Sing to Life
Chapter 4: Alex Takes a Test
Vlad's boots snapped along the concrete in a lazy jaunt. Skulker padded beside him, his own thick boots thumping heavily. The noise gave their two escorts the creeps. One of them nudged the other and made a wiping motion with his hands. Wish we'd gotten kitchen duty. The other nodded. No kidding. They both breathed easier when the escapees were ensconced in Walker's office. They gave the two guards stationed there a snide glance before shutting the door and hurrying off to play blackjack in the employee's locker room.
Walker didn't notice the exchange. He scowled at his two visitors as they made themselves comfortable in his office.
Vlad plucked a chair from against the wall and seated himself. "So good to see you, Walker."
"What do you two scumbags want?"
"Right to business then?" Vlad shrugged. "Alright. It's not so much a matter of what we want as what we can do for you."
"We want the creature you have contained here," Skulker clarified.
Vlad gave Skulker a dirty look. "Well, that's the specific issue, yes."
Walker looked between the two of them through narrowed eyes. "What're you two talking about?"
"We know you're keeping something special in your basement, Walker. We're only here to take it off your hands."
Walker jumped up from his chair. "You felons have got guts walking in here and asking me to release a prisoner. If it wasn't for your pal here I'd already have you under lock and key."
Skulker crossed his arms and growled.
"Do you even know what Sixty-six is?" Walker demanded.
"No," Vlad said. "Do you?"
"That's not the point."
Vlad smirked.
Walker continued, peeved. "I keep him here because he's got the potential to cause more trouble than all of you other scum put together. And he will, too, if given the chance. And you two," Walker stated. "Couldn't keep him contained if your lives depended on it. Which they would."
"I beg to differ," Skulker growled.
Vlad stood and leaned against the desk, legs crossed and eyes turned down on Walker. "We'll take our chances. You don't have a choice in the matter. And Walker, we wouldn't want anything unpleasant to happen here." His free hand ignited in a ball of pink energy. Vlad began to play with it, making it grow and pulsate. He spoke again in that low voice. "We wouldn't want any unpleasantness to break out that would make you lose face with the rest of the prisoners, or the guard." His eyes flickered to the two eavesdropping guards. They snapped rigid and faced straight ahead at his mention. "You know what unpleasant business can happen if you lose face in prison."
Walker gritted his teeth.
Vlad smirked. "Now, I-"
Walker's swift right hook cleared Vlad's smirk. "Guards!"
The guards reached for their plasma guns far too slowly. A metallic hiss slit the air as a burst of pain flowered on their temples, the world spun and then they were on the ground with Skulker's glinting hand-blade poised above their faces, daring either to move.
Walker's hand was at his own plasma gun in an instant, but Vlad had long since recovered himself. As Walker raised his gun, four Vlads and eight clouds of rippling pink plasma surrounded him.
"That's enough," ordered Vlad's choroused voice.
Walker kept the gun leveled at one of him. "You're breaking the rules."
"What a crying shame," Vlad scoffed. "Put the gun down, or Skulker and myself will free everyone in here, but not before beating you senseless and confiscating your guns."
Walker held his pose for a moment, then the gun clattered to his desk and he was rubbing his hands together fitfully. "Fine. You and Alex deserve each other anyway." Something occurred to Walker that made him stand straight again. As Vlad condensed into one, Walker straightened his jacket and pressed the intercom.
"Let me get him out for you."
Vlad reposed in his seat as Walker began to give orders. He turned to Skulker and grinned. "And you thought this would be difficult. Child's play, I tell you."
Skulker nodded. "So it would seem." Walker was handing out orders with uncanny animation, and a bustling background noise drifted back from the other side of the line. Skulker's green eyes met Vlad's. "We should be careful."
"Oh?" Vlad cast a glance in Walker's direction. His smirk faltered for a moment before returning with its former dour radiance. "It wouldn't hurt. After all, caution is the better part of valor."
Walker clicked off the intercom before Skulker could reply. "I'm having Sixty-six brought up. There's no visiting rooms here, but we can use the office. I'll be back with him in a minute." Walker started around his desk for the door.
"Hold up." Vlad stopped him with a palm. "No funny business."
Walker's mouth drew into a hard line as he pushed past Vlad and out the door. "Keep them here," he shouted back to the guards. They exchanged an uneasy glance as Vlad laughed and shook his head.
"Should we follow?" Skulker asked.
Vlad shrugged. "Why? What's he going to do? For that matter," he turned to the two guards. "What can they do?"
One of the guards managed to clear his throat. "Just keep quiet now sir, there's, uh, nothing to see..."
