Phil will never know that these are recordings being played for him. He'll never know if they were genuine. Because it's the not knowing that will truly break him. A man like Phil has played on so many levels of the board that any one single approach won't do it. But Number 2 is betting this will.
"I want you to obey me, Number 0202."
By hook or by crook, he will.
They have techniques a James Bond village could only dream of. Speaking of dreams. Phil is going to be having a lot of them.
The room fills with gas, though the only way Phil will know is because his hearing is excellent enough to hear it hissing into the room through the vent. It's otherwise odorless and invisible. The heaviness of a sedative comes over him again. He only just woke and they are putting him right back under. This time, they'll hook him up to wires and IVs, pump him full of drugs in one arm and life-giving nutrients in the other. On his head, they place an apparatus that will directly influence his thoughts.
Through a chemical and mechanical combination, they will keep him in a state of lucid dreaming for an untold amount of time, looping him through familiar memories over and over. They'll talk to him there, make him answer until the veil between reality and dreaming becomes so thin he can barely tell which is which.
Eventually, they get him under their thumb. Or, so they thought. And yet, here he is back again. He broke his programming. They'll have to try harder this time.
---
"You had a job to do, 0202. I'm very disappointed. You were supposed to bring her to me in the Green Dome. You knew exactly what I meant and yet I found you outside my personal residence window breaking into my home instead."
He plays a new recording of Darcy screaming. Someone with an ear like Phil's should be able to tell he hasn't heard quite this pitch and tone before. It's far more desperate. It leaves far less doubt that it might just be real.
"When you first arrived, I toyed with the idea of removing those wings of yours, but I thought you would be a responsible enough man not to warrant such a thing. I'm sad to see I was mistaken."
Every day for thirty-eighty-one hundred years, everyone acted like they never met him before. Everyone forgot everything he'd ever done. Even the universe did. Decades of fixing the same broken coffee machine, of the same greeting from the same people in the same bread and breakfast, acting like they've never heard the forecast before, like he's never done the same segment before, like he's never punched them before, like he's never robbed the payroll or drank their coffee from the pot or taken a music lesson or gotten wasted in their bar before. Like he's never dropped off their highest rooftop before.
When you have nothing to show for entire decades of your life spent inside the impossible, you learn to bank on taking whatever is in front of you as real. Either nothing is real or everything is real. What else can you do?
Like a hiker from a cliff, Phil's mind slips, and he plummets into the fog.
---
Any protest he has, about you know what she's like, she wouldn't have just gone inside, I had to make it look like that dies in his throat as soon as he hears her screaming. The first time it turned out that she'd been fine. (Or she was doing a very good job acting like she was. This is--he watched them inject her. He watched them take her away. He can't stomach even the risk that this might be fake.
"Stop it!" he shrieks, because what else can he do? "Don't fucking touch her! Look at me, Two, you--you don't know what you're doing. You will die." Someone somehow is going to murder him if this is what he's so casually willing to do. Someone has to.
"Come here. Come here!" And Phil leaps up, wings spread, swinging for the speaker in the ceiling.
"0202!" Number 2 shouts over the loudspeaker. "Come off of it before I decide to clip your wings!" That isn't such a bad idea, now he thinks of it. He won't have any more window visitors that way, will he?
"You want me to come to you? Fine. I'll come."
The lock on Phil's cell door creaks and clanks as the bolt is drawn open. Number 2 appears backlit in the doorway, his dark beard and beady eyes are somehow more menacing in this light.
"What is it you wanted to say to me? Perhaps if you beg me for my mercy on your hands and knees, I will spare her the worst of it."
Phil growls in the back of his throat as Number 2 opens the door. The prospect of his wings getting clipped doesn't scare him; he won't be able to fly, but he lived grounded for much longer than he did flighted, and they'll grow back eventually. There's nobody more patient than him.
He stalks forward, wings half-splayed. "How do I know that? How do I know? Give me proof, you bastard. Prove it to me."
Spare her the worst. Oh, he hates him. He hates him. "The worst." What the hell does he mean, the worst? Only sparing "the worst of it" isn't enough, he needs him to let her go, but he--he knows he'll never do that, and the only bargaining chip he has is his compliance. So... so fine. The worst of it.
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timeasmymeasure
cw: gassing, medical implements for torture
Date: 2024-01-02 01:16 am (UTC)"I want you to obey me, Number 0202."
By hook or by crook, he will.
They have techniques a James Bond village could only dream of. Speaking of dreams. Phil is going to be having a lot of them.
The room fills with gas, though the only way Phil will know is because his hearing is excellent enough to hear it hissing into the room through the vent. It's otherwise odorless and invisible. The heaviness of a sedative comes over him again. He only just woke and they are putting him right back under. This time, they'll hook him up to wires and IVs, pump him full of drugs in one arm and life-giving nutrients in the other. On his head, they place an apparatus that will directly influence his thoughts.
Through a chemical and mechanical combination, they will keep him in a state of lucid dreaming for an untold amount of time, looping him through familiar memories over and over. They'll talk to him there, make him answer until the veil between reality and dreaming becomes so thin he can barely tell which is which.
Eventually, they get him under their thumb. Or, so they thought. And yet, here he is back again. He broke his programming. They'll have to try harder this time.
---
"You had a job to do, 0202. I'm very disappointed. You were supposed to bring her to me in the Green Dome. You knew exactly what I meant and yet I found you outside my personal residence window breaking into my home instead."
He plays a new recording of Darcy screaming. Someone with an ear like Phil's should be able to tell he hasn't heard quite this pitch and tone before. It's far more desperate. It leaves far less doubt that it might just be real.
"When you first arrived, I toyed with the idea of removing those wings of yours, but I thought you would be a responsible enough man not to warrant such a thing. I'm sad to see I was mistaken."
cw suicide mention
Date: 2024-01-08 01:04 am (UTC)When you have nothing to show for entire decades of your life spent inside the impossible, you learn to bank on taking whatever is in front of you as real. Either nothing is real or everything is real. What else can you do?
Like a hiker from a cliff, Phil's mind slips, and he plummets into the fog.
---
Any protest he has, about you know what she's like, she wouldn't have just gone inside, I had to make it look like that dies in his throat as soon as he hears her screaming. The first time it turned out that she'd been fine. (Or she was doing a very good job acting like she was. This is--he watched them inject her. He watched them take her away. He can't stomach even the risk that this might be fake.
"Stop it!" he shrieks, because what else can he do? "Don't fucking touch her! Look at me, Two, you--you don't know what you're doing. You will die." Someone somehow is going to murder him if this is what he's so casually willing to do. Someone has to.
"Come here. Come here!" And Phil leaps up, wings spread, swinging for the speaker in the ceiling.
Re: cw suicide mention
Date: 2024-01-15 03:15 am (UTC)"You want me to come to you? Fine. I'll come."
The lock on Phil's cell door creaks and clanks as the bolt is drawn open. Number 2 appears backlit in the doorway, his dark beard and beady eyes are somehow more menacing in this light.
"What is it you wanted to say to me? Perhaps if you beg me for my mercy on your hands and knees, I will spare her the worst of it."
no subject
Date: 2024-02-26 10:29 pm (UTC)He stalks forward, wings half-splayed. "How do I know that? How do I know? Give me proof, you bastard. Prove it to me."
Spare her the worst. Oh, he hates him. He hates him. "The worst." What the hell does he mean, the worst? Only sparing "the worst of it" isn't enough, he needs him to let her go, but he--he knows he'll never do that, and the only bargaining chip he has is his compliance. So... so fine. The worst of it.