Overreach - 10. Chapter 10 - "First Phase"

1

It was about three days of being locked in the room - aside from food and showers - when, for some unexplained reason, the people in charge changed who brought Elliot food. It was a girl, about his age, who had straight brown hair and a neutral expression. Elliot had never gone out of his way to engage her, always too self-involved to get around to that, but after a few days of her bringing him food he finally noticed.

“Hey.” He said, grabbing her arm before she got to the door. She looked back, her eyes full of fright for the first time, and ripped her arm from his grip. The door was slammed not long after.

She continued to bring him food. After about a week, he watched her bring in the tray as he sat on the end of the bed. She put it down on the small table, and then turned again to leave. He tried again. “What’s your name?”

She spared him a glance, but didn’t say anything. She glanced out the open door, as if someone was about to enter the room. When no one did, she whispered, “Anya.” Then she was gone.

Being locked in the room was a psychological torture that Elliot was not at all prepared for. What had happened before - being spun up, meeting Lucas, escaping, fighting - had happened so quickly. Now, he was stuck with four walls, regular meals, and his thoughts. He wanted to knock his brains out using the edge of the wooden bed.

He had ample time to think. He thought about what Angela had told him - that his parents were actually his parents! But they had also been maliciously murdered. And he was actually alone.

It came to him while he was lying on his bed in the middle of the night - that’s when everything clicked. He no longer had to wonder why he was here, because he had already been told. By Lucas, more than a week previously.

I’m a fucking guinea pig! He thought, the image seizing his mind in a vice grip. They’re going to experiment on me! Fuck! He had been so concerned about Lucas this whole time that he never delved too deep into why he thought they had actually brought him here. What were they planning?

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do but think.

2

The girl continued to bring Elliot food and her smile never brightened, not even once. She still acted like an abused cat around the boy, and so he eventually stopped his attempts to fraternize with her. He couldn’t seem to figure Anya out. She was obviously a part of the staff, on the account of her plastic ID card that hung from her lapel, but she seemed more like someone that was being forced into the room with live wires sticking out of the ground. Many times she had come and gone without the knowledge of Elliot, who had been sleeping.

Elliot, despite his many plots and plans to do so, never tried to break out. He guessed it was the fact that, though he wasn’t entertained, he was at least comfortable and not being hunted or overworked for the first time in his life. He expected that made him a bit soft, but he pushed it out of his mind. During the weeks he was in the room, Lucas had come in about a total of four times, each time looking worse than the last. His shoulders were tight, along with his expressions. He did, however, bring a few old-fashioned paperback books for Elliot to read, among them being Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. As he opened the book for the first time, not long after Lucas had left, there was something scribbled into the front page.

I hope this gives you inner strength when you will need it most.

And that was it. Elliot felt a shudder go down his spine. Why, exactly, he didn’t put up much of a fight was foreign even to him. He guessed curiosity was the only thing that made it bearable, but just barely. Plus, he didn’t know how to get out or what he would even do if he did. He could only fight security guards for so long before they inevitably dragged him back to his room - cell.

A few days after Lucas’s fourth visit, he came again. Elliot went up and opened the door to a boy that had nearly seemed to transform into a grim adult in the space for four and a half weeks. He seemed exhausted, with dark rings under his eyes and a hollow expression. It brightened considerably when he saw Elliot, but it was gone just as quickly. Behind him, Elliot noticed, surprised, was Anya.

“Lucas!” Elliot said, stepping back as the two entered. He noticed that two other security guards were stationed in the hallway, which didn’t normally happen. “What’s… what’s going on?” It dawned on him that he was starting to understand exactly what was going on.

Lucas stood, his stance awkward and eyes looking anywhere but Elliot’s. Anya, knowing the backstory behind them, stood back near the door and seemed to find the floor very interesting.

“Lucas?” There was an edge to his voice now.