The other guard smacked his head in his hand as Vlad laughed again.
---
Walker strode down the prison halls, passing door after iron door. The sounds of fighting, cursing, and wailing refused to provide their usual comfort to him, and his incompetent staff wasn't too reassuring either. Walker sniffed. Six was far more reliable than the guard, in his own way. More predictable, too. Come to think of it, Alex was much more of many things than most ghosts. Predictable, manageable, and utterly despicable. A dictionary definition of lawlessness, and those two miscreants wanted to take him away and do who-knows-what with them. Walker was through with Vlad's requests for prisoner backgrounds, henchmen, and succubae, and he wasn't getting his hands on Six. Not while Warden Walker was around, he wouldn't.
Walker grunted as something jarred his shoulder. He whirled to see the anxious face of his captain cringing against the wall. "Excuse me sir, I didn't see-"
"You. Come here. Walk with me." Walker turned around and continued on his way. The shorter captain hurried to keep up. "Get your men out. All of them, except the two at my office."
The captain nodded, trying to throw back his shoulders and keep his back straight as he walked. Mustn't loose face. "Will do, sir. Anything else?"
Walker continued down the hall, down the labyrinth of chipped concrete that would take him to the bowels of his prison. "Everyone gets an hour out in the Zone, wherever they want. If anybody's gone more than a minute after the hour I will personally hunt him down, torture him, and give him twenty thousand years to think about whether or not his minute was worth it. That clear?"
"Yessir!"
"Good." Walker arrived at the first crumbling staircase and gave his captain a blank look. "Why are you still here. Get everyone out! Prisoners in their cells. Do it!" Walker shouted.
The captain scurried off, delivering orders through his radio as he left. Walker flicked on his own radio to listen to the evacuation, hearing the prattle of the captain over the shouting of the prisoners. A fainter echo of the noise drifted to him from the passages, the clamor of spectral voices and the occasional zap of a plasma gun. When Walker was satisfied that everything was smoothly under way, he continued on his way. The noise of his prisoners receded as he descended.
Those voices belonged to his prisoners, and it was his job to contain their lawlessness. His job and no one else's, especially not some deadbeat halfa's from Wisconsin.
Walker paused at the bottom of a stairwell without immediately knowing why. Oh, that's right, he remembered. This hall belonged to Six.
The radio at his waist crackled. "Your orders have been carried out, sir."
He walked up the last staircase a few steps. No use in giving Six any unnecessary information. "Remember, one hour or ten thousand fold."
"Yessir."
Walker clicked off the radio and paused in the motion of returning to the hall. He could only remember once or twice in his life that he'd been truly uncertain, both times thousands of years ago. For Walker, the job of law enforcement didn't have any grey areas, but this situation did. This thing with Six didn't feel right, but there was no other way to do it. Six, for all his evil, was a type of ghost that nobody had ever seen before, and perhaps it was a bad idea to exploit him so lightly.
Walker shook his head and continued down the hallway. Six was HIS prisoner to exploit and this wasn't being done lightly. He had nothing to worry about.
Walker closed the short distance between the stair and the cell in quick, purposeful steps and stood in from of the door, twirling his key ring around a finger. He didn't know if a door could actually exude malice in a physical sense, but if it was then this one was doing it. "Sixty-six."
"Walker." The voice echoed out from hairline cracks between the door and the wall, its hollow malice unfiltered in spite of the barrier. "I hear your men are gone. Are you going to let me out?"
"Shut up," Walker replied. "You've got visitors."
"Have I now?" Sixty-six seethed.
Walker hoped he wouldn't have to knock him out again. That would cost too much time. "Yes. The guards are, for the most part, gone. There's two gentlemen upstairs, who are a grave threat to this prison. I'm going to lead you up to them, chained, and I'll let you... do what you want with them."
The voice was a whisper. "Humans?"
"One of them, partway."
"Danny!"
"Don't get excited. You're no good to me if you lose it down here. It's Vlad Plasmius and Skulker. Vlad's the halfa."
"Strange names to me."
Walker stood away from the door. "Take the deal or leave it."
A pause. Then Sixty-six's voice. "I'll take it."
Walker let out a breath and unlocked the door. The prisoner strolled out, hands folded neatly behind his back. His eyes already shone black.
"Let's go, Sixty-six."
"My name is Alex."
Walker secured his hands and feet in manacles. "Your name is Sixty-six. Get movin.'"
Walker felt a pang of self-contempt as he strode down the hallway, walking side by side with Alex. No, not Alex. Six. He shoved his prisoner ahead and muttered for him to hurry along. Walker didn't like the way he was smiling. Every time somebody smiled at him it was usually bad, and in Six's case something bad could mean something serious. Walker gave Six another shove on the stairs, just for good measure. Six nearly fell flat on his face.
