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Milo wakes in a daze of confusion. A familiar feeling, these days. He regularly shoots awake from a nightmare, and takes time to calm down. Often there is someone else in the room with him to comfort him- his family have become unwilling to leave him alone.
But when the cloud of sleep clears, he doesn’t calm down at all. Because he can’t move, which he has felt before and it sends a jolt of panic through him. Something metal is digging into his wrists and ankles, and everything feels sickeningly familiar.
The last thing he can remember… he was walking to meet Melissa and Zack. Alone for once, because his family were all busy and he insisted to his friends that he could walk by himself, that they didn’t need to meet him at his house. ‘I’m fine now, nothing bad is gonna happen’ he had said, and then added ‘Murphy’s Law notwithstanding’ and they had all laughed.
And now he’s been kidnapped again.
Panic is rising so fast it nearly chokes him. They got him again, he is trapped again, what does he do?! He takes a deep breath and forces himself to focus. He is not in the same room, he recognises that immediately. It is still cold and bright, but that other room was bare. This one has lots of counters and cupboards and some strange machinery. Smoke is beginning to pour out of one of the machines already.
He is bound to a chair, again, and he still can’t see the door. He can hear it when it opens though. “Finally, he’s awake!”
He shudders. That is the voice that has haunted him ever since he was first kidnapped. Her voice is grating and painful and makes him want to panic even more, makes him want to struggle and squirm. At the same time, her voice makes him go limp and still, when he knows the consequences of squirming around her. He obeys the latter instinct, although it is less of a choice and more of a reaction.
She steps around to look at him, smiling like a lioness at her prey. “And look at you, you remembered what I taught you! Such a good boy.” She reaches out to ruffle his hair, and although he flinches he lets her do it. She does it so roughly it actually hurts, tugging at his hair a bit. It feels like control, like a reminder. “I can see why Cavendish and Dakota are so protective of you!”
“Why am I here, Sally?” He asks, his voice shaking. He doesn’t even try to hide it. He feels frozen in fear, a panic that he has only ever felt once before. When he was taken the first time.
They promised she would never get him again. They promised, and he knows that it’s one of those promises adults make to comfort you that isn’t really a promise, he knows that they tried their best to fulfil it, but at the moment all he can think is that they broke the promise. And he’s been kidnapped again, and Sally is watching him with such gleeful anticipation that he wants to curl into a ball and disappear.
“Good question, kiddo!” She beams. “And the answer is a bit complicated. It involves politics, and what thirteen year old is interested in that? But the long and short of it is that we fight against B.O.T.T, remember? And we recently developed a new piece of technology to help us do that. And you’re going to help us test it! Isn’t that fun?”
Milo has never heard of anything less fun in his entire life.
“So no… no ransom videos, no demands?” He asks.
“Not this time!”
And strangely, he wants to breathe a sigh of relief. Because at least this time he is the only one who is going to get hurt. Cavendish and Dakota aren’t going to be forced to do anything bad to help him.
Although, his fear spikes when he wonders how exactly he is going to get away, then. If there are no demands for his release, is Sally even planning to release him? Is she just going to keep him here forever, and do whatever she wants to him? Surely he will be rescued, but he can barely breathe imagining what could happen before then.
“Are you gonna let me go, then?” He asks with a tremor in his voice. Sally laughs, that twinkling sort of laugh that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Of course!” She exclaims. “Well, sort of. I may have lied a little bit, there will be a ransom video. But it’s going to be a false ransom video. It’s all part of the testing.”
“What’s the technology?” Milo asks nervously.
“Oh, I’m so glad you asked! It’s genius, really. It’s going to allow us to trick B.O.T.T agents, access their facilities, even force them to fight each other.” She grins, excitement dancing in her eyes. “This technology is going to allow us to control B.O.T.T agents.”
Milo’s eyes widen as he realises what she means. “Like, mind control?”
“Clever boy! Yes, mind control.” She says, and fear pierces right through his heart. “It’s a clever little device that gives us complete control of someone’s body. Of course, that’s the idea. We need to test it before we deploy it on real missions, missions that we can’t risk messing up. And that’s where you come in!”
Oh no, this is definitely worse than being a hostage. Sally having control over his body sounds like his worst nightmare, quite frankly, and the thought of what she could do… he starts squirming in panic.
A hand clamps onto his shoulder, and he jumps because he didn’t even notice Penelope behind him. “Stop squirming.” Comes the simple order, and he does.
But he definitely needs to get out of here before they use that device on him.
The hand is removed and he is pretty sure Penelope walks away, although she walks so quietly he has to strain to hear. He knows for sure when she comes back though, because something nips his neck and he squeaks.
“Penny will handle all of that, she’s much better with this tech stuff than I am.” Sally says to him. “Any more questions, kiddo? Penny will take a while to do it.”
He tries his best to stay still, despite the odd sensation on his neck. “What did you mean by a false ransom video?”
“Well, we are going to deliberately let your friends find you using the video. They’ll be able to figure out where you are, and then they’ll come. And it’s all part of the testing!”
Milo’s stomach squirms with dread. “What does that mean?”
“We need to make sure the device will completely overcome the subject’s free will. Even to the point that they will fight their closest friends.”
Milo’s heart stops. “You’re gonna make me fight my friends?!”
“That is what I said, yes!”
He has a new worst nightmare. Sally puppeting his body to fight his friends, hurt his friends, terrifies him more than anything. He so desperately wants to close his eyes and pretend that this isn’t happening, but if he wants to have any chance of stopping it he needs to stay focused.
