Umbrella Academy fic: The Start of the Story (11/16)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
The good news is that Five fed, bathed and cared for much better in the medical lab. He’s allowed to sleep and to rest, and Peggy and Scott are chipper and seem to genuinely want to help him.
The bad news is that Five is introduced to a new drug every week. Each week, the drug is more powerful and more potent than the last. He’s being cared for so very carefully because they are worried that he’ll die otherwise. They can’t starve him if they want to test the effect on his body. Sleep is necessary to see how the drug metabolizes. Peggy and Scott want to help him because they want to gauge his reactions in order to prepare a thorough report on the drug’s effect on his body.
Also, he’s pretty sure that if he dies, they’ll die. So they’ve got some skin in the game here.
The first drug ignites the senses. Within seconds of it hitting his bloodstream, Five feels like his skin is carrying an electrical charge. This effectively causes every sensation to be heightened to the point where it hurts when Peggy takes his pulse and the sound of his own heart feels like a deafening drum in his eardrums.
When Scott adjusts the dosage, Five hopes that will take the edge of.
It doesn’t.
Instead, Scott makes it more intense. The dosage is increased to the point where it hurts to breathe, not because of fluid in his lungs or anything like that. It hurts because he can feel the air as it burns through his capillaries. The process of stripping the air into carbon dioxide is amplified to the point of absurdity. When the week is over, Five is keenly aware of his own cells dying on a molecular level, and the death guts him before the intense process of cellular regeneration leaves him screaming.
They wean him off for a week, a blissful week, and Five slowly recovers. By the time he feels almost normal again, Peggy holds up a new vial and a fresh needle. “Here we go, then!” she singsongs. “Drug number two!”
Five should have learned by now.
Things can always -- always -- get worse.
Moreover, they probably will.
-o-
The next drug isn’t as painful. At least, not physical. In fact, as far as Five can tell, the next drug has no actual physical symptoms. No, this drug is a powerful hallucinogenic.
Yeah.
Since Five’s not crazy enough.
At first, it’s not so bad. At first, it’s just Peggy’s smile being bigger than her head, and Scott’s laugh echoing off the walls while the duo start to dance the polka and sing a love song to a scalpel that can wink.
That’s weird, and kind of unpleasant, but it’s not so bad. When they up the dosage, Five starts to imagine things that get to be downright disturbing. Peggy’s hair has turned into snakes. When Scott laughs, he summons demons that moan and talk about their plans to dismember people.
After that, things get really bad. With enough of the drug, Five loses a firm grip on reality. Instead of being in the medical lab, he’s back in the apocalypse. It’s so vibrant, so real that he almost chokes on the ash as he screams for reprieve.
At the maximum dosage, Five is back at the Academy. He is forced to watch as Luther is ripped apart, bit by bit, limb by limb, screaming the whole time. He watches while Diego is eviscerated with one of his own knives, neatly cut open from neck to navel until his intestines are pulled out inch by inch. Allison has her throat ripped out while she’s still alive, and she’s left conscious and gaping while she bleeds out. Klaus takes all the drugs he can find, all of them, until he’s left twitching and gasping before he goes very, very still. Ben’s already dead, at the very least, but Five watches his death, too, wherein his own tentacles pull him apart until there’s nothing left of him but writhing bits of bloody material. Vanya dies in his vision, impaled on her own bow, while she yanks the moon out of the sky with her own bare hands.
None of this is real, and Five knows that.
That doesn’t make it any less horrifying.
Horrifying, unreal and, most importantly, part of the plan.
-o-
There are more drugs after that. Some make him violently ill, causing him to throw up until he passes out. Other drugs seem to promote unnatural growth. He spends a few times with three arms and for a period of time, he has four ears. The worst is when they grow a few extra kidneys and give him only a local anesthetic while said kidneys are removed. The acrid smell of his own flesh burning may be the worst thing he’s experience yet.
There’s a drug that gives him increased homicidal urges. There’s another that robs him of his ability to feel pain. Another inhibits his independent decision making. Things are getting pretty weird when they use a drug that turns him temporarily into a prepubescent woman.
Finally, when Scott and Peggy run out of new drugs, they put him out completely for what they deem a simple, noninvasive procedure.
When Five wakes up, he realizes that his DNA has been modified, spliced with donor samples to heighten his abilities, encourage his aggression and validate his need for approval.
“It’s a few little tweaks,” Scott assures him. “Meant to help you transition back into being a field agent.”
“You may notice a few little urges, but we think the differences will be minimal to your psyche,” Peggy says brightly. “It’s just to take the edge off some of your more problematic impulses.”
“We’ll give you a sedative to help you sleep on it for a bit,” Scott says, slipping the edge of the needle into his arm. “We’ll see how you’re feeling when you wake up.”
-o-
Sedative is code for mild hallucinogenic laced with sensory stimulation.
A few little tweaks seems to be a nice way of saying that they’ve stripped him of his impulse control while intensifying his severe dislike for people treating him like shit.
The combination of the two is probably not quite what Peggy and Scott are expecting.
Five thinks he’s imagining it when he slits Scott throat so he doesn’t look dapper anymore. He’s sure it’s a hallucination when he smothers Peggy until that smile is wiped clean off her pretty little face.
He’s less sure when the hit squad comes in. When they finally subdue him, he can see the blood on his hands. This time, when a fresh drug is pushed into his arm, he hopes it’s one that can end it all.
Including him.
Especially him.
-o-
That’s not how it works, however. Peggy and Scott are dead, but Five’s still a vital investment. He’s transferred to another lab, one that is less comfortable, and he’s strapped to a reclined chair while probes are attached to his head, chest, arms and legs. The woman in charge of this room doesn’t smile as much as Peggy, and her hair is drawn back severely into a graying ponytail while she carries around a clipboard and orders men in white smocks what to do.
“You shouldn’t do this,” Five says hoarsely. He’s been yelling, but he doesn’t remember why. “This is a mistake.”
“This is not an experiment,” the woman tells him curtly. “Conversation is not encouraged unless I explicitly tell you otherwise.”
Five shakes his head, too exhausted to pull against the restraints as they’re bolted down tight. “I’m not sure I can control myself,” he says. “What they did to me--”
“Was prime your body for operation,” the woman supplies. She looks at him sternly. “It is my job to train you psychologically to respond properly to orders.”
Five looks down as best he can with his head strapped won. “But how? I don’t understand.”
This finally elicits a smile. “You will,” she promises him. “You will.”
-o-
It’s behavior training.
Theoretically, it has lots of uses, and Five knows it’s a mainstay in modern psychology. However, modern applications tend not to be quite so dramatic. In most cases, patients are trained to identify destructive thought patterns that lead to negative behaviors. By understanding those thought patterns, it is possible for the patient to circumvent them, thereby preventing the manifestation of said behaviors.
This isn’t what the doctor is doing here.
No, she’s using a more reductive method. Simpler and far more effective. It’s positively channeling Pavlov. Only there’s no bell. And there’s no dog.
There’s just Five.
And a lot of pain stimulus.
Five is asked a question. When he answers wrong, he is given an electrical shock. The more he answers incorrectly, the more severe the shock is. After a week, when his answers are mostly suitable, he is unstrapped from the chair and asked to stand in a minimally covering gown to perform basic tasks. This time, when he performs incorrectly, the shock is enough to send him crashing to his knees.
Eventually, Five resents the process. Instead of being trained to salivate at the sound of a bell, Five learns to anticipate the worst possible answer and provide it at his own peril. As his answers devolve into increasing anarchy, the shock value is increased to the point where he can feel his teeth chattering in his head before he passes out. Eventually, upon a simple order to eat his dinner, Five throws it behind him and asks for coffee instead. The punishment is so severe that it actually kills him.
When he wakes up, the gown cut open to expose his chest, the doctor stands there, breathlessly, electrical paddles in hand. “Why do you insist on doing this? You are only hurting yourself!”
Five laughs, tired, exhausted and reckless. “Because you didn’t ask me nicely, asshole.”
She puts the paddles down and cocks her head. “That is not part of the deal,” she tells him. “You do remember the deal?”
“I defined that deal, idiot,” Five seethes. “Of course I know it.”
“So you know that failure to live up to your end of the bargain would nullify all the other terms and conditions,” she points out.
Five stops smiling. “You wouldn’t.”
She shrugs, benign. “Me? No. But others are watching your progress, Five. And they are not impressed.”
Sobering instantly, Five swallows. The lack of impulse control, the homicidal tendencies, the reckless psychological mindset: none of it matters. The plan. The plan matters.
“Fine,” he says. “Then tell me what I need to do.”
“Learn,” she says simply. “Train. And everything will be just fine.”
-o-
Five does. Five learns. Five trains. Within another week, he is almost always answering correctly. He obeys orders and follows directions. He allows himself to be marched around the lab. He eats on command and is paraded up and down the halls while others clap and fawn. He learns to answers questions quickly and promptly, and he stops asking questions when he is told to do something.
The bell rings.
Five thinks of his family, safe and secure back at the Academy.
And then, only then, does he salivate.
Every single time.
-o-
It chafes at Five’s instincts to become compliant, but it is not without its perks. The more he complies, the more freedoms he is allotted, and eventually he is provided with a comfortable bed and three regular, if sparse, meals a day. The lead scientist seems quite pleased, and she treats Five with the affection one might provide to a prized pet.
