the chemical tint the potatoes where starting to seem mighty tempting.
"If they wanted to kill me there would be easier ways. I'm probably just imagining it anyway..." He knew he was making excuses for himself. All his experience was telling him to trust his gut, trust his nose, but hunger still raged inside of him, drowning out everything else. So he decided to chance it. He didn't think it could get any worse.
It got worse.
Pain tore through his body, muscles clenched, spasmed and strained. It felt like his bones were moving and something was shifting in his eyeballs. He screamed, screamed, screamed until his voice broke and blessed blackness enveloped him.
Behind his eyelids the light was red, red like newly spilled blood and when his eye was forcibly opened the brightness cut like a knife. He heared voices, the speech sounded like gibberish, rising and falling like the waves of the ocean. Every part of him hurt, he could feel bands holding him tight against a smooth rigid surface when he tried to move. The fuzzy bright shape that leaned over him moved to shine it's sharp light into his other eye which hurt just as much. The pain was getting to him and he attempted to disconnect from himself, disconnect from whatever they were doing to his body and protect his mind. He knew enduring would be is only chance, knew that he had to keep from breaking to have a shot at getting out of here. Before he managed to get to safe place in his own mind he heard something that chilled him to the bone and ripped him back to reality. A scream, not his own - a female, accompanied by a weak scent of someone he knows. Parker. Oh God. Parker was here.
***
"Nate, I can't work with you hoovering! Seriously, you need to be somewhere not here."
"Well have you tried-"
"Yes, yes and yes. I am searching everywhere I can and a few places I shouldn't be able to."
"And..."
"Nothing, not a trace."
"Show me the videos again."
"You've watched them like a million times already."
"I know that Hardison, show them to me again"
The hacker tapped a few buttons and two different CCTV-recordings began playing on the screens. One showed Eliot fighting off the gang of thugs before falling to the tranq-dart. The other featured Parker. They'd picked her off the street; she had been walking towards Nate's apartment, hands in her own pockets to keep from picking other peoples out of habit, when a man in non-descript black clothing fell into step with her. Just as she noticed him he extended a hand and she flinched like he pinched her. The grainy image showed her trying to turn towards her attacker but before she could even finish the movement her legs gave out. The man in black gathered her up in his arms as a dark van stopped and the two of them disappeared into it. The whole thing didn't take more than a minute.
"You haven't been able to follow the van?"
"You know I haven't - they used decoys and probably switched cars too." Didn't mean he hadn't tried. He had followed every dark van he could find in the Boston traffic that whole day as far as he could and still nothing.
Nate sighed in frustration as Hardison went back to checking all the different search algorithms he had running. It was a bit like looking for a needle in a stack of needles but maybe they would get lucky.
"I'll find you. Somehow I'll find you... please be alive."
***
She floated in darkness, warm comforting darkness. Somewhere on the outside her skin was pricked by needles, her throat was blocked by a tube and her eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling but in here, in her special safe place, nothing could harm her, nothing could find her. In here, in her head, she was safe.
***
Eliot thought that this waking up hurting in a pitch black cell was really getting old. The collar was still secure around his neck, his clothes where still missing and once again there was the scent of food in the air. As he lay perfectly still on the cot he thought about escape. They really hadn't made it easy for him, after taking stock of his options he figured his best bet would be to try and stay awake when they came to take him to the bright room, he couldn't be sure but in there they might remove the collar, at the very least they would have to detach it from the chain.
Figuring that dodging the needle in the neck might be a bit much even for him the drug-laced food where his second option, if they used the same chemical every time he might be able to build up a resistance but if they didn't hiding the food while still seeming to eat it could work. Unless they where monitoring him with heat sensitive cameras. Eliot cursed to himself. Too many variables, too many things that could go wrong.
He rolled off the cot again; his muscles felt exhausted, worn, like he'd been training hard for a week so he adjusted his plan. He wouldn't be able to do anything if his body didn't behave as it should so he found the middle of the floor and started a basic kata. As he let his body flow through the familiar movements he felt some of the weariness fade as his blood carried oxygen through every muscle. As he kept going he discovered that the weariness was retreating faster than he ever thought possible and for the first time he wondered exactly what it was they are doing to him.
