Summus Proelium

The last time I had actually been face to face with Benjamin Pittman was the first day I actually met Paige, seven years ago. I had been nine years old, running full-tilt through Anthony’s house when I accidentally collided with the man. He’d taken it well enough, surprisingly, even saying the collision was his fault for getting in the way while Anthony and I were playing. Had he really been so unaffected and casual at that point, or was it just a mask he’d been putting on to avoid upsetting the people he was trying to make a deal with? Anthony had been right there, after all, and probably wouldn’t have reacted very well to his friend being yelled at or belittled. Was the polite reaction to that little collision fake, or had something happened later to make him so utterly deranged?

Well, of course something had happened. Anthony and his parents died, taking away the source of Pittman’s funding for his big, world-changing project. How much of his reaction was from losing people he maybe cared about, and how much was just the loss of money? Was he actually close to the Tates in more than a business sense?

One thing convinced me that it wasn’t all just something that had changed in him since then: Paige. He had completely treated Paige like a piece of property from the beginning. He hid her away, tried to make sure she didn’t have any friends or anyone else to interact with besides himself. He didn’t treat her like a real person. Which was odd coming from someone who had been planning to convince the rest of the world that they would still be real people after sticking their brains inside Biolem bodies.

Whatever the truth, he had well and truly lost the plot by now. He hated my family so much, thanks to my grandfather being responsible for the deaths of his financial backers, that he wanted all of us dead. Or worse, he wanted to hurt my parents by killing me and exposing their Ministry in the process. And if he had pulled that off, who knew what he would’ve done next? As it was, he was already responsible for Sleeptalk. His machinations had resulted in the entire city being quarantined and half the Star-Touched and other authorities in the city being taken out of action.

He was, in a word, dangerous. Possibly the most dangerous person I’d ever been face to face with. Yes, there was Pencil, but Pittman was dangerous in a different, subtler way. Pencil had just wanted to destroy things, kill people, and watch the world burn. Pittman had ambition. Hell, he’d gotten into this thing because he wanted to make the human species immortal, with himself controlling the whole situation. Paige had made that much clear. Pittman didn’t just want to hand over the keys to immortality like a benevolent scientist. He wanted to dictate who could get new bodies and when. He didn’t simply want to rule the city, or the country, or even the world. He wanted to be responsible for controlling the entirety of human existence from here until the heat death of the universe.

Ambition might be too small of a word.

But it was more personal than that. Yes, he was a danger to everyone. Yet I was the one he’d tried to have killed. I was the one he forced Paige, my friend, to treat like shit for years just to establish an excuse for literally murdering me. When Anthony died, I was Paige’s only remaining friend. My parents had my memory erased, yes, but Paige remembered. Paige had remembered who I was, that I was the only friend she had left, and he had fucking enslaved her into hurting and then killing me. He absolutely forced her to kill her friend after the first one had been murdered. The fact that she had found a way around that, a way to bring me back after death, didn’t matter. Not really. He was a monster, a dangerously evil piece of shit who treated Paige like a weapon, a tool he could use to get his pathetic revenge as part of his further quest to rule humanity.

All of which was to say, as firmly and emphatically as possible, fuck Benjamin Pittman.

Those thoughts and more went rushing through my brain as I stared at the man strapped down onto that bench. He was clearly reeling from what had just happened, eyes snapping back and forth between Paige and Sierra as though still processing what that meant. Sierra had called him ‘Pops’ so it probably wasn’t too hard for him to work out that she was the Paige ‘replacement,’ the one he’d thought was dead. Between that and the fact that we’d teleported him off of Breakwater without any warning, no wonder he was going to need a minute to actually process.

Well too bad, we didn’t feel any need to give him that minute. Or any other time at all. One of the last things we wanted right now was for Pittman to have time to think and plan. He might’ve been strapped down and unable to access any tools, but that didn’t make him completely helpless by any stretch of the imagination. We weren’t quite stupid enough to believe that simply being teleported here completely unexpectedly and tied down to a table was enough to render the man utterly impotent.