Lucas sighed, his voice raspy and light. He talked as if he had been in an eternal hangover for the past week. “You need to come with us, El.” He fished something out of his shirt pocket, and Elliot realized with a sickening realization that it was a needle. His eyes pleaded. “I… please don’t make me use this. You need to come with us. I’m responsible for you and if you don’t…”

Elliot’s voice was softer despite the circumstance. “They’ll hurt you again, won’t they?” It didn’t take a genius to see that Lucas seemed to be like a pumpkin with the pulp scooped out. Hollow. With no reply, he said, “I knew it! Lucas, I-”

“No!” Lucas’s bark made them both jump. “No. Just… I can’t tell you anything. Not until I deliver them to you. They… they said that if I did that we can spend some time together.” He muttered, “They know that you’re more likely to come with me without a fight.”

Elliot was dumbstruck. A few emotions, all of them complex, flashed onto his face. Lucas watched him warily with a demeanor like a dog that was being punished for bringing his own shit into the kitchen. Finally, Elliot relented. He was pretty sure he knew where his boyfriend was taking him, but there was simply nothing he could do. Quickly, Lucas motioned to Anya, and she left and came back with the same black handcuffs that had been used in the woods, weeks earlier. As if Elliot had taken a back seat to his own mind, he watched as he stuck out his arms and Lucas snapped them securely over his wrists.

They left the room and turned left. The whole way, Lucas held Elliot by the upper arm and Elliot leaned into him without thinking. Lucas seemed so utterly ashamed that he couldn’t even look over.

“We can spend time together if this happens?” Elliot said softly. He warmed momentarily when Lucas’s hand left his bicep and landed gently on his own hands. Surreptitiously, he enveloped Lucas’s hand in his own and watched as emotion flowed on the blond boy’s face like different colored paints being mixed in a can.

“They said they would be together after this first… treatment.” Surprised, Elliot realized that was the first amount of real information he had been able to get out of the boy. So they were doing tests on him. Fuck. Lucas continued, “Davidson made it seem like we would be together for a while.”

Though somewhat elated at that news, Elliot swallowed past the rock that was lodged in his throat. “Why did they keep me locked up for so long?”

Then, Lucas shot him an apologetic glance and his eyes fluttered in memory. Still whispering, he said, “They needed to set up for you. And they needed to… make sure I was in the right state of mind to assist them.” He said that last part with so much bitterness it took Elliot aback. “They… did things to my mind, El. I… I dunno what they did but it hurts so bad!”

Elliot felt his stomach lurch. So, they were manipulating the both of them, then. Lucas continued, apparently on a roll. “You need to stay strong through this, El. Please, for me. I’m not as complicit in this as I seem, but I have no choice. Just… remember that we’ll be able to spend some time together after this is all over, alright?”

Elliot nodded automatically, but the phrasing of that made his heart want to explode with fright. They were silent for the rest of the way besides quiet nothings from both of them. A distant part of Elliot thought he was crazy for giving Lucas any chance at all, especially when he got him into this mess in the first place, but he knew that wasn’t fair. The poor kid was being tortured probably as much as Elliot would be.

They reached the dull grey metal doors, finally, and the guards opened them. Lucas, with Elliot firmly in his grasp, stepped through.

3

The room was about as sterile as Elliot expected it to be. There was a large gurney-like table in the middle that could obviously be raised or lowered with the person strapped on. It looked as if it could go nearly adjacent to the floor.

There were large banks of black servers that surrounded the room, their soft fans and beeping only good for background noise. Large, black wires, as thick as his forearm, hung from the ceiling, above the moving table, and there were a few people waiting patiently with their eyes on the group.

“Ah! At long last!” Someone said. Elliot shifted in Lucas’s grasp and saw a stocky, nearly balding man step towards them. His face screamed I will deceive you at any time I wish to. The man’s own face barely registered the placid smile he attempted. “Hello, Elliot. Lucas. Hope you two didn’t suck too much face on the way here.”

Lucas’s expression darkened, but he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, don’t look so grumpy. This is a very long project in the making, indeed. Just to get you two here took tremendous effort and planning, but we did it.” He paused, and stepped up to the boys, who were flanked by guards and Anya. “I see you’ve met my daughter. Forgive me. I’m Brian Davidson.” He stuck his hand out comically to Elliot, who obviously couldn’t shake it, and then dropped it after a few moments as if he were offended.