This is irksome, but acceptable.
His family is safe.
Everything is acceptable.
-o-
Finally, when Five has not trigger a punishment in a week, he is taken up through HQ to the Handler’s office. He can’t help but notice that she’s redecorated. There are fewer trophies than before, and the bowl of candy is conspicuously missing from the desk. She rises to greet them, and Five notes that the store clerk is lounging in one of the chairs in front of her desk.
“As requested for final evaluation,” the scientist reports. Five’s still wearing two electrodes, one on each temple, and the scientist is holding the trigger lightly in her hand. The armed guards, though they have accompanied them this far, are waiting in the hall. “I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”
The Handler straightens her dress as she walks around the front of the desk, inspecting Five as a mother might look at their child before the first day of school. She smiles, but somehow she does not look pleased.
Behind her, the clerk gets to his feet. He’s grinning. He’s the one who looks pleased. “You’ve really done it, then? Trained him?”
The scientist nods in a perfunctory fashion. “It took some time, but the behavior response therapy has proven effective,” she says. “He has responded to all orders with absolute and unwavering discipline for seven days straight. By these standards, he meets the approved metrics for compliance.”
Five doesn’t roll his eyes. The fact that he thinks about it seems like enough. Thinking about his siblings at the Academy is enough consolation. His humiliation is a price he’s willing to pay, even if he must endure mundane tortures such as this.
The clerk laughs, utterly delighted. “So he’ll do anything I tell him? Anything at all?”
“We have experimented with increased periods off the probes,” the scientist reports. “So far, he has maintained compliance records.”
“So why are they on now?” the Handler observes. She lifts a hand, gesturing to the electrodes on his temples.
“Safety precautions, as mandated,” she reports back. “He needs to be cleared by upper management in order to move about HQ without such interventions in place.”
The Handler touches her chin, where the scars from the grenade blast are still visible.
“It’s a thing to see that smug look erased from his face,” the clerk smirks. He circles around Five with a snort of derision. “Not such a cocky bastard now, are we?”
The Handler, however, looks increasingly disappointed. She’s the only one here who looks Five in the eyes. He realizes with a suddenness that this is the first time he’s made eye contact with anyone in weeks. Months. How long has he been here anyway?
“It’s a safety issue, I know,” the Handler muses. She shakes her head, eyes still locked on Five’s. “But you’re not yourself anymore. Are you?”
It takes all that’s left of his willpower not to respond. He’s not sure if she can still see the keen look in his eyes or not.
The clerk, for what it’s worth, is completely oblivious. “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” he remarks grandly, making the full loop around Five. “We had to break him.”
It’s a bit of a relief that the Handler rolls her eyes since Five can’t. “In your limited capacity, you couldn’t possibly understand the loss of what we’re discussing.”
The clerk gives her an incredulous look. “This is the guy who tried to kill you.”
“Yes, yes,” the Handler says, as if this is a bother. “But I’ve always wondered if this project was worth the cost. A subject like Five may not be able to be broken.”
The scientist clears her throat. “All the indications--”
The Handler waves her off. “Suggest that he’s not going to kill me again, but that he’ll kill for me. I know. I’ve read your enthusiastic and detailed reports.”
“So why aren’t we celebrating?” the clerk ask. He points at Five, standing there in his white scrubs with slippers on his feet. “When you sign off on this, upper management is going to forgive everything. We’re both going to be back in their good graces.”
The Handler tucks her hair behind her ear. “Perhaps,” she agrees. “But not yet, I’m afraid. He needs more training.”
The scientist’s mouth drops open and the clerk audibly objects. Five stiffens, not sure if he’s proud of himself or terrified.
“The parameters have been met--”
“He’s walking around like a trained dog? What more do you want?”
The Handler easily dismisses them both. “I know Five quite well from all our years together,” she says, smiling faintly at Five. “And I know that he’s exceptionally good at following orders that he has deemed necessary in his own terms. The problem is, of course, that those terms rarely match up to the terms of the Commission. He can seem like a valuable asset for as long as compulsory behavior is relevant to his endgame. The trick, however, is determining his endgame.”
“But he made a deal!” the clerk exclaims.
“And his performance is remarkable,” the scientist adds.
Five doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t hold his chest out in pride.
Because Luther is at home listening to records. Because Diego is throwing knives at the wall. Because Allison is on the phone with Claire. Because Klaus is knitting a sweater that will never fit. Because Ben is walking through walls. Because Vanya is playing a solo at her next recital.
“And neither of you know with any certainty what his endgame is,” the Handler says with a little sign of resignation. “I have learned with some acuity to never underestimate him because he has loyalty to one thing and one thing only: his family.”
“Yeah, and that’s why this deal works,” the clerk says. “He stays here and his family is safe. If he violates that, we’ll kill them, one by one, and bring back their heads on platters until he falls in line.”
Five doesn’t flinch.
The scientist, for all that she’s spent the last few weeks torturing him, does.
“We cannot afford to be short sighted in this,” the Handler says. “We have time to be sure.”
The clerk groans. “But they broke him! Just look at him!”
They all look at Five. He stands placidly, hands at his sides and betrays nothing.
“Don’t be so sure,” the Handler advises.
It is clear that the Handler is patient. She’s learned the value of being thorough.
The clerk is not patient. He’s apparently learned very little in the time that Five has known him.
It’s a tossup to say which one is more dangerous to him at this time.
What is clear to Five is that neither is a threat to the plan.
“Just look, okay? Look,” the clerk says. He rounds on Five, standing in front of him. “Five, get on your knees.”
Shit, that order makes him want to rip the clerk’s throat out, but he knows the satisfaction would be short lived. He only momentarily contemplates how many agents it would take to bring down Luther and sever his head before he acknowledges that inevitability of the plan.
This damn plan.
Placidly, he drops to his knees.
The clerk, now standing above him, is positively gloating. He holds out his hands. “Now, kiss it. Show me some respect, and kiss it.”
This is a juvenile and petty sort of request, one created by a dim mind with limited capacity. The ability to control someone like Five has immense possibilities, and this jackass can only imagine ways to make himself feel like the bigger man. The clerk will never appreciate the irony, of course. That nothing he’s done has earned this feat, which makes his gloating entirely ridiculous. Five’s the one following orders, but the clerk is the one who is showing his lack of girth.
Still.
Five holds his breath and kisses the outstretched hand. If he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it, and damn it, Five’s done all the calculations and none of them said shit about this.
“See?” the clerk says, beaming now. “He’s finally house-trained.”
The Handler seems to be as impressed as Five with this display. She shakes her head. “No, you underestimate him at your own peril,” she says because no doubt she remembers the grenade he threw at her the last time he was in HQ. “I’m still going to implement the final phase of his training before making a final recommendation to the higher management.”
The clerk moans loudly and flops back into his chair. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
The Handler ignores him, nods to the scientist. “See that the arrangements are made,” she says. Then, she looks to Five. Lingering, she reaches down, and this time her cold fingers brush against his chee. “I bet you miss those schoolboy shorts now, don’t you?”
As the scientist orders him to his feet, Five obeys and marches out at her behest. The Handler watches him the whole way and he gets the strangest impression that she misses those schoolboy shorts, too.
-o-
There’s no time to dwell on that.
Five is ushered down the hall, down several flights of stairs into a sublevel basement. There is no natural light here, so it looks less like a prison cell and more like an actual dungeon. At a nondescript door, the scientist strips the electrodes off Five and then promptly removes his slippers. The door is opened and Five is ushered inside. By the time he turns around, the door is closed and he hears it clink, a mechanical lock slipping into place with a resounding thud.
The room has a wan light, emanating from a panel in the ceiling. The hole here is in the middle of the floor, and there is nothing resembling furniture. There are no further instructions, and Five listens until he hears the sounds of footfalls fade away and he’s left in utter silence.
Five stands, staring at the door.
And just like that, all there is is time to dwell.
-o-
Five understands what the final phase of his training is. He knows it almost immediately. Isolation is used to strip Five of whatever he has left of his dignity, individuality and, ultimately, his sanity. This is used to teach him that disobedience can result in the absence of all stimulation. This is torture for any person, but for someone like Five, someone who has a particular strain of PTSD related to isolation, it is a particularly clever move.
The Handler knows how desperate Five was when she first offered him the job. It is her intention to recreate the experience in this manner, leaving Five to rot in a cell, devoid of all possible connection, until he is ready to acquiesce to her terms for real.
It’s as clever as it is cruel, Five will grant her that.
He comes to this conclusion within minutes of being locked in the room.
Minutes more, he concludes that this is still part of the plan.
Minutes more, he concludes that he may hate this plan.
A few more minutes, he concludes that it doesn’t matter what the hell he thinks.
One more minute: this is still part of the plan.
-o-
Minutes are hours. Hours are days. Days are weeks. Weeks may be months. For all Five knows, they are years. Decades. Lifetimes.
He loses track rather quickly, if only because there is no way to measure time here. When h sleeps, the dim light is exactly the same as when he’s awake, and try as he might to keep track, it’s a futile effort. He has no idea how much time lapses when he closes his eyes, and he realizes fairly quickly that his meals are coming in irregular shifts. This is, undoubtedly, a ploy to keep him from charting the passage of time.
