Chapter 2: Bastion's Lab

The prick of a needle brought Jubilee back to full consciousness. She stirred, coming back to instant awareness as she started coughing, trying to clear the rest of the liquid oxygen from her lungs. She doubled over, pretending she was choking, and when a dark-coated figure approached, she straightened up abruptly, lashing out with her hands extended in front of her, hoping to catch her captors off-guard as she had the last time.

Nothing happened.

She stared at he hands in disbelief as a mocking laugh rolled through the chamber. "Your powers will no longer work, child," said the deep, harsh voice. "This room is equipped with psionic dampeners. Your psionic control over your powers has been, for the time being, effectively 'shut off'. And you have no hope of overpowering us without your powers. So be a good child and do what we ask."

Jubilee crossed her arms, partly in defiance and partly to hid the fact that she was shivering. It was cold in here, and she only had the thin plastic dress on. And underneath it, she was uncomfortably aware that she was nude. "Think again, Pinky," she snapped. For some reason, Bastion's appearance reminded her of a cartoon she liked watching, 'Pinky And The Brain'. Bastion looked a little bit like Brain…but there was no way she was even going to hint that he might have even the intelligence of a mouse. Pinky was Brain's brainless sidekick. So. "I am not doing anything you—Oww!" She jumped as the metal floor under her sent an electric shock through the soles of her feet. Bastion, damn his hide, had shoes with rubber soles that kept him from being affected.

"Care to try that again, child?" he said, his voice never changing tone. Jubilee continued to stand defiantly. This time, the shock was stronger, just at the edge of discomfort and not quite pain.

She glared at him. "That the best you can do, Pinky?" she snapped.

The charge that tore into her this time knocked her off her feet, and she screamed in pain as she hit the floor. With more of her skin in contact with the metal floor, the shocks had more effect, and Jubilee writhed for what felt like an eternity before the current was shut off. When she was finally able to notice things again, she realized she was lying on the floor at Bastion's feet, shaking with the involuntary spasms the electricity had set off in her muscles. Her face was wet with tears. She stared at the floor, unwilling to meet his eyes, unwilling to show him the tears on her face.

"Now, let's try this again." Bastion's voice had only bland politeness; there was no hint of satisfaction that he'd made her cry. "Get up, and put this on." He held out a jumpsuit, made of the same stuff her dress was made of.

Jubilee climbed slowly to her feet, biting her lip, then reached forward to take it from him. "Fine. I'll put the damn thing on, Pinky," she snapped, glad that her voice wasn't as wobbly as her legs. "Then you tell me where we are and what you want from me, and I get out and go home." She hugged the jumpsuit to her chest, lifting her head as she got her emotions under control, hiding her growing fear behind a mask of bravado.

Bastion sounded amused. "What makes you think I want anything from you, child?" he asked.

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Think I'm stupid? Duh, even I can tell you didn't bring me here for just a simple chat. We coulda done that like, back there at the Academy." She freed one hand and held up a finger. "One. If you wanted to kill me, you'd'a done that back at the Academy. Two, you went and had a nice little shower all set up for me that made my skin itch. I don't even wanna know what my rash must look like now." There was no rash, but she wasn't going to bring that up. She went on counting reasons off on her fingers. "Three, you didn't have your stooges shoot me after I SAVED YOUR SOLDIER'S LIFE!" she yelled at him, then continued at a more normal tone of voice. "Four, I woke up here. Five, you're giving me this…thing to wear." She wrinkled her nose as she looked at the jumpsuit. "Dude, this is ugly. Can I, like, get this in a different color? Green is so not my favorite color."

"Just put it on." Was that a trace of impatience she was hearing?

"Whoa," Jubilee lowered the suit. "Damn, the stone does have emotions. Great, I was thinking I was talking to, like, a robot."

"Put it on, Ms. Lee. I am running out of patience. You don't want me to run out of patience." The voice had dropped an octave.

"I am not undressing in front of you." Jubilee folded her arms. "Get out."

