(Time skip back to Walter waking up)

"Don't turn back guys. I mean it. What ever you hear... ignore it. There is nothing you can do." Walter said to us over the coms. Everyone looked to each other with fear in their eyes. Paige removed her earpiece and looked towards Cabe who was riding shotgun.

"What are they going to do to him? He sounded..." Paige droned off looking at Cabe, hoping that she was wrong.

"We can't know anything for sure. He'll be fine. We will be as quick as we can and get him out before they can do anything," Cabe said removing his coms to speak before putting them back in; Paige copied but not because she wanted to, she wanted to be with her friend. Happy was driving, no one wanted to stop to change the drivers around, everyone just wanted to get back to base as quickly as possible. A few minutes later they heard Walter over the coms.

"Hello, my name is Walter. I highly doubt you have the mental capacity to speak because it looks like you have not evolved that far but if you can, what is your name? I like to think a lot and it would be nice to call you something other than 'the man'." Walter said not sounding the slightest bit afraid. Paige's skin ran cold. She looked to everyone else and saw the blood had drained from their faces as well. Toby was about to say something but Cabe spoke up first.

"What are you doing Walter! Don't antagonist him." Cabe said, his voice sounded like it had a false calm but anyone looking at him would know he was anything but. Happy's hands tightened around the steering wheel and the speed of the van picked up. They would be back at base in a few minutes. Paige looked to Sylevester who looked as if he were close to having a panic attack, he looked how Paige felt. She moved closer to him and put a hand on his arm.

"It's going to be okay, it's going to be..." Paige started to say before they heard Walter again.

"I guess that people with such low intelligence don't need names. They won't get anywhere in life." He said, this time his voice sounded slightly different. Anyone else wouldn't have noticed the difference but Scorpion knew. Paige quickly looked to Toby who confirmed her fears. Walter was just making things worse for himself.

"No, no, no Walt. You don't want to say that it will only just..." Toby started trying to get Walter to stop with the taunting but was interrupted by the sound of a grunt over the coms. If possible everyone went even more pale. The speed of the van picked up even more but there was no need, they were back at base. They heard another grunt from over the coms. Paige couldn't help from crying knowing it was Walter who was is pain. Happy responded with an angry yell, stomping out of the car and over to9 the door to their base kicking it open, Toby started shaking slightly, Sylvester started to sweat even more, and Cabe, Cabe was the only one who didn't react. He just shut his eyes for a moment before walking inside. Everyone was inside by the time they heard the next sound, but it was different, this time it was a cry of pain.

"Walter!" Paige said sobbing dropping to her knees covering her face with her hands. She was the only one who had an affect quite that bad. Everyone else seemed to have accepted this was happening.

"We won't get any work done if we are all listening to Walter. Everyone take out your coms so we can find him." Cabe said removing Paige's first before his own. Both Happy and Sylvester removed theirs at around the same time but Toby kept his in.

"Someone needs to stay with him. I'm the shrink, I will do it then tell you when something changes." Toby said walking over to his desk and sitting down putting his head in his hands. Everyone nodded then got to work coming up with a plan, Paige wasn't much help, she couldn't stop shaking and sobbing but tried to help as much as she could. Everyone kept an eye on Toby, they knew each time something happened because whenever Walter let out a cry, Toby flinched. After a few minutes the cries stopped and Toby looked up. "It's stopped," He said looking at everyone in fear. He knew what that meant and everyone guessed. They couldn't help themselves, they put their coms back in to listen carefully. It was selfish but they needed to know what was next. After a minute they heard Walter speak.

"That..." Walter started but his voice sound scratchy, very unlike Walter, "That is a picana... It is used predominately for human torture. It is either attached to a car battery or through a transformer to the mains. This means that you can have many times as much voltage and pain for less current and therefore have it on a lower amplitude reducing the risk of death, it is also connected to a rheostat so you can adjust how much pain it gives." From the name Picana everyone suddenly looked more fearful and looked towards Cabe, he had experience in this.

"You can do this son, we are coming up with a plan. Just hold on." Cabe said but his voice had started to shake.

"Just hold on Walter, don't give in." Paige said trying to sound calm for Walter but failing. She didn't know what a picana was but she knew it couldn't be good. Everyone else was saying encouragement as well but paused when they heard a different voice across the line.

"Very good. You know, they key to torturing people like you is to never stop. Alternate how much pain you give to let the victim recover from the intense pain while still suffering only to bring back the agony. This isn't going to stop boy until you give me what I want. At the moment it is just that you call me Master. I'm sure you can guess what I will want later. What do you say to that boy?" The voice said everyone held their breaths to start off with but then everyone sprang into action rushing around the computer.

"Running voice recognition now," Sylvester said typing wildly on the computer then pausing when Walter's response came over the coms.

"Well, you want a challenge. I'm not giving in anytime soon so you might as well either get on with what you were doing or leave." They heard Walter say before a loud 'SMACK' echoed though the coms and they heard Walter gasp. They all knew what had just happened but didn't pause to contemplate it. They just got on with their preparations. They had to get Walter out soon, or otherwise there will be no-one to get out. They heard what could have been the splash of water but chose to ignore it.

"Okay, they can no longer do anything to government servers. Well, nothing too bad. So if we..." Cabe started to say trying to get everyone to focus on getting Walter out when a blood curdling scream rang though the coms. Walters screams. This time Cabe did react, turning around and punching his fist into the wall almost growling. Paige did the opposite and collapsed onto a chair bringing up her knees and started sobbing. Everyone else just froze, closing their eyes to listen to Walters screams.