Surely this is the Handler’s way of speeding up the process. When deprived of its natural impulses, the brain will often lean toward exaggeration. That is why minutes can seem like hours when you’re panicking or injured. The hope is that when the Handler does come in three months, it will feel like three decades.
Five hates to admit that it might just work.
Because minutes are hours. Hours are days. Days are weeks. Weeks may be months. For all Five knows, they are years. Decades.
Lifetimes.
-o-
So, Five assesses his options.
Obviously, he’s more than capable of escaping. As far as he knows, there is no substance that can impede his ability to complete a spatial jumps. His father had been quite explicit about testing this. Five had jumped through all materials of all thicknesses. Then, Five had been required to jump with various elemental factors. His father had tried gases, sounds, lights and as many other stimuli as he could think of. None of them prevented Five from jumping. In fact, the only known impediments were exhaustion, stress and repetition.
Sure, Five’s exhausted and stressed, but he’s got no doubt he could jump through any one of these walls, no problem.
However, Five ascertains just as quickly that this is not actually an option. He fully believes that he could complete an actual escape, sublevel basements and armed guards aside, but the consequences of such an escape would not fall to him. They would fall to his family.
Therefore, Five is stuck here.
If Five is stuck here, he can still be a difficult bastard. He could yell and scream. He could kick and howl. Maybe this is even what is expected of him. He’s contrary enough to find the expected response unpalatable.
Besides, it’s futile. This is part of the plan.
Therefore, Five decides, the only viable option is to create a regimen to keep him functional and sane. This is the kind of discipline that had worked in his favor in the apocalypse. His self imposed standards had kept him going when lesser beings would have given up and died.
There is hardly any room for self congratulatory behavior, however. Five is probably not at risk of dying in this cell, but his options for self maintenance are more limited. It’s not clear when he’ll be fed, but it is quite obvious that obtaining food will not be something he is capable of doing on his own. He will have to resign that part of his fate to the judgment of his captors.
Without food and water as a primary concern, Five shifts his focus accordingly. He will need to stay active, something which could prove quite daunting given his confinement. He quickly makes up an exercise program, combining light cardio with core training, mindful that his caloric intake may be variable and his exercise routine must adjust as needed.
After exercise, Five ponders means of mental stimulation. The apocalypse, while horrifying, had had no shortage of such options. There had been books, and he had had the means to sketch out as many calculations as he pleased. Here, he’s got nothing.
Therefore, he talks to himself.
First, he recites passages from Vanya’s book.
Then, he starts a verbal calculations detailing the possibility of a secondary cataclysmic event at some point in what he hopes is the very distant future.
Finally, before sleeping, he sits on the ground, crosses his legs and looks up at the ceiling. He smiles and he say, out loud, that this is fine. He says in a clear voice with confidence that his family is fine. He says it loud enough for the words to resound in his ears: this is all part of the plan.
-o-
With his routine set, Five still has a lot of time to kill. It’s not clear how much time, but a lot or a little, it’s still an empty void with which he has little to do. Despite his best efforts, the physical training and mental stimulation are not quite sufficient, and as he waits for his next meal, Five is tempted back into old habits.
Now, just to clarify, because Five does feel compelled to clarify, it’s Delores who start it. It always has been. Sure, Five’s the one who picked her up while scavenging, but she’s the one who started talking to him no more than a year later, when he was lonely, hungry, sick and terrified.
Obviously, this is a complicated stance to take, since Delores is clearly a manifestation of his subconscious that he used to maintain some form of sanity during a period of stressful and prolonged isolation. But Five’s not crazy, okay? He doesn’t normally sit around talking to himself. He was just sitting there, minding his own business (it was the apocalypse, there was no other business), and she straight up said, “Are you sure about that?”
It’s a useful question because no, Five had not been sure about that. And it’s only in retrospect that he’s able to see that she saved him from overdosing on the pills he found to combat the fever he’d contracted after cutting himself on a tin can he tried to open when he was starving to death. In his delirium, he had been ready to take four times the necessary dose. But Delores had sat there, prim and proper in her wagon and said, “I really think you should read the label again.”
Given that she had been right, it had only been appropriate to say, “Thank you.”
From then on, she had started to make lots of comments. “Maybe the house up there has water,” she suggested.
“If you find a school, you’ll find chalk,” she pointed out.
“Don’t forget: it’s your birthday today,” she had said. “I’m glad it’s your birthday.”
Sitting in his cell, he wonders what she’d say now.
“You’re doing great, love. Really. Just great.”
“It hasn’t been as long as it seems, I promise.”
“When you get out, we’ll break open the Bordeaux. You and me. A whole bottle.”
“It’s part of the plan, darling. You know it’s part of the plan.”
She’s not here, though.
Five’s tempted to talk to her, but the echo of her voice hurts to hear. The temptation is an invitation into insanity, and Five can’t be sure, but he thinks that would stretch the plan to its limits. He’s left Delores in his future; he’s left Delores in his past.
This time, Five’s alone.
And there’s nothing to be done for it at all.
-o-
Food comes, and it’s so bland and nondescript that it is unclear if it’s intended to be breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s probably irrelevant. The Handler has designed this to take the element of time away from him, and ultimately eating is nothing but a practicality to advance the plan.
He wonders, briefly, if refusing food might jumpstart a different process. The Commission is going through some difficult to train him. If he stopped eating, it’s likely they would intervene.
Of course, such intervention might save his life.
And kill one of his siblings.
He eats the food instead.
The necessity of it all is more satisfying than anything he swallows.
-o-
He does his exercises. He recites portions of the book. He works on a few equations.
When that does not tire him, he tries using his powers to bop himself back and forth across the room. He’s mindful of the limitations, and he takes some pleasure in getting as close to the wall without accidentally ending up on the other side. He’s not sure what the Commission will think of such antics, but he decides that it will show first his ability, thus proving his worth, and second his submission, thus reducing his risk.
Also, he’s so bored that if he doesn’t do something, he’s going to lose his shit.
It takes several hours before it wears him out, before he can’t curl his fingers into fists and the electricity can’t be summoned to his fingertips. It’s almost a bit of a rush to be so powerless, to be so bereft. He slumps to the ground and closes his eyes.
Then, he sleeps.
-o-
Nothing changes when he wakes up.
Nothing changes.
Nothing.
-o-
Exercise. Recitation. Equations.
Lazily, Five tries to sleep, but finds it elusive. Blinking wearily, he looks up at the light on the ceiling until it blurs. When his eyes focus again, Luther’s massive form looms above him.
It’s Five’s imagination.
Five knows it’s his imagination.
If Luther were really here, there would have been a lot more noise and destruction. And he wouldn’t be standing there, staring at Five, waiting for him to speak.
“You’re not real,” Five finally announces. He’s not disappointed by this; not when he had no expectation of it in the first place. “This is a hallucination.”
“Probably just a lucid dream,” Luther suggests instead. It’s a surprisingly insightful answer. Luther shrugs. “I used to have them from time to time on the moon.”
“The isolation,” Five agrees, smiling wanly. He knows that speaking out loud will probably be monitored, and he’s not sure that he wants his insanity documented. Then again, it probably already is. “It makes you do funny things.”
Luther makes a face, a funny one, and it’s oddly endearing. “There were days I thought I was losing it up there,” he admits. “Days when I thought I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Five thinks about that. He thinks about Luther on the moon all by himself. He thinks about Luther with the perfect view of the solar system but the only place he wants to look is home.
He’s spacing off, following the errant train of thought, but Luther’s voice brings him back to the moment. “Do you know how I did it?”
Five squints up at him, wondering if the old man would have loved Five enough to turn him into a monster. It probably doesn’t matter, though. You can change Luther’s DNA, and he’s always going to be inherently good, even if only in a facile sense. “Not really,” he admits.
“I believed it was my duty,” Luther explains. “I believed that I was part of a plan bigger than myself -- so much bigger than myself -- and that if I didn’t uphold my duty, others would face the consequences.”
It’s a little on the nose. Five snorts. “Dad never read your reports, though. So wasn’t it just a ruse?”
Luther nods a little, remorseful. “Maybe,” he says. “But maybe it just wasn’t the plan I thought it was.”
Five nods his head, humming to himself a little. “Would you go back to the moon?” he asks suddenly, not sure why it matters. “If you had to, would you go back again?”
Luther raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Of course,” he says. “I know my duty.”
“And that’s enough?” Five asks. “That’s always enough?”
Luther can only shrug. “What’s the alternative?”
Five concedes that much. “It’s not a bad point,” he says. “It would be more effective if you were real.”
At that, Luther smiles. “Nah. I doubt it.”
Five nods in agreement. “I’m tired.”
“Then get some sleep.”
“You’ll be gone when I wake up,” Five tells him.
Five is already closing his eyes as Luther replies. “Not really,” he says. “Not really.”
-o-
Luther’s not there.
Five doesn’t expect him to be.
He misses him anyway.
-o-
Exercise. Recitation. Calculations.
When Five’s done, he’s so restless that he doesn’t know what to do. They fed him this morning, and the hit of sucrose has him pulsating. Maybe it just reminded him how hungry he was.
All of which is to say, he can’t sit still. There’s no way he’s sitting still. He lacks the coordination at the moment for spatial jumps -- the notion of accidentally materializing mid-wall is something he has already deemed a possibility, and not one he wants to validate -- so he settles for some old fashion movement.