“I see,” he mused, his eyes cold and hard, though there was still a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Lucas, bring him here please.”

At once, Lucas roughly pushed Elliot forward and then up against the table. Elliot realized that this was some sort of operating table. He nearly started to faint when Lucas went about securing the straps on his arms and legs with a blank expression, after he had taken off the cuffs. Fuck; whatever they did to that kid was definitely not good.

“Good boy,” Brian said, treating Lucas as if he were a seal performing a sick parlor trick. Lucas backed away with the same blank expression, as if he was staring off into the void. It made Elliot’s stomach curdle.

“What are you going to do to me?” Elliot asked, making the futile decision to struggle against his bonds.

“Well, now finally a good question!” Davidson was typing things into a black box on a separate counter and then sauntered over. “See, you’re very important to us. You have a genetic make-up that is, shall we say, unique. Very unique. And so we’re going to do all we can so that not only you can rise to your potential, but also give your gifts to others.”

“Genetic… makeup? What makes me special?”

Although Brian seemed absolutely revile, he seemed to be in his element when he was talking about something he, unfortunately, cared about. “You, my boy, have the most rare gift of all: being able to go back and forth through the Overreach, even as a near adult. This is quite the feat, you must know. There are some adults that can make the trip, but even then it’s only once. Any other time they either turn into a pile of goop and bones here, or get corrupted when they go back in, and die. With your genetic mutation, see, not only can we make more people like you, but we can also make people that are much, much stronger and faster than anyone.”

Elliot scoffed, screwing his face into a dubious expression. “You’re… you’re using me to make -- what? Some kind of supersoldier?”

Brian laughed a grating, terrible laugh. “Boy, you catch on quick. Of course you do. But, yes, in a word we are trying to create a supersoldier. With your genetic mutation, not only does it make it easier to weather the pains of the Overreach, but it also can be tweaked for other things. And you have your father to thank for that!”

“What? What do you mean?”

Brian smiled, and it was not a friendly one. “You’ll find out. Now lay back and relax. This won’t hurt a bit.”

4

Elliot watched helplessly as the black hoses dangling from the ceiling descended upon him like tentacles. Looking closer, he noticed that they had smaller ends coming from them, hundreds per arm that looked like fishing line. However, once they got closer to Elliot, they moved languidly, as if searching for something.

Elliot was that something. He risked a hurried glance over to Lucas, who was apparently aware again and watching this with a mixture of sick fascination and abject horror.

Elliot heard a strangled choking sound suddenly, and then realized it was him. A split second later, all normal thoughts scattered like television static.

The fishing lines had burrowed into his skin - his arms, face, torso, and legs. There was not a word or verb in the English language to describe how painful it was. Elliot couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone words. He could hear the strangled cries and inhuman keening coming from him, but that was secondary to the pain he felt. He felt as though his veins and capillaries had been replaced with rubbing alcohol. In fact, pouring a bottle of alcohol into an open wound would have been a feeling of relief to Elliot - at least it would be over within a few seconds or minutes. This was everlasting pain; everlasting damnation. And he was conscious for every fucking second.

He could hear himself jerk wildly within the restraints, going rigid and spasming at irregular intervals. He couldn’t escape the pain, and what was worse, it felt as though these things were burrowing into his mind. He twisted violently as images and words were triggered uninvited. His mother - his father. Lucas. His house and neighborhood. They flashed in front of him like slides inside a nickelodeon. He could tell he was still yelling loudly, but had gone hoarse. After a while, he couldn’t do anything but whimper and jerk violently.

Brian shut it down when he saw the signs of Elliot’s first seizure. Elliot started to tremble violently, and then all at once he jerked against the restraints so hard that Brian was almost sure he heard a bone snap. His eyes had been screwed shut but now they were open slightly and looking at nothing. Spittle foamed out of his mouth and down his chin. Brian quickly looked at Lucas and realized that if he didn’t get a handle on that boy before he released Elliot, Brian would probably be attacked. Viciously. Quietly, he tapped his telenode, and Lucas’s eyes blanked over. He then hit another button and the hoses receded, leaving a limp and unconscious Elliot Darrow.

