Against My Will 2

He didn’t even grunt as tape came off his arm, the triple-layered adhesive ripping off some hair with it. The cannula was pulled quick, the white-coat not even bothering to press down after as a bead of red came out of his elbow and trailed down onto his cot.

…what now?

Days were still a theory and weeks were just a hypothesis at this point, every bit of his life just cycles. It was repetitive as hell but he’d almost gotten used to it — awake, questions, back to bed, asleep — even when the cycles didn’t actually stick to the same order.

He’d definitely passed out mid-question more than a few times so, without a window or a clock to check anything against, assuming it was anything like once a day was just a guess.

A good guess, but still a guess.

Two soldiers, square-jawed jarheads that could have been plucked right from central casting for the role of ‘government dickhead’, walked right into the small room, one of them behind the other with a wheelchair. Not the same two as the last time, of course, because they never bothered repeating faces.

Just the same haircuts and the same plate carriers all the time.

“Up.”

“Y-yeah, I got it.” Legs came up off the cot fine and the rest of him chose to rebel, the room doing a slow tilt to the left as Orin realized no, he didn’t got it.

Hands went under his armpits, hauling him high before he could even get a word of complaint out. “Okay, I said I got it, damn.” A hard shove had him in the chair — wrists, chest, and ankles strapped down tight in a way he was long used to. “…need to tie me down to beat my ass, I see you.”

Kinda flattering.

His own knees knocked together as he watched them, the pale blue hospital-gown shorts they had stuck him in since day one. Those knees had gotten loud, jutting out like two knobs on sticks and his wrists were no different — both of them in the straps with enough toom to turn all the way around. Orin wasn’t surprised, considering he hadn’t put anything solid in his mouth since the day he woke up here first, too long to count when his stomach had honestly stopped complaining about it before he did.

They kept wheeling him, taking him far past any of the few rooms he recognized — the shock room, the water room, the beating room — and the hallway kept on going.

Pat the two turns he already knew, the other beating room leading to third turn into an… elevator?

The doors hissed open and shut and open again, Orin wheeled out into a hallway with better lighting and no more of that blue-white that made everyone else look like they’d only been on fluids for the longest.

People walked around, a woman going the opposite direction of his chair with a white mug in one hand. A man kept pace with her as they talked, his eyes barely staying off her chest while hers didn’t even give him more than a glance and simply kept moving. Several more strode past after that, food in hand as they chewed and ignored him; not a one of them uncomfortable or complicated about seeing a teenager beat to shit and wheeled right in front of their faces.

He’d have laughed but he was too busy staring as they wheeled him through another corner, a door hissing open into a smoother floor with polished marble floors and a large window that looked out over…

New York. Green eyes blinked past white couches and a fancy bar, the beautifully designed room not even getting more than a second of attention as the teenager stared out at a view better than any he’d ever seen.

A view of the open water, gray-green and moving under a sun he hadn’t seen in forever, A barge sat low in all of it way out and past that, through wall-to-wall glass, stacked up tall was the skyline of a city he’d only ever been to a few times. New York…

It had been glass walls, and pale-lit hallways and dim rooms since… since…

His eyes stung from too much at once, Orin staring at all the people he knew were out there right now — millions of them. Millions of people in those buildings, getting off trains, and deciding lunch or… or… what-the-fuck-ever.

The door hissed again behind him, somebody coming in and sitting across the coffee table they parked his chair in front of. It took him a few seconds longer than he liked to actually bother looking down, eyes dry again as he scowled at the black man sitting there; a bearded black man in a long coat, Milk Dud of a bald head shining under the sun as he stared back at Orin with a single eye and an eyepatch… over the… left…

…wait? The face was more than a little familiar, doing something to him in a way he couldn’t lock down on, everything about it even down to that goatee tugging something… 

No…

No, that would be… that would be crazy.

That man just sat there on the white couch beneath him, single eye blinking back as he raised up a mug of something steaming and let that silent sit as Orin’s mouth fell open. After what felt like ten years of quiet, that mug came down on the table. “Three months.”

Orin’s mouth clicked shut, confusion worn clear across his face. “…what?”

“You’ve been here three months.”

His breath hitched, green eyes flicking toward the window again before he could pull himself back; fat rays of sunlight beaming bright back at him. Three… He finally pulled in the whole breath, panic dissolving as he took in the idea that a whole fucking season had passed somewhere outside these walls while he measured time by refilled IVs.

