He’s going to need a minute. He’s probably going to need a lot of minutes, actually.
He suspects that minutes are in short supply.
Cain is incapacitated…for now. Huxley has sent a note round to the guards saying that he fetched Jules out of solitary himself because he needed her for the next part of the experiment, which has enough truth in it that he could say it with a straight face and, honestly, he doesn’t care about lying to them.
Funny how that happened. Somewhere along the lines, lying to his patients became an impossibility, while lying to the other staff members became a necessity.
Anyway. There’s work that has to be done, but Huxley honestly has no idea what work that is. He also doesn’t know how long they have. Cain implied that a Gesia representative is on the way, and Huxley has no idea what they’ll do when they get here. If they’ll take his research, or…or worse. Cain probably wouldn’t tell him even if he was conscious. It doesn’t matter. He can’t lose anything connected to this project.
He can’t lose…
Huxley tightens his grip on his recorder and moves out of the main room, into the smaller room where one of his two…no. Technically he has no patients, however much he tried to convince himself that’s what they were. He has, had, one test subject and one assistant-slash-betrayer. Now he has two unconscious bodies and a radio that’s been silent for hours. Or maybe it just feels like hours.
Jules is standing guard over Cain’s body in the other room. Huxley can’t see them from in here. He shuts the door behind himself and approaches.
Vic looks like he’s sleeping, except for the electrodes stuck to his head and the IV line in their arm. The first thing Huxley did, once he and Jules were sure Cain couldn’t get up and do anything, was take the restraints off Vic and add them to the ones on Cain’s chair. He tells himself it’s the sensible thing to do; Cain is demonstrably the more dangerous of the two and Vic has proven over and over again that they’re not going to run off. And it is, but at the same time…if he’s being honest, Huxley just wanted the restraints off of Vic. It feels too much like he’s torturing them.
Torture, despite what some people might think, has never been Huxley’s thing. Especially not now.
He touches Vic’s face tentatively. He pretends it’s to check his pulse, even though that’s a demonstrably bad way to check someone’s pulse. There’s nobody to see, anyway, nobody to judge him for it…well, except himself. He can’t even explain it to himself. It’s just a thing he needs to do.
With a soft sigh, he sits down next to Vic and sets down his recorder. Logically, he should do this in his office, but…doing it here feels right.
“Progress update on Project #M1324,” he begins, once the recorder is running, then sighs heavily. “Actually, I’m not sure I should technically consider this progress, or part of the project. At least…not the project I started.”
He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves and tries to speak calmly. “Dr. Warren Cain, my…assistant, turned out to have been secretly working for Gesia. His suggestion that he take over for Ms. Kroeber was apparently about gaining control of the experiment and using it to further his own aims. His modifications to the machines controlling the project, which were outside the scope of my own technical knowledge to begin with, are at a level of extreme that I cannot comprehend or untangle, but whatever he has done has bound him and Mx. Algernon together.
“We—I don’t know that I would have been able to do anything if Jules hadn’t come into my lab when she did, with the information she had. I owe her a debt…as well as Mx. Highsmith, I suppose, since they were the one who—obtained—Dr. Cain’s recorder in the first place. At any rate, it did at least enable us to distract him long enough for…whatever Mx. Algernon did. I don’t have enough data to fully comprehend what that was, but I am sure that it was something Vic did that got Cain in his present state.
“Frankly, I’m not interested in collecting that data right now. I—I should be more concerned about the project, as the work is…vitally important, but at the moment, my concern is for Vic. Dr. Cain intimated that, whatever he has done to the machine, he and Vic are now inexorably connected. His…phrasing…leads me to believe that the consequences of separating them without an understanding of the device could be fatal, to Vic at least, and that is something I cannot risk. I am not without hope that, perhaps with Jules’ assistance, we might be able to figure it out and be able to safely disconnect him, but for now, he remains trapped.”
