Solitary.
The guards would leave the light out, which was against the law, but Marcus preferred it that way. The dark was so much more familiar. He would sit in the corner furthest from the door and sleep with his eyes open. That's what it felt like, anyway. There was nothing to stimulate his senses, no sights, no sounds, no smells but for the slightly musty scent of stone and damp air. He liked to see how long he could go without blinking.
A long time.
Solitary was like that. It was seeing how long you could go without blinking, and it was remembering funny stories from when you were a stupid fucking kid who didn't know a Camero from a Cadillac. The shrink who came to see him (they were going to kill him, you see, and he had to be in good mental health for that) asked him if it hurt to think back on his brother. No, Marcus had said in a dull voice, as dull as it had ever been, dull because he was sitting in the dark, dull because he was waiting to die. But it was the truth, even if it wasn't one that made the shrink smile. He'd frowned, instead, and scribbled something on the clipboard. Marcus considered stabbing the man in the eye with his felt tip pen. They had to be soft tipped, because someone might try to stab them with it. What do you think about, then? The shrink asked, ignorant to how lucky he was that the moment had passed and he didn't have a felt tip pen protruding from out of his eye socket.
I think about the first time I tried meth with Brian, he replied just as dully, enjoying the slight narrowing of the shrink's eyes, how we jacked a black corvette and crashed into a highway barrier. Or I think about fucking my cousin's girlfriend on his bed when he was out getting the beer. Or I think about the first time I fired a gun at a cop.
Eventually the shrink always got up and left. Marcus would be sent back to solitary. He would sit, waiting for the guard to turn the light off, which always came, whether or not he'd behaved himself on the way back to his cell. He was a cop killer. He didn't deserve light. That's what they told him. He was all right with that. He counted seconds. He counted the footsteps of the sentry outside. He counted the hairs on his arm. He counted cars he'd stolen and women he'd fucked. He counted bruises he'd gotten and bruises he'd given. He counted blood cells. Marcus Wright would count the number of shots it took to blow his brother's head off. Four, each one from a different cop.
--
When he woke up it was dark and cold. The rank stench of rotting flesh was what struck him first. And then, for some reason, he was hyper aware of the fact that he was naked. A vulnerability. He could neither see nor hear anything around him and he started like a shy horse when he sat up and put his feet on wet ground. Wet with what? He wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about getting up, getting out, getting to light. So long he'd been in the dark. So long he'd wanted the lights off and now there was nothing he needed more than just a flash of illumination. Something to remind him he was alive, that this wasn't hell.
His climb out of the impossibly huge pit was laborious, but he wasn't tired when he reached the top. Instead of bright sunlight, or even a clear, star-filled sky, a coal-dust gray cloud cover hovered low and suffocating over the grim landscape. The grass was scorched and useless. Someone had salted this earth so nothing would ever grow again. Covered head to toe in muck, in stinking filth, Marcus Wright turned his face up into the rain and screamed. He was in hell.
--
There had been a moment there, sprawled back against Blair on the floor of the helicopter, John Connor sitting on the bench with his wife, Kyle and Star staring wide-eyed out the open door as Skynet Central went up in a cacophony of flame and twisted steel, that Marcus felt as though he belonged. Here were his people. He would stay here with them and they would hold him close, keep him in their company. But as soon as the helicopter landed, and both he and Connor were rushed off to the medevac, he could feel the stares on him. It didn't matter that his heart was pounding so hard the surgeon could hear it standing a foot away, or that he was bleeding his own blood. He was still a machine. They had to untwist the mess of his ribs, wedge them back in place. Not a human, they were telling themselves. He could see it in their eyes. Not a human, and so there wasn't any hesitation in their gloved hands as they yanked and bent. It wouldn't hurt him. And it didn't. Not really. It was like getting a tooth pulled with Novocain. He was aware they were doing something; he knew it was happening, could feel the pressure, but nothing else.
It was when they moved in to begin repairing the human part of him that their expressions softened and the movements of their hands gentled. This required the delicate instruments. It's still me he wanted to inform them, look at my face, you bastards, you're still operating on the same man.
When they were done, they wheeled him into a secluded room at the far end of the bunker. It was warm and dry. A single light bulb swung from the ceiling, but when the last tech closed the door, they didn't turn it on. Marcus was left in the dark, still awake, ordered not to move unnecessarily until his own healing ability had closed up the worst of the wounds. They didn't know what to do about his scorched hand. It was naked metal now, lithe and dexterous. He would have to wear a glove, so as not to alarm anyone who didn't know what he was. He thought about the strength he now carried in that one hand as he stared up at the ceiling, or where the ceiling would have been if he'd been able to see it. Marcus counted his fingers, touched each metal tip to his metal thumb. He counted each metal toe, each metal rib. He counted the times the T800 had bashed him into the I beam. Marcus Wright counted how many years he'd been alive. Twenty-eight. And there would be no more. He was dead now.