Link Six (completed)

Chapter 38 - Mind Control

"You can't do this!" Leeanna cries, struggling against the psychiatrist and the other man.

"Give it a rest, Emma," Dr. Evans says. "Don't work yourself into a frenzy."

Leeanna clenches her fists and pouts but stops fighting against the men, knowing her efforts would be futile.

"That's better," Dr. Evans glances over his shoulder with a chuckle.

"Where are we going?" Leeanna asks, with as much inflection as she could muster.

"You'll see, but don't get your hopes up; you're not going to like it." Dr. Evans replies.

Leeanna swallows nervously, wondering if right now they were going to attempt to control her. She reminds herself that they don't know that she isn't Emma, so whatever they were going to do will be geared towards Emma's abilities.

The men stop in front of an unlabeled door that Dr. Evans uses his key card to get open. The men lift Leeanna completely off the ground as they enter the room.

"Hey put me down!" She cries. They do put her down, in an uncomfortable metal chair surrounded by a lot of buttons and monitors. She quickly realizes the chair's purpose is to restrain her because the two men waste no time cuffing and strapping her arms to the arm rests and cuffing and strapping her ankles to the ankle rest. She struggles to get out of the cuffs, but they do their job very well; she's immobile.

"Let me go! You can't do this! What is this thing!" Leeanna protests, the beginnings of terror bubbling inside the pit of her stomach.

"It's what I've been working on since the day I got out of prison," Dr. Evans says. "It's a virtual reality simulator with a twist, it involves your mind, too. All we have to do is turn it full blast and tell it to hone in your emotions, and you'll do whatever we want just so you won't end up back in this chair."

This is the torture machine. This is what he plans to use to control them.

"No!" Leeanna shakes her head vigorously and fearfully. Though she is expressing her emotions as Emma, the fear running through her is genuine.

"Get the operating personnel in here so we can start this machine up," Dr. Evans instructs Dr. Greg and the other man. They leave the room leaving her alone, trapped in a metal chair, with Dr. Evans.

He doesn't say anything, just comes over to Leeanna and puts some sort of cold, stiff headset on her head. He takes a step back and smiles sinisterly at her.

Leeanna knows exactly how Emma would react to this: with tears. That's what Dr. Evans is expecting her to do, and if she doesn't deliver, he'll know something is up. Leeanna shuts her eyes, and starts to hyperventilate, as Emma usually does in periods of heightened emotional activity.

Crying, however is another matter. Leeanna doesn't cry. Even as a baby she was quieter than most, preferring to babble instead of crying to get what she wanted. But now, she realizes that if she doesn't cry, their cover is blown.

She thinks about the closest time she's ever been to crying, the time her parents forced her and her sister out of the house and two the psychiatrist. She knows what her thoughts were, that she was never going to forgive her parents and couldn't believe they'd do this. Instead of focusing on her thoughts, she focuses on remembering what she felt. Back then she was a different person, one that stomped out all of her emotions and focused only on her and everyone around her's thought processes. Still, she had the ability to feel, so she focuses on what she felt, and only on what she felt as she sat on her uncle's lap. Leeanna remembers the emotions now: rage, fright, resentment, distrust, dejection. They aren't good feelings, and Leeanna isn't used to feeling good feelings so vividly either, but Leeanna had to cry, and this is the only way she knew how.