CHAPTER 3

Author's notes part 1 – chapter 3

Hi, guys, sorry for skipping august, I had trouble finding a beta reader for my fic. Finally, I've found a great one and I'm so excited to work with her. KraljicaZla is fantastic at what she does and I'm really lucky to have met her.

Your feedback is also important so feel free to leave a comment.

Enjoy!

Not fully awake, yet not really sleeping, he wasn't sure how long he was in that tiring state of floating. Reality and dreams collided and left a huge black hole in his mind. He was trying to assemble all of his memories. Some of them were still blurry and plain ridiculous that he dismissed them as nothing more than twisted nightmares.

He'd dream of a red haired woman. Her touching his hair, being too close and glaring with yellow fish eyes. His brain would shut down when she would call his name, her voice plunging him into deeper, sentient darkness.

Tao dreamt about the day Jia didn't come to school. She was not the type to skip class, on the contrary she would attend classes even with a high fever, just to prove how tenacious she was. It didn't matter how many years he knew the tall girl from his neighbourhood, Tao never got used to her stubbornness. She was a cheeky one who thought she was always right, and to everybody's annoyance, she was more often than not.

They grew further apart as they got older. Tao was a nerd in every way possible and Jia was an easy going person who liked to party, drink and go out with dangerous crowd which Tao was definitely not a part of. Unlike others, Jia didn't have a problem talking to him in her spare time. It was usually about nothing important, but Tao appreciated her effort.

"It must have been boring for her," he'd often remind himself. As a way to make it up to her he made sure Jia had every single movie before it was even released; she was a big movie freak. It was, after all, the reason she befriended him so many years ago. Loving movies was one passion they've always shared.

Nowadays, they only saw each other at school, so when Jia skipped not one, but three days in a row, it moved something inside Tao. Jia lived with her grandmother who couldn't walk well and the bad feeling in his gut only got worse when he found out that her house was empty. There's no way they've gone somewhere, not so suddenly and without anyone noticing. That was suspicious enough on its own. The police didn't seem to think it was strange or worthy of further investigation. They kicked him out of the station the third time he came to report Jia's missing. (Goddamn, useless police.)

Apparently, Jia informed the school she will be transferring because of the move. Apparently, her grandma needed special medical attention at one of the resorts in the country. (What a load of crap.)She would have told him; heck, even if he wasn't someone with whom she would share something as important, she would have told some of her realfriends about her situation.

He remembered Jia talking about her cousins, so after a long debate with himself he finally broke into her house in order to find a way to contact them. Seeing the house fully furnished and the rotten lunch set for two on the table left Tao in cold sweat. This was not how a house should look like when you prepare to move.

To be frank, Tao was usually not the one to lose his head in a dire situation. "Look for the solutions first, worry later", was his motto. But Jia's home looking like this meant nobody even bothered to take a look.

He was way past worrying. He was officially pissed.

Despite finding contact numbers in her mobile phone, which was still on her night stand near the bed, he couldn't get in touch with any of the relatives. From that moment on Tao put all of his strength to get to the bottom of it, to find out the cause of her sudden disappearance. He even visited the dangerous crowd she called her "gang". (Yeah right, some friends they were, lazing around all day not a care in the world.)

After two weeks of dead ends he finally hit the mother lode.

(Thank you, internet and poor firewall system of the police.)

Jia was not the only missing youngster from his prefecture. He found lists of kidnaping victims. He also stumbled upon long lists of "marked people", containing candid photos and personal information about them. Those young men and women were being watched 24/7 for some reason. Tao had a couple of ideas as to why, and every one of them was more bizarre and disgusting than the other. Finding shipping schedules and the locations of the pick-ups, Tao realised that this whole kidnapping business had a long successful history behind itself. All of it was thoroughly organised and very discrete. It looked like someone big was behind it. Big enough to keep police at bay.

(To hell with those cowards.)

Jia's not gonna be sold to some sick old fucker. Not on his watch.

Tao managed to hack into the organisation's system and find Jia's whereabouts. He was planning to go there and get her out. So, he packed his things and told his parents he was going on a school trip.

What a fool. What an utter fool he was.

