by Katie Vack
"What are you going to do?"
"You'll see. Just stay there."
Grayson still wasn't sure whether he trusted the doctor. He seemed like a decent sort of person, if hyperactive and irritatingly blunt, and the man had no reason to wish him harm, but then that wasn't what he was worried about. After all, this was the same man who'd thought that electrocuting him was the best way to put him to sleep- it was far more likely that Frankenstein would end up killing or maiming him purely by accident.
Then there was the unpromising question of why exactly he had locked Grayson in a cage and himself in a concrete bunker. It was a square box of a thing, and the doctor couldn't have spread his arms without touching the walls, and all it seemed to contain was a large flashing control board that could just be made out through the reinforced window. A thousand different coloured lights seemed to be flashing entirely at random, but the doctor seemed to know what he was doing and his hands were a blur as they danced across the board. He was still smoking his two cigarettes, and the bunker was slowly but surely fogging up with the choking cloud.
"Excellent," the doctor grinned, "everything is set."
"Then could you kindly tell me exactly why I'm here?"
"Haven't I done that already?"
Grayson stifled an exasperated sigh. "No."
"Oh, okay then. You're here so I can boost your powers."
"Yes, but how are you going to do that?"
"Ah, that. Well, just stand there in the middle, because it's about to begin."
Grayson stood there with his arms crossed before his chest, feet spread and head set. "What is?"
The man casually thumbed a button. "This."
Every muscle in the lumin's body suddenly snapped taught, hijacked by an immense bolt of electricity. His jaw clamped shut, slicing off the tip of his tongue, and he cried out in wordless agony. He was flung against the bars only to be thrown away, skin blistering, into the other wall, to be struck again and end up face down in the dirt.
Little arcs of electricity played across his prone form, blood leaking from his mouth and pooling on the floor. His clothes were blackened and smouldering, and his hair was standing on end like a frightened cat. He coughed weakly, scrambled brain struggling to form a coherent sentence. "What... the hell... was that?"
The doctor burst into laughter. "Oh, god, that was just too good! That was... that was..." he doubled over, clutching his stomach as tears of merriment blossomed from his eyes.
Grayson struggled back onto one knee. Shadows began to play across his fingers as the fires of hatred burned within his eyes. His voice was quiet, calm, expressing a terrifying level of threat. "Did you find that funny?"
"Are you kidding? It was hilarious!"
Grayson straightened, rising to his feet, injuries forgotten. "I'm glad you found so much entertainment in that. Now let me out of this cage before I break it into little pieces."
All merriment left the doctor's face and he moved back to the window. "No, please, don't do that. I don't want another broken piece of equipment on my hands. Just stay where you are."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because, after all, you were the one who agreed to this."
"I agreed to you boosting my powers; not to you electrocuting me for whatever sick reason you have."
"Electrocute?" The man's eyes widened. "I'd never do that. If I electrocuted you, I'd have no-one to work on. It would be extremely counterproductive."
"Then what?"
"I shocked you. If I'd electrocuted you, you'd be dead. Besides, you're missing the point."
"Which is?"
"How would you break out of that cage?"
"With my shadows, of course."
"But weren't those locked down?"
Grayson stopped. Realisation finally began to dawn on him. He hadn't even noticed the transition, and yet somehow he had broken the temporary lockdown. "What did you do?"
"Me? All I did was make you angry. Keeping you unaware of all this, then hitting you with that kind of current out of the blue, then laughing at your pain- all I really needed to do was get you angry, then see whether you had the strength to break through the lock.
"Think of the dampener in that cage as a set of irons. It works up to low level fourth ranks, meaning that it's completely effective up to people slightly weaker than you. You're just out of that bracket, so it doesn't block your powers completely but simply reduces them by a great degree. By seeing how much effort it took you to break the shackles I was able to gauge how strong you are at your current level, and by assessing the damage from the electricity I was able to gauge just how durable you are."
"You mean all that was just to see how good I was?" The shadows faded from Grayson's hands and the look of hatred slowly drained from his eyes. "That was a hell of a twisted way to test that out. You know you could have just asked me?"
"I needed an accurate starting point. Now I know what level to start at, and I know just how far I'm able to push you without damaging you too much."
Grayson frowned suspiciously at the selection of words. "Too much?"
"Of course. This is a very intensive programme I'm running- if it wasn't, we couldn't accomplish much in the short time we have."
Grayson considered that for a moment before shrugging. "Okay, then. So will you let me out of here now?"
The doctor shook his head. "Don't mistake me, Grayson. If you think I have something else for you, you're mistaken. This is then training programme."
"Then..."