To that end, Wren abruptly announced, “Got it!” She had been examining a computer screen on the far side of the room, bouncing up and down excitedly as she called out, “Left shoe, right front pocket, inside both ears, right ankle, left sleeve, inside jacket pocket on the left.”

Sierra and Paige moved immediately, stripping various weapons and tools out of the spots she had indicated. They took a pair of tiny, almost invisible earbuds away from him as well, just so he couldn’t try to call for reinforcements from any Biolems that might still be around the city. Granted any signals going out or in should have already been blocked, but better safe than sorry when it came to this particular asshole.

He tried arguing and threatening of course. And, I was sure, various command codes to try to take over Paige and Sierra. But with Wren’s megaphone-like devices up on the ceiling, his voice was instantly transferred elsewhere before any of us heard it. We didn’t have to listen to him, and he couldn’t use his vocal commands to control those two. Which, judging by the look on his face, the man was very unhappy about.

He was also unhappy as Paige none-too-gently strapped his head down to make sure he couldn’t even look around very much. Her voice was as even as she could make it. “Don’t worry, like I said, we’re just going to get the cure out of you. Then you can go back to prison. Or somewhere else, if Breakwater doesn’t work out. They seem pretty shit at keeping you under control as it is. But then, maybe they’ll have more luck once we take away all your toys. After all, while we’re in your head, we might as well find out where the rest of your workshops are so we can take those off the board.”

In that moment, Pittman’s eyes snapped to me. There was uncertainty there. He clearly didn’t know who I was. Well, obviously he knew I was Paintball, but he didn’t know there was more to me. I could see the lack of recognition, the lack of personal anger. He was looking to see if there was a way he could exploit me, or find a way out of this. Fortunately, all he would see there was a currently red-painted visor on a black helmet. He didn’t get to see my face, and I certainly wasn’t going to do anything else to let him know who I really was. Much as yelling at him might have made me feel a little better in the moment, as far as I was concerned he would go through this entire situation without ever knowing that Cassidy Evans had anything to do with it.

He was really struggling now, shoving and rocking back and forth on the bench. But it was sturdy, and the straps were far too strong for him to break out of. As I nodded to Wren, she hit the button to make the bench start sliding into the MRI-like tube part of the VR machine. Which took him out of our sight. Even that felt dangerous to me at that moment. Yes, we had taken his weapons away after giving him a thorough scan. He was muted, had been transported here without any warning, and was very securely strapped down. But having his face out of my sight immediately sent a slight pang of worry through me. Was that just unreasonable paranoia on my part? Or completely reasonable paranoia?

Either way, Paige and Sierra both seemed to share that feeling, judging by the looks they exchanged with one another. Not that there was much we could do about it now. We were in this for the long haul. We had just abducted one of Breakwater's prisoners, who happened to be one of the most dangerous people I knew about. He was locked up in Wren's shop, and we were going to get answers out of him.

But not quite yet. According to Wren, it would take a few hours for the machine to sync to him now that she had adjusted it to actually translate the 'motions' in his mind to virtual reality. We had to wait around for that to do its job so we could move on to the next part. Which meant that there was nothing else we could do besides wait around and talk about things. Which was what we did, much as I hated feeling like we were wasting time.

Finally, the machine was done with its work. Pittman's mind was officially linked into virtual reality. So, we all reassembled up there. Paige and Sierra immediately moved to the chairs attached to the machine, with Peyton joining them. I gave a quick glance to the others. “Anything happens, be ready to pull us out. And watch the neighborhood just in case. I really don’t think he managed to get any signal out, but… you know.”

Oh, they definitely knew. And they confirmed they would be watching over everything. Between Fred, Wren, Murphy, Roald, and Qwerty, someone would always be watching the cameras showing the views all around the building, and what was going on inside Pittman’s head. In addition to upgrading the VR thing so that we could go inside his mind even though he was human, Wren had set up a monitor that would show people outside what we were seeing.

