Seven took a deep breath and shuffled his feet as he waited in line, right behind Eighty-Eight and Twelve. They were both pleased to see him; Seven saw it in the quirk of Eighty-Eight’s mouth and the way Twelve’s shoulders relaxed. They weren’t physically demonstrative, but they didn’t need to be. Seven knew them.
The RCMP had rounded up everyone and started taking them to their link-ins. They’d been found deep in the Government domain, all labelled with numbers. Strangely, the numbers had not been in numerical order, and so the line in which they stood seemed like a jumbled mess. At least until Seven had realized they were grouped based on ability and had helped them all get organized. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to leave. He was free now, but that didn’t mean he really needed to abandon the Cerebrum, right?
The only thing that kept him in this freedom queue was the fact that Fox had said he would be waiting for him. Fox had left ages ago, in the company of Mr. Stonesmith. He could be out there now, looking at Seven’s physical body. Seven fretted. What if his body wasn’t all that Fox desired? He had no idea what it looked like.
Twelve and Eighty-Eight showed signs of agitation.
“Are you sure we’ll be okay?” Eighty-Eight asked when it became his turn, looking anxiously at Seven.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Seven said.
The link-in was a simple thing, just a glowing bluish console on the wall where one could rest their forehead. It had “088” written on a placard. Eighty-Eight shot them one last terrified look before blinking out of sight.
Twelve inhaled sharply, but before he could release it, he touched his link-in with his forehead and also disappeared.
This was it. Seven’s placard was there in front of him, “007” etched into plain, dull steel. The numbers loomed in front of him, closer and closer as he leaned forward. Just before his forehead touched, Seven realized he didn’t have a name yet.
Then he felt a whooshing sensation, and a sense of falling, before he slammed into reality.
He gave a choked gasp, then felt heavy and slow. His muscles trembled and his mind crawled, and for a few seconds, he was too scared to open his eyes. He lay for a minute or two before he blinked, and blinked again, until the room came into focus.
He ached all over. The bed on which he was lying felt too hard, and the sheets scraped against his skin like sandpaper. A murmuring came from all around him, almost too loud for his ears. His mouth was too dry. He felt rusty, like a machine that needed its joints oiled.
Finally, Seven sat up and looked around to find rows and rows of beds, each surrounded with machines, presumably to monitor the well-being of those lying there. He raised a hand to his face, discovering sensors stuck to his temples, the place where the link-in to the Cerebrum formed.
Someone in the bed next to him was crying. A woman. In shock, he stared at her, and she wiped her face with the sleeve of her flimsy blue robe. She was dark all over: dusky skin, ebony eyes, and the buzz-cut ends of her hair were jet black. Seven had almost been expecting everyone to look the same on the other side, like agents IRL. He’d even expected them all to be men.
“I knew there was something wrong,” she said and wept into her hands. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
“You’ll be okay,” he said, and his voice sounded a deeper than it had in the Cerebrum.
“Seven?” she asked, looking up.
The agent in the bed on her other side peered around her. He was just as dark.
“Eighty-Eight?” Seven said to the woman, just to confirm that he could still tell who was who. “And Twelve? How do I still know who you are?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
“We’re easier to tell apart IRL.” Twelve shrugged. “What do we do now?”
Before Seven could answer, his stomach made an odd gurgling noise, loud enough that Eighty-Eight looked at him incredulously.
Seven looked down at his stomach. “I think I’m hungry. Food?”
“I’d rather a shower first,” Eighty-Eight said glumly. “Whoever had the job of hygiene upkeep around here was not as thorough as I would have liked.” At least the chance to complain about something seemed to have roused Eighty-Eight from her despair.
Several people in scrubs came to check them over, and Seven let them ascertain his health before they lead him to a shower room. It was hard to walk—it was strange to have gravity pulling him down, and his legs felt weak. Afterward, the nurses provided him with clothes, and they hung off his thin body like he was an ill-dressed scarecrow. He rejoined Twelve and Eighty-Eight so they could finally eat an actual meal.
