Chapter Text
“So… we can't kill the sonofabitch, but we need to knock him out of the equation. What do we do?”
“There is one thing I can think of.”
He couldn't speak.
They checked his voice box repeatedly, tearing it out, making their alterations, and shoving it back in. Ignoring his pain every time they did so. Time after time, it refused to work properly. Only emitting garbled, unintelligible noises.
He couldn't hear.
Sounds reached him. The majority of them did. Except for speech. The scientists visiting his cell made their logs, spoke to each other over coffee, made phone calls to other departments and commented on his stats that were displayed on the computer screens. They had tried to address him directly the first few months he'd spent there. Tried to talk to him. But they soon gave up, practically the moment they realized he could not comprehend a word they were saying. It was a strange, terrifying sensation. Hearing the language he grew up with, that he used to understand and wield so fluently, and yet now not understanding a single word of it. The crucial connections to his language center had been severed.
He couldn't read.
Papers were placed before him. Reports. He could tell by the style of the forms. Could see the familiar stamp of “Top Secret” on top of each one, even though the printed words were now unintelligible to him. The scientists wanted his opinion on the experiments they were running. He couldn't give it.
He couldn't write.
A pencil and a sheet of paper had been placed before him. He tried to write down something, anything, even if it was something as simple as copying down the English alphabet, and at first he thought he'd been successful and was proud of it. Only to feel his now nonexistent heart drop as the scientist in charge of him that day frowned at the paper he'd handed her, and turned it back around to show him his unintelligible scribbles that resembled nothing like letters, her vocal intonations carrying across her confusion even though he couldn't understand a single word she was saying.
He couldn't walk.
His sense of balance was all off. Even when he was seated, he found himself swaying from side to side, the world tilting uncontrollably before his eyes. When he tried to stand, he had to attempt it several times, collapsing repeatedly before he managed to remain upright for longer than a second, the feeling of nausea and vertigo so overwhelming he felt like he needed to puke, but no longer possessed a stomach to do so. When he tried to walk, he never seemed to walk in the direction he wanted, always crashing painfully into walls instead, the padding lining the room far too insufficient to successfully cushion the impact.
He knew who he was.
He recited it to himself every night he spent alone in his cell down in the factory labs, clinging onto what remained of his identity, of his mind, like a lifeline.
My name is Harley Sawyer. I was born in Birmingham, United Kingdom. I am 45 years old. My family moved to the States when I was 6. When I was 12, I took part in the Young Geniuses Program created by Elliot Ludwig, founder of Playtime Co. I was kicked out of the program, because Elliot was too soft and small-minded to understand me and feared the cost of true scientific progress. I am a prodigy. I am ABNS certified. I made a name for myself. I was hired by Leith Pierre on January 15, 1990. I am a scientist at Playtime Co. I created the Bigger Bodies Initiative. I am in charge of Special Projects…
He knew who had done this to him.
Leith Pierre had visited him once, and only once. Harley had seen him staring at him from the observation room on the other side of the glass, glaring, barking out questions in that loud, brash tone of his. When Harley had failed to respond, Leith had turned to the frightened scientists surrounding him, no doubt angrily demanding answers as to why he wasn't answering. It was viscerally satisfying to see Dr. Bruno White shaking in his boots as he was cornered against the wall by the incensed Head of Innovation, looking like he was damn near about to piss himself in terror. Ritterman remained silent the entire time Leith was yelling, looking at Sawyer with his dark gaze, his face expressionless. Harley didn't need to be able to understand human speech to be able to see the cold disappointment in the businessman's eyes.
Somehow that hurt more than anything else.
When Pierre was done yelling, Ritterman approached him, his voice low as he told him something, glancing askance at Sawyer. Leith sighed and shook his head, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. At last, after what seemed to be a few minutes, Pierre straightened, looking at Harley one last time. He then turned back to the scientists, his voice heavy with resignation, hand waving through the air in a dismissive gesture.
Somehow it was that cold dismissal, as if he were nothing more than trash to be discarded, to be thrown away, was what finally set him off.
The scientists screamed and scattered as Harley suddenly launched himself at the transparent barrier separating them, limbs banging furiously against the glass, the man turned machine shouting curses at Pierre, at Ritterman, at the company as a whole. But as always, his voice box didn't cooperate with him, only letting out deafening, unintelligible screeching interspersed with bursts of static. Even so, no words needed to be spoken to get the sentiment across.