As he bid his assistants to help release Elliot, he nearly decided to renege on his promise to the boys that they could spend time together, although he ended up belaying that train of thought. He decided to leave the two boys wondering as to why he didn’t immediately separate them; playing mind games with them was just too much fun.

Again he tapped on the telenode, which made Lucas start and mindlessly walk over to the operating table to start undoing the straps along with the others. Meanwhile, Brian went over to one of the output monitors along with one of his assistants, going over the data he had just collected. He hummed to himself, apparently satisfied with the readings. His eyes flitted over to Lucas, who was now hoisting his unconscious boyfriend up out of the table and into a fireman’s carry while concerned aids hovered to make sure they both didn’t fall over. He fingered his telenode again, and Lucas regained his sense of self.

Lucas blinked, and then realized what he was doing. It was almost as if he had been taking a backseat to his own mind; he knew the general gist of what was going on when he fully came back to himself, but it still took about a half of a second to really understand.

“As I promised, you boys may stay together throughout these procedures,” he announced, Lucas looking up sharply at the sound of his voice. “We have a room ready. Please, make yourselves comfortable; this may last a while.”

Lucas shot him a look of thoughtful contempt, and then re-hoisted Elliot into a more comfortable position on his shoulder. He stalked to the door, and then out of it, following an aide who would take them to their new room.

They got to the room, which was moderately large with a queen-sized bed and attached bathroom. The ceiling light was bright and somewhat glaring, but it did the job. Lucas carefully dropped Elliot onto the bed and the aide checked him over. Luckily there were no broken bones, but the aides gave Lucas some cream for the small puncture wounds and some pills that he assumed were Xanax. Elliot was still out while Lucas tended to him, carefully wiping his face with a wet washcloth and applying the ointment to his entire body. Once that was complete, Lucas shed his clothes and took a shower, afterwards just putting on a pair of slacks and staying shirtless.

After about an hour and a half, Elliot stirred. Well… more like thrashed violently. He was sweating, and Lucas rushed over and placed his hands on Elliot’s shoulders.

“El! El! It’s me!” He said, pushing lightly while Elliot looked around, unseeing and frantic. Slowly, life came back into his eyes as he looked up to Lucas, seeming small and confused. At that moment, Lucas wanted to slit Davidson’s throat.

“L-Lucas?” He asked in a timid voice. It wasn’t the voice of the young man who had clashed violently with his boyfriend, or who had seen and experienced terrible things inside the Overreach. It was the voice of a small child that had had his trust broken and wasn’t sure what to do.

“Oh, Elliot,” Lucas said softly, swiping the other boy’s sweat-laden hair out of his eyes. They maintained eye contact and Lucas could barely see any movement behind Elliot’s hazel eyes. They stayed blank, only softening minutely when resting on Lucas’s face. He placed his hand on the other boy’s cheek.

“What... where?”

“Davidson let us room together,” Lucas said. He paused. “I’m not sure why. To be honest, I’m sure it’s another one of his ways to get more information out of us.” He shook his head. “But that’s not important right now. How do you feel?”

It was an obvious and needless question, but Lucas would feel better hearing what Elliot had to say.

Elliot’s expression darkened considerably, and Lucas was frightened when a shutter suddenly came down. “Wonderful.”

“El… please. Please, you need to talk to me.”

The shutter stayed in place, along with a mouth that was set in a firm line. “There is no way I can even begin to explain what that was like, Lucas. I… I need time to process this.” His eyes strayed from Lucas’s face and firmly onto the bedspread.

Lucas sighed. Dryly, he said, “I know. They… they did something similar to me but… yours was many times worse, it seemed.”

The shutter lifted, if only a bit. Elliot looked up again. “They… they did that to you?” When Lucas nodded, Elliot’s face hardened again. “I’m sorry.”