Pacing the walls, he counts from one end to the other, approximating the overall distance based on his stride. At best, it’s a five by five square, though he thinks it could be six by six. That extra foot on each side doesn’t make it seem any bigger, even in theory.
When he’s paced off the perimeter, he looks from floor to ceiling. Judging on his own height, he guesses that the place has seven foot ceilings, which is just high enough not to seem overtly claustrophobic. Although, being stuck in here long enough, a little claustrophobia is probably the least of his concerns.
After these assessments, he studies the door. It’s in his nature to look for signs of weakness, and by tapping on the door, he can estimate its depth and structural integrity. It’s a solid metal, obviously reinforced. Likely it’s designed to be bullet proof. It’s probably got enough girth to hold up to a hand grenade, if he knows the Handler.
The idea of blasting through the door is ridiculous anyway; you go for the hinges. He takes it as a compliment that these are also well reinforced. They could not be pried up easily, and it would take a supreme amount of direct force to do anything to dislodge them. The sheer weight of the three bolts would make any kind of possible attack statistically unfeasible.
He thinks he could probably calculate an exception.
But his siblings are at the Academy. Maybe they’re sitting down for their weekly dinner, laughing and telling stories. Maybe the picture of Five is still hanging in the study, and maybe Vanya is making him a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich just in case.
All the reasons he wants to come home.
Are the reasons he will never let himself.
-o-
Diego is sitting in the far corner, turning a knife from hilt to blade in his hands. He shakes his head as he watches Five in apparent disapproval. “You’re not looking so good, bro,” he comments.”
Five closes his eyes, only just no realizing he’s opened them. He’s not entirely sure if he’s awake or asleep, which means it’s not clear if Diego is a hallucination or a dream. It’s probably an irrelevant distinction. “I’ve been tortured,” he mutters. “I’m pretty sure I look pretty good considering.”
He closes his eyes a little more, half hoping he falls asleep. He doesn’t, though, and this time when he opens them, he’s more confident that he is, in fact, awake.
Diego, bastard that he is, smirks as if he appreciates the irony of the realization. “No, you don’t.”
Five sighs. “It’s unavoidable,” he concedes. “The plan is within acceptable margins.”
Diego raises his eyebrows, still moving the knife in his hand. “This? Is within acceptable margins?”
He makes a motion to the cell where Five has been held with minimal food and water and no external stimulation for an undisclosed period of time after a period of shock therapy, unconsented medical testing and prolonged questioning.
Five shrugs to concede another point. “The plan wasn’t very specific in this regard,” he says. “I mean, you and the others -- you’re safe. That’s what matters.”
Shaking his head, Diego frowns. “No, that’s not what matters.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No,” Diego retorts, more insistently this time. “It’s not all that matters. The plan was for all of us to be safe. All of us to be whole.”
Five opens his mouth, but this time the retort is cut short. “I don’t know what else you think I’m going to be able to do.”
“You fight,” Diego says.
“Fighting will get you killed,” Five replies.
“Not in that way, then,” Diego says. “I’m not just a dumb brute, okay? I’m capable of nuance.”
Five cocks his head as he considers that.
Diego rolls his eyes. “My point is that fighting is not always combat,” he says. “Sometimes it’s not even physical. You have to fight what they’re doing to you. Mentally.”
“I am,” Five says, mildly offended. “I have my routine.”
“And yet, here you are, talking to yourself,” Diego points out.
Five glares at him. “That’s not fair.”
“No?” Diego says. “But it is part of the plan. Part of your plan. The one that you made up and forced us to agree to. So you better believe that I’m holding you to that shit.”
That’s an annoyingly good point.
Also, Five’s tired.
He’s lonely and he’s hungry and he’s weary and he’s at the end of himself. Maybe it’s okay for Diego to have a point.
“I’m trying,” Five tells him, softly now.
Diego moves the knife, hilt to blade, hilt to blade. “Try harder.”
“I don’t know how.”
Diego shakes his head. “You’re the asshole who always cheated when we were kids.”
“I never cheated,” Five says. “I just knew how to exploit the rules.”
“That’s my point,” Diego says. “Where is that? You’re just lying here, letting them break you.”
Five exhales, wishing it were that simple again. He wishes he could blink his way to the front of the line and end the race. But this isn’t a sprint. This is a marathon. As fast as Five can go, his whole life has be designed to slow him down.
That makes him mad.
The anger just leaves him more exhausted than he was before.
“You make it sound so easy,” he finally quips dryly.
Diego makes a face, shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”
Five sags back, his defenses stripped even more than they were before. “And if I can’t? If I’m all out of fight?”
Diego studies the knife before he looks at Five. “Then you’re not the guy I thought you were.”
Five is struck by the fact that maybe that’s true.
Then, more importantly, he’s struck by the fact that Diego sounds disappointed.
Five’s lived through hell because he had a reason.
Damn it, he can do it again.
He swallows back the emotions and nods resolutely. “It’s not going to be easy for me, you know. I can’t promise you how it’ll look.”
This time, when Diego smirks, there’s something reassuring about it. “And that,” he says, throwing the Five so it whizzes by his ear. “Sounds like my brother.”
Five looks back to where there’s no knife in the wall.
And looks back to where Diego isn’t sitting by the wall.
Five’s not sure if he’s really ready for this fight. He just knows he’s not ready to lose. That has to count for something.
He hopes that it counts for enough.
-o-
He exercises, hard enough to leave him panting for air.
He recites full chapters of the book, detail after detail until his voice is hoarse.
He does the calculations until the numbers just don’t add up anymore.
Then, he sits on the far wall, staring at the door. He refuses to wonder when it’ll open. He refuses to speculate how long it’s been since he was last fed. He refuses to think about ways he can overpower whoever is on the other side of the door.
He refuses.
Instead, Five sits and stares at the door, making a mental list of all the ways this situation is better than the apocalypse.
This seems like a good idea at first; it does.
Except he’s got less mobility. He’s got less freedom. He has decidedly inferior companionship. His options are extremely limited. Food is surprisingly more scarce now, and the fact that this is probably not a permanent situation -- it’s probably not even a situation that will span three full decades -- is usurped by the reality that he’s being actively manipulated into becoming a worse person than he ever was before.
There is one reason, however.
One reason that his current situation is far, far better than the apocalypse.
The best reason, really.
Ultimately, the only reason that probably matters.
In point, this: his family’s not dead.
He grins at the door, half drunk on his own exhaustion and hunger.
His family’s not dead.
With that in mind, he gets up to start the routine all over again.
-o-
After they feed him, Five tries not to think about how hungry he still is. He walks anxiously around the cell, knobby knees and loose clothes. He must look younger than 13 now. He must look like he’s 10.
Maybe he is 10.
Maybe he’s capable of further age regression.
Maybe if he can get those calculations right, make himself 4, they’ll stop torturing him altogether. They wouldn’t torture a 4 year old would they?
He nods to himself. They would totally torture a 4 year old.
That’s not going to work.
Not that Five could even get the calculations right.
“But the numbers don’t matter. You’re forgetting.”
Five has to blink to clear his vision, and he realizes that he’s sitting cross legged across from Allison.
Allison is sitting cross legged, looking back at him. “You can’t keep forgetting.”
“And you can’t keep lecturing me,” Five says. “I’m not Claire.”
Allison looks down her nose at him, skeptical. “You act like her.”
“Well, she’s a smart kid, then,” he quips. “You’re lucky.”
She is not impressed. He wonders if this is how mothers usually are, when they’re not, you know, robots. “The numbers don’t matter,” she says again, determined to make her point. “The people matter.”
“Sure,” Five says, and he feels like this is a challenge he must rise to. “Except there are no people here. Just me and my total lack of sanity.”
She looks even less impressed by this than before. “You know that’s not true.”
Five laughs, and the sound is a little raw, a little surreal. “I think it probably is. I mean, I’m not that crazy. Not yet.”
She shakes her head. “But you’re forgetting,” she says. “You’re not alone. The plan, Five. You have to remember the plan.”
Five no longer has the willpower to resist the overwhelming urge to groan. “I’m beginning to hate that plan,” he moans. “I almost wish I hadn’t come up with it in the first place.”
She shrugs, diffident. “That’s not true.”
“Maybe it is,” he says.
“It’s not,” she says, utterly undeterred.
He sits forward a little bit, staring her down. “I’ve been here a long time. I’m entitled a little bit of doubt.”
“Doubt your sanity. Doubt your strength. Doubt your memory,” she says. “But don’t doubt us. You did this for us, Five. And we haven’t left you alone.”
What’s left of his strength wavers. He wavers. Shit, the whole damn universe seems to waver. He doesn’t just look like a child, he feels like one. Shaky and scared and so damn alone.
Her expression softens. “Five, the people. That’s why we’re all doing this. You have to hold onto that. When everything else is lost, hold onto us.”
Five’s trembling now. Hunger. Exhaustion. Sanity. His own damn emotions. “But you’re not here,” he reminds her softly.
She bobs her head forward; it’s her turn to concede the point. “Not physically, maybe,” she says. “But I’m here, Five. We’re all here, Five.”
She places her hand on her chest, and Five feels his own heart skip a beat.
“We’re here.”
Just like that, she’s gone.
Five’s alone again.
