Morrison watched as Josh and Cena, borrowing Eddie's boots for the time being, slipped off into the night, going through the nearby woods towards civilization to search for a less-damaged mode of transportation for them, then sat back. Finally he reached over, pulling the door shut, then scooted over to sit beside a still-whimpering Jeff and help him scrub his bare arms clean with a bottle of water, looking over at the others. They were all still in a state of shock, but after having spent a few quiet minutes of safety, they were at least able to process again.

"My God..." Beth murmured. "Do you think any of those army guys got away?"

"I doubt it...it's a miracle we all made it," Chavo said. "I mean...all that...enough bomb to take out that whole big building..."

"And...and..." Beth looked over to where Rey was sitting, still between the Guerreros. Eddie was holding him tightly, rubbing his arm, and he was staring up at Eddie with a somewhat enthralled look in his eyes, as though Eddie was simply the most amazing thing he'd ever been exposed to. "And he's here. I mean...he's really here."

Chavo looked over to Batista, who was crouched and gathering up some papers that had been scattered about the van during the escape. He picked up a final page and tapped the pages to get them in line, then began sorting through them. "And you said you had an explanation for what the hell is going on here."

Batista sighed and turned back to them. "I think so. I'm not 100% clear on the details...Marcia told me as much as she could..."

"And who was she?" Morrison asked. "And who were the army guys? And to be honest, what's going on? All I know is that one second I'm in the hall defending my sexuality against Beth there, and the next we're on our way to rescue someone who's been dead for almost five years."

"Five years...?" Rey whispered, finally breaking his gaze and looking over at them. "But Kane said..."

"Kane was lying," Batista said, a faint growl slipping into his voice. "Everyone was lying."

"Even you?"

There was a long pause, as Batista kept his gaze down on the floor. Finally he sighed. "Even me." He looked back up to Rey, face tight with apprehension. "But I didn't want to, Rey, you have to believe that...I didn't want to but I had to, to...to do what I could to protect you..."

"But...but with Kane and the fire and...Hell, Dave, I saw Hell...I saw it...I was in it, I had to be, I was...am I still...?"

"No, Rey." Batista scooted closer, gripping his arms lightly. "You weren't, you never were. You were-,"

"How did you all get here, then? I mean, I died, Kane showed me everything, he...the funeral and...how could you...you aren't all dead, are you?"

Batista sat back, chewing his lip a little. "Look...it's hard to describe...it wasn't all supposed to happen this way, I...I was supposed to be part of the raid that just happened. But there was this mix-up with what the hospital had going on with me..."

( )

Josh grumbled to himself as he followed behind Cena. "Goddamnit this is so stupid. We shouldn't be having to do this. It's completely unnecessary. None of this shoulda ever happened...stupid 'roided-up veiny bastard..."

"What the hell are you so pissed at Dave for, man?" Cena asked, glancing back at him as he stepped through a patch of brier bushes and held them apart for Josh to come through. "He got all of us in to come on this rescue mission...if we hadn't been here, we wouldn't have gotten Rey back, he and everyone else would be..." Cena winced a little, looking back in the direction they'd come. "Yeah..."

"He didn't do anything! The son of a bitch was just moping around when I confronted him and I practically had to beat him into getting off his ass and doing something! He would've just wallowed until those army people called him and then Rey'd be dead...all over again or something, shit...and he'd be dead and we'd have never known what happened!"

Cena stepped through the woods to another bit of blacktop, and looked both ways, pointing. "Lights down there. Looks like a bar or something."

"Good, maybe there'll be something we can steal there." Josh pushed ahead, starting in that direction.

"Steal? We're gonna steal a car?"

"Well, how else exactly did you expect we were going to get another vehicle? Unless those are jorts of holding and you have a wad of money and a 24-hour dealership in there, we don't have another option."

"Touché." Cena hurried to catch up with him. "So what exactly happened with you guys?"

"Who?"

"You and Dave, man. As soon as you guys came to me, you were already bitching him out to everyone. What's the deal?"

"The deal is, Cena...you know what, lemme tell you all about what the deal is with that coward scum..."

( )

Batista paced his locker room, alternately putting on a coat and then taking it off, stopping to tie and retie his shoelaces, restless. He was waiting for a familiar knock on the door, one he was dreading, but he knew it would be necessary, one last piece in the puzzle.

Finally, it came, and he spun around and hurried over to the door, opening it. The usual courier was there, the fellow who spent the early part of the day before any show delivering folders and files and the occasional piece of mail. He was only holding the one folder, though, this must have been the last place he stopped. "Here ya go, Mr. Batista, all your stuff."

