He turned around just as he heard the automatic locks engage. Behind the door Frank had been hiding. Reid took a step backwards, but there was really nowhere to go. He turned back to Dr. Lux, donning his sullen face.

"Dr. Lux," he greeted her. "It's a little late for a session, don't you think? Or… maybe you're not really here. Are you a hallucination, Dr. Lux? I'll have to remember to tell you about this episode in therapy tomorrow."

"Don't play cute with me, Spencer… We do have things to speak of, and I'm not really patient enough to wait. You see… the head of security came to my office this morning. Apparently a bird flew into a window in the administrators' corridor, setting off a silent alarm. He found out that it was a bird by viewing the security tapes for that floor, and guess what else he saw? He saw you, slipping something under Dr. Matthews' door. Dr. Matthews told him to forget about it, which he thought was odd, so he came to me, seeing as you are my patient and all. I must say I was surprised. You were supposed to be deeply sedated, in a locked infirmary… so how is it that you were wandering the corridors at two-thirty in the morning?"

Reid closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. This was bad. Would he be able to bluff himself out of this? And the timing! Apparently the gods of faith were not on his side.

"Can't we talk about it tomorrow? I'm really quite tired."

But Dr. Lux pretended like she hadn't heard him and went on. "Then I hear that you had a short visit from you brother today, which struck me as odd, so I checked your file and according to that you're an only child. That's peculiar, don't you think?"

"We're only half-brothers, barely know each other." Reid tried.

"Uh-hu," she said, clearly not fooled. "But I started to wonder, if you'd been in the administrators' corridor, then where else could you've been skulking around? Now, there aren't very many security cameras in here, budget cuts and all, but all stairwells are equipped with them, and what I'd like to know, Spencer, is why you were following us last night."

"I wasn't following anyone. I couldn't sleep and Gideon suggested that a little exercise might help with that."

"Cut the crap, Spencer," Dr. Lux said angrily. "There never was a Gideon and you know it. You've been faking it all along, haven't you? I just haven't been able to figure out why yet. To get out of prison?"

Reid smiled crookedly at her. "Oh, there is a Gideon, trust me on that. And you don't want to piss him off."

"Frank," Dr. Lux said, and suddenly Reid felt his burly arms lock around his upper body again, lifting him slightly off the floor. He started to struggle, and tried to kick him in the shins when he saw that Dr. Lux had pulled a syringe from her pocket. He really didn't want to know what was in that syringe. Squirming as best as he could, protesting wildly, he tried to avoid being stuck, but just like last time he was no match for the pair, and once again drugs where injected into his body against his will.

He felt his body go lax, but surprisingly, his mind stayed sharp.

"It's only a muscle relaxant. We still have plenty to talk about," Dr. Lux said before opening the door and disappearing for a few minutes. She returned with a wheelchair and Frank lowered him into it none too gently. There were restraints on the armrests of the chair and Dr. Lux strapped him in while Frank lifted his feet up on the footrests. Reid had no choice but to let it happen as he no longer had any control over his body.

"Where are we going?" His voice was sluggish and it was difficult to pronounce the words around his stiff lips and uncooperative tongue.

"I think you know. Same place as last night."

Dr. Lux pulled his pillows together into a pile in the bed and pulled the blankets over them.

"You really think that's gonna fool bed-check?" Reid slurred.

"Seeing as how Frank's in charge of bed-check tonight, I don't foresee a problem. Now, before we go out, on the off-chance that we do meet someone on our way out, you should be aware that I have in my pocket syringes loaded with much more dangerous drugs than just muscle relaxants."

But the corridors were empty. All patients were safely behind lock and key and the staff rarely ventured outside the lounge during the night, except for rounds or if they were called. Dr. Lux and Frank kept quiet, and Reid didn't feel any overwhelming desire to keep the conversation flowing. He was too busy trying to think of an escape plan. There were at least eight hours before his team would be here. He had a feeling they were going to be very long hours.

This time they took the elevator all the way down to the basement, which was dark and quite. No one were ever here at night. As they neared the storage room where Reid had lost the trail last night, Dr. Lux started telling him about the hospital's history.

"This hospital was originally a 19th century manor, built by a lumber tycoon. His grandson lost all the family's money and had to sell it. It was turned into a mental hospital in the 1880s, but in 1943 it was struck by lightening and burnt to the ground. Most patients were killed, and a few of the staff. When they rebuilt it, they moved it a few yards to the left. The property lines had changed and they wanted it in the middle of the property. But they didn't fill in the old basement, as the ceiling was still intact. They just reinforced it and covered it up with dirt, turning it into a lawn. It's not visible on any of today's blueprints, but the old ones are still in the county's archive. We made this door to get through."

