Chapter Nine: Reflection (Part 3)

_o\O/o_

"This is about the Machine, isn't it. Please. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

For a second that stretched in his gut like free-fall, John thought Slim was playing a trick on him—that he'd somehow pieced the words together and overlaid them digitally onto the video's sound file. The voice was so small and rough that it could have been anybody's, really, and after all John could see only the back of Finch's head where it hung prone in the Rig's dark webbing. No way for him to see whether his friend's lips had actually moved or not.

Slim's purpling face told John this footage was fresh—six hours old, tops. The angry red on his cheek, brow, and mouth had cooled to darker colors and spread. The scabbing on his split lip was tight and dry. But the smudges of black, courtesy of a pummeled nose, had yet to appear under his eyes. Slim looked bad, but he'd look a lot worse in another six hours, John thought with satisfaction.

Six hours. Finch had been alive, moving, talking, six hours ago. Four, more likely.

Talking. Talking, and telling Slim anything, everything. John had hoped Finch's paranoia, his soul-deep secretiveness, would last until John came for him. But he'd known it couldn't last forever. Because everybody broke. Sooner or later, everybody broke. It wasn't always a direct result of the pain itself, or the fatigue, or the panic. It was the way those things warped reality, muddied your mind and your senses and your self, until finally you forgot why you were even supposed to keep the secret in the first place. John was trained to withstand pain, of course. But even more importantly, his teachers had taught him, brutally, how to stay focused. How to remember.

Slim's only response to Finch's earthshaking confession was to rattle the Styrofoam cup he'd brought, breaking up another big chunk of ice chips. He shook some out into the palm of his hand and bent down to hold it under Finch's mouth, like offering feed to a pony. Finch took the ice greedily, crunching it, drooling and coughing occasionally from swallowing too fast.

And in between mouthfuls, Finch was trying to tell Slim everything.

"It started when the towers—"

"Sooner or later they would've found somebody to build it—"

"—Nathan, oh God, Nathan—"

When the ice was gone, Slim wiped his hand thoroughly on the thin green fabric covering Finch's shoulder. The wetness spread, meeting up with the vine of new sweat creeping down the center of Finch's quivering back. Slim began fiddling with one of the restraints where it was lashed to the metal prongs of the Rig.

"—put it on a train, a train, of all things, like a damn Ayn Rand novel—"

"—but it escaped—a sudden switch to Asimov, you might say, ha, and a most welcome one, I assure you, ha—you see, I made it capable of—"

The strap released with a zing; Finch yelped as the sudden slack sent his arm flopping down with a jolt. He gasped, breathless. John found himself muttering "stop, Finch, no, stop" under his breath. But Finch had already started whispering again.

"—couldn't let them have it—"

Slim was crossing to Finch's other side.

"—couldn't let them hurt it—"

With a flick of his fingers Slim sent Finch's good leg plummeting as well. Roughly tumbled off-balance, Finch cried out in desperation.

"I don't know! I don't know if we can save it—"

Quiet as a ghost, Slim had moved back up toward Finch's shoulders. Long bony fingers combed gently through the thick scrub of hair on the top of Finch's head, then wound in tight.

"—but we're trying, oh God, I swear we're trying—"

Finch's other arm was let down and he wailed as his bad hip, the only limb left bound, took the full stretch of his weight, nothing but Slim's grip in his hair keeping him from strangling in the collar.

"—let me go, please, and I'll take you—"

"—under, underground, underground—"

"—we'll let you—"

Slim sprang into action. Finch's confessions were cut short; he could only gasp and moan as Slim bustled about, rearranging his body and reknotting the straps. Finally, when Finch was flipped over and trussed to hang supine, Slim paused and stepped back. John got his first clear look at Finch's face since Slim had wheeled in the Rig. His mouth hung open, throat working, his whole face crumpled around eyes wet with pain—above all, the profound anguish of a powerful mind which found itself unable to understand.

"Why... why..."

The words escaped Finch like air from a tire, no upward inflection, no expectation, barely a question.

His face was grey under the raw irritation of stubble and the rough scrub he'd given himself with the bathing cloths. His eyes were red, not just from tears but from long hours suspended in air, the drag of gravity. That thin skin around his temples and brows—always so strangely fragile—looked almost swollen enough to burst.

John's eyes raked Finch's form with a clinical eye. He'd dropped some weight; where his shirt was pulled tight from the straps, his chest and belly were flatter than his soft, sturdy little body was supposed to be. Some of that would be from dehydration, which from the look of his skin wasn't too bad yet—he was still sweating and salivating, which was good. John wondered if the ice cubes were made from some sort of electrolyte drink rather than plain water. He hoped so.

It's what he would have done. More efficient.

The precious glasses dangled on his forehead, just a few hairs away from falling. In the beginning of their partnership, John had wondered why Finch always wore glasses, when laser surgery—the best laser surgery money could buy, no less—would have solved any number of potential risks and inconveniences, especially out in the field. But he'd understood immediately the first time he saw his employer without them, woken up from a dead sleep by John's hand on his shoulder with a development in a case. Bare, Finch's eyes were huge, expressive—memorable.The little threads of muscle in his thick eyelids twitched visibly, vulnerably, whenever he moved them. Finch didn't blink often, and when he did it was slow and purposeful—like punctuation to the prose of speech or the poetry of thought.

