Chapter 6: The Room
At first, there was nothing. Suddenly, somebody turned his mind on using pain. Crying out, Harry woke, pain rushing up from his side. Gasping for air, he tried to take stock of his body. Eyes, opened but the light was too bright for him to process anything. He quickly closed them. At least he knew he could see light and dark. The pain in his torso and cheek told him that he was no longer completely numb. Struggling to breath normally, he felt his stomach roll, probably a side effect of the damnable drug they'd used on him. He heard the sound of the heart monitor and knew it was his heart beat.
"Wakey, wakey," a voice growled. It wasn't a voice Harry knew, but it still instantly made him feel worse. "I know you're awake. I saw you open your eyes."
"Bright," Harry managed to mumble. Something connected with his jaw and new pain flared.
"Wake up!" The voice demanded, making Harry snap his eyes open in a desperate attempt to placate whoever had hit him. He couldn't fight back if he didn't stay conscious. "Good."
It was still too bright. His brain responded and Harry blinked rapidly. An unfamiliar face came slowly into focus. It wasn't a friendly face but a nasty one. Angry eyes and white hair were about all Harry registered. The man leered at Harry and leaned forwards. "What do you want?" The Earth 2 denizen managed to ask.
"What, no hello? Not even for an old friend like me? Come on Harrison," the man teased, feigning hurt. Obviously, this man thought Harry was from Earth One. If he wanted to survive and get back to Jesse, Harry had to convince this stranger that he was John Chambers. Depending on what the man wanted, Harry might have to do so under the influence of truth drugs. That meant convincing himself.
"I'm not Harrison," Harry growled.
The other man laughed, leaning away from Harry "That's a good one, Harrison. I didn't know you had a sense of humour," he bellowed, slapping Harry hard on one leg.
"I'm not Harrison," Harry repeated, partly to remind himself. Harrison Wells was dead. He had to keep that in mind. He wasn't the Harrison Wells this man was talking about
The man hummed and leaned in close. "Alright," he said. "If you aren't Dr. Harrison Wells, who are you?"
"I'm Dr. John Chambers," Harry answered. It was true, at least on this Earth.
"Never heard of you before." The man shook his head. "You know, Harrison, I almost believed that you did die when that thing opened up in the sky nearly a year ago. When I saw you going into Mercury Labs, I did a double-take."
"My name is John Chambers," Harry countered. "I've been helping the security team at Mercury labs improve their measures." He took a steadying breath, wondering why his side hurt so badly.
"Right. Then why the hell do you look like Harrison Wells?" The man chuckled and looked over in a different direction. Under the bright lights, Harry couldn't see much of anything but the man.
"I was adopted," Harry answered. "So was he. From what I've been able to determine, we were monozygotic twins."
"Monozygotic? What the hell does that mean?" Irritation made the man's voice more of a growl. Despite his pain, Harry laughed, which annoyingly made the pain worse.
"Identical twins," Harry replied. "We grew from one ovum." His laughter broke down into a cough making him cringe in pain.
"Oh. Well, that's a very soap opera kind of explanation. Tell me something, Harrison," his captor continued, stressing the name. "How do you control your healing when you're unconscious?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Lifting his head, Harry squinted, trying to make out details in the darkness beyond the light.
"Your side hurts because we took some tissue samples. It hasn't healed yet. Why?" There was a dangerous growl to the man's voice and Harry wondered if he would survive to explain himself to Jesse
"Because it takes a while for the human body to heal, idiot," Harry answered, irritation surfacing. He didn't like being threatened and he certainly wasn't going to let this man keep him from his daughter. With a grunt, Harry started straining against the bonds holding him to whatever he was seated on. It earned him a punch to the gut. "Ugh," Harry groaned, unable to collapse in since he was restrained.
"You know what I mean. I know you're a speedster, Harrison. Rather than capture Allen, I figured I'd just dissect you instead. Now, why aren't you healing?" The man punctuated his question with another blow to Harry, this time his face. As he cried out, Harry's head was thrown back from the blow. "Answer my question," the man snarled. Coughing, the scientist leaned forwards, trying to keep the blood that was flowing from his nose out of his mouth.