Five’s alone.
Five’s alone.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
The good news is that Five fed, bathed and cared for much better in the medical lab. He’s allowed to sleep and to rest, and Peggy and Scott are chipper and seem to genuinely want to help him.
The bad news is that Five is introduced to a new drug every week. Each week, the drug is more powerful and more potent than the last. He’s being cared for so very carefully because they are worried that he’ll die otherwise. They can’t starve him if they want to test the effect on his body. Sleep is necessary to see how the drug metabolizes. Peggy and Scott want to help him because they want to gauge his reactions in order to prepare a thorough report on the drug’s effect on his body.
Also, he’s pretty sure that if he dies, they’ll die. So they’ve got some skin in the game here.
The first drug ignites the senses. Within seconds of it hitting his bloodstream, Five feels like his skin is carrying an electrical charge. This effectively causes every sensation to be heightened to the point where it hurts when Peggy takes his pulse and the sound of his own heart feels like a deafening drum in his eardrums.
When Scott adjusts the dosage, Five hopes that will take the edge of.
It doesn’t.
Instead, Scott makes it more intense. The dosage is increased to the point where it hurts to breathe, not because of fluid in his lungs or anything like that. It hurts because he can feel the air as it burns through his capillaries. The process of stripping the air into carbon dioxide is amplified to the point of absurdity. When the week is over, Five is keenly aware of his own cells dying on a molecular level, and the death guts him before the intense process of cellular regeneration leaves him screaming.
They wean him off for a week, a blissful week, and Five slowly recovers. By the time he feels almost normal again, Peggy holds up a new vial and a fresh needle. “Here we go, then!” she singsongs. “Drug number two!”
Five should have learned by now.
Things can always -- always -- get worse.
Moreover, they probably will.
-o-
The next drug isn’t as painful. At least, not physical. In fact, as far as Five can tell, the next drug has no actual physical symptoms. No, this drug is a powerful hallucinogenic.
Yeah.
Since Five’s not crazy enough.
At first, it’s not so bad. At first, it’s just Peggy’s smile being bigger than her head, and Scott’s laugh echoing off the walls while the duo start to dance the polka and sing a love song to a scalpel that can wink.
That’s weird, and kind of unpleasant, but it’s not so bad. When they up the dosage, Five starts to imagine things that get to be downright disturbing. Peggy’s hair has turned into snakes. When Scott laughs, he summons demons that moan and talk about their plans to dismember people.
After that, things get really bad. With enough of the drug, Five loses a firm grip on reality. Instead of being in the medical lab, he’s back in the apocalypse. It’s so vibrant, so real that he almost chokes on the ash as he screams for reprieve.
At the maximum dosage, Five is back at the Academy. He is forced to watch as Luther is ripped apart, bit by bit, limb by limb, screaming the whole time. He watches while Diego is eviscerated with one of his own knives, neatly cut open from neck to navel until his intestines are pulled out inch by inch. Allison has her throat ripped out while she’s still alive, and she’s left conscious and gaping while she bleeds out. Klaus takes all the drugs he can find, all of them, until he’s left twitching and gasping before he goes very, very still. Ben’s already dead, at the very least, but Five watches his death, too, wherein his own tentacles pull him apart until there’s nothing left of him but writhing bits of bloody material. Vanya dies in his vision, impaled on her own bow, while she yanks the moon out of the sky with her own bare hands.
None of this is real, and Five knows that.
That doesn’t make it any less horrifying.
Horrifying, unreal and, most importantly, part of the plan.
-o-
There are more drugs after that. Some make him violently ill, causing him to throw up until he passes out. Other drugs seem to promote unnatural growth. He spends a few times with three arms and for a period of time, he has four ears. The worst is when they grow a few extra kidneys and give him only a local anesthetic while said kidneys are removed. The acrid smell of his own flesh burning may be the worst thing he’s experience yet.
There’s a drug that gives him increased homicidal urges. There’s another that robs him of his ability to feel pain. Another inhibits his independent decision making. Things are getting pretty weird when they use a drug that turns him temporarily into a prepubescent woman.
Finally, when Scott and Peggy run out of new drugs, they put him out completely for what they deem a simple, noninvasive procedure.
When Five wakes up, he realizes that his DNA has been modified, spliced with donor samples to heighten his abilities, encourage his aggression and validate his need for approval.
“It’s a few little tweaks,” Scott assures him. “Meant to help you transition back into being a field agent.”
“You may notice a few little urges, but we think the differences will be minimal to your psyche,” Peggy says brightly. “It’s just to take the edge off some of your more problematic impulses.”
“We’ll give you a sedative to help you sleep on it for a bit,” Scott says, slipping the edge of the needle into his arm. “We’ll see how you’re feeling when you wake up.”
-o-
Sedative is code for mild hallucinogenic laced with sensory stimulation.
A few little tweaks seems to be a nice way of saying that they’ve stripped him of his impulse control while intensifying his severe dislike for people treating him like shit.
The combination of the two is probably not quite what Peggy and Scott are expecting.
Five thinks he’s imagining it when he slits Scott throat so he doesn’t look dapper anymore. He’s sure it’s a hallucination when he smothers Peggy until that smile is wiped clean off her pretty little face.
He’s less sure when the hit squad comes in. When they finally subdue him, he can see the blood on his hands. This time, when a fresh drug is pushed into his arm, he hopes it’s one that can end it all.
Including him.
Especially him.
-o-
That’s not how it works, however. Peggy and Scott are dead, but Five’s still a vital investment. He’s transferred to another lab, one that is less comfortable, and he’s strapped to a reclined chair while probes are attached to his head, chest, arms and legs. The woman in charge of this room doesn’t smile as much as Peggy, and her hair is drawn back severely into a graying ponytail while she carries around a clipboard and orders men in white smocks what to do.
“You shouldn’t do this,” Five says hoarsely. He’s been yelling, but he doesn’t remember why. “This is a mistake.”
“This is not an experiment,” the woman tells him curtly. “Conversation is not encouraged unless I explicitly tell you otherwise.”
Five shakes his head, too exhausted to pull against the restraints as they’re bolted down tight. “I’m not sure I can control myself,” he says. “What they did to me--”
“Was prime your body for operation,” the woman supplies. She looks at him sternly. “It is my job to train you psychologically to respond properly to orders.”
Five looks down as best he can with his head strapped won. “But how? I don’t understand.”
This finally elicits a smile. “You will,” she promises him. “You will.”
-o-
It’s behavior training.
Theoretically, it has lots of uses, and Five knows it’s a mainstay in modern psychology. However, modern applications tend not to be quite so dramatic. In most cases, patients are trained to identify destructive thought patterns that lead to negative behaviors. By understanding those thought patterns, it is possible for the patient to circumvent them, thereby preventing the manifestation of said behaviors.
This isn’t what the doctor is doing here.
No, she’s using a more reductive method. Simpler and far more effective. It’s positively channeling Pavlov. Only there’s no bell. And there’s no dog.
There’s just Five.
And a lot of pain stimulus.
Five is asked a question. When he answers wrong, he is given an electrical shock. The more he answers incorrectly, the more severe the shock is. After a week, when his answers are mostly suitable, he is unstrapped from the chair and asked to stand in a minimally covering gown to perform basic tasks. This time, when he performs incorrectly, the shock is enough to send him crashing to his knees.
Eventually, Five resents the process. Instead of being trained to salivate at the sound of a bell, Five learns to anticipate the worst possible answer and provide it at his own peril. As his answers devolve into increasing anarchy, the shock value is increased to the point where he can feel his teeth chattering in his head before he passes out. Eventually, upon a simple order to eat his dinner, Five throws it behind him and asks for coffee instead. The punishment is so severe that it actually kills him.
When he wakes up, the gown cut open to expose his chest, the doctor stands there, breathlessly, electrical paddles in hand. “Why do you insist on doing this? You are only hurting yourself!”
Five laughs, tired, exhausted and reckless. “Because you didn’t ask me nicely, asshole.”
She puts the paddles down and cocks her head. “That is not part of the deal,” she tells him. “You do remember the deal?”
“I defined that deal, idiot,” Five seethes. “Of course I know it.”
“So you know that failure to live up to your end of the bargain would nullify all the other terms and conditions,” she points out.
Five stops smiling. “You wouldn’t.”
She shrugs, benign. “Me? No. But others are watching your progress, Five. And they are not impressed.”
Sobering instantly, Five swallows. The lack of impulse control, the homicidal tendencies, the reckless psychological mindset: none of it matters. The plan. The plan matters.
“Fine,” he says. “Then tell me what I need to do.”
“Learn,” she says simply. “Train. And everything will be just fine.”
-o-
Five does. Five learns. Five trains. Within another week, he is almost always answering correctly. He obeys orders and follows directions. He allows himself to be marched around the lab. He eats on command and is paraded up and down the halls while others clap and fawn. He learns to answers questions quickly and promptly, and he stops asking questions when he is told to do something.
The bell rings.
Five thinks of his family, safe and secure back at the Academy.
And then, only then, does he salivate.
Every single time.
-o-
It chafes at Five’s instincts to become compliant, but it is not without its perks. The more he complies, the more freedoms he is allotted, and eventually he is provided with a comfortable bed and three regular, if sparse, meals a day. The lead scientist seems quite pleased, and she treats Five with the affection one might provide to a prized pet.
