As soon as she tried to wipe the water away, she realized that she was unable to move her hands. She looked down and found she was tied to a chair. She shook her head to get some of the water off her face and had another look at her surroundings. She was in a small, stone room with a table and a light shining in her face obscuring another person in the room with her.
She tried to speak, but she was still out of breath. She took in a couple of deep breaths to get her voice back. Her host here was apparently quite patient and said nothing while she struggled to bring herself back to life.
“What’s going on?” she finally managed. “What is this?”
“I might ask you the same question,” the man next to the table replied. As her eyes adjusted to the lighting, she could see his arms were folded as he walked toward her. He knelt down to bring his face closer to hers – close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead from the warmth and stale air in the room. The name on his shirt was Halloway, the man who had spoken with Blake when they first arrived, but Blake did not say his experience was this unpleasant.
“I welcome you three to my base,” he said with more than a touch of impatience. “I treat you with respect, and you repay me by turning sides and helping those who want to get everyone killed by messing with Carburast.”
“I don’t understand,” she said innocently.
“No?” he asked doubtfully. “So you didn’t wait for your compatriots to escort you off the grounds? You didn’t willingly follow them to Point Light?”
“We thought they were your men to begin with,” Michelle insisted. “They had guns, and by the time we figured it out, we were kind of stuck. Just like we were stuck with you when we got here. We didn’t ask for them to take us. I still don’t know who they are.”
Halloway pursed his lips and stood again. He placed his hands behind his back and took a few steps away from her to process this. She was not sure whether he believed her or not, and really, she had to admit that she would have trouble believing herself if she were in his position. Finally, he turned back to her with a fresh air of superiority.
“How about you start giving me the truth?” he asked plainly. She stared at him blankly for a moment. After all, she had not lied to him since she arrived.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Who you are, and how you come to be here,” he said.
The look on his face said that he thought he had her, but the trouble with this request was that she really did not know. She felt her stomach rising into her throat wondering how she should answer him, and knowing that even if she told him everything she knew, he would not believe a word of it. She also knew that the longer she sat in silence, the more he would think she was lying when she did speak. Then again, she figured he had made up his mind about who she and her friends were already, so it was likely that no matter what she said, he would think she was lying.
“Didn’t Blake,” she began to ask, but Halloway threw up a hand to stop her.
“He told me nothing,” he said impatiently. “He asked a good deal of questions, but he avoided everything that would tell me about himself.” Based on her knowledge of Blake so far, this seemed to fit him well. It also did not surprise her that Blake would be calm enough in the face of this imposing man to avoid every question and find out whatever he wanted to know. To an extent, she envied Blake’s demeanor and wished she could be so calm and even cavalier in the face of such an oppressive atmosphere. Still, she felt that his decision to tell Halloway nothing about the Maze was an example she should follow.
“I don’t know what you want,” she began to say, but Halloway’s level demeanor dropped in an instant, and he moved across the room to get back in her face faster than she would have guessed he could. She instinctively turned her head but could feel the heat of his breath against her cheek and her heart pounded a little louder.
“I’m not here to play games with you,” he growled. “Do you think this is fun?”
Her body shook as her nerves stood on edge, and a tear crept out of the corner of one of her eyes. She struggled to control her breathing and hoped that he would not do anything to her. He had her at a distinct disadvantage, and if she died on this world, then no one would ever know what happened. She was not unwilling to cooperate; she just did not know how. Finally, she shook her head to attempt to answer him as no words would come out.
“Do you want to play with me?” he asked threateningly. She shook her head again without opening her eyes to face him. What else could she do?
“Cause I can play,” he warned her as he stood up and backed off. She felt his heat diminish, and she cautiously opened her eyes to see where he went. He had passed behind the table to retrieve his own chair and set it directly in front of her. He sat down resting his elbows on his knees and leaned into her again. She gathered he was going for intimidation, and it was working. “We can sit here all day and all night,” he continued, “and I can make it very interesting.” She swallowed to try to open her throat back up.
“What do you want?” she said shakily, barely finding her voice.
“Where is the resistance hiding?” he demanded.
“I don’t know other than that building.”
“Yes, we followed you to that building,” he said, annoyed. “Don’t think your departure went unnoticed. I asked you where they are hiding now, not then.”
“I don’t know,” she insisted. His eyes continued to stare through her unwaveringly. He drew in a deep breath and let it out as he sat back in his chair giving her a little bit of space.
“Where did you come from?” he asked.