"I am not leaving you alone," Bastion said smoothly. "I have no interest in your body, Ms. Lee, only in the information in your head. One specific piece of information in particular."

"I don't care. I'm still not undressing in front of you!" Jubilee yelled at him. "No freakin' way—"

Bastion sighed, and snapped his fingers. Two guards, dressed in the red and purple uniforms (minus armor) came forward. She fought them, kicking, cursing, but they snatched the jumpsuit away from her before reaching for her. She struggled as one held her, and the other reached for the plastic dress and ripped it away. She dropped to the floor on her knees, her arms wrapped across her chest, trying to hide as much of her privates as she could. Bastion snapped his fingers, and the guards went back to their positions beside the door, although one stared at her with a predatory gleam in his eyes as he took his place. "Guess not everyone around here thinks we're all dirty, huh?" she snarled. That's it, Jubes, stay angry. Logan deals with crap by getting angry. Just thinking about him sent a pain through her heart. She wanted him so badly right now… Frosty and the others gotta have realized I'm gone by now, she thought. Sean and Emma will tell the X-Men, and Wolvie will come rescue me, I know he will. I just have to hold on till they get here.

Bastion broke into her thoughts. "Put the suit on, Ms. Lee."

Jubilee snapped angrily, "Tell Eyes over there to stop staring at me like a bear at a fat deer."

Bastion's eyes flicked to the guard, then back to Jubilee. "To some, a female body is a female body, whether mutant or human. I discourage it, but if it happens…He has a right to do whatever he pleases," Bastion said coldly. "Unlike you. You're a mutant, an abomination. You have less rights than an animal. You have no right to privacy, no right to clothing. I am being lenient in allowing you clothing. I suggest you take it. Before I change my mind." Jubilee thought for a moment about refusing, but the thought of being nude any longer wasn't appealing. She slowly reached for the jumpsuit on the floor, then spun around in her crouching position and turned her back to Bastion and the two guards. She could feel Eyes staring at her bare buttocks, and she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the tears of humiliation that threatened to spill from her eyes. Don't let them know what you're feeling, Jubes, she chided herself. Be a rock. Be brave. Wolvie will get here and he'll make Bastion pay. By the time she turned around, the tears were gone and the mask was back in place. "All right. I put the damn thing on. What do you want from me?"

She wasn't expecting an answer, so Bastion's next words took her by surprise. "Just information. I know you know where the X-Men's base is. All you have to do is tell me."

Surprise tinged her voice as she asked, "Then you'll let me go?" Not that she was planning on telling him anyway. No damn way was she going to tell him where to find Wolvie and Scott and Jean and the Professor and 'Ro…

"Regrettably, I can't do that," Bastion said smoothly. "But you will be enjoying my hospitality… for the rest of your life. If you cooperate, I can make that time more pleasant than it would be otherwise."

Jubilee burst into sarcastic laughter. "If you think that's gonna guarantee my cooperation, you got another think comin'," she said firmly, stepping up to Bastion and poking a finger in his chest. "Get…" poke, "…this," poke, "…straight," poke, "…right now, Pinky. No way am I tellin' you where to find my friends. No way, no how. Never. You can do whatever you like. I'm not telling." She stepped back and crossed her arms defiantly.

"You don't need to tell me, child. There are more ways than one to get what I want." Bastion said, snapping his fingers again. Before Jubilee could react, the two guards had come forward, grabbing her arms again. She fought, but she was no match for two full-grown men. Bastion stepped past her, to a counter along the wall that she hadn't noticed before now, and picked up a heavy, bulky garment. The quiet guard held her arms as Eyes slid sleeves over her hands and wrists, and it was only as he was buckling the straps behind Jubilee's back that she realized why the sleeves were so long, and why there were more straps hanging from them. A straitjacket. "No!" she cried, flailing her arms. "No, you can't do this to me...leave me alone…stop it…stop it…GET THIS THING OFF ME!" she howled, but all her protests were in vain. Eyes yanked the straps behind her back, firmly pinioning her arms across her middle with her hands on her ribs. She started to take advantage of the slack at the end of the straitjacket to wiggle her arms upwards, but he stopped that with a yank on the wide strap at the hem of the front and back of the jacket. The quiet guard kicked her thighs apart, pinning them open with his knees as 'Eyes' buckled the strap between Jubilee's legs, taking care to 'smooth out' the plastic over her crotch so there were no wrinkles before yanking it closed, so tightly the strap ground into her flesh. Tears sprang to Jubilee's eyes at the sudden pain, and she pulled her foot back and kicked him, as hard as she could. He stumbled backwards, eyes watering in pain as he held his injured arm.

