Crrrrack.

Pop, pop.

"This may tingle a bit."

Acrid. Warm.

Tight.

Too bright.

Powerless.

Burning, burning, burning.

It snapped her awake, the burning. It seared and for a torturous beat, a beat before she laid eyes on her slumbering sister, she couldn't breathe. When she saw Kara's face, though, bruised and pale as it was, a pressure released in her mind and the pain receded, ushering the flashes back into the dark.

She'd fallen asleep, she realized, and she cursed herself. She hadn't meant to. She'd meant to stay awake, to stay vigil, and she was furious with herself for failing at her task.

Nothing had happened —Kara was still sleeping (not quite peacefully, more the boneless sleep of the painfully exhausted), Deacon was still lying dead on the floor twelve feet away— but that was beside the point. How was she meant to save her sister if she couldn't even stay awake?

Wait...

As her eyes scanned the room, she realized that she'd been wrong. Something had happened. There was a tray of food in the cell. When had that happened? Why hadn't she woken up?

The squeak of metal grinding against metal reverberated off the glass as the door suddenly swung open. "Ah, good."

An angry tightening of her chest and a raucous nausea met the sound of Cohen's voice. He smiled at her. He might have looked friendly if it hadn't been for the hint of madness in his translucent eyes.

Alex immediately lifted Kara's head off of her thigh and laid her carefully on the ground before she maneuvered stiffly up onto her feet. It was a testament to her sister's sheer exhaustion that she didn't wake at the movement.

"I stopped by earlier, but was loath to rouse you," he told her cheerfully. "Seeing as you've now woken on your own though, we can begin."

"Begin what?" she bit out, limping painfully forward a step to better place herself between him and her prone sister. It creeped her out more than she could say that he had seen her while she'd been sleeping and her shoulders cramped as the weight of her failure compounded tenfold.

"The next step, of course." He moved up to the cell door, Milo behind him. "If you'll come with me, please."

"I'm not going anywhere," she replied, though even as the words were leaving her lips, she knew they were pointless.

The cheer disappeared from Cohen's face, a shadow slipping across his features. "Must I repeat this with everyone?"

Alex just glared at him.

He sighed and shook his head, his eyes now on his tablet. "Agent Danvers, stay still… and stop breathing." It was said simply, with no real force to the words.

And yet, Alex was helpless to resist. Immediately her body grew rigid and her lungs seized.

"Alex?"

She heard Kara's voice, soft and sleep-scattered.

"W-what's going on?"

Alex wanted to answer, to comfort her, but she was paralyzed. Not having been able to take a full breath before being forced under the Cohen's spell, her lungs were already burning, eyes watering, and all she could see was trenchant ice staring at her through the glass, his malignity only half-heartedly veiled. There was almost something… gleeful about his expression. It reminded her of the face of a child watching with wicked jubilance as he set ants ablaze with a magnifying glass.

"Alex?" Kara tried again.

She was sweating, a smoldering ache throbbing through her clenched throat, and her legs were beginning to tremble. Alex heard the sound of her sister shifting and the pained little gasp she made when she, Alex assumed, climbed to her feet. A moment later, Kara's concerned face came into view. "Alex, what's going on?"

She could feel the violent beat of her panicking heart thudding at the base of her throat as it tried to pump the quickly-vanishing oxygen throughout her body. Terrifying shadows began creeping into her vision, dark and final.

She watched Kara whip around to face Cohen. "What did you do to her?" her sister questioned, voice shrill with fear. "Stop it!"

There was a long beat before Cohen blinked and turned his gaze on Kara. He seemed almost… surprised to see her there, as if he'd forgotten she was even in the cell. The surprise immediately turned to irritation. "Agent Danvers is learning a vital lesson."

"What?" The question was confused and frantic. "That doesn't— You have to stop!" Kara cast a panicked look back at Alex. "You're killing her!"

Alex didn't even feel her legs give out. She just found herself suddenly on the ground, the harsh impact as her skull met the floor sending flares of pinpointed light through her fading vision.

Kara dropped down beside Alex and pulled her halfway up into her lap, her chest supporting Alex's back from behind. "Please, please stop!" Kara beseeched.