It was all so strange and felt like a dream. Something as simple as water running down his skin was absolutely fascinating, as was the rough scratch of fabric. The nurses gave them bland edibles to get them used to having actual food in their stomachs again, but even that had a taste, and a texture in his mouth.
He still didn’t know what he looked like. He had long, slender fingers, and stood taller than both Eighty-Eight and Twelve. His skin tone was lighter than theirs, but not by much. It was certainly darker than how it appeared in the Cerebrum. He had a small nose and a thin mouth. This, at least, he could feel with his hands.
Everyone seemed focused on getting the newly awakened agents settled. In spite of the fact that he wasn’t sure Fox would like him like this, Seven still wanted to see him. Surely Fox had asked to see him by now. Why weren’t they letting him in?
Seven asked if he could see people on the outside, but the government officials told him they were still trying to ascertain from which country everyone originated. Over a hundred people didn’t just disappear without leaving behind records. He might have a family looking for him.
Seven waited impatiently, but it was taking a long time.
He eventually persuaded one of the nurses to give him a handheld mirror. He had an oval-shaped face, hooded eyes, and strong brows. He had straight, white teeth, although he couldn’t tell if he’d had dental work done or not. His cheekbones stood out harshly on his face with hollowed cheeks. His hair, like Eighty-Eight’s, was buzz-cut, and running his fingers through it made his scalp prickle. It was closer to brown than black. In comparison, he could see a resemblance to Eighty-Eight and Twelve’s facial structures. His eyes were blue. Not the same hue as in the Cerebrum, but darker blue shot through with grey-blue streaks.
He gave the mirror to Eighty-Eight, who immediately started rubbing a hand through her stubbly hair in agitation. What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked angrily.
“Now you can grow it as long as you like,” Twelve replied calmly.
Seven couldn’t help but notice that the vast majority of the former agents were similar in colouring and facial features to Eighty-Eight. It bothered him. The difference between their appearance in the Cerebrum versus IRL was startling, and something about the entire operation was bugging him, besides the fact they’d all been brain-wiped, imprisoned, and made into drones. He just couldn’t find the words for what was wrong.
“Seven?” One of the nurses approached him. “You have some people who are here to see you. Is that all right?” she asked in a gentle voice.
Seven nodded curtly and got to his feet, following her out of the room and down a long hallway. It was a bit chilly, and it startled Seven to find his skin erupting in tiny bumps. He rubbed his arms with his hands and tucked them in close to his torso to conserve warmth. He seemed too thin to keep any warmth himself.
“They’re through there,” she said, indicating a door. “I’m not allowed in, so you go ahead.”
Seven raised his hand to knock, but stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm the erratic flutter of nerves in his stomach. Seven might not be what Fox was expecting in person, and he had been too overwhelmed to think of what Fox might look like. They were going to be different, all of them.
Finally, he knocked, and the flutters in his stomach intensified.
A tall, black woman answered the door and smiled. She stood eye level with Seven and gestured for him to enter. “Seven. Welcome.”
Seven apprehensively eyed three others sitting around an oval-shaped table. A young blonde woman wearing a professional-looking outfit sat next to a man in a military uniform with close-cropped dark hair, sitting rigidly. The third person wore casual black jeans and a sweater-vest. He looked up, smiled, and Seven froze in place, completely unable to move. Breathing was also something of a problem, unused to it as he was.
The door behind him banged open, and a short, black woman in smart clothes and carrying a large handbag hurried in.
“Sorry I’m late, everyone. Traffic out there is just terrible.”
“Good, we’re all here. Let’s start the meeting.” The tall woman who had greeted him at the door went to the head of the table, and Seven cautiously made his way to one of the empty seats.
“King?” Seven asked the tall woman.
“Yes, it is me,” King replied. “As I’ve already explained to everyone else, I prefer male pronouns, and my gender presentation in the Cerebrum reflects that.”
Seven nodded, internally correcting himself, and waited.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Properly introduce yourselves to Seven,” King addressed the rest of them.
“I am Simón,” said the man wearing the military uniform. “In the real world, my name is José, although if you like, you may still refer to me as Simón.”