After a good while of awakening his body he settled on the floor to eat. His nose revealed that he was getting fish this time, asparagus on the side and the same mashed potatoes as before. The chemical smell was still there as well but he couldn't be sure it was the same as the day before.
"No time like the present..." he muttered as he dug in, starting with the protein and the vegetable. He took a breath before finally eating the laced potatoes, mentally preparing himself for the pain and vowing to try and stay conscious for as long as possible.
The pain was worse this time, maybe because he was expecting it, but he fought it using every trick in the book. Before he finally succumbed to the darkness of unconsciousness he saw the door open and the outline of two people haloed by bright white light.
***
"She won't eat. Just sits there, staring with those dead eyes."
"Think we made a mistake picking her?"
"No, she fits perfectly physically and she is answering well to the treatment."
"If she doesn't eat she won't be for long."
"Use the tube again."
"Are you certain?"
"Of course I am certain, and you better not be question me if you value your job."
"No, sir, I won't, sir. The tube it is."
Parker barely flinched at the first tug on her collar but at the second, harder one, she looked up and stared eerily straight at the hidden camera while moving to stand against the wall to avoid being pulled off her feet. She stared until the tranquilizer did it's work and her eyes rolled up into her skull as her body crumbled into a small heap.
***
"Sophie? Any leads?"
"Nothing. I'm worried Nate, really worried."
"We'll get them back. They'll contact us when they can." He didn't say if they can and Sophie pretended she didnt hear him not saying it.
"I'll try someone else. There is this man in Brussels..."
"Let me know at once if he knows anything."
"Of course. And Nate?"
"Yeah?"
"Please stay safe..."
"Always. You too."
"See you soon."
***
The heat makes the air shiver. Colors flare and fade only to flare again. Rough bark under her feet as she slowly stalks, soft, soft before an explosion of movement and the pray is wriggling in her mouth.
Parker floated towards consciousness, shedding the dream as she went. With wakefulness came the feeling of wrongness, her skin, her eyes, everything was not right. She saw things she shouldn't, like the camera in the corner, like the outlines of things in the dark room, like heat from the plate of food on the floor that made her feel nauseous. All wrong.
As she sat on the cot she thought of escape, she thought of how she could use the wrongness, make it her own. Like she did, like she always does.
***
Eliot started counting the conscious periods. He called them days out of convenience and by the seventh he really wanted to find the cook in this place and kill him, just to bring justice to all the vegetables he had managed to desecrate. He also thought he was going a bit mad. Or madder. Hard to tell.
He was managing to stay conscious for longer now, he knew the two people that came to get him from his cell where dressed in white lab coats and had their faces covered with masks. He knew they got him onto a stretcher and then onto a bed. He knew the pain was not lessening.
The yellow grass flow in the wind, the scent of his prey is in his nose and he moves slowly, surely. Closer. When the time is right he pounces, leaps once, twice and his teeth sink into the neck of his prey.
He woke up roaring in victory. But the blood he tasted was his own and the air in the cell was nothing like the dry winds.
Another mental notch on the wall, another period of consciousness, another plate of badly cooked poisonous food.
***
She wondered if they watched her all the time or just sometimes. She didn't know what she would do if she knew the answer. No windows and no lock on this side of the door. She's good but not that good. As she sat on the cot, ignoring the plate of food as usual, she looked down on her fingers. It was still strange to be able to see in near pitch black but for every not-sleep it got easier, more like her. Just like her skin, somehow it didn't feel so alien anymore, but the most interesting part was her fingers, the way they don't work and still functioned so much better than before.
They were changing her. She could use that.
***
He was pretty sure he was not imagining things now. If he knew one thing it was how his body reacted, how it felt. His life had depended on him knowing exactly what he could and should do when for a long time now and now, now it was different. It wasn't bad different either. Muscles reacted quicker, he recuperated from the periods of unconsciousness faster and he could stay awake longer when they fed him the drugs. They were making him stronger, faster, better... he smiled to himself when the quote made him think of Hardison but then the smile faded when that thought lead to the rest of the team and Parker. Gods, Parker... if they were doing this to him what the hell where they doing to her. The worry and anger made it hard to sit still and he started to pace. He needed to get out or, failing that, to get word out so the others could find him. If they weren't caught as well. Maybe they were waiting for him to bust them all out. Maybe they were all sitting in dark windowless cells trying to figure out how to get out.