"Thanks..." Dave muttered, digging a few dollars from his pocket and tipping the guy, then closing the door, sighing and walking over to the bench of the room, flopping down to sit on it, glaring down at the plain manila folder. He knew already what was inside it. His instructions, the time for when he should come, the outfit he'd be required to wear, straight down to requiring his hair length to be checked again to be sure it was nearly identical to where it had been before. In order to keep things "under control." He finally opened the folder, picking up the first piece of paper and scanning over it.

It wasn't the right thing.

Batista frowned slightly when he saw, instead of appearance orders, a listing of matches and notes about things to be done on the show tonight. Referees, interview segments, possible things to speak about. This was a folder of notes for an announcer, not the material he was expecting.

Even as he was acknowledging this, there was a heavy knock at his locker room door, and he stood, holding the folder and still staring at the page, trying to figure out why he had this. "Yeah, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming, don't get your panties in a wad..." He lowered the folder and pulled open the door. "What is-"

CLANG!

Before he even saw it coming, he felt the chair crash into his head, and he grunted, stumbling backwards and into the locker room, falling over onto his back on the floor, holding his head. "Fucking...A! What the fuck!"

"You fucking monster! You unbelievable son of a bitch!"

Batista looked up in time to see the chair coming again, and rolled to the side to avoid it as it smashed the floor where he had been. He was up and on his knees in a second, looking, and he saw the ring announcer, Josh Matthews, wearing a suit and tie, with an expression of unmistakable fury on his face, even as he was drawing the chair back to take another swing at him. Batista lashed up in time to catch the chair before Josh could hit him again, and wrenched it out of the smaller man's hands, tossing it behind him. "What the hell has gotten into you?"

Josh snarled, reaching down and grabbing a manila folder that was tucked into his belt, whipping it out and holding it up. "You sick bastard! I can't believe you'd be involved in something like this! I can't believe you!"

Batista looked at the folder in his hands, then over to the floor where he'd dropped the one he'd been holding previously, then back again. He suddenly wished he hadn't tipped the damn courier.

"Josh, listen, it's not what you think, okay, it's-," Dave grunted when those words were rewarded with Josh taking the folder and beginning to smack it over Batista's head as hard as he could manage, which was a fair bit harder than Batista would have thought possible from the announcer. Fortunately, it was just the folder, and Batista was able to catch hold of Josh's wrists before he could decide to start using fists instead. "Would you stop?"

"This had better just be the sickest rib in the history of the business, Dave, or I swear to God I am going to figure out some way to end you!" Josh snarled, struggling to work his arms loose. "All that shit about tests and about results and how goddamn long your hair has to be, a fucking graph with responses, and...and..." Josh's voice choked and cracked when he spoke the next word, tears that had been welling up now starting to come down his cheeks. "Rey. Rey, fucking Rey-goddamn-Mysterio, with a picture, Dave, with a goddamn picture of him!"

Batista stood, then took hold of the folder and yanked it out of Josh's hands, letting him go and stepping out of his range quickly. "I know."

Josh stared up at him, visibly seething, fists clenched tightly at his sides. "You better be making up some kind of disgusting joke. I'll still hate you but at least I won't have to have you killed."

Batista looked down at the folder, then turned, walking back over to the bench and sitting down, opening it and scanning through the pages, mouth quirking a little as he read through it, wincing somewhat at the script and diagrams, none of which made much sense to him, but the overall tone being that he would need to be back at the hospital at the end of the week to start a new session. He shook his head slowly, then set the folder on the bench next to him, leaning forward and sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Shit."

"I'm going to find something and cave your motherfucking head in, just so you know," Josh growled, and Batista looked up to see him looking around the room, seeing the chair and going over to pick it back up.

"I would deserve it, I know..." Batista muttered.

"How long has this been going on?" Josh demanded. "What is going on? How can there be files on Rey when he's dead?"

Batista raised his head, looking around a moment. He stood, and Josh backed away slightly, still brandishing the chair, but Batista walked right past him, going to the door and opening it, peering out into the hallway a moment. He then stepped back and shut the door, then turned the latch on it to lock it, before turning back to Josh, walking past him again to sit back down on the bench with a heavy sigh. "It's been going on pretty much from the word go...I don't know exactly what it is that's going on, except that it's some sort of weird experiment, and there are files because Rey isn't dead."

Josh stared at him, blinking, then shook his head. "I...you didn't, I, uh..."

"I said about the same thing when they told me."

"An...experiment? What do you mean an experiment?"

"I don't know all the details. I'm...I'm working on it. There's some government stuff involved, I have help, they got me reporting back to them...but it's not just Rey, it's a lot of people. A whole building full of people...they've only had me in on it for about a year now but...it's been happening for at least as long as...since the fire."