He should have known better. It had "human trafficking" written all over it and he did not think once that going into a lion's den with nothing but a kitchen knife and a homemade Taser was a bad idea. He was smarter than that. His mind was usually logical, systematic and inclined to reason problems before running blindly into situations.

How on earth did it fail him so spectacularly?

Aw… young love is it?

"Shit. Fuck! Get the fuck out of my head!" He jerked violently on the table. He waved his head uncontrollably and didn't stop until his eyes finally opened. "She's insane… that woman is insane! What did she say…? Jia was a test subject? That's insane, test subject for what? Some experiments? What the hell, who experiments on humans today? It's the 21th century! There was no such data in the files I hacked. This is all insane."

A lot of time passed till his breathing settled down and he could see properly. The same white room. (Right.) They had brought him here apparently. He couldn't remember that. Last thing he remembered was a strange blond man at his door wishing him a good morning. Was he knocked out? That fast? He wasn't a type who gets into fights, but still… He reckoned he could score a few points before getting KOed. There was no time to get the Taser out of the bag, but he could use the umbrella in his free hand to protect himself.

"Mum insisted on bringing one along since the TV said it would- Wait." His parents were home getting ready for work. "Did the blond… did they bring them here too? Where are they?"

He had to find them. He had to move and do something.

He tried lifting up his head. With a bit of effort he managed to see the whole room. Seeing it empty almost made him laugh. (Those jerks. Did they honestly think he'd stay here?)

"Wait, Tao, don't be hasty, think."

The drug they used on him was obviously wearing off. He was able to think clearly enough, not to mention he could move. He actually giggled. Tao realised, then, the big device in his throat was gone. There was an ordinary, hospital-grade oxygen mask on his face. The giggle was louder now and just a bit hysterical. Not that he was aware of any of it.

He looked at the heart monitor. That beeping irked him like nothing in this world. He scowled and raised his head once again to see how he was attached to the bloody thing. There were a lot of wires sticking out of his chest, connecting him to a lot of other machines. God knows what they were; Tao didn't care one bit.

"Easy, don't be reckless and make a mistake," he ordered himself with a heedless smile.

He tried to get up. His body felt heavier than he was used to. After a third try Tao was already panting as if he was running for the last two hours. (Why was it so hard? Damn it.)

He managed to turn to his side and push with his forehead. He clenched his teeth holding his breath. His legs twitched and he was up, wheezing with his vision going grey at the edges. "No, don't pass out." He flinched and pulled his body forwards, then took a couple of minutes to calm down as he reached the decision. (It's now or never, but first, let's pull out these goddamn wires.)

A quiet voice at the back of his mind told him disconnecting so many tiny tubes from his unsteady body was too risky. He didn't know what those wires were for nor how deep they were stuck in his flesh. Well, he reasoned that they couldn't be that deep for he didn't feel much pain.

"That's because you're full of drugs," said the other voice. Then the third one whispered that this whole thing with stripping the wires off and escaping was just another bad idea. Can he even escape? Wasn't it futile? He didn't know where this place was, if there were guards or cameras monitoring him. It certainly wouldn't be easy to leave this room, especially in his condition. Maybe, if he waited to gain some strength back…

"Screw that," Tao thought, "who says there'll be another opportunity like this one? I have to get out of here and find my parents. I have to figure out where Jia is. I'm not staying in this mad house a second longer."

"Bad idea! Very bad idea! Don't pull them out!"

His hand was missing.

He was staring with his eyes wide open at the shoulder that was missing an arm. Was that his shoulder?

"Are you serious?"

Where the hell was his arm?!

He was breathing so fast, there was actually no air in his lungs. His whole body was covered in cold sweat, trembling so hard that he could hear his teeth chattering. A weak moan left his pale lips when his other shoulder wrapped in bandages came into view. His eyes were hot and damp like the rest of his body.

"Where are my arms? What did they do?! What did they do to myarms?! Did they cut them off?! Is that even possible?! Can they do that?! Who would do that?! What the fuck?!"

