The woman that Marcella found to help harden me against interrogation was a terrifyingly clinical professional and has been attacking me and teaching me for most of a week. This is my fourth abduction.
The first time I was bagged and tagged as a group of people got in after me on the elevator, taking me to a different floor and what felt like an offsite location. It was after a gym session and Marcella had started rewarding me with these small caramel chews. She wasn’t big on praise in general when she was in training mode, so the accolades and the candies felt really good. So I was totally distracted and oblivious when the bag was put over my head.
As the setting seeped into my mind, I stopped struggling as the much stronger thugs had me thrown into a vehicle and the bump on my head stunned me enough to give them time to tape my hands and feet, and then inject something in my neck for a nap. I was beat up and questioned about Jamie. They focused most of the pain to the face and the body, alternating types of questions, and the severity of the pain as the result of not answering. From surprise hits, to full explanation of how that baton was going to send shooting pain down my arm as they lay into a nerve cluster. I ended up telling them a bunch of surface things about Jamie and then repeating myself a few times. It was the best I could do.
After a few hours, she’d untie me and force me to learn about ways to resist, predict and deconstruct an unpredictable interrogation, by goading, and testing out the reward for obedience, or at least perceived obedience. I tell you, there was nothing more confusing than being cut free and led to a small classroom with food and some first aid items.
The next two abductions were at different times and places, but the interrogation and classroom periods were similar, save for the tools they used and the games they played. At the end of each day, however, I got to go home to Bell and she’d comfort me and we’d spend time together, even some of that was positive response training, but with Belle I don’t remember caring that it was training.
This time was different. This time they bust into my hotel room, I tagged a few with knives from the kitchen and hit one with a chair, but they overwhelmed me in the end with violence and naptime drugs. This time, when they pulled the hood off of me, there was a male face in front of me. No wait, it is the male Face from selection day! But why would he be here? From what I thought I understood, he’s pretty important in the organization.
“There are probably a hundred questions running through your slow little mind right now.” He pauses. I shrug. It seems to annoy him so I save that for later. “Well, I saw an opportunity to gather information, and since you’re going through hardening training anyway, you get some benefit while I have some fun.”
“This is fun for you?” I ask, remembering what Marcella’s friend said: people that enjoy what I did to you make better torturers than interrogators.
“I enjoy watching arrogance get knocked down, yes.”
“Oh, no. Arrogant teenagers. The world quivers under their collective egos.” I get slapped for that one. He’s got rings on too, the bastard.
“I’m not here to banter, stupid girl. I’m here for information.” Power hungry and maybe hates women? Maybe just someone in my group like Marcella? Rival lieutenant perhaps? All possibilities, I take note and file that away too.
I stare at him blankly as he waits for me to say something. Dumbass didn’t ask me anything.
“I did hear that you were trainable. Fontaine’s little pet, some call you. Some, the spoiled little bitch.” None of this is news pretty boy. Marcella warned me the first might happen, and the second always went along with preferential treatment.
“Good, then you’ve probably heard of the algorithm, and that the group I selected with you were identified by it. I want to know what was so special about the Old Vegas Orphanage.
I raise an eyebrow and wait for the question, even though I do understand what he’s getting after. I get a heavy fist to the stomach for it. It makes me cough and spit. “Sorry, as you said, I’m pretty stupid. There were a lot of answers to your statement.”
Another ring slap turns my face, and his hand turns my chin back. “Tell me what made your Orphanage special, and the pain will stop.”
I feel compelled to give him answers. Like little hornets in my mind, are stinging, forcing me to open my mouth and say something. “Extra food and freedom to be ourselves was pretty special to me.” Uh, that was a gross and violating feeling.
“Gods, you really are stupid.” He sighs as he walks around the chair. “I don’t care about what is special to you personally.” He says before kicking my chair over forward, smashing my hands into the concrete floor with a slap of my face against it a moment later. “You will tell me what conditions at the Orphanage led to four candidates for advanced Track options being selected!”
He yells and I feel the compelling tone again, the hornets stinging my brain. Maybe I have to answer, but perhaps I can make him not believe it? Nothing to lose, I suppose. “You’re looking at it, asshole. I’m what’s special. I kept the rats and grubs safe, cover for them when they messed up, and sacrificed for them so no one had to be hungry. I get that you wouldn’t understand sacrificing for others, but not everyone’s a self serving piece of shit.”
It’s not safe to antagonize a captor like this, but maybe he’ll make mistakes that buy me enough time for others to find me? He kicks me with a snarl, hard enough to shift and snap some ribs as the chair is forced to roll to my right side instead of my face. I cry out despite myself.
“You want to be difficult? Are you so cavalier with your own life, or are you protecting someone?” He looks thoughtfully at the wall then taps out a few things and then turns back to me. “I’ll let you think about some better answers while I arrange some things.”
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As he walks out, I think that conceding slowly is how you’re supposed to buy time, not whatever I just did. He has me wait a few hours, but just as I’m about to fall asleep, he puts a collar around my neck that shocks the shit out of me. I wheeze as my teeth clench with the rest of my body, and my broken ribs start stabbing the surrounding meat again. He chuckles as he walks out again.
I get tazed right as I’m about to fall asleep for a few hours, then every half hour after that. At this point I figure he’s either gone home or gone to sleep himself. I figure I should test it then. Unfortunately it’s easier to roll onto the back of the chair instead of back on my front.
