Chapter Text
The pair of guards holding tightly to her forearms guided her down a series of narrow hallways, lined in large, slat like solid metal doors. Their boots squeaked against the laminate, and the overhead lights were much too bright for her. They said nothing but jostled her through every turn and doorway at such a fast pace it took all the strength she had left to keep up. On the few occasions she had stumbled they’d simply keep dragging through the hall before throwing her into a room. Needless to say, the few times it had happened were more than enough.
But something about this time was different, today they seemed rougher and the other building personnel were taking precautions she wasn’t familiar with. They’d already passed the room they usually kept her in, and the sinking feeling in her gut was growing. She didn’t like surprises, especially their surprises. But there was little she could do beyond keeping pace and praying they wouldn’t do anything worse than they already had, as if that were even possible at this point.
They turned the next corner and her eyes locked onto the door at the far end of the hall, a new detainment room she hoped and not another lab. There was no point in pleading with them, she had learned that early on. No one in the facility seemed to speak fluent enough French than to give simple instructions or read off a questionnaire beyond the few technicians that worked with her. And the guards and personnel either didn’t understand or simply didn’t care. When the reached the end of the hall the guard on her right pushed her into the other and began to unlock the door. The other one tightened his grip but the three of them knew she wasn’t about to try and run, it was just another reminded of how easily things could go south if she gave them even the slightest inconvenience.
To her surprise, someone else was already inside the room laying on the floor in the far corner. For a moment their eyes met and a wave of shock and confusion washed over them. Before she could say something the guard holding onto her pushed her inside and the other threw a wad of clothes at her. They quickly shut the door before the sound of a latch and bolt could be heard, then the same glaring lights came on. There were no instructions, but she was under the impression the clothes were for her and she was to change.
The man on the floor turned to better look at her, but beyond that made no other moves. She stood there awkwardly, eyes darting around the room looking at what little there was. A set of cots, some plain bedding, and nothing else really. She wondered where she was expected to change her clothes as she picked them off the ground. There was a thick woolen green coat with two rows of large brass buttons on the front, a pair of matching thin green pants, and an incredibly long red scarf.
They were identical to what the man on the floor was wearing and felt itchy in the palms of her hands. She peaked to her right to see if there was perhaps a bathroom or closet at the end of the cots but instead saw another man hunched over against the wall. Startled, she backed into the opposite corner and waited for him to move or say something but he didn’t. In fact, now that she was getting a better look at him, she wasn’t even sure he was a man at all.
“What’s your name?”
Her head snapped back to face the redheaded man on the floor.
“00-“
“No, that’s not what I meant. What was your name, from before?” He interrupted, and she gripped loosely around her neck like she was anticipating something and whispered back “Francoise, uh Francoise Arnoul.”
His face soured for a moment before he finally sat up “Well, Francoise Arnoul, they call me Jet Link.”
She nodded quickly and pointed to the man by the bed. “And him?”
“I dunno, he’s been like that since I got here.”
“Um, is there a bathroom? A closet?”
“What you see is what you get, four walls, two beds, and horrible room service.” She looked uneasy and he felt a bit annoyed that she didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. “Why?”
“I think they want me to change but…”
“What was that? Quit mumbling.”
“I said I need to change my clothes, but I can’t with you looking at me!”
The bundle of clothes in her arms suddenly seemed more apparent than ever, and he felt a bit embarrassed for asking. Without a word he turned around to face the wall and she tried to get dressed as quickly as she could before the other man noticed. If he was able to notice. She didn’t even think he was breathing if she was being honest. But they wouldn’t leave a dead man in here with them, would they?
She rushed to tuck the long hem of her hospital gown into her pants and throw the coat over top. There was some comfort in having her legs finally covered after all this time, and the wool coat was much softer worn then when she was holding it. She wasn’t sure exactly how to wear the scarf, but wrapped it around her hair like the starlets did and hoped it didn’t look silly.
“I’m done.”
The redhead laid back down and rolled toward her general direction, head propped up on one hand. Even with the coat on it was obvious she had a small frame, and he wondered what the hell she was even doing here. But what were any of them doing here really.
“Jet was it? Do you know where we are?”
“Christ, I was hoping you would.” The pit in her stomach was back.
“How long have you been here?”
“A month? Maybe more? They don’t exactly give you a calendar. But it’s been a while. What about you?”