“We came out of the city,” she answered plainly. He never broke his gaze, as if he were trying to evaluate her every word for its truth.
“Allowing that to be true,” he replied, though his tone said that the allowance was slight, “where were you before then? Your friend did say you just appeared there. Is that true?”
“I really don’t,” she shrugged, but he was not going to accept another “I don’t know” and interrupted her angrily.
“Tell me!”
His outburst made her jump and flinch back in her chair. Her head turned away from him instinctively, and she closed her eyes again. She had always been one to be able to stand up to people and take abuse with a rock solid constitution, but Halloway was unlike anyone she had ever come up against. She was not sure how long she could endure this punishment. It was all psychological, but the worst she had ever experienced. Halloway was determined to get what he needed, and she was just not sure how much she could say.
She glanced back to see Halloway gesture to someone behind her and she heard the door open and close. Halloway looked back at her, the very act of which caused her to shrink back from him. He smiled, but not in a way that set her at ease.
“You’ll tell me what I want to know,” he said in a way that made her think of a snake enticing its prey. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“My name is Michelle Palmer,” she replied weakly. She took a few breaths to try to calm herself down.
“I know your name,” he said. “Or at least the ridiculous sounding name your friend gave earlier. I’ve never heard anyone with names like that. Sounds like nonsense to me. Who are you really?”
“Michelle,” she said insistently.
“And where are you from?” he asked.
She paused at the question. How could she answer this? City? State? Country? Zip Code? Planet? None of these things would tell him anything. Is she even from there at this point? The Maze? Also would fail to tell him anything, and would certainly lead to more questions that she could not answer. She had taken so long to say anything that she felt him leaning into her again.
“Well?” he asked. She looked at him sheepishly.
“I’m not sure,” she replied. He held his gaze on her for a few seconds following her lackluster response as if hoping she would say something more. He sighed and stood up as the door opened again and
someone wheeled something into the room before the door closed. She could hear it rumbling over the uneven surface of the floor, and a chill ran down her spine when she saw Halloway smile upon seeing whatever was rolling around behind her.
He took it from the person who had just arrived and rolled it in front of her chair. Like a proud father, he stood back to give it center stage for a moment.
“Know what this is?” he asked. She looked at it and knew it could only be some kind of torture device made of a dull, grey metal which only served to make it look more ominous. The part she could scarcely take her eyes off of looked like a corkscrew, and she did not want to think about where it had been before. She shook her head.
“It’s pretty ingenious,” Halloway smiled running his hand over the top of it. “This is the sort of thing that always makes people talk. Would you like to see how it works?”
She shook her head again, but Halloway had already signaled to the person by the door again. Halloway’s helper released her arm from the chair and held it level as Halloway rolled his metal apparatus so that her arm entered a circular frame that set level with the arm of her chair. Instinctively, she tried to draw her hand out of it, but the other person held her arm in a vice-like grip. Halloway tightened one of its leather straps around her wrist and the other tied down her fingers. The screw was directly above the back of her hand, and it was certainly long enough to pass right through it. She could not move. Her heart raced again as the thought of the pain washed over her. She glanced to Halloway who smiled.
“Now you can see it, right?” he asked. She looked back to the apparatus and nodded. Halloway placed his hand on the handle of the corkscrew and twisted it so that the end of the screw drew closer to her hand. The fear was now far more intense than when he was simply yelling at her. Now he threatened her with actual pain, and no one would save her.
“You see what happens when I turn this, right?” he asked, continuing to turn the handle. Little by little, the end of the screw closed the gap between the frame and the soft skin of her hand. Her breathing quickened as she nodded again. She watched as he twisted it closer and closer but slowly. He stopped the point so close to her hand, she could see no gap, but could not feel it touching.
“Of course, twisting this handle will move the tip into your hand slowly,” he said softly. “If I need it out quick, then...” He flipped a latch at the top, yanked upward on the handle, and the entire screw drew instantly upward. She jumped at the rapid movement. If he did screw this through someone’s hand, a quick yank would tear the hand apart. He lowered it slowly to where it was and locked it back down before and giving it one more twist so that the end of the screw just scraped the top of her hand. She flinched as it did.
“You get the idea?” he asked. How could she not? She nodded. “You feel like talking?”
She looked at him. No longer did he have the demeanor of a commander who was annoyed with an interloper. Now, he looked like a maniac eager to test his new toy on anyone stupid enough to cross him. Before, he was intimidating. Now, he was frightening.
