"Where have you been?" was the first thing out of his supervisor's mouth as Don hurried into the lab, fastening up his white lab coat.
"Sorry. I had to go see the doctor." Had to was an understatement. Stress had always triggered the discomfort from his implant, and being thrown into a decidedly edgy needle match between Jason and Rick had qualified - even without the requirement to go outside to get to Mark's quarters. Had Rick mentioned that, he'd have refused. Getting there had taken everything he had. Getting back had involved five minutes of leaning against the wall in the lobby of the accommodation block, eyes shut, running through every relaxation technique he knew and reminding himself over and over that Lieutenant Commander Jarrald was the man who held his future at Team Seven in his hands. He'd not get any sort of clearance to do anything if he couldn't demonstrate basic psychological fitness.
That had encouraged him out of the door and along the twenty yards of path to the main building, and then he'd collapsed against the wall and gasped, as the prickling misery of feedback from his implant trickled remorselessly out from the nape of his neck, up into his skull and down into his shoulders. It destroyed his concentration, it made him feel utterly wretched, and it hurt. The only thing which helped was getting Bennett to retune the implant yet again. Initially he'd been fine for several weeks, but he was having to ask for it to be done more and more frequently. The last time was only a couple of days ago. He suspected he needed a more permanent solution, and was too afraid to ask if there even was one. Not because he didn't think there was, but because he didn't know if they'd consider him worthy of it.
"Tell me next time, okay?"
"Yes. Sorry." Don headed to the back of the lab, to the bench he'd been assigned. He suspected it was considered the least desirable one, as it had no outdoor view whatsoever, but that suited him just fine. Its proximity to the fume cupboard was less desirable. He could live with it, though. It was his own little bit of freedom; a tiny fragment of his old life back. If only they'd give him something halfway useful to do.
He fired up the ancient computer they'd allocated him and pulled up his test notes. He had to admit that this Spectran luminous paint was clever. Very clever. Somehow, they had produced something with all the brightness of a fluorescent but which behaved like a phosphorescent in glowing - well, shining - well after the light source was turned off. A significant amount of energy was being stored, and so far every test he'd tried had failed to give any explanation. It had to be nuclear, he was starting to think, and thus not his field at all, and he was reluctant to admit it. No way they'd let him keep the project, not if it required experimentation at the nuclear level, and what they gave him next might be even less useful.
So...the mass spectrometer had shown him nothing. In addition, it wasn't radioactive. Even he was allowed to use a Geiger counter. It wasn't associated with different isotopes. But there was something storing that energy and then releasing, it, and maybe it would have different reaction rates. If he could just devise something which would be highly sensitive to exactly the right docking sites...
When the phone rang, he jumped so hard his chest hurt, and he had to take a moment to get control of himself before he could pick up the receiver. By then, of course, the other three scientists in the lab were staring at him, wondering why he was letting the phone ring and disturb them all. Don swallowed desperately and fought for control, and won.
"Wade here."
"Don, it's Chris. Can you come and see me, please? Right away would be good."
Don glanced around. The senior researcher was looking pointedly at his watch.
"I...I already missed the start of work today. Can I come later?"
"Now would be better." There was a pause. "Is your supervisor there?"
"Uh...yes..." He hit the mute button. "Sergei? I'm sorry...can you come speak with Dr Johnson?"
He couldn't tell if the older man's expression was understanding or frustrated, as Sergei put his paper down and came over to Don's desk. "Romanov here - may I help you?"
Don could hear the tone of voice, but not the words - Sergei had the receiver clamped tight to his ear - and the biochemist's expression gave nothing away. The one-sided conversation seemed to go on for a long time. Don didn't know where to look or what to do, and had started to walk away when Sergei finally spoke.
"Of course, Doctor." The phone went down and he turned to Don. "You have friends in high places, Mr Wade."
"I didn't ask him to do that." Don gulped and looked at the floor. "I do want to be here, Sergei. I really want to be here."
And, to his surprise, when he glanced up there was the hint of a reassuring smile. "I know that. Go get better, Don. You're a good chemist - you know that? I can use good chemists, any day. But not ones who need medical treatment. I will see you when you feel better."
.
The black section guards were waiting for him when he got to the room opposite the elevator to black section. The same two as earlier this morning, with the same attitude. He was something sub-human; a waste of their time. They never tried to talk to him, and he'd never dared speak to them. He knew how ISO operatives felt about Spectran traitors, and he couldn't blame them. But he had no desire to get shot because someone 'thought' he was trying to do something beyond put one foot in front of the other.