“I’m not sure, but around a month sounds right.”
He felt suspicious at her answer. Jet hadn’t seen either of them before today and with the number of tests they’ve been running he found it difficult to believe they wouldn’t have seen each other at some point. Then again, he was titled as unit 002 so there had to be at least one more person they were testing on around here…
“So you’re 001 then?”
“No, um they named me 003 the ‘defensive specialist’” Jet eyed her over again, but nothing about her seemed particularly remarkable let alone defensive. She looked thin and frail, frankly she barely looked like she could stand properly at the moment let alone take a direct hit.
As if reading his mind, Francoise stared back at him intensely, like she was looking right through him then made her way over. She pointed to his boots matter of factly “Jet propulsion, there in your legs.” He looked at her stunned into silence, she turned to give the same look to the hunched over man for a moment and Jet watched as her face contorted into a grimace. “He… I don’t think he’s even alive anymore. He’s practically a machine, everything about him but his brain looks to be mechanical.” She relayed, somewhat shaken by the realization.
Jet didn’t want to know anymore details than that, whatever happened to that man he refused to let happen to him. At the moment, his best bet of escape was to team up with this girl.
“So, you’ve got X-ray vision?” She nodded, sweat collecting on her brow “It’s hard to explain, but sort of, sometimes I mean. Oh, and long range hearing too. Or so they tell me.”
Francoise shuffled to the floor and propped herself against the wall. Her head tilted back towards the ceiling with closed eyes. Her body started to shake as her breathing began to turn ragged. “It’s been one thing after another, but the headaches are too much. They say they’re working on improving everything but none of them know what they’re doing, those doctors.”
“They’re quacks that’s what they are, every last one of them.” She seemed to be getting worse and Jet wasn’t sure what to do.
Francoise put her head between her knees as she went clammy, and Jet just tried rubbing her back like his mom had whenever he had gotten sick. He tried taking the scarf off of her and used it to pat the sweat off her face, and she’d squeeze out a quiet thank you between pats. Jet wasn’t sure if it was even worth calling out for help from the guards, it wasn’t like they were there to be helpful to begin with and what could they even do? Drag her off to god knows where and he might not even see her again.
It took a while, but eventually she stopped shaking and seemed to perk back up. He was sure, whatever they had done to her, whatever she was, she was no defensive specialist. Just like him, she didn’t deserve to be there. They didn’t deserve whatever had been done to them. He wanted to go home, and he wondered how many others must of wanted to, too. The man behind the cot, Jet thought must be the end goal for all of them.
“Does this happen often?” He asked, motioning generally at her hoping to try and come up with some kind of escape plan. “Unfortunately. I haven’t quite gotten it down, if I focus too hard on something that doesn’t mean I can maintain it or even stop at will. I’m still sensitive to everything, the lights, loud sounds, it can be incapacitating at times. They keep trying to calibrate things but it’s no use, I keep telling them it’s the mechanism itself and but it’s like they don’t even hear me.” She was fed up, but at this point there wasn’t anymore she could do. ”What about you?”
“What about me? I’m a joke. Sure I can fly but I can’t carry enough fuel to go anywhere. It’s their weird sense of humor, they keep saying I have the ‘gift’ of flight but all those bastards have done is butchered my legs. They gave me wings just to shoot me down when I start to fly just out of reach.”
“Like a modern day icarus.”
“Too on the nose if you ask me. I’m telling you, they’ve got a weird sense of humor.” He laid back down on the floor and just stared up at the ceiling. It wasn’t sounding like their odds were improving, even if he could somehow get off that island he was positive he couldn’t do it safely carrying someone else. And Francoise, she couldn’t use either ability without getting sick it seemed. From what it sounded like, he didn’t even think she’d been to the ballistics range yet. All she’d likely known were the labs.
“You haven’t seen anyone else like us here, have you?”
She thought for a moment and shook her head. ”Truthfully, they’ve done something to most of the rooms we’re in actually. I have great difficulty seeing through the walls and doors, other than you two I didn’t even know there were other people like us. I guess I just assumed… I was the third attempt at something.”
Jet had thought the same many times over. He wondered if he was expendable or an investment, hoping he could leverage one in his favor. Beyond the worth of his machinery however, he had quickly realized he was likely very expendable, and just one of a seemingly endless supply of people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he didn’t want to tell Francoise that, going forward morale would likely be all they had.
