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“Harley?”
Nothing.
“Can you hear me?”
No response.
“Harley, please talk to me.”
Only silence met his words.
It wasn’t every day that Leith Pierre himself chose to come down to speak with him, or to observe the experiments. In fact, Elliot was certain he could count the number of his visits on one hand. Leith wasn't one to get his hands dirty. Not since he'd been the one to put a bullet in Elliot's back. Not since he'd been the one to order his body be placed in the metal carcass that would soon become 1006. But he was here now, accompanied by a visibly anxious Dr. White, and it was clear from first glance that he wanted something.
But then again, whenever he visited him, Leith always wanted something.
“So, what did you fuck up this time?”
Leith visibly bristled at the question, hands clenching into tight fists at his sides. Elliot allowed himself a moment to feel vindictive pleasure at that. It was petty of him, perhaps. In life, he'd never allowed himself to behave this way. Always professional. Always polite. An example for everyone, but most importantly — for Poppy. Trying to be the best role model he could possibly be for her.
But those days were long gone, and the memories — unwelcome. He banished them as soon as they appeared in his mind. Thinking of his daughter made his very soul ache.
“What makes you think I messed up anything?!” Leith asked, his voice rising comically in anger. Or, at least it was comical to Elliot. White, on the other hand, didn't seem to think so. Not judging by the way he cowered and clenched the file in his hands so tight his knuckles went pale with the effort.
Elliot fought hard not to roll his eyes.
“Because whenever you, or Eddie show up in my cell it's always because you screwed something up, and need my help to fix it.” He retorted, disregarding the way Leith scowled at him. Truth hurt. “So I ask you again: what is it that you messed up this time?”
Leith turned to White and made a gesture that clearly stated ‘well, go on’. Had he been able to frown, Elliot would've. Still, all he could do was stand unmoving as White cautiously approached the cell door and opened the narrow hatch, pushing the file through to his side and quickly stepping back as soon as it was through. Not an entirely unfounded fear, he had to admit. Given the number of names on the Prototype's ledger already. He wasn't proud of it. Would never be proud of it. He'd merely done what had needed to be done. Just as he had so many decades ago overseas.
Elliot reached for the file, carefully flipping it open with the tips of his claws. That, too, still felt strange. The fact he no longer had human hands anymore, human fingers. He truly was a monster now, he supposed.
No wonder his own daughter feared him.
Pushing the pain aside, he forced all of his attention on the offered file and what he read next successfully chased all thoughts of his daughter from his mind.
“His mind is intact.” White was saying, the scientist's hands clenching nervously as Elliot flipped through the pages at a rate faster than a human mind could process, his anger rising exponentially with each paragraph he read. “All neural signals are registering as expected. There is nothing wrong with how his vocal cords are wired either, we'd checked that too. This isn't the normal adjustment period to his new body that you'd expect. He just won't talk to us, and the system meant to display his thoughts has been indecipherable. It's like he's in shock, or a… a stupor, I should say. If he can hear us and understand what we're saying — he isn't showing it.”
“And you're bringing this to me because…?” Elliot asked, and for the first time found himself grateful that he didn't have his own vocal cords anymore. It was easier to conceal emotion when not only were you a metal creature incapable of facial expressions, but also had to rely on voice recordings to communicate. It was easy to make himself sound dismissive. Indifferent. Even as rage boiled just beneath the surface.
“Because you're the only one here who has a chance to get Sawyer talking.” Leith cut in sharply, sparing White the need to reply. Elliot wondered how frustrating it was for the man to admit this. “He won't talk to any of us. Believe me, we've tried. Stella even attempted therapy. You, however, have history with Sawyer before he'd come to work for us. Presumably even mentored him. You have the best chance of getting through to him and dragging him out of this ridiculous pity party he's thrown for himself. We've set up a phone connection between your cell and his for precisely this purpose.”
Elliot stepped back from the glass, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And why should I?”
Leith spluttered, his face going blotchy with anger and indignation. A satisfying sight.
“Excuse me?”
Elliot's jaw clicked in place as he instinctively tried to smile despite his inability to do so, hand rising in front of his eyes as if he were suddenly very interested in the sight of his own claws.
“Why should I? What's in it for me?”
Leith slammed his hands against the table, eyes nearly bulging out of his skull in rage as he spat. “Don't push me, 1006! I can still go with the original plan and kill him!”