This is irksome, but acceptable.
His family is safe.
Everything is acceptable.
-o-
Finally, when Five has not trigger a punishment in a week, he is taken up through HQ to the Handler’s office. He can’t help but notice that she’s redecorated. There are fewer trophies than before, and the bowl of candy is conspicuously missing from the desk. She rises to greet them, and Five notes that the store clerk is lounging in one of the chairs in front of her desk.
“As requested for final evaluation,” the scientist reports. Five’s still wearing two electrodes, one on each temple, and the scientist is holding the trigger lightly in her hand. The armed guards, though they have accompanied them this far, are waiting in the hall. “I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”
The Handler straightens her dress as she walks around the front of the desk, inspecting Five as a mother might look at their child before the first day of school. She smiles, but somehow she does not look pleased.
Behind her, the clerk gets to his feet. He’s grinning. He’s the one who looks pleased. “You’ve really done it, then? Trained him?”
The scientist nods in a perfunctory fashion. “It took some time, but the behavior response therapy has proven effective,” she says. “He has responded to all orders with absolute and unwavering discipline for seven days straight. By these standards, he meets the approved metrics for compliance.”
Five doesn’t roll his eyes. The fact that he thinks about it seems like enough. Thinking about his siblings at the Academy is enough consolation. His humiliation is a price he’s willing to pay, even if he must endure mundane tortures such as this.
The clerk laughs, utterly delighted. “So he’ll do anything I tell him? Anything at all?”
“We have experimented with increased periods off the probes,” the scientist reports. “So far, he has maintained compliance records.”
“So why are they on now?” the Handler observes. She lifts a hand, gesturing to the electrodes on his temples.
“Safety precautions, as mandated,” she reports back. “He needs to be cleared by upper management in order to move about HQ without such interventions in place.”
The Handler touches her chin, where the scars from the grenade blast are still visible.
“It’s a thing to see that smug look erased from his face,” the clerk smirks. He circles around Five with a snort of derision. “Not such a cocky bastard now, are we?”
The Handler, however, looks increasingly disappointed. She’s the only one here who looks Five in the eyes. He realizes with a suddenness that this is the first time he’s made eye contact with anyone in weeks. Months. How long has he been here anyway?
“It’s a safety issue, I know,” the Handler muses. She shakes her head, eyes still locked on Five’s. “But you’re not yourself anymore. Are you?”
It takes all that’s left of his willpower not to respond. He’s not sure if she can still see the keen look in his eyes or not.
The clerk, for what it’s worth, is completely oblivious. “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” he remarks grandly, making the full loop around Five. “We had to break him.”
It’s a bit of a relief that the Handler rolls her eyes since Five can’t. “In your limited capacity, you couldn’t possibly understand the loss of what we’re discussing.”
The clerk gives her an incredulous look. “This is the guy who tried to kill you.”
“Yes, yes,” the Handler says, as if this is a bother. “But I’ve always wondered if this project was worth the cost. A subject like Five may not be able to be broken.”
The scientist clears her throat. “All the indications--”
The Handler waves her off. “Suggest that he’s not going to kill me again, but that he’ll kill for me. I know. I’ve read your enthusiastic and detailed reports.”
“So why aren’t we celebrating?” the clerk ask. He points at Five, standing there in his white scrubs with slippers on his feet. “When you sign off on this, upper management is going to forgive everything. We’re both going to be back in their good graces.”
The Handler tucks her hair behind her ear. “Perhaps,” she agrees. “But not yet, I’m afraid. He needs more training.”
The scientist’s mouth drops open and the clerk audibly objects. Five stiffens, not sure if he’s proud of himself or terrified.
“The parameters have been met--”
“He’s walking around like a trained dog? What more do you want?”
The Handler easily dismisses them both. “I know Five quite well from all our years together,” she says, smiling faintly at Five. “And I know that he’s exceptionally good at following orders that he has deemed necessary in his own terms. The problem is, of course, that those terms rarely match up to the terms of the Commission. He can seem like a valuable asset for as long as compulsory behavior is relevant to his endgame. The trick, however, is determining his endgame.”
“But he made a deal!” the clerk exclaims.
“And his performance is remarkable,” the scientist adds.
Five doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t hold his chest out in pride.
Because Luther is at home listening to records. Because Diego is throwing knives at the wall. Because Allison is on the phone with Claire. Because Klaus is knitting a sweater that will never fit. Because Ben is walking through walls. Because Vanya is playing a solo at her next recital.
“And neither of you know with any certainty what his endgame is,” the Handler says with a little sign of resignation. “I have learned with some acuity to never underestimate him because he has loyalty to one thing and one thing only: his family.”
“Yeah, and that’s why this deal works,” the clerk says. “He stays here and his family is safe. If he violates that, we’ll kill them, one by one, and bring back their heads on platters until he falls in line.”
Five doesn’t flinch.
The scientist, for all that she’s spent the last few weeks torturing him, does.
“We cannot afford to be short sighted in this,” the Handler says. “We have time to be sure.”
The clerk groans. “But they broke him! Just look at him!”
They all look at Five. He stands placidly, hands at his sides and betrays nothing.
“Don’t be so sure,” the Handler advises.
It is clear that the Handler is patient. She’s learned the value of being thorough.
The clerk is not patient. He’s apparently learned very little in the time that Five has known him.
It’s a tossup to say which one is more dangerous to him at this time.
What is clear to Five is that neither is a threat to the plan.
“Just look, okay? Look,” the clerk says. He rounds on Five, standing in front of him. “Five, get on your knees.”
Shit, that order makes him want to rip the clerk’s throat out, but he knows the satisfaction would be short lived. He only momentarily contemplates how many agents it would take to bring down Luther and sever his head before he acknowledges that inevitability of the plan.
This damn plan.
Placidly, he drops to his knees.
The clerk, now standing above him, is positively gloating. He holds out his hands. “Now, kiss it. Show me some respect, and kiss it.”
This is a juvenile and petty sort of request, one created by a dim mind with limited capacity. The ability to control someone like Five has immense possibilities, and this jackass can only imagine ways to make himself feel like the bigger man. The clerk will never appreciate the irony, of course. That nothing he’s done has earned this feat, which makes his gloating entirely ridiculous. Five’s the one following orders, but the clerk is the one who is showing his lack of girth.
Still.
Five holds his breath and kisses the outstretched hand. If he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it, and damn it, Five’s done all the calculations and none of them said shit about this.
“See?” the clerk says, beaming now. “He’s finally house-trained.”
The Handler seems to be as impressed as Five with this display. She shakes her head. “No, you underestimate him at your own peril,” she says because no doubt she remembers the grenade he threw at her the last time he was in HQ. “I’m still going to implement the final phase of his training before making a final recommendation to the higher management.”
The clerk moans loudly and flops back into his chair. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
The Handler ignores him, nods to the scientist. “See that the arrangements are made,” she says. Then, she looks to Five. Lingering, she reaches down, and this time her cold fingers brush against his chee. “I bet you miss those schoolboy shorts now, don’t you?”
As the scientist orders him to his feet, Five obeys and marches out at her behest. The Handler watches him the whole way and he gets the strangest impression that she misses those schoolboy shorts, too.
-o-
There’s no time to dwell on that.
Five is ushered down the hall, down several flights of stairs into a sublevel basement. There is no natural light here, so it looks less like a prison cell and more like an actual dungeon. At a nondescript door, the scientist strips the electrodes off Five and then promptly removes his slippers. The door is opened and Five is ushered inside. By the time he turns around, the door is closed and he hears it clink, a mechanical lock slipping into place with a resounding thud.
The room has a wan light, emanating from a panel in the ceiling. The hole here is in the middle of the floor, and there is nothing resembling furniture. There are no further instructions, and Five listens until he hears the sounds of footfalls fade away and he’s left in utter silence.
Five stands, staring at the door.
And just like that, all there is is time to dwell.
-o-
Five understands what the final phase of his training is. He knows it almost immediately. Isolation is used to strip Five of whatever he has left of his dignity, individuality and, ultimately, his sanity. This is used to teach him that disobedience can result in the absence of all stimulation. This is torture for any person, but for someone like Five, someone who has a particular strain of PTSD related to isolation, it is a particularly clever move.
The Handler knows how desperate Five was when she first offered him the job. It is her intention to recreate the experience in this manner, leaving Five to rot in a cell, devoid of all possible connection, until he is ready to acquiesce to her terms for real.
It’s as clever as it is cruel, Five will grant her that.
He comes to this conclusion within minutes of being locked in the room.
Minutes more, he concludes that this is still part of the plan.
Minutes more, he concludes that he may hate this plan.
A few more minutes, he concludes that it doesn’t matter what the hell he thinks.
One more minute: this is still part of the plan.
-o-
Minutes are hours. Hours are days. Days are weeks. Weeks may be months. For all Five knows, they are years. Decades. Lifetimes.
He loses track rather quickly, if only because there is no way to measure time here. When h sleeps, the dim light is exactly the same as when he’s awake, and try as he might to keep track, it’s a futile effort. He has no idea how much time lapses when he closes his eyes, and he realizes fairly quickly that his meals are coming in irregular shifts. This is, undoubtedly, a ploy to keep him from charting the passage of time.
