***
Kevin came back to reality like a slow wave. He gradually figured out distant sounds that were fans and the whirl of computer equipment. He opened his eyes slowly, but the colours were too bright so he kept them closed, letting his eyes adjust gradually through his eyelids.
The smell slammed into him. It was overwhelming and nearly made him bolt upright. Almost overlooked in the enhancements was an improved sense of smell. Smell and memory are linked, and he wanted to improve his. This was the cost. Even without the enhanced sense of smell, it would be overpowering.
Decaying flesh, with hints of unwashed skin. Leah said he'd been under for over a week, so he'd gone that long without a shower. That would be bad enough. But the process had caused large parts of his body to dissolve. It had been horrifying to look at when Leah showed him. But he'd failed to consider what it must have smelled like. Either Lillian still had buckets of 'him' lying around in the room and hadn't disposed of it, or it had been so bad it had permanently tainted the room with the smell of decayed flesh.
If anyone had been watching him closely, it would be obvious that he was awake. But there was no other sound other than computers. He took a chance and opened his eyes again. He winced, but the light was manageable. He looked around, but there was no sign of Lillian. The smell was so bad that she couldn't spend much time here. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't observing him, so he did nothing suspicious.
He shifted in bed and sat up, his head swimming. Anyone watching would have no problem seeing him as confused. Already he could feel things processing differently. Something told Kevin that Lillian was watching him, so he acted dazed without thought...it's something that never would have occurred to do before.
He stared at his hands, which were bigger and not soft. He glanced down at his body and immediately saw that instead of the soft, unremarkable body he had before, now all he could see were well-defined muscles. He nearly stood up to find a reflective surface and see the full extent of the changes. Instead, Lillian burst through the door.
"You're awake! You shouldn't be awake for another two hours by my calculations," she said, coming towards him. He was pleased to see she winced at the smell as she got closer. But just as importantly, he was witnessing a whole new Lillian. Gone was the quiet, reserved, timid person. Instead, she was wild-eyed, almost manic. She was excited, yet nervous.
Good. When he was in high school and university, Kevin took drama classes. He'd wanted to be a writer but thought he should also take some acting lessons. He wanted to learn how it was to speak the dialogue he was writing. He wasn't terrible at it, but there was no desire to pursue it as a career.
Suddenly his brain clicked. He recalled every acting class he took. What tricks he should do to portray being in this emotional state and how to pretend to be someone else. He was so delighted to discover this he almost laughed in glee.
Then he remembered Lillian programmed him to be an idiot. Time to play the role.
"What happened? What did you do to me?" he said, quietly and slowly, as if in a daze. He hoped he wasn't overdoing it.
"My god, it worked. It all worked," Lillian said and laughed. It wasn't quite a supervillain laugh, but she would get there with some work. "I knew the body enhancements worked days ago, but the mind also worked."
She walked up and touched his face. Lillian's face was flushed, but her fingers were ice cold.
"What did you do?" he repeated dully.
She walked away, practically skipping and began doing things with her computer system. Whenever Kevin was in the room, she'd always been cautious about covering when she entered the password. She wasn't cautious this time, unworried about her new idiot slave. Lillian's fingers flew across the keyboard. It was 30 characters of alpha-numeric gibberish and Kevin memorized every stroke. Kevin and Leah believed they would have to pull it from her brain once she went under. She just saved them days.
"What I've done is made you better. You're stronger and more dangerous than you ever have been before. What you are is someone who can protect me when Mitchell comes with his goons and kill them for me. What you are is someone useful for once in your life," she said, as her monitors all came to life around her. She then turned and stared at him. "And all it cost you was your underwhelming intelligence and any sense of independence. No great loss."
Kevin should just take the insult and let her rant away and do whatever she was doing and hope she hopped into her coma as quickly as possible. But he had to know because once she went under and changed, there might never be another chance to find out how badly he misjudged her.
"Why? We were....friends."
The glee on her face clouded as she got up from the chair and stood next to him. Even with Kevin sitting on the cot, she still barely met him eye-to-eye. Still, she was feeling confident enough to slap him in the face. He barely felt it, but still managed to project hurt into his eyes.
"Friends?! You absolute piece of shit. I wanted to be your girlfriend for years, but you never saw that. You viewed me as some emotional cripple, someone to be pitied and watched over. So I played that part for a while, hoping you might catch on and see the real me. That you might love me.
"But then I realized you never would. You were so goddamn clueless. But I was stuck in a loop. In love with you, hating you for being an idiot, but unable to walk away. I thought if some bad things happened to people you cared about, you might clue in, but you never did," she said.
Fortunately, she was in full rant mode. Kevin was sure the placid, dull look on his face cracked a bit as he remembered she almost certainly had something to do with Erin's disappearance. But she carried on.
"Mitchell woke me up to that. He told me you would never view me as anything but a gifted, damaged little girl. That's why I left and went away with him and his 'organization.' Too late, I realized he was just playing different mind games on me. That was when I came here, away from them. My one last chance at hoping you might figure things out and that maybe Mitchell would leave me alone. Instead, you went fucking that whore out in the woods and Mitchell is back looking for one more magic trick," she said.
Then Lillian took his chin in her hands and stared. It was all he could do not to react to the rage on her face.
"Well, no fucking more. From now on, you'll be the good, dim little boy who does what he's told. As for Mitchell, well, I hope he kept his dental records up-to-date," she said. Then she stared hard at Kevin to see if there was any reaction. Kevin gave no response other than dimness and confusion. He probably deserved an Oscar for that performance.
It must have worked because she backed up and ordered Kevin to stand. He wobbled as he did, which didn't require much acting. He towered over Lillian and had to get used to a new centre of gravity. Lillian stared at him with renewed interest. Well, one part in particular.