“But you won't.” Elliot said in Eddie's confident drawl, refusing to fall for such an obvious bluff. No matter how much the possibility of Leith actually pulling the plug chilled his blood. “Not as long as there's still a chance for you to get your hands on the Doctor’s knowledge. However, helping you create more victims of Playtime is not in my interest. So, again, I ask you: what's in it for me? Why should I lift a single finger to help you?"
Leith was silent for a long moment, and when he finally spoke he did so in a low hiss.
“How about I don't put an end to your late night conversations with Poppy?”
Elliot froze. Leith grinned, sensing he'd hit home. He continued.
“You didn't think I didn't know about you contacting her, giving her a shoulder to cry on, did you? How touching. Even now you're still trying to be a father to her. Despite being the reason she is the way she is. Despite being the reason she's being experimented on like she is. Cut open again and again until we understand exactly how she works. You didn't actually think we weren't monitoring your cell closely enough to detect your communications, did you? I have them all here, on tape. I wonder how Poppy would feel if she knew that the ‘Ollie’ she cries to almost every night is in fact no other than her dear old dad?”
The slam of Elliot's fist against the glass made White jump with a yelp, the remaining files tumbling out of his grasp and scattering all over the observation room floor. Leith, however, hardly flinched, staring up defiantly as Elliot came to loom over him, crimson eyes glowing with uncontained rage.
“You wouldn't dare.”
But now it was Leith's turn to call Elliot's bluff. And judging by the wide, nasty grin — he had every intention of doing so.
“Oh, but I would.” He said smugly, leaning towards the bulletproof glass separating them and meeting Elliot's furious glare as if it did not concern him in the least. “And you'd be wise not to test me and do as you're told. I'll even be nice and throw in some prison yard time for you. Let you out with the others. Provided you fulfill your end of the deal, 1006.”
His insides boiling with helpless rage, Elliot glared down at the executive before him, wishing badly that he could break through the glass and strangle him. But he couldn't. The barrier was too strong for that. There was nothing left to do except agree. For his daughter's sake.
And so he did.
“Connection secured.” A disembodied voice said over the cell loudspeaker, empty and clinical. Devoid of any human emotion. “You may speak, 1006.”
Elliot made himself more comfortable on the cell floor, spidery limbs tucking neatly beneath him. It felt weird, communicating with Harley this way. The little phone he used to talk to his daughter felt miniature and awkward in his massive hand, but at least he had something to hold onto. Something to give him a faint sense of normalcy. Talking like this, however… he felt like he would be talking to air. To himself. Which was not too far off from the truth if White were to be believed. If Sawyer really was as unresponsive as the scientists claimed. You'd think that if it were really that important that he get the man talking again, they'd at least let them talk in person. But clearly Leith was not yet ready to take that step. Even though Elliot would never do anything that would put Poppy at risk.
Not to mention how strange it would be for him to talk to the Doctor himself.
It spoke volumes of Leith's desperation that Elliot had been the one they'd chosen to try and bring Sawyer out of the unresponsive state he'd fallen into. Even calling their relationship simply what it was — poor — seemed a massive understatement when it came down to it. It still pained him to this day to see what the boy he had had such high hopes for had ended up becoming. To realize that all his good intentions had failed. That Sawyer had still chosen to walk down the very path Elliot had tried to save him from.
“Do you feel anything?”
Excitement. That's what Sawyer had felt. Not regret. Not guilt. Excitement. Nothing else.
"What did he feel now?" Elliot wondered. "Now that what he'd done to others had been turned around on him?"
“1006?” The voice prompted.
Elliot sighed.
“I'm here. Can you hear me?”
“We're receiving you loud and clear, 1006. You may proceed.”
Of course they wouldn't even have the decency to let them speak privately, monitoring every word they said. Elliot should've figured.
But there was nothing he could do about it.
“Harley? Are you there?”
Somehow it seemed right to use what scant recordings he had left of his former voice. Not only as a continued fuck you to Leith who had sought to rob him of it entirely when he'd ordered the scientists to get rid of his vocal cords. But also because, deep down, he hoped it would jog something inside Sawyer. Some memories. Some feelings he may have left buried. If the man had any left to begin with.
The way his heart fell when he received no response took him by surprise.