Surely this is the Handler’s way of speeding up the process. When deprived of its natural impulses, the brain will often lean toward exaggeration. That is why minutes can seem like hours when you’re panicking or injured. The hope is that when the Handler does come in three months, it will feel like three decades.
Five hates to admit that it might just work.
Because minutes are hours. Hours are days. Days are weeks. Weeks may be months. For all Five knows, they are years. Decades.
Lifetimes.
-o-
So, Five assesses his options.
Obviously, he’s more than capable of escaping. As far as he knows, there is no substance that can impede his ability to complete a spatial jumps. His father had been quite explicit about testing this. Five had jumped through all materials of all thicknesses. Then, Five had been required to jump with various elemental factors. His father had tried gases, sounds, lights and as many other stimuli as he could think of. None of them prevented Five from jumping. In fact, the only known impediments were exhaustion, stress and repetition.
Sure, Five’s exhausted and stressed, but he’s got no doubt he could jump through any one of these walls, no problem.
However, Five ascertains just as quickly that this is not actually an option. He fully believes that he could complete an actual escape, sublevel basements and armed guards aside, but the consequences of such an escape would not fall to him. They would fall to his family.
Therefore, Five is stuck here.
If Five is stuck here, he can still be a difficult bastard. He could yell and scream. He could kick and howl. Maybe this is even what is expected of him. He’s contrary enough to find the expected response unpalatable.
Besides, it’s futile. This is part of the plan.
Therefore, Five decides, the only viable option is to create a regimen to keep him functional and sane. This is the kind of discipline that had worked in his favor in the apocalypse. His self imposed standards had kept him going when lesser beings would have given up and died.
There is hardly any room for self congratulatory behavior, however. Five is probably not at risk of dying in this cell, but his options for self maintenance are more limited. It’s not clear when he’ll be fed, but it is quite obvious that obtaining food will not be something he is capable of doing on his own. He will have to resign that part of his fate to the judgment of his captors.
Without food and water as a primary concern, Five shifts his focus accordingly. He will need to stay active, something which could prove quite daunting given his confinement. He quickly makes up an exercise program, combining light cardio with core training, mindful that his caloric intake may be variable and his exercise routine must adjust as needed.
After exercise, Five ponders means of mental stimulation. The apocalypse, while horrifying, had had no shortage of such options. There had been books, and he had had the means to sketch out as many calculations as he pleased. Here, he’s got nothing.
Therefore, he talks to himself.
First, he recites passages from Vanya’s book.
Then, he starts a verbal calculations detailing the possibility of a secondary cataclysmic event at some point in what he hopes is the very distant future.
Finally, before sleeping, he sits on the ground, crosses his legs and looks up at the ceiling. He smiles and he say, out loud, that this is fine. He says in a clear voice with confidence that his family is fine. He says it loud enough for the words to resound in his ears: this is all part of the plan.
-o-
With his routine set, Five still has a lot of time to kill. It’s not clear how much time, but a lot or a little, it’s still an empty void with which he has little to do. Despite his best efforts, the physical training and mental stimulation are not quite sufficient, and as he waits for his next meal, Five is tempted back into old habits.
Now, just to clarify, because Five does feel compelled to clarify, it’s Delores who start it. It always has been. Sure, Five’s the one who picked her up while scavenging, but she’s the one who started talking to him no more than a year later, when he was lonely, hungry, sick and terrified.
Obviously, this is a complicated stance to take, since Delores is clearly a manifestation of his subconscious that he used to maintain some form of sanity during a period of stressful and prolonged isolation. But Five’s not crazy, okay? He doesn’t normally sit around talking to himself. He was just sitting there, minding his own business (it was the apocalypse, there was no other business), and she straight up said, “Are you sure about that?”
It’s a useful question because no, Five had not been sure about that. And it’s only in retrospect that he’s able to see that she saved him from overdosing on the pills he found to combat the fever he’d contracted after cutting himself on a tin can he tried to open when he was starving to death. In his delirium, he had been ready to take four times the necessary dose. But Delores had sat there, prim and proper in her wagon and said, “I really think you should read the label again.”
Given that she had been right, it had only been appropriate to say, “Thank you.”
From then on, she had started to make lots of comments. “Maybe the house up there has water,” she suggested.
“If you find a school, you’ll find chalk,” she pointed out.
“Don’t forget: it’s your birthday today,” she had said. “I’m glad it’s your birthday.”
Sitting in his cell, he wonders what she’d say now.
“You’re doing great, love. Really. Just great.”
“It hasn’t been as long as it seems, I promise.”
“When you get out, we’ll break open the Bordeaux. You and me. A whole bottle.”
“It’s part of the plan, darling. You know it’s part of the plan.”
She’s not here, though.
Five’s tempted to talk to her, but the echo of her voice hurts to hear. The temptation is an invitation into insanity, and Five can’t be sure, but he thinks that would stretch the plan to its limits. He’s left Delores in his future; he’s left Delores in his past.
This time, Five’s alone.
And there’s nothing to be done for it at all.
-o-
Food comes, and it’s so bland and nondescript that it is unclear if it’s intended to be breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s probably irrelevant. The Handler has designed this to take the element of time away from him, and ultimately eating is nothing but a practicality to advance the plan.
He wonders, briefly, if refusing food might jumpstart a different process. The Commission is going through some difficult to train him. If he stopped eating, it’s likely they would intervene.
Of course, such intervention might save his life.
And kill one of his siblings.
He eats the food instead.
The necessity of it all is more satisfying than anything he swallows.
-o-
He does his exercises. He recites portions of the book. He works on a few equations.
When that does not tire him, he tries using his powers to bop himself back and forth across the room. He’s mindful of the limitations, and he takes some pleasure in getting as close to the wall without accidentally ending up on the other side. He’s not sure what the Commission will think of such antics, but he decides that it will show first his ability, thus proving his worth, and second his submission, thus reducing his risk.
Also, he’s so bored that if he doesn’t do something, he’s going to lose his shit.
It takes several hours before it wears him out, before he can’t curl his fingers into fists and the electricity can’t be summoned to his fingertips. It’s almost a bit of a rush to be so powerless, to be so bereft. He slumps to the ground and closes his eyes.
Then, he sleeps.
-o-
Nothing changes when he wakes up.
Nothing changes.
Nothing.
-o-
Exercise. Recitation. Equations.
Lazily, Five tries to sleep, but finds it elusive. Blinking wearily, he looks up at the light on the ceiling until it blurs. When his eyes focus again, Luther’s massive form looms above him.
It’s Five’s imagination.
Five knows it’s his imagination.
If Luther were really here, there would have been a lot more noise and destruction. And he wouldn’t be standing there, staring at Five, waiting for him to speak.
“You’re not real,” Five finally announces. He’s not disappointed by this; not when he had no expectation of it in the first place. “This is a hallucination.”
“Probably just a lucid dream,” Luther suggests instead. It’s a surprisingly insightful answer. Luther shrugs. “I used to have them from time to time on the moon.”
“The isolation,” Five agrees, smiling wanly. He knows that speaking out loud will probably be monitored, and he’s not sure that he wants his insanity documented. Then again, it probably already is. “It makes you do funny things.”
Luther makes a face, a funny one, and it’s oddly endearing. “There were days I thought I was losing it up there,” he admits. “Days when I thought I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Five thinks about that. He thinks about Luther on the moon all by himself. He thinks about Luther with the perfect view of the solar system but the only place he wants to look is home.
He’s spacing off, following the errant train of thought, but Luther’s voice brings him back to the moment. “Do you know how I did it?”
Five squints up at him, wondering if the old man would have loved Five enough to turn him into a monster. It probably doesn’t matter, though. You can change Luther’s DNA, and he’s always going to be inherently good, even if only in a facile sense. “Not really,” he admits.
“I believed it was my duty,” Luther explains. “I believed that I was part of a plan bigger than myself -- so much bigger than myself -- and that if I didn’t uphold my duty, others would face the consequences.”
It’s a little on the nose. Five snorts. “Dad never read your reports, though. So wasn’t it just a ruse?”
Luther nods a little, remorseful. “Maybe,” he says. “But maybe it just wasn’t the plan I thought it was.”
Five nods his head, humming to himself a little. “Would you go back to the moon?” he asks suddenly, not sure why it matters. “If you had to, would you go back again?”
Luther raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Of course,” he says. “I know my duty.”
“And that’s enough?” Five asks. “That’s always enough?”
Luther can only shrug. “What’s the alternative?”
Five concedes that much. “It’s not a bad point,” he says. “It would be more effective if you were real.”
At that, Luther smiles. “Nah. I doubt it.”
Five nods in agreement. “I’m tired.”
“Then get some sleep.”
“You’ll be gone when I wake up,” Five tells him.
Five is already closing his eyes as Luther replies. “Not really,” he says. “Not really.”
-o-
Luther’s not there.
Five doesn’t expect him to be.
He misses him anyway.
-o-
Exercise. Recitation. Calculations.
When Five’s done, he’s so restless that he doesn’t know what to do. They fed him this morning, and the hit of sucrose has him pulsating. Maybe it just reminded him how hungry he was.
All of which is to say, he can’t sit still. There’s no way he’s sitting still. He lacks the coordination at the moment for spatial jumps -- the notion of accidentally materializing mid-wall is something he has already deemed a possibility, and not one he wants to validate -- so he settles for some old fashion movement.