“Elliot, I’ve had some time to… process things.” He swiped a hand against his jaw and Elliot noticed how tired his boyfriend seemed. “You… this will continue, El. I… I’m not sure how to stop it. I can’t stop it, even if I wanted to. They… they can control me at any time. That’s what they’re doing to you, too. Do you understand?”

Elliot didn’t react at first, and Lucas kept looking down at him with tight concern. Then, “Just… please hold me, Lucas. Please?” It was a whimper, a plea.

One Lucas couldn’t deny.

5

The feral scream startled Lucas, but didn’t necessarily surprise him. He was unceremoniously kneed in the gut by a flailing Elliot, and clambered out of bed, trying to catch air. He switched on the light and saw that El had tied himself up in the blankets tightly, writhing furiously to free himself.

Lucas suddenly froze.

He forgot the Xanax. Shit.

He edged closer to the bed, a bit off put by Elliot’s frantic and frankly inhuman yelling. He wasn’t sure if touching him would be such a good idea, remembering the past damage Elliot could inflict if he thought he was being cornered. After about thirty seconds of watching his boyfriend struggle, though, Lucas decided enough was enough, and if he was going to get hurt, so be it. He’d rather help El than see him in any more pain.

He slowly went around the bed, to the other side. Elliot had shuffled closer to the edge of his side, and Lucas was afraid he was going to fall off and freak out even more. Throughout all of this, Elliot hadn’t awakened, which Lucas didn’t see as a good sign. He knew from past experience that the dreams after this type of procedure were particularly… intense. He didn’t think Elliot knew how close Lucas was to breaking down completely, and that was only with partial treatment. He now understood that what Elliot was going through was quite possibly 10 to 20 times more intense than anything he experienced. In fact, for it to work, it had to be.

So, he hedged closer. Elliot had stopped wriggling for the most part, and was now making some sort of odd growling noise. To Lucas, it sounded like the sound someone would make right before they decided to kick someone’s ass after trying to reign themselves in.

He touched Elliot’s shoulder. “Elliot.” He said in a normal voice, which sounded foreign and out of place in the dead of night. No response, so he tried again. “El!”

Elliot’s strike was so fast that Lucas didn’t even think he’d been hit. And, after assessing quickly, he realized that Elliot had grabbed his wrist so quickly and so tightly that his brain had lagged for a second.

Holy shit.

Suddenly, Elliot bent Lucas’s wrist at an unnatural angle, causing Lucas to lurch sideways in order for it not to completely pop out of socket.

“FUCK!” Lucas yelped, hunched and hopping fruitlessly to the side. “ELLIOT STOP!”

Suddenly the grip loosened and Lucas yanked his hand back, looking at it incredulously. He looked back up to find Elliot upright and with an expression so daunting that Lucas couldn’t read it at all.

They both stared at one another, breathing heavily. Lucas watched as various expressions flitted rapidly across Elliot’s face, ending with an abrupt shutdown so complete that he was a bit taken aback. Even throughout everything they’d been through, he’d never seen Elliot go dark like this. Ever.

“El, babe--”

“No.” Cold. Stiff. Hoarse.

Lucas tried again. Softer. “Elliot, please. It’s -- it’s just -- I mean --” He stopped.

Silence reigned.

Then, “What do I do, Lucas?” A beat, then a strangled sound. Vulnerable. “I hurt you.”

“Let me hold you, Elliot,” Lucas said almost instantly. “Let me take away your hurt, even if it’s just for tonight.”

“But--” Another strangled noise, and then a wet, shaky sigh. “Yes. Okay. Yes.”

Lucas readjusted the sheets and climbed back into bed, shutting off the light. Pressed closely together, Lucas watched as Elliot fell back asleep after a long while. But sleep didn’t find him again.

6

The next few weeks were… bad.

Davidson had Elliot on a day-on, day-off schedule. Elliot had taken to dread his treatments so much that he became a complete and utter disaster the morning of. He shook violently and retched, sometimes vomiting and sometimes not. Lucas scrambled to get a bucket or get El to the bathroom in time, but sometimes he was stuck cleaning up El’s mess while the poor boy was away. El came back either unconscious or a shell of himself, shuffling in, his eyes focused on nothing. Lucas did his best to keep his composure but there were plenty of days where he sobbed and held the unconscious boy in his arms.