He shouldn't care. The boy he once knew no longer existed. Replaced by a monster.
A monster of Elliot's own making…
He shoved those feelings aside as soon as they surfaced, pushing them to the deepest, farthest corners of his psyche.
Thinking of his past regrets wasn't helpful.
Taking in air through several points of his new body still felt alien, but that's what he did, out of habit rather than any real need, his ventilation system whirring softly as he did so.
“I know what they did to you, Harley.” He said to emptiness, to silence. “I know what Leith did to you.”
Telling him he deserved it wouldn't be helpful. Neither would saying that now he knew what his victims had endured. Elliot didn't believe much in the former, nor was he particularly happy about the latter. Nobody deserved becoming one of them. An abomination. A freak of nature. A mockery of what humanity was supposed to be. He hadn't wanted more people to become this way. And that included Sawyer.
And as for feeling like his victims had… what had been done to Sawyer was arguably worse. The experiments at least had bodies still left to them. Or at least some semblance of such. Sawyer had nothing. No body, no autonomy. A ghost in the system. Elliot had seen the schematics. Even thinking about it left him sick with disgust.
There was no answer. It was as if Sawyer hadn't even heard him. Which, if what White had said about his condition was true, he probably didn't.
Still, he continued. And not just for Poppy's sake.
“Leith seems to think I'm the only one you'll respond to. God only knows why he'd think that. Not after… well, I suppose there's no point in discussing that, is there? It's not like you'll ever forgive me.”
If even 30 years hadn't been enough…
The silence was starting to feel suffocating. To his own surprise, Elliot found himself wishing for a response. Any response. Even a single word, that would be enough. And yet still there was nothing. Was Harley even there?
Was he just talking to himself?
But before he could say anything else, a voice came over the loudspeakers, the same scientist as before.
“Thank you, 1006. That will be all for today.”
A burst of static, and silence fell upon his cell. The call disconnected.
“My father was a mechanic.”
Elliot scratched at his chin. More out of habit than any real need, his crimson eyes dimmed in thought.
“Handy, you know? I suppose that's where I got it from. My mom…”
He fell silent then, hesitating. No, that wasn't a topic he really wanted to get into, he decided. Not right now in any case. He continued.
“Well… my father and I got on well enough without her. When he was able, my father would take me to his repair shop. Showed me the ropes. He opened up his own place when I was around 13. It was small, but he loved it, and I did, too. We would spend hours in that repair garage.” His voice became wistful. “Sometimes, I can still hear the sounds of tools being used. Smell the stink of motor oil and grease that hung over the place like a noxious cloud. I really wish I could go back to those days.”
Things were much simpler back then… and much happier.
But there was no way of bringing back the past.
Idly, he had to wonder why he was even telling Sawyer these things. The past was the past. Inconsequential. Insignificant. Bringing it up didn't change a thing about their current circumstances. Perhaps it was the two weeks of silence from Sawyer. Perhaps Elliot was getting desperate. Perhaps he wanted to fill the silence with something. Anything.
Or perhaps, deep down, he wanted to figure out where it had all gone wrong. What action, what singular decision had set everything in disastrous motion.
“My dad was a good man.” He said at last, and had he still been human it would've come out choked. “I wish he'd been around longer.” He hadn't even got to meet Poppy. But neither had he been around to watch Molly leave.
Elliot fell silent, old grief welling where his heart had used to be. He hadn't thought of his father in a long time. Years, in fact. He hadn't even realized it, among everything else that had happened. What would his old man say now, if he could see what his boy had become? If he could see what Elliot's creations had resulted in? What they had led to? The mere thought of his father's disappointment was unbearable.
The speakers crackled with static overhead, and Elliot looked up in surprise, peering at them in confusion. They had never done anything of the like so far. But before he could do anything, the same scientist's voice announced that the hour was up, perfunctorily thanking him for his time. Elliot hardly paid attention to it, however. Before the voice had interrupted — he thought he'd heard something. It had barely been audible, but it had been there. He was sure of it.
A soft inhale. Like someone about to speak.
Harley.
The sound would play on repeat in his mind over the next few weeks. He was sure he'd heard it, despite the silence that followed. It was possible he was simply lying to himself, of course. Finding comfort in false hope. And yet… he wanted desperately to believe it was true. That Harley was there, just within his reach. That all he had to do was extend a hand, keep talking and eventually Harley would respond.
