Istvan - Male, age 19 (post Treatment)

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When Istvan's skin was basically clean, and had already started to dry below the Svaha'ren sun, he leaned back and put his feet into the water, oblivious of the damage to the suede pants, and certainly ignoring what must have been tremendous pain.

"When I left Windresh I thought we were going somewhere a lot ... nicer than the Institute. But it wasn't as awful looking as it is now, they have added a lot of mess to it since then." He started his tale, and it became obvious that he wanted desperately to tell this story - and then forget it all happened.

*

Istvan had watched the countryside go by with a child's interest. The trip from his family's cold mountain origin was too dim in his memory to match to this - his first real outing ever. The interior of the coach was dark but lush - soft cushions and fabric-lined walls, a cabinet for relieving oneself, food and water stored under the seats.

All in all, the trip there was quite nice. The driver said nothing, even when Istvan tried talking to him as they packed down for the rare night's rest. The horses pulling the cab did not really seem to tire, though they were unnaturally large and burly they did stomp their hooves into the road and seemed to enjoy being off the hitch to the cab to graze. They ate too from bags that the driver supplied from above the cab, possibly from the same compartment where he slept because he didn't sleep with Istvan in the cab.

The road north into the savannah was surrounded by tall umbrella-topped trees bare of branches for a hundred feet or more. The plains animals grazed, and were chased by their predators. Istvan even got the chance to see such predation and was predictably thrilled. But the thrill was lost once he realized that the driver wasn't going to talk about that either.

As they finally made their way through the savannah after more than two weeks travel, Istvan could smell the ocean. They had passed over the bulk of the Svaha'ren territory's southern edge and over to the west coast, where a massive structure loomed over the cliffs and bled onto the grassland to the east.

When Istvan got out of the cab he was a bit scared. He had written parts of a letter he wanted to send, decided it wasn't worded quite right, so he discarded it. As he got to the grand entrance to this great black building, the driver scuttled his bags up to the wall and vanished with the horses and cab. Without a word - and Istvan suspected a week before that he somehow could not speak anyway.

There was a greeting party outside, consisting of two young clean cut teens about the same age as Istvan, and one impressive older man.

Upon seeing Julian for the first time, Istvan's reaction was one of unrivaled lust. He and Reynate had often discussed the benefits of having a handsome blond boyfriend - to the dismay of Alexander of course who was hopelessly not blond.

Julian held out his strong hand, and Istvan shook it with a sudden pleasure. This might be an adventure to look forward to after all.

"Istvan, you've finally made it. Boys, please get his bags. He's had a long trip." Julian's voice was hearty, full, and had an edge to it that Istvan didn't yet recognize as one filled with forboding. The two brown-haired youths dutifully grabbed a bag each, and left Istvan one.

"Call me Van," Istvan said, distractedly. He followed the trio in. They entered and Istvan was stunned. The interior of the building was well lit by electric lighting, all but unheard of in smaller towns, and still difficult to come by even in Windresh - hence his creation of battery-driven lighting for work late into the night.

"Sir, if I may ask, what exactly am I going to be doing here?" Istvan asked, and Julian turned with a smirk.

"You'll be given a dorm, and set in comfortably first, and then we'll see what you're made of." Julian tapped Istvan's forehead, and smiled a wide, overly-pleased grin. "Then we'll improve upon it."

"I've been told I'm rather perfect the way I am," Istvan said, glancing away. The two boys chuckled to each other, and Julian gave a loud guffaw.

The first few days were busy, but Istvan was given a room which had its own toilet and bath, narrow bed and wide desk, and was filled with shelves - he put his books on one near the desk immediately.

Though there was an edge to the place that Istvan didn't really like, he did clearly feel that his intellect was going to get a work out. And, bonus, he'd actually be appreciated for using his brain to his full capacity.

He didn't yet realize that that wasn't what might be expected of him, not until after the laboratory was through with him.

Istvan penned several letters: one to Alex and Rey, another to his mother, a third to their teacher at school. This was all so new to him that he really didn't know what to make of it all. And shortly, he wasn't going to have time to worry about it.

He was put through several tests which seemed to measure his intellectual aptitude. Maths, basic language skills, mechanical and chemical, ever more complex tests. He conquered most of them with quick ease. Language and math came quickest. Istvan learned rules rapidly and kept them in mind.

