by S L Shelton
I chuckled as I let the water beat over my face, amused by the notion that only a few minutes earlier, I had dreaded the onslaught of water.
When I finished, I left the pants hanging in the shower, wrung out the underwear, and then took a towel from the rack to cross the hall. Back in my room, I considered taking my shaving kit back across the hall to complete the ritual of feeling human again. Instead, I slipped on a pair of warm, dry sweatpants from my duffel bag and collapsed into bed.
The only thought in my head as I drifted off to sleep was, “Who do I talk to in the morning to get out of this?”
So much for the idea of having this shit down pat.
**
6:30 a.m.—The Farm, Camp Peary, Virginia
I awoke to a beeping from the wrist of my roommate. His wristwatch was apparently not quite loud enough to immediately shake him from his slumber because he was still snoring when I left the room. I’d slept for nearly eleven hours, but as far as my aching body was concerned, I’d just climbed out of a meat grinder.
I walked across the hall to the bathroom and strained to relieve my bladder. It hurt as the stream started but then transformed into real relief as it continued. I breathed heavily after I was done, leaning against the wall without moving.
Someone came into the bathroom, and I turned my head. The shocked expression on his face told me how I looked as he abruptly changed his mind about wanting to relieve himself and left, his backward glance reinforcing my isolation.
“There I go…making friends again,” I muttered.
I grabbed my shaving kit off the top of the urinal and went to the sink to shave.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed as I got a good look at my face. The butterfly bandages holding the skin above my brow were the first thing that jumped out at me. But the bruise and laceration under my right eye and the split and swelling on my lower lip completed the picture; I looked like one of those of those guys in the after-fight interviews.
I touched the bruise and abrasion on my cheek before shaking my head and lathering my face up. Once I shaved the four days’ worth of whisker growth off, I actually looked and felt exponentially better.
Okay, I thought. You I recognize a little better.
Before leaving the mirror, I lifted the corner on one of the butterfly bandages. The skin beneath seemed to be holding together, so I pulled all three off before stuffing my razor and shave-bar back into my bag.
The pants I had left in the shower the night before were mostly dry, so I grabbed them on my way back to the room.
The alarm that woke me belonged to a lanky guy with blond hair who looked to be no more than twenty-five years old. “Morning,” I said as I came back into the room and slowly, painfully, pulled my Melvin’s t-shirt over my bruised and scarred torso.
He looked up and smiled. “Morning,” he replied as he swung his legs over the edge of his bed and wiped the sleep from his eyes, but then he got a good look at me and worry crossed his face. “I was going to introduce myself last night, but you were out cold by the time I finished studying,”
He reached his hand out.
“Eric,” he said, smiling broadly and with far too much chipperness for this particular morning. “Are you okay?”
“Scott,” I replied quietly as I shook his hand. I did the best I could to smile, but I was afraid it came across as patronizing. “I’m fine. Just a little too much testosterone floating around here.”
“So what happened?” he asked, his question dripping with anticipation.
“What do you mean?”
“Well…word around camp was that you pulled a hot weapon on an instructor outside of the containment building,” he said. “And you broke Ray Parson’s arm.”
“Oh…that,” I said as I continued to dress.
“Well?”
“It was a training exercise that got a little out of hand,” I replied dismissively as I tugged the laces tight on my boots. “Like I said, ‘Just a little too much testosterone floating around here.’”
“Obviously,” he said with a grin as he pulled his pants on. “The big debate last night in the day room was if there would be any disciplinary action.”
I shook my head. “Naw. They were just following course curriculum,” I lied as I combed my hair in the mirror. “It seems that all the safeguards were in place except one.”
He shot me a confused glare after pulling his plain white t-shirt on, followed by a Penn State sweatshirt. “No. You don’t understand…we figured you’d end up in the cooler or getting booted out.”
I smiled. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, either.”
He shrugged. “If you say so. But they’ve already sent three people packing from this class, and it’s only been one week.”
“A week?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied with another confused look. “We’ve been here ten days, and classes started a week ago.”
“Hmm,” I grunted with a nod and looked at him questioningly. “What is today, by the way?”
“It’s Monday,” he said incredulously and then looked up. “That’s the other thing. We haven’t seen any shuttles or helicopters since Thursday night. How’d you get here?”
“I took a wrong turn about four months ago and just kept going,” I replied as I headed for the door.
He got up after tying his shoes and ran to catch up in the hallway.
“Where have you been since Thursday?” he asked as we walked through the day room and out a side door, clearly assuming that the chopper had been my ride in.
“Training,” I replied casually as if I hadn’t spent the last three days being tortured for my name. His persistence was amusing, and it actually took my mind off the continual throbbing in my face and ribs. It seemed he was taking his INTEL-gathering responsibilities seriously. Everyone else kept their distance as we passed.