"Maybe if you'd stop hitting me, I'd be able to answer your damn questions," Harry snarled back. "I told you, I'm not Harrison Wells! My name is John Chambers! I'm not a speedster!" His attempts to avoid swallowing blood brought his face closer to his captor's.
"We'll see," the other man replied. He stood and stepped back into the shadows. "Colonel, take as much blood as you need. With his accelerated healing, he'll be fine."
"Yes, General," a woman's voice replied. Harry listened as a door opened and then closed. Swallowing down some fear, mostly for Jesse, he watched as somebody stepped forwards into the light. "Now," the female in a Medical Army Corp uniform began. "Let's get some blood."
Watching the woman come closer, Harry looked down at himself and realized that he was topless. "What did you do to my shirt?"
"Cut it off," the woman answered simply. In the bright light it was difficult for Harry to see the woman clearly.
"West is going to kill me," Harry grumbled. He watched the woman tie the tourniquet around his arm. "Do me a favour, don't chase the vein if it rolls." It earned him a chuckle from the woman, who was already carefully drawing blood. "Okay, I admit, you're a pretty good phleb," Harry mused, his eyes narrowing as he watched her work.
"And you are one strange guy," the woman responded, laughter making her voice light. "I had expected something a bit more sinister from everything that General Eiling told me about you." Finished collecting several tubes of blood, she rocked them four times and carefully placed them on a tray. Gloves still on her hands, she leaned forwards and carefully peeled a bandage from Harry's side. "I'm not an expert in meta-humans or speedsters, but shouldn't this be showing advanced signs of healing by now?"
"What the hell did you do to my side?" Harry demanded, frowning at his bloody torso. It looked like they had partially re-opened his wound from Grodd.
"I took muscle samples," the woman answered. "I wanted to just do a needle biopsy, but General Eiling insisted that I take a larger sample size. I tried to minimalize the damage I did. Why isn't this healing?" Her brow crinkled with worry.
"Because I'm not a speedster." Harry answered calmly. "I'm not even Harrison Wells. My name is John Harold Chambers! Not Harrison Wells!" He lost a little control towards the end so that his voice raised.
"Oh?" The woman arched an eyebrow at him. "I see." Taking several deep slow breaths, Harry got control of himself and then opened his eyes and tried to focus on the woman.
"Look, my name is John Chambers. I came here when a meta-human named Zoom kidnapped my daughter, Jesse. With the help of the Flash, I was able to rescue her," Harry tried to calmly explain to the woman.
"You look like Harrison Wells," the Colonel observed. Rolling his eyes, Harry shook his head.
"My twin brother, apparently. If you don't believe me, take my DNA and run it through a Military DNA database," Harry suggested. The woman let her gaze flit over him as she started applying additional sensors to his chest. "I'm not a speedster," Harry stressed. "All you're going to find out is that I'm normal."
"We'll see." The woman leaned into the light, giving Harry a good look at her. Eyes going wide, Harry fell silent and watched her finish working and then leave. Once she was gone, he let his head fall and tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Jesse," he whispered, wondering where she was and if she was still angry with him. "Please don't give up on me." Falling silent he continued to cry, his heart hurting worse than his side. He had to get back to his daughter. That was all that mattered. This was just one more nightmare that was his life on this Earth, nothing more.
In the other room, General Wade Eiling paced the floor, watching the Colonel work. "Why isn't he healing?" Wade demanded angrily. The female doctor was already working on the samples she had collected. "He must be controlling it somehow."
"His cells appear completely normal," the Colonel replied, studying a sample under her microscope.
"No, he's a speedster," Eiling insisted. He continued to pace the room for a moment.
"Would you kindly stop that!" The Colonel whirled away from her microscope and stalked up to the General. She only came up to mid-chest on Eiling, but didn't seem intimidated by him. "I find it highly irritating to have somebody prowling my lab who isn't contributing to my work!" Her green eyes locked on Eiling as she glowered up at him. Taking a step back from her, Eiling frowned and then turned away.
"Keep working on the samples. I'll go see if I can extract the truth from our patient." Grinning evilly, Eiling left the room. Sighing, the Colonel blew a dark strand of hair out of her face and returned to her microscope.