Page 83 of Victorious

VIINOW. THEN.

1.5 YEARS AGO

EON

IF Gabriel had put a sofa in his office, he would be lying on it now.

Instead, he was slumped in one of the two chairs, his legs up on the table and his head tipped back, a cold cloth pressed against his eyes.

He’d tried again—and again, and again—to convert the EOs from violent prisoners to pliant patients. But so far—

“It isn’t working,” he said, addressing the recorder on the table as much as Helena, who sat placid in the opposite chair. For the first time, he regretted converting her, resented her calm complacency, her inability to challenge him, to talk things through, offer a countering thought, idea, opinion.

If she were an EO, at least she would talk back. Any useful contribution would certainly be welcome. Instead, he had reduced her to a sounding board.

“I assumed, wrongly, I now know,” he continued, “that humans and EOs would respond the same way to my power. That my control over them would be similarly absolute. In retrospect, I should have known better…”

He hadn’t accounted for a single, fundamental difference.

EOs had already died.

Theirs was a life extinguished, however briefly. A body already brought back. And that, apparently, carried a kind of scar tissue, one that not only made them harder to resurrect, but also harder to control.

“There are two problems,” he narrated, to himself. “The first being their powers…”

Those abilities, manifested by their first near-brush with death, were then impacted by their second. Damaged, really—though how badly seemed unique to each.

Of the five more EOs Gabriel had so far resurrected, only three were usable. The fourth had to be returned to death immediately, due to his damaged powers, and the fifth had yet to regain consciousness.

Needless to say, things weren’t going according to plan.

“I’ve tried to be delicate,” he said, “but there is a degree of necessary force, dragging a body back from death, and not all seem able to withstand it.”

A circumstance he could not have predicted, but one which nonetheless resulted in a substantial loss of subjects. Making the ones who could be salvaged all the more important.

Which brought him to the second problem.

The humans he’d converted ceased to be themselves.

They were blank slates for him to write upon. Predisposed to obey wishes as well as all commands. But EOs, for whatever reason, appeared to retain their minds as well as their memories. Their personalities, and histories, and grievances.

They remembered being captured by EON, remembered being executed.

In an attempt to circumnavigate this hurdle, he’d pulled his last three subjects not from the present catalogue of inmates, but from the morgue, hoping their time on ice might mitigate the rigidity of their opinions about EON. Death as buffer.

To no avail.

Only two of the three were conscious, and both were stubbornly defiant.

The invisible strings that seemed to bind him to those he’d resurrected—tethers he hadn’t even registered when dealing with the human lives, they were so light—now drew like ropes around his body. A game of tug-of-war between puppeteer and puppet.

And while Gabriel technically still had power over them—they were compelled to answer his questions and follow direct commands—they were also all resisting his influence at every turn, trying to force him out of their head. The effort of which consumed their energy, but also his.

“In therapy,” he murmured, to no one but himself, “there is an adage, that you cannot force a person into treatment, and expect a positive outcome. They need to be open to change. They need to be willing.”

Gabriel had thought his power would circumvent that need.

The humans had all been pliable, eager to cooperate.