Forgive me if my science is off in this one. Most of what I know about Scott's mutation comes from on-line directories and conversations with friend, who has actually read a lot of the comic books. My knowledge of psychological conditioning as well is very fallible, derived primarily, as I have mentioned before, from 'Alias' and 'The Manchurian Candidate' as well as a few news articles on Guantanamo Bay.
Chapter Three: Brown Eyes
They must have seen that the effects of the sun deprivation were growing steadily worse and gave him a few days to rest, or at least vomit his guts out without being continuously beaten. He was, however, starved and dehydrated, due to the fact that once the guards had discovered that he couldn't even keep water down they promptly stopped bringing it.
So a day or two later, after purging his stomach of next to nothing almost continuously for several hours, the pain receded enough for him to finally ease into sleep.
Radiation powered his mutation. His body absorbed the infrared rays of the sun (and, to a far lesser degree, electrical lights,) and his X-Gene converted the energy into the pure force exerted through his eyes. There was a lot of ambiguity as to how and where exactly the conversion took place, and a good deal of speculation as to how it could be stopped. Now, Dr. Hank McCoy's theory had been that if his body was deprived of sunlight long enough, his power would recess and eyes would return to normal. However, as with any interference with a body's metabolism, it made him violently ill. So they had never been able to determine exactly how long it would take for his body to fully metabolize sunlight.
When he finally woke, the first thing he realized, in a panic, was that the continual pressure he had grown accustomed to beating in his head and behind his eyes was gone. His optic blasts had been completely drained. Rather than feel some kind of liberation in the relief of the consistent headache he had felt since manifestation, he felt extremely violated.
They had deprived him of the one thing that he should have been able to count on. The one thing he needed most. They had taken his power from him, and the control, the strength, and fortitude that he had learned with it. Now that that power was gone, he felt all his strength go with it, and although his eyes were still locked behind a layer of ruby quartz, for the first time in a very long time, he found himself able to cry, with real tears.
Some time later the guards came again to drag him off. He fought again, as hard as he could, and put up more of a fight that he had since he'd been here. However, a taser in his side and a nightstick smashing into the back of his knees quickly ended his resistance. They hoisted him up and dragged him across the hall, forcing him down in an aluminum chair, and cuffed his wrists to it.
"Twenty days underground," Suit and tie sneered from the other side of the table. "Should be quite enough to get the sunlight out of his system. Now let's see those eyes." One of the guards unfastened the visor from behind his head and pulled it away from his face. Scott shut his eyes against the bright light, and when he opened his eyes, he could see colors.
Not all of them, mind you, that even without the visor he was still color blind, but instead of a world of black, red, and shades of pink, he saw distorted colors, whites, and grays. Primary colors were strongest. Red was still the brightest, of course. Yellow was fairly easy to make out. Blue was slightly more difficult. Secondary colors were nearly impossible for him to differentiate. He could just barely distinguish orange, while purple and green became murky red and yellow.
Suit and tie forced his face close enough to Scott that he could smell his rancid breath. Scott cringed and backed away.
"They're brown," the other man noted, seemingly surprised. Scott figured as much. They had been brown before his power manifested. Brain damage wouldn't have altered that.
"You were expecting a brilliant shade of fuchsia?" Scott asked defiantly, and grunted as he was backhanded across the face.
"Get him the hell out of here," Suit and tie ordered. One man freed his wrists as the other hoisted him up. He fought with them, but didn't manage to struggle free. In the end they tossed him back into his cell roughly and slammed the thick metal door behind him.
Soon enough, sessions with the good doctor picked up again. Only now they were longer, and more creative. For hours on end he would be bombarded with images and sounds, being coerced into associating them with something personal. Some days they'd tie him down with an IV in each arm. One would be putting him to sleep with barbiturates, and the other would be a drip of methamphetamine to shock him awake. And of course electroshock therapy was always a favorite—paralyzing him with a muscle relaxant, and then triggering a seizure with a jolt of electricity to his brain. Sometimes, for days afterwards, he could barely remember his own name. The beatings continued, as well as the sensory deprivation. All the while hearing stories about a made-up childhood, a fake life.
