He had lost track entirely of what month it was. Like you do, when you're a piece taken outta the works.
It was where he preferred to be, at least. Outta the works, that is. What he was less fond of was bein' locked in a chest like this to gather dust. But nah - he made machines. Literal and figurative. He was born to run the works, of his very own. Not tick along with 'em.
Hell, never mind the month - what day it was'd been a lost cause for a long damn time, longer even than he'd been in here; he'd always been shit at keeping track of stuff like dates and times, and what's important when, and why, with very few, very personal exceptions, as he liked everything to be: a personal exception. At a certain point in your life, all you ever care 'bout anymore timewise is your birthday and your one favorite holiday. (His was Halloween. Dad had ruined Christmas fifty-two years ago. He'd known that Easter was a hoax since twenty years ago, when his rabbit snare had given him nothing but a mama with a bruised hand. Thanksgiving was a sham, and he could make the fun part of the 4th of July happen any damn time he wanted. Halloween was a day to play.)
That's what he joked to himself, anyway, a lotta the time. He didn't know if it was "true". Or "accepted wisdom", or whateverthefuckhaveyou. True to form as ever, he couldn't give less of a damn.
What he did know is that it had been long enough.
Long enough, namely, that if nothing else, as always, he knew what day it was for all individual intents and purposes. It was the sixtillionth day. The sixtillionth day sittin' in a cell, keepin' him waiting on the umpteenth dragging-out to get ripped to shreds.
And as such, Lucas Baker lay on his stomach, likewise for the umpteenth time, and walked his fingers along the steel frame of his cot.
Slowly. The steps of a mechanical chameleon. His eyes held narrowed - practically shining, ghost-blue in the dark gray light of a cell, draping shadows dark over eyesockets and cheeks more sunken and bruised than ever.
Raising an eye brow at the tink! of a nail growing in frayed after another checked-out chew to the root against the metal. He paused wholesale but for the tiny, tiny "float" of an unsteady hand in place. Passing movement back inward onto himself, a faint swaying and rocking on his elbows.
He was well past the point of being mad. And, bizarrely, some part of him wanted to be mad about that. But it just... fucking couldn't. He deserved to still be mad. 'Fact, by all rights, he should have been getting madder and madder. Revenge is best served hot (cold was the phrase - what did that mean?); he thought day after day after day about whirlwind escapes with materials he didn't have, a million ways to slaughter the guards. Whenever he got brought into the labs and strapped to the tables, he went on cue to reinterpreting vivisection after vivisection into nothing more than equivalent to a routine set of shots, administered by doctors whose arms you've proverbially twisted in the past - and who smirk by making a point to accidentally not get the needletip properly in for the first couple times. Pff, after Redfield, he figured that the fuckers didn't have it in their head to knock him out first as some kind of petty revenge - and in tit for tat, he made a point to lift his head and shoot 'em looks with a wildcat smile as they rooted around in his split-open guts.
It's the littlest things that go a long way in telling you how strong ex-monster-makers' stomachs really are. He reckoned he'd already gone through the entire lab staff by now, or 'least whatever level and rank of 'em were still dealing with E-Mutamycete, in what had turned from proverbially spitting in a few faces to an ongoing game of "spot the lily-liver". He did like the thought of giving them a real scare, one day - retest the guys who weren't so fazed and get the ones who were positively shaking in their shiny shoes. Remind them that they were right to see a damn freak o' nature gigglin' away at pain, showing teeth and the whites of his eyes and quipping away at them as they pulled samples out of just about everywhere in a body - one of these days, he pictured, they'd be getting the same looks 'n the same sounds as he...
...he didn't know. It changed every time. Dislocated his arms to tear 'em loose, maybe. Stab 'em with the IV. Slam one down and reenact a classic bit of medical play just like the movies. Or maybe rippin' loose of what sedative they did give him would be enough to make way for transformation again. He weren't an expert after only managing it the once. Either way, maybe he'd be tearing and barreling his way through and outta here from the labs sometime - glowing red through a haze of white spores scattering through the air to coat the halls of this fuckin' place behind him like live ice and snow that breathed and dripped.
Now that'd give 'em something to wig out about - heh; would be a learning experience for 'em, too. Was only Chris and the initial clean-up team who'd gotten to see him - see the full extent of that serendipitous specialness that had found him two autumns ago. (Three?
...Shit, he was going to miss Halloween. And his birthday - how old was he - ?)