The burning in her lungs had reached unbearable and Alex felt the quaking in her legs turn to full convulsions, spreading up her body. Kara's arms tightened around her and she felt a hiccupped sob escape her little sister. "Stop it, stop it."

There was a long moment in the seconds before her tunneling vision was consumed by the creeping darkness where Cohen just stood in silence, his gaze calculating. It was at that moment when Alex knew for sure that she was going to die.

But then a single word crossed his lips: "Breathe."

Alex gasped wildly, sucking it huge, choking breaths. The blackness receded, though the shaking only lessened slightly. Chest heaving, she inhaled oxygen as fast as she possibly could. It was making her dizzy, but she didn't care. She just needed the air, needed to breathe.

Kara buried her face atop Alex's shoulder and shuddered. Alex could feel the warm dampness of the tears her sister was attempting to hide slipping down her shoulder blade. She reached up with a trembling hand and cupped the side of Kara's head, lacing her fingers through the messy blonde locks.

"Do you understand now, Agent Danvers?"

Alex snapped her eyes over to Cohen and felt a consuming rage slice through her chest at the sight of the smugness on his face.

When she didn't say anything, his expression tightened. "Well?"

"Yes," she bit out, grudging and tense with loathing.

A self-satisfied smile slithered across his lips and he puffed up his chest just so. "Excellent," he replied. "Now, if you'll come with me."

Gritting her teeth, Alex pulled out of Kara's arms and sat up straight.

"Alex?" The address was tremulous and terrified. Alex knew what her fearful tone meant — that Kara was scared and didn't want her to leave. She'd heard the same tone so many times as a girl when young Kara, still so new to Earth and uncertain of everything around her, had been afraid to be left alone.

She turned her head to look at her sister's splotchy, tear-stained face. "I have to go," she whispered and though Kara shook her head, Alex knew that her sister understood there was no choice. She twisted herself around the best she could and pulled Kara into a careful hug. "I'll be back," she promised. She desperately hoped she'd be able to keep her word.

"Let's go, Agent Danvers," Cohen pressed, losing patience.

Before she allowed her instinct to always care for her sister (especially when she was scared) persuade her to chance a second attempt at defying the madman before them, Alex freed herself of the embrace and tottered up onto her feet. Her knee sang in angry, angry protest and she had to bite down hard to keep any pained gasps or hisses from escaping.

Milo opened the cell and took Alex by the arm the moment she stepped out. Cohen turned and headed for the steel door leading out of the room. Milo nudged her forward. Just as they were about to follow Cohen out, Alex glanced back to see her sister just sitting on her knees in the cell, tears trailing down her pale cheeks. Alex's heart twisted painfully at the sight.

It was a warehouse, Alex realized as she limped along behind Cohen and took in the building's massive size. It smelled of a discordant mix of mildew and industrial cleaner — sterile, but still with a hint of damp. It looked pristine, the floor the same winter white as was in the cells, but the brick walls and the flecks of rust tarnishing the industrial beams near the roof told her that it was an older structure.

The lab with the cells was nestled in the back corner, sectioned off and isolated, and along the far wall all the way across the expanse of near-empty space there was a computer cluster, a large system of linked servers connected to make a single supercomputer. From what she could see from that distance, it all looked state of the art, which brought two questions immediately to Alex's mind: Where was Cohen getting his funding from and what precisely could he be doing that would require that amount of computing power? Alex could only speculate and everything her mind came up with left a hollow ache of worry in her gut. Nothing he was doing could be good.

The place wasn't just empty though, it was vacant. The only other souls she could see were her escort and Gunnar, who was up ahead. She knew there had to be more somewhere as the three who had kidnapped Kara during their walk to the car from the movie theater had been completely different men. Where were they now? How many were there? It was difficult to make an exit plan with so many unknown variables.

And the mind control thing, too. That really made things challenging.

"If you would please have a seat," Cohen said as they reached the only other thing in the entire space — an exam chair. There was a computer, lab table, and other equipment surrounding it, but the chair, with its ebony leather starkly contrasting the white of the floor, is what stood out. Alex swallowed hard. There was something about the cool steel cuffs on both the arms and footrest that made her stomach clench.

