Written by Codename Ghost
Date: 7/15/97
The van took them not back to the Section but to a house
on the outskirts of town, passing through a security gate and down a long
driveway to a stately Victorian, painted in a subdued yellow with white
trim, and parking in the driveway. As they had loaded Michael into the
van, Bishop had cuffed his wrists and bound his ankles together as a precaution
and when they arrived, he and Carter carried him out of the van and into
the house, Madeline going ahead of them to lead the way and Nikita trailing
behind them. Up the staircase and to the right, Madeline opened a door
and gestured for them to enter, watching as Bishop and Carter placed Michael
on the hospital bed, Nikita stand- ing just inside the doorway and moving
a little aside to let out Carter out.
Bishop unlocked the handcuffs and stuck them in a pocket of his coat, untying
Michael's feet as well; once that was done, he pulled up the restraints
that had dangled off the side of the bed and strapped down wrists and ankles,
giving the cuffs an experimental tug before straightening. "He's secure."
he said to Madeline.
"Good. You and Carter keep an eye on the front, I'll call you if I
need your assistance."
Bishop nodded and as he left the room, Nikita moved inside and let the
door shut behind her, walking up to the bed as Madeline leaned over to
examine Michael, peeling an eyelid back and nodding in satisfaction.
"Why bring him here?" asked Nikita.
"Because if we took him back to the Section like he is, Operations
would order him canceled." A chill traced down Nikita's spine at the
matter-of-fact tone, at odds with the gentle touch to Michael's cheek.
"Are the restraints necessary?"
Madeline turned to face her, expression grave. "He sees us as the
enemy. When he wakes up, he is going to be...agitated. If things progress
it will only be a temporary measure."
"Hard to get him to trust us if we're holding him prisoner."
said Nikita flatly.
Madeline let out a small sigh. "Nikita, we have seven days to repair
the damage that it took the Legion months to inflict--that was all the
time I could secure from Operations. If at the end of that time we don't
succeed, we have to cancel him. I know that you care about Michael--"
Nikita looked away, arms folded over her chest, and Madeline hid a smile,
"--and that you will do what you can to see to it that he survives
this. What I need from you is to do exactly what I tell you, without question.
Can you do that?"
Hugging herself, Nikita gazed down at Michael, wary of making the promise,
and Madeline gave a shrug, slipping a hand into the pocket of her coat
to withdraw a gun. "If you can't, then we might as well cancel him
now." With a single smooth motion she drew the slide back on the gun
and aimed it at Michael's head, finger tightening on the trigger.
"No!" Nikita lunged for her arm, pushing it up and away and putting
herself between Madeline and Michael. "God, yes, I'll do it!"
Madeline stepped back from the bed, a small smile of satisfaction curving
her lips. "Good. Before we start I have to show you something. I want
you to know what we're up against." She walked out of the room, not
turning her head to see if Nikita was following, and Nikita took one last
glance at Michael's still form before leaving the room as well.
Madeline led her down stairs and to the right, through the living room
and to a closed door, beside the door was a keypad and she typed numbers
into it, the door buzzing as she turned the knob. She gestured for Nikita
to proceed her in and Nikita walked inside, doing a slow circle to take
in the room; it was the only part of the house that could identify it as
belonging to the Section, walls painted white, a bank of computer monitors
on one wall and a radio receiver set up next to them, in one corner a TV/VCR
combo. It was to the TV that Madeline went, picking up the remote control
to turn on the power, and Nikita moved closer, watching the TV as Madeline
activated the VCR.
Looking over her shoulder at Nikita Madeline said, "You need to see
this before we continue."
Squaring her shoulders Nikita watched the TV as Madeline pressed the "play"
button for the VCR, the screen changing abruptly from black to the black-and-white
of a surveillance camera. Nothing in the field for a moment and then two
men dragging a third between him, pushing him down onto his knees, the
camera zooming in to provide a better picture, good enough that Nikita
could recognize the man on his knees as Dylan. "What--?" She
half turned to look at Madeline but Madeline gave her a nudge, saying simply,
"Watch."
Swallowing, Nikita did as she was told, knowing now what was going to happen.
Dylan had been dead for three weeks now, shot in the head and dumped into
the river, and now she was seeing it live, watching transfixed as three
others came into the picture, the woman that so resembled the dead Simone
and a man of average height with graying dark hair. The woman moved a little
aside, beckoning to someone that stood behind her, and even though she'd
been expecting it, Nikita gave a little start of surprise to see it was
Michael, gun in hand.