He looked at me with a sideways glance. “You aren’t a student…are you.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Oh yeah!” I replied with an ironic grin as I looked around the expansive campus after leaving the dorm. “I’m learning all kinds of cool stuff.”
As we entered the barn, there were a handful of other students and instructors already in line for food. A few others were seated at tables throughout the dining area. It was a surprisingly large eating area, contained in the lower floor of an old barn, renovated as a modern facility.
Eric and I fell into place in the chow line behind a few others, and I couldn’t help but notice some sideways glances from a few of the candidates.
“They’re just wondering why you’re still here,” Eric whispered from behind me. “Most of them were certain you’d be hauled out of here under armed guard.”
I nodded as I let the cook heap scrambled eggs and bacon on my plate. When he thought he was finished, I kept my plate extended. “I haven’t eaten since I got here on Thursday…could you fill me up?” I asked with a smile.
“We have sixty people to feed,” the man protested plainly as the scent of perfume and pheromones flooded my nostrils. Penny Rhodes stepped up beside me and nodded to him that it was okay. The cook grudgingly added four more pieces of bacon and another sizable scoop of scrambled eggs, but I have no doubt his mood improved when the sex kitten redhead winked at him in thanks.
“You’d fill up faster if you got some pancakes and biscuits too,” he said, nodding back down the line with a milder sneer after the wink.
I looked at the piles of flavored flour and turned back to him with a grin. “Pass…but thanks for the extra protein,” I replied before turning to Penny. “Thank you,” I said quietly.
“It’s the least I could do,” she replied as she bestowed upon me a wink all my own.
After she walked away, Eric bumped me with his elbow. “How’d you manage that?” he asked as we strolled into the dining room and found an empty table.
“What?”
“Her,” he said, nodding slightly toward the redhead who ha
d fed me in my captivity. “We haven’t gotten anything but sneers and insults from Rhodes since we arrived…even Paul hasn’t been able to get a human response out of her.”
“Paul?” I asked.
“Right,” he said, realizing I hadn’t been introduced to anyone yet. “You’ll meet him. He’s the resident ladies’ man.”
I chuckled and looked up after swallowing a bite of egg that hurt the entire way down my sore, retch-weary throat. “It took a couple of days for me too, but she came around.”
He smiled and continued to eat. I was far hungrier than I’d thought. After a moment of silence, I got up to go get a bowl of fruit. When I returned, there was a short Spanish woman sitting in my seat, and my tray had been pushed to the side. Rather than cause a scene, I just sat down in front of my tray’s new location. She smiled a thin smile and nodded at me as I sat before returning her attention to Eric.
“I just heard that Cotton’s class is canceled again this morning and that they’re bringing in a replacement for the rest of the cycle,” she said in a whisper loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear.
Right, I thought. Cotton—the guy I put into the ICU Thursday night.
A few eyes turned sideways to look at me—no doubt wondering if my appearance last night had anything to do with Cotton’s disappearance. I ignored the stares and went back to eating my breakfast.
“Leyla, this is Scott. Scott, Leyla,” Eric said between bites and looked at Leyla. “Scott’s my new roommate.”
She looked at me with a thin smile and nodded. “Scott,” she said acknowledging me. A suspicious expression swept across her face. “When did you get here?”
I took a sip of coffee before refocusing on my eggs. “Thursday night,” I replied, without meeting her eyes.
“Funny,” she said, turning her head away. “I don’t remember seeing you over the weekend.”
I shrugged and continued to eat.
“Didn’t Cotton have his accident on Thursday?” Leyla continued. Eric looked up at me briefly before returning to his meal.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask me. Until yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t laid eyes on this place.”
“I thought you said you got here on Thursday,” she said.
“I did,” I replied with a grin. “But the class I was taking kept me from exploring… I’ll remedy that today if I get the chance.”
She grunted in polite disbelief before she began eating her breakfast. A few moments later, the eyes on the other side of the table clued me into someone arriving behind me. I turned as Nick stopped next to me.
“Follow these guys to the interrogation class this morning. We have to adjust your curriculum after last night,” he said. Then, before he turned to leave, “And try not to kill anyone before lunch.”
Jesus, Nick! I don’t need your help making friends.
Shocked looks popped up all around the table. I knew he was kidding, but other than that, I had to assume he was creating division between the other students and me on purpose; he clearly wanted them to hear him.
I smiled as I returned my attention to the last of my breakfast, using a piece of melon to soak up some bacon fat. After breakfast, I fell in behind Eric and Leyla as they headed for another building in the compound.
“Who was that, and what did he mean ‘try not to kill anyone’?” Eric whispered quietly after dropping back a step to walk next to me, but I could see others looking at me peripherally.
“I don’t know what he meant. But that’s Nick,” I said, not sure how much I was allowed to share with these guys.
“Ah,” he replied, clearly not believing me. “Bodyguard?”
I laughed. “I’m not sure. This is my first day,” I said with an amused tone. “I’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
The answer didn’t satisfy him, but to his credit he didn’t push any further. Eric was an odd fellow. He came across as a bit of a nerd—I liked him immediately.