Huxley pauses for a moment, studying Vic’s slack face, watching the steady rise and fall of their chest as he, thankfully, continues to breathe. He swallows hard before continuing, having to fight much harder to keep his voice steady. “I take full responsibility for what happened. I should have asked more questions, should have listened to my own instincts about my concerns, but I was too focused on the work. I thought my unease was simply over switching subjects mid-experiment, but looking back, I’m wondering if there were signs I might have missed.”
“Gotcha Street.”
Huxley almost jumps out of his skin at the unexpected voice. It’s crackly and faint, and it’s coming from the radio. He decides to blame the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat on having been startled. “Vic? Vic, is that you? Can you hear me?” He twists the volume dial, turning it up as loud as he can.
“Yeah, just.” Vic’s voice sounds like they’re struggling to talk, like they’re in pain or…Huxley can’t let himself think about that. “Little hard to make you out at first, but…yeah, I hear you.”
“Are you—” Huxley stops himself from asking Are you okay? Of course he’s not. What a stupid question. He clears his throat. “Where are you?”
“Sitting inside the restaurant. Or what he said was the restaurant, anyway.” Vic sighs in a rush of static. “Might not be a real place, except in his mind. Real or not, though, the place is closed. Locked up tight. Trust me, I tried the door already. I’m stuck in here.”
“Can you describe it for me?” Huxley asks, then curses internally. He doesn’t want to treat this like an extension of the project, but it seems to be where he’s defaulting and he hates himself a little bit for it.
Before he can apologize, though, Vic says, “I mean, it’s a burger restaurant. Looks like every roadside diner I’ve ever been in. Booths with cushioned backs, tables with metal edges and fake-wood tops, a long counter with stools in front of it. There ought to be windows, you know, those big picture windows you can sit at and see the street outside? They’re boarded up, though. I poked around the kitchen for a little bit. There’s…food? I guess? Don’t know if I can eat it. I haven’t tried.”
“So where are you now?”
“One of the booths. The one in the back corner, by the door to the bathrooms. It’s kind of where I always sit at places like this if I have a choice.” Vic is silent for a moment. “There was a radio on the counter. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but…you know, there’s a jukebox, too, one of those old-fashioned ones? It kind of made me think. So I grabbed it and started fiddling with it, and…then I could hear you.”
Huxley isn’t sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or not. “That’s good. I suppose if this was truly an anchor to begin with, then…Dr. Cain’s memory must have put something there to keep in touch.”
“That’s just it, Doc. It wasn’t there at first. I went over this whole damn restaurant twice when I got inside it, and it wasn’t there. Not until I heard what I thought was you talking and was getting frustrated I couldn’t make out what you were saying. I was wandering around trying to hear better and happened to spot it by the register.”
There are some fascinating implications for the project there, and about Vic’s abilities, but Huxley doesn’t bring them up. “How much did you hear?”
“Just you blaming yourself.” Vic’s voice softens. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have. And I should never have put you in this situation.”
“Hey, I said I was okay with it. You gave me the choice, remember?” Vic pauses. “Or did you? He said you were giving me a choice, but…not sure how much I believe anything out of his mouth anymore.”
Huxley nods before remembering Vic can’t see him. “Yes, I told him he had to get your permission before he could join the project as a subject.”
“Out of curiosity, what would you have done if I’d said no?”
“I don’t know,” Huxley admits. “I was genuinely trying to figure out how to continue without Jules, but I wasn’t going to risk her, or you. I was…if I’m being honest, I was afraid of something exactly like this happening.”
“I assume you mean one of us being trapped in the other’s head and not that you thought Jules was going to be secretly masterminding some horrible plot,” Vic says with what Huxley is finally, finally getting to realize is dry humor. “Can I be honest?”
“Please.”
“I was thinking about—if Jules had kept going with the project, if we’d tried it again? I was going to…I don’t know, see if I could help her build some fences or walls or something in her mind. Something to keep people away from the memories she didn’t want people looking at. I know that’s probably the opposite of what you’re looking for, but I figured you’d maybe think it was kind of interesting. And if someone less ethical than you started wading through her brain, it’d maybe make her feel better, you know?” Vic sighs again. “I don’t even know if it’s possible, but I was going to try.”