Bastion ignored the entire altercation. "Bring her this way," he said, turning and heading for the door. The guard grabbed a fistful of the back of the straitjacket, causing the strap to dig in even tighter, and Jubilee decided that walking on her own would be less painful than being dragged.

They walked down a number of featureless hallways, only punctuated here and there by doors. Jubilee tried to keep track of doors and turns, but after six turns and three different hallways, she was hopelessly lost.

Bastion finally stopped in front of a door marked 'operating theater' and pushed it open. Jubilee took one look inside, saw a fully-equipped operating room, and started struggling in panic, kicking. "No…no…no…." Bastion stood silently by as the guard wrestled Jubilee into the room and dragged her over to a menacing looking chair, where she was soon immobilized by straps around her ankles, waist, hips, and over her restrained arms. Then a white-coated doctor picked up a heavy helmet-sort of thing that to Jubilee looked like some sort of evil torture device, and started to put it on her head. She thrashed her head, the only movement left to her, but Bastion grabbed her chin in a grip of steel and held her head still as the doctor buckled the straps to the helmet over her head.

When they released her from the chair, a bulky pack was strapped onto her back, and the doctor did something to it. Shortly thereafter, the helmet on her head began to hum and the pack on her back hummed as well. He had turned the power on. Jubilee squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for something painful to happen, but when no pain was forthcoming, she opened them cautiously. Bastion was looking at it, and her, with evident satisfaction, and said, "That will do, Doctor. Now, if you will put her under…" He turned to Jubilee. "You will find, child, that there are other ways of getting information than getting you to talk…" his voice was the last thing Jubilee heard as sleep overcame her.

Bastion looked at the doctor. "That worked out quite well, Doctor. How did you manage to find the correct frequency of her brainwaves that quickly?"

The doctor shrugged. "I've been experimenting with some of the other subjects currently held here," he said. "Sleep is something that comes naturally to humans."

Bastion turned to the doctor. "Make no mistake about it, Doctor," he ground out through gritted teeth, "There is no way this is a human. This is a mutant. An animal. An abomination. A beast. A useful one, to be sure, but she is nothing more than mindless animal flesh. I allow the guards and my First Strike soldiers the luxury of playing with the animals; but you had better not. Or you will not survive Operation Zero Tolerance."

The doctor swallowed hard at the clear threat in Bastion's voice. "Yes, Sir," he said meekly. "With your permission, I'll return to my duties." Bastion turned away from the doctor, gestured to the two guards to bring Jubilee's sleeping form, and exited the room. They followed.

This time, without Jubilee fighting them every step of the way, their progress was smoother. Bastion led the way down hallways and corridors until he finally stopped in front of a door marked 'lab'. A quick swipe of his fingertips over the fingerprint ID pad, and he was in, the guards following. "Put her there," he directed the guard, indicating a circular dais, surrounded by banks of computers and viewscreens. The guard put her there, and Bastion called into the shadows at the far end of the room, "Daria!"

From those shadows stepped an exotically pretty woman. Her shaven scalp should have detracted from her beauty; in a lesser woman, it would have…but in her, it simply enhanced her delicate features and large blue eyes. Physically she didn't look much older than Jubilee; Bastion had picked her especially for this job, thinking that if the woman who tended to Jubilee's everyday needs was close to her in age, Jubilee might let slip some small piece of information that he might be able to use.