The taller one - Joe, his name was - pulled out the handcuffs and Don held out his wrists obediently, not making eye contact. He flinched slightly as they clicked shut. They were, as always, so tight he could barely move his wrists inside them, and his skin was still sore from where they'd rubbed him earlier. He told himself it was temporary. Whatever Chris wanted, it wouldn't take long. Would it? Sergei had implied that he didn't expect to see him for a while, and Don really didn't fancy a long period in black section chained to a bed. Or worse: in the cells below. He'd spent time down there. He never, ever wanted to go back.
This couldn't be a ruse - could it? Nothing medical at all? Just a trouble-free way to get him back into black section so they could lock him up for good? He didn't think he'd done anything wrong, but had he failed some test? Something associated with this morning? Had Rick telling him who he was tipped the balance and made him too much of a security threat to be given any freedom at all? Or was it that he'd applied to Team Seven and overstepped his bounds that way?
"Walk," the senior of his two guards - Dean - said, and Don stumbled towards the door and the elevator beyond, sick, cold fear growing in his stomach. This might be the end of his freedom, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
The duty officer at the black section guardpost looked somewhat surprised to see him again, but didn't comment as she issued him with the normal locator bracelet snapped round his left wrist just above the cuffs and warned him that without it - or with it, but without his guards - he would be shot on sight. He just nodded in acknowledgement. He'd heard it all before.
And then they guided him in the wrong direction, left instead of right from the entrance lobby, and he couldn't do it at all. Couldn't move. The world went white and then black, and all the cursing and prodding in the world couldn't make him move. He didn't know how long he lay on the floor, curled in a fetal ball, but eventually there was a steadying hand on his shoulder.
"Don, talk to me."
He didn't respond, not then or for a while, but the voice was calm and insistent, and eventually he managed to choke out, "Don't lock me up again!"
"Lock you up? Don, nobody's going to lock you up. Come on, son, have I ever lied to you?"
He belatedly processed the voice as being Chris Johnson. And no, the doctor never had lied to him, and was one of the people who had got him out of that hideous underground cell. Don forced himself to open his eyes and uncurl, just a bit.
"Come on. We need to talk to you about your implant. There's no question of locking you up. Now, can you cope?"
And he found that he could.
.
He hadn't been in this briefing room for a very long time - in fact he was fairly sure that the last time he'd been in here he'd been in birdstyle. Had it been Anderson and G-Force in here, he suspected he'd have lost it completely. But no, it was Mike Bennett, an older, greying man with a cropped beard, another one of similar age but clean-shaven, and a tall, well-built young man in brown and cream birdstyle.
"Take the cuffs off him," the bearded man ordered with a strong Russian accent, and Dean's eyes widened.
"Colonel?"
"Now, please, Captain. The Osprey should be sufficient for our safety, do you not agree?"
Both guards and Don glanced towards the birdstyled figure, who smiled and ostentatiously dropped his right hand onto the gun holstered at his side. He'd never heard of the Osprey. He hadn't realised they had anyone beyond G-Force in birdstyle. This must be one of the people intended for the new Force Two, he supposed. They must be closer to ready than he'd appreciated, given the way Jason talked about them.
Dean's expression showed what he thought of the situation, but like any good little soldier, he didn't argue. Instead he pulled out the key to the cuffs, and carefully approached Don so as not to impede the Osprey's line of fire. Don tried not to care, holding his hands out as helpfully as he could, and murmuring "Thank you" as they were removed. He'd spent years picking his battles. Having your jailer not hate you personally was important.
Dean and Joe left, shutting the door behind them with a quiet click, and Don swallowed hard. Be competent. Cope. Show I'm a reliable human being and not a disaster waiting to happen. It would have been more believable if his voice hadn't cracked across two octaves the moment he tried to speak, and Chris Johnson's face twisted in what Don desperately hoped was sympathy.
"Since you seem to be putting two and two together and making about fifteen, let's get right to the point. Don, we think your implant is damaged. It's not staying in tune like it should, and it seems to be getting worse rapidly. Is that right?"
"Yes," he managed.
Mike Bennett nodded, glancing sideways at the other men at the table, and Don belatedly recognised the clean-shaven man. He was a psychologist, he thought. He'd talked to Don - well, at him - early on, when Chris had got him out of the cells and all he'd been able to do was curl on the bed and whimper. And the bearded man was a colonel. So, the doctor, the shrink, the implant engineer and the military guy. Plus muscle in the corner, in case he should decide to try to kill some of the only people who apparently cared that he was still alive.