If asked, Elliot probably wouldn't be able to say why he wanted it so badly. Why he wanted to talk to him to this degree. It wasn't like they were on good terms. Hadn't been in years. Not since Elliot had expelled him from the Young Geniuses Program. Not since Harley had chosen to walk the path he had, experimenting on children in his desperate pursuit of progress and recognition and most importantly — his dream of immortality. By all accounts, there was not much left for them to discuss, not much of a relationship to salvage. And yet…
The memories came to him unbidden. Unprompted. A boy laughing, smiling ear to ear, looking happier than he ever had while surrounded by his peers. Showing him his latest invention, his eyes eagerly scanning Elliot's face, awaiting praise. Images of a dimly lit chem lab, Elliot's voice a soft drone in the otherwise empty room. The boy settled across from him, listening intently, jotting down careful notes. Or watching as Elliot carefully disassembled his latest little invention, showing him how it worked.
But there was very little similarity between the boy he'd known and The Doctor he had become. He knew that. And yet… it was as if he couldn't let it go. As if deep down he wanted, needed to make sure that that boy from his memories was truly gone. That there was no bringing him back, no correcting the fatal mistake he'd made over three decades ago. A mistake that so many were now paying for with their ruined, broken lives.
Including Harley himself.
Talking about the past wasn't something Elliot had expected, or intended to do when he had agreed to have these calls. But truth be told he didn't mind. It felt nice to talk about more pleasant times, about days long past. Before he'd been turned into this half metal, half organic monstrosity. Before his daughter's death and transfer into her new body. Before Playtime had even been an idea in his mind. It felt refreshing to look back on those happier days, and remember what it had been like, to be a child out in the real world, happy and free and excited for what the future had in store for him. Remember the innocence and optimism of his past self. His human self.
Elliot had nearly forgotten what that had felt like. To be human. And perhaps… Harley had as well.
“I used to have this friend.” He began, settling as comfortably as he could in the center of the cell. The other experiments had bunk beds installed in theirs, but the design of his new body no longer allowed for such simple human comforts. He simply wouldn't fit, or be able to recline comfortably. Many times he found himself missing being able to do so without his newfound physique getting in the way. “Johnny. We grew up in neighboring houses, and ended up going to the same school. I guess you could say we were thick as thieves. And quite troublesome ones, at that.” Had he been human, he would've smiled fondly. “Our parents used to get called in every other week, to discuss the latest prank we'd pulled.”
There was no response, but he hadn't expected one anyway, his voice growing more and more wistful as he continued.
“There was this one time we decided to play a practical joke on our arithmetic teacher. In our defense, he was a mean spirited kind of guy. Not even strict — just plain cruel, especially to kids who weren't so good with numbers. Johnny had somehow got ahold of a bucket of brown paint, the near perfect shade as the one used on the guy's chair, and we hatched a plan. Before class, we painted the seat and the back of the chair, hoping he wouldn't notice in time before he sat down. He didn't.” He couldn't stop the chuckle that left his voice box if he tried. “He was so livid, he chased us across the entire school grounds, and our parents were called in that very evening. I'd never seen my father so embarrassed. On the way back, he told me he understood my reasons for doing what we did, but that there were better, less obvious and more effective ways of dealing with bullies. It was a good conversation.”
Elliot fell silent for a moment, hoping for a response. There was none. He went on.
“We finished school together. Worked at my father's shop together. Johnny was the one to introduce me to Molly, and he was the best man at my wedding. And when the time came… we went overseas together.” And I was the only one to come back…
He hadn't attended the funeral, he'd been laid up in hospital at the time, a frantic Molly at his side. But he'd visited the grave, spoken to Johnny's widow. Met the child Johnny himself never got to meet. He'd lost contact with her once he'd established Playtime Co, so lost in his work, in his vision, that he'd neglected to stay in touch. When he'd forgotten to call on the anniversary of Johnny's death, she'd never reached out to him again.
Molly's departure really should not have come as such a surprise. For if he'd neglected his best friend's widow, how much had he neglected his own wife?
Lost in thought, in memory, he startled when the speakers suddenly crackled as they activated, a new voice filling the cramped confines of his cell. Soft and weary.