Alex didn't mind Walker's gruff manner at all. His eyes flickered around the prison, taking in every puddle in the halls and every crack in the walls. He listened to the swish of fabric from his and Walker's clothes, trying to gauge the relative proximity of Walker to himself, the approximate length of Walker's arms, the likely position of his fists. One sound, one piece of sensory input stood out above all others: the jangling of the keys on Walker's belt.
Walker's brow furrowed. No doubt about it, Six would try something before this was all over, but he'd handle it, just like he handled every other one of Six's disturbances. Shouldn't be too much trouble. Vlad and Skulker might put up a fight, though, and Walker wasn't sure that he'd be able to deal with that. Six would probably get them the first time, so it shouldn't be a problem. Walker figured he'd give Vlad and Skulker separate cells, one or two levels above Six. A prize position for a couple of prize-
Alex snatched the keys and plasma gun from Walker's belt and jetted off.
Walker gasped and raced after him, hoping that he was wrong about their proximity to the main gate.
As the desperate chase ensued not a hundred yards away, Skulker paced around the office while Vlad sat back, feet crossed on Walker's desk. The guards shifted and tightened their holds on their plasma guns.
"What's taking him so long?" Skulker grumbled.
Vlad yawned. "He must have this guy in a more secure place than the others. He doesn't exactly sound like the kind of prisoner you'd want to toss in with the regular thugs."
"Pfft. You got that right."
Vlad looked up to the guards. "What did you say?"
One of them gave the other a dirty look. "We didn't say anything, sir."
"Don't be shy," Vlad said, lighting up a hand.
The guard looked between Vlad's smirk and the pink plasma. He turned to mutter a curse at his less intelligent coworker, but the other's only response was an apologetic shrug.
The guard sighed. "You wanna know what I know? Fine. I don't know much. We all just got replaced, most of us came in on Saturday, fricken' warden wouldn't even wait for today, noooo, he sez he needs us on the weekend-"
"The prisoner."
"Right. Warden told us two alone how to deal with the man downstairs. He sez he's some kinda thing like Spectra."
Skulker perked up. "The student leech."
"Yeah. But this guy um, 'corrodes your mind' Walker said. Coma-style. He says we deal with it by remembering it's a lie. The stuff he tells you, I mean."
"I hardly believe you, but I'll humor it. What's he tell you?"
The guard looked at the ground. "I don't know. Walker said it's something about a wacko philosophy. Warden says it's fake, or it's not valid, or something, and that if you remember that then whatever it is he does has no effect."
Vlad and Skulker exchanged a glance. "Funny how Walker didn't mention that to us," Vlad mused.
A radio at the guard's waist crackled. "Main gate. Weapons ready. Now." The guards hurried from the room.
Vlad jumped up. "Speak of the devil." They left the office at a run, just in time to see the guards turn a corner ahead. Vlad felt something odd behind them, and he turned to see a dark blur closing fast. A green ray shot out from it too fast to dodge that wrapped Skulker in a pair of plasma cuffs. The inky smudge shot by them and followed the guards around the corner. Vlad sped after it in the sudden company of Walker.
"How is it that you keep anybody here?"
"Shut up."
They left Skulker behind and rounded the corner, both geared to use every bit of power they had. The turned the corner and Vlad stopped in his tracks, glancing between Walker and the scene that met them.
Six had been wrapped in green plasma constraints and a guard was loping toward him. The second guard writhed nearby, immobilized by his own plasma constraints. As Vlad and Walker looked on, the first guard caught up with Six and yanked away the key ring.
Vlad sighed. "Get everybody back to the office. Let's have no more distractions."
Walker dragged Six along the floor by his legs until they returned to Walker. Six was turned over to Walker, who carried him less gently. He dumped Six outside the office like a piece of luggage and stood guard over him while Vlad and Walker haggled in the office.
Alex stewed on the ground. How could he have been caught by the common guard? Walker must have trained them, and somebody had trained Vlad and Skulker, but that was no excuse. The guards were all notorious imbeciles, and someone like himself should have been able to beat them easily. Alex looked down as a pink light flashed under the office door.
He silenced his indignation and held still, ears open.
Skulker cuffed his ears. "No eavesdropping."
Alex smiled through gritted teeth. "Of course."
It was entirely possible that he'd go right back to the cell when Walker came out. Escape would be more difficult now that the guards were trained. Alex's aura shuddered with contempt. His mouth twitched sharply and his eyes flashed black.
