This one is in the book. The previous two are a bonus because I can’t bear to kill ALL my darlings. Some deserve to live.
“Camera four is recording, sir. Ready to proceed.”
Pajek stood facing a one-way window looking into a small, featureless interrogation room. A door opened behind him, lighting up the darkness in the observation room. A doughy man in a white lab coat trotted in, late and flustered, and stood next to Pajek.
“Where is this mythical Reader of yours? I don’t see her—”
“Mr. Whethers, you can be silent, or you can leave.”
Andrew Whethers shut his mouth.
In the middle of the interrogation room sat a large man in a wheelchair, wrists bound to the armrests. He appeared calm, and considering all he’d already been through, Andrew marveled at the man’s level of control. Strength, yes, but also cunning, able to resist every other type of interrogation they’d thrown at him so far. The word on the ward was that the new girl could break anyone, no matter how many layers of defenses they had, so Andrew had asked to observe. For science.
He didn’t say who the science was for, of course.
A door in the interrogation room opened and a young woman was wheeled in, wrists similarly bound. Her head lolled to the side, doped up on who knew how many sedatives. Not enough to knock her out, just enough to keep her docile. An orderly placed her next to the man, both chairs facing the window, a small table between them. The orderly unbound the man’s wrist from the armrest and locked it to the table with his palm down on the surface. He then took one of the young woman’s wrists and did the same, placing hers on top of the man’s much larger hand.
Andrew leaned in, his nose an inch from the glass.
Pajek’s assistant started a timer. One minute sped by, then another. At two minutes and fifteen seconds the young woman opened her eyes, leaned forward in her chair, and vomited onto the floor.
“End recording.”
Andrew rocked back on his heels, startled. “Why are you stopping?”
“She has what we need.”
“How can you tell?”
Pajek nodded to his assistant. “That’s all you are permitted to see, Mr. Whethers. Return to your ward now.”
Taking in one last look through the glass before being shoved out the door by Pajek’s assistant, Andrew saw an orderly wheeling the young woman out of the room, carefully dodging the pool of vomit on the floor.
The subject of the interrogation, a man of infinite calm resolve who had held his secrets through time and torture without breaking, was weeping.
Ruth Writes Stories 
Leave a comment