The entire chamber was a recording device, starting with the helmet she had strapped to her head. Images picked up by the helmet would be channeled to the monitors, and what she thought would be displayed on screen for him to see. It was a mental rape, carefully designed to elicit the information he wanted. She no longer had the privacy of even her own thoughts. And since she didn't even know what the helmet on her head was for, she wouldn't be able to block her mind from putting out those images.

Nor did she even have physical privacy. The mechanisms under the circular floor would project the illusion of solid walls around her; she would think she was alone in a cell. Bastion had planned it that way, thinking she might talk to herself in her loneliness and boredom, and he might get what he wanted that way. The sooner he got what he wanted, the sooner he would attain his goal; capturing the X-Men.

"You called?" Daria's voice was soft, and she didn't look at Bastion while she spoke. Her attention was riveted on the straitjacketed figure lying on the platform. When Bastion had said he was bringing a subject here, a mutant who had some sort of information that he wanted, she had been expecting an adult. Not a young teenager…a child. Sympathy rose for the girl as she saw the cruel pinioning of the girl's arms, the strap pulled too tight over sensitive flesh, the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. This wasn't right…she was only a child. Why? There had to be some other way Bastion could get the information he so desperately wanted.

Bastion looked at his assistant, troubled. Maybe he had made the wrong decision. Maybe Daria, being closer in age to Jubilee as well as the same gender, would be more inclined to feel pity and try to help the child. Would she…but no. She was as much a culprit here as he was; she had been altered by nanotechnology to be a prototype of the 'Super-sentinel' he had created. Any attempt to help the girl would result in Daria's own death; either at Jubilee's hands, his own, or the X-Men's. No. Daria's only chance for survival after Operation Zero Tolerance was himself. If she stayed loyal, she would be rewarded. If she did not…well, he could always create more like her. She was expendable. So was the sleeping child on the dais. Everyone was, in this human-mutant war, except him. He alone held the key to saving humanity. He alone could destroy the mutant menace and bring an end to the mutants' dream of world domination. He alone, of all the billions in the world, was not expendable. So he had to take every precaution he could to avoid putting himself in danger.

Even from one small, frightened mutant girl.

He turned to Daria. "Activate the tactile imaging mechanism." Daria pressed a few buttons in the computer, and a transparent 'wall' sprang up around the perimeter of the dais. Transparent to him, that is; Jubilee, inside the image's perimeter, would feel it against her cheek as a solid wall. She would see it as a solid wall. And she would think she was alone.

"Turn on the monitors and begin recording. I want to see every thought she thinks, every dream she has, every memory she might pull up, no matter how inconsequential or fleeting. They could provide valuable clues. Alert me when she wakes up." Bastion strode from the room.

Daria sank into a chair beside the computer, spent a few minutes turning everything on, then defiantly stepped through the illusion and reached down to loosen the strap between the girl's legs. As she sat back down and started recording, she looked back at Jubilee's still figure in the middle of the dais and shook her head. "She's only a child…"

End Notes:

I got a little ahead of myself here, but I had to in order to provide a clear description of Daria, (who first shows up in Generation X #27) which is necessary at this point in the story. My apologies to Lobdell and the various artists who brought the character of 'Daria' to two-dimensional life; if I've misunderstood anything of her personality while reading 'between the panels' I'd appreciate it very much if you'd tell me!

For my readers; yes, I know that chapter 16 of 'How Far' gives a somewhat different picture of Jubilee's experiences during O:ZT. That's why I started writing this story to begin with. Between the various stories I've written about Jubilee with references to her time spent at the Hulkbuster base, there's a lot of inconsistencies, details I haven't kept straight from story to story. This story is going to be my attempt at writing a comprehensive, in-canon account of her time with Pinky; hopefully, others will find it similarly comprehensive. Perhaps enough so that it can be used as a definitive account of the actual event for other fanfic writers. Once I'm done this, I'll go back and revise all my Jubes stories (well, the more recent ones like 'How Far', at least) so that the details remain consistent. Eventually this will tie the 'Jaenelle-verse' with the Marvel-verse.

Stay tuned!