#masterofterror

Electrical impulses at the pilot's temples lock her into the nightmare. Combined with the fear toxin, it will now continue to loop through her mind until Dr. Crane decides to give her some respite. Each time, the nightmare would be worse and more intense. Each time her mind would invent ways big and small that it could be even worse. As the nightmare proceeds, Crane notes Phoe's heartrate and blood pressure and takes notes about her hallucinations. A camera records her in the chair. He is careful not to engage her in conversation for now. He wants her fully immersed in her nightmare, so that it will tear at her sanity. He wants her to want nothing more than a moment of respite from the nightmare, so that she will believe or do anything just to get that respite. He knows this is the way to break her and obtain the information that he wants.

The League of Shadows have been excellent benefactors, he reflects. They have furnished him with this remote laboratory and many tools to conduct his experiments. He turns his attention back to Phoe. It would only be a matter of time before she broke completely.

_____________________________________________________

Pull up, pull up-

Pull up, pull up--

an automated voice beckons.

Phoenix is straining, trying with no little desperation to pull the Hornet's nose upright.

The invisible craft around her erupts into a violent SHUDDER. So volatile is the commotion, that Phoenix swears parts are dislodging midair. In the cockpit, that doesn't presently exist, too many lights are flaring on and off. Her adept fingers hardly know which ones to poke at first. With a hard swallow, she becomes aware that with the altimeter out, she's lost all sense of spacial reasoning. Ground, sky, ground, sky- it all blurs together like a swirling top.

Instincts are taking over, fingers are twitching towards levers, switches, and gears that aren't there.

"Bob? Bob talk to me---" She entreats, voice cracking.

no answer.

Agonized, emotion chokes in the back of her throat. He is eerily still. So ghostly silent she has to look back. To her horror, there is nothing where HE should have been. The canopy is still sealed shut. Before she could ponder a direct cause, another alarm blares. Her skittish gaze falls to the panel beside the yoke. The pressurization gear is broken, malfunctioning beyond hope of redemption.

"No-- no-- no!!!" Phoenix rasps in a voice that is foreign to her own ears. Her blood pressure is skyrocketing. The thunder of her own uneasy heart engulfs her already burning ears. Tinnitus, vengeful, and terrifying floods her to her core. Eyes bat willfully to try and clear her mind. A pilot can not be this incapacitated and survive....

The brunette lurches at the unanticipated sound of a voice. Her eyes attempt to fixate upon the other individual, but find themselves greeted by nothing but inky black darkness. Phoenix swallows thickly, her arms instinctively flinch towards the undesired blindfold only to find that they are tethered to the chair. A pinch of unfettered panic starts to pulse through her heart.

"No shit, Sherlocks," the Naval Aviator bad-temperedly growls, frustration peeking around every syllable. If the flight had gone according to plan, Phoenix would be back at the base, not here, not mincing words with this abhorrent menace. Fingers and wrists flex patiently. If she remembered the trick Mav taught her, maybe she could find a way to slip their tightened knots. In order to do so, she needed to remain calm. A task that was incrementally getting more and more difficult.

He is not a real doctor. She's SEEN his file, the one the Navy kept on hand. He had snapped somewhere along the way, by growing too fond of torturing those entrusted to his care. "You should be in jail," Phoe rumbles irately. "Who? Who are your benefactors?" She has just enough presence of mind to press.

Corners of her stolen vision come to life with vivid colors of an all too-real hallucination. If she listens to intently to the space between them, she can hear it. She can hear a slow, building, concoction of familiar noises. Gentle at first in their notification that the F-18 is failing. Those nebby noises blossom into something far more dreaded......

...an instant series of wailing alarms. There are too many of them erupting from every corner of the cabin. The Naval Aviator flinches instinctively to answer the summoning, as if she is still flying, as if her arms were not bound. Her heartbeat ticks a few paces faster, anxiously pulsing in the cavity of her chest. FIRE. She has to deal with the fire in the ENGINE first.

She tries to extinguish the consuming flames, only her actions result in the loss of her control over the F-18. Panic, raw and unadulterated, bleeds through Bob's voice. "We're going in, we're going in!!!!!" Helpless, there is nothing she can do. Nothing is responding the way she requires it too and his voice which had been so near, fades away.

Phoenix's gaze flashes up to the dash where the steady dial on the altimeter begins to circle, maddening, maddening circles-- As if she is still flying, she can feel the way gravity is pulling them downwards at frightening, break-neck speeds. The plane is spiraling out of control.

In a frightened fervor, she pulls at the tethers, letting them bite into her porcelain flesh.