Doctor Mindbender looked upon the slumped over test subject with an air of regret. Not for the wretched fool that had make the mistake of volunteering to help with the experiment. Doctor Mindbender had long since come to terms with the idea that true scientific breakthroughs only happened when sacrifices were made. And in the grand scheme of things, the man in the chair had sacrificed little. Granted, the man had just experienced a very unpleasant evening, but the machine caused no lasting physical damage. At worst case, the subject may be saddled with more frequent and disturbing nightmares in the days and weeks to come.

No, what was weighing on the doctor's mind was the very disappointing fact that he was a far cry from where he expected to be at this point in his life. He had spent many nights reviewing his past, and focusing on the missteps along the way. He regretted that he had wasted so much time in the pursuit of a normal life. He still shuddered every time he thought about his orthodontic practice, staring at the teeth of Middle America's bratty kids.

He consoled himself with the idea that if he hadn't wasted those years, then he probably wouldn't have been in a position to join Cobra. Which used to console him. But he had spent the last few months debating whether that helped or hindered his lifelong goals. Of course, being able to say that you cloned a man from the DNA of the greatest leaders of history was a hell of an accomplishment. Not one that would ever be recognized by the scientific community due to their strict adherence to ethics, but he guessed that he was still probably the envy of many.

However, the fact that his perfect Serpentor creation had ended up with so many flaws was such a baffling idea to the scientist. After the humiliating and total defeat of Cobra in the Himalayas, Doctor Mindbender escaped to the underground to spend some time rehashing all of the data collected during his time with Cobra to try and figure out where he had gone so wrong.

Being a former member of a ruthless terrorist organization meant that he couldn't return to the United States. So he settled on a neighboring country, and made a home with a gang known for its nefarious dealings. It took time to proverbially lick his wounds, but once he was finished, he emerged a stronger, more determined man. He knew he still possessed a great power to alter DNA, and he knew there was at least one man out there that needed his services. All he had to do was find him.

He had made the decision to risk a trip back to the States to pay his former associates, Xamot and Tomax, a visit when by sheer luck, a better plan had presented itself. The previous day he had overheard talk that a rival gang was going to be paid a visit by the G.I. Joe team. He had convinced his newfound friends that much could be gained if they intercepted the team and took them prisoner.

It had gone better than he expected. The Joe team had been ambushed well before they had reached their target. The four Joes had put up a gallant fight, but they were soon overrun by the two dozen mercenaries. They were currently being held in makeshift cells while Doctor Mindbender had run through the final tests of his machine.

He left the room functioning as his laboratory. He asked the first man he saw to remove the unconscious test subject from the machine. He then walked through the underground passageways until he arrived at the cells. He remained in the shadows so the Joes couldn't see him. He recognized all four men – Flint, Roadblock, Zap, and Bazooka. He was pleased with the group. He even knew which Joe he wanted to start with. Doctor Mindbender was curious if the Warrant Officer still had the same weakness. He waved over one of the two men acting as prison wardens and told him he wanted Flint rendered unconscious and brought to his lab. His sessions went better if the subject wasn't aware of what was occurring.

He returned to his laboratory and a few minutes later an incapacitated Flint was brought in. Flint was strapped to the gurney, and Doctor Mindbender placed the device on his head. Once it was secure, the doctor walked over to his computer setup to wait for the results. He knew that Flint was currently experiencing a mental psych evaluation. Doctor Mindbender had determined through past tests that this kind of setup was the quickest way to get the answers he was looking for. Usually humans were preprogrammed with a desire to talk about themselves, so he would trick them into thinking they were having a conversation with a psychologist.

His machine was capable of probing his subject's brain to look for information, but that usually took longer. Especially in a case like Flint's where he knew exactly the questions he wanted to ask. The Joes' with public relationships always made his task of finding a weak link easier. In theory he could also just probe his subjects' brains for the answers he wanted, but there wasn't any fun in that. Besides, he was always fascinated with finding one's breaking point.

So Doctor Mindbender programmed his machine to mentally ask Flint questions about Lady Jaye. Several months had passed since their last encounter, so it was possible that their romantic situation had changed. But as the data flowed in, the doctor was surprised at the results. And he knew he had a very easy emotional torture interrogation ahead.