They had come into the storage room and Frank fiddled with something, a hidden lever probably, to unlock the door, and then demonstrated how easily and quietly it swung open. Flicking a switch the brick corridor on the other side was lit up by a string of low-wattage bracket lamps, leaving the corridor in a gloomy light. But at the other end of the corridor, Reid could see a room that was bathed in fluorescent light.

"But why? Why would you want to get into an old basement?"

"Well, we had a pretty good idea about what we were going to find. When RJ and I first came here, we researched the place. One of the doctors, Dr. Richard Hulme, who died in the fire were reputed for having conducted some very interesting experiments in a lab in the basement, and we were hoping to find traces of his research. We got very lucky, I must say. Much luckier than we could have hoped."

She pushed Reid into the room, and the first thing he saw was an old, corroded metal slab, complete with restraints for arms, legs, torso, neck and head. The restraints looked much, much newer than the table. He had no doubt he would soon find himself on that steel table. He had his suspicions about what kind of experiments Dr. Hulme might have conducted, and he was familiar with RJ Lawson's MO.

"Almost his entire lab was intact, and we found several notebooks detailing both completed experiments, experiments in progress and ideas for future experiments. Dr. Hulme was really ahead of his time. It was such a shame he never got to finish his work, our world would have been such a different place. RJ, Frank and I have simply been trying to honor him by continuing his great work."

Looking around the room properly, Reid felt like he had stepped into the set of a Frankenstein re-make. There were shelves on the walls with jars filled with organs and formaldehyde. A long workbench stood beneath it. The brick walls were moist and the room was chilly. Every here and there rusted shackles were screwed into the wall. A small, modern refrigerator stood against the wall, humming. In a corner a machine of some sort loomed. It was at least 60 years old, and Reid really didn't want to know what it had been used for. But compared to the shelves, it wasn't very dusty, so odds were it had been used recently.

Dr. Lux undid his restraints and pulled his t-shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. Frank grabbed him under the arms and hauled him up, pushing him against the wall to keep him upright.

"You're very quiet, Spencer," he said. "Most loonies have been crying and begging at this point."

"I've never been one to embark on impossible missions. Will you let me go if I beg?"

Frank cocked his head and looked at him. "Of course not."

"Then what's the point?"

"Reasonable thinking from a loon… I'd never have thought."

Dr Lux was tugging on his sweatpants, pulling them down, leaving him in only his boxers. She threw the pants on the floor next to his t-shirt, and when they hit the floor a soft clinking sound was heard.

Reid closed his eyes and prayed that they hadn't heard it, but of course they had.

Frank bent down and picked up the pants, letting Dr. Lux hold Reid upright. He had a confounded look on his fact and it didn't take him long to find the key pinned to the cuff. He continued to look confounded, but Dr. Lux immediately caught on. She grabbed the key and started waiving it in Reid's face.

"So this is how you get around at night. How did you get it? Who gave it to you?" She was furious.

"The tooth fairy left it under my pillow one night," Reid said.

"The tooth fairy?" Frank laughed at him. "Why not the Easter bunny?"

"Because it's November, stupid. Do you think the Easter bunny has some kind of all year round service?"

Frank actually seemed to think about it for a minute, before he realized that he was being insulted.

With a roar of anger he threw a powerful punch that landed on Reid's jaw, making his head bounce painfully into the wall behind him. He drew back his fist, preparing for the next punch when Dr. Lux put her hand on his arm, stopping him.

"No, Frank. Remember what we said about leaving visible marks?"

"But…but…" Frank stuttered, his face still red with anger.

"No, sweetie. Not now."

'Sweetie?' Reid thought. 'Isn't she with RJ?'

"Just help me get him onto the table and then go get RJ, will you?"

Together they hauled him over to the table and lifted him up. Reid tried to make himself even slacker as a way to resist, but they were obviously used to this kind of work. He soon found himself on his back, looking up into the ceiling. Frank left them while Dr. Lux were fastening all the restraints.

"What's the point of restraints when I can't move anyway?" Reid asked her.

"The drug will wear off soon enough, and there are other things that can make a body move."

She pulled the leather restraint over his neck tight enough that he could feel it move against his Adam's apple when he swallowed. Another band was attached over his forehead, leaving him with a very limited range of movement for his head. The rest of his body was strapped down in a similar fashion.