“Francoise, we’re going to be fine. There’s two of us now, you know what that means right? Double the odds of getting ourselves out of here. If you won’t leave me I won’t leave you, you got that?” Jet stuck out his hand and without hesitation Francoise grabbed it and they both gave a strong shake. Their eyes locked and even if he didn’t fully have faith in it himself, Francoise knew whatever happened at least they wouldn’t be alone anymore. She had at least one other person to rely on, someone she hoped to call a friend.
Call it womans intuition, but despite having only just met him she knew Jet would keep his word. The idea was something she was almost scared to be happy over, but she wanted to protect this budding friendship with everything she had.
“You actually remind me a bit of my brother” She trailed off, hand over her mouth for a moment like she was trying to hide a smile. “He’s in the air force and does very well for himself.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yes, in fact he use to be a stunt pilot. He was very good, the airshows Jean would be in were always the talk of the town.”
“You two must have been close.”
“We were…for a long time it was just me and my brother, Jean. He was my everything. Big and kind… I don’t think he ever told me no when I asked for something despite it just being the two of us. He surprised me with dresses and candy any chance he could. It just seemed so normal at the time, I never lacked for anything and that was just so… normal for us. To be just the two of us, I mean. We didn’t have our parents anymore but I wasn’t old enough to know what that meant really. Especially because he looked after me the way he had. When he joined the air force and I had more time alone I think that’s when I started to put it together. He would never return home empty handed. No, Jean always had gowns and shoes from all over the place and never missed one of my tuition payments. He doted on me dearly, but I think he did all these things because he felt maybe responsible somehow for neither of us having parents at that point.”
Her voice started to crack, and took a moment to compose herself. “He was already much older than I was, but certainly much too young to be a father. Yet there he was, with a sister more like a daughter than anything…you know, now that I really think about it…he never complained either. And now…now I can only imagine what he’s going through. You know, he just paid the dance studio the other day and look at where I am now…”
“He sounds nice.” Jet wished he could say something beyond a basic platitude but what was there to say?
“He was-he is. Though it’s a bit of a wonder now how I didn’t become more spoiled!” She laughed a bit more anxiously than she meant and he wondered if she’d prove to be otherwise. She stared at him for a moment before working up to the courage to pry. “And you?”
“Hm?”
“Well, did you have any siblings I mean? Or was it just you and your parents?”
He looked back at the ceiling, one arm tucked just behind his head and thought for a moment. Some part of him questioned if any of what she shared was even the truth, at least fully. He wanted out of here, but was reluctant to think she wasn’t also trying to play some angle. Just what though he was having a harder and harder time figuring out. The more they talked, the less likely that seemed to be.
Jet worried a bit, that she really might have genuinely been that naive as to be so outwardly forthcoming. If she was, he found that degree of trust to be frustratingly stupid. But if she truly was, maybe this was also a chance for him to start over in some way. He took a deep breath and tried to figure out where to start and how best to say with without giving too many details. The picture she was asking to see wasn’t one he was exactly eager to paint out.
“I wasn’t really with my folks much. And even before now, it wasn’t the greatest you know? I mean, my ma she tried but between my dad and me it was probably more than she deserved. I love them, but I can’t say looking back I was always a good son. The guys I was with, I wouldn’t trade em for the world but I couldn’t look my ma in the eyes and tell her about it either. My dad, he didn’t care, so long as I didn’t do any of that stuff at the house but ma always asked too many questions and I didn’t like to lie to her. So I stayed out more and that scared her half to death and dad, he couldn’t care but he didn’t want to hear her nagging him neither.” He glanced up at her and the realization that he was rambling a bit settled in. But she just stared back attentively and waited for however long he needed, and he sighed like it was some great big relief he hadn’t had before. Jet didn’t know why exactly but she was easy to talk to, and that made him a little uneasy. He felt the tips of fingers playing loosely with the ends of his hair.
“It’s weird you know? When I was small I felt angry with her all the time, and half of the reasons I don’t even remember anymore. But whatever she did it was never enough, and somehow everything was her fault too. My dad got sore over something and then I would get mad at her, like something she did set him off. But ya know, he would’ve been mad either way. I wasn’t thinking about that, I was just upset and it seemed like it was her fault. I got older and I don’t think I stopped being angry, it just wasn’t at her anymore. Some part of me was sure an empty house was a relief for her too, but it wasn’t. And I don’t know why I did any of it. I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t been home in days before all this stupid shit and now what? Ma probably thinks I’ve been arrested, or worse dead in a gutter somewhere and I…can’t even remember the last time I told her I loved her to her face. If I never get out of here, I don’t have a list of regrets I just wish… I just wish I was a better son.”