"I think I can fix it," Bennett said. "But I will need to open it up and replace most if not all of the internals."
Don gulped despite himself, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the Osprey flinch. Not a nice idea at all.
"Can you not just remove them?" the colonel asked. "Mr Wade hardly needs implant enhancements."
He shut his eyes. Take everything away. Not that he had much that was useful - good coordination, good hearing, the ability to read a newspaper from across the room. But he didn't want to lose them. Abruptly aware that he was missing any visual signals being passed between the men sitting in judgment on his future, he opened his eyes again.
Bennett nodded. "Sure I can. But I'll be blunt. I have the chance to see if I can fix a damaged implant properly, in a situation where if I can't it isn't the end of the world because we're not going to let Don use any of the major abilities anyway. That experience could make all the difference in the world to someone else. Someone who needs the functionality back."
"You want to use me as a guinea pig?" The words were out before he could stop himself.
Bennett met his eyes. "Yes, I do. You keep telling me how you want to do something useful. Here's something useful you can do, that nobody else can. I won't do it unless you agree...but I don't see what you have to lose. As Colonel Ivanov so neatly pointed out, the obvious solution is to remove the internal circuitry completely. Nobody's going to agree to me giving you a real working implant again unless it's useful to ISO."
And you've been vocal about wanting to be useful. Nice one, Don. Talk about painting yourself into a corner. He wanted this, though. Wanted it badly enough to agree, even if it was as practice for someone else's operation. Someone trustworthy, doubtless. Someone they actually wanted back. Someone...
Someone who might be in a wheelchair at the moment, maybe? Someone with black section clearances? Someone who appeared to be a very similar age to the current members of G-Force? Someone who the commander of G-Force trusted enough to bring him in on personnel issues? Someone who, that very morning, had been in black section trying to see Mike Bennett?
And someone who held Don's future in his hands. Well, if he was right, that left him with very few options. The Eagle had made it very clear what he thought of Don Wade, traitor. Would he feel differently enough to give him a security clearance in his alter ego of Lieutenant Commander Jarrald of Team Seven? It didn't seem likely. But fate had given Don a bargaining chip here. Just one. He sat up straight, looking round the men behind the table, trying to give the impression of confidence.
"You want to use me as your alpha patient? I'll cooperate. But there are conditions."
"I don't think you're in any position to be making demands," Ivanov said.
"No, I'm not." Don looked desperately around the room again, wanting support and sympathy, but knowing he wouldn't get any. It didn't matter. Nobody was ever going to give him anything for free again. He had to demand it or accept that he'd never have it.
"You can strap me down and poke around in my implant. You can make me answer questions at gunpoint. You can do what the hell you like, and we both know you can make me comply in about ten minutes if you try. Maybe less. But if you do those things you're no better than Spectra. I think you are better than them. I also think you have more sense than to throw away my goodwill. Because, believe it or not, you have it. I want to help you. I really do. But I do have some conditions."
"Name them," Ivanov said, his deep voice impassive.
"No more chains and gunpoint guards in black section. I want a proper clearance to be in here. I want a proper rank, and that position on Team Seven which I applied for, no strings attached. And, if fixing my implant works? I...I want a chance to use it. Even if it is only in training."
"Nobody here can authorise that, Don," said Chris Johnson.
"I know." What had he expected - for them to agree? The moment it was out of his mouth he'd felt a complete idiot. That last thing, he should have kept to himself, forever. He had no idea why or how it had come out.
"I think maybe Don should come and talk to me about this," Samuels said. That was all he said, and Don's eyes dropped. Samuels knew he hadn't meant to say that, no question. Whether it was the drugs talking, or the stress, or just his screwed-up brain, didn't really matter. He'd opened up in a way he'd spent years not doing, admitted that there was still something which mattered to him, and now they had a lever they were going to grill him all over again for everything they thought he hadn't told them...
He wasn't aware of when the world went white, or when he toppled sideways off the chair. Missed Ivanov's most uncharacteristic burst of profanity, and the Osprey catching him before he hit the floor. Missed, too, the young man glancing up at the four decision-makers behind the table.
"If someone told me I could never use my implant again? Never transmute? Never fly? I think I would be most unhappy, too."
Don woke up face down and stiff, and for one terrifying moment he was back in Spectran captivity after a session of having his implant probed. But Spectran cells never had sheets on the bed, or comfortable mattresses, and he didn't hurt the way he always had. Memory returned, and he opened his eyes warily, wondering why it wasn't carpet he was lying on.
