It had been two days [add Eric's amazement that everything is back together so fast] before workers had come through to replace all the lights in the barracks. The toilet and sink had started working the first day after everything went to shit, which had been a relief. They'd still been using the toilet without flushing, but it had already started to stink up the room, and the chances it was going to get plugged up were high. When their first meal was delivered, a few hours after the lights were fixed, Victor had been ravenous, eating everything on his plate without saving any of the meat for Bob, his body eager to replace the nutrients it had expended in heat, even as short as it had been.

It was hard to believe he was actually pregnant. He had to be, because heat never stopped that quickly on his own, but it was so surreal. He wondered when it would feel more real. When he felt the first kick? When his belly started to swell?

Will tried to give him extras from his portion of food, and even Bob nosed his plate over to him, but Victor had turned them down. It was sweet. But surely this early in the pregnancy, he didn't need a ton of extra food.

"[I need to give the prisoners numbers]. You're up."

Had they already replaced everything so quickly that they were back on track with the poking and the prodding? Victor had hoped the chaos would have given them at least a weeks' respite.

At least they hadn't seemed to remember the bindings they'd left on him when they'd thrown him in here the last time. Victor had no idea how they could be useful, or if they would be, but he'd learned to snatch every possible resource when he could. Right now, they were strapped under his mattress. Hopefully, the Letters wouldn't run an inspection any time soon. The chaos could grant him at least that one small favor.

The guards marched him to one of the "therapy" rooms. Victor hated them almost more than when they put him in surgery. At least then, they knocked him out. Sometimes.

Dr. J was waiting for him, his attention focused on the tablet in front of him. There was another man in the room, one Victor had never seen before. He was in a grey suit with a grey tie and a black shirt. He stood out in the stark white of room, but he stood against the wall without moving. The Blockheads strapped me to the chair and then left us alone in the room. The silence was heavy, and nearly complete, their breathing the only break in its monotony. 

"Tell me about the night the power failed," Dr. J said without looking up at Victor.

Victor didn't respond. He never did, no matter what Dr. J did to him. His eyes darted to the dark man in the corner, though.

"Why did you react so intensely to Dr. V the first time you saw him?" Dr. J looked up this time, and Victor did his best to control his flinch at the mention of Eric. Did Dr. J know? Did he suspect?

With a sigh, Dr. V stood, going to a counter at the back of the room and lifting a prepared syringe. It always came down to this. Sooner or later. [Gotta put this in sooner.] When Victor wouldn't talk, then they stick him full of that crap. It made him feel floaty. It made him feel comforted. It made him feel loved.

He fucking hated it. 

Before, he'd always retreated to his numbers, floated in a sea of loving numbers, a land of numbers where words didn't exist. But suddenly, he wondered if it would hurt the baby. Would it cause him to miscarry? He felt a flare of despairing hope. If he miscarried--that would solve a lot of problems. But a stronger part of him, the deeper, more instinctive part, rejected that possibility whole-heartedly.

For the first time, he flinched at the approach of the needle.

Dr. J paused, a small smile of triumph on his face. "Would you like to start talking, or should I proceed?"

He knew something had changed, even if he didn't know what. Victor couldn't chance whatever was in that stuff wouldn't hurt the baby, so he started talking. "I wasn't feeling good. Some kind of flu or something. Felt like I had a fever." They didn't know the full story about omega heats, called them "wolf fever", but if Victor could play it off as something more common, that would be better. "The bl--guards strapped me onto the table like always, Dr. V was getting something set up, I couldn't see what, and then the lights went off. The guards took off and he hid in the back of the room, and then when the guards came back, they threw me in my cell. By the time the lights came on, I was feeling better."

Dr. J tapped the syringe in his hand. That could not be sanitary. 

"Did Dr. V release you at any point?"

Victor felt a cold sweat break out. Dr. J knew something. Victor wasn't sure what, or how, so he couldn't stray from my story. "If he had, I would have lipped him limb from limb, and any other of you assholes I ran across."

Dr. J sighed and looked to the other man. "They're a difficult species," he said. He turned back to me. "Why did you react so strongly to Dr. V."

Shit. "Do I need a reason to hate you? All of you?"

Dr. J spread his hands as if he couldn't understand what Victor meant. "We're doing work that will change the world, here. And you are a necessary part of that. Yes, it's unfortunate that some of you will have a hard time, but in the long run, this is a glorious opportunity for humanity!"

"But you don't consider us part of that humanity," Victor spat back at him.

"You are a marvelous work of science! It would be a crime to leave that knowledge untapped."

"The Nazis justified a lot of shit that way."

Dr. J shook his head as he walked around Victor. "If the modern world put the betterment of the species over the rights of the individual, we'd be much better off. Think of all the progress we would have made! The Nazis are an unfortunate example, but we have benefited so much from their scientific knowledge."

The man's words made Victor feel as if a putrid oil were covering him. "It's not worth it."

"I beg to differ. And I'm afraid you're much to agitated to continue like this."

Good. Victor hoped the fucker would put him back in his cell. He made Victor feel ill, as if--

A familiar burning pain flared in Victor’s neck, and then smoothed away as the contents of the syringe smoothed all of the pain away. Victor struggled in his chair, but the drug acted quickly, and he scrambled for his numbers, but all he could think of was the baby. He swirled in a nightmare of crying babies, twisted in the too-smooth lines of the drug. He could hear Dr. J's voice floating around him, but thankfully, even though it was painful and confusing, the nightmare was enough to distract Victor from answering, and he faded... faded... faded...