By Choice
Notes: Ibid.
.
.
Sebastian's a stubborn son of a bitch, but he knows when he's not going to be able to bull through a situation. Knows it's better to go with the crazy situation until he can find some sort of room to get out of it.
So, for all intents and purposes he's going to play bodyguard to Ruvik. It's eerily easy to accept. His mind had been made up for him on that, but it's taken him three burned down cigarettes to wrap his head around it. To come up with all the angles on it and what his options are.
Ruvik's not in the same room he'd left him in. Sebastian has a fun game of rediscovering the sadistic carnival that's the lower level of the manor. It's a horror movie set only missing severed limbs to fill it. He's fairly sure he's already seen some, but that's part of the hazy blur of the past month and he's not really sure he didn't see them because he expected to see them.
Sebastian doesn't bother wasting time on figuring that out. It's not important in the grand scheme, and he's got better questions that need answering from the man he finds in one of the larger rooms. Ruvik has done a good job of talking around everything. Hinting at things and throwing out the big points to get Sebastian's mind off the fact nothing he's said really explained anything. An annoying little habit he'd noticed early in their dealings, and one the man really needs to lose.
Maybe not as much as he needs to lose some of the things in the room that make Sebastian question if he's really as lucid and sane as he thinks he is.
"What the fuck is that?" Sebastian stops a few cautious feet from Ruvik and the thing he's working on. It looks like something straight out of an old science fiction movie. One where the alien robots wear aluminum foil. "Is that a bathtub?"
"STEM," Ruvik calls it and ignores the rest of his question as he works with a pair of pliers and a soldering iron. Doing delicate work that must be hell with his hands. He doesn't force Sebastian to play twenty questions this time though. "With it I can gain direct access to a test subject's mind. Every thought and memory. Everything that makes them an individual."
Ruvik straightens out a bundle of wires and Sebastian eyes the rust colored stains on the tub. He's mostly sure it's not all from the metal. "Looks pleasant."
"There's been a lot of failures, and this is only a prototype," Ruvik sounds annoyed by the implied insult to his machine. "I've fixed most of them and the system at Beacon is better."
Beacon Memorial. Mobius is moving Ruvik there to work on this machine? That ominously answers where all the missing people went, and now they're going to move him closer to the source of 'test subjects.'
"I'll take your word for it. What is it supposed to do?" Sebastian doesn't need a manual for the damn thing. An idiot's guide will do. "What does Mobius want with something like this?"
"They want it to do many things. Open a man's mind up so all his secrets are bare, and then rearrange his entire mind so he's obediently and unquestioningly loyal," Ruvik barks out a laugh that lingers in his eyes when he turns back to Sebastian. Fondness. The bastard looks at him fondly. "Easy enough to do without the power of STEM but they're the kind of people to use explosives to kill a fly."
Sebastian looks over his shoulder to one of the doors leading away. The one that leads to a room with a fucking eight foot tall spinning saw blade. Ruvik's got no place talking about overkill.
Literally, figuratively. Jesus fuck. His life. Sebastian's need for solid answers is dying by the second, and he can't make himself think that's a bad thing.
"It requires at least two people to work. A host mind and then however many people one terminal can handle. The host maintains control of everything and the possibilities..." There's a bit of feverish light in Ruvik's eyes as he rests a hand on the side of the tub. Staring hard at the machine and nowhere else. "Break them open, make them different. Or," his tone changes. Becomes hushed and reverent, and Sebastian can tell this is what Ruvik wants. What he's after personally. "Completely replace one mind with another."
Sebastian half expects Ruvik to start cackling like a deranged scientist. It takes him a bit of struggling with the implications to see why he might want to do that, but it's not surprising. Not after what he's learned from the man already. "Laura?"
"There's still things to work out first," the light is gone from Ruvik's eyes when he turns. He's collected and professional now. "Compatibility is an issue. Extensive use of STEM erodes the sense of self. Only strong willed people can survive long enough to complete the process, which is, of course useless, if their body is not compatible. The body cannot always stand up to the strains of a different mind Seb."