Point was, bizarrely, something about being taken in alive for questioning gave him something to look forward to more than something to be angry about. Plenty, in fact. Even the confinement part of the whole shebang wasn't something that made him mad anymore so much as... restless. Him being cheated out of his own games was a long ways past him. He was plotting his rematches and revenge for all the cheatin'. More shit to look forward to. That keeps you going in the in-betweens when you've got nothing else to do.
Such as right now.
Right now, he was not angry.
Simply harboring a dull, dry-burning, pulsing ache all through the back of his head... from sheer restlessness.
Oooooooonce again - he didn't know how much time it'd been besides "way too long". Hell, he didn't have any goddamn sense of the time they usually came in. He just felt "what seems about right" with some auto-measurer in some closet in his mind.
But, as usual, the bastards were denying him even that.
They were keeping him waiting.
Marinating in the proverbial pot to ferment, appropriately enough.
He gathered that ache and burn to one momentary sparking flare. For the thousandth goddamn time, he shutter-snapped his eyes up into a corner, brow hardening. Scanning the walls up and down as if being scanned for, likewise - given a sharp look and a reprimand for making sudden movements or stepping on another twig. What the fuck are you guys lookin' at.
Why don't y'all go back to doing your jobs?
Like bringin' me in, finally?
...The narrow of his eyes bloomed into a widening at the typical shuffle and thump of the guards' uniforms and boots filtering to shuffle down the corridor on the other side of the windowless door. Lucas's mouth rounded an "ah" - a breath of acknowledgement forming and then holding itself at once in a safety lockdown. He lowered his head. Pulled both hands down in front of his chin, shuffled a quick reverse army crawl backwards till the soles of his shoes hit the wall. Hiding under the bed, on top of it. Staring at something through the wall from a low angle.
Head turning steady and owl-like as the first roll of trompfing steps - he nodded his head minutely with a bop - came to land level with the front cell wall.
Passing in the steady move of a conveyor belt as they shuffled past in that good ol' multi-shuffle of clothes and rounds of boots.
There were six of them, about, Lucas thought, taking a quick count of mental marbles as they dropped - a flash lit up and spidered in his head, sparking electrical chills down his back. He braced down harder, wriggled back, legs bending, muscles in his back nigh-trembling. Animal hiding in a corner, teeth bared. Heart hammering, breath held.
They are. They are, right?
We're finally gettin' it started.
In the split moment, he weren't even entirely sure if he was freezin' up out of not wanting to breathe and jinx it or as a sudden wait response.
He tracked the sound of their movement in a consistent head-turn, like a cat watching a passerby from beneath a car. The thrill of a pacing-up heartbeat rose as it passed in front of his cell door (that was his cell door, right? He wasn't overshooting where the heck the sounds were coming from) -
...
...Aaaaaand they trompfed onward.
Each step in time with a little puff of wind outta Lucas's sails, a bit of depressurizing to collapse in his lungs. Trompf, trompf, trompf, trompfity, trompf.
His eyes pressed gradually narrow again, somewhere between scrutiny and spite. As the last sets of boots passed entirely, his muscles began to expand and release again. He lifted his mouth up from behind his wrist - still just-open, tasting the air for god-knows-what like a snake.
Passed a quick look back to the side - a moment of blankness, brain and face. Nobody else on the approach.
And a twisting, twisting, twisting of screws in his face for a grin simultaneously sneering and hotly withering. Petty, bitter victory of escaping when nobody was even after you. Hiding when you'd rather spit in someone's face, and when nobody was even looking. The grin sagged out as he extended his limbs again - writhes and shuffles and tiny stretches and scoots of joints.
He plopped his chin back down into his forearm again. Lifted his hand in a peace sign, bent his fingers like a spider's fangs, and let them land again on the bedframe with a doubled faint cling.
The thrill of nonspecific victory gave away to a thought like "cowards".
Not even gonna talk to me? Just gonna give me the silent treatment, eh? Pretend I ain't even here?
Prettier Christopher would talk to me.
He couldn't deny, he almost liked Chris's replacement, in the same kinda way you fucking hate someone. He was another fucking soldier goon, but at least he had enough brains in his head to know how to be fun to talk to. He could crack a joke, he could put on that kind of smile that's easy to mirror and make you feel like something's funny when you ain't sure what. Real buddy-buddy-type guy. It was the same way you feel about a chess opponent who thinks they're a total expert. You meet their goddamn smugness and thinking they're slick with a little bit of cheek. You kinda admire some of the moves they pull, as you scan the board to analyze their whooooole layout and realize just what they're implyin' with that last move. You laugh and claim they're clever, clever!, then make a play right back.
Simultaneously, you want to put your fuckin' hands around their neck for thinking they can step to you. That they got any business trying to put the pressure on.