They sat for a moment and Francoise played with the ends of his hair against the tile floor. Running her fingers through in odd patterns and thinking about how to reply to a man she’d barely just gotten to know. Her own life she was somewhat aware, must have sounded just as alien as this facility felt to them. Jet suddenly felt very self conscious about it all, and the fixation about how to place his hands or how he was lying on the ground was taking hold.
It was hard to get comfortable and he wondered why on earth he had to say all that. He wanted to crawl into himself and disappear or just have her forget he said anything. But he liked that she didn’t at least look like she was judging him, and the feeling of her playing with his hair was nice. He wondered if she would be this easy to talk to if the circumstances were any different, if she’d even give him the time of day if he passed her on the street. Hell, if they’d even frequent the same neighborhoods. To some degree Francoise wondered the same, and the world she came from was starting to feel even smaller. She hugged her knees and tried to continue.
“You know, I was on my way home from school when a large black car pulled up and tried to call me over.”
“Oh” He knew already what car she meant.
“Mhm, my brother was due to come home for a week before deployment and I didn’t want to be late. I didn’t think too much of the car the the time, and even tried to shoo them off. But well, they pulled up and grabbed me before I knew what was happening and we sped off. I think I remember us passing my home and Jean calling out after me…but that may have been a dream.” She kept her gaze low and drew out short lines between his bright red hair. “I tried fighting them off, but they put something over my mouth and I just felt so heavy.”
“He’s probably looking for you. If he’s in the military someone might come to get you.” Jet said it without being entirely sure if he believed it, but he wanted to. To think there was a chance someone was coming to get at least one of them from wherever the hell they were. It made him feel like enduring all this was a bit more temporary.
“That would be nice.”
Jet didn’t want to say what his last moments before getting into that car were, and hoped she wouldn’t ask. He laced his fingers behind behind his head, elbows pointing to the ceiling. His arms pressed against his ears trying to shut it all out. She didn’t need to know he jumped into the first car that offered sanctuary from a hell of his own design. That he was a coward, a quick tempered coward who stabbed a man and instead of getting help feared the repercussions and simply ran. Every night he had been here he’d seen the face of the guy he stabbed in his dreams, and every morning he would be wracked with guilt for only feeling the strong urge to get away. That seemed to be all he had wanted to do lately, just get away.
Francoise kept playing with his hair, a tuck here a curl there, it was like the dolls she had at home but softer. She could hear his heart pounding in his chest, and had been stuck on the realization that they weren’t that far apart in age at all. It seemed sad to her that from the sounds of it he had lived through such difficult things already. Then found himself here one way or another. A part of her also didn’t really want to know the details.
Whatever happened before didn’t matter right now, at least not at this moment. While still a bit weary, largely in part because she didn’t really know Jet at all, he could have told her anything. But what he shared didn’t make him sound that great, and what sort of loathsome person just comes out and says it? He seemed to her at least, desperate to fix things without any real ability too. Maybe if things hadn’t worked out for her and Jean the way they had, their situation would have been pretty similar. She did not want to think about that right now though, so Francoise tried to lighten the mood.
“I’ve been wanting to ask, and I hope you don’t mind, but you’re an American aren’t you?”
For a brief moment Jet felt a spike in his anxiety, then silly for the thought.
“What gave it away?” Francoise laughed while a list formed in her mind, but she didn’t dare say any of it out loud.
“A few things.”
“Alright, alright a few things huh? You’re…French?”
“Oui!”
“I could tell from the accent” She laughed harder, and his confidence in reply started to feel a bit misplaced.
“Well your French is very good too!”
“My French?”
“Yes, it’s wonderful I haven’t met an American with such good pronunciation. Let me guess, you had a girlfriend and she is French right?” She teased, but he kept looking more and more confused, and she began to feel uneasy.
“Françoise, I don’t speak French. You’re speaking English.”
She looked at him like he had grown a second head, and went quiet. Whatever joke he was playing she didn’t like it.
“That can’t be, I- Jet I don’t know any English."