Resurrection

Kobra came around to the brightest of white lights.
His head felt heavy and everything ached, for a moment it was impossible to tell where he was or what had happened. He opened his eyes slowly, wondering if Party had spiked his drink again and then the shock hit him and he remembered. The raid into the mainframe, the tunnel and….
Korse.
He tried to move, realising simultaneously that he was strapped down and that the room was white and full of equipment. Steel bands held his wrists and ankles, another across his chest meaning that he was pinned and it would take a miracle to escape. Kobra knew only too well where he was, the medical labs in Battery City were the one place that nobody wanted to end up and he had only been here once before when they had been reborn.
“Hello Mikey.”
Kobra stilled, focusing on Korse and the two white suited men in front of him. Medical techs moved around behind them, steel trays full of equipment made him take a determined breath in. Pain could be got through and he would be damned if he would give them the pleasure of screaming. He lifted his chin and stared them down.
“Oh don’t worry, we are not going to kill you.”
“I’ll tell you nothing so go ahead.”
Korse smiled thinly, the boy was strong and fit. Clearly the killjoy threat was still growing rather than diminishing as they had hoped. His scientists were still pulling apart the apartment to try and work out how Mikey had shielded himself from their surveillance and what he had managed to send out. If anything. There had been a dispute amongst his superiors, some wanted the boy tortured until he told them but the others had favoured Korse’s plan and so now they could use this man against his brother.
“You have us all wrong.”
Kobra looked down and wiggled his hands.
“Sure looks like it, I mean if you wanted kinky sex you could have just asked.”
“Always the jokes. We gave you life, you should be grateful.”
Fire rose in Kobra’s eyes and he stared down the pale automaton in front of him. Some of the medics already looked scared and had no doubt that if the dark haired man could get free he would kill them.
“You shouldn’t have bothered if you think I will betray them to save my own life.”
Korse smiled again and paced in front of the bound man. He picked up a scalpel and ran it between his fingers. Kobra watched him, he knew that he could withstand it physically but it was what they tried mentally that concerned him. He didn’t want to tell them anything, not a word or even a lie. He swore silently as Korse ran the edge of the blade down his exposed shoulder blade. The stinging pain was nothing, it was the look of satisfaction that irked him.
“I don’t care if you talk or not. That doesn’t matter. I remember looking at you in the morgue and you have the same look now.”
The blade edged down to the scars that ran in a line across Kobra’s stomach. The android didn’t cut him, just traced the marks as Kobra stared at him. The other medics still walked to and fro in the antiseptic room but it had come down to just the two of them. The hatred was so white hot that Kobra thought he might melt the bars holding him.
“You tried to kill me for killing your brother….”
Kobra growled and strained at the bars again.
“Murdering fucker, I will kill you this time.”
Korse laughed, the sound grating and humourless.
“Says the man who came back to the city to die again. I admit, you had me fooled there for a while. Obviously Ray has learned a fair bit from his time here and Gerard, well he always was the smartest of you.”
“Killjoys never die.”
The medic came at the hand Korse raised and stood beside him, looking at the boy with undisguised curiosity. They had never seen a killjoy up close and she had to admit he was attractive. The brown hair and glasses that had been his disguise in the city were gone and his hair was now black, the hazel eyes direct and penetrating. The medic remembered his brother from the television and saw the family connection in those eyes.
“Sedate my friend here nurse. He doesn’t need to know any of this.”
The nurse smiled sweetly and lifted a syringe from the tray as Kobra struggled to free himself. She liked the way he fought, there was something animal about it and she shivered when he snarled as she forced the needle into his bicep. The drug was fast acting, the BLI employees watching closely as Kobra fought valiantly to keep himself awake before finally slumping forward into the metal restraints. Korse lifted his head up by the hair and slapped his cheeks but the boy didn’t stir.
“Good. We are going to try something different with Michael.”
He motioned to his left and the two dracs undid the brakes and flipped the gourney so that they could push Kobra through a big set of metal doors and down a long white corridor. The medics followed Korse, all of them flipping through their notes and readying themselves for the task ahead. Mind control was easy when you were dealing with drugged minds but this man had been outside and would be far more difficult to work with.
“We will implant a code phrase.”
Korse picked up another syringe, this one loaded with a murky substance that he passed to the nurse. She moved to the unconscious man and twisted his arm, injecting the drug into his wrist and watching as his vital signs dropped until Kobra was barely alive. Another nurse placed an oxygen mask over his face and then attached metal plates to the sides of his head.
“Begin….”
Korse’s command sent the dracs to flick the switch and a great arc of electricity sparked across the room. Kobra’s body jumped and then settled, his heart rate still steady as his pulse slowed. The nurses marvelled at his strength, few subjects had survived the initial phase of this test and yet this one seemed to not only survive but become stronger.
“More sedative sir?”
“Oh no, we need his brain awake for this.”
Korse leant in closer, his mouth merely an inch from Kobra’s ear.
“Can you hear me Mikey?”
There was a pause, Kobra’s face flickered but his eyes didn’t open when he uttered a single word.
“Yes.”
“Good boy. You will be going home soon.”
The robot smiled and handed the list of phrases to the head doctor. The man trembled a little, he had once been captured by Killjoys and the scars that littered his face were the proof. He wondered if this one knew of the ones that had taken him, it seemed a perfect revenge to bend this one into killing the others.
“I don’t mind what you use but make it simple, one word and not anything that can be slipped into conversation easily. We don’t want him going off before we are ready. The camera?”
The doctor turned and picked up a tiny device.
“Will be fitted behind the retina. As soon as he is activated we will be able to see what he sees.”
Korse nodded, satisfied and left the room with the dracs following behind. He needed to report to his superiors and inform them that all was going nicely to plan. Mikey would be their ultimate weapon and if he could have felt satisfaction the smile would have descended into smugness. Instead there was merely nothing as he stepped out into the artificial sunlight and away from the house of death.

Notes