Save Him One More Time: Phase 3

Chapter 10- Moira

Akande opened the door for them.
"I see you were successful," he said, eyeing their captive.
"Don't touch her, hombre," Sombra warned. "Moira said she'd kill us if anything happened to her. Although if you were the culprit she'd probably kill you instead."
"Understood." He still didn't take his eyes off her.
Amelie stood in the corridor, arms crossed.
"Give her to me. I will take her to her cell."
"No." Reaper kept a hold of the medic's arm. "Tell me where she goes and I'll put her there myself. I don't want anything happening to her before Moira can look at her."
"Moira wants to see you in her lab. You know I won't hurt her." She snapped a pair of cuffs on Angela's wrists and waved Reaper away. "I'd tread carefully if I were you. Moira is not happy." She motioned for Angela to follow her.
"There is no use fighting what's going to happen, Dr. Ziegler. In the end, you will surrender. You might as well make it easier on yourself and surrender without a fight. Resistance will only bring you pain."
Angela said nothing. The sniper looked back at her. "And in the end, it is better this way. There are no feelings to blind you, to make you shy away from what must be done." Having arrived at the cell, she swung the door open and shoved the medic inside. She closed the door firmly.
"I wouldn't try to escape, mon cherie. The cuffs can give you quite the shock."

Reaper knocked lightly on the door to Moira's lab and stepped back to wait.
"You're back early."
He jumped and spun around to face the voice. Moira.
"I thought you were in your lab."
"I was. And then I stepped out for a moment. Now I'm back. It's a good thing you're here, though, I wanted to talk to you." Her voice adopted a more stern tone. "Sombra told me you've been slipping."
Oh no. He was dead if he couldn't play this off.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She stared at him.
"Of course. But I'd still like to run some tests."
She opened the door to her lab and motioned him inside. "You know the drill. Sit in your chair. Off with the mask and jacket. And your shirt." She put on a white coat and pulled a scanner out of her pocket. He did as he was told, keeping his eyes down. Hopefully his heart wasn't pounding too fast.
She ran the scanned over his bare chest.
"Hmm. Heart rate's a bit high. Are you nervous?"
"I don't like needles."
"You've never had an elevated heart rate around needles before, why start now?"
"I had some time to think about everything you do with them."
"Oh. The threat of torture if you touched the doctor. I remember. I didn't really mean it, I just didn't want you to kill her. I could care less about her wellbeing. As long as she's stable and mostly alive."
"Then why did you threaten me like that."
"Reaper, you know better than to question me." She ran the scanner over his forehead, pausing to run her finger over a few small scratches on his hairline. Fingernail marks.
"Where did these come from?"
"The medic jumped me."
Moira sniffed disapprovingly.
"She's feisty, I'll give her that." She looked at the scanner. "Reaper, you've been slipping. Have your headaches been returning?"
"No." It was a lie. His head hurt even now. He didn't want her to know, she'd make him forget his angel even more.
She looked him in the eyes, bending down and holding his chin to see better.
"Don't lie to me, Reaper. Your head hurts when you slip. The past confirms the pattern. So I'll give you one last chance to tell me the truth. You're slipping, and your head hurts, yes?"
He sighed and leaned away from her.
"Moira, we're wasting time. We should be discussing the next mission, not playing doctor when there's nothing wrong."
She snatched a syringe out of her pocket and jabbed it into his shoulder, lowering him down onto the table as the effects set in.
"What was that for?" His head was spinning.
"I told you not to lie to me, Gabriel." She smiled at him.
"What's with your face? It looks wrong. I can see your teeth."
She leaned back and slapped him in the face.
"Shut up and go to sleep."
This wasn't good. He wanted to sleep but he couldn't stop talking. He was going to ruin everything.
"Can I have a lollipop?" Oh, for crying out loud.
"Shut up and go to sleep." She was messing with what looked to be a bunch of belts. No, wait. Those were restraints. He mentally cursed himself and her.
"Will I see Angela in my dreams?" Oh no. He willed himself to shut up before he could make it any worse but he wouldn't.
"You won't dream. You won't remember any of this when you wake up. It will be hours, days, possibly weeks. You won't remember any of it."
"I get to sleep in?"
"Shut. Up."
He heard himself giggle.
"Gabriel. Shut up."
"Are those your favorite words?"
"I don't get to say my favorite words because you're in no shape to hear them."
He managed to control his mind long enough to growl, "I'll never let you touch her! You'll never win!"
She ran her hand over his face.
"I've already won, Gabriel. You'll be asleep, and your precious angel will be no more. I will have my way."
He pulled against the restraints.
"You touch her and you die."
"Au contraire, Gabriel. You keep resisting, and she will die."
"I'm not gonna be your little soldier."
"Yes you are. You've already begun the process and given me what I need to rewire you. Now go to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's over." He twisted his face away from her, and he felt something sharp in his arm. The lab went fuzzy and then he knew no more.

