v2.0 - this is a dark ride
[Mun note: What came before, in Gabriel's homeworld...]
[Such a small, small room. Grey walls, like his heart beating so slow. Power dampeners kept him as helpless as any other baseline human. They weren't taking any chances, not now. They'd fill his room with invisible, sweet gas that he couldn't outlast and he'd wake up in an exam room, a surgery, a cold room held firm by hard restraints and drugs, the only time he saw other humans. Needles, IVs, a tube down his throat for nutrition; he hadn't truly eaten in days. Drugs so strong that would relax his skeletal muscles, and they'd have to force him to breathe with machines. No escape, no choices, no control. They wanted him to know who held the reins.
[All mutants were a fascination to them, and they didn't put him back in suspended animation, nor did they kill him. Technology had progressed that could isolate the mutated genes what released the abilities hidden away in the brain. And he was special for another reason. He'd disappeared, completely, for months. Gone. And he'd mentioned only one place, a town he swore existed but they hadn't been able to locate. Mind probes by a trusted mutant psychic had gathered only so much information, only what he'd experienced, and some believed he'd gone insane from his time spent in cryo. Others weren't so sure. Where was this 'Mayfield'? Who might be able to create such a complex, rich environment and have complete control over it's denizens? Did it represent another group of mutants? Aliens? Or another untapped power of his they hadn't been able to draw out yet?
[There were many tests. A room with impenetrable walls. "Try to get out," they'd say, and he'd refuse. Then they set the room aflame, and he fought to escape. Too strong for him, too tight. He'd put deep dents in the walls, smashed the cameras watching the test, and when they'd finally gotten to him he'd been burned over his back and one arm, the left side of his neck, one ear partly melted. He'd also nearly punched a hole in the five foot thick steel wall, and had suffered a minor stroke from the exertion. Time had passed irregularly during his recovery, but they answered no questions and only expected answers to their own.
[There was no time that could be measured. He assumed the sun rose and set, and then he didn't. His life consisted of the little grey room with the bare cot and the sink and toilet, and then the labs where smocked and masked figures with dead eyes injected him with chemicals, cut into flesh and muscle, peeled back skin, and tested his mental responses. They knew. They fucking knew.
[The mental voice of the mutant psychic was always there, insistent. "Who are your contacts? Where are the safe houses? Where did you go for those months? What is 'Mayfield'? How did you break through ARGOS' programming? Tell me how this feels..." And he'd listen to the screaming in his own mind as the machines pumped rhythmically.
[The last time they took him, they didn't send him back to his rooms. More extreme measures. Always awake, always aware, unable to move. Always the mental voice, questioning and probing. He became less himself and more a piece of meat. He couldn't remember a time before, imagine a time after. His memories became malleable, and they started probing those as well. They had driven him to his limit. Broken. Nothing.
[They grew lax in their silence. EEGs showed he wasn't there, not fully, and they'd talk. Pointless. Biopsy. Augmentation. Vivisection. Waste of budgetary funds. Vascular stress. Inter-cranial exploration. Words, only words. They breathed for him, he ebbed and waned. There was nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
[Then, something.]
[Mun note: Enter Mayfield... again.]
[Gabriel Grant opened his eyes and screamed.]
[Voice:]
[There is screaming over the line. Terror and confusion. It doesn't stop.]
[Action:]
[He ran. The place is familiar, the houses and streets and people waving and smiling from their yards, all the same, all placid and happy. He remembers just enough to be terrified. A rat in a cage. Run, run, run.
[Until he comes to the park. Before he reaches the grass he falls to his knees, panting. He can't run if he's unable to breathe (I can't breathe without the) and he can't move if he isn't running, and if he isn't moving he's TRAPPED.
[Gabriel tries to scream and only manages a sob. There is always a cage.]