Flint blinked as he slowly woke up. He was feeling very groggy, as he tried to shake off the remnants of the dream he had. In it he had been sent for a psych evaluation. He had spent several minutes speaking with the psychologist, but the only questions he remembered were about Alison.

His legs and arms were shackled, and he was lying on some kind of cot. He looked around the room, but due to the dim lighting, he couldn't make out any features. The only thing he knew was that at some point he had been moved from his cell. The lights suddenly came on, temporarily blinding him. Once his vision returned, he saw that he was in a large room which looked like a hospital's ER. There was medical equipment spread around, as well as a half dozen empty beds around him.

Flint was disoriented and he tried to figure out how he had gotten from the underground cell, to this higher class looking medical facility. He started to wonder if he had blacked out during a rescue attempt, and if he was in a hospital back home. But that didn't explain why he was shackled to the bed.

The door opened, and the man that walked in only brought more questions. "Doctor Mindbender?" Flint asked out loud.

"Ah, good. You remember me. Saves me the time of a long winded introduction."

"Why are you here?"

Doctor Mindbender chuckled. "Do you even know where here is?" When Flint didn't answer, he continued. "I thought so. I asked my Mexican friends to handle you with care. Do you have any memory of the drive across the border into Arizona?"

Flint continued to remain silent, but the idea of being back in Arizona was raising alarm bells in his head.

Doctor Mindbender grinned. "I can see the wheels turning. Right now you are hoping that the fact I brought you to Arizona is just a coincidence, and not because I may want you closer to loved ones. Such as a pregnant girlfriend." The doctor then grabbed at a Walkie-Talkie on his belt. "Bring her in."

Flint's heart seized in his chest. "No! You bastard!" But any further insults died on his lips as the doors opened, and Alison was dragged into the room. He uselessly yelled at the two guards to leave her alone as they strapped her to one of the empty beds.

"I have to congratulate you, Flint. I see you have been pretty busy during your down time. And I'm sure you want nothing to happen to your little family you have here. So I'm going to ask you one simple question. If you answer it correctly, I will let you and Lady Jaye go and you will be free to raise what I'm sure will be a beautiful baby. However, if you don't answer me to my satisfaction, I'm afraid there are going to be consequences. Do you understand me?"

Flint stared Doctor Mindbender down, but he refused to answer him.

"Flint, don't make this difficult right from the start." Doctor Mindbender walked over to Alison. She began to fight against her restraints. He put a hand on her head. "I know several techniques that can inflict a great amount of pain on her and the baby, without any lasting side effects on her. I can't say for sure about the baby, as the studies I've read seemed to be mixed on how much pain an unborn child can take."

"Fine! I understand! Now ask your question!" Flint knew that whatever it was, he was going to answer it, all consequences be damned. It was one thing to resist while Alison was in danger, which would have been hard enough, but he was not going to let any harm come to his baby.

"Where is Cobra Commander?"

Flint initially felt relief as he knew he wasn't going to be giving up any classified information that would threaten the United States, because the honest answer was that he didn't know. But then he realized the implications his non-answer would bring. "I don't know. And that's the truth. The last sighting we had was when Roadblock saw him slither away in the Himalayas."

"But you have come across other Cobra members."

"Yes."

"And you want me to believe, that you've given no effort into finding Cobra Commander, who, with Serpentor dead, is once again the head of Cobra."

"Believe me, we want to find him. But if he has reappeared somewhere, we don't know anything about it."

Doctor Mindbender nodded. He turned around and pulled out a syringe. "That's not good enough. Flint, I'm sorry, but you didn't give me the answer I wanted. In this syringe is a drug known as digoxin. It's a common drug used in abortions. Once administered, it gives the unborn child an instant fatal heart attack."

Alison started to cry out at the same time that Flint did. "Doctor, no! I answered your question. I don't know where Cobra Commander is."

"Like I said. That's not good enough. I needed an answer to my question, and you didn't provide one."

Alison tried to sit up in her bed. "Dash, please. Don't let him do this."

