Chapter 30
Fifty.
Flippantly, part of me thinks I should be launching fireworks for the anniversary. Obviously, I'm not actually in any mood to celebrate.
I'm sick of waking up in this room, unable to move, about to have my brains turned to sludge again. I'm sick of remembering I got here pretty much all of my own accord, because I was in a panic over all those 'strange' memories and thoughts I was having. I usually don't even get the slight consolation of killing some troopers while I'm panicking anymore, because they all get trained on how to handle me and direct me safely to Mindbender.
As usual, my memories of the last few days feel like a foggy dream. I remember enough, however, to know I tried to kill my brother for the 11th time… thank goodness he's good enough to neutralize me every time, although if not for the fact that I can't put any thoughts in my attacks and that I'm therefore just using moves he knows just as well as me, in basic patterns he's familiar with, I'd be rather irritated at the invariability of my defeats at his hands.
Putting my feelings on it all aside, I concentrate on the battle, trying to remember anything he might have signed at me while I was busy trying to murder him. I'm eventually able to replay the whole battle in my mind, scowling and smiling at once at how basic and uninspired my attacks are, but once again, he's made no attempt to communicate. He hasn't the last three times we've met.
I know and understand why… I'm usually brain addled for three to four days between each treatment, so this has been going on for about six months. My brother used to try and talk to me every time we met, either through notes that I'd refuse to pick up and wouldn't have been able to read anyway, or through sign language that I could not understand and interpreted as random hand waving meant to mock me. As evidenced by our last three meetings, he's now concluded, quite rightly, that there was no point.
By now, I almost wonder why he won't go one step further and just kill me… he does seem to have given up on me, and considering everything I've done and am liable to keep doing, it really doesn't make sense for him to let me live.
I bite my lips and kill the train of thoughts. I really can't afford to start thinking about everything I've done for Cobra right now, I need to concentrate on the present if I want to ever stop serving them. Concentrate as I may, however, finding a way to break free is easier said than done.
No amount of meditation while I'm here by myself has ever prevented the conditioning or made any difference at all to my reaction when it starts wearing off. In desperation, I've actually attempted telepathy once, rationalizing at the time that my brother and I used to be very close - predictably, all I managed was to give myself a splitting headache before the treatment even started.
Sometimes, like today, I'm not actually paralyzed: I'm bound so securely in Mindbender's contraption that it doesn't actually make any difference: I can't break through the restraints and no amount of self-dislocating and squirming can free any part of my body. On such occasions, I've attempted several times to use my nails to scratch a message to myself into my skin, but the restraints are such that I can't even bend my fingers enough to reach my palms. I'm also still unable to consciously control my heart and my breathing, so overdoing the Sleeping Phoenix Trance is still not an option.
By now, I've even been reduced several times to wondering why my brother has never tried to break into the fortress to get me away from Cobra and at the very least take me prisoner. I absolutely hate myself for it - I can't stand the thought that I'd need to be rescued like some damsel in distress - but I can't help wondering. It's not just Snake Eyes not breaking into the fortress, either: I remember enough to know we still always leave town to engage GI Joe, so they haven't made any move on Springfield yet. I can't understand why: Billy was brought to the Pit by Snake Eyes, there's no way they wouldn't have asked him where Cobra's base was and I can't imagine his refusing to tell them. Given that they know where we are, why we're not constantly fending them off is a complete mystery to me.
I scowl at myself and make myself stop thinking of everything I've tried that hasn't worked and to stop pondering riddles. I've always had a vivid imagination, it's time to put it to use once more: I need to think of something; anything. Of course, it's that kind of reasoning that led to my trying telepathy, but just because none of my more unusual ideas have worked to date doesn't mean none ever will.
This is a cycle. The same thing, over and over again, and I can remember most everything for part of this cycle. There has to be a way I can take advantage of this.
I'm still trying to find that way when Mindbender arrives and activates his machine. I'd love to say I'm getting used to the pain by now, but I'm absolutely not – as always, as soon as it starts, all thoughts escape me and I can't even make myself stop screaming.
"Do you understand?" Destro asks me.
I blink. I know he was talking, I even know he was talking to me, but Destro has a talent for losing me. I can't even remember WHAT he was talking about.
He sighs. "No. Of course you don't. All right." He takes a deep breath. "We're about to fight the Joes."
He looks at me: I think he's waiting for a response. I nod.
"We want to capture Hawk." He stops again, still looking at me.
I nod again.
"Do you remember who Hawk is?" he asks.
I don't, so I shake my head. Destro sighs again.
"Hawk is the leader of the Joes," he groans. "Blond hair, General's Uniform... oh what's the use. You don't know what a General's uniform looks like."
He's right on that: I'm guessing it would involve some stars and stripes, or some other kind of decorations, but I wouldn't be able to really define it any better than that.
"Just don't kill any blond Joes," Destro says. "Can you handle that?"
I nod. Don't kill the blond Joes… easy.
"Good. Go."
I bow and start to leave, but I hear him muttering under his breath about how the Commander should be the one dealing with his own mess. I have no idea what mess he means, but I can't tolerate his muttering angrily about my master like that; I turn back towards him.
"Are you questioning the Commander?" I growl.
Destro freezes and his heart rate suddenly increases.
"No," he says. "Merely admitting the superiority of his leadership skills over mine."
I relax.
"Good," I say, and I turn to leave again.
He calls me back.
"Do you remember what I told you about the blond Joes?" he asks.
I frown in concentration. I can't have forgotten that already, that was only a few minutes ago. Something about a General? A blond General, and not to do something...