Next up were a series of physical tests. While he enjoyed seeing how far he could push his body, Istvan realized that some of these tests were a little strange. They threatened to break his arms, when he was given too-heavy weights to lift. His breath came in fits and starts when he'd been run literally all day long. Collapsing into his bed that night, he wondered what was going to happen next.

And without pause, after the exhaustive sets of physical testing (which he appeared to impress the group of analysts as much as those administering his intelligence exams), they brought him to a large surgical theater.

Nervous, of course, upon seeing a tray of needles and several vials of odd looking liquid, Istvan turned to see Julian and two larger men framing the door, apparently in case he decided to leave abruptly.

So he cooperated. Istvan sat in the large leather-covered chair, and allowed himself to be strapped in uncomfortably snugly. His head was braced, arms at the bicep as well as wrist, and legs at the knee and ankle. Trussed up, biting his thin lips, Istvan waited. There was no explanation coming, however, just Julian and a number of long, shining instruments.

The first injection went into his arm, burning. "You've got such lovely blood vessels, Van," Julian said, "but you don't need to flex quite so much for them to show up. Relax."

He gave a little chuckle, and attempted to do so - but the second injection was apparently meant to go into his temple. He started to squirm, but Julian's strong hand restrained him further than the head brace did. "Stop moving," Julian warned, his nostril flaring. Istvan obeyed instantly - closing his eyes and waiting.

When the first injection's contents finished circulating and went through his brain, Istvan realized that he could barely feel his skin any longer. Woozy, whatever drug he'd been given was making him rather sick. But before he could say or do anything, the needle at his temple literally drove deeply through the bone and directly into Istvan's frontal lobe.

When he came to, Istvan's head hurt in several places, his arms had bruises where the restraints had apparently been needed to keep him down. There was a welt on his arm where the needles had repeatedly been applied. Istvan didn't dare stand up, even though he was in his own dorm again and could try aiming at the bathroom. He simply vomited on the floor next to the bed and someone would have to clean it up - he wasn't going anywhere.

Throbbing in his head kept him from sleeping. Slowly, he guessed either overnight or over the course of the next whole day, Istvan recovered from this strange treatment. His skin itched, in fact everything itched. His eyeballs felt dirty. When he was finally able to stand and look at himself properly in the bathroom mirror Istvan was horrified by what he saw. There were gigantic bruises on his head, and they'd ...

"You bastard," Istvan whispered, "you didn't say anything about shaving my head for this shit."

But they had to have access to his temples, and more, the back of his head was tender to the touch. Behind his ears, in fact at regular locations all the way across his head, there were marks where apparently he'd been either injected with something, or some object had been driven down into his skull.

"It will grow back," Julian said, startling Istvan and making him almost slip and fall. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought you might have a poor reaction if you knew."

"Well, I look hideous. Thanks." Istvan said, growling. He was so used to the weight of his head, no wonder he felt so odd. It was of no comfort to him that 'it would grow back'. It shouldn't have been cut off in the first place... But there was nothing for it now but to wait it out.

When Istvan was introduced to the rest of the dorm inhabitants, many of them looked him over with a slightly annoyed expression. It wasn't that his hair was gone and he could no longer impress people with it. There was something else about him that they didn't like. Or more, resented. They'd had the treatments, as well, so it wasn't that.

Istvan noted that of all the people in the dorms, only two of them were female - boyish ones at that. There was nothing really strange about it, some universities didn't even accept women as students. Stupid. Their loss. Istvan busied himself with learning where places were in the building, and what doors to remain away from. Less than a week later, eight days after his treatments, Istvan had his first seizure.

"It's normal," someone said, dabbing a cool towel onto Istvan's forehead. "It's normal. Relax. You're fine. You'll get used to it."

Someone else muttered, "they don't usually come on that soon," but no one else elaborated. Istvan blissfully passed out again, and woke an hour later in the dark. Of course there were no windows leading directly outside, anywhere in the building. There were some decorational windows here and there, but they usually led only to views of indoor courtyards or rooms with conference tables in them. Never outside.

He didn't feel like being indoors. Cooped up like this. His ears buzzed, and his eyes hurt like crazy. Istvan rose, and staggered out of the infirmary, back to his dorm. The image of himself with a frizz of thick black hair less than a finger-width long and holes lacing his scalp was less than appealing to him, so he didn't bother looking in the mirror at himself.

Had he done so, he would have noticed that the whites of his eyes had started to darken.