Eliot shook his head. No. He had to believe they were out there... had to believe they were safe.
He made his move the next time they came. It was easy fooling them into the belief that the drugs had rendered him unconscious, it lured them closer, into his reach, it made them unlatch the chain from the collar. There were two of them this time too and they were definitely not fighters. A sweeping kick, two quick strikes and he was rifling through the pockets of their lab coats before heading out the door. The glaring white light of the corridor hurt his eyes but it didn't stop him. Hoping to gather as much information as possible and silently praying he was valuable enough not to shoot on sight he moved fast, checking doors and noting cameras. As soon as he found an angle where the cameras wouldn't see he tried the phone and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it unlocked and with reception.
Hardison had made them memorize the numbers, first an ordinary telephone-number and then a six-digit code. Eliot had grumbled at the time but now he was grateful. He had just keyed in the final number when an alarm went off and he realized they've done something to his hearing. Before he fell to his knees and covered his ears with his hands he managed throw the phone against the wall, shattering it in a thousand pieces. The blaring of the alarm cut through his head like a knife and he wasn't aware the security has found him until everything went black.
***
The sharp beep woke Hardison up and he sat up sharply. A single key from his keyboard was stuck to his forehead and his neck sounded like a breakfast cereal when he turned his head to localize what the beep originated from. His heart jumped into his throat when he saw exactly which window was blinking.
"Naaaaaate!"
Hardison's fingers flew over the keys and he could barely hear over the blood rushing in his ears. A lead. They finally had a lead. It didn't take long for Nate to get over to Hardison's nest of electronics but the hacker was already far into his lines of code and trace-patterns.
"Did you find something?"
"Not me. Him."
"Eliot?"
"Yeah... used the emergency number, the one I made for all of you."
"So. Where is he?"
Hardison stopped typing and looked up at Nate.
"I'm fast, but I'm not that fast. But thanks for the vote of confidence..." He turned back to his screens, fingers flying and Nate squeezed his shoulder before going to get him a fresh orange soda. It wasn't much, but it was a tiny speck of light in the previous darkness.
***
"Should we terminate the experiment, sir?"
"No, it would be too much of a loss."
"So what are you orders then, sir?"
"Leave him to stew for a while. Let him wonder."
"Yes, sir, certainly sir."
***
This time it was different, no needle and no strange tasting food, just restraints and a short walk through a corridor that most people would see as white but for Parker shifted in colors she'd never seen before. They had given her clothing, pants and a tank-top but her feet and hands were bare.
Automatically she counted steps and memorized numbers of doors and adjoining corridors. The people at her sides are glowing with heat, alive, but their faces look dead to the world. 243 steps, five doors and two intersections later they stopped outside another door with text and numbers on it. She knew she should know what they meant, but they made no sense. Before she could figure it out her left escort presses a thumb against a sensor as her right looked into a scanner and the door hissed and sputtered before opening.
The room looked like an over-sized playground with bars and boxes, swings and ropes filling it. Parker felt her restraints loosen but when she spun to get out of the grip on her arms they pushed her forward and while she regained he balance the door closed she was alone.
"Welcome Parker. Your mission is simple - get to the other side of the room. Begin." The voice boomed from speakers in all corners of the room and Parker flinched. As she looked up she saw a blank square which probably was supposed to hide the people watching her, except she could see them, she could see all three of them standing there looking at her though the shiny glass, glowing red and yellow.
She knew they had changed her, made her different. She could use that. She stared at the people staring at her as she walked towards the wall, as she climbed the smooth shiny surface she wondered if the mirrored glass is breakable and when she got close enough to look the watchers in the eye she tested it. The glass didn't budge but the people behind it flinched and backed up. All but one. That one stared back for a long while before he reached out and pressed a button.
When the dart hit she lost her grip and fell. The world turned black before she landed.
"So, uhm, I guess it worked... sir" The jangly young man in the lab coat looked at Parker and suppressed a shiver.