“Joanne,” said the blonde woman with a pronounced French accent. “It is actually Dr. Delacroix. However, as you know me already, Joanne is acceptable, I suppose.”
“I’m Mrs. Parks,” said the lady with the handbag.
The last man at the table raised a hand and smiled more widely at Seven’s astonished face. “You can call me Fox, if you like. It sounds exactly the same as my real last name, and everyone calls me by it.”
Fox had more of an accent than he had in the Cerebrum. He had an impish face and decidedly British cheekbones. His hair, far from being bright red, was a dark brown that reminded Seven of mahogany. He looked like a fashion model, and Seven found that he couldn’t speak. He swallowed hard to try to get moisture into his dry mouth, but even if he found his voice, he couldn’t think of what to say.
King interrupted their staring contest. “We’re holding this meeting today because it is our very last one. After this, none of us will be able to continue as we once did.”
“What?” Fox’s eyes snapped back to King, then he turned to the other three. “What did you do?”
Joanne sighed and looked down. “We were unable to simply locate this facility and break you out, as much as we would have preferred to do that. In real life, I am not much of a fighter and I would hardly be considered stealthy. I can break through all the Mindwalls you like in the Cerebrum, but out here, I am ordinary.”
“We had to use the resources we had at our disposal,” Simón continued. “The only way to free you was to expose this story to the world. However, in doing so, we also exposed our own identities. Our real identities.”
“We tried to think of another way,” Joanne said, “but without the cooperation of the government, we never would have found your physical bodies.”
“Yes, we are all free now, but it comes with a price,” King said. “Our anonymity is forfeit.”
“You doxxed yourselves,” Fox said, voice raw. “And me. How many people know who we are now? Our real identities?”
“Everyone,” King said. “The whole world.”
“Our lives will never be the same again,” Joanne said.
“I don’t have a name,” Seven said, snapping out of his daze. “I don’t even have a life. What will happen to me?”
“You do have a name, if you want it,” King said, grabbing a leather briefcase from the floor. From inside, King pulled out a folder. “This is your file.”
Seven took the substantially sized folder, and when he opened it, he could see the wear in the folder, which had obviously been handled by numerous people. The first few papers also looked old and creased. It was his birth certificate and medical file.
Etienne Levesque, twenty-five years old. Parents deceased. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Seven then flipped through newspaper articles regarding the car crash that had killed his parents. Drunk driving; his survival had been labeled “a miracle.” His parents were Métis. He had an aunt whom had been deemed an unacceptable caregiver by social workers and he was placed in the foster system.
He had been adopted, not by people, but by an unknown corporation, but there were no records thereafter of him having attended school or having gotten a job. He disappeared from legal public records after that, at the age of thirteen.
After that, all the records were written memorandum-style and referring to him as a number.
“All the other agents have similar histories detailed in their files,” King said. “They’d been taken from all over the world, adopted by a corporation, and never seen again. The majority of those taken are of aboriginal ancestry, and now that it has come to the attention of the UN, investigations are being made.”
“What about all of us?” Seven asked. “Eighty-Eight and Twelve, too? We don’t have a home other than this facility and the insides of our heads.”
“There are reparations to be made,” King explained. “You’ll be compensated for being held against your will, as well as for mental and emotional trauma. Furthermore, you are to be paid for all your years of service. You’ll have a substantial amount of money by the end of all this. For you, ten years of back-pay.”
“We don’t know what to do with money. We have no idea how to live in the real world,” Seven said. “I have no memory of ever being outside this facility.”
“I can help, if you’d like,” Fox said. “I have an agreement here that allows me to help you in any capacity you’d like. But you don’t need to sign anything if you don’t want to. You’re free to leave anytime now. You all are.”
“I…” Seven swallowed. “I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Okay. Just let me say goodbye to Eighty-Eight and Twelve.”
* * * *
Eighty-Eight started crying again when Seven told her he was leaving to stay with Fox. Twelve sighed and put an arm around her shoulder.
“B-but England is so far a-away!” Eighty-Eight wailed.