Leith shouted something at White over the deafening sounds of the furious scientist turned experiment banging on the glass. The man, looking faint and covered in sweat, practically launched himself at the console, trembling fingers reaching for a circular button on its side. Harley screeched louder, knowing what he was about to do before he even did it. But it was too late.
Electricity arched through his body, setting every nerve ending on fire, and he stumbled away from the glass, wailing in agony. The pain was so overwhelming that he didn't even notice as he collapsed, didn't notice the red colored gas now flooding the room, the world growing dark around him, the sound of voices becoming fainter and fainter until nothingness consumed him. When he regained consciousness, he was back in his solitary, windowless cell, the reinforced door sealed tightly shut behind him.
He dragged himself to the wall, curling up against it. Taking meager comfort in the stability it provided.
My name is Harley Sawyer… I was hired by Leith Pierre on January 15, 1990. I am a scientist at Playtime Co. I created the Bigger Bodies Initiative…
… I was betrayed…
They conducted tests on him regularly at first. Shoved objects into his hands, trying to assess his cognitive function. Every time they did so a sliver of him hoped for improvement. Hoped that the printed words would suddenly start making sense. Hoped that the letters he scribbled out would finally start resembling real ones. Hoped that the garbled noises surrounding him morphed back into speech.
One day he was given a series of cards. There were pictures printed on them. A familiar test. One he had given to other experiments himself numerous times before. The task could not be more simple: the pictures had to be arranged in proper order to build a comprehensive, logical storyline.
He thought he could do it.
He couldn't.
The pictures made no sense to him. He couldn't put them in the correct order. His growing horror was swiftly and forcefully stamped down and replaced desperately with frustration. He tried to convince himself that the pictures he was given had been messed up on purpose. That he was merely being taunted, and that there was no order to this batch to begin with. He tried to gesture for them to bring him a different set of cards.
They did.
He failed with that one too.
The female scientist's face grew sadder and sadder the longer the session went on. At the end, she just collected the cards, shaking her head, and left the cell, Harley glimpsing the disappointed faces of her colleagues before the door slid shut behind her, blinking red as it locked automatically. Leaving him alone with a heavy weight in his metallic chest. Leaving him empty and horrified at the current state of his own mind. He was a neurosurgeon. He understood the extent of the damage. He knew where it was located. Never before had he felt so scared and helpless. Never before had he felt so trapped.
That night was the first night he cried.
My name is Harley Sawyer… I used to be a scientist at Playtime Co…
… Now I am broken…
They started taking him in for surgeries. It quickly became obvious that they had no intentions of fixing him. He would never improve. He would never go back to what he used to be. The scientists just wanted to know what had gone wrong. They just wanted to glean whatever they deemed useful before discarding him like the rest of the experiments they classified as failures.
Every inch of his new body hurt after every surgery. With each procedure he felt less and less alive, felt himself resigning to his fate more and more. After a while… He started wishing he wouldn't wake to this horrifying new reality anymore. Started hoping that the surgeons’ fingers would just… slip. Sever something important. Something that would put him out of his misery once and for all.
But that never happened.
Time and time again he was placed on the surgical table, surrounded by conversations he couldn't understand. Time and time again he woke up in his cell, his body aching, his spirit broken.
One day he knew he just couldn't take it anymore. The memories of that event were still a blur. All he knew was that he had started desperately clawing at himself, metal fingers digging into his own wrists, pulling out wires and circuits by the handful, digging deep beneath metal plating and pulling, pulling, pulling. Perhaps, the pitiful, broken remains of his mind had expected this body to work like his human one once had. Perhaps it had expected to encounter arteries that could easily be severed, veins that could easily be sliced open. Perhaps it had expected blood instead of electricity. Regardless, he had achieved nothing.
Alarms had blared overhead when he'd started frantically ripping himself apart. Red light flooded his room. The door flew open and scientists and guards alike rushed inside to stop him. He’d screeched at them in protest as they worked to restrain him, the sound nothing short of bestial in its desperation. The sound of a wounded, dying animal. The sound of someone begging for his misery to finally, finally come to an end.