“I never had friends… But I suppose you already knew that, didn't you?”
Elliot looked up, staring at the camera in the corner of his cell, wondering if Harley was looking at him through it right now.
“Yes.” He said quietly, softly, his crimson eyes peering into the camera lense. “I do.”
The next month went by with a lot more progress than the previous two had. Harley still wouldn't talk much, but that was fine by Elliot. The mere fact that he had spoken up at all was already a miracle. To him of all people. Their relationship couldn't immediately be fixed. He was under no illusions it would. Both of them had far too many grievances piled up. Too much frustration. Too much pain. It would take a lot of time for them to get to a point where there could be talk of reconciliation. And time was all they had at Playtime Co.
So Elliot talked. And talked. And talked. He told Harley of the time Johnny had tied the shoelaces of a bully together to make him trip in class. Of the time he'd broken his leg doing something stupid on a dare. The time he and Johnny had stolen the car his father had bought second hand, and later blamed the scratch they'd left on a precariously placed ladder in the shop. How he'd later spent hours fixing it up with his father. Told him of his first invention. His first date with Molly. His wedding. Poppy's adoption. Whatever came to mind, every happy memory he had left — he talked about it.
There were still things he didn't speak about, of course, the memories far too painful, far too private to bring up. Losing Johnny. His father's illness. The divorce. Poppy's death. Memories he still found hard to revisit, much less speak about. But if Harley noticed — he never spoke a word about it.
And little by little — he began opening up to him too.
“What do you remember of England?” Elliot asked him after a while, the air recyclers of his cell humming softly in the background. “You once told me… that's where your family had emigrated from. Birmingham, correct?”
Harley was silent for a long time. When he did speak, his voice sounded far away, lost in distant memory.
“There's not much I can recall.” He said at last, quiet and deeply, deeply sad. “My family left when I was quite young, remember?”
Elliot did remember, and he was willing to bet that Harley did too. But he knew better than to press for details, ask about memories the other didn't want to revisit. It wouldn't help. So instead he switched to something else.
“What did you think of America?”
Harley hummed, considering the question.
“It was… certainly different.” He said at last, sounding thoughtful. “Quite different from what I had grown accustomed to.”
If he were physically capable, Elliot would've smiled at that.
“How so?”
As if sensing his companion's joking tone, Harley replied, his voice lighter than it had been before.
“Well, for one, you Americans smile too much.”
Elliot chuckled
“And that's supposed to be a bad thing?” He asked, tailoring his voice recordings to reflect his amusement. Harley let out a soft huff, feigning irritation and failing miserably at it.
“Well I never understood the purpose of it, you see.” He said. “It often seemed as if you smiled for no reason. Every little conversation, every small interaction doesn't warrant a smile. It's disingenuous."
“But there is a reason, Harley.” Elliot said softly. “A smile is so much more than a simple expression. A smile is hope. A smile is love. A smile is… understanding. And aren't those the things we need more of in this world? That's why there is nothing more gratifying to the soul than being the reason for another's smile. To be the spark that ignites others’ hopes and dreams. For what gives life meaning if not a smile?”
When Harley replied, his voice was unusually quiet.
“I thought that was just drivel you read for your speeches. Not something you genuinely believed in.”
“I never said anything I didn't genuinely believe in, Harley.” Elliot said softly. “And especially not when it came to the same sentiments that we need to hold onto now most of all. Hope. Understanding. Love. These are the exact things that keep us human in circumstances that seek to rob us of our humanity. Don't you see that?”
There was a long pause. A stifling silence. The only sound being that of the quiet hum of air recyclers buzzing overhead.
“There is no hope for us, Elliot.” Harley said softly. “Nothing human to hold on to. Not as we are. You should've realized that a long time ago.”
He refused to talk for the rest of the call.
“There was this one kid.” Harley was saying, his voice echoing softly in the confines of Elliot's cell. “In school. Used to constantly copy my test answers. Drove me up a wall with his antics. If you're going to fail, at least have the decency to do so instead of resorting to petty cheating, you know?”
Elliot chuckled.
“Kids in my school used to do that as well. How'd you deal with it?”
Harley audibly brimmed with pride when he answered and for a moment Elliot was transported to a different time, a different place. But only for a moment.
“Fed him the wrong answers, of course.”
