Attention {Paperhat}

~ Chapter Eight ~

Flug repeatedly pounded his head on the table, momentarily disregarding the muffled screams from the hero behind him.

They'd been at this for almost ten hours now, and the doctor was at his wit's end. He'd stabbed the hero with all kinds of needles and filled him with what seemed like a million different experimental fluids.

Now for the past three hours, they'd been busy with waterboarding and Flug had even gone as far as to completely submerge Grayson in a large box of perfluorocarbon, a liquid that held enough oxygen for someone to safely breathe while in it. Unfortunately, Grayson squirmed around so much that Flug had to fill a bath with the same liquid and sink him in that instead.

He hated being wasteful.

Flug stopped banging his head to look at the clock on the wall. Two more minutes. The banging began again.

"Dr Flug."

Flug looked up to the speaker on the wall. "Y-Yes, sir?"

"How's it coming in there?"

"I'm...close, sir. He's still in the perfluorocarbon, b-but I'm just about to take him out."

"Excellent. Keep up the good work, doctor."

Flug beamed under his bag. "Y-Yes, sir!"

"Oh, and Flug? I'd prefer it if you could refrain from pounding your head on that table. Wouldn't want you damaging that pretty little mind of yours."

The speaker clicked and Black Hat was gone, leaving Flug flustered and confused. Had Black Hat really just used the word pretty when describing Flug's mind?

What in the hell was going on with his boss?

Sighing, Flug stood and made his way over to the tub holding Grayson and grabbed the heavy metal chain that was connected to a heavy slab of glass that he had placed over the tub to keep Grayson from escaping. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the chain, lifting the glass off of the tub; he watched as Grayson shot up out of the liquid and dived over the side of the tub, landing hard on his side.

"Welcome back," Flug cheerfully greeted the hero. "Thought we lost you for a minute there. How are you feeling?"

Grayson opened his mouth and Flug cringed as the man projectile vomited across the room.

"That...sort of answers my question, I guess. Does anything feel strange or...different in any way?"

"I can't feel my legs. Or my face. Why the fuck can't I feel my face?"

"That's typical with the perfluorocarbon. At least, it has been with a couple of previous patients. Your legs, however, are most likely due to some of the other experiments."

"Oh god," Grayson moaned, burying his face in his hands.

"He isn't here right now, but I've heard that he takes messages." Flug grabbed the back of the hero's suit and pulled him across the floor, over to the operating table.

"Don't-- Don't put me back on that," Grayson muttered.

"Not right now. I'm just moving you away from the vomit you just so lovingly spewed across the room. That's actually amazing, you being able to produce that much, I mean. You haven't eaten in hours, yet your stomach was somehow still able to push all of that together. Amazing how the human body works, right?" As Flug spoke, he worked on filling a syringe full with new fluid.