But his cry for release, for death, like everything else, had simply gone ignored.
My name is Harley Sawyer… I am broken… I cannot be fixed.
He was transferred out of the labs and to the Shelf, to one of the solitary cells in the northern part of the prison. Perhaps that should've hurt him more than it had. The realization of how they now viewed him: Animalistic. Volatile. Dangerous. Inhuman. Only lost causes were ever transferred to the North. Sawyer vaguely remembered overhearing a conversation between two shelf guards when he'd come here to observe some of his experiments.
“You know what we get in the North? Things. Whatever they are, they aren't people anymore… Their cells might as well be cages. They're animals. Sick. Twisted. Just instincts and anger… that's all that's left of them.”
There was a number on the wall of his cell. After a while, Sawyer remembered each cell was supposed to have the number of the experiment it housed printed inside. This one, though he couldn't understand it, must belong to him.
There was no way to tell the passage of time here. At least down in the labs, Harley could keep track of the passing days by the coming and going of scientists, by the lights snaking their way into his cell. Here there was nothing. Nothing except darkness. Nothing except the distant growls of his mindless, broken neighbors. Nothing except silence. It was easy to lose track of the days. Easy to start losing what remained of his fractured, damaged mind.
He spent most of his days asleep, unwilling to face reality, though, really, it made little difference either away. Whether asleep, or awake, he was trapped in a nightmare he could not escape from, with no end to his suffering in sight.
A few days after he had arrived at the Shelf, he was dragged out of his cell by a pair of guards. Judging by their hushed tones and the dimmed lights, it was clear it was supposed to be nighttime and Harley highly doubted experiments were to be moved at such late hours. Which meant that whatever the guards were doing now, it wasn't on the orders of their superiors. He found that he hardly cared, however. If whatever activities the guards had planned for him tonight would bring about his demise, he would welcome it with open arms.
He was thrown into a pit to the sounds of loud laughter. When he looked up, he could see guards milling about on the level above, smoking, joking, exchanging money. They were betting on something. On what, he couldn't tell. Human speech was as incomprehensible to Harley as ever, a confused jumble of sounds his damaged brain could not decipher.
It didn't take long for the mystery to be solved, however.
A low growl sounded behind him, and the cheers coming from above rose in volume. Harley turned around, swaying heavily where he sat crouched on the sandy surface of the pit, the world once again spinning uncontrollably in front of his eyes. Even so, he caught a glimpse of an open, salivating maw. Of black, soulless eyes, with no glimmer of life behind them. Of sharp claws digging into the dirt.
He could hear whistles coming from above. Could hear what he presumed to be encouragements.
Ah, they wanted them to fight then. Sawyer hoped it was to the death. It would be a fitting end for someone like him.
The beast sprang. He made no effort to dodge it. To fight.
He welcomed it.
The voices above him switched from joy to anger to alarm. 12 hours later, after a grueling surgery, he was returned to his cell, barely conscious and in absolute agony. Emotional, as well as physical.
My name is… Experiment ????.
I am nothing.
Alarms blared outside his cell. Lights flashed, red and angry. There was some kind of commotion going on outside. He thought he saw toys and humans alike run past his cell.
His cell door was open. He ignored it.
All the noise was starting to make his head ache. After an eternity of silence, everything was suddenly too bright, too loud. His head felt like it was being split in two. He wished all the commotion would simply cease.
When he looked at the open doorway again, there was a figure standing inside it. A cat. Purple fur. Black, gaping maw shaped in an unnerving grin. He knew this experiment. Knew its number and its original name. The number escaped him now. His brain could not comprehend numbers anymore. But the name…
Theodore Grambell. Catnap.
He was dragged outside, sharp claws digging deep into the metal seams of his leg. A growl sounded above him, low and bestial. A small cloud of red smoke puffed out of that gaping maw. He surrendered, going limp beneath the creature's claws.
He knew the experiment recognized him as well. Just like the other one had. The toys always sensed when they were coming face to face with their past tormentors.
A voice sounded behind them before the beast could finish him off. Several of them, in fact. All sounding immediately one after the other, as if clumsily stitched together. The weight crushing him to the floor lifted. He turned around, the screen making up his face flickering as he struggled to focus, Harley feeling nauseated even by this small motion.
