Chapter 2

Harper sat on the edge of the bed watching the hugely muscular man as he began to awaken. He'd been busy while the guy was out. Ashley was now laid down on the bed behind Harper. She hadn't struggled a bit when he'd moved her. Or moved at all, for that matter. He'd seen more signs of life in a store mannequin. All Harper's subsequent efforts to rouse her from what he could only describe as a stupor or maybe a coma had failed. The yawning pit of worry that had formed in his stomach had grown deeper with each failed attempt and Harper had finally called it quits on trying to shake his wife out of whatever it was that gripped her. At least that awful music was off now.

Now then, Harper thought as he began to steel himself. Time to figure out what exactly who this guy is and what he's done to Ash.

Harper took a grim sort of amusing from watching the bodybuilder weakly struggle at the bonds that constrained his arms and legs. The rough twine was simply too tight to provide any sort of leverage. Strength with no leverage, as Harper recalled his football coach saying all those years ago, meant nothing.

The man's eyes fluttered open and tried to focus on the brooding form of Harper. Understanding followed close behind. It hadn't even taken him a second for him to start worrying about his own skin. "W-w-what are you going to do to me?" he asked through the bloody ruin that was his mouth. Still naked, the man tried feebly to wriggle into a more modest position.

Harper knew people. Well, at least how to sell things to people. Now he was going to sell whoever this guy was something new: fear. His right fist involuntarily clenched, splitting his battered knuckles back open and setting them weeping light red fluid. For his wife's sake, Harper willed his voice into a far lower version that gleamed dangerously with frost. He made the tension drain from his body. Relax, he told himself. This will put this guy over the edge. His meter was slow, measured. Each word meant to land like a physical blow. "I'm going to ask you some questions now. And I'm gonna encourage you to answer them," he intoned.

Harper let silence add an exclamation to his plain statement. The thrill of fear was plain in his captive's eyes and on his face. The man nodded. So far so good, Harper thought.

"First question. Who are you?"

"I-I'm Barry Taylor," the man stammered.

Harper's composure cracked. "Barry Tay... ?"

That made no sense. Barry was the little guy who lived next door and worked with computers. He was small and scrawny, not a Mr. Universe contestant. Harper blinked a few times and did his best to swallow his surprise before continuing. There was a certain resemblance when he looked closely. Something about the eyes. Those were dark and a little too closely set exactly like Barry's were. The voice was pretty similar, too.

"Ok, Barry. What'd you do to my wife? You drug her or something?"

Barry shook his head. "No! No drugs I swear!", he exclaimed.

"Then what?"

"I-I used a computer program I found to ... change her."

Harper's lack of inflection this time was due more to incredulity than an attempt at intimidation. "A computer program," he said flatly. Harper's continued stare proved too much for Barry and he started spilling everything as quickly as possible. Secretly, Harper was relieved. Even though the story coming out of Barry's mouth was unbelievable, his bag of interrogation tricks was just about empty and his hands hurt like hell. Those MMA guys always made it look easy. They did wear gloves, though.

Barry's fantastic story proved more challenging than Harper first imagined. This didn't sound like hypnosis or anything that he'd ever heard of before. This was more like magic. Real Harry Potter stuff type stuff. A computer program that could change people in just about every way possible. Physically, mentally. Whatever. It could place rules on people they had to follow. It could turn them into living dolls to be dressed up, posed, and used however one cared to.

Exactly like Ashley.