Green eyes met his, and there was a nervous smile, before Princess spoke into her bracelet. "Chris, he's awake." She returned her attention to him. "How do you feel?"
"Like an idiot. Princess, I...it's good to see you again. Real good." He went to roll over, intending to sit up, but every muscle protested and he collapsed back to face down and flat. "How long was I out?"
"It's good to see you too, Don." She put a gentle hand out and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I should have come sooner. Much sooner."
"You didn't miss much. I'm not exactly the man I used to be." His breath caught, as more memory flooded back, of what he'd said. Of his stupid, pointless attempt to manipulate ISO senior brass, when they'd actually offered to fix his implant. "Not likely to be, either. Is that what you came to tell me? That it only took them more than thirty seconds to say no because they were laughing so hard? I guess I should be glad I didn't wake up in a cell."
She grimaced, glancing round the room in an obvious attempt to avoid looking at him. "You nearly did wake up in a cell, except that Jason screamed blue murder about it and said G-Force would do the guarding. They were worried that something was going on. That you keeling over then and there was a ploy."
Don snorted. "If I wanted to blow up ISO, I could have done it fifty times over already. Even though all I'm allowed access to is high school chemistry lab stuff."
"You might not have known. You could have been conditioned. Mike thought that the trigger might well have been the threat of having your implant rebuilt - that maybe they'd put some programming in there."
Don felt sick. Beyond sick. They'd found another reason not to trust him? One he couldn't possibly disprove...ever? He'd accepted that he was a liability, but to be told he was a walking time bomb? That hurt. That hurt a lot. He twisted his face into the pillow, eyes shut, fighting desperately for control.
"I think I made things worse," Princess said shakily as he heard the door click open. "Chris...just tell him. I thought I should tell him everything in order, but..." There was a sob, and the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps before the door clicked shut again.
The next sob was his own, only partly muffled by the pillow, and then the hand on his shoulder was larger and heavier.
"It's not as bad as you think, Don. Things are going to be okay. Come on, talk to me."
He turned his head so he could breathe properly again, but kept his eyes shut. "You'll never trust me again. You think they brainwashed me. That there's some trigger in my implant."
Chris's voice was calm. "We suspected that, yes. We still don't know if it was true, and we may not for a while until our analysis is complete. But, on balance, Ivanov and Anderson decided the only safe course of action was for Mike to fix your implant. Leaving it wasn't an option any more for the sake of your health, and trying to disable it was likely to have been predicted and could have been the trigger. I'm sorry we didn't wake you up and get your permission, but we decided we couldn't take the risk. If there was a trigger, it isn't in there any more. Your implant's had a complete internal rebuild; we've kept you unconscious for three days."
Three days... That made sense. That would explain the stiffness and shakiness, in a way that he was much happier with than that it was all psychosomatic. And...they'd fixed it? He felt nervously for his implant controls. It had been a long time since doing so did anything other than make him want to throw up.
It was there, and it was responding to him...and it was different. He pulled sharply away from the mental contact, twisting to look up at the doctor.
"What did you do to it?"
"We upgraded it to the latest specs. I'm sorry; yes, we did it at least partly as a trial for another patient. It was the only way it would ever have been authorised. If that offends you, I'm sure Mike can disable it again."
"That won't be necessary." He tried to keep his voice level, to pretend it didn't matter to him, but he could hear how badly he was failing. There was no way to hide it, none at all. What they'd done to his implant? There was power there. Now what G-Force could do made a lot more sense. Speed and strength were right there, and all he wanted was to go test them.
"So," Chris said, "what you wanted was a chance to use the upgrades we put in. You got it, as soon as you feel up to it. We would very much like to know how much of the functionality you can use, as effectively a second implantee several years after the normal window for implantation would have closed."
They were going to let him test them? Don rolled over and sat up, ignoring the way the world swam around him. "I'm ready."
And the bed canted at a crazy angle as his vision blurred out altogether. He found himself lying back against the pillows despite his determination to get up.
"Not just yet," Chris said, a calm, casual reassurance in his voice. "You need to go back to sleep. Give it a couple of days."
He'd have fought if it he could - but that was what he'd been trying to do when his body had decided to lie down of its own accord. Chris was right. Besides, the chip was in his neck, right now. He felt for it again, and smiled at the responding buzz of power. He'd waited so very long for this. He couldn't wait to see what this new functionality could do.