Several letters came and went, Istvan happily wrote a bunch of them when he could finally concentrate again. How were things at the forge? Was the machine shop still running smoothly? Did the kids get the chance to try your cookies? Did Klegstrom ever have the guts to admit how much he wanted his guy friends? Chuckling, Istvan sealed the letters and handed them off to the man behind the counter at their postal area.

When Istvan went back to study, he found that he was breezing through texts like they were nothing. Child's books. Some things seemed so obvious - mechanical priciples and chemical formulae... Istvan went back to a book which had a number of complex cyphers in it. Blinking at the page, it was as if he didn't need to read to even know what the script said. The random letters and symbols mixed into a mash of words - words which he simply knew how to read.

His stomach grumbled, and rather than worry about why he was suddenly apt the way that some geniuses might be, he found something to eat instead.

Julian seemed remakably pleased at the results. So much so that he nudged Istvan toward a more close mentorship with him. There were indeed many things that Istvan didn't know about - he wasn't much of a literature buff, but he wanted to know more about biology - and that was something that Julian seemed all too quick to teach.

Testing became more of a game for Istvan. He seemed almost unaware of the process that Julian and his attendants were using to test his reflexes and his intuition. Both physical and mental aptitudes were exceeded into ranges that only Julian believed possible.

And about every eight or nine days, Istvan had a devastating seizure. Five months in, and Istvan finally wrote another letter - wondering where the kind words and the questions and the support had gone? He didn't even get any from his parents... They'd been paid, he thought bitterly, and now they're best off on their own. He didn't bother writing to them again.

But he did keep sending ones to Rey and Alex, in the hopes that they'd respond. But they did not. And Istvan soon found that he didn't much have time to worry about even that, since he was being given the opportunity to learn how to become a surgeon.

Medicine on Icarus was a difficult matter, at best. But some things had been retained since the time of the crash - in theory if not in substance. And theories of why he kept having his seizures flew through Istvan's mind when he got to tomes about the brain and nervous system. He realized that his brain and nerves were growing at an astonishing rate - the same rate that they might if he were still in the womb, in fact. His eyes and fingers got the brunt of it, but he soon found he could feel his intestines, heart and lungs... His own heartbeat threatened to deafen him one night - until the morning when he had yet another seizure that 'adjusted' his brain to the changes. Each time, he did the math, he became incrementally more intelligent, and his nerves were growing exponentially in his body.

He was seventeen when Julian decided he'd been lax enough. Though Istvan now knew more than enough to fix almost any injury or diagnose and treat nearly every disease on Icarus, that was not the problem. Not according to Julian.

The problem was that Istvan was trying to 'date' some of the other boys. And that just wouldn't do. When Julian cornered Istvan in the dining area, the young man smiled with a bit of a sultry look. His hair had grown back - richer black than before if that could be believed. Of course, it matched his blackened eyes and his dark nails now. Istvan played with an ice cube from his drink - he'd helped create the refrigerator it came from anyway - and watched his 'benefactor' sit down across from him.

Because it soon became apparent that Julian was at last interested in starting some kind of more intimate relationship with him, Istvan relaxed into a role of flirtation that he'd been missing for a long time. But now, he could read certain physical aspects better than before - unconsciously. At this point, he hardly knew why he felt so aroused by the way Julian looked at him. It was the scent coming from the older man, the way his pulse brought testosterone to his skin... It made the blond man all that much more appealing to him.

And their relationship started with quite the bang. Julian didn't even bother to keep it from anyone else, he almost paraded Istvan around. And Istvan went for it - like he went for other things, privately. He didn't know how to resist the charm of Julian's eyes, even when the man wanted him to do painful, somewhat embarrassing things for him.

It was that blind permissiveness, Istvan's natural desire to please his lover, that led to the eventual realization that he'd become something he really didn't want to be. He was Julian's slave - in all manners and forms. He never questioned Julian's requests. He never declined to do anything. He was required to call him "Master", so he did. He was asked to put on a gag and be bound, he did so.

So when Julian told him to fight - he fought. When he told Istvan to lay still, and be silent, he did. When he was told not to cry out when beaten, he did not cry out, even when the beatings were done with metal objects and wires that brought his skin open wide within moments. Painful, but for some reason his wounds healed quickly enough that no one believed him even when he said something about it. Plus of course he was more than well versed in healing arts, so he could just fix himself up with a bandage or a salve without anyone even knowing.