His scream was caught in his throat. It choked him. He almost fell off the table when he lurched clumsily on the side and threw up. There was only water in his vomit. It was suffocating him alongside that damned mask he couldn't take off. If it weren't for a strong hand on his back he would have lost consciousness and hit his head on the polished tiles beneath him. It pulled on him hard and pushed him back on the table. They stripped him of his mask.

(They?)

There were too many hands touching him.

"They took them! They took my arms!"

"Muah… aagrh…" Tao gasped, while they were holding him down, which in his state proved not to be too hard to do. When he saw the syringe ready, he winced. "Nnn…No!"

This wasn't happening, this can't be happening! (You're dreaming! A worst dream of your life!)

He felt the needle prick his thigh this time. It was enough to make him vomit again.

"N-no…! Gah… no…" The familiar weakness was taking over. The darkness spread over his eyes in splotches, angry ink to spite his helpless tears.

"… no…" It overpowered him completely. It happened so fast he didn't even notice when he lost the will to resist. Tao fell into the clutches of nightmares and didn't wake up for a long time.

There were moments of waking. Not being awake, per se, just a weak process of waking up. Most of the time he wasn't even aware that he had moments of actual consciousness. In other times, when he was sure he was awake, his thoughts seemed kind of dim and distant. That feeling of blankness was the scariest emotion he had ever experienced. It made him helpless and miserable, usually not knowing what the problem was in the first place. There was something wrong, he had a feeling, but whenever he tried to think about it exhaustion would take him so suddenly that the only thing he could do was close his eyes.

In those rare moments of waking up he'd just stare at the hazy white and grey around him. The space was moving on its own. Sometimes he felt like somebody threw him in that luminous abyss with no intention of picking him up, and sometimes it felt as if it was falling down on him. Squashing him like a bug. And he had no opinion to give on the odd chance of it all actually happening.

He had no opinion on anything.

For the first time in who knows how long, he felt truly awake. His eyelashes were trembling… and his vision blurry. He had to put a lot of effort just to keep his eyes open long enough to understand that he could see again.

There was a strange sensation on his face. A touch. Something brushed over his swollen lips. A cold hand… robbery fingers were holding his chin. A cling and a click and something massive ripped itself from his face. The grip fastened. Tao felt like he swallowed a rock. He gagged when something long and hard started to creep up his throat. There was no end to it. A disgusting tasteless piece of plastic was extracted from his mouth. He twitched forward, leaning heavily on the hand that was still holding him tight. Unknown fluids were coming out of him, making him cough. He continued retching for some time after that, every sense of control lost. He wasn't sure if the hand on his chin helped him or not, but was glad he was able to feel it. One part of him was so happy he wasn't alone right now.

"Wakey-wakey," said the sweet voice.

The woman. That woman.

There were so many emotions hitting him all at once he didn't know what he was feeling anymore. He wanted to shout and kick and scream and hide.

That insane woman.

"She took my hands!"

Rage stomped on every single one of the voices telling him to calm down, to be scared, to not move, to not provoke. His head was filled with images of him ripping her head off.

"I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you all, you sick bastards!" He couldn't stop his hysterical shrieks. He wanted her to hear how much he loathed her. He spat all of his threats and curses in English and in Chinese, then both and at the same time.

Half way through his tantrum he didn't know what was coming out of his mouth anymore. As long as it was hate he didn't give a damn how ridiculous it sounded. There was never a person he despised so much in his entire life.

"Where the fuck are my parents? What did you do, you bitch?! Where did you take Jia? I swear to god I'll destroy you if you don't release me right now, you ugly hag! Let me go! Let go!"

"Oh dear, what's the matter?" Dr Aris tapped his lips gently with a napkin. "You want to say something? Please be careful, your throat must be sore."

He shivered in anger when she wiped off the droll off his face. Black dots appeared in front of his eyes and the room started to spin. That woman stroked his cheek while he was moaning in pure pain. It felt like his brain was overheating, like vapour was coming out of his ears. She must have enjoyed other people's suffering.

"That bitch. She's dead. You're dead! When I get out of here, I'll have the whole police of China…! Military on your ass! You'll be dead, you human trafficking whore!"

"It's alright, it will pass. Dr Aris will make you better. Now…" She was checking something on his head. "Do you know who you are?"

(That woman was really asking for it, didn't she?)