"What happens?" Sebastian asks because he has to know. He doesn't want to but if he can't do anything to stop it he doesn't deserve to be ignorant. "The person getting evicted. They get stuck in Laura's body?"
It's not a pleasant thought. No one should be stuck like that, not even Laura.
"No, they stay behind in the machine," Ruvik tilts his head and gives Sebastian the same intent look he gave the wires earlier. "That bothers you."
He sounds like he's laughing and Sebastian glares at him silently. Ruvik's lips quirk up in a smirk to match his amusement as he stalks forward. There's an almost animal grace to it that is at odds with the image he presents, and Sebastian wonders how the fuck he hadn't been creeped out more than he remembers being as the man circles halfway around him. Sebastian feels a lot like a mouse being played with by a fat cat. "You used to be a cop. What would you have done to me if you'd caught me before now?"
"Before or after I threw your ass in the back of a paddy wagon?" Sebastian crosses his arms over his chest and turns his head to meet Ruvik's gaze squarely. There's a bright fascination in his eyes, tempered by a cruel curiosity. He wonders if Ruvik was the kind of kid that pulled wings from flies for fun. "It doesn't matter anymore. You know damn well what I would have done. That's why you messed with my head, asshole. Quit poking around."
The knowledge of what Sebastian should do is there in his head, but the desire to actually follow through on it just isn't there. Not without a shit ton of pain. He's still stumbling over that lack, and doubts he'll get used to it.
Ruvik doesn't lose the cruel edge to his smile but turns to wander to a table. Picking something up and holding it out to him. "No, it doesn't matter. You're mine now and there are more important things to take care of."
The envelope is familiar and it takes Sebastian too long to recognize the scrawl when he takes it. "Cabrera. Jesus, you mean he's real?"
"Yes, a little reminder of my place" Ruvik's smile is cold and mirthless as Sebastian pulls out the photos. "He's been paying attention."
The first recognizable face is his own. All the faces are Sebastian's as he flips through the stack. They're pictures of Sebastian in town, talking to Ella, outside the hospice, and several of him hunched over in the passenger seat of his car. Sprawled out in wrinkled clothing like a hobo and pulling on a cigarette like his life depended on it.
Flattering, really.
"They won't let him kill me just yet. I'm still too valuable," Ruvik says with a sneer, and Sebastian mentally tacks on a 'For now' to the end of that. He wonders if Cabrera even has a chance of laying a hand on Ruvik. Stupid thought to have because of course he can. The real question should be if Cabrera really wants to get hold of the man now.
It slots into place though. Had Ruvik's family been involved with Mobius on top of everything? The easy way Cabrera had been locked up and then released. Maybe even the way he's being supplied, because a camera and photo printing -by hand, because there's no development mark on any of the pictures- costs money. Money that an escaped mental patient really shouldn't have access to.
"This is what you want me to do?" Sebastian asks when he puts the pictures away, tucking them into a back pocket. "Find Cabrera for you?"
"Find him," Ruvik agrees, ignoring the impatience that had leaked into Sebastian's voice. "Find him and bring him to me."
Sebastian almost asks why, but the machine behind him is large. The wires and cables coming out of it everywhere in the room. He knows why Ruvik wants the man, and he doesn't need to hear confirmation.
"Fine, but I can't guarantee anything if this guy's as crazy as you all think he is," Sebastian will not promise to bring Cabrera in alive. Thoughts of just chasing him off flow through his mind quickly. A warning twinge ends them quickly though.
"It's a preference, but you will do what you have to," Ruvik studies him a moment longer before turning away. "Your gun is in the bedroom upstairs."
It's a dismissal, and Sebastian takes it. His back itches and shoulders hunch from the missing weight of his gun he hadn't noticed until now. The faint smell of smoke follows him out.
.
.