Well, to be fair, we weren’t actually ‘going inside his mind.’ Rather, we were going into a computer simulation that his mind would be sort of controlling. His brain was hooked up to the suit that controlled his actions, and that would dictate what the virtual reality created. There were obvious limitations to make sure he couldn’t pull a god in the machine thing and take over the whole situation. Basically, we would make him think about how to make the cure for Sleeptalk, then put him in a simulation of his lab. We would go inside that simulation and make sure we followed every step of that cure while the suit he was connected to forced him to go through the actions of it. Just like when we’d put Ashton in the suit and used that to lead me to the vials. Except in virtual reality so he didn’t need to go anywhere. Because like fuck was I going to let this son of a bitch walk willy nilly around the whole city grabbing supplies or whatever.

Taking my own seat, I lifted the visor and put the special sunglasses on while Wren made sure I was securely belted in so I wouldn’t fall off. The gloves came next, replacing my usual ones. And with that, I was ready. So were the other three. Pittman--well, he was ‘ready’ too, much as he might have argued against that point.

Well, here went nothing. Settling back in the seat, I waited while Wren turned everything on and started giving us a quick countdown. The sound of the machine whirring to life filled the room, while I took a deep breath.

Wren reached zero, and a blindingly bright light suddenly filled my vision, before just as quickly shifting into a kaleidoscope of rapidly-shifting rainbow colors. I heard a completely random series of sounds, from a cow mooing, to rain against a window, a shovel digging through dirt, pages being ripped out of a book, a balloon being inflated, and more. Just random sounds without any rhyme or reason, the same as when we’d gone into virtual reality to investigate Paige’s mind before.

And just like before, the sounds and colors were eventually replaced by a reddish-purple fog and the sensation of going down very quickly on a roller coaster. It was enough to send my stomach somewhere up into my throat.

Then it was over. The fog cleared, and I was standing in some sort of mixed science lab and autoshop. Wait, not just those, it was also a medical lab. All three. And they weren’t exactly divided up. It seemed like Pittman had set this place up as a pretty even mix between them. There was a table in the corner with microscopes and other science doohickeys next to what looked like the combustion engine out of a Kawasaki motorcycle from the mid-nineties and an old carburetor from probably the fifties. And within a few feet of those was what I was pretty sure was an actual human heart inside a jar. It was still beating in there, with wires hooked up to it leading over to a computer.

That was just one table. The entire lab was like that. Everywhere I looked was another science-medical nightmare. On the table in the middle of the room was a heavy sheet covering what was very obviously at least most of a full human body.

“Oooohhhkay, Doctor Frankenstein,” I muttered under my breath, giving the other three a quick glance to make sure they were all present and accounted for before turning to the man in question. “Why don’t we get the freakshow on the road so we can get out of this complete nightmare, huh?”

Obviously, the very first thing Pittman tried, as soon as he had his bearings, was to blurt out a command code again. I saw the snide look on his face as he opened his mouth and triumphantly snapped, “Eagle muskrat five yellow!”

Apparently that was supposed to do something to Paige and Sierra, from the way his gaze snapped that way. It didn't happen now, which he seemed to realize immediately, repeating himself in a louder voice.

“Is he trying it?” Paige asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Of course he is,” I replied before focusing on the man himself. “Look, you might as well save your breath. And don’t try activating any traps either. We're not idiots. See, this is all a virtual simulation. We're not really physically here. We’re in a recreation from your mind. A recreation which won’t allow you to harm any of us. And those two,” I added while pointing to the pair of Biolem girls, “can't hear anything you say. On the outside, everything you said was being instantly transported elsewhere before we even heard it. In here, you can talk, but those two can’t hear you. Think of it like we're all playing a fancy multiplayer game and your voice isn't being sent to their computers. You can rant and rave and give all the codes you want, but they won’t hear it. Anything you want to say to them, you can say to us and we’ll pass it on. In our own words.”