She instinctively hesitated for a beat and couldn't help but notice the look of forbearance fastly fleeting slip across Cohen's face. Pick your battles, her mind whispered at her. She wouldn't be able to save her sister if Cohen killed her for not doing as he said. She sat down.

He smiled at her. "Finally, some progress." He looked at his two men and gave a nod before he began tapping away at the keyboard of the nearby computer.

Milo and Gunnar moved in on either side of Alex and secured the restraints, first over her wrists then over her ankles. The cold metal bit into her flesh. She grit her teeth at it.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you your face would get stuck that way? My mother did. Many, many times." He sounded irritated by it.

She was glaring, Alex realized, glaring at Cohen's turned back. She wondered for a brief moment how he would know, but then caught herself in the reflection of the computer and understood. She narrowed her eyes further in response.

Cohen gave a dramatic sigh and turned away from the computer to face her. "If you have something to say, I would get it off your chest now," he said, and Alex easily heard the "because you won't be able to later" he'd no doubt left hanging there intentionally.

"Why?" she ground out.

"Please catch up, Agent Danvers," he huffed. "I've already told you what this is for—"

"No. I mean Deacon."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Deacon?"

"You could have stopped him."

"I could have, yes," he agreed, "but it wasn't necessary to." He shrugged. "You weren't meant to bring anyone with you when you were activated and recalled here. It was just a fortuitous happenstance."

Alex frowned. Fortuitous? For who? Not Deacon. He had been delivered to his death with no choice but to accept it.

Cohen seemed to correctly interpret her expression because he smiled and said, "As we've already discussed, with every scenario comes new data, even when that scenario is death. It was unfortunate, but I promise you the data collected from Agent Deacon's passing will be utilized in a way that will benefit countless others."

He spoke as if Deacon had died in a car accident or had had a heart attack, not been brainwashed to the point of forcing someone to murder him.

She felt suddenly sick again and it made her excruciatingly mad. She was so tired of feeling sick.

She was so tired of being manipulated and tortured, so tired of seeing her sister in pain. She was so tired of Cohen's voice and his smile and his delusional beliefs that he was the good guy in this twisted situation. She was just so damn tired and she wanted out.

She wanted out.

"In fact, the information we gathered from that encounter has already been particularly helpful," Cohen continued, his tone turning almost giddy. "As a scientist, I think you'll find this fascinating." He turned back to the computer, typing in a few commands with a flourish of dexterous taps of the keys. A moment later, he tilted the screen so Alex could see it. He grinned at her, almost bouncing in place in what seemed to be prideful delight.

Alex looked past him at the screen. It took her only moments to comprehend what she was seeing them. She gasped softly, the feeling of dreads icy fingers skittering down her spine. "Nanites."

Cohen looked so very pleased. "Nanites," he confirmed. "Microscopic programmable miracle workers. Given enough time and R-and-D funding, these could, and likely will, do so many amazing things. Cure diseases. Solve the osteoblast degradation issue preventing us from fully exploring outer space. Repair damaged tissue or act as bridges between damaged nerves and the brain. The paralyzed could walk again; the blind could see! Hell, they could even eventually be the key to solving mortality." He took a reverent breath, eyes on the animated model on the screen, and shook his head. "There's just so much they could do, so much potential."

"And yet you've used yours to hijack the brains of innocent people, to force them to do things against their will," Alex accused. "To kill other people."

Cohen's brow furrowed in a manner that reminded Alex of a child who had just been scolded. "I didn't— That's not their purpose."

"Mind control is not their purpose? That's sure as hell what they seem to do."

Cohen blew out a growled huff. "You have a very limited scope, Agent Danvers. I thought perhaps we were kindred spirits, but you have no vision at all."

"I have plenty of vision. The difference is that mine does not extend to kidnapping, coercion, and murder."

Cohen snorted. "That's quite rich coming from someone who works for a secret government organization."

Alex sucked in a sharp breath — his point not altogether invalid. There were some seedier parts of the government that chose more extreme means to achieve their goals. Still... "What we do is to help others, to save lives. You," she spat the word, biting and full of ire, "you act at your whim with no regard for the lives you're destroying."