The experiment standing before him now was massive. 6 legs, all ending in sharp, scorpion shaped points. Its body made up almost entirely of wires and metal. Looking down at him, head tilted to the side. The Prototype.
The Prototype said something, addressing him. Harley stared back at him, exhausted and wishing that the other would just get on with it already. Wishing he would finish the job his friend had started. It was then that he noticed the file clenched in the Prototype's hands. His file. He could tell by the image of his current form stapled to it. By the photo of a human clipped beside it.
After so many months, it was odd coming face to face with what he used to be. Like he was staring at a complete stranger instead of himself.
The Prototype leaned down and Harley deactivated his screen, expecting pain, expecting darkness. Only to reactivate it in surprise when he felt himself being gently pulled to his feet. The moment his vision returned — so did the vertigo, and he swayed uncontrollably, nearly falling off the prison level they were on to the one below. The Prototype made a sound of alarm and caught him before he could do so, one hand wrapping around his waist, the other around his upper arm. For a moment, he just held him like that, his air filters working hard in a cheap imitation of a human steadying their panicked breathing. Then, Sawyer found himself being lifted, pulled upwards into a gentle bridal carry. Had he still had any pride left, had he still been able to talk and had he not been so nauseous, Harley would've almost certainly protested. As it were, all he could do was weakly bang his fist once against the creature's chest in indignation, a silent demand to be let go.
The Prototype said something, his voices sounding strangely concerned. He turned to Catnap, collecting the file he had dropped while rushing to stop Sawyer's fall, and uttered something, an instruction, if Harley were to guess. The cat turned and disappeared into the shadows of the Shelf. The Prototype carefully adjusted his hold on Sawyer and headed back towards the exit.
There were bodies everywhere. Human and toy alike.
Harley stared at the gruesome scenery as they swept past, feeling even more nauseous than he already was at the sights laid out before him. There was so much blood. It soaked the walls. Painted the ceilings. Collected in deep pools on the stone floors. It wasn't difficult to piece together what had happened. The toys had rebelled against their jailers and torturers. His experiments had turned against their creators, laying waste to every unfortunate human that happened to cross their path. The Prototype had organized this. After so many years, after so many failed escape attempts, the Prototype had finally succeeded. Had finally won.
Was he going to be one of those bodies soon too? Sawyer hoped he would. He only prayed that it would be quick.
The Prototype adjusted his hold on him, shifting to press a button to the massive industrial elevator that would take them down to the labs. Harley wondered why the experiment was taking him all the way down there when he could finish him off here and now. Interrogating him was pointless. There was no way he could answer, or even comprehend any questions being posed to him.
The Prototype let out a sound of surprise as Harley suddenly reached out for his free hand, clumsily wrapping his own digits around it. Stared in what appeared to be confusion that soon turned to horror as Harley made to wrap those slender metal fingers around his own throat, pressing their sharpened edges into the cables connecting the monitor to the rest of his body. Harley stared at him evenly with his single eye, trying to convey the message as best he could.
Kill me now. Don't wait.
The Prototype snatched his hand back as if he'd been burnt, still staring at him in shock even as the elevator stopped at their level and chimed softly to announce its arrival. Shaking his head, not loosening his grip on him, the experiment strode inside, pressing the button that would take them downstairs.
The labs were not in any better state than the Prison above had been.
Scientists, many of whom Sawyer had once known personally, lay scattered over the walkways, their white coats soaked in crimson. The Prototype angled him in his arms, and for a moment Sawyer almost thought that the other was trying to spare him the gruesome sight around them, only to dismiss the idea almost immediately. The Prototype had no reason to be concerned about Harley's state of mind, about his possible upset. Hadn't he seen worse scenes, in the course of his “work”? Surely this should just be par for the course, right?
Wrong.
White was sitting in his chair when they entered one of the massive offices, oddly, unnaturally slumped over in his seat. For a moment, it appeared as if the man were merely asleep. A common enough occurrence for the scientists working long hours in the Playtime labs. But then Harley spotted the blood caking on his temple, soaking the front of his lab coat.
He must’ve made a sound, whether of distress or disgust he didn't know, because the Prototype turned him away from the sight immediately, crooning lowly and soothingly and when they turned back, White's body was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. No doubt removed by one of the Prototype's minions.