"I'm gonna kill him." Happy said quietly. Eventually the screams came to an end. There was silence for a few minutes, no one wanted to think the impossible had happened but the longer the silence lasted the more dread filled them.

"Is that the best you've got?" They heard a broken, cracking voice say.

"No, Walter." Paige said unable to help herself. A moment later the screams were back. No one wanted to remove their earpieces this time. They needed to know that Walter was still alive and still fighting. It could have been a few minutes, it could have been a few hours, the team didn't know. They just formulated their plan. They had almost finished when they heard Walter over the coms say something for the first time in a while and it broke them.

"Please!" The voice, no longer recognizable as Walter's, screamed over the coms. Everyone paused yet again. Walter was giving in.

"You can stop this at any point. You know what to do." The mans voice, who they found out was some guy called Rick Anderson, said quietly but crystal clear over the coms. Everyone looked to one another. They didn't know what he was talking about so just held their breath. If Walter was giving in and going to remove the firewall...

The scream came back momentarily but then stopped after they heard Walter yell out.

"Please Master!" Walter cried out. They could hear his heavy breathing over the coms before he said quietly, "Please, Master. May I have a break? I'm begging you." This broke everyone more that the screams but they held it together, mostly. Paige looked towards Toby begging him to say the right thing to Walter and make sure the man had left. She saw Toby swallow then nod before speaking softly to Walter.

"Walt? Are you there buddy?" Toby said. Paige could see the struggle Toby faced trying to keep his voice even. A moment later they heard Walters reply.

"'m here. 'm fine. Need sleep." Walter mumbled. They could hear his exhaustion and as much as Paige didn't want Walter to sleep, in case he never woke up, it was something he had to do. He needed his strength.

"You do that bud. Go to sleep. We will get you outta there." Toby replied. A moment later the heavy breathing over the coms became quieter and they guesses he had fallen asleep.

The team worked for two hours perfecting their plan. If they wanted Walter out then they needed the plan to be perfect. Then they left, piling into the van. It wasn't just them, they were bringing backup. Nothing was going to go wrong. They arrived at the place and entered, they found the computers which Sylvester quickly took care of, destroying the virus then taking down the firewall, while the rest of the team looked for Walter. They looked everywhere but found nothing, there was a basement but nothing was there, it didn't even look like it had been used.

"He's not here dammit." Happy said grabbing a hammer lying on the floor and swinging it into a wall. They didn't know what to do.

"Guy's, he has already broken enough to call the man Master. I don't know how much more he can take" Toby said pacing wringing his hands worriedly.

"We will find him. Don't worry." Cabe said looking at each of us. His eyes had a hardened look about them and you could see his resolve from a mile away. The confidence in those few words calmed down the team making them look at him. "Walter's a strong kid. He can make it. You are all geniuses, together we will find him and bring him home. Now, they must have taken him to a different place immediately..." Cabe said trying to start a discussion.

"They must have known that what ever Walter did was irreparable but knew that with his knowledge he would be able to do the same sort of thing again if they could... um... anyway, so they knocked him out and straight away took him to a different place to persuade him." Toby said then looked towards Sylvester getting him to run the math.

"It took 1 hour and 27 minutes for Walter to respond after we picked you up and left Walter. That means we need to look at places similar to this in that radius. I don't have my laptop and I destroyed the ones inside so I can't look now." Sylvester said nervously then looked towards Cabe.

"Okay, that's good. We have a starting point. Everyone, get into the van so we can get back to base and narrow down our options." Cabe said striding away. The rest of the team jogged to keep up but they didn't complain. They had hoped it would be a few hours before they heard from Walter again wanting him to get some rest, but when they were all in the car and on their way they heard Walter speak again.

"How's it going?" They heard a weak Walter ask. Everyone looked to one another unsure of what to say.

"Hey Walt, it's Toby. Umm, we came up with a plan and came to get you but you weren't there, we did disable the virus though. We will find you, we promise. We already have a few ideas. Don't worry mate." Toby said calmly looking to everyone else for reassurance.

"The man who is torturing me. He seems comfortable here, I think he might live here. Have you run voice recognition to find out..." Walter said and if it hadn't been for the slight slur in his words it would almost have been impossible to tell that this was no ordinary mission.

"I ran his voice though the data base. There wasn't much on him, we're going back and check it out though. His name is Rick Anderson." Sylvester said focusing on what he knew rather than contemplating what could be happening on the other end.

"Okay, all of this will be for nothing if you are dead. How bad are your injuries?" Toby said staring at anything other than the others on the bus.

"Both my wrists and ankles are bleeding from the cuffs, my back hurts but I can see it. I'm guessing it's bad, he whipped me. I have several burns around my body from where he used the picana, my nose hurts from where he broke it then put it back into place and I think I have a cut on my face from his fist." Walter said as if he were reading a shopping list. Paige was beyond crying at this point. All of them had accepted what was happening by now and crying would do no one any good.

"Okay, okay that's good Walt, could be worse. How are you feeling?" Toby asked trying to gauge the damage done to their friend.

"Ha, ha," Walter laughed weakly, "How do you think Toby? You're the shrink... I hear footsteps, he is coming back. I don't want you to hear this." Walter said sounding worried.

"We're not going anywhere." Toby said with a definite tine to his voice. They heard Walter sight dejectedly but then a moment later heard his intake of breath. It was starting again.