“I’m from a planet called Earth,” she said, her voice shaking. “I don’t know where it is in relation to your planet. I came here in a machine of some kind that is called the Maze. It put us out in Carburast.”
“Do I look stupid?” he asked and gave the screw a twist, scraping the surface of her hand without breaking the skin.
“It’s the truth! I swear it!” she blurted desperately. One more twist and she would be wounded for sure. At the moment, it just hurt.
“And this group that stands against our protection of Carburast,” he continued, “what about them?”
“We don’t know anything about it.”
“Then why are you here?”
Worry crossed her face. She did not know how to answer his question because she really did not know, but only had a vague idea based on what Blake had told her. Her heart raced again, and she started hyperventilating. “I ... don’t...”
Halloway turned the screw a little further scraping the top layer of her skin further. She screamed briefly in surprise and blurted out, “We think we’re here to save that town! Um, Carburast!”
Halloway stopped and stared at her. His eyebrows raised in surprised as he withdrew his hand from the screw handle and leaned forward. She looked rapidly between him and the apparatus that still dug into her hand.
“Why would you come to an alien world to save a town you’ve never heard of?” he asked. It seemed an honest enough question, actually, and one she did not have an entirely reasonable explanation for.
“Blake says it’s what we do,” she responded. He stood and walked away from her, hands behind his back, thinking about what she had said. She hoped he would remove the apparatus from her arm before he lost his mind entirely and decided to finish her off “just because.” She looked at the apparatus and tugged on her arm to test the straps. There was no getting out of them. He turned back to her, and she stopped.
“You are either telling the truth,” he said as he walked back to sit across from her again, “or you’re the best liar I’ve ever met. I haven’t decided yet. Most people when they have an outburst in response to my little machine can’t help but tell the truth. Your truth doesn’t make sense to me, but it is consistent. That consistency is the only thing that’s saving you.”
He sat back, crossed his arms, and looked at her. She could only stare back, hoping this interview would be over.
“I don’t believe in aliens,” he sighed, “but I will think on this. I can say you’re not from around here to be certain. You don’t talk like us. You don’t dress like us. And no one could not know about Carburast.” He paused again, clearly thinking it through. Finally he looked back at her. “This Blake friend of yours; he will come to rescue you then?”
It was a fair question, but one that she had not had time to consider. Would Blake or Perry come back for her, or did the others they had traveled with just meet their untimely ends on the worlds they visited? She just met them, after all, so what did she know about anything? She had to hope for the best, though, so she nodded. “I believe so.”
“And he was with the resistance,” he stated. It did not sound like a question, so she did not respond as he tapped his fingers on his leg in thought. After a moment, he reached over to the screw. She braced herself for the worst, but to her relief, he unscrewed it relieving the pain in her hand. Then he unstrapped her arm and cut loose her other arm before walking to the person standing by the door, who appeared to be one of the soldiers.
“Take her to a cell,” he told the soldier. “We’re not letting her go so easily this time.”
Halloway left as she massaged her arms to get some feeling back into them. The soldier walked up next to her as she struggled to her feet. He made no effort to either help her or force her into compliance, which was fine with her both ways. Sitting the way she had been and coming out of unconsciousness in that chair had her a bit wobbly on her feet, but she recovered quickly enough. The soldier held an arm out indicating the open door, so she walked ahead of him down the plain white halls while he was never more than a few inches behind her guiding her every step of the way. She had no desire to escape, as she had nowhere to go. She figured Blake would have to know where she ended up, so she was in a far better position to be found if she remained than if she tried to leave.
This was assuming, of course, that he would come back to find her. There was a part of her that accepted that this was not a guarantee. She thought about using the device on her shirt to reach out to him, but was worried about being overheard by the guards. If she revealed that she had a way to talk to him, she would be right back in that chair in a worse state than before. She had no choice but to wait and pray.
CHAPTER TEN
Blake was thinking of Michelle as he followed his guides, Gerard and Dorin, through the wooded area around the northeast corner of Carburast. He had hoped that Major Halloway would merely hold her as a prisoner until
he and Perry could get back to her and not send her somewhere else in the country for safekeeping. From what knowledge he had of Halloway, he suspected that Halloway preferred to keep his own house and rules, and he would likely hold Michelle indefinitely before sending her anywhere. He also figured that if Michelle felt it would be safe to contact him through the communicator logo, she would do so. The fact that she had not had him worried.
There were few things in his travels that