XLIII: Hit Somebody!

As Sawyer walks down the hallway, he's already sizing them up. Two guys, both big, but both slow-looking. Given half a chance, he can get the drop on them. He knows it. If only his head would clear for three seconds, he could at least try to deck them and take off. If he's going to make his move, he's got to make it now. He'd like to be less drunk, and it occurs to him that maybe drinking all those bottles of beer wasn't the best idea, but he has to work with what he's got.

First, though, he has to wait his moment. Unfortunately, that means that his two bodyguards want to chat with him. Why they can't just kill him and get it over with, he doesn't know, but for some reason they feel like talking.

The bigger of the two guys turns towards him, smirking. It's not a nice look. The voice is pleasant, but it's a fake pleasantness, and that somehow makes it worse. "Don't you want to help the cause? I mean, you're contributing now."

I never wanted to contribute anything. Sawyer doesn't say that, though, because, first, it's a lie, and secondly, he doesn't want to get into an argument with these guys. They look like they wouldn't like being baited, and for once, he knows enough to keep his mouth shut. Well, not really. The truth of that is that he can't figure out a smart thing to say, what with all the booze he's got in him.

"Do you know what we do with the MRI machines?"

No, but he sure wants to know. He shrugs, to give the impression he doesn't care. If they think they're feeding him information, they're less likely to run off at the mouth. His brain sings drinking songs, soused and doused in drink.

"We use them to copy the atoms in your brain. Hydrogen emits radio waves when it's exposed to a magnetic field. And we've got a huge magnetic field right through those bolted doors up there, you see?" He does, fuzzily. He doesn't answer, though. Let them talk. Let them give him information. He wouldn't know what to say if he could find the words. "MRI outside uses one millimeter resolution. We have that to the tenth power."

Shit, it's high school algebra, Sawyer thinks.

"And if that doesn't work," the first guy continues, sounding like he'd relish that occurrence, "we solidify the brain with paraffin, cut it into thin slices, and scan that into a computer using an electron microscope. Of course, you won't be around for that, but that's all right. We can bring you back to life. We simply upload this into another body, and presto-change-o, you wake up in a new body, with new abilities. We've had a few mistakes, but they don't harm anyone, and we've perfected the process now, we think. You folks were selected for it and brought here, and lucky you; it's your turn. You said you wanted to be given a new chance. Here it is."

He doesn't know what half of that procedure the guy's talking about is, but he knows it doesn't sound good. Anything that involves cutting up brains can't be good. And killing him, copying him, and thinking he'll wake up? They're insane. They must be. A chill runs down his spine, and he finally starts talking. His head hurts, and he's fuzzy, but at least he's found his voice again. "Shove Blade Runner up your ass, Hawking. I'm not a damn replicant." His voice sounds brittle, and sharper and more fragile than he'd intended, but at least he can talk.

One of the guys has seen the movies. He smiles in acknowledgment. "That's what the replicants thought too."

Sawyer keeps on making a concerted effort to snap right back at them. He's not going to let them have an easy walk if he can help it. They don't deserve that. "Ain't that nice, Roger Ebert. We gonna talk movies or are we going to Room 101 already?"

Roger Ebert and Stephen Hawking don't get the reference, and they don't like their new nicknames. He's pleased with them, though. At least that's something. At least they have identities now. If they have identities, he can figure them out. If he can figure them out, he can get loose. He can't plan, though. He's too smashed, and unsteady, and he knows he doesn't have the time. He'll have to take action sooner rather than later, because as they pass the door that Hawking had indicated was where the magnets were and turn onto another different hall, he sees glass and – Christ – sunlight.

He's fought off bouncers at bars before who were bigger than him, too. This is no different, except there are two of them. If he knew anything about calculating angles and odds, he could figure out the probability and the physics of it, but the hell with that. Leave that sort of thing to the guys with brains. He's got to act, and he's got to do it now. He waits and watches, tensing his good arm, testing it, letting it loosen. He does this three times. Maybe it's good luck. His left arm, bandaged, won't be much use, but he can put everything he has behind the punch. He's sure of it. It'll hurt like a bitch, but he's used to stuff like that.

If only I could outfight them both square and fair, he thinks, and then he gets an idea. Maybe the best he's gotten yet. He may not be able to get the better of them if he squares off against them, but there's nothing saying he has to make it even. He may be smashed, but he can use that to his advantage. The idea has a drunken genius about it, and it's almost simple enough to be tricky.

His head swims again, and the walls white out before him; he forces himself to go limp and just drop. He hits the floor harder than he had expected. Maybe it's due to the drink, but it's not that bad of a miscalculation. He just lies there gasping for a moment longer, doesn't move until they get closer.

And that works nicely.

The two guys crowd around him, and he knows they've got orders not to hurt him, because they move towards him gingerly, afraid that he'll lash out and they'll have to do something they want to do but aren't allowed to do; he can see that through half-shut eyes, watch as they reach out to haul him up bodily.

