‘He’s doing what?’ Eldon asked Johann.

‘Zhang’s placing nuclear warheads along the Afghan border’.

‘No ground troops?’

‘None at all’.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Eldon replied tersely.

‘Why? What’s the big deal?’

‘What’s the big deal?’ Eldon repeated. ‘The big deal is Zhang has no intention of fighting this war on my terms. He’s telling me if I invade his first and only response is nuclear war. I’m not ready for the threat of a nuclear war yet.’

‘The best laid plans of mice and men,’ Johann replied solemnly.

‘Shut up!’ Eldon replied. He thought for a moment. ‘Well, keep building up troops in Afghanistan, but be careful not to step into his territory. Just keep expelling his people, and placing troops along his border. We’re going to have to take the war to his doorstep. Get aircraft carriers up close to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai. Make sure there’s some nuclear warheads on them. We’ll see how he likes that’.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Eldon exclaimed once again. He was hoping to get rid of most of the world military all in one place. Now he had to recalibrate everything. Not a terrible upset, but it showed Zhang was going to be a pain in the ass. He might be more of a threat than Eldon originally gave him credit for.

‘What do you think about all this, Ethan?’ Eldon asked. The anger he was feeling toward Zhang was still running through his veins. That’s what brought him here.

‘What do you mean?’ Ethan asked.

‘Everything. The war we’re about to fight. Our relationship,‘ Eldon replied casually. ‘You know, things between you and I aren’t the same. I’m starting to get that feeling’.

‘You haven’t fought the war yet?’ Ethan asked.

‘Whoops. Did I give something away?’ Eldon asked. ‘No. The war has not been fought yet. You’ve only been my guest for a few months now. We’re still getting things into place, but we’re getting close. Are you losing track of time?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Ah, well, being cooped up in a cell will do that to you’.

Then after a pause. ‘Do you know why you’re here yet, Ethan?’

‘Yes, of course’.

‘You do?’

‘Yes.’

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‘Really? I thought I would have to explain it to you. At least the finer details. Why are you here’?

‘I’ve come to kill you’.

‘Oh right. You’re from the future and you’ve come back to kill me’.

‘That’s right’.

‘No Ethan, you’re here because I’m going to kill you, and because we’ve been so close, I’ve decided to give you my personal attention.

After a pause, Eldon continued. ‘Do you see what I have here. It’s just a common finishing drill, for smaller, more detail work. Kind of like a dentist's drill. Works just as well I find and it’s rechargeable. You don’t need a cord, and that makes all the difference.

‘You know the smallest hole in the right place can really do some damage to a person. Drilling into a tooth with this thing, causes some serious pain. I find it causes a similar pain when I drill into fingernails too. It’s got me squirming just thinking about it.

‘Now open up,’ Eldon continued, as he fiddled with the start button on the drill.

Ethan readily complied, seeing he was tied to his chair, and Johann had one of his big mitts on his forehead, and the other on his lower jaw, forcing his mouth to open.

‘Over the years,’ Eldon continued, ‘I’ve found pain can come in many sensations. This one is particularly provocative,’ he said, starting to drill into the center of one of Ethan’s front teeth.

Immediately, Ethan felt an intense degree of pain as the drill touched the nerve. It caused Ethan to try to pull away, but all his movements did was cause Eldon to drill a bigger hole.

‘Hold his head,’ he commanded Johann, and when he finished, he allowed Ethan time to experience the pain. He watched Ethan struggle with it. Drawing in deep breaths through his nostrils as an automatic reaction, and each breath triggering the intensity of the pain over again.

‘You can untie Ethan now, Johann,’ Eldon said, satisfied with his work. He got up to leave, still holding his drill. ‘This is what dying feels like when I get involved,’ he said to Ethan and left.

Eldon’s torture continued with relative frequency. About every seven days. Eldon liked to work the teeth, and the fingernails. Still, he did mix it up. One day, he skinned Ethan’s left forearm. On another he stabbed his thigh repeatedly with a pocketknife.

It was the frequency of Eldon’s visits that was the undoing of his torturous acts. Eldon knew that within about a seven day period, nerve cells will die, and the pain goes away. He wanted Ethan to experience continuous pain, so every week he’d come up with something and inflict new pain on Ethan.

That’s not how Ethan saw it. Ethan turned to his mind to overcome his pain. He knew yogi’s from the past had done it, so it could be done. It was the only option available to him, and he turned his focus towards it soon after Eldon drilled into his tooth. He thought he was noticing a difference when he acknowledged the pain, not trying to deny it, and then setting it aside from the rest of his life. Sometimes he acknowledged the pain to the extent he engaged with it and as an observer, watched where it went. After a while it was like it was there and not there.

It seemed to be working. At least for periods of time, and then a few days in, the pain subsided and without the benefit of knowing nerve cells die, Ethan believed he had conquered the pain with his mind. It encouraged him to practice his meditation after each of Eldon’s visits, and then one day it did happen. He, not time, stopped the pain.

Ethan had developed the ‘warrior mind’ lauded by the practitioners of mindfulness. The ability to set distractions aside, and focus only on the moment. Completely in the here and now.

It was around this time during a meditation, he heard a faint sound enter his thoughts. At first he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, or it was real.

‘Ethan. Ethan Strong. Do you copy? Ethan Strong. Do you copy? Over.’

‘You don’t have to talk into the microphone moron. You have a microchip.’

‘I know that. Do you think I don’t know that? Just because I’m talking and there’s a microphone in front of me, doesn’t mean I was talking into it.’

‘Yeah you were...’