We had a few other precautions in place, but I didn’t feel the need to tell him about them just so he could start putting out a way to break them. He knew plenty enough as it was.

Peyton cleared her throat. “Yeah, and I'm pretty grossed out here as it is, so could we just hurry this whole thing up and get done already?”

Her words made Pittman focus on her for just a moment, his gaze calculating before turning back to me. “I believe I've heard of you,” he intoned with a slight smirk. If he was put off about anything that had happened so far, he really didn't show it. It was a little unnerving, the way he barely reacted to any of this. Sure, he’d tried his command code thing repeatedly, but he didn’t look annoyed or upset about it not working. He looked like he was thinking. That worried me a bit more than him freaking out would have, though I was pretty sure that was at least partially intentional. He knew having a fit wouldn’t get him anything. We were prepared for that, and he had been caught off guard by this entire situation. Getting visibly and audibly pissed off wouldn’t help him. But staying quiet, thinking about what was going on, and waiting for an opportunity, that had a better chance of paying off.

Yeah, I really didn’t like this guy. But I had to keep my cool. As far as he was aware, Paintball basically didn’t know him from Adam. Well, I would've known who he was and what he'd done to Paige, but I couldn't let him know it was personal. Not like that.

Maybe that was why I had been so stuck in my own head ever since he showed up. Maybe it was why I was overthinking everything. When I looked at him, part of me wanted to scream, curse him out, punch him, just wail on the son of a bitch until he fixed my parents and apologized to Paige for treating her like he had. And Sierra. He’d used her too, even if it was for a shorter time. She had been a tool to him to take over and erase his other tool.

Okay, I was making myself angry again. I couldn't visibly react, couldn’t give Pittman any clues or openings to dig into. I had to keep myself under control.

It was a good thing Peyton was here, just in case. She had final say over whether we pulled out or not. We’d made that clear amongst ourselves before we even started it. The three of us were compromised in various ways. If Peyton thought things were out of control, she would say a single word and the whole system would be shut down. We’d be ejected and regroup. She was the only one here without a personal reason to want to throat-punch this fucker.

And speaking of throat-punching, Sierra and Paige were keeping themselves rooted to the floor. I knew just how badly they wanted to attack him. But they kept it under control. Honestly, I wasn't sure how they pulled it off.

Clearing her throat, Paige spoke up, addressing her ‘father.’ “You’re in this recreation of your lab to create a cure for that stuff you made that put all those people into those hallucination comas. So get to it.”

His gaze centered on her, as the man snidely retorted, “And why would I--what?” His legs were moving, carrying him over to one of the tables, where he started digging through a box. The suit he was plugged into through the VR machine was clearly doing its job. “What?!”

Sierra was clearly smirking under that combat helmet and visor. “I’m guessing he didn’t like that. Sorry, Pops, in here, you’re gonna do exactly what you’re told. You don’t really have a choice. It’s almost like we reprogrammed you.”

“Gee,” Paige intoned in a flat tone, “I wonder what that’s like.”

If he was bothered by her words, Pittman didn’t show it. Nor did he audibly react to being informed about why he couldn’t control his body. He was digging through the box, taking out various tools and setting them in a line. “Well,” he murmured, “if I’m going to be doing this anyway, I think I deserve to get some answers about what you’ve been up to.”

When I relayed his words, Paige gave a dark little chuckle. “Let me tell you something. The last subject you want to bring up with us is about what you deserve.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a few thoughts on that subject,” Sierra muttered.

Pittman didn’t respond to that. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to antagonize us, didn’t make threats, didn’t promise or plead or bargain. He fell completely silent, while his body continued to move under the direction of the suit.

He was contained, he had no weapons or tools on the outside, was strapped to that bench, couldn’t control Paige or Sierra or even talk to them, and that suit was controlling his movements in here.

So why was I so fucking nervous?