His nail tapped another faint ringgggggggg on his bedframe. He kicked his shoes in the air behind him and they knocked and scuffed together. He bounced side-to-side, humming a non-song. More spite. I'm still heeeeere, you know.
And a voice of a guard cut in just past the door, dense yet prickling.
"You can cut that out, kid."
A lightning strike hit the back of Lucas's skull. He pushed himself up hard and fast in drags and shuffles, eyes popped round, flipped himself over, flitting around every wall and edge and corner. The tension starting to set back into his shoulders; springs winding.
Two thoughts bled together bright in his brain like inkdrops in water.
One was warm-bright. Tickling and incredulous.
The other, meanwhile, was cold, blank. Where the hell did you come from?!
"I dunno who you think you're tryin'a signal to," the guard said. "None of your people are in this block with you."
Lucas's eyes grew all the goddamn rounder - bubbles in his chest heating to a burn and good damn rolling boil, lips twisting and turning in a vague, writhing open grimace. He opened his mouth - eked out a single squawk of a laugh, swaying in place. Did I fuckin' summon you?!
Mouthed a quick "ooh" to himself, in an overshot "oh, no, boss! I was just playin' me a little song!"; the sound just began to vibrate in his throat short a' articulation.
Just as a female voice cut in.
A new one.
A flash hit his eyes wide open again. Ticked 'em aside with a small tilt of his head. Flung that high-burbling straight out a window like he had some kinda friggin' sight-based telekinesis.
"Who's tryin'a signal to anyone?" said the... girl. Not no lady, it was a girl. Her voice was high - half-affectedly and half-not. Tart, vividly-inflected. "Nobody's trying to signal anyone, silly-silly! You didn't do your reading!"
And then, directly in his ear, as if echoed off the wall immediately adjacent him to shudder in his nerves: "This is what patching through a signal sounds like! There's no way that's what you heard just now, don't go lying!"
Lucas gasped once, hard with a shudder pulsed into his back - hands cupped up defensively beside his ears. Halfway to a duck-and-cover with shoulders hunched high. Blood rushed in his brain. He passed another look side to side in the dark of the cell - scanning for shapes and shadows (where the hell did that come from is she in here did she put something in here has anyone put something in here) before the guard's voice came back in again. Calling steady attention, reopening like a gradually-set snare, back up to the door.
"I know it's what my buddies have been hearing a lot of since they brought you in yesterday. Now - I don't wanna push you around. Believe it or not, we're serious about turning over a new leaf."
"Yeah, yeah! Same! Same! I swear!" said the girl.
A hard CLANGGGGG rang out from a strike against a cell door. Lucas flinched - bore teeth, lowered himself again.
"Stop acting like a child," said the guard, breathier. The girl humphed an "mmn!"-sound as he continued. "The point is, everyone's on your side, here - promise. Even taking into account how many of us as you guys took down."
Silence. For all of several seconds. Lucas's face squinched - a nonverbal what. Shoulder-shuffled to pull himself up a little higher on the bed; turned his head to press his ear against the quiet.
Four. Five. Six seconds.
"'Fact, it was one of your friends who told us where to find you," said the guard. "Miss Nevermind? She's with us. All this talk about friends, and don't you think she knows what's good for you?"
Lucas didn't know a Miss Nevermind. His eyes half-lidded. Tilted his head to a birdlike angle, a little toward the door.
"If you're gonna be all high-and-mighty and talk about friends - " The girl's voice pitched up to a layer of a warbling squeal - distorted, hollowed-out. " - why can't a girl just talk to hers? We're ride-or-die, me and them! I know my rights!"
"I think you're thinking of the right to remain silent," said a second guard.
"Moon!" said a third.
Moon carried on. "And you can't talk to 'em 'cause we proofed this block."
"He's right," said the first guard. "We went and got everything ready for each of you guys - you can try to put out mass calls to the rest of your friends if you want, sure thing. In fact, you can use it to call for help, or whatever, from whoever's on duty. But nothing you have to say is gonna get any further than that or bugging the rest of the inmates here."
A sharp beep.
A snap in Lucas's brain again - senses flashing bright on the door again. It was out of a Skinner's Box type of silly fucking reflex - that beep means out. Hell, they're taking me out now.
Everything within his sight held still, and he plunged that light primitive down into another layer of comprehension.
That ain't my door.
Was the one to his left that hissed on open, outta his sight. His brow furrowed deep and low in some kind of demand as his head preemptively tracked the unseen path into the adjacent cell.
Lemme see.