“I don’t think I’ll be going that far anytime soon,” said Seven as he tried to reassure her. “Fox is just helping me right now.”
“It’s going to be freezing outside,” Eighty-Eight said, sniffling. “I don’t have a coat.”
That was probably true.
“We’ll be okay,” Seven said, smiling. “This beats being stuck in the Cerebrum, talking about what it might be like on the outside.”
Eighty-Eight didn’t look convinced.
But Twelve said, “We’ll look after one another, you’ll see. Nothing to it.”
Seven didn’t embrace either of them, or even shake their hands. But they were all he had in terms of friends, and they knew. They knew he was scared, too.
* * * *
Outside was terrifying. Seven gasped out loud, and a puff of his breath was visible in the cold air. It was snowing, and every time a flake landed on him, he felt a burst of cold wetness, like he was being bombarded with tiny frozen bombs. Every so often, a car rumbled by, and Seven would jump back from the road, startled by the vibrations he could both hear and feel.
“It’s just a street,” Fox said, watching him look at the sky in fascination. “An ordinary street. There are lots of street and they’re all covered in slush.”
The facility had been quiet and blank, all muffled sound and muted tones. This was like an attack on all his unused senses.
Seven curiously opened his mouth so that a snowflake landed on his tongue. In shock, he tried to spit it out, to dislodge the feeling of ice melting.
He jumped as Fox slipped his hand into Seven’s, unused to the sudden warmth and the sensation of bare skin against his own. Fox’s thumb sliding over his sent a shiver down his spine, and Seven’s face erupted in heat. If this was what human contact felt like, then what would anything more intimate do to him? The thought of finding out stirred something hot and low in his belly.
“So where do you want to go?” Fox asked, waiting for Seven to get used to the feeling.
They could go anywhere in town, Seven realized. They could go anywhere in the entire country if they really wanted. In fact, there was nothing stopping him from going anywhere in the whole world. It was a dizzying thought.
“Or I could get you a hot drink, and we can sit on that bench over there for a while. Then we can check into the hotel down the street.”
“That sounds good,” Seven said finally, looking at Fox and smiling tentatively.
He soon learned that apple cider was delicious, and Seven was surprised he enjoyed the sweet tang and the way the liquid pooled in his body and warmed him from the inside. The aftertaste was strange, but so was everything. He supposed he would get used to it eventually.
Afterward, the hotel room reminded Seven of a domain, with how it was precisely set up and how sparse the room looked, impersonalized. Strangely, it made him feel less nervous about being outside the Cerebrum. It seemed like the inside of his own head, blank. Seven frowned and turned to Fox, hoping for a distraction from his thoughts.
Right now, he was thinking that after all this, why would Fox still want anything to do with him? Now that he was here, IRL, he was just a broken, empty shell of a person. He finally had a name, but what was the name Etienne Levesque when he didn’t remember who that was? What had Fox found attractive about him in the first place?
Seven looked shyly at the man sitting so casually on the bed, appearing so effortlessly beautiful. What would such a man want with him, with his unused body and fractured mind?
Seeming to know what he was thinking, Fox turned to him and opened his arms.
Seven gratefully sank into them, putting his face next to Fox’s ear. His neck smelled of warm, musky cologne. Despite his slight frame, he seemed to engulf Seven.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Fox murmured. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, it’s not like that. I want to be here with you. I want you.”
Fox ran his hands through the rough stubble of Seven’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. Seven knew even less what to do now than he had in the Cerebrum, the touch of Fox’s mouth was so overwhelming. It was a simple thing, but every nerve ending sang as soft lips pressed against his own.
Suddenly, he felt too hot, and his clothes seemed like sandpaper on his skin.
“It’s fine, luv. It’s all fine,” murmured Fox, just his breath stirring around Seven’s ear awakening something burning in his abdomen.
“Fox,” he said urgently, his breath catching in his throat.
“Oh. Is this okay?”
Seven wasn’t sure it was, but what he did know was that if Fox didn’t touch him, he’d burn up into nothingness.