Huxley has to try twice before he can reply. “I think if anyone could have done it, it would be you. If I had known that…I might have been able to convince her to stay with the project.”
“Don’t tell her, okay? She’d either blame herself or think you were blaming her, and that won’t help you guys get me out of here.” Vic chuckles, but it sounds almost desperate. “I don’t really want to be stuck in Warren Cain’s Mind Prison for the rest of my life.”
“You won’t be,” Huxley promises. He can hear the desperation in his own voice. “We’re going to get you out of there.”
“I trust you, Huxley. If anyone can get me out of this, it’s you.”
Huxley gives a small, humorless laugh. “You told Jules I couldn’t do it on my own.”
There’s a long silence, and at first Huxley worries that he’s lost the connection, but then Vic says, very softly, “You need someone to help you, but not because you’re not capable of doing it yourself. Because you need someone to distract you when you start blaming yourself for what went wrong. If you didn’t have someone there helping you do it, you’d be working yourself into a fit believing someone was going to come take it all away from you before you had a chance to fix it. Am I right?”
The analysis almost takes Huxley’s breath away, because it’s spot-on. “Are you reading my mind, Vic?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Well, you’ve accurately assessed my character twice now, so I had to ask.”
“Maybe I just know you.”
Strangely, that thought isn’t unwelcome.
Huxley swallows and changes the subject. “What was it you were saying when you first came through?”
“Huh? Oh. Gotcha Street.” Vic snorts. “I doubt that’s a real street, you know? In Jersey or otherwise. I should’ve figured out then something was up.”
Dread washes through Huxley. “You think…he faked that?”
“I think the whole thing was staged, Huxley. I don’t know if this hamburger restaurant of his actually ever existed or he just made it up, or if any of these streets are real.” Vic draws in a breath, like something just occurred to him. “Actually, no. That’s not it. They’re…it’s all real and not real at the same time.”
“What do you mean?” Huxley asks, frowning.
“I don’t know if I can explain it,” Vic says. “It’s like…I think there was a hamburger restaurant he used to go to with his dad. Might’ve even had the same name as this one I’m in. But I don’t think it looked like this. I think he deliberately forced the name, the…feelings, maybe…onto something else. I told you this looks like every diner I’ve ever been in? It looks like something out of a movie or a TV show. Like a Hollywood set. The streets kinda did, too. I said it looked like a financial district? It honestly looked like one of those exterior shots from a film meant to show ‘this is the big city’. I think he was trying to keep me from getting a good idea of what his memories were actually like, so he glitzed them up a little. I mean, you heard him say he ‘tried to clean up for me’. I think that’s kind of what he did. Deliberately or not, he set up his memories to look…perfect.”
Huxley blinks. “I…I didn’t know that was possible, but then again, we’ve gone well beyond the realm of possibility here.”
Vic laughs. “So you’ve mentioned. Look, remember the first time I went walking through my memories, when I told you about jumping off the roof and how it seemed so much higher when I was a kid than it actually was? Sometimes that’s how it works. You remember stuff being a certain way, and then when you go back to it later you realize it’s just because your perspective as a kid was different, or that your mind’s tried to make it fit into the world you know or something like that. Maybe Cain really wants his past to have been Hollywood perfect, so his memories adapted to look that way when they’re really dustier or more crumbled or whatever. Or maybe he just forced them to look like how he thinks I expected them to look so I wouldn’t get suspicious that all his memories had a Jersey flavor when he told us all he was from the Midwest.”
Huxley sighs heavily. “Which do you think?”
Vic is silent for a moment. “I think he forced it.”
“So do I. I only wish I’d been able to see it sooner.”
“Well, I mean, you’re not in here. You only had what he and I told you to go on.”
“I should have been the one to go under,” Huxley says softly. “Despite what he said about his inability to read a brain scan. I should have insisted on trying it myself rather than letting him do it. I could have read the scans later. It would have been safer.”
“And what if he’d trapped you in here, too?” Vic points out. “We’d have had no chance. He’d be sitting there keeping us both under while he waited for someone from Gesia to show up while we were frantically clawing at the inside of your brain trying to get out. Besides. Are you really ready for me to see what’s in your head?”