There was a feminine little murmur of sound on the other side of the wall. That furrow pressed lower with a squint of his eyes. He reached out off the side of the bed - planted his hand on the cold ol' ground and crawled in a hurry across the room. Propped himself to lean against the wall, ear and palms to it. A small tilt of his head to a press.
"I get how it is, miss," said the first of the guards. Flatter than he'd said a thing so far; a tired, airy sort of dry. "But trust us, we want you to see your friends again. We got our technicians prepping to make it safe for you guys to all go home to a new - happy life as one great big smiling family. Believe me. But that's the point, here. The 'safe' part."
There were shuffles again. Just a few - nice and faint, and steady.
He couldn't quite tell who. But one of the guards said. "For now, it's better for everyone that you're left alone. Including you."
There was no response.
Lucas's eyes flicked into their corners, on into the wall, brow tensing tighter. He pressed his chest and fanned his hands against it. One more unarticulated question. A c'mon, what. What.
"Sorry," said another guard, as gear-shuffling redoubled, and guns clacked, and a mini-fleet of boots resumed movement. The door hissed again. Open, shut.
Again, Lucas squinted firm - lopsidedly, with a stab in his chest. He licked his lips and flattened himself against the wall harder, hugging it wider, eyes widening again and space 'round 'em tensing in something less entreating than indistinctly probing. No - nooooo, what's goin' on over there? What? C'mon, what!
Just as another beep! snagged a hook into the side of his brain, and he gawked in a shaft of blue-white light from the hall, pouring right down on him around the silhouettes of all six guards.
The hold of another lightning strike.
His head sank - not a shrink, but a vulture-hunch. He held about as still as he figured a man could.
Feeling his lungs practically going and going and working like heavy-duty bellows without him.
"Havin' a good time snooping, Baker?" said the first guard, taking his first step forward. The skin along the back of Lucas's neck prickled; every muscle in his back tensed. Critter getting posed to growl without growling, off the instinct of nuh-uh, get away from me. "Then again, you have been kept waiting today, huh."
From a still to a pulse that left him dizzy. He sneezed some kindova laugh that he barely damn well noticed to release some of that internal pressure.
Really?! Really, now...!
" - Ah-ha-ha-hawwwwwwww, y'all finally noticed?!" he said, using a bit a' thrust on the delivery of the last word to push off the wall - he caught himself by stretchin' that momentum upward, takin' side-to-side steps on his knees, hands up in a distant, impulsive mocking of "don't shoot". Eyeing the bright floor dead on two center lines between himself and Guard Numero Uno. Seeking a question for a moment - pawing to catch it like a trout in a stream, and swingin' his line of sight back up to look in the lenses of the fella's gas mask. "She gonna get all the attention from hereon out? I thought y'all and me were friends!"
He sidled half-attentively a little further back toward the wall, pointing with a thumb and givin' a double-indicator in the form of a glance there 'n back, showing his teeth joylessly.
And turning that joyless smile to the guard once again, like one of those fuckin' black cat-things out in Madagascar.
There was a pffffrrrhhhhhh sorta sound as the guard lurched in, non-gun hand out to grab Lucas by the wrist and haul 'im to his feat - practiced-like, Lucas stiffened his arm, got right up with it. Fella shook his head quick-like. "We're gonna be soundproofing her cell further, probably - kinda gotta with that one," he said. "So don't worry about that one. What you don't know's not gonna hurt you, right."
Lucas eyes fell to a nice leisurely narrow; grin bent in with a slow, slow stretch. That don't answer my question.
They guy told 'im to come, and he did - keeping that face on. It's one hell of a good feeling, that feeling of "finally!" This was another case of small victory. Getting what you friggin' want, or at least guessed was gonna have to happen, is easily always one o' those little everyday wins that keep ya going through the day, even if what you got to be proud of's nothing more or less than your own little bit of luck.
And then a small hiccuping, hitching sob picked up on the other side of the wall.
He turned his head back over his shoulders a sec - grin unevenly slipping out. One of the guards tried to give him a little tug, and he whapped the guy with a swing of his elbow.
The door slid shut again till it sealed out the last of the black of his cell.
Still didn't answer my question, he thought, if incoherently, as he stumbled - hot-air puff of indignance let off in his chest - with a faint shove back into movement. He seized and doubled once to sneeze the last of the aggravation off, and then again for the last bit a' static.
And as they started on down the hall, his grin drew in again.
Nothing sharp about it. Nothing cheeky, or feisty, or nothing.
Nahhhh, this was simultaneously the biting kind and the knowing kind.
You guys just gotta keep teasing me with anything I ever get to get excited for, he thought.
Heading on down for another doctor's appointment.