“…bull-shit.”

The pirate-man took another drink. “July Tenth.”

Something in the teenager’s empty gut managed to find enough mass to roil and roil hard under his hospital blues. July?

Last he remembered, it was still April. He had just finished midterms a few weeks back — aced them, of course — but… Fiona. Nessa.

He missed his sister’s birthdays.

The twins… Teeth clenched tight, Orin pulled in another long breath, chest expanding as far as the straps would allow him before he finally  let it out through his nose. They’re never gonna let me fo—

“That laptop of yours and that…” The man cut into his thoughts, that dry voice clearly without any respect for the blessing that was silence. “That phone. Very useful.”

My stuff? Orin’s mouth fell open just a bit, a question on his lips he couldn’t find out how to phrase. “What… what do you want my stuff for? Useful how?”

“Well, for one, they told us more about your secrets than you did.”

“What? What secre—” Every inch of his face squeezed up, lips pursed and eyes squinted as he echoed that sentence a solid dozen times in the space of four rushed syllables. “Fuuuuuuck that. Ain’t no way you got in.”

That mug rose one more time, soft slurping preceding the black man’s next words. “You seem oddly sure about that. We have some incredible resources at our disposal.”

“Course I’m sure.” Orin tugged against his straps, scowl worn openly. “Sure, let’s say somehow you bullshitted my laptop, but the fuckin’ phone too? Suck my dick, man. You’d be at it till the heat death of the universe.”

“They say overconfidence is a killer.”

“Yeah, and I’m overconfident an AI overlord will kill me before you brute-force eighteen characters, dickhead.” Orin pushed down a giggle as the last word left him, an insult thrown straight from the chest.  “Like, what kind of dumbass op is this? Asking me stupid questions for… let’s say I even believe that three month shit you threw at me… like w-what?”

The pirate raised an eyebrow. “You have a lot of opinions.” 

“Yeah. Correct ones.” He shook his head with a scoff, the lingering pain in his chest almost forgotten under the sheer bullshit of that idea. Cracking modern Apple on top of eighteen characters? You gonna sell me a beach house on the sun next?

“Of course.”

“You probably not used to that feeling. It comes when you’re smart and when you’re right.”

“Mm.”

“Look, whatever this is… the fuck this Fed larp even is, like?” Orin stared back at the man still sipping his brew. “Ain’t no way you tried to feed me that shit straight up like that? Next you’re gonna tell me Secure Enclave ain’t nothing to you and you got past that easy too.”

The black man remained as silent as the two soldiers standing behind Orin.

“Yeah, bro, I bet you did. What, my phone gave you an extra ten tries before it wiped? I don’t put FaceID or biometrics on my shit, so I know you didn’t get it off me.” His lips curled up, a sneer painting his face. “What, next you gonna say FileVault folded under interrogation? You got some NSA wizard in a basement with a fucki—”

Wait. Orin stopped, the young man freezing up as he replayed the last minute or so of conversation to himself. “…you don’t know know what any of that shit is, do you?”

“Well…” The fed leaned back on the white couch, arms spread wide. “I know more than I did sixty seconds ago, don’t I?”

Godd- He blinked for a few seconds, confusion replacing cockiness as he tried to put together one simple question. How the hell does he not know? That was like the basic basics of… cybersecurity, especially with Apple.

Eventually, green eyes slid shut with a sigh, confusion giving way to exhaustion. “Oh, fuck you.”

“You mentioned an eighteen-character credential.” 

“I hope you die.” 

“Something called Secure Enclave.” 

“Slowly.”

“Facial recognition and biometrics.”

“Painfully.”

“And, correct me if I’m wrong…” Both eyebrows chose to go high, even the one behind that (familiar) eyepatch straining at the black cloth. “but also automatic data erasure after repeated failures.”

Oh, okay, so now you guys wanna listen to me. Orin let one eye slide open as he breathed out loud again. “I have a bomb in my asshole that I can set off by winking three times.”

The man wearing all black and leather in the middle of summer leaned forward. “Which eye?”

“…fuck yourself.”

“You seem to know a great deal about how difficult we would find these devices to access.”

Cause it’s obvious. Those weren’t the words that left him, though. “…cause they’re mine.” 

“That much was obvious. Anything else to contribute?”

Orin gave him a long look. “Just one, yeah.”

“Oh?” The man leaned in even closer, an actual expectant look in that single eye.

“Suck me soft.”