Sawyer comes at them with both fists, letting the alcohol rush to his head and fuel him, just like it would in any knock-down-drag-out in some sketchy bar. It doesn't hurt, although that's probably the drink talking. Everything is bright and glittery around him, and whether he's screwed up his head in the fall, or from the drink, or if his eyes have gone all-over bad, or if it's just the lighting that sucks, he doesn't know and doesn't care. He unleashes on them with everything he's got, cuts his knuckles on their teeth, bruises his hands as they drive against bone, and keeps on going.

Ebert and Hawking are stunned and, after a few moments, they're also still and unmoving. Sawyer's breathing erratically now; he can hear it, short gasps that make him sound like he's sobbing. He hits them harder for making him make that sound, the bastards. Whatever brought that from him is a sound he's only made twice before, first when his parents died and second when he killed Duckett in Australia, and, Jesus, he hates the noise. It's absolutely pathetic. It's a noise he'd hoped never to make again, but he's making it now, and all he can do is beat on the guys harder. When his fists miss, he makes a frustrated noise and kicks at them too, feeling ribs shatter. He should go for their heads, finish them off, but he doesn't. He can't do it. And he doesn't have the time or the luxury.

He's being watched. He knows he's being watched. He doesn't care, because he has to act now, and he does.

Sunlight, he thinks, and he heads for it as best he can, spending a dazed few moments tottering that way, getting a precious few moments of staring outside into the welcoming daylight. He can hear footsteps, though, and there's no way that he's getting out there before they get to him. He has to go somewhere. Quick. Move it.

He doesn't glance left or right. He knows they're close. He doesn't need to know how close. There is a door nearby, a broom closet or something probably, and he half-dives for it, half-drags himself in. His hands are cut and bleeding and he's sure the wound on his shoulder is messed up again, but he doesn't know how badly. He doesn't feel any pain yet, thanks to the booze and the adrenaline and the chemical cocktail of painkillers he was given.

How long? How long does he have? How long can he wait there like a mouse in the wall before he's found out, dragged out, wrung out, played out, gone out? He strains to get his breathing back under control and, for God's sake, to stop making that noise. He swallows it down, choking on it, wants to spit it out, but has nothing to spit out.

The least they could have done is deck me a few times, he thinks, feeling badly about it. If he was going to get the better of the guys, the least they could have done was not been taken by surprise so easily. Maybe it's fair play, though. He was taken easily, so he gets out easily. All he has to do is wait here, watching the sliver of light beneath the closet door, regain his breath, and then he can flee. They won't find him. They can't watch all their cameras all the time. He almost laughs hysterically with the promise of it, clamping down on the sound at the last moment. The hysteria runs through his body, though, and he shivers from it. It's not as good a feeling as he had expected.

Sawyer waits, hears voices, footsteps, pandemonium outside. He sees them all pass, hears their steps like thunder outside, a stampede of the bulls, except they're the chasers, not the chased. He shuts his eyes, not trusting his eyesight, only his hearing, and he tries to tune in, tries to listen to them, tries to get a handle on things as best he can. The footsteps start to recede.

He hid under the bed, seven, watched the same footsteps as they approached the bed, saw them there as they moved towards him, expected he'd be dragged out to be shot too, but he wasn't, he was safe, but then things got worse, because there was his dad, and his footsteps were turning, and he could feel the bed above him creak as his dad sat down, and his gasping grew louder, harsher, but his dad didn't notice because fathers don't notice when their sons act like that, he had learned, and then he heard the shot, felt it shake the bed, saw his father's hand drop and the gun clatter, and the silence was more deafening than the shot, and it felt like his world had exploded, and the softness of the bed above felt like spikes pressing into him, and the world went sharp and jagged from that day forward…

The door swings open, bathing him in light, but it's not the sunlight, it's the harsh glare of the outside, and he groans inwardly but springs to his feet, bumping into some random junk in his former hiding place. He sees the gun first and the face within a foot of him. "What the hell?" The new guy's voice is shaking, surprised. Sawyer knows he's got a chance.

He strikes out with his good hand, gets control quickly, shoves the guy into the far wall, watches him slide down, stunned but not dead, he thinks, and he moves to go for the guy's gun. If I have a gun, I can fire it this time. I know I can, he thinks, and he reaches for it, but he's too drunk to stay as steady as he should, and fate is a bitch.

He slips onto the ground for only a moment and thinks, Get up, get up, and he starts to, even seizing the gun, but the footsteps are nearer and he is panicking and his fingers fumble on the firearm.

"Oh, for God's sake. Shoot him!"

A bullet grazes his ankle, rushes past him, impacts on the door frame nearby, splintering wood and pinging on metal, and the burning in his ankle matches the burning in his shoulder now, and at least the pain wars with the drunkenness, takes some of it away, replaces it with a coldness, a determination.

He has to get out of here. He needs to get out of here. He will get out of here. He has to get into that sunlight that he's seen, and no sick joke of a science experiment is going to stop him. He reaches for the gun again, straining, grunting with the effort, and he turns it on his pursuers, and his finger moves for the trigger, shaking again.