Chapter Two: Survival

Khan stirred and opened his eyes a slit, then shut them and groaned. Too bright, it felt like someone was trying to shove a knive into his head. What was going on? Another failed assassination? He tried opening his eyes again, got the same result and kept them shut.

Then it was sound, like footsteps but loud, much too loud. Khan tried to roll over, hiding his face in the pillow, but found he couldn't make his left hand move. Hands touched him, confining, preventing him turning over, and loud, too loud voices said something he couldn't understand. Khan thrashed around frantically, then lay still.

He was obviously either injured or drugged, too much so to do anything useful. Best to lie still... He opened his mouth to ask them to turn down the lights but found himself groping for the right word. The lights stayed on and Khan stayed silent. He'd never felt so helpless before in his entire life. Eventually he fell asleep, dreaming of cages with iron bars and a spaceship roaring into the sky.

Khan spent much of the next two weeks drifting in and out of consciousness, being assaulted by light and sound whenever he was awake and struggling to communicate with his captors.

Admiral Marcus was most disappointed with his newest experiment and considered terminating him and waking a second Augment. Just to compound his frustration, they had got enough out of the man to determine that he was indeed Khan. What a stupid waste. Marin suggested that Khan could still be useful for research into Augment physiology and abilities even if he recovered no further. Marcus agreed, and turned Khan over to him.

For Khan, this time was hell. He could barely communicate at all, and while his captors had finally figured out the sensory issues he was having and provided sunglasses and earplugs, they certainly didn't seem to have any other compunctions about their treatment of him. One of their experiments resulted in broken bones.

It was fairly obvious they were trying to figure out what he could do, and their reactions confused him at first. It was as if they'd never seen an Augment before. It was that, along with a few comments, that led Khan to finally figure out that he had woken up well over 200 years in the future. Two hundred-plus years out of place, and utterly alone in the hands of enemies he knew nothing about. Oh joy. Maybe he should have stayed and fought till he was killed like so many others. It would have been better than this.

When Dr. Marin and the guards came to pick him up from his cell, he punched one guard in the nose, kicked the second, knocking him into the third, both of whom went sprawling on the floor. Khan had just launched himself at Dr. Marin when the flash-bang grenade went off. Suddenly blind, deaf and in agony, Khan screamed, landed badly on top of Dr. Marin and passed out. The guards dragged him back into his cell and left him there, lying on the concrete floor.

Some indeterminate time later someone Khan didn't remember seeing before showed up outside his cell, looking down at Khan where he was still sitting on the floor. Khan squinted up at the silhouette, regretting the loss of his sunglasses. "Khan," the man said, "I am Admiral Alexander Marcus. You are at my mercy. I also have your people, all of them, frozen in cryotubes. If you try anything stupid again I will kill them one by one in front of you. Do you understand?"

Khan considered pretending he didn't understand, but Marcus continued "Whether you understand or not, this is your only warning. You mess up again, they'll die." The Admiral turned and walked away without waiting for Khan's answer.

Eventually his luck began to change. Of all things, it began with a pad of paper and a pencil.

Khan was bored and very grumpy when Dr. Marin and his friends arrived that morning. "How are you feeling?" asked Dr. Marin, pointing a tricorder at him from about 4 feet away. The doctor was still using his left hand, Khan noted with amusement. Normal humans were so fragile.

Khan didn't bother replying, treating the doctor's fake concern with the contempt it deserved. He turned away to stare at the wall of his cell.

"Good, your red blood cell count is back up to normal. You should be feeling fine." Dr. Marin paused. "I know you can communicate better than this, so how about you at least say hello this morning," said Dr. Marin, getting a little exasperated. "You know, hello?"

Khan twitched, disliking the ridicule. "Say hello to... why?" said Khan. "Don't enjoy company you. Of yours," said Khan. He knew he'd mangled the wording, but it should at least get the meaning across.

"I suppose not," said Dr. Marin. "We'll be testing your lung capacity before and after exercise today, so there's nothing you should find too unpleasant."

Then it was off to the labs and breathing into the machines, running on a treadmill for half an hour, and breathing into the machines again. Khan didn't particularly mind that. It was nice to be able to stretch his legs. After that they wanted to draw his blood for some tests. Khan let them.

They seemed to be very interested in his blood. Granted it was good material for studying his genetics and it had a few unusual properties related to rapid healing, but why did they need so much? Next to him someone had put a notepad and pencil. Idly, he picked up the pencil and began to draw. First a caricature of Dr. Marin, then the Botany Bay.

One of the techs peered over his shoulder. "Hey, I didn't know you could draw," she said.

Khan rolled his eyes. Just because he had brain damage that didn't mean he'd lost every ability he'd ever had. "I had paper...not," said Khan.

"Yeah, I suppose it would be kind of hard to draw without pencil or paper. I'll ask Dr. Marin if you can keep it. You must be pretty bored in that cell."

Startled, Khan watched her leave. The medical staff usually seemed to think of him as an experimental subject rather than a person. She must be new here. He'd have to remember her face. Long black hair in a pony tail, medium height, dark skin tone but couldn't see her face. She vanished into another room.

He went back to drawing, and doodled a few relevant equations beside the Botany Bay's engines. Soon enough Dr. Marin came back to release Khan from the machine and take his blood to the refrigerator. Marin then turned to peer at what Khan was doing. "What's that?" Marin asked, pointing at a detailed cross-section of the Botany Bay.

"Botany Bay," said Khan.

"Nice work," said Marin. "Did you design the ship?"

"Yes," said Khan, not wanting to explain that while he'd done some of it, the bulk of the project had been overseen by Evan Tensing. Evan was probably safer asleep. He was certainly a lot happier than being a prisoner of these lunatics. And there was a possibility Khan's skills would get him an upgrade in status from 'guinea pig'.

"Interesting," said the doctor, nodding. "You may have the paper and pencil if I can have those sketches."

Khan handed over the sketches, and Dr. Marin smiled until he spotted the caricature of himself, at which he went rather red. Khan smirked. Normally he'd have been making the doctor miserable with sarcasm, but his speech issues made that impossible. This was a useful substitute, especially if Marin now had to show the caricature to Admiral Marcus.

"Ok, back to your cell Mr.", said the doctor and Khan allowed himself to be led back to his cell. Even if his captors didn't want to use his skills, at least he'd have something to do other than read old novels from his time and even earlier.

A/N: Kat, do you mean psycopathic rather than psychotic? If Marcus were psychotic, he ought to be hallucinating.