Chapter 2

How the Mighty have Fallen

Putting one foot in front of the other right now is perhaps the hardest thing Jack has ever had to do.

He has led a good life, against most people's standards – he has known love, he has given the best years of his life so far to the medical profession, and he has rested on an easy conscience most nights. Sure, he's known guilt, he's known pain – no matter how much that arrogant redneck may disagree, Jack knows pain. His pain came, in his past, from that age old killer, love. But he has caused it – he has never truly felt before how love twists things, like a burning dagger. He felt it shoot through him today, for the first time, unwanted and unbidden as it was –

When that fool Sawyer had tried to give his captor the jump, Jack had known instantly that things were going from bad to worse. And when they were separated, just moments before the bag was shoved over his head, Jack had known with a sick surge that Kate would be locked up, alone, in the dark – who knows what they could do to her -- and that age old killer had gone for his jugular, possesing him with its fury.

So he'd struggled, but when he heard Sawyer's screams, and the crunching of fist to jaw, elbow to jaw, bones crunching, he knew it was futile. He hear his mouth running overtime, pleading from his safe corner of logic, rationality, sense -- but inside, he knew.

There would be no easy way out of this…

And now he is here, worse doesn't even cover it… because where Jack is standing, worse is another ballgame away from here. When the bag had been ripped from his head, he thought for a wild moment he had gone blind. The intensity of the light pouring into his eyes after the choking blackness of the bag nearly made him faint, and the air was so thick with the reek of disinfectant his vision swam with nausea.

All white – so much white --

The world seemed to be made up of nothing else. But as his eyes darted around in panic, he struggled to keep his nerve… and as his eyes blearily focused, he found he was in a gleaming silver and white laboratory.

Mr Friendly stands in front of him now, sans beard with his chunky arms folded before him. And Jesus Christ, is that a butchers apron he's wearing…!

Mr Friendly asks the question again. Jack still can't process it.

Because tall displays of jagged equipment beep around the fluoroscopy table in the centre of the room, machines Jack has never seen before – on quick glances he thinks he can make out some kind of souped up cardiograph –

"Get on the table. Do it now, or we'll knock you out. And you don't wanna try my patience, son."

"Not until you tell me why I should." He bravely keeps the tremor from his voice, but can't hide the gleaming panic in his eyes. "What is this place? Where are my friends, what have you done with them –!"

The two Men who manhandled him inside swoop in, and grapple him to the table –

"Why are you doing this? Who are you people!"

As they strap his hands down, the high, steady whine of electricity begins to throb through the alien machines surrounding him, pulsating through the air, nails on a blackboard, horrific –

"Wait!" Jack cries, struggling, "Stop -- for Gods sake what do you want!"

Mr Friendly guffaws in his face, as he presses electrodes to Jacks forehead,

"Don't you fret now. Its all part of the plan, Jacky-boy! You just relax now…"

"Relax --!" Jack cries in hysteria, "Get these things OFF of me –!"

"Now that's not very forthcoming, is it?"

That voice. Sneaky and conniving, and oh so clever… bracing himself, Jack looks up to a familiar leer.

"Oh my," Henry Gale smiles down with that familiar madman's distance in his eyes, "Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Jack…"

"Henry," Jack pleads, as the machines whir and build into an all enveloping roar --
"Henry, don't DO THIS --"

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