Flint replayed the many meetings over the last few months about potential Cobra Commander sightings. But none had proved fruitful. "Doctor, we've looked but came up empty each time. I can give you a list of places we looked," he said desperately.

"I'm not interested in a list of your failings." Doctor Mindbender walked over to Alison. He lifted her shirt and placed an item on her abdomen. The sound, that Flint recognized as his baby's heartbeat, filled the room. "I want you two to listen in as your child dies."

Flint let out a guttural roar as he sat up and fought against the chains. Despite the pain of them digging into his arms and feet, he was no closer to freeing himself. He watched in horror as Doctor Mindbender took the syringe and stabbed it into Alison's abdomen. She let out a cry. Within moments, Flint, with tears streaming down his cheeks, listened as his baby's heartbeat first slowed and then went silent.

Alison collapsed against the bed sobbing. Flint too went slack, as the fight left him. Doctor Mindbender turned towards him. "I'm going to bring you back to your cell. I want you to think about what just happened. I killed your infant, but the abortion isn't complete. If Lady Jaye doesn't get medical attention soon, she will die giving birth to your dead child. So you may want to reconsider your answer. After all, as long as you have her, you could always try again."

Flint knew that as soon as the guards came to move him to his cell, he was going to attack. He didn't care if he died in the process, but he was going to kill Doctor Mindbender and anyone that got in his way. But he suddenly got incredibly tired. And despite his best effort to fight it, he fell asleep.

He woke with a start back in the familiar cell. He saw Roadblock sitting up against the wall next to him. "Where's Lady Jaye?" he asked.

Roadblock gave him a puzzled look. "What are you talking about? She should be back home."

"I know. But Mindbender got his hands on her. I think," Flint swallowed against the lump in his throat. "Never mind that. I have to get to her. She needs help."

"Flint, what did they do to you? Our buddies came to get you a little earlier, and then brought you back only a couple of minutes ago."

"That's what I'm saying. Roadblock, they took me to Arizona where they tortured her. If I don't come up with an answer on Cobra Commander's current whereabouts, Doctor Mindbender is going to kill her."

"Arizona? That's impossible. You were gone an hour tops. Maybe the drug they gave you caused a hallucination?"

Flint willed himself to calm down and to grasp what Roadblock was saying. He began to hope and pray that the machine gunner was right, and he was just a victim of a drugging. But the memory seemed too fresh, too real. However, the more he woke up and calmed down, the details started to fade away as nightmares usually did.

Alison stared at her computer screen. She had reached another dead end. She leaned back in her chair, and stretched out. Her neck and shoulders were killing her from the hunched over position she had been in for the last couple of hours. She stood up, and continued her stretches. She took a walk over to where Chuckles was sitting and asked him if he had any more leads to hunt down. He shook his head no.

Alison looked at the clock and realized she had officially put in an all-nighter. She knew the smart call would be to go lie down, and approach the situation again once she was rested. But that felt like she was giving up on Flint, and she couldn't do it. Besides, she was too keyed up to get any sleep.

Falcon walked into the room. "OC is starting in a few minutes. I want to bring the general the latest information we have."

Alison grabbed the papers she had been working from, stacked them, and handed them to Falcon. "Those are my notes. I am now extremely well versed in that region of the world, but unfortunately we are no closer to finding Flint and the others."

"That's not good. Have you at least pinpointed where they went missing?"

Chuckles shook his head and the news infuriated Falcon. "How is that possible? We're connected to the best intelligence gathering agency in the world. And look at all of the computing power in this room. You mean to tell me with all of these resources we can't find a small team of Joes?"

Alison was not in a frame of mind to deal with Falcon's temper tantrum. "Falcon, calm down, you're not helping the situation. Out of everyone in this room, I have the most motivation to find Flint and the others. Don't you think I've tried everything at this point?"

"Yeah, man, back off," Mainframe said as he walked over. "Everyone here has spent all night working our asses off, which is more than we can say for you."

"I'm going to guess based on this discussion, that you have nothing new to report?" Duke asked as he stepped in the room, instantly ending the argument.

"No," Falcon said. "How about you?"