No sound for the tape, just the video, and so she didn't know what the
woman said to Michael, saw only that she touched him on the arm and Michael
stepped forward to lift his gun and shoot Dylan in the head. Shocked Nikita
could only stare at the screen as Dylan's body slumped to the floor, behind
her, Madeline said in a calm voice, "Michael and Dylan both came into
the Section at the same time, they trained together, did missions together.
Dylan was Michael's best man at his wedding."
"Why are you showing me this?" asked Nikita huskily, eyes still
fixed to the screen as it rewound to show the shooting again.
"You need to see what the Legion has made him into--they have convinced
him he is one of them and that Section One is the enemy. He is no longer
the Michael you knew, Nikita, and you have to know that he can be very
dangerous."
"He could of shot me in the hotel but he didn't." She swung around
to face Madeline, hiding the horror and unease she felt under defiance.
No expression at all on Michael as he had shot Dylan, executed him, and
while she knew he could be utterly ruthless in his dedication to the Section's
goals, she had never considered him to be a cold-blooded killer... "What
are you doing, Madeline? Trying to convince me to not go through with this?"
Madeline's brown eyes were very calm as she met Nikita's. "I want
you to see what he is capable of. Despite what you might think, he has
his own strict code of ethics and once he has been convinced that what
he is doing is right, he will do whatever he must to achieve a goal. Only
four people have seen this tape, only four people know what he did to Dylan--and
it goes no farther than this room."
Nikita drew in a deep breath and squared her chin. "I haven't changed
my mind."
Madeline smiled. "I didn't think you would." Clicking off the
TV, she went to the desk to pick up a briefcase and said over her shoulder,
"Let's get started."
He lay on a bed in a white featureless room, muscles still aching from
the aftereffects of the injection he'd been given, remembering being taken
from his cell to the death chamber and being strapped into the chair, the
prick of the needle and the pain as the poison spread through his system.
And then awaking here, to this room, and the auburn haired woman standing
over him, smiling warmly down at him.
"Hello."
Michael came awake with a jerk, heart racing as he looked wildly around
him, seeing the same woman standing over him, a little older but with that
same smile, a smile that invited confidences and offered consolation. Reflexively
he tried to sit up but the restraints on wrists and ankles pulled him back
down to the bed, only tightening when he tugged on them and he gave up
the struggle, sinking back on to the bed.
The woman came to stand at the side of the bed and he twisted his head
to watch her, fighting down the panic. She's not going to hurt you, said
a small voice in his head, the same voice he had worked so hard to ignore
over the last few months and now he let himself hear it. "How are
you feeling?" she asked, seemingly concerned.
"How do you think?" he countered, lifting one wrist as far as
it would go.
"I think--" Slowly she walked down to the foot of the bed and
around to the other side and he turned his head on the pillow to track
her, momentarily distracted by seeing the blond woman standing at the back
of the room, just watching. "I think that you're feeling confused
and maybe a little frightened. And that you're not very comfortable like
that." She touched one cuff with a finger and he jerked away. "If
you promise to behave yourself, we can have our talk in a more comfortable
setting." Silence met the invitation and the woman shrugged. "Why
don't we start with your name? Who are you?"
Who are you? echoed through his mind and with it another flash of memory,
sitting in a chair, arms drawn painfully back behind him, electrodes against
the bare flesh of his chest, mouth shut tight against any sound, a hum
and a surge of electricity, setting him afire. Pain that spiraled up and
up, a voice whispering in his ear, telling him he had the power to stop
it, but he wouldn't give them his name, even though he was certain they
knew, that small surrender would just open the gates...
Michael shook his head, as much to banish the memory as to deny the woman,
and she smiled indulgently. "Such a simple thing, just your name,
and you get a reward. I can move the bed to a more comfortable position.
All you have to do is tell me your name."
Another voice saying that same thing, over and over, promising him an end
to the pain if he just told them who he was, slipping into unconsciousness
only to be brought back again and again, no escape...
"Madeline--" The blond woman took a step forward and the woman
she'd called Madeline raised a hand to stop her, not even glancing in her
direction, brown eyes focused on Michael, hard now.
"Your name." she said in a steely tone.
Now and then blurred, blended, the memory of pain and exhaustion suddenly
sharp and fresh, and he swallowed hard, turning his head away and saying
in a monotone, "Michael."
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" A brush of fingers across his
cheek and he jerked back, hissing between clenched teeth, "Don't touch
me!" Heart hammering in his chest, remembering another woman touching
him like that in the midst of the torture, remembering the hatred he had
felt to that woman, to pretend to be someone else...
Madeline drew her hand back, her eyes compassionate as she said softly,
"I'm sorry." Reaching down she picked up the control for the
bed and raised it to so that he was sitting upright. "Better?"