Josh stared at him, blinking, and Dave had the feeling he wasn't quite able to decide whether or not he was still angry. "An experiment?"

"Science, mind, memory...stuff, I don't know. I don't understand it all. They stole a lot of people to use. Literally stole them...that fire that we thought killed Rey was a cover for them kidnapping a few people out of there to use."

"But they...they found his body..."

Batista shook his head. "They found a body. Wasn't Rey's. Don't know how they did it but they were able to do something to make people think the DNA testing fit, made them think it was Rey that way...sure as hell made sure no one could identify him any other way...just used some random hobo off the street to do it. Same with a lot of the other people who are there."

Josh blinked at him. "Other people?"

"Dozens of people...maybe a couple hundred. There's a whole building full of them getting tested on. As far as I know, all of them snatched out of their lives and just...taken."

Josh unfolded the chair, then sat down in it, shaking his head, the war between disbelief and disturbance obvious on his face. "That doesn't make any sense. If they had the hobo, then why steal Rey? Why steal anyone? If they could just get a bunch of transients to use for faking deaths, why not use them?"

"I don't know." Batista scoffed somewhat and held out his hands in frustration. "I don't know, I don't understand myself. Believe me, I've asked myself the question so many times since they dragged me into this..."

"Who are they? How did they drag you into this?"

Batista shook his head slightly. "I don't know who the people in charge are yet. But Vince came to me...me and Kane. Told us he needed us to do something for him..."

"Vince? Vince McMahon, our boss, Vince?"

Batista nodded. "Said he was involved in something, needed us to help with it. Told us everything, told us we had to keep it secret or else everyone really would get killed, and not just them but the people we cared about, anyone we had close to us. Anything to keep the secret." He sighed. "Kane thinks the whole thing is hilarious."

Josh simply sat and stared at him for a minute. Batista could understand his confusion, and wasn't too surprised at what came out of his mouth next. "Are you sure this isn't a rib?"

"I'm sure, Josh. I've been...Kane and I both...traveling up to the base a few times to do these...scenarios or some shit...and if it gets out what we're doing then they'll go through with killing everyone there, and my family...anyone they think they need to eliminate. Guessing from what I've seen...I believe they could do it, too."

Josh still stared at him, a faint frown furrowing into place, as he thought over all this. Batista sighed, picking up the folder and looking through it again, making a face at the orders written across the pages and the generic additions of advancement...obviously stuff they just sent out to anyone without any thought given. Typical beauracracy method of handling things, after all.

"Well you have to go get him."

Batista blinked and looked at Josh, who was scowling. "What?"

"You have to get him out of there, Dave. You can't just leave him there."

"Josh, there's no...we can't do anything. There's people working on it, they're hoping to try and get everyone rescued, it's just gonna take some time..."

"No, uh-uh, fuck that. It isn't going to take any time. No more time."

"How would I? I'm just one man, I can't get him out by myself! Even if I could...he's in no condition...he couldn't handle the shocks..."

"So you're just going to leave him there, keep letting this happen, while his family, his friends, everyone keeps dealing with their grief and you go home to your family at the end of the week?"

Batista winced as Josh's voice raised slightly, glancing around as though expecting to see someone spying on them. "What else can I do?"

"Get him out, save him, fucking try at least!"

"I can't do it alone..."

"I'll go," Josh said without hesitation.

"You will?" Batista looked up at him.

"Rey was my friend, is my friend. Probably one of the only people around here to treat me like more than a living microphone." Josh gritted his teeth, narrowing his eyes. "And if you don't think I can cut it, let's throw down right now."

"Josh, this building has security out the wazoo. We can't just waltz in there."

Josh shrugged. "Pull the fire alarm?"

Dave blew out a breath, thinking a moment. "We need someone else."

"What about Chavo and Eddie?"

Batista shrugged, looking up at him. "Do you think they could...handle it?"

"I don't fucking know. I'm not even sure I'm handling it."

"If it makes you feel better, I think I have a huge goose egg on top of my head from that chair shot."

Josh looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, that is a hell of a lump."

"Yeah, well...I deserved it. I deserve the ones that Eddie and Chavo are gonna give me, too."

"Damn fucking right you do." Josh stepped over, snatching the folder out of his hands. "Come on. Let's go catch them and start breaking the news. Maybe we can sell tickets to the beating you're gonna get."

Batista got to his feet slowly, wincing a little, rubbing his temple as Josh stopped to pick up the chair, leading him out into the hallway and down towards the other locker rooms.