Vlad and Walker strode from his office. Alex found Walker's pained expression and smoking lapel reassuring, but the two of them were good-humored, all things considered.
Alex frowned.
Walker led the group through the prison in silence, and they hadn't gone fifty paces when Alex recognized the path. He'd been to the torture room not two days ago, punishment for his latest attempt, but now Walker was going to set him up in front of these two and tease him like some kind of freak.
Alex kicked at Skulker and tried to wrench away, but Skulker just gave him an irritated look and yanked him forward again. Vlad looked back and made some witty comment that Alex couldn't hear. His own rage was loud enough to drown everyone out. Alex's eyes were boiling, slender black tentacles writhing, but there was no one to use them on. Everybody knew who he was, and he was now a sideshow performer.
They came to the torture lab and threw him in and locked the door. That was odd. How were they supposed to make him suffer without being present? Alex shrugged and pulled himself up on a steel table against the wall, opposite a one-way window that looked into the chamber.
After several minutes of waiting and making obscene gestures at the window, Alex's frustration turned to anger. He was here and now it looked like they'd gone and left him. That wasn't right it wasn't fair they couldn't do this to-
Alex stopped himself. He had to save his anger for something useful. But what was useful now? Those fools had gotten the better of him. He was being treated like a weapon, no more significant than a clip of bullets or a case of grenades, and they thought he was a puppet. Alex's darkness writhed. He'd show them. If they thought he wasn't important then-
But if they thought he wasn't important, then why all this special treatment? Why the hell was he getting so angry? Sure he was being used, but he should be concentrating on the motives, intentions, temperaments, and weaknesses of those morons, not wasting time getting angry at them, especially since they were immune to his kind of anger. But it was so hard to stay focused. He's been free only six months ago, known by few but feared by every one of those few. Now-
Alex stopped himself again. Something was wrong. He wasn't thinking clearly.
Did we ever?
Now he'd gone and woken up his other voice. Kiss rational thought goodbye if that thing cut loose.
Let us out. You don't need a reason.
Alex told it to be quiet. The darkness was common enough, but the voice only showed up when things got really bad. Being alone in a room did not qualify as really bad.
Alex looked around the lab for anything suspicious, but everything seemed in order. A spectral version of Chinese water torture was shoved up against the wall, and the familiar Procrustean bed squatted nearby. Cold butcher knives hung on a rack, glinting in the dim light, and the tools of Walker's dental chair-his personal favorite-rested undisturbed on an immaculate white cloth. Nothing was out of place. Alex examined the ceiling, looking for some new attachment or mechanical antagonist. No new devices, but he spotted something that held his attention for a long moment.
An air vent. He sniffed the air and took in a lungful of something bitter.
"GODDAMN IT!" he screeched. The blackness rose up thick about him. He couldn't believe they were doing this to him, to HIM.
Let us out.
Alex told it to shut up. If either Walker or his creepy voice thought he'd explode on command, then they were wrong. He wouldn't be anybody's dog. He didn't roll over or beg. They'd see. But it was just so DAMN-
Alex stopped again and focused. His mind was everywhere and the black was almost out. It hardly needed to ask, yet it continued to do so.
Let us out.
"Shut up," Alex muttered, rubbing his temples. The stuff pounded against the inside of his head, but he thought he could hold it. He was probably just imagining this whole thing anyway. The odds were fantastic that they'd really been able to make such a chemical, especially without any real knowledge of him, and Alex didn't think Walker had advertised his presence. The anger began to ebb, still there but pushing less insistently. Alex could think again. He sighed and dropped back on the table.
He smelled the increased dose before he felt it. As the stuff rushed to his head his mind corkscrewed in fury at everything that was denied him and all the respect he'd never again get and all these damn cells with their insipid prisoners and that DANNY PHANTOM-
Alex blacked out as the darkness consumed him, pouring from him in torrents and searching the empty room for something, anything to suck dry of sanity.
Behind the one-way window, Walker congratulated Vlad and Skulker on their ingenuity. They could manipulate and probably contain Six better than Walker, but as he watched that rising darkness boil in the next room, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was the wrong answer to a question that never should have been asked.
Then again, maybe there was no right answer.
---
A/N: (2 drafts)plus(patch for a minor plot hole)plus(perfectionism)makes(two weeks). Thanx to: cheerin4danny, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, Sakura Scout, The Fuzy Llama, smile7499, and Wiggle Lizard. You are all so awzome. (Note to Wiggle: The game scene in Ch. 3 was invented completely by yours truly.) Mandatory shameless advertising: next on the update list is "Lose Yourself," based on Eminem's hit song, then another chappy of "Sing." I guarantee that it won't take two weeks. Hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to review!