“Fine,” he babbled. “It’s fine. I—”
Fox kissed him again. He drew in Seven, hands on either side of his face, pressing their mouths together. He kissed Seven until they were both gasping, then kissed him harder. Fox’s tongue swipe against his and Seven chased it. Fox chuckled against him, and it rippled through him.
He wanted. He wanted so much it was tearing him up from the inside out.
Hands on his hips, sliding up his sides, slipping under his clothes distracted him. Seven gasped for breath, precious breath filling lungs still not used to breathing. Fox’s fingertips felt like they were memorizing him from the feel of Seven’s skin alone.
Fox struggled to get Seven’s shirt up and over his head. Having bare skin was a novelty, since his clothes hadn’t come off in the Cerebrum. His uniform had been so ingrained into his head that he couldn’t remove it, even when alone. To not have anything covering his upper half proved startling. Fox drew back to look at him, eyes darkening.
Seven was too shy to ask Fox to take off his own shirt. Luckily, Fox had the same idea, pulling it off and carelessly tossing it aside. He was all pale skin lit with silver highlights, the cold winter sun illuminating him through the window. He appeared as delicate as spun glass, but seeing Seven staring unmovingly, Fox pulled him forward.
All that pale skin burned to the touch, soft and real against his fingers.
Fox guided Seven’s hands over his body, up the smooth, soft flanks and down his ribs, over his flat belly until he reached the notches of his hips. Fox languidly pressed his mouth to Seven’s, and Seven melted into it.
“This is okay?” Fox whispered, thumbs running along the waistband of Seven’s trousers.
Seven remembered Fox’s words: This isn’t a don’t-say-no-and-I-will, it’s a don’t-say-yes-or-I-won’t.
“Yes,” Seven said clearly, head tipping back as Fox made quick work of shoes, trousers, and underwear.
Seven wasn’t used to seeing his own body, having viewed it only once in all these years when showering earlier. He could hardly believe the hard cock pooling precome onto his abs was his own. Fox evidently could, because he was looking at Seven like he wanted to eat him.
Fox pressed another swift kiss to his mouth, then the line of his jaw, before dropping down to his collarbone. Seven could tell Fox was trying to go slow, not to overwhelm him. To start off in less distinctly sexual territory and work his way down. Seven didn’t mind. He knew where Fox was heading, and the anticipation of it ratcheted his arousal up another notch.
Seven thought his poor body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Nothing like this had ever happened to it. The past tryst in the Cerebrum had been somewhat removed from an actual physical relationship. His blood pounded through him, rushing just under his skin, barely contained.
Seven felt like he was on the verge of floating away when strong fingers intertwined with his and held on tight. Seven grasped desperately and grounded himself. It was okay, he was still in the hotel room, still on the bed, and this body that he hadn’t known in so long was his own.
The first touch of Fox’s mouth to his cock nearly had him writhing off the bed. Fox pinned one hip to the mattress and tried again. Seven made several loud, embarrassing whining noises as Fox took him into his mouth.
And just like that, it was too much. Seven shuddered all over, unable to help himself, and tipped over the edge into climax. He could vaguely feel Fox holding onto him, but it was nothing compared to the pleasure rocketing through his body.
He came down like a rock, gasping as he lay on his back. Fox rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of Seven’s left hand. He squeezed Fox’s fingers to let him know he was still fine.
“That was…”
Fox chuckled against his ear and snuggled to his side. “It was that.”
Now that he had stopped moving, he could feel his muscles aching and the stickiness of sweat. His body had settled, swiftly slipping towards sleep against his will. He didn’t want to sleep, he wanted to see Fox in the same state as he’d been in. Perhaps repeat what had just happened, or try something new. But it just wasn’t happening.
“It’s fine, luv, go to sleep,” Fox whispered against his shoulder.
He breathed in, and out, and in again. His eyelids refused to stay open, but just before he succumbed to sleep, he looked once more at Fox’s face and saw the smile in his eyes as their gazes met.
Fox squeezed his hand like a promise, and Seven knew that one day soon, he’d have the world. But for now, Fox and a hotel room bed would do for a start.