Of course there were times he almost began to buy into it. Times when he had trouble remembering the faces and places that were important to him, and he woke up with the doctor's words running through his head. Still he fought them. Despite it all he remained determined to survive, to cling to what he knew. The animal instinct of survival had kicked in, and it was quite unnerving what he'd do to survive. There were times when he'd catch himself gagging on half-chewed, rancid food, and forcing it back down his throat, just so he'd have something in his stomach.
The worst part was that they knew, they knew about her, about Jean. The guards, at least, they'd talk about her. What they'd do to her. What they might have already done, as far as he knew. Killing her, raping her, and how he couldn't do a thing about it. Then again, that may have been a blessing in disguise. A constant reminder of what he had to hold onto. He was supposed to be forgetting Jean and hearing them speak of her, only brought him back to how much he missed her. But the truth was, that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how determined he was to fight them, no matter how desperately he clung to Scott Summers, he was losing himself. They were wearing him out, wearing him down, and as much as he tried, he couldn't stop it.
He was strapped down to that aluminum chair now; the familiar, Asian woman was sitting across from him. Sitting on the table between them was a taser, a knife and a gun. The woman seemed intent on staring him down, and there was a time when he would have glared defiantly back at her, but right now, he was just too tired.
A few moments passed in silence, and she stood, and took the gun off the table, and pulled the hammer back, pointing it into is face.
"Is it frightening?" She questioned in her low, sultry tone. "Knowing that at any minute I could pull the trigger and..." Her voice trailed off pointedly.
"Shoot me in the head," he finished dryly. "Go ahead, if that's what you want." She scrunched up her delicate nose slightly, coming up behind him, her dark hair, falling around his shoulders as she leaned over to him.
"Naw, I wouldn't do that," she admitted teasingly, pointing the gun down to his leg instead, her body resting against his, her lips right by his ear. "I might be interesting to shoot you in the kneecap...how about that?" He swallowed once.
"There are worse things in the world," he answered emptily. She laughed in his ear, before setting the gun back on the table.
"Yes," she agreed. "But you know...toys aren't really for me." And within that same breath she had slammed his face down into the table with enough force to break his nose, he was sure. He gave a brief shout of pain as she held him down. He struggled against her grip at first, but then he stopped. He felt too drained.
She released him at length, but he still didn't lift his head. She started to drag her manicured fingernails down his neck and it made him shiver.
"I'm going to leave you here," she started. "To think things over, and when I get back, we'll really get to it." He heard the clicking of her heels on the granite floor. He heard the door open and close. He sighed heavily.
Somewhere in the back of his head he knew that if he let go now, he'd be gone forever, but he closed his eyes anyway, and drifted into blessed nothingness.
When Yessica came back into the interrogation room, she was expecting some of the fight to have returned to her prisoner. But instead she found him unconscious. She noticed he was still breathing, at this point, so she undid the straps around his wrists, and then went to brush one of her slender hands through his greasy hair. Immediately he started up in attention.
He surveyed her and his surroundings frantically before demanding:
"Who are you? Where in hell am I? What is this? Where are my glasses?" She watched him curiously. The first thing she noticed was the change in his diction, the eschewed monophthong, the subtle twang that had not been there before.
"What's your name?" She asked him finally.
"What's my name?" He started up heatedly, pointing an accusing finger at her. "What's your name? Dang it! I'm the one who's been abducted here!" She lifted his chin, so he would meet her eyes as she asked again, sweetly:
"What's your name?" He stopped and swallowed hard; answering finally:
"Jayden Stone." She smiled to herself.
"Mr. Stone," she offered him a hand, affably. "I'm Yessica Howe, and I have a bit of a business proposition for you."
There you have it folks, review please, any suggestions and ideas are well appreciated, I'll need the inspiration, because, as always, we are drawing ever closer to the moment of truth...Scott's return home. Isn't this exciting? I'm particularly interested in any kind of interaction you'd like to see, due to the fact that I've never been in this kind of a situation, personally, I'm trying to be very cautious as I proceed.