Pacing the walls, he counts from one end to the other, approximating the overall distance based on his stride. At best, it’s a five by five square, though he thinks it could be six by six. That extra foot on each side doesn’t make it seem any bigger, even in theory.
When he’s paced off the perimeter, he looks from floor to ceiling. Judging on his own height, he guesses that the place has seven foot ceilings, which is just high enough not to seem overtly claustrophobic. Although, being stuck in here long enough, a little claustrophobia is probably the least of his concerns.
After these assessments, he studies the door. It’s in his nature to look for signs of weakness, and by tapping on the door, he can estimate its depth and structural integrity. It’s a solid metal, obviously reinforced. Likely it’s designed to be bullet proof. It’s probably got enough girth to hold up to a hand grenade, if he knows the Handler.
The idea of blasting through the door is ridiculous anyway; you go for the hinges. He takes it as a compliment that these are also well reinforced. They could not be pried up easily, and it would take a supreme amount of direct force to do anything to dislodge them. The sheer weight of the three bolts would make any kind of possible attack statistically unfeasible.
He thinks he could probably calculate an exception.
But his siblings are at the Academy. Maybe they’re sitting down for their weekly dinner, laughing and telling stories. Maybe the picture of Five is still hanging in the study, and maybe Vanya is making him a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich just in case.
All the reasons he wants to come home.
Are the reasons he will never let himself.
-o-
Diego is sitting in the far corner, turning a knife from hilt to blade in his hands. He shakes his head as he watches Five in apparent disapproval. “You’re not looking so good, bro,” he comments.”
Five closes his eyes, only just no realizing he’s opened them. He’s not entirely sure if he’s awake or asleep, which means it’s not clear if Diego is a hallucination or a dream. It’s probably an irrelevant distinction. “I’ve been tortured,” he mutters. “I’m pretty sure I look pretty good considering.”
He closes his eyes a little more, half hoping he falls asleep. He doesn’t, though, and this time when he opens them, he’s more confident that he is, in fact, awake.
Diego, bastard that he is, smirks as if he appreciates the irony of the realization. “No, you don’t.”
Five sighs. “It’s unavoidable,” he concedes. “The plan is within acceptable margins.”
Diego raises his eyebrows, still moving the knife in his hand. “This? Is within acceptable margins?”
He makes a motion to the cell where Five has been held with minimal food and water and no external stimulation for an undisclosed period of time after a period of shock therapy, unconsented medical testing and prolonged questioning.
Five shrugs to concede another point. “The plan wasn’t very specific in this regard,” he says. “I mean, you and the others -- you’re safe. That’s what matters.”
Shaking his head, Diego frowns. “No, that’s not what matters.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No,” Diego retorts, more insistently this time. “It’s not all that matters. The plan was for all of us to be safe. All of us to be whole.”
Five opens his mouth, but this time the retort is cut short. “I don’t know what else you think I’m going to be able to do.”
“You fight,” Diego says.
“Fighting will get you killed,” Five replies.
“Not in that way, then,” Diego says. “I’m not just a dumb brute, okay? I’m capable of nuance.”
Five cocks his head as he considers that.
Diego rolls his eyes. “My point is that fighting is not always combat,” he says. “Sometimes it’s not even physical. You have to fight what they’re doing to you. Mentally.”
“I am,” Five says, mildly offended. “I have my routine.”
“And yet, here you are, talking to yourself,” Diego points out.
Five glares at him. “That’s not fair.”
“No?” Diego says. “But it is part of the plan. Part of your plan. The one that you made up and forced us to agree to. So you better believe that I’m holding you to that shit.”
That’s an annoyingly good point.
Also, Five’s tired.
He’s lonely and he’s hungry and he’s weary and he’s at the end of himself. Maybe it’s okay for Diego to have a point.
“I’m trying,” Five tells him, softly now.
Diego moves the knife, hilt to blade, hilt to blade. “Try harder.”
“I don’t know how.”
Diego shakes his head. “You’re the asshole who always cheated when we were kids.”
“I never cheated,” Five says. “I just knew how to exploit the rules.”
“That’s my point,” Diego says. “Where is that? You’re just lying here, letting them break you.”
Five exhales, wishing it were that simple again. He wishes he could blink his way to the front of the line and end the race. But this isn’t a sprint. This is a marathon. As fast as Five can go, his whole life has be designed to slow him down.
That makes him mad.
The anger just leaves him more exhausted than he was before.
“You make it sound so easy,” he finally quips dryly.
Diego makes a face, shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”
Five sags back, his defenses stripped even more than they were before. “And if I can’t? If I’m all out of fight?”
Diego studies the knife before he looks at Five. “Then you’re not the guy I thought you were.”
Five is struck by the fact that maybe that’s true.
Then, more importantly, he’s struck by the fact that Diego sounds disappointed.
Five’s lived through hell because he had a reason.
Damn it, he can do it again.
He swallows back the emotions and nods resolutely. “It’s not going to be easy for me, you know. I can’t promise you how it’ll look.”
This time, when Diego smirks, there’s something reassuring about it. “And that,” he says, throwing the Five so it whizzes by his ear. “Sounds like my brother.”
Five looks back to where there’s no knife in the wall.
And looks back to where Diego isn’t sitting by the wall.
Five’s not sure if he’s really ready for this fight. He just knows he’s not ready to lose. That has to count for something.
He hopes that it counts for enough.
-o-
He exercises, hard enough to leave him panting for air.
He recites full chapters of the book, detail after detail until his voice is hoarse.
He does the calculations until the numbers just don’t add up anymore.
Then, he sits on the far wall, staring at the door. He refuses to wonder when it’ll open. He refuses to speculate how long it’s been since he was last fed. He refuses to think about ways he can overpower whoever is on the other side of the door.
He refuses.
Instead, Five sits and stares at the door, making a mental list of all the ways this situation is better than the apocalypse.
This seems like a good idea at first; it does.
Except he’s got less mobility. He’s got less freedom. He has decidedly inferior companionship. His options are extremely limited. Food is surprisingly more scarce now, and the fact that this is probably not a permanent situation -- it’s probably not even a situation that will span three full decades -- is usurped by the reality that he’s being actively manipulated into becoming a worse person than he ever was before.
There is one reason, however.
One reason that his current situation is far, far better than the apocalypse.
The best reason, really.
Ultimately, the only reason that probably matters.
In point, this: his family’s not dead.
He grins at the door, half drunk on his own exhaustion and hunger.
His family’s not dead.
With that in mind, he gets up to start the routine all over again.
-o-
After they feed him, Five tries not to think about how hungry he still is. He walks anxiously around the cell, knobby knees and loose clothes. He must look younger than 13 now. He must look like he’s 10.
Maybe he is 10.
Maybe he’s capable of further age regression.
Maybe if he can get those calculations right, make himself 4, they’ll stop torturing him altogether. They wouldn’t torture a 4 year old would they?
He nods to himself. They would totally torture a 4 year old.
That’s not going to work.
Not that Five could even get the calculations right.
“But the numbers don’t matter. You’re forgetting.”
Five has to blink to clear his vision, and he realizes that he’s sitting cross legged across from Allison.
Allison is sitting cross legged, looking back at him. “You can’t keep forgetting.”
“And you can’t keep lecturing me,” Five says. “I’m not Claire.”
Allison looks down her nose at him, skeptical. “You act like her.”
“Well, she’s a smart kid, then,” he quips. “You’re lucky.”
She is not impressed. He wonders if this is how mothers usually are, when they’re not, you know, robots. “The numbers don’t matter,” she says again, determined to make her point. “The people matter.”
“Sure,” Five says, and he feels like this is a challenge he must rise to. “Except there are no people here. Just me and my total lack of sanity.”
She looks even less impressed by this than before. “You know that’s not true.”
Five laughs, and the sound is a little raw, a little surreal. “I think it probably is. I mean, I’m not that crazy. Not yet.”
She shakes her head. “But you’re forgetting,” she says. “You’re not alone. The plan, Five. You have to remember the plan.”
Five no longer has the willpower to resist the overwhelming urge to groan. “I’m beginning to hate that plan,” he moans. “I almost wish I hadn’t come up with it in the first place.”
She shrugs, diffident. “That’s not true.”
“Maybe it is,” he says.
“It’s not,” she says, utterly undeterred.
He sits forward a little bit, staring her down. “I’ve been here a long time. I’m entitled a little bit of doubt.”
“Doubt your sanity. Doubt your strength. Doubt your memory,” she says. “But don’t doubt us. You did this for us, Five. And we haven’t left you alone.”
What’s left of his strength wavers. He wavers. Shit, the whole damn universe seems to waver. He doesn’t just look like a child, he feels like one. Shaky and scared and so damn alone.
Her expression softens. “Five, the people. That’s why we’re all doing this. You have to hold onto that. When everything else is lost, hold onto us.”
Five’s trembling now. Hunger. Exhaustion. Sanity. His own damn emotions. “But you’re not here,” he reminds her softly.
She bobs her head forward; it’s her turn to concede the point. “Not physically, maybe,” she says. “But I’m here, Five. We’re all here, Five.”
She places her hand on her chest, and Five feels his own heart skip a beat.
“We’re here.”
Just like that, she’s gone.
Five’s alone again.
Five’s alone.
Five’s alone.