Kipping my body to try and break the legs off is more painful in my ribs than it is effective. It did, however, turn me enough to see that a steel table is about five feet from me. The metal chair proves to be more robust than I was hoping and it was too much to hope that he’d be dumb enough to have a wooden chair.
With the table legs in place I can use a hand and the legs to roll to my hands, knees and toes. I push myself up the leg with my fingers, and the painful application of my face against the edge of the table, I manage to balance my weight over my toes and shuffle to a corner where I scrape and slam the chair arm covered in tape against the table until it frays a little. I alternate between wedging the edge between my elbow and the chair arm to try and rip the tape and trying to fray the tape more. By the time I hear a tearing noise, I’ve fallen on my face again and I’m not sure if it’s the tape or the skin on my elbow. I use my weight and muscle to progressively tear my right arm free, low key scream-crying from the pain in my ribs as I toss myself about.
My hands aren’t in the best shape from falling on and torquing my fingers, so it takes me longer than desired to rip myself free from the tape. I quickly check my pockets for my phone or my candies, but both have been taken away. I look around the rest of the room to see if I have anything else to work with. The walls are covered in a fabric padding, and the only feature beside the door is a small circular vent near the ceiling and what I assume is a one-way window you see in old cop shows.
The door has a touch pad electronic lock and the window might be vulnerable to steel chairs. The fucking collar keeps on its thirty minute or so schedule, which is oddly comforting that the racket I roused didn’t cause any changes. I play with the clasp and find it really is a dog collar. What an asshole. I touch the electrodes to parts of the lock and wait for the shock to happen again. Just in case I can keep the noise down, and in the lucky event that this lock fails open.
My ears hear a buzz and a soft click and my readied hand yanks the door as fast as I can and pull the handle to my belly with a quiet thud. Holyshit, it worked. I slide out of the door and shut it behind me, and turn around to find that my room was constructed inside of a warehouse. A small room attached to my prison is in the right place to be on the other side of the window, so I poke my head in to see a messy room with trinkets and tools strewn about a desk with my stuff among the clutter. I also find a knife and the controller for the shock collar.
Slinking back out I try to lose myself in the machines and crates until I find an exit to this questionably sized maze. I’m so tempted to run, but I know that a running person at any time of day, but especially at odd hours of the morning, will draw more attention than walking. The panic and flight are building at such a rate though, I’m not sure I care. As a last ditch effort to control my shit, I break my promise to Marcella and administer a candy without being told to. The instant reminder of my two favorite people and how proud of me they are, pumps enough reward chemicals into my brain to let me think through the panic.
First, you need to move at a confident, but unalarming pace. Move now. Then, to get back to base, I need to first put distance between me and my crime—any direction will do. After half an hour or so, I look for land marks in the distance, some of the strip is still lit at night, climb a building to find the light if you have to. I can’t climb very well with my roughed-up hands and hurt ribs, and after all of the pain and the adrenaline that will fade once I make distance, I will be tired and sloppy. Risk communicating? Company phone, probably could track you right now. Blarg. Have to assume Parker doesn’t know I’m missing.
I power on the phone and bring up my contacts to find Marcella’s number.
/Unexpected resistance on night training, request immediate pick up./
\Re-routing vehicle for pickup. Dessert will be waiting.\
Ten minutes later, a car flicks their brights after turning the corner to the street I’m on. I wait until they pull past and jump out to flash my phone light in their rear view. The car stops immediately and I walk up to the back passenger door and open it.
“What’s the best dessert?”
“Tiramisu” a female voice responds. No one I know it seems, but clearly sent by Marcella.
I get in the car and slump down far enough that my head won’t show if a car passes.
“Life threatening injuries?” She asks.
“No.”
“There’s ibuprofen in the kit on the floor.” I find the kit and slam some pills. I’m tempted to use the t-1 recovery injector, but I don’t have the creds to pay for it yet. I’ll live in either case, but now that I’m not in life-threatening danger, the pain is coming to the forefront. If I relax, my ribs move; then I tense up and my ribs move. Broken ribs are stupid.
Another thing that’s stupid is how I was left unsupervised for so long. Maybe he realized if he slipped into torture that Marcella might retaliate? Maybe he was goading me to lose control and look like a psycho on camera? That would probably be the easiest way to make me and Marcella lose face without inviting his own assassination. But he didn’t even try to use Bell against me once, so now I’m just turbo confused.
Speaking of confused. “Are we going in the main entrance? Looking like this?”
“Eh, you and Marcella will get a slap on the wrist at most, but no-one would risk open violence on the floor. It’s one of our remaining legitimate business ventures.”
I have no idea what business that would be besides gambling. “Hey, thanks for picking me up.”
“Fontaine’s got a crew that keeps an eye on things, and we look out for each other. Apparently you’re in, so remember that in the future hey? Oh and you got out on your own, be proud of that.” She gestured for me to get out of the car, and it felt awkward not giving her a tip, so I place a couple of caramels on the center console and get out of the car. I hear laughing as I shamble through the sliding doors.
As soon as the stale air hits me, I’m immediately wrapped up in a zip up hoodie and directed around the edge of the gambling floor by a hovering hand on my back.
“Its really good to see you Kimber.”
“Thanks for sending someone after me.”
“I was going myself until I realized my cars were all out looking for you.” She squeezes me in a side hug and I hiss like a mad cat.
“We don’t have any female nurses on tonight, you going be able to tolerate that?”
“If it comes with food, water and pain killers, I’m all for it.” She chuckles at me, but there’s no mirth in her eyes.