"We already knew it worked. We just didn't know how well" The smile on the older mans lips was thin. "She is truly remarkable... truly..."
"Back to her cell, sir?" The burly guard who had caught Parker after his colleague shot her held her in an oddly gentle grip.
"Yes, yes... and leave the light on in there this time. She deserves a reward."
"But, sir, she didn't follow the order?" The young mans knuckles were whitened around the edges of his clipboard. The older man looked at his assistant and smiled cruelly.
"Noo... she did better... so much better..."
***
When Eliot woke up again it felt like he'd been sleeping for a week. Maybe he had, he isn't sure... there was a bandage around his knee and he felt the tell-tale stretch of skin that indicate a healing superficial wound and the rest of his body felt bruised and stiff. As his addled brain woke up more he remembered and figured he must have landed on a piece of the broken phone when he fell to his knees. He couldn't help chuckling to himself - he really didn't get far did he - but the chuckle ended in a sigh as his thoughts went to Nate, Sophie and Hardison... While he did get the message out he wasn't at all sure there was anyone out there to receive it.
More awake now Eliot felt his stomach rumbling, he sniffed the air but found no scent of food, poisoned or not. It's a change of routine and it worried him. Nothing makes it harder to plan than changed routines. He rolled out of bed and started his katas to wake up his muscles.
The familiarity of the movements made his mind relax and drift and soon he found himself thinking of the others again, of Nate and Sophie especially. It's strange, before he might have thought about them in images or sounds but now, now he desperately tried to remember their smells. Sophie was easier, her perfumes, always thoughtfully chosen to match the character she was supposed to play or the mood she was in. Nate is not so sophisticated, he smelled of soap and apple shampoo and that special underlying scent that was purely him. Eliot would have given a lot to just be able to be near them again and frustration made him falter in his movement.
It wasn't this hard before, when he was alone, when there was no one out there waiting for him, no one who knew exactly what it was he does at least. Of course, if this had happened before he would have been stuck, there would have been no one to call, no one who was looking for him. At least now there was a chance. He had a chance.
The chain rattled when he sat down on the cot again, the metal cold against his skin.
"Can't you even give me a pair of pants you fuckers!" The anger felt familiar, like a worn pair of jeans but it fizzled fast with nothing solid to aim it at.
"Pervy shitheads." He muttered to himself and pulled his knees up to lean his head against. There had to be an end to this. Someone was coming to get him. His stomach rumbled. Unless he starved to death first of course.
***
"Yes! Booyah! Finally! Take that evil cell phone monkeys, you're all my bitches!" Hardison barely avoided knocking over his collection of empty soda bottles with his victory dance. It had been a struggle finding the area where Eliot's call had originated from but through some creative manipulation of servers and a call to a very helpful lady who totally had earned some cookies he finally had an answer.
So the area might be a bit on the big side and he had no way of knowing from which part of it the call came but at least it was better than what he had before which was a big fat nothing.
"Nate! Sophie! Pack your shit - we are going to Wyoming!
"You found them?" Sophie's voice was tinted with careful optimism.
"Not exactly but I know where we should look..."
"Hardison, I don't hug you enough!" Sophie apparently decided to remedy that instantly and wrapped her arms around the hacker, holding him tight.
"Hey, I don't mind the hug and all but we still need to get them out from where ever they are being held too... and we don't even know what evil bastards picked them up in the first place." Hardison gently held Sophie and politely ignored the tears soaking his shirt. He didn't like this shirt much in the first place anyway.
"... at least we don't have to sit around and wait anymore..." Sophie's voice was muffled before she raised her head to look at him. "Great job."
"Thanks!" He patted her a bit awkwardly. "Now go pack... and wake up Nate! I can't believe he's sleeping though this!"
"It's four in the morning and he's been up at least as long as you." Her words made Alec aware of the weariness in his own bones.
"Oh, right. Well, plane leaves in five hours... I should probably get some sleep too, maybe...."
"Go, get some sleep. I'll pack everything but your electronic stuff. That I'm not touching with a ten foot pole."
"You better not... I'll just... yeah." Hardison barely made it to the sofa before he fell forward. He was asleep before his head stopped bouncing on the pillow.
Chapter Two