| Health: 98% |

| Body Equilibrium: 14% |

| DPS: 15 |

| Defense: 25 |

| Agility: 13 |

| Perception: 27 |

| Intellect: 11 |

| - - - - - - - |

| Arm Holster |

Leary awoke strapped to a metal table. His side was a burning mass of pain, his breathing a squeaking wheeze. His mouth and eyes were dry. He could feel the withdrawal of not taking his meds. How long had he been here?

The room was in absolute darkness. Leary tapped a finger against the metal of the table, listening for the reverberation of the room, but there was none. It must be a tight space, he thought to himself.

That’s when he realized that his legs wouldn’t move, and it dawned on him. All but his essential cybernetics had been shut down. It wasn’t dark in the room. His eyes had been disabled.

“Good morning, Mr. Leary,” a voice floated in from the close darkness. “I trust you’ve had a good sleep. Ten hours. My, my. Lucky you.”

“Who are you?” Leary asked directly, but the voice returned, ignoring the question.

“You’re welcome, by the way. We’ve just saved your life. You had shards of your rib cage in your lung. We fixed it, a little, sort of. Not so much fixed as, good enough for right now.”

“Here’s how this will work, Mr. Leary. I will ask questions, you will answer them, and then we will see if you live.” A loud clunking sound could be heard, like heavy metal on a table. “You know what the Jaws of Life are, don’t you Mr. Leary? Used for cutting vehicles open after a bad accident. Today, we’re going to use them on you. In fact, we’re going to start by cutting off your cybernetic legs.”

A heavy mechanical crunching sound filled the room, accompanied by a sharp twinge and tug against Leary’s left hip, but no pain.

“There’s one! Now for number two.” A similar sensation was felt as with the left hip, but this time on the right.

“You’re not great at torture, pal. You’ve just gone and made me lighter. Do you think you might try some pain or something?” Leary spoke.

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“Turn his eyes on,” the voice said. Leary’s eyes clicked on to show a bright light above his head and a large mirror on the ceiling directly above him. He saw that his side and chest were sitting wide open. He could see his own beating heart, his deflated lung, and the rest of his insides. His legs were propped up against the wall with the jaws of life sitting beside them. Surgical tubing carrying blood and other fluids were connected to his various parts.

Leary stared for a horrified second before starting to scream. The truth had flooded into him now. The torture was already done. It was only when the painkillers began to wear off that he’d be able to feel it.

“Do you see, Mr. Leary?” the voice moved from the side of the table to his view. It was Del Peck. He recognized him from the holo images that CURL had shown the team. “Your adventure is just beginning, and I’m the only one with the ability to stop the ride.”

“You dirty son of a bitch!” Leary shouted, drips of spittle soaring from his lips.

“Question number one, Mr. Leary. Why did you attack my people? Question number two. Why did you kill my surgeon? Question number three. Why did Preature not turn the Byun boy over to me? And that’s the big one, Mr. Leary. Why keep the boy, when you could have been paid a million for him?”

Del paced around Leary’s head. “You see, I have my theories but I want to hear what you have to say. He’s a very important boy. It seemed like a very fair deal. It was all very simple. But instead of turning the boy over, you lure and kill my people.

“The painkillers should be starting to wear off now, Mr. Leary. Are you feeling it yet? No? Soon. You see. Torture is an art. It’s not a science.”

Leary screamed as the throbbing of his massive open wound began to cut through the bodily haze.

Del snapped on some blue neoprene gloves and began to poke around the chest cavity. Cupping the heart, squeezing the collapsed lung, tracing the edges of the incisions. “How are you doing, Mr. Leary? I bet you could use a drink.” With that, Del trickled some ninety percent rubbing alcohol into the sensitive areas of the wound.

Leary’s breath sputtered as he inhaled sharply in his pain. A pain that was getting worse by the second.

“Why, Mr. Leary!?” Del shouted. “Question number one. Why did you attack my people?”

“Happenstance!” Leary shouted back.

Del, in the throes of violent bliss asked again, “Lies! Now tell me why!”

The pain pulsed through his whole body, tingling through his cheeks and down to his fingertips. “Parts! We wanted parts!”

“What parts?”

“The missing parts! The ones that didn’t get put in the boy!”

“You thought they were in my people? You were so close, Mr. Leary, but you were wrong. Now, my surgeon is dead. Why?”

“To learn where the parts were!” Leary cried in agony.

“Final question, Mr. Leary. Then I promise to end your pain. Why didn’t Preature bring me the boy?”

“Because of the files in his cybernetics! They aren’t complete unless all of the parts are together. It’s been partitioned.”

“Good, Mr. Leary!” Del’s face was wild with excitement. Gradius had stored CellarDoor in all of those parts, just as Del had suspected. “Now, you shall have your release!”

A man approached with the jaws of life, and propped them around Leary’s neck.