He was gently seated on one of the larger than normal hospital beds, a steadying hand on his shoulder keeping him from toppling over as he adjusted. As soon as he was certain Harley would not be falling off the bed anytime soon, the Prototype withdrew, staring down at him in silence. Had he been physically capable, Harley was certain the other would be frowning. The experiment then turned away, retrieving the file Sawyer had already seen, and flipped it open, scanning the pages and the information detailed there at a faster pace than a normal human brain could process. The words were still incomprehensible to him, so he couldn't read alongside the Prototype, but he could easily guess the gist of what had been written there. Especially when he saw the scan of his own brain, certain areas of it highlighted in red.
Cognitive function: Poor. Subject shows no comprehension of spoken or written language. Motor functions appear to be severely impaired. Subject struggles to balance himself, and can hardly walk. When he does — his spatial awareness appears to be nigh nonexistent. When presented with the Picture Arrangement subtest, subject failed to place the images in logical order, despite attempting several times to do so. Further testing can be carried out, but it is clear enough that this experiment can now be confidently declared a failure.
Conclusion: We lost a great mind today, a mind that, left intact, could've kept benefiting humanity greatly for many more years to come, and that fact should be mourned. Whatever mr. Pierre and mr. Ritterman had been hoping for — it did not happen and it will not happen. He will not recover. Not now, not ever. It is unclear if he's even aware of what happened to him, we have no way of communicating with him to ascertain that. We do know, however, what Dr. Sawyer would have said if he were still here with us. “Carry on. The golden path awaits.” Let us not make his sacrifice be in vain then, shall we?
The Prototype closed the folder harder than was necessary. He then tossed it across the room where it smacked against the wall and fell to the floor, opening up on the page detailing the extent of Sawyer's brain damage.
If Harley didn't know better… he'd almost say the other was angered by what he'd just read. By what had been done to him. But he dismissed the thought almost immediately, his shoulders slumping as he sat on the overlarge hospital bed, his single eye lingering on the discarded brain scan.
So much of it was highlighted red…
The Prototype returned, holding another folder in his hands. His own this time. Harley wasn't even sure where he'd gotten it, it was one of the most closely guarded secrets at Playtime Co, along with Poppy, but it seemed that the Prototype had had no problem in locating it. Perhaps that shouldn't be so surprising.
The folder was opened in front of him and he stared in confusion as the Prototype gestured to himself and then to the folder, looking expectantly at him. He seemed to be asking a question. When Harley didn't immediately react, the Prototype patiently repeated the motion, gesturing first to himself, then to the folder. It was opened on the first page, the one usually containing the subject's personal information.
The question seemed simple enough: Who am I? At least that was Sawyer's best guess.
Slowly, carefully, one of his hands clenched tight around the bed's edge so he would not lose balance and topple off, Harley reached out, poking the place where he knew the name to be. He had no hope of reading the text. But he had written so many reports similar to these, that he knew exactly where the name was supposed to be.
Elliot. You are Elliot Ludwig. Founder of Playtime Co.
The Prototype's shoulders slumped in relief, systems whirring. Harley knew that had the other been capable of it — he would've smiled. He walked around the bed, soon returning to Harley's side, now holding the folder he'd tossed aside mere minutes ago. It, too, was opened on the first page, but this time Elliot gestured to him before pointing at it.
Who are you?
Harley felt his proverbial heart drop, a heavy weight settling in his chest. He jabbed the folder angrily, fighting to remain calm and ignore the pain flaring up inside. The Prototype froze. He repeated the question, as though thinking Harley had misunderstood. But Harley hadn't misunderstood and repeated his answer. The Prototype shook his head then and gently grabbed his wrist to redirect it, placing his finger on a different line.
No. You're not Experiment 1354. You're Harley Sawyer. Dr. Harley Sawyer.
No, I am not!
The folder was wrenched from the Prototype's grip. Was thrown to the floor between them. Harley wanted to scream at him. Wanted to rage. Wanted to curse. He was not Dr. Harley Sawyer anymore! He was not the person described on those pages! He would never be that person again! Didn't Elliot understand that?! He was a thing! A failed experiment! A broken, mangled, good for nothing invalid with a brain that was barely functioning!