Elliot laughed. And laughed. He hadn't laughed like that in a while. Couldn't remember the last time he'd done so.
“That's one way to deal with it.” He told Harley, still chuckling. “I'll give you that.”
“Yes, well,” Harley sighed, suddenly sounding weary and exhausted, “it wouldn't be the last time someone leeched off of me like that. The same thing happened when I went off to med school. When I worked as a neurosurgeon. When I came here. Again and again and again. A never ending cycle. One that culminated in all this. The ultimate form of leeching off my mind. My knowledge. My brilliance. And this time there's nothing I can do to stop it.”
Elliot knew what he was talking about, of course. His mind went back to the file White had pushed through the hatch months ago. Mind mapping. Thought extraction. Barbaric, invasive practices. Robbing a person of the last thing they still had left to them after becoming an experiment — the refuge of their own mind. There was something they could do about it, of course. His last resort. The choice that he so desperately, so fervently didn't want to make.
Even though he knew he would have to make it eventually.
“I know how you feel.” He said at last, and for a moment — old agony echoed through his metallic body, making him shudder on the cell floor.
"There is a secret inside you, 1006. I cut and prod and burn at it. And I get closer with each session… I learn something new about every day."
The flash of rage took him by surprise. The urge to extend his claws, to tear, to crush. To exact the same pain that had been inflicted on him. The same pain that Playtime, Harley had caused him.
For a moment, he heard screams. Saw the walls around him stained in red. A body lying at his feet. The surveillance specialist who had so foolishly come into his cell when he had attempted to escape. One of them. The screams grew more shrill, both familiar and unfamiliar. From people who'd died decades ago, and deaths that were yet to come.
Don't give in. Push it down. This isn't who you are. Compartmentalize. You have a mission. Focus on the mission.
Harley sighed.
“Yes…” He said finally. Sadly. “You do, don't you?”
The next few calls were loaded with silent tension. Perhaps he should've expected it. Some topics couldn't be avoided forever. Some pain couldn't be easily forgiven. On both sides. But neither knew how to approach it. How to take that step without blowing up the fragile truce they'd built.
Somehow, he knew he would have to be the one to take it.
So when the next call came up, Elliot considered his words carefully, staring at the dark reinforced glass of his cell.
“Were you truly happy in the Program?”
The seconds crawled by like snails. Elliot waited for the explosion. The burst of fury and hate. The destruction of the fragile connection they'd rebuilt.
But the rage never came.
Instead, Harley's voice came over the speakers. Defensive, yes, very much so, and yet… almost… cautious. If not verging on fearful.
“Why do you ask?”
Elliot tore his gaze from the glass, instead peering upwards at the corner of his cell. This was not at all the reaction he had expected.
How much they had broken him.
“The way you always spoke back then… it seemed like you didn't miss home.” He said at last, still surprised Harley hadn't reacted with aggression the second he had attempted to touch on such a sensitive topic. “And you haven't mentioned your family once in our conversations now. I've thought about this for a long time. Maybe even before I saw you on the other side of the observation room glass. Maybe for years that… perhaps… perhaps I'd made a mistake. Back then.”
Harley was silent for a long time. Then—
“Is this really a can of worms you want to open, Elliot?” He asked, his vocals stony, carefully devoid of emotion. “I don't ask you how you felt watching me trying to recreate your experiments. I don't ask you how you felt about my role in the Bigger Bodies Initiative. In the destruction of everything you've worked so hard to build. There's a reason for that. What is the point of venturing into such topics, knowing where they may lead us? What purpose would it serve to reopen old wounds, especially considering our current circumstances?”
“I don't think we'll be able to move forward with each other until we do, Harley.” Elliot said, voice box clicking as his throat instinctively tightened. “Not truly. We can try to avoid it all we want, but it'll always be there in the background, overshadowing our every conversation. An old infection that has been left untreated and has begun to rot, if you want to go with that metaphor. It can't be left ignored forever on the desperate wish that it will somehow resolve on its own.”
“It won't fix anything.”
It won't change what happened. It won't undo what has been done. It won't change what we are now. Experiments. Non-human. Tools for Playtime. What is the point of even trying?
Elliot understood all these things, of course. And yet…
“That is not what I seek to fix.” He said quietly.