"The cage bars are electrified. Two hundred and fifty volts, ten amps. I would recommend that you try to avoid them. I'm going to hit you with more electricity, three hundred volts and fifteen amps. Lethal for most beings. For you, we're probably looking at burns and a lot of pain, plus the possibility of unconsciousness. I'd prefer it if you avoided that."
"Hold on a second-"
"As you become accustomed to this, we're going to increase the energy you have to withstand. Your powers are going to scale with this, and with luck we can get you into a decent state by the end of the week. Questions?"
"Are we really going to do this again?"
"There is no again. This time you are expecting it, and you have your shadows. I'd like to know which proves greater- the strength you draw from the current, or the damage your body takes doing so."
"So this is all about learning to absorb more energy?"
"Exactly. Can we begin?"
Grayson thought about that for a moment, looking up at the stone ceiling above. Could the rest of the group hear his screams? Hopefully not. With luck they wouldn't notice a thing. It would definitely make his life easier if they weren't aware of his pain. "Two more questions."
"What?"
"Is this room soundproofed? I'd rather the rest of the group weren't constantly hearing my screams."
"Of course it is. You aren't the first person I've put in this chamber."
"Good." He planted his feet, taking off his cloak and throwing it through the bars to safety before crossing his arms before his chest, shadows playing across his half-clenched fists. "One last question. What do you recommend I do?"
"Right now? Do try and remain upright."
There was a crack of lightning. There were the screams of agony. The cycle began.
* * *
"So," Thief was telling the somewhat distracted Grayson as they left the confines of the city for the open countryside, "the mechanics may be complicated as hell, but the actual practice of riding is fairly simple. Sunrise is configured to respond to voice, fingerprints, and of course this set of keys. Basically, it means that even if you lose the keys, and have your hands cut off or your tongue pulled out, you can still use her."
"Right." Grayson really wasn't sure what to say to that. With Thief it was often hard to work out whether he was being serious or having a joke, and in this situation one was paranoid and the other demented.
"I'll have her configured to respond to your voice. If nothing
else, it's a lot easier to talk during a battle than it is to fish out some keys, slot them in and twist. That's basically common sense.
"Now, say you've turned her on and you want to move. Acceleration is controlled by the right handlebar, which turns in degrees- one degree for one mile an hour. You'll feel it clicking as you turn it."
"In degrees?"
"Turn it halfway and you get half speed. All the way and you get top speed. Not at all and you get nothing. Then, obviously, there's everything in between. However, it's also locked in stages. The first stage is at one hundred miles per hour, the second at one seventy-five, the third at two fifty. The first stage is to avoid trouble with the authorities on busy roads, the second is for use in combat situations or open spaces, and the third is for when hell really breaks loose and you have no other choice." The bike began to move off down the gravel road, Thief in control and Grayson sitting behind. "The fourth stage isn't just dangerous for you, every second you use it for you're damaging the bike. I never really expected to use it, you see; it was just a cool thing to have.
"So, there are three locks on acceleration, and if you don't flick these," he gestured towards a trio of red switches on a paddle just beyond the handlebar, "you won't be able to turn the handle any further than the stages top speed. Then, if you want to stop you have two options. Either you can twist the handle back towards you, and the bike will respond to your control and slow gradually, or you can press this," he tapped a blue button protected in a little plastic box, "and the bike will automatically come to a controlled stop in the minimum time possible. The onboard computer will make sure you don't flip, but you'll still have to brace yourself or be flung over the handlebars. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're going to do something like hit a wall head on. In which case," his eyes narrowed dangerously behind his sunglasses, "the injuries you get from crashing will be the least of your problems.
"On a manual vehicle there'd be a lot more to it than that, and how well she ran would depend upon your skill, but since I'm the one to have configured her she already has the perfect balance of power and reliability. Steering is fairly simple, you just move the handlebars in the direction you want to turn and lean the bike a little over that way. That basically comes down to practice- when you've spent enough time on it you won't even have to think about it. That's basically it for the driving."
"Then what," Grayson pointed towards a dozen knobs and switches on a paddle by the left handlebar, "do all of those do?"
"Oh, those." Thief grinned. "I'd almost forgotten about those. Those ones control the music." He flipped a switch and the sound of an electric guitar began to shriek out, deafeningly loud. "I'll set all of that up for you. Good music will improve pretty much anything in life, and riding a motorbike is no exception."
"So," Grayson asked, exasperated at the all too predictable turn of events, "what else do I need to know?" It wasn't really that he disliked the boy's music so much as the fanatical way in which he listened to it.
"Not much. No, wait, you should probably know that it's hydrogen powered. There's a tank full of liquid hydrogen right beneath your balls."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning try not to go near any plasma weapons, or bullets, or infernians, or... well, anything hot."