"You might have had your way with me, fish eyes, but I ain't senile yet!"

"Is your name Tao? Blink if you understand."

It seems his lips forgot how to make words. That was frustrating. Dr Aris was waiting patiently while he snarled like some small animal. That was even more frustrating.

"Damn it, don't patronise me!"

(Never mind then, my mouth couldn't form a coherent word, it could still, however…!) He wanted to spit on her and bite her thin neck. (Let's see how she likes that!)

He growled which made her pay closer attention to his clenched teeth. She made note of every single twitch he made as if she was searching for something, which in turn made him fully aware of how tall and big she looked. How her eyes were looking down on him and how her figure appeared strong in the light. A menacing shadow in front of him blocked the view and all he could see was her staring. Staring poignantly at Tao, at small, weak… mute, chopped up Tao. Her food. She was assessing; probably whether he was ready to guzzle down or not. That woman was analysing. Those yellow knowing eyes stripped him naked. It was as if she could read his mind.

His body tried to move, to run away, but he couldn't move an inch. All of his bones ached as she took a step closer. His anger was gone like it was never a part of him with one tight grip of her robbery hand on his jaw. The chill was coming from her excited breath. He felt her touch on his sweaty temple move slowly to his scalp.

(There was… no hair there.)

Did he… go bold? Her fingers tinkered with something coming out of his skull. "What the…?" Was there something on top of his head? (Something firm… and metal.)

His whimper was barely audible when she followed the line of the device on his head all the way to his nape. "Did she… did she put something on my head? Why? What for? What was she doing?"

There was no way to take a look no matter how hard he tried to turn around. His eyes were flying across the room searching for something. A clue, a mirror… another person to call for help. Help… he needed help. With a caress far more gentle than he expected she caught his attention again.

She was smiling.

"Oh… you do. You understand. I knew I could put my trust in you," she whispered and he realised she was talking in Chinese. "You turned seventeen a week ago. I know it's a bit late, but happy birthday! May all of your wishes come true!"

"What? What the hell is she talking about?"

Tao had his sixteenth birthday party a month ago. He distinctly remembers his parents buying him a new PlayStation console. He pulled an all-nighter that time. The new game he got from Jia was tough. He still managed to top score the history test the next day without getting a wink of sleep. It was a pretty good week.

"What the fricking hell was that bitch talking about?!"

What did she mean "Happy birthday"? Did he sleep for a year?

"That's not fucking possible! This ain't some science fiction movie!" It didn't feel like a year, more like a very long, tormenting, restless night. How can you put someone to sleep for a year?

Did she drug him again? Sure. What kind of drug was capable of that, though? Was it something like a chemically induced coma? Coma for a year?

"Don't you do that as a last resort if there was no other way for a patient to survive? I'm not fucking sick! The reason I feel like shit is because that bitch cut my completely healthy arms off!"

(If it was coma, shouldn't he feel limp and woozy?)And although he did, he didn't get the impression he didn't move for a year. (What did she do?)

"What are you doing? Why? Why are you doing this to me?!"

"You scared me quite a bit to be honest. It took so long to stabilise you I started to wonder if all that effort was ever going to pay off." Her Chinese was bad, but he had no problem understanding.

"Whhh… gh…"

"Hm?"

"Wh… w-why…?"

"Why? Baby, you're my special souvenir, you're worth the trouble. Oh, what I planned for you, just you wait! You'll love it. There isn't gonna be any other like you in the whole Union. That pig Crombel will be so jealous." The joy in her voice was poison.

The given answer didn't make him feel better. On the contrary.

"Mmff… mah… my…" His mouth was working on his own now. His stammering was so weak he wasn't sure she heard him. Why was he even talking to her? That woman was evil; he needed to find someone who would actually want to help him. No matter how much he stared at them, other doctors in the room simply ignored him. They were busy preparing themselves for what seemed to be a long and complicated procedure. None of them seemed to think this whole scene as something unreal and deeply twisted.

"My p-parents…" He was sobbing even before she answered. His mind connected all the invisible dots in a flash. It was like he understood things he didn't even knew about.

"Parents? Your parents?" She was not that pleasant this time. "Forget about them. I'm your mama now."