He wanted to scream all those things at Elliot. Wanted to drill them into that impenetrable, stubborn skull. Even as a human the man could sometimes be so thick headed when he wanted to be. But all that left his voice box instead was a static filled sob. Soon followed by another. And another until Sawyer found himself breaking down and weeping uncontrollably where he sat on the hospital bed designed for Bigger Bodies, face hidden in his hands. All the emotions he'd been holding back, all the pain, the despair, the fear and hopelessness of his condition — all of it came crashing down upon him then. All of it came bursting forth right then and there, the man incapable of staunching the flow of emotions even if he'd wanted to.
He didn't expect to be pulled into an embrace. Didn't expect a voice murmuring softly in his ear. A single voice this time. One he hadn't heard since he was a child, a young, naive boy of 12, desperate to prove himself to someone he so admired and looked up to. The familiar cadence of it, the warmth, even though he could not understand the words, was enough to open up the floodgates completely, Harley grabbing hold of Elliot for stability, holding on tight.
He didn't know how long he cried. It could've been minutes. It could've been an hour. When he finally quieted, he was absolutely exhausted. Elliot helped him settle down on the bed, hand squeezing his shoulder in one last show of comfort. Obediently stayed beside him when Harley suddenly reached out to grab his hand before he could leave, irrationally, viscerally afraid of being left alone. Kept speaking to him until Harley had drifted off.
That was the only time since waking up in this new body that Harley had slept without nightmares.
When he awoke, he was alone. Trying to rise from the bed on his own almost resulted in him falling over again, but he managed, taking it slow, struggling to power through the vertigo, his systems whining softly with the effort.
Elliot must’ve heard him getting up because he soon emerged from the adjacent room, ducking his head so as not to bang it on the ceiling, holding something long and sturdy in his hands. It took a few moments for Harley to realize what it was, and when he did, he couldn't contain the bark of incredulous laughter that escaped him, reaching out and accepting the gift from the Prototype's hands.
A cane. While he'd been asleep the bastard had fashioned him a cane.
He was helped to his feet and though the vertigo hadn't gone away (not at all) having that added support of something he could lean on made walking much easier. As much as it rankled Harley to admit it.
Elliot showed him to the next room, looking strangely proud of himself. There were cards strewn across one of the tables. Crudely drawn pictures adorned each one. Elliot gave him one, it depicted a syringe. Elliot then handed him a syringe, and took the card. It wasn't hard to understand the concept. He wanted Harley to use the cards as a method of communication. It was a good starting point, perhaps. It was better than nothing anyhow. Even if it did feel slightly demeaning. The Prototype was making an effort. He wanted to help.
Harley stumbled to the table, carefully looking through the cards. There was a myriad of them, Elliot must’ve been working on them for quite a while. There were several depicting crude emojis — he supposed those were to communicate his emotions. A red light and a green light — stop and go, he assumed. Two stick figures — one helping the other up, that was probably the one for ‘Help’. And many more. But it was the last one that caught Harley's attention, that prompted him to reach out and pick it up so as to examine it closer. It had been set to the side. Pushed under a stack of papers. As if deliberately hidden, and looking closer at it now, he could understand why. It was a crudely drawn skull, the picture crossed over, as if Elliot had regretted drawing it.
The meaning of it was clear.
Death.
Considering what Harley had asked of him in the elevator. It made sense why Elliot would try hiding this from him.
The Prototype hovered anxiously in the background as Harley turned back around, and froze when he saw the card clenched in Sawyer's fingers. His eyes flickered nervously between the paper and Harley, frantic, questioning. Had Harley been able to, he would've smiled, grimly and without humor. As it were, all he could do was hold up the card for the other to see, and drag a thumb across his throat for greater emphasis.
I still want to die.
The Prototype shook his head and strode forward, taking the card from him. It crumpled easily within his grasp and joined the other pile of crumpled documents in the overflowing trash can. Gently taking Harley by the arm, he guided him to the whiteboard showing him the detailed schematic he had drawn of the human brain. He then pointed out the affected areas and gestured to himself, to the board and mimed fixing something. It wasn't hard to decipher what he was trying to say.
You don't need to die. I can help you. I can fix this. Please. Just give me a chance.
And looking at Elliot now, Harley could tell that the other believed every word he was saying.
My name is Harley Sawyer...
And I want to hope.