"Because?"
"Because kaboom would be an understatement. You and your girlfriend would be a nice fine mist. There probably wouldn't be anything of you to recover, and then I'd have to kill myself to hunt you down in the next life."
Grayson choked. "Girlfriend?"
Thief laughed. "That's right. Sora. I've seen you looking at her."
"If you've seen me looking at her, that's probably because I'm trying to predict what exactly she's going to next."
"And that isn't romantic?"
"No, it isn't. It means she's vicious and erratic, and it's hard as hell to deal with her as a partner."
"And you don't like strong women?"
"No, I- yes, but- oh for gods' sakes, that's not the issue here. Didn't you see how much pleasure she took in hurting me after the fight with Crayton?"
"So she's a fellow 'monster'? Doesn't that make you a match?"
"Firstly," Grayson struggled to maintain his calm, "don't ever call me that again. Secondly, no. She can be as beautiful as she wants, but that doesn't mean I'll overlook her sadism."
"So you'd call her beautiful?"
"No, I'd- oh bloody hell, could you just give this up and stop trying to trap me? Yes, she's beautiful. No, that doesn't mean I hold any romantic feelings towards her. You don't know what she's really like, how it is to have her as a partner. She's already tried to kill me, and we've been together for less than a fortnight."
"Apparently, she didn't try very hard."
"Could you please just give it up already? The fact that we're partners means nothing more than us fighting together- it wasn't even me who picked the pairings- and I'm sick of this conversation already."
"Fine. But don't say I didn't call it." The two of them dropped into a resentful silence, and the rest of the day was spent in a sullen standoff.
* * *
The days passed, and Grayson found himself trapped in a sense of mental and physical exhaustion. He was up at dawn, forcing himself down into the subterranean basement for his torture at the hands of the mad doctor, to spend four hours screaming in a cage before he moved onto the motorbike. It wasn't easy, and he could barely stand it, but at the very least he could stay on his feet. It wasn't quite so bad- the shocks were a registered ordeal that he could cope with, not just an unseen agony forced upon him, which in his books was slightly superior.
After the session with the doctor, Grayson would spend the next eight hours clinging onto a shrieking motorbike for dear life, half thrilled and half terrified. Steering was, as Thief had told him, a lot easier than it had sounded at first, as was balancing on only two wheels. He had made great progress, although whether he was quite up to the task at hand was still up in the air. The time was split half between driving at speed, in which he was essentially given a straight stretch of road and told to go fast, and technical skills, in which they went off-road and he had to manoeuvre through a dense forest. Neither of them was easy, but the fact that he could cope with it he thought must count for something.
After toying around with the mutant's death trap, it was back to the hospital for another four hours of electrical treatment. He wasn't quite sure whether it was worse to do it in the morning when had had just risen, or in the evening when he wanted nothing more than a bed. His body was a mass of aches, pains, and first degree burns. Meals consisted of whatever food he could snatch up in the infrequent breaks he clawed at like a drowning man to a lifeboat. Sleep, after trying futilely to ignore the pain and switch off, boiled down to a few hours tossing around in bed before waking sweating in the early hours of the morning. Thief and Frankenstein seemed happy with his progress, but he himself was too worn down to care either way. Over the period of his training, he barely even saw the rest of the group, which he decided was a small consolation.
He padded barefoot down the cold stone stairs on the fifth day, little more than an overly aware sleepwalker, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The doctor greeted him excitedly as he walked into the room, far too cheerfully for such an ungodly hour. The man, Grayson had observed, really didn't appear to sleep- or if he did, it wasn't when any of them could pick up on it. Grayson dumped his cloak on the floor, walking into the cage in his trousers and shirt. He struggled to form a sentence, an act which had never been easy in an early morning and was even harder for the accumulation. "Let's go."
"Certainly." The doctor strode forward, shutting the door and locking it. Grayson had often wondered as to the purpose of locking him in, but never really summoned the effort to ask about it. It was probably one of the man's idiosyncrasies.
Frankenstein walked over to the bunker, shutting himself in as the smoke began to build up. He had definitely been increasing the power every session, and
Grayson was beginning to understand the necessity of the safe room. He could imagine this eventually reaching the level of a thunderstorm, although what freak of nature could stand here under such conditions was unknown to him. An eighth or ninth rank, at least.
He was roused from his musings when a bolt of electricity hammered into him. He stumbled, taking a step backwards and gritting his teeth against the cry that hung at the back of his throat. The current coursed through his body, arcing across in a network of spider webs. That was it. Now he was awake. The last vestiges of the energy fled him and he forced a smirk through his clamped jaws. As much as he hated the pain, so too did he welcome it. Pain was good. It meant something was happening.