Reid lay staring at the ceiling, not that he had much choice in the matter, listening to Dr. Lux moving around the room, pulling out drawers, glass clinking, pen on paper. Sometimes she would flutter by in his line of vision, but she didn't speak to him or even acknowledge him. He was fine with that, and he didn't try to attract her attention. The longer he was ignored, the better. But his heart was beating wildly in his chest.

The muscle relaxant was letting up, he could feel control being returned to his muscles and he wiggled his toes experimentally. Dr. Lux saw this and smiled. She squeezed his bare toes as she walked by, making Reid jump in surprise. After that he concentrated on staying still.

He heard movement in the corridor and for a second he hoped it was the cavalry. His hopes were soon squashed as he recognized RJ's voice.

"You got the guidance counselor-nut? Haven't we done enough schizos?"

"I'm not so sure he is one. It seems Spencer here has been pretending," Dr. Lux said.

Suddenly RJ's face filled his line of vision, giving Reid dentist flashbacks.

"He sure looks the part. Why do you think he's faking it, Cissy?"

"For one thing, this."

Reid couldn't see her, but he guessed she was holding up the key she'd confiscated.

"Is that a master key? How'd he get it?"

"Don't know. But someone must have given it to him. If it'd been lost or stolen it would have been reported, and he obviously has the security codes for the keypads too. I've seen security tapes with him all over the hospital at night."

RJ sighed. "Smells like undercover pig, doesn't it?" His face once again hovered over Reid's. "You a cop, schizo?"

"No." Reid tried to shake his head, but the movement only made the leather restraints chafe his skin.

"No? What then?"

Reid wisely kept quiet.

"He left a note for Dr. Matthews last night," Frank said. "Maybe he's working for him. Like a P.I. or something."

"And where would Matthews get the money for that? This place is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as it is. Without the federal money it would have shut down years ago." Dr. Lux said.

"Federal, eh? Maybe that's where he's from. Huh? Are you with the government? Some sort of medical board?" RJ nudged Reid to let him know he was being addressed. Reid bit his lips together and kept his eyes firmly on a water stain in the ceiling.

"Does it matter?" Dr. Lux said. "He'll probably talk before long anyway. And I was thinking about how interesting it would be to do the tests on a healthy brain. He could be our control group, change the parameters. But we'll only have this one session, I'm afraid. We'll have to dump him come morning."

"Like you did with Anthony?" Reid suddenly found his voice, surprising the others who were already objectifying him enough to forget that he had a mind of his own.

Dr. Lux's face filled up his line of vision. "Do you expect this to be the part where we confess all our awful deeds? Are you expecting to be rescued? It doesn't really matter to you what we have done or will do, does it? All you have to know is that tonight you will be a vital part of a science that might very well revolutionize the modern psychiatric care."

"And you win fame and riches?" Reid asked.

"Well, yeah. Humanitarian awards only go so far. A Nobel Prize wouldn't be out of order, I think."

"They don't give the Nobel Prize to someone who has committed illegal human experiments."

"Then maybe we won't tell them. Once our treatment is finished, we can remake the rests in a controlled laboratory environment and clean up our records."

"Why not do that from the beginning? Why hurt and kill innocent people to get there?"

"Huh, innocent my ass…" Frank said from the sidelines as Dr. Lux bent over him again.

"There you go again, expecting some sort of explanation that isn't really any of your business."

"You're planning on killing me, and you don't think it's any of my business?" There was a hint of panic in his voice.

"I can't listen to his whining anymore. Shut him up," RJ said tersely.

Frank seemed to have been waiting for the order, for he was quickly in place, pressing a piece of duct tape over Reid's lips.

They all turned away from him and huddled over something on the work bench.

"What do you want to start with?" RJ asked.

Reid tuned them out for a moment, even if he unconsciously kept track of what they were saying. He tested the bonds that held him down, but they were designed for this purpose and would of course not budge. The restraints were padded, so they wouldn't leave any marks, just like there had been none on any previous victims. His death would at least not be so inconspicuous. His team would never in a million years believe it was a suicide; there would be hell to pay. That was however only the smallest, smallest of comforts. He would much rather be alive and be the one that was raising the hell.

Dr. Lux had said that they would dump him in the morning and Hotchner had promised he would be back before breakfast. He wondered who would be the quickest. What time was it now? It had to be midnight at the very least. Maybe even later.

His mind suddenly filtered out and highlighted one word from the conversation in the room; voltage.

Voltage?

And in one terrifying moment he realized what the machine in the corner was. Now an antiquity, in the 1940's it had been a top of the line, state of the art, electroconvulsive therapy machine.

TBC