"H-help… don't… please… Don't…" Tao interrupting her didn't sit well with her. She looked insulted.

"What are you snivelling about? I'm the one in pain here. I had to change my plans. I can't get you new arms until you're fully grown and I can't start chemical enhancement until your hormones settle down. We already wasted a year, we can't just lay around and do nothing! Hence, the brain rewiring." She clapped her hands feeling all cheered up now that she was explaining her master plan. "Smile, little one, you'll be helping me in this crucial moment. I need you awake and focused, ok?"

"No… please, don't… I beg you… s-stop…" He cried out, loudly, slurring his words like a drunk. "I beg you… forgive me, forgive m-me… I…"

"Don't be such a baby, I'm trying to make you better!" She pointed at one of her co-workers who was holding a bunch of cards in his hands. "He will talk to you and show you the cards and you'll talk back and say what's on the cards. I don't wanna burn that smart brain of yours. Do you understand?"

"I won't do it again… I'm sorry, p-please… let me go, I won't tell… anyone… please, I beg you, forgive me…! I didn't know… I've made a mistake… didn't know… please, please!"

"Tao!" She shrieked strictly and he shut his mouth in a blink of an eye. "Shut it, you're annoying! Now, do as I say and everything will be fine! Listen to the doctor, answer his questions and talk about what you see on the cards. Honestly, is that so hard? Am I asking too much? Brats these days…" Towering over him and pinning him down with that resolute stare of hers, she continued in a whisper. "I'll be doing the procedure myself this time, so you don't need to worry. Still, I need you to concentrate." There was something truly evil in that hungry smile, too close to his paled face. "We wouldn't want to make you into a plant, now would we?"

If Tao could nod, he would. He would do anything at this point. Instead, he blinked. A genuine smile filled with nothing but pleasure spread across the woman's face. She put her mask on and disappeared from his sight. The other doctor took the chair and sat in front of him. He was fixing his cards while the rest of the staff took their places. The middle-aged doctor cleared his throat and unlike Dr Aris' his Chinese was fluent.

It was mind boggling. Weren't they speaking in English the first time he had awoken in this hell hole? Are they trying to be considerate? (Don't make me laugh…)

There were fresh tears rolling down Tao's face. His self-control was failing him. His parents… His parents were most certainly dead if not chopped up so some psychopaths could play doctors. (Yes… they were nothing more than psychos, no real doctor would allow this, would participate in this… whatever this was.) These expressionless men in hospital gowns will never help him no matter how much he wept, because unlike true doctors, they couldn't care less about their patients… No, their meat. He was nothing but meat. Of course they sliced him up.

Jia was lost forever. That scary woman… she said she won't last two weeks… and that was a year ago.

Tao was missing limbs, his senses were screwed with drugs, and now his brain will probably fry. (Ah… this is the end… right? This is it. I'm going to die.)

"Whatever."

"Now… look at the picture. Tell me what you see."

Author's notes part 2 – chapter 3

I'll talk about some fics that inspired me for my story.

"Developing Trust" by Dark Ice Dragon – you probably read this one if you're a fan of Tao and Takeo. I liked how the author had those moments of a "brainwashed caged mouse" I talked about. It wasn't too graphic but it was nice to see those two had problems. There's a slight Takeo x Tao there. It's fluffy and sweet. You should check it out.

The other one that had greater impact on me was "Foster Home for Endangered Species" by jeza_red. It's not Tao and Takeo centric, however, there was one chapter there that blew my mind. In chapter 4 Takeo has an interesting conversation with M-21 about his and Tao's time at the Union. Among other things he says "She didn't do big numbers… There were three specimens in mine. About seven or eight in Jake's? Tao, as far as I know was a single. Her pet project, there's nothing like him in the Union, She worked on him a lot before and after he joined the team." Which when I thought about it was obvious. Tao really is different, not just in DA5 but almost in the whole Union. His way of fighting, his abilities, hell, even the way he looks, and Dr Aris is all about looks. There were many other interesting stuff in this fic. The author went deeper into the horrors of the Union which was nice to read. It's not finished yet, but feel free to read it, it'll be fun.

Till next time!