The class we attended was an interrogation primer. The subject of the class was microexpression recognition and identification. The instructor, I discovered, was Penny Rhodes.
“Watch the slides,” she said, silencing the gossipy whispers about my appearance last night. “If you ever wanted to know if your girlfriend has someone on the side, this is the class to pay attention to. Faces have to be trained not to reveal true emotions… Almost everyone has an automatic reflex of trying to convey what they want you to see rather than what they truly feel.”
She stood directly in front of Eric. “The problem is, a true emotional response is about thirty percent faster than a manufactured one,” she said, looking right at his smiling face. “Learn to see that split second of honesty and you can know how anyone really feels.”
She abruptly slapped her hand down on Eric’s desk, drawing a shocked expression, quickly replaced by an embarrassed grin. “And if you’re smart, you can draw it out of them, even if they aren’t willing.”
The students chuckled politely.
I observed her closely as she gave a short lecture with a slide show of microexpressions, curious about the woman who had fed me, iced out the ladies’ man, and still participated in my torture. She was quite attractive. She oozed confidence and sex appeal and was able to bend it into a weapon or a reward without even opening her mouth. A sharp look from her was enough to make most men—and women for that matter—look away in discomfort. But even the slightest smile was enough to produce a color shift in the cheeks of her intended target.
She looked at me twice with suspicious eyes but seemed to give up after her second attempt to divert my gaze. She had just tortured me. I wasn’t going to let simple eye contact back me down now.
After the lecture, she ordered the students to pair up and review handouts with a series of subjects to talk about.
“Mix truthful responses with false ones when telling a story from your past,” Rhodes said. “The goal is to elicit more information than is volunteered and to evaluate the truthfulness of each statement.”
As everyone shifted their seats around, a good-looking, clean-cut guy with a smug grin etched on his face pushed past Eric.
“Find another partner, Joiner,” he said, shaking my hand as he sat down in front of me. “Paul.”
“Scott,” I replied, swallowing my urge to slap down the affront to Eric. I was too new and too unfamiliar with established social dynamics to take a position yet—especially over something as minor as someone wanting information about the new guy. “Ask away.”
“Scott,” he said, looking up and sideways, thinking of a question. “When did you arrive here at the farm?”
“Saturday,” I lied, keeping to the purpose of the class.
He nodded and made a note. “Have you ever met an instructor named Cotton?”
“No,” I replied, telling the truth; no one ever formally introduced us.
“Did you pull a weapon on an instructor yesterday in the compound?” he asked.
“No,” I said with a slim smile.
He shook his head and marked his response indicators on his sheet. The instructor, Penny Rhodes, had been listening over his shoulder and bent to see his notes.
“You aren’t paying attention to the split second before his words come out,” she said. “You’ll know the truth before he opens his mouth.”
“I’m just writing down what I’m seeing,” Paul replied arrogantly. “But I’ll happily take any suggestions you have to offer.”
She shot him a bored look. “Move,” she said and sat down in front of me after Paul moved to the side.
“Is your name Scott Wolfe?” she asked.
“No,” I replied.
One of her eyebrows tipped down after a second…a microexpression for confusion or suspicion.
“Have you ever been abducted by members of the CIA?” she asked after settling herself down a little better.
“No,” I stated calmly and evenly.
I saw frustration tug at the corner of her
mouth for a split second.
“Have you ever been tortured for information?” she asked.
“No,” I replied with no inflection.
She sat back after a few seconds and smiled. “Well you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, letting the deception unfold fully on my face.
She shook her head, grinning, and then stood, looking at Paul. “Keep practicing with this guy,” she said to him. “When you can tell what he’s thinking, you can teach this class.”
As she walked away, Paul sat back down and shot me a sneer—I got the impression we wouldn’t be getting chummy.
After thirty minutes or so, Rhodes picked a handful of students from the class and brought them, one at a time, to the front of the class to perform interrogations on them. We all kept a log of the proceedings and indicated our observations in our notes, watching their expressions on a large overhead monitor. When class was over, we signed our sheets and dropped them in a basket on the way out.
At lunch, a young woman delivered a note to me. It read:
Weapons Training. Follow the crowd.
-Nick
“Thanks,” I said to the courier and returned to my meal.
“What was that?” asked Eric, who had seated himself across the table from me again.
I slid the note over to him and let him read it.
“Nick,” Eric said. “Well, at least you told the truth about that.”
I ignored his comment and returned to eating.
“So why do you have your own personal training valet when none of the rest of us do?” Eric asked, sliding the note back to me.
I looked to the side as I swallowed my food and slowly scanned the room, looking clear across to the other side before leaning toward Eric.
“I’m here as part of a field study on a new synthetic biological asset,” I said in a low voice. “The Foxtrot Oscar, Treble series, artificial agent study.”