Elliot, emotionally, had completely folded. He would barely react to touch, though he would occasionally burrow into Lucas while the blonde boy talked to him softly. That was all Lucas could get out of him. He would barely talk anymore, and ate only when Lucas was forceful. Most of the time, he would stare off languidly into space, while Lucas did his best to keep him stimulated. They did talk, sometimes, but Elliot’s side consisted of short sentences and grunts.

As two weeks turned into three, Lucas was emotionally spent. He didn’t cry anymore, but started to treat Elliot as if he were a job and not his boyfriend. As Elliot steadily got quieter and quieter, so did Lucas. They snuggled in bed, but often quit when Elliot acted out.

Distantly, Lucas realized this was probably what Davidson wanted all along.

One day, near the end of week three, Elliot emerged from his treatment more lucid than normal. As Lucas dutifully attended to him, Elliot’s sharp gaze met Lucas’s and he grabbed his wrist.

“I’m going to make sure this will come back and bite them in the ass,” he said, his voice hoarse and eyes bloodshot. He gave Lucas a piercing glare. “I love you. Don’t forget that.”

That was the last coherent thing Lucas heard from him for two more weeks.

Brian had been turning up the juice, and Lucas was afraid it was killing Elliot. Each session was worse than the last, and Elliot came back more and more detached from outside stimuli. Lucas would ask him direct questions and maybe get a whimper back in return. He resorted to feeding him, as Elliot wouldn’t seem to do it on his own. In fact, Lucas felt rather more like a house maid than a boyfriend. Those three sentences were the only thing that made him not absolutely hate Elliot. He was becoming a… burden.

God knows he knew he was doing the right thing. But day in, day out… it was wearing on him -- heavily. He began to fantasize about breaking out and trekking to the next town. In fact, he had made an elaborate plan to do so, though he knew he could never execute it.

After three and a half weeks, the sessions suddenly stopped.

Brian Davidson and his father came to visit.

7

“Ah, the man of the hour!”

Caught totally off-guard, Lucas started and looked up towards the door. Two men -- Brian Davidson and his father, Drake -- loomed over a sickly boy in a wheelchair.

Elliot. He was gaunt and listless. Idle. Malleable.

Lucas stood. “What’s going on?”

“The first phase is complete,” Brian said with no preamble. He gestured to Elliot. “Take him.”

Lucas crossed the room, looking anywhere but Davidson and his father. The wheeled Elliot to the bed, and, grunting, lifted him into it. Making sure he was comfortable, stood by him and glared warily at the two men in the doorway.

“We’ve successfully mapped and categorized all of his gene and data storage,” Brian said, looking thoughtful. “There was more than we anticipated but overall it was a success.”

“The next phase involves your help, son,” Drake said. “You’ve done a fine job so far. It was honestly a stroke of luck that you two clung to each other the way you did. Keeping the other subjects mentally comfortable enough to finish intact was… a struggle.”

“Now we are on to restructuring,” Davidson said brightly. Lucas glared. “This will take about three more weeks, give or take. We’ve successfully uploaded his sequence into Overreach and are in preliminary testing as we speak. The results are… well, they’re dismal as of right now, but we expect that to change. Once the restructuring is done, we can start comparing results and tweaking outcomes.

“The sessions will be once a day for two weeks,” Brian continued, “with a two day break. Then in the last week and a half we can adjust his power output as needed. Calibration will be a bitch.”

“What… what do you need me to do?” Lucas shifted his gaze between the two men.

“I’ll need your help in the lab,” Brian said. “You’ll be in ego-shift for about 3 hours everyday during your boyfriend’s session. I’ll try and adjust the ego death function, but I can’t promise a complete repeal. Your utmost adherence is needed. I can replace it anytime I choose.”

Lucas gulped. Ego death was fucking scary and happened nearly every time they put him into shift. “I’ll be compliant,” he said, his voice brittle.

“Great! Well, then, Drake, let’s leave them to it, shall we?”

They left.