He turned his head away, hating himself for the weakness, for giving in.
It wouldn't stop here, he knew that, this was only the beginning and when
he no longer cooperated they would take him from this room and to another
room, where the methods they applied would be less cordial...
Stop it, said that small voice sharply. They're not going to hurt you,
they're trying to help you. But as much as he might want to believe that,
he couldn't, he knew what the Section did to the members of the Legion
they managed to capture.
"I want to show you some pictures. Just pictures, Michael." Madeline
reached down to pick up a briefcase and set it down on the bed, opening
it to remove a manilla folder. From the folder she extracted a photo and
turned it so that he could see it, watching him over the photo as he focused
on it. "Do you know who these people with you are?"
Himself in a dark suit and beside him Simone, wearing an ivory dress, his
arm around her waist and his other arm around the shoulders of a blond-haired
man, all three smiling into the camera. Frowning he studied the picture,
trying to determine why it was familiar, and flashed to a warehouse three
weeks ago, this man on his knees before him, Simone telling him that he
was a Section assassin, responsible for killing several Legion members.
The gun in his hand and Simone telling him to shoot the man, the man looking
up at him with shock and disbelief, saying his name even as he raised the
gun to shoot him in the head.
Seemingly unaware of his confusion, Madeline turned the picture and put
her finger on the photo. "This is Simone, your late wife, and this
is Dylan. He was your best man at your wedding."
"That's not real--" he started to say, shaking his head.
Madeline overrode him. "You and Dylan were recruited into the Section
about the same time, you trained together, you went on missions together.
You were friends. You married Simone five years ago and she died last year."
"No, she's not dead, she's alive--" The blond woman had moved
closer to the bed and Michael glanced at her involuntarily, the dream coming
back to him in terrible clarity--someone shaking his shoulder, turning
to see this woman behind him, urging him to come with her, physically pulling
him away from the door and Simone on the other side... "It's a lie."
"What they've told you is a lie, Michael. They took everything from
you--your past, who you are--and made you into one of them."
Lying here in the bed he could remember waking up to see Simone over him,
the confusion of those first few days, no memory of what had happened or
who he was. All he had was what they had told him and it was all he had
to hold to now. "I don't believe you." he said flatly. "Pictures
can be faked."
For a long moment Madeline looked down at him and he held her gaze, finding
at last that core of ice that had gotten him through the missions, enabled
him to do what he had to do. Madeline smiled slightly and said, "We'll
talk again, when you're feeling more...cooperative." Turning to the
bedside table she picked up a black case and unzipped it, withdrawing a
syringe and holding it between two fingers as she bent over his arm.
"No--" He jerked at the cuff, lunging forward, and Madeline stepped
smoothly back, eyes flicking to the other woman.
"Nikita."
With obvious reluctance Nikita came forward and brought out a gun, leaning
over the bed to press the muzzle under his chin and forcing his head back.
"Hold still." she said harshly. He closed his eyes against the
sting of the needle and once it was done, the gun was removed, voices faint
in the background, fading out as he lost consciousness.
"What are you doing, Madeline?" It took an effort for Nikita
to rein in her temper but the anger was evident in her stance and the set
of her chin.
"Trying to shock him out of this identity they've built for him. This
is going to be an ugly process, Nikita, you know that. And your part in
this is next." Madeline turned her attention from Michael to Nikita,
replacing the syringe. "As harsh as this might seem to you, believe
me when I tell you that what he endured at the hands of the Legion was
even more harsh." She had become an expert at gauging reactions and
determining how far someone could be pushed before they broke, knew when
to push past that point and when to stop. And as strong as Michael was,
even he hadn't been able to withstand the torture. She could almost admire
whoever it had been that had done this, they had taken him past the breaking
point and then rebuilt him.
"Then I want him out of the restraints." Madeline looked at her
with lifted eyebrows and Nikita folded her arms over her chest. "He's
not going to trust me if I have him tied to the bed."
"Very well. Bishop will take him to another room for you." Nikita
blinked, a little surprised that she acquiesced so easily, and Madeline
gave her a cool smile. "Just remember our time table. We have six
days left." She walked to the door and Nikita looked down at Michael,
a hand going to his forehead to push hair out of his eyes. "And, Nikita--"
Lifting her head she saw Madeline still standing in the doorway, one hand
on the edge of the door, all softness gone. "I was able to convince
Operations to give us the time to turn Michael on one condition--that you
will be the one to cancel him if he can't be brought back."
And then she was gone, leaving Nikita to stare after her in complete disbelief.
End of Part 2
Go to Chapter 3
Go back to Chapter 1