"Unfortunately I do. And none of it's good. General Bradshaw just got off the horn with DC. Right now the team's status is remaining 'unknown'. But in about seventy-two hours, unless we uncover something to change their mind, they're going to officially declare them MIA."

Falcon threw up his hands. "That's ridiculous. Do they expect the general public to believe that an elite team of G.I. Joes just got lost while on a walk in a Mexican jungle?"

"Yes. Because most of the general public will believe anything that comes out of the mouths of the attractive morning news anchors," Mainframe muttered.

Alison shook her head. "And I'm going to guess that the reason why they are going with 'MIA' is because the term 'POW' would piss off our southern neighbors?"

"Exactly," Duke answered. "But despite this news, the general wanted me to tell you that this doesn't change our game plan. We're still going ahead and chasing down any lead that we can. However, I want everyone to take a break. You all look wiped out. So take a walk, get something to eat, grab a nap if you can. Falcon, I'll meet you in the conference room."

Alison watched Falcon, Mainframe and Chuckles walk out, but she stayed put. "Alison, you too. I especially meant that order for you. I know you're worried about Flint, but he wouldn't want you to jeopardize the baby."

"I know. It's hard, but I am trying not to overdo it. I'm going to grab something to eat and then go lay down. But I have a question for you. I assume that before they change Flint and the other's status, they'll need to notify their next of kin?"

Duke nodded so she continued. "And even though I'm pregnant with Flint's next of kin, I'm going to assume I don't count."

Duke again nodded. "Alison, I'm sorry."

She waved him off. "Duke, believe me, I understand. I've been on the other side enough times to know explicitly what the military rules are in this situation. I just ask, if it's okay, that if and when the time comes that I be the one to give his mother and father a call?"

"Are you sure you want to put yourself through that?"

"Not really. But when we visited them over Thanksgiving, Dash said he wanted to make a point of us staying in closer contact with them. This is not exactly what either one of us had in mind, but I still need to be the one to talk to them."

"Okay. Hopefully that phone call won't be needed."

Alison walked out with Duke, and then headed to the cafeteria. Nothing looked appetizing, but she knew she needed to eat. She settled on toast and an orange juice. She brought it back to her room, and once she was done with her pitiful breakfast she laid down.

After a frustrating hour of tossing and turning, Alison finally decided to get out of bed. She was still tired, but her mind was just too keyed up to allow her to sleep. She walked into the bathroom, where she hoped a hot shower would rejuvenate her.

She stripped out of her clothes, but before she got into the shower she stopped to look at herself in the mirror. She rubbed her hand over her protruding stomach. As she began to wonder what her baby looked like, she suddenly remembered her ultrasound appointment. She was at a loss at what the current time was, so she grabbed her phone. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw that she hadn't missed it.

But she then quickly made the decision to postpone the scan. As anxious as she was to see her baby, to make sure he or she was healthy and to hopefully finally reveal the gender, she didn't want to do it without Flint. So she called the office to reschedule.

Once the receptionist picked up the phone, Alison identified herself and asked to postpone the ultrasound.

"That's fine," the receptionist responded. "What day would you like to reschedule to?"

Alison wasn't sure so she tried to explain the situation. "My," she began but then hesitated on the terminology to describe Flint. 'Boyfriend' seemed too immature. 'Lover' too uncouth, especially in her current situation. And thanks to her temper tantrum, 'fiancé' no longer applied. For the second time that day, she had the thought that her life would be a lot easier once they got married. And then she was hit with the realization that they may never have the chance.

She told the receptionist she would have to get back to her and then hung up the phone. Her eyes filled with tears as she began to comprehend the gravity of the situation. She had been so wrapped up in throwing herself into the search for the missing team, that she never gave herself a chance to fully grasp the idea that Flint was missing. And there was the very real possibility that he was never coming home.

Which meant that it didn't matter when she rescheduled her ultrasound, he would not be there to learn whether or not he was correct about fathering a son. And that was only the first of many milestones he would miss.

Alison shook her head to stop the downward spiral of thoughts. She was not ready to give up on Flint or the rest of the team. Even if she couldn't go into the field herself, she was going to do everything she could to make sure that her child's father was brought home to her.