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= META 4 CITY =

a DarkSF Novel

by John Argo

Page 3.

"Room 909," one of the men told the woman, if she could hear. "This is where we go in. The Inquisitor is waiting for you."

When the men were gone, the woman sat, still chained, on her gurney, in an uncomfortably large and barren office.

The woman had trouble turning her head, because her neck hurt from the treatment she'd been given.

She laid her head back on the cloth headrest and looked about with large eyes.

Her body ached, but she was more in pain from the tightness in her muscles—the fear and anticipation of the terrible things yet to come.

"Relax," the Inquisitor said. He was a well-groomed man with a pale, soft face and cleanly shorn brown hair. He wore a tight black uniform on his lean frame, with a wide lapel flap open. "Do you smoke?"

The woman did not answer. She did not smoke, nor did she have the extra energy to tell him so.

Like many things, it no longer mattered.

He left her in her sitting position, walking around her in wide, thoughtful circles while smoking an elegant machine-rolled cigarette, long light-green job with gold edges.

Smoke billowed around him as he looked down at the floor, formulating thoughts.

The air took on a tinge of blue from the floating smoke, and the woman lay back, ignoring the nightmare thoughts of her recent interrogation—the mild, Step One variety.

The smoke reminded her of her father, long dead, and she cursed inwardly, silently, this intrusion upon her cherished memories.

"Let's just talk a bit," the Inquisitor said as if seducing her. "Look outside at the rain dribbling down the windows. Think about how this is your home, your nation, and how you want it to remain so. Would you like some water?"

He paused, looking at her expectantly as if she were his client and he wanted to please her. But there was an icy, pragmatic glimmer in his eyes, as if he were looking at a piece of meat he were about to barbecue.

She realized that, yes, she was parched, and strained to croak out a reply.

A glass of water appeared before her face, and she leaned forward to drink.

The Inquisitor was surprisingly accommodating, not teasing her for it as the night questioners had. There was little sensation as the liquid dribbled into her swollen mouth and soaked down into the purple, engorged intestine that was her throat. She could not lift her chained hands, so he patiently held the glass while she drained it one grunting, effortful swallow at a time until she choked and spurted water all over her lap.

He set the glass aside. "I find it encouraging that you display such a calm, cooperative manner. I can make things easier or harder for you, depending on your understanding of the dire situation in which you find yourself. In fact, I find myself in a dire situation trying to find a certain Captain Alton Hedrock who has betrayed this country and will cause grave harm unless we locate him. He is your husband. Do you remember him?"

She nodded with a last ounce of defiance. She acknowledged the love of her life, the man to whom she had sworn herself, with a sharp snap forward that made the gurney creak and her chains clatter.

"Still loyal, are we?"

She felt drained, and sat leaning forward with her chin on her chest and her head feeling heavy.

"Get over it," he said. "Hedrock is as good as dead. So, my dear, are you unless you cooperate." He stiffened, sitting up, seeming to become larger and more elongated as he looked threateningly at her. "Where is he?" he barked.

As the sharpness of his voice echoed around the room, like a whip crack, she suddenly slumped. Her body seemed to surrender to the inevitability of what she was about to do. Her shoulders seemed to grow smaller, and her head fell back against the grimy headrest, while her eyes gazed emptily at the ceiling.

"Where is he?" he repeated, slapping his palm softly on the desk. He leaned forward as if he wanted to suck the truth out of her marrow. His eyes looked dark and burning.

She slumped some more, letting her chin fall to her chest. Her manacled hands were clutched together. Keeping her face downcast, she raised her eyes toward him so that their whites showed while her pupils rolled upward in hate and shame. Her lips moved.

"Speak louder!" he shouted.

She told him where her husband was when she had last seen him.

The Inquisitor sat back, clapping his hands together in delight.

Even as she spoke in a sobbing, quivering voice, Tedda raised her palms to her eyes. She realized she was betraying her most cherished love. She was destroying everything she held dear, even all the things she could not consciously remember because of the drugs. She began to cry brokenly, and her sounds fell like broken glass around her. The Inquisitor, who saw that he was succeeding in his torture of her, simultaneously began to grin at his success.

Hedrock—if they could capture him, they would torture him until all the secrets of East Gotha came squirming and worming out of his innermost gut and the remotest inner coils of his brain. Licking his lips, he asked her in a voice that could not contain its hunger and impatience:

“Where do you think Alton Hedrock is at this moment?”

“I don’t know,” Tedda said amid sobs.

From his silence, she knew it would not go well for her. She did not really even know who Alton Hedrock was, but she knew she would die for him—if she knew anything, which she no longer did.

“Tedda,” came the Inquisitor’s menacing voice, like a razor blade inching through black, invisible space. “This is your last and only chance. Tell me what I need to know, or you will be thrown into the pit of hell, never to return.”

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