And so, like anything else memorable about himself, Finch had done his best to hide them.

Right now, everything about those eyes was wrong. The pupils were fixed and tiny; the wide rings of blue around them, usually clear and bright, were dull and cloudy against the scleras' mottled pink.

John wished Slim would put the glasses back on.

But Slim was busy elsewhere. As he adjusted Finch's ankle cuffs he hesitated and wrapped a long hand around one bare foot, then the other, squeezing thoughtfully. Then he loosened both cuffs and lowered the straps slightly—easing blood flow, John realized. Again Slim cradled one of Finch's bare feet, rubbing it in strong, firm circles, rotating the ankle gently, pushing and pulling at the metatarsal tendons, rolling each toe between his fingers. Color began flowing back into the pale skin, especially into his bad foot, where the toes had been bright white, heading toward blue.

Finch had gone silent. After long minutes spent warming up Finch's feet, Slim glanced toward the door and tilted his head, considering. Then he bent to untie his own shoes. He stripped off his thick white socks, scrunched them up and rolled them neatly onto Finch. He gave each foot one last brisk, scuffing rub between his palms and stepped back.

Finch's eyes came back into focus, and an instant later he was laughing. Not the low, brief chuckle of his normal—if rare—laugh. This laugh was high and cracked, harsh like Finch's voice got after a spate of gunfire startled him through the earpiece, and he had check in to confirm John was still breathing.

Slim turned away from Finch to hide his own smile. He glanced up and shrugged at the camera—at John—obviously not quite sure what the joke was, but pleased to have done something amusing. Then he turned back and dialed the arm restraints out so wide that the frantic laughter turned to a babble of empty clicks deep in Finch's throat.

After some final adjustments, Slim stood still where his shadow would fall over Finch's face. Finch was quiet now, pliant, eyes heavy-lidded and idly wandering around the room. Slim watched him, waiting patiently for the glazed blue eyes to meet his own. Then he refitted Finch's glasses, slid a hand down to his sternum, and pressed.

Finch's eyes blew wider and wider as he was bowed further and further in half, until finally there was a small crack—more a visible pop in Finch's body than an actual sound—followed by two quieter crunches in quick succession. John surged forward, gripping the sides of the TV screen. Finch's face was split open at the mouth, lips curling, every tooth visible. John knew, but couldn't actually hear, that Finch was screaming. He couldn't hear it—he couldn't hear anything—over the sound of his own howls.

The screen went black and John was left alone with the echoes of their mingled cries. He doubled over and darted down the hall, barely making it to the toilet before vomiting a bellyful of soured white protein shake. It seared his throat, raw from yelling. The rough cement gritted into his knees with each retching spasm, the heaves which rattled through him long after going dry. Gradually he realized they had stopped and the sounds he was making were only feeble whimpers, echoed back to him from the toilet bowl. He turned to lean his wet cheek against the cold pedestal of the sink. He wanted to curl up on the floor, let the soreness in his eyes overpower the lingering nausea and sink him into sleep.

Instead, he rose to his feet and took a handful of icy water from the sink to rinse his mouth. There was a little mirror hung at eye level. The red eyes and drawn skin he'd expected. But he'd also expected to see that familiar fire in those eyes, that vengeful tension. But the man in the mirror wore a look of defeat; he looked old and soft and done. John shook himself. This was not him. This was not him.

He'd been dutifully disciplined during captivity, just as they'd taught him to be in the service. He drank shakes and water regularly, slept as well as he could. Slim had graciously provided a towel, razor, and bar soap, so John had shaved and spot-bathed at the sink, laundered his shirt and socks and underwear. Kept himself warm and ready for action: burpees and shadow-boxing and virabhadrasana. Finch would need him strong, alert, and looking as civilized as possible when the crucial moment came. There might be civilians to schmooze, or guards to dupe, between him and Finch. It wouldn't do to descend on them looking like the wrath of God, so John had kept his hair combed and his shirt tucked.

The green scrubs lay untouched on the arm of the leather chair.

John studied himself in the mirror, wiping one last smear of vomit-scented saliva from the corner of his mouth. It had been a long, long time since the sight of violence had drawn any physical reaction from him stronger than a curled lip. He'd smashed skulls to pulp, scooped his bare thumb into eye sockets, sent electricity through writhing bodies at voltages high enough to leave their hair smoking—he'd watched Kara do all that and worse—and all without a twinge of nausea. That softness was no part of him. It never had been. His superiors had praised its absence. He hadn't needed desensitizing; something fundamental was broken inside of him but they had called it strength.

He rinsed his mouth again. And again.

This wasn't supposed to happen to him.

Then again, this wasn't supposed to be happening to Harold.

This obscenity, this bloodless dissection.

He cleaned his teeth with the brush and paste Slim had left for him. A shave, too, he decided. When he was nearly done, one last, sudden retch sent his razor-hand sideways. A spot of red bloomed on his jaw. John ignored it.

He returned to the TV corner. The screen had gone from black to blue; warmed up again and ready to start at the beginning. John sank into the chair, dizzy, his stomach spent and sore. There was a light, falsetto trembling running through his abdomen and jaw, but his hand was steady when he picked up the remote control and pressed play.

_o\O/o_

.

Thank you for reading! Reviews are so very much appreciated.