A light tap on the lab door broke her train of thought.
"What do you want?" she called.
"May I come in?"
"Amelie, of course. What do you need." Moira was frustrated and made no attempt to hide it.
"I am getting a headache. It is not much yet, but I would prefer to eliminate it before it gets worse."
Moira motioned to a shelf.
"Yours is on the top shelf, the bottle is black, has your name on the label." She picked her clipboard up and wrote something on it. "When you've got your meds, leave me alone unless your headache comes back or gets worse. Or if there's an emergency."
"Compris."
Moira looked at her formulas. They should all be correct. She'd added another chemical to the mix, one that induced amnesia. Theoretically, she'd give it to him, then set him up in the simulation room and replicate the explosion. When he came to, he would be a shell, ready for her to train. She sighed. This had better work.

"Hey."
Angela looked at the door. Sombra stood there, leaning on the wall nonchalantly.
"What do you want?"
"You really like him, don't you?"
"Whatever you're trying to do, it's not going to work. You're not going to get anything out of me."
"Information isn't what I'm after, chica." She leaned closer to the door, her eyes darting around the room. She pulled up a holo keypad and typed for a few seconds.
"I know what Moira's going to do to you. I watched her do it to Gabe. I wasn't there when she did it to Amelie but I know she did it." She paused, seeing if her words had any effect.
"My point being," she continued, "Moira's an evil witch who can rot in any dungeon for the rest of her life and then she can go burn in el infierno."
"What are you saying?"
"I don't wanna watch another person die. Watching her when she woke him up for the first time was awful. He cried. Couldn't blame the poor guy. He didn't know anything, where he was, who he was, who she was, nothing. And she turned around and slapped him in the face and set the machine on him and that was disturbing. I bet even you'll be able to hear him all the way down here when she sets it on him again. She made me watch the first time and I threw up." She stopped suddenly, shaking her head. "She's gonna do that to you. Put you under, dump a bunch of chemicals into you, put you in the simulation room and wake you up, you won't know anything, and then she'll put the machine on you and you'll be just like him. I saw her getting ready. I don't know what effects the stuff'll have on you. Amelie's purple, Gabe's got problems staying in one piece, apparently there were others who didn't live. I don't even wanna know what those poor people would've had." She typed again on her holo. "Gabe likes you. Maybe he even loves you, deep down. Moira tried to get rid of that. She did it once, with Amelie. Got her to kill her own husband."
"That's what happened? We never knew who killed Gerard." Angela stood up and punched the wall weakly. "That-" a string of curses followed and she leaned her head against the wall.
"She's going to make him kill me."
"What? No." Sombra stuck her hand through the door and poked the medic's shoulder. "Did you hear nothing of what I just said? You're her next experiment. She's trying to do something and she hasn't perfected it. She's going to try on you, don't you get that?" She stopped short as a faint scream resonated through the hallway. Angela looked up.
"Gabriel." She lunged for the door, eyes wild.
"Let me out."
"Hey, calm down, chica. I can't let you out if you're just going to get yourself back in here."
"Let. Me. Out." She shook the door, tears forming in her eyes. "Let me out," she whispered, sinking to the floor.
"You can't save him this round, chica." Sombra sat, arms on her knees. "You have to catch him and keep him away from Moira. If you get out, go far, far away. Like really far away. She'll send us after you again and he'll be slipping and maybe we can stop him long enough for him to remember you. He always does, after a few weeks. I've heard him talking to himself about you." She touched the cuffs. "But first you have to get out. I'm going to deactivate your cuffs. Don't take them off or the game's up." Angela flinched as another cry filtered in. Sombra hacked the cuffs and stood up. "He's going to scream like that for a few hours. Try to tune it out if it bothers you too much."

(I'm sorry the uploading schedule has been all out of whack lately. I'm fairly certain I can stay on track this time, and keep the chapters coming one every other week.
Thank you all so much for reading my story! I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy it as I continue to upload!)