When Paul came to, it was to find himself strapped down to a metal table by his wrists and ankles. His arms were bare, he could feel the cool metal against his skin. He lifted his shoulders up off the table to glance at his arms, and what he found was that he was no longer in his sweater or trousers or shoes. Instead, he was in a white t-shirt a white pajama pants and his feet were bare.

      He laid his shoulders back down against the table and took a deep breath. Don't panic, he told himself, the worst thing you can do right now is panic.

     Paul looked around to see what he could see. There were wires all about, some of them attached to him. There were wires attached to his head, and along his arms, and to the bottoms of his feet.

     Paul shifted uneasily. This was bad and he knew it, this was very very bad.

    And then he had a thought.. Where's John?

     If these people were the Shadows, and he was reasonably certain that they were, then these were the people who were fighting to make sure that John died, the people who had nearly gotten Paul and George killed in the process of trying to kill John in the middle of an ocean. 

     He heard a door open and a middle aged man with greying hair and a receding hairline approached Paul. He was wearing a lab coat and he was pushing a tray of needles in front of him.

     "Who are you?" Paul asked as the man as he prepared a needle.

    The man did not answer. Instead, he stuck the needle in Paul's arms and Paul hissed. The man pulled blood from Paul's veins then set the needle aside and repeated this process three more times.

     With four vials filled with Paul's blood, the man in the lab coat was apparently satisfied and he left the room without a word. Paul shouted after him and a few moments after the man walked out, several men and women wearing lab coats entered the room. After them, a woman with beautiful dark skin that looked rather like silk and hair pulled back into a tight, perfect bun. She was dressed in a suit jacket and suits pants of charcoal black, and a grey blouse.

     The people in lab coats gathered around the edges of the room with notepads and pens in hand, and they began taking notes.

     "James Paul McCartney," said the woman in the suit. "Welcome to the Institute of the Shadows. My name is Marbella Giasson, I'm the President of the Shadows."

     "Why am I here?" Paul asked, frowning.

     "I think you can answer that question for yourself, Mr. McCartney." Marbella raised her eyebrows.

      "Okay.. How did you find me?" Paul asked.

     "We have a spy of sorts," Marbella said.

    "Shit. Tessa.." Paul hissed.

     "Erm, I have no idea who this Tessa you speak of is," Marbella said. "And I wasn't aware that there was a Tessa working for the F.H.O., but anyway.. We need some information, Mr. McCartney, and you're the only one who can give that information to us."

     The President of the Shadows didn't know who Tess was? She could be lying, Paul supposed, but something about her tone told him that she was being truthful. So if Tessa had been telling the truth about not being a Shadow, then that posed a very interesting question; what else had she been telling the truth about?

      Paul pushed that from his mind for the time being and focused on his current, life threatening situation. "What are you going to do to me?" Paul questioned, his voice barely above a whisper.

    "I'm going to extract some information through those wires you've got attached to you," Marbella said. "I'm going to store it all away in a computer to use that information to my advantage. And then I'll send you home."

     Paul was taken aback. "Wait, wha-what?"

     Marbella arched her brow, questioning Paul's confusion with a single look.

     Paul knew all too well that he should probably just keep his mouth shut, but he voiced his thoughts anyway. "So you mean to tell me that...you're not going to kill me when you're done with me?"

     Marbella laughed, throwing her head back and closing her eyes. She walked over to Paul, dabbing the corners of her eyes. She twirled Paul's dark hair between her fingers. "Oh, no, I'm certainly not going to kill you. You're much too valuable to me. I need you alive, Paul."

     That didn't make sense in the slightest, but Paul just went with it.

    "Now, I'm going to turn this machine on and it's going to retract as much information from your brain as it can," Marbella said. "I feel obligated to warn you, the more you fight it and try to hide information from me, the more it will hurt you."

     If that was supposed to scare me, then this chick is a bullshit negotiator, Paul thought as he put up a mental wall in his brain. Doesn't matter how painful this is going to be, I'm not going to let this woman or the fucking Shadows ruin my chances of saving John.

     Marbella walked away from Paul and he heard a machine boot up.

    He waited, building his mental wall higher and higher and higher, trying to prepare himself for the pain.

     When it came, the wall that Paul had reaching skyward in his mind quite nearly came tumbling down. For a few moments, Paul thought he was dead, but then he realized he wasn't. He was breathing and he steadied the wall in his head..

     And then, next thing he knew, his vision went completely white. Each and every one of his bones felt as if it were cracking down the middle and snapping in half. He was quite certain that his muscles were on fire. His head was pounding, and it was by far the worse pain his head had ever experienced. He felt like someone had cut into his scalp to find his skull and when they'd gotten to it they'd taken a hammer and we're now slamming it repeatedly into his skull. His skin was melting off of his body, or at least Paul thought it was, and his blood felt as if it were boiling.

     And then came the memories. It was kind of like that time not so long ago when he'd woken up from that nightmare about John and he had tried to go back to sleep, except this time the memories that came flooding through his mind weren't from the first time he lived his life. Again, though, they were only pieces of memories.

     "I have magic - "

     " - got yourself a deal, Lennon - "

     " - the hell would you do that - "

     " - hate to break it to you, McCartney, but the whole - "

     " - casualty of war - "

     " - bet your life on that, Paul - "

     " - last night I said these words to my girl, I know you never even - "

     " - if you lived on your own. I wonder if you'd be able - "

     " - you're on edge and you're avoiding talking - "

     " - my soulmate, I'm sure of it! I've fallen in - "

     " - this really awful car crash a few blocks away. Some woman who just moved here from America with her daughter last month, her engine blew - "

     " - think you like me too - "

     " - ready as I'll - "

     " - just fucking miss me already!"

     Paul gasped when the pain left him. It lingered for a few moments as his bones felt as if they were healing themselves, his muscles distinguished their fire, and his skin returned to him. "Agh!" He cried. The pain he felt then was nothing compared to what he'd felt just a few moments earlier, but it was pain all the same. He was sore and he was certain that he wouldn't be able to move.

     Them panic set in.. How much of the memories running through Paul's mind had Marbella and all the lab coated people seen?!

     He heard Marbella whispering to someone, and then she approached him. "Well, I'll tell you this. You're strong. Much stronger than we anticipated. In comparison to what we usually get with this lovely machine of ours, we barely got anything out of you.."

     Paul would have breathed a sigh of relief if he hadn't been afraid that even that small effort would cause him pain.

     "We did get some information, though.." Marbella smirked. "I know who Barney is."

     Shit.

     "And...you're in love with John Lennon," Marbella chuckled, and Paul felt he was going to be sick. "And he with you.. Well, that is something, and I can assure you that it's going to come in very handy. Thank you, Paul McCartney. You have been very helpful. I'm going to send you home now, but I really can't put into words how thankful I am for everything you've given us today."

    And then Paul wanted to burst into tears, but before he got the chance a woman in a lab coat approached him and stuck a needle in his arm..

     And the world went black.

~~~