Judging by the silence that followed — Harley didn't seem convinced. But he didn't outright refuse either. And that was fine by Elliot. It was progress, however small.
He didn't expect the question that followed, however, head snapping in the direction of the camera in the corner of his cell, the glow of his crimson eyes brightening in surprise.
“Why did you turn Poppy into a doll? You never said. Back in the Program you always told me… ‘science should always be for the benefit of humanity’. So how did you justify turning her in your mind? What benefit did you see in that?”
Images flashed before Elliot's eyes. Johnny lying motionless beside him, the air thick with the red haze of blood. His father's gravestone, the man having not lived long enough to see his son come home. Molly leaving, her ring abandoned on his office desk.
This was a test, he knew that. Harley was trying to see how much he was willing to open up about topics he himself kept close to his chest, never sharing with anyone. Well, fair play was fair play. If that's what it took to resolve 30 years of enmity — Elliot would oblige.
“I was selfish.” He said simply, truthfully. “I wasn't thinking of benefitting anyone at the time. Only saving my daughter. I've lost so much already, that when Poppy… well… I realized I wouldn't be able to go on living, knowing that I had lost her too.”
“Do you regret it?”
Elliot hesitated, thinking. Did he regret it? Poppy was alive. His daughter was still here. They both were. But at what cost? Had it really been worth it, knowing the price so many innocent children had paid? The sacrifice that brave people like Rowan Stoll had made in a futile attempt to expose the company? And existing like this… was it really better than if he had just let her go? If he had just submitted to fate and joined her later, in death?
“Yes,” he said softly, “and no. I'll always cherish the extra time I got to have with her, before I… but I cannot justify the price at which it had come. My daughter is in pain. Good people who did not deserve to die have lost their lives trying to stop this. Innocent children have suffered, have had their lives ruined because of my mistakes. Because of what my selfishness has done to them. That I cannot justify in my mind. That I can never undo, no matter how much I wish to.”
He turned to the camera in the corner of his cell, peering into the dark lense.
“What about you? Your Golden Path? Do you regret it?
A long sigh sounded from the overhead speakers.
“I think you already know the answer to that, don't you?”
“I miss my cat.”
The quiet confession was surprising. Elliot lifted his head, saying nothing as Harley continued.
“It was the only creature that ever seemed to care for me. My parents didn't dislike me, we just… didn't speak the same language, if you get what I mean. We didn't have much in common, and they made no effort to hide that I wasn't quite what they had wanted in a child. But my cat… my cat didn't care about things like that. It just loved me.”
Eliot huffed a soft laugh, stretching his legs out more comfortably over the cell floor.
“Never pegged you for a pet owner.”
“Why? Didn't think I was capable of caring for another creature?” A hint of bitterness entered Harley's voice. Elliot shook his head.
“No. Just didn't think you had the time.”
“Back then I did. Especially after you… well, when I returned home. What about you? You ever had cats?”
“No. Allergies.”
“Ah.”
“Poppy always wanted a pet though. A dog. But she was too young, and I knew I would end up caring for it when I was already so busy running a company, so I refused. Told her I'd think about it when she was older.”
“That's such a dad response.”
“I am a dad, Harley. Don't know what to tell you.”
Harley chuckled, amused. Elliot fell silent, considering.
“I never should've expelled you from that Program.”
Harley paused. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet.
“... So why did you?”
Elliot looked away, shoulders rising in an instinctive human gesture. One of the few he was still capable of.
“At the time I thought it was what you needed.” He said. “But I was wrong. And if I had done some things differently… many things differently… perhaps things would be very different now.”
Harley was quiet for a while. As if he'd been caught off guard, as if he did not know what to say. The apology came late, far too late. 3 decades too late. It had no real power to change anything now. At the end, they would still be experiments. Still remain as Playtime's lab rats behind closed doors. The children whose lives Harley had ruined would never get their bodies back. Sentenced to exist as toys for the rest of their days. And yet… despite it… in that moment something shifted. Elliot could feel it.
Beneath all these wires. Beneath all the fake fur and plastic. They were still human. Still capable of emotion. Still capable of love and compassion, sadness and regret, and so many others. Still capable of such things as reconciliation. And forgiveness. It gave him hope.
At last, the speakers crackled and Harley's voice sounded over the speakers, soft and genuine.
“Thank you… Elliot.”
Elliot smiled.