"Don't kill the blondes!" I exclaim, remembering. "Because that General is blond."
"Right," Destro says. "Off you go."
I bow again and this time, I really leave, following the red arrows to the Commander's Command Room because that's where I'm always supposed to go unless ordered otherwise.
The Commander frowns at me when I get there. I wince at the frown and bow, waiting for his orders.
"Didn't Destro give you your instructions?" he hisses.
"Yes, Master," I answer.
"Do you remember what they were?"
He sounds like he really wants me to. I frown in concentration, trying very hard to remember the actual orders I've received.
"Don't kill some of the Joes… the blondes." I sigh in relief: that was it, I'm sure of it.
The Commander rolls his eyes. "It will do. Follow him, he's going to the fight too," he hisses, pointing at a trooper who was walking by the Command Room. The trooper's heart rate spikes, but he obediently stops to wait for me.
"Yes, Master."
I bow, then follow the trooper to our plane.
The Commander is right in front of me, looking perfectly furious, when I wake up in Mindbender's lab for the fifty-first time. I grin, resisting the urge to laugh simply because he'd just make Mindbender silence me again.
"You will pay for this," the Commander hisses. "You HAD him!"
I didn't, actually; my blade only skimmed my brother's mask because he blocked my attempt at taking his head off, and said block had left me wide open. I don't see how correcting the Commander's false impression would make him angrier, however, so I don't.
"It's hardly my fault that he's blond; I remembered my instructions not to kill the blond Joes… aren't you proud of me?"
The Commander snarls under his hood. "Your instructions were to not kill the blondes so you wouldn't kill HAWK! Snake Eyes didn't count!" he screams.
"Yeah… I did forget THAT part. Although I probably wouldn't have realized Snake Eyes wasn't Hawk even if I had remembered."
"And the only reason not to kill Hawk was to capture him! You didn't even TRY to capture Snake Eyes!"
I snigger. "I did SOME killing, though," I observe. "When I lost it on the way back, I killed all those Crimson Guards that were in the plane with me, because they wouldn't make the voice go away. I admit I'm impressed by your pilot… he actually managed to convince me to let him drive the plane. I did get angry when it turned out we didn't land within sight of this Mindbender person they all said would help me, though. Ahhh… good times," I finish with a happy sigh.
It's not as though he didn't already know all this, but my retelling has the expected result: he explodes, screaming every insult he can think of at me. As usual, however, he eventually just orders Mindbender to activate the machine.
The Commander suddenly looks up from the report he was reading and glares at me.
He's angry with me.
The realization feels like a cold hand seizing my heart. I don't even remember what I did wrong.
"Storm Shadow," he hisses. "I'm in no mood to endure your presence right now: go outside the door. I'll let you know when the sight of you is tolerable to me again."
I gulp, my eyes wide and threatening to fill with tears. He can't STAND my presence anymore? What have I done? How could I make him so angry?
I feel like dirt, like the lowest of the low. I can't believe I was so heartless as to fail him badly enough for him to turn on me like this. I swallow again.
"M…Master… I… I'm sorry. I…" I trail off. Not only is my throat so tight that it hurts to talk, I simply have no idea what else to say: I DO keep failing him, even though I try my best.
His scowl darkens. I bow and leave, because that's what he ordered, and because maybe removing myself will make him a bit happier.
I stay outside the door, as ordered, miserable and lost. I don't know what to do. I always do everything I can, and I always fail, because… because of Snake Eyes.
My nose wrinkles up in distaste at the very thought of the name, and my fists clench. This is HIS fault. It's HIS fault my master hates me. I can never kill him, and I actually remember his stopping me from killing other people, too. Oh, I HATE him.
My lips curl up in a snarl and I spend the next little while reflecting on just how good it would feel to rip his heart from his chest.
I'm interrupted by a group of men - some of the ones that wear different clothes - rushing to the Commander's office with a boy in their arms, screaming at everyone to let them through. The boy has obviously been through the ringer: he's missing a leg, one of his eyelids is sown shut, and despite being manhandled in the middle of such a racket, he's unconscious.
I tilt my head, listening to him. He's vaguely familiar, but I can't place him.
"Who's that?" I ask. "And what do you want with the Commander?"
"Just get out of the way, ninja. The Commander wants this kid."
I narrow my eyes at him. He gulps and one of the other men cuts in much more politely, if a little shakily.
"The Commander asked us to get him this boy. Can you let him know we're here?"
I knock on the door behind me without turning to face it – I much prefer to continue staring these men down than to see the Commander glaring at me again so soon.
He gets up from his desk and stomps to the door, slamming it open.
"WHAT?" he screams. "Storm Shadow, you…" He stops and takes a sharp intake of breath. "Billy," he breathes.
I turn to him, bowing slightly, and see that he has his eyes locked on the boy. At least the men did not lie – he obviously does know this kid… Billy. The name is familiar too, but I still have no idea why.
After a few seconds, he turns back to me and fishes what looks like a small remote control out of his pocket.
"Storm Shadow, do you have any idea who this is?" he asks, pointing to the teenager.
I shake my head.
"I'm sorry, Master, I don't. He's vaguely familiar, but…"
"Bad enough," he cuts me off. He presses a button on his remote and suddenly, I'm in more pain than I've ever imagined anyone could ever be. It seems to last forever, and only ends when everything goes quiet.
Author's Notes
Short chapter, I know, sorry… the string of long ones had to end sometime.
The bonus for this chapter is an alternate scene for Billy's arrival: it had a lot more action and even a laundry room, but it was in the middle of a rather big plot hole and could not be salvaged.
Thank you for reading!