But he was also being trained to enjoy it. And that bothered him even more. Yet there was nothing he could do to stop it. Perhaps when he attempted to slit his wrists the first time, he ought to have learned: his wounds healed much too quickly to simply die from them.

It was when another black-haired, blue eyed boy was found dead in a pit that Istvan was meant to be filling with dirt, that Istvan had another horrifying realization. He was not the first of Julian's many lovers - and he was not going to be the last. There had been several other similarly black-haired, blue-eyed tan skinned boys coming to the Institute for treatments. They rarely saw one another - they were kept busy in different parts of the building complex.

He didn't dare speak of this directly to Julian. He knew that to say anything disagreeable would certainly condemn him to a day or so in the Room - a dark cube with a door and a drain, and chains. Just the thought of spending time there led Istvan to remain quiet for another number of months. Putting his efforts into designing new equipment and clever objects for the physics department, or helping out in the infirmary which he did love to do, Istvan became aware that he did not find Julian the same enfatuating object of desire he once knew.

Rather, he was appalled when he thought about it. The man had administered drugs and things into his brain that caused him immeasurable pain every week or so, with the bonus that it had in fact brought his intelligence to a godlike portion and his reflexes to the point of instantaneous.

Given a moment to reflect, when he was just barely eighteen and his seizures had fallen to once in a month or slightly less often, Istvan realized the full extent of his situation at last. He was a prisoner, an experiment. His parents and friends had forsaken him, even if they had once loved him. His last private pleas written to his friends had gone out several years before and never been responded to. Alone, despised by many at the Institute for his position of elevation near Julian, and terrified that that position would surely kill him like this boy he helped bury, Istvan began to think that he might escape.

Once he was finsihed with the pit, he got a look at the outside of the building. It had been modified - loudly - over the couple years of his habitation, in fact he had helped design one spire which contained a certain kind of hydrolic pipe for pressure in the rest of the building. But the place was isolated and in a completely bad spot for running. The road as such was grit, the place was perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea - and Istvan had never learned to swim.

When he tried to get out the first time, that fact became clear to Julian. And he used it rapidly to his advantage. Inviting Istvan back inside, pouring on the charm as he was apt to do, Julian made sure that the next time he and Istvan were alone, there was a swimming chamber quite nearby and he used it to cow Istvan into terror yet again. With the lie of 'I'll teach you how to swim', Julian lured Istvan into the pool. Submerging the young man until he almost drowned, then 'rescuing' him, Julian asserted his dominance quickly. Teasing him, pleasuring him, and bringing him back under his tight control.

Istvan later began to fight, but that was only to the delight of Renaud. When he put up a fight, Julian decided that it thrilled him even more, and would go to great lengths to make it so Istvan would fight back before being subdued and raped again. How long had it been since they had simply made love? Perhaps never, Istvan didn't like to think about that.

*

"Since then, it was ... well, sixteen escape attempts and five more suicide attempts. And then this." He waved his hand at Alex and Rey, and the Draks. "This made seventeen. I found two more dead bodies that could have been my twins. He meant for me to find them."

"He made you call him 'master'?" Alexander said. It was late, the sun had set and they had barely moved from their spot near the stream. They had made themselves more comfortable, but Istvan seemed less inclined to move even out of what might have been a cramped perch on the ground.

"He made everyone call him master," Istvan spat. "Some of them more than others, and some could not take it. I didn't want it any more."

"You have escaped," Reynate said, tilting her head and trying to make out his dark expression in the evening light.

"Yes." Istvan said, expressionless. His whole story had come out, but without a hint of the pain and terror that it must have caused him. He'd bottled it up inside, it came out by the way he gripped a pebble so hard that ... he broke it.

They heard a noise, and Istvan looked at it in his hand. His palm was cut, but it would soon heal.

"You should rest. We'll find something to eat, there is a village near here, and they might have something." Reynate said. "Alex, stay with him. I'll go."

The fire drak and Rey went to the town, and by the time they returned, Istvan had collapsed into a fitful sleep. Rey put down the supplies she'd gotten, and sat next to her brother. They looked at Istvan as he slept, peaceful for perhaps the first time in months. But even his sleep wasn't restful - he was so tense, quivering and occasionally his voice would open up and he'd let off a faint scream or moan.

"Don't tell him about his folks," Alexander said, simply. "He can't take that. Not yet."

"What are we going to do with you, Istvan..." Rey said, thinking twice before drawing her hand over his cheek. He would have snapped at her and possibly killed her - had she actually touched him.

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