At least Cavendish and Dakota are adults, he supposes. They’re much stronger than him, even if he is under Sally’s control they should be able to subdue him fairly easily. This is all going to work out, like it always does. “And then if they beat me, you’ll let me go?”
“Of course! I don’t need a kid hanging around all the time, so if they want you back then they can take you.” Sally chortles. “It’s all going to be ok, kiddo. You have my word.”
The reassurance is something that his friends or family would say, but twisted and wrong in a way that makes his skin crawl. “Cavendish and Dakota will get me.” He says out loud, fixing Sally with the most optimistic look he can muster.
Sally’s laugh is like nails on a chalkboard. “Oh, kiddo! I didn’t mean those friends. I was planning to send the video to that little ginger girl you’re always with.”
Milo stares. He must’ve heard that wrong. “What?”
“Your ginger friend, and that other boy… Melissa and Zack, I believe?” She takes something about of her pocket, and with a jolt Milo realises that it is his own phone. “Yeah, those two. I want it to be a fair fight, after all!”
Panic starts to rise in him, making him squirm. Because he does think Melissa and Zack could beat him in a fight, but it wouldn’t be fair, it wouldn’t be fair for them because they wouldn’t want to hurt him but if they don’t hurt him…
He hears a grumble of annoyance from Penelope as he squirms. Then a sharp stab of pain. “If you keep squirming, I’m going to miss.” She says simply. “And it’s going to hurt.”
So all he can do is sit, helplessly trying to escape as Penelope does who knows what to him. And it hurts, sure, but he can hardly think about that when he is so desperate to avoid what is going to happen if she finishes.
“Aw come on kiddo, don’t look so scared! You trust your friends, right?”
“Of course.” He says immediately. He doesn’t need to lie, that isn’t a lie. He would trust Melissa and Zack with anything, if it was just saving him… but it isn’t just him, is it? They’ll get hurt, he’ll hurt them, he won’t be able to stop it. He frantically fights, if he could just get out of these restraints…
It’s like a bolt of electricity right through him (and he has been struck by lightning twice so he knows what that feels like). He freezes, his muscles tensing up.
And then it floods away and his body practically collapses in his restraints. His head lolls forward, everything feels heavy. He tries to lift his head to look up at Sally, but he can’t. He can’t move anything at all.
They did it. He thinks, horror flooding through him. He tries to struggle, squirm, fight, but he can’t. His body won’t obey his commands at all, and it’s terrifying. He is just frozen, a prisoner in his own body, waiting for Sally to do something.
Sally is speaking over his head to Penelope as she releases his restraints. “Just something simple, at first. Get him to stand up.”
And then he stands up. He tries not to, automatically fighting against a command that doesn’t come from his own brain, but from something else. But he just can’t. He stands up smoothly, arms by his side like a soldier at attention. Sally claps. “Perfect! Just perfect.”
He takes a step forwards, then another step. He marches around the room, one foot in front of the other. This is definitely the strangest sensation he has ever felt, his body acting entirely by itself without any input from him.
Well, not by itself. Penelope is the one controlling him. She has him perform a few more tests, then Sally decides that it is working and it is time to leave.
His body follows Sally at a quick march, while he watches helplessly. Being seemingly free, completely unrestrained but still unable to make any attempts to run, it really freaks him out. But what can he do?
They walk outside, and he thinks that he recognises this place. It’s probably where their time vehicle was last time he was kidnapped, although by that point he had been so disoriented he isn’t exactly sure.
He is surprised when he gets a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror. He looks entirely normal, although very serious and stoic, except for his eyes. Those are dull and glassy.
He sits down in the back seat of the car. This time he isn’t shoved or held down- no need. He can’t go anywhere. The vehicle moves into the time stream, which at any other time would excite him. And then it stops and he gets out.
The recognises this building- it’s on the outskirts of town, and abandoned. He and Melissa explored it once, on Not Football Friday. So she would probably recognise it from a video, even the inside. How would Sally know that, though? One of them probably posted about it online, which would mean Sally has been doing her research. He shudders internally. His body doesn’t follow, which feels very weird.
He follows Sally into the building, down the corridor, and sits down against a support pillar. Sally binds him to the pole with rough, scratchy rope that digs into his arms. Tying him up when he already can’t move just seems unfair.
His head lolls again, his body slumps forward as much as it can in his bindings. Sally seems to be videoing on his phone, but he can’t see, he can’t move his head up. Can’t even look anywhere aside from where Penelope wants him to look, which right now seems to be the dirty floor.
“Annnd send! Well, kiddo, if your friends are smart they’ll be here soon.” Sally declares. “And if they’re tough enough then you’ll be out of here soon.”
She leaves. The door slams shut. He is alone.
He tries moving every muscle. Nothing. He can’t even make his fingers twitch. He gives up on that and listens carefully instead. The building creaks around him, but no Murphy’s Law type events happen. He knows that it lessens when he is sick, is this similar? Because if that thing on his neck could malfunction, that would be great.
He hears the footsteps coming down the corridors. His friends burst in through the door, rush to him, untie him. He wants to scream at them to stop, knowing what is coming. But he has no control whatsoever. He can only watch helplessly as his friends untie him and hold him, completely unaware of what is going to happen.
His arm moves and punches Zack in the face. His friend cries out, holds onto his face and stares at Milo in horror as his body stands. His internal yelling doesn’t show externally at all, none of the horror and fear coming to the surface. There is nothing he can do.