"Sometimes progress requires some unsavory choices—"

"That's the thing — you have no right to be making those choices for anyone!"

Cohen stared at her for a few long beats, studied her, head cocked slightly to the side. It was as if he were trying to figure out something most baffling. "You don't like killing," he said, more stated realization than question.

Alex stared at him in disbelief. How was that even something to be surprised at? How could he even consider that she might like it? "Of course not."

"But you're a soldier."

"I'm an agent."

"Same thing. You're a fighter, a warrior."

"Yes, but my job is to prevent violence, not perpetrate it. I don't relish death, I abhor it."

A smile slipped across his thin lips. "Then you have killed before."

The delight in his tone made her gorge rise. He quite clearly meant other than Deacon, Brock, and Ellis. "Only to protect others. Only when there was no other choice," she whispered in defense.

"Yet those deaths still haunt you."

Alex swallowed hard, unable to answer. Unwilling to answer. There were few things that weighed on her more.

He must have take her silence as her answer anyway because he nodded and continued, saying, "Then you should appreciate my work, not condemn it."

"How could I possibly appre—"

"These," he looked back to the screen, pointing at the revolving nanite model, "these were created to help people like you."

Alex narrowed her eyes. She wasn't sure what he was going on about, but the implications sat like a cold, hard rock in her gut.

"Just think, Alex! Can you imagine the military applications? Soldiers who can be programmed to do a job, but then have no memory of it? No hesitation. No PTSD. They would never have to know anything other than they had completed their mission. They would never have to live with the pain that you do." He crouched down beside the chair and gazed up at her with imploring eyes. He gently placed his hand atop hers. "Wouldn't that be better?" he asked, tone… tender. It was like a sick joke and made Alex more queasy than when he was being cruel. "Wouldn't you prefer not to have that pain?"

"No," was her immediate answer. "The pain reminds me that there is a price, that everyone is worth something. Wiping out those memories makes taking a life a simple, easy thing and it should never, ever be that."

His eyes grew cold and he withdrew his hand from hers. "We'll see how you feel about that once this is over," he said, drawing himself back up to his full height. "Something tells me that you will beg me to remove the memories."

She frowned, dread once again slicing through her in angry, icy tingles. "What memories?"

"The ones you're about to make."

He sounded like a piece of poorly-written fiction, Alex thought, and in a move that seemed a performance to even further perfect his sinister role, he turned around and picked up a 30 gauge needle, holding it up at eye level. The liquid within the stainless steel syringe glittered with an almost metallic sheen.

Alex grit her teeth as a jolt of familiarity spiked up her spine and settled achingly in her molars. She had been here before, in this very same situation. She couldn't… quite remember —it was like the vestiges of a faded nightmare— but she could feel it.

"Our experiment earlier made me realize something: Sheer force is not always the key." He looked at her expectantly. Alex didn't reply and when he seemed to realize she wouldn't, his expression darkened. "Emotions are...problematic, I realize this now. I thought them tricky, yes, but a challenge easily enough overcome. I thought I could just increase aggression and that would be enough to suppress the rest..." A look of cold irritation slithered over his face. "But you have proven just how pervasive they can be. Pervasive and very powerful."

Cohen seemed intensely vexed by this… and perhaps a bit perplexed? Alex thought that maybe he really was confused by it all. His own emotions seemed so erratic that she wondered if control was his own issue. Or perhaps he didn't feel anything at all, she considered, and that's why he was so taken aback by the flaw in his designs.

He frowned slightly at the syringe in his hand. "With the aggression and limited emotional connections, control is easily achieved, but it seems if the emotions are too strong…" The muscles of his jaw jumped as he clenched it. He shook his head. "Partial control is not good enough, it's not what he wants."

Alex blinked. He?

Before she could question it, however, Cohen turned back around to face her fully. "So those connections must be severed." His crystalline eyes met hers again and she shivered at the madness she still saw within them. He offered her a rabid smile. "This may tingle a bit." He jabbed the needle into her neck and pushed down the plunger.

Her vision exploded white. It didn't tingle — it burned.

And she screamed.

Author's Notes: Forgive the mega delay on this. Life really blows sometimes. More to come!