“If there’s anyone I trust to see it, it’s you.” The words slip out before Huxley can stop them. He wants to qualify them, wants to say that so much of his life is an open book anyway that it doesn’t matter, wants to in some way justify this decision.
He doesn’t.
“I hope you know I wouldn’t do this for anyone else,” Vic says. “I know I said my mind’s not that interesting, but…there’s still stuff I don’t want people poking around in. Most people.”
“I know. There was a memory you shut us out of the first time, which I don’t blame you for,” Huxley adds hastily.
“Yeah, I—wasn’t ready for you to see that one. Well. More I wasn’t ready for Cain to see that one, I guess. You I don’t mind so much.” Vic pauses. “I can tell you about it. If you want.”
“Later,” Huxley says. “Once we’ve got you back. We can talk about it then.”
Vic is silent for a moment. “Will you let me talk about it while I’m still in here? If I ask you?”
Huxley doesn’t understand why Vic is asking, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Of course. Why?”
“Because…I’m worried. We’re—you’re still figuring out how this works and all, and I know this wasn’t part of the plan. I guess I’m worried that the longer I’m in here, the more trapped I am in Cain’s fake memory—or maybe it’s real, I don’t know—the more I’ll forget…me. So maybe it won’t be that, but…at some point, if I can get hold of you, I might try and share one of my memories with you. Just so that I can hang onto them. You don’t gotta listen or anything.”
Panic grips Huxley. He genuinely hadn’t considered that as a possibility, but now that Vic has mentioned it, he can’t stop the thought from clawing at him. How long will it take? Will the lack of access to his own brain, to his own memories, slowly choke Vic off from them? Will he become absorbed in Cain’s memories? If they take too long, will there be anything left to bring back?
“Hey, I can hear you freaking out over there,” Vic says, recalling Huxley to himself. “Calm down, Aster. I trust you. It won’t get that bad. You’ll…you’ll be able to get me out before I lose myself completely.”
“I will. We will,” Huxley says with all the force he can muster. He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t consider all the variables before I agreed to this.”
“This feels like a pretty random variable to me.”
“I suppose you’re right. Still. If I resume this project in any capacity after this is over, it’s going to be with a lot more safeguards in place. I can’t go through this again.”
It’s an unusually vulnerable confession, for Huxley. He’s aware, even though he’s not sure Vic is, that by this he doesn’t just mean the disruption to the experiment. That’s barely a consideration right now. But sitting here at Vic’s side, talking to them even though they aren’t conscious…that’s hard. That’s almost impossible.
Huxley wonders how things could have been if they’d met in other circumstances. They likely wouldn’t have met in other circumstances, all things considered, but if they had…maybe they could have truly been friends. He’s been trying very hard not to think of Vic like that; they aren’t friends, the power imbalance is too obvious, and Huxley honestly doesn’t deserve a friend like Vic. But there’s a small, secret part of him that desperately wants to.
“Huxley? Doc?” Vic’s voice sounds far away, crackly with static, and there’s a little bit of a panicked edge to it. “The power’s flickering in here. I don’t—the radio plugs in. I didn’t notice that before. I think it takes batteries, but—don’t know—any in—”
“Vic!” Huxley grabs at the radio, desperately twisting the volume knob despite knowing that’s not what the issue is. “Vic, hold on, don’t—”
Don’t what? Huxley’s mind taunts him. He doesn’t have an answer for it.
“Trying to—stay—” Static almost drowns out Vic’s voice for a moment. Suddenly, their voice breaks through loud and clear. “Let me find the batteries. I’ll make ‘em if I have to. I’ll be back, Aster.”
Huxley grips the radio tightly with one hand. With the other, not even thinking about it, he reaches out and covers Vic’s hand gently. He knows he’s about to lose the signal, but he holds onto the idea that hearing is the last sense to go and brings the radio close to his lips, to be sure his words are heard.
“I’ll be here, Vic,” he promises with everything he has in him. “I’m here.”