When the machine is finished and they finally unstrap him from the chair, Barnes falls out of it. He's been wiped clean inside. They let the thing run much longer than the last time, apparently just to see what it would do. Let it go until he finally blacked out, reflexive screams fading as his eyes rolled up in his head and his body slumped. They ran it until he stopped breathing and he had to be resuscitated before he went into cardiac arrest.
The chair hollowed him out and spat out the empty shell. His keepers are pleased.
When they bring him back around, he's disoriented and sick. He throws up at least once, and they let him without comment. All he has is pain and a chaotic mess of nothing swirling around his head. Someone asks him his name. He just stares blankly back. They smile and he watches the action, unsure why they seem so pleased with his lack of answer.
..Does he have a name? Nothing comes to mind. Where the hell is he? Who are these people?
…Who is he?
No blue eyes come back to light the way home. No name springs to his lips. He misses something, but he couldn't tell you what it was if he tried. It doesn't seem to matter, so he lets it go, blown away by the relentless wind that scours his thoughts clean, like new-fallen snow. It's kind of ...peaceful, in an ugly sort of way. He's nothing and nobody.
They leave him in his cell again when he finally stops dry-heaving and someone declares him stable enough. He lies on his plank of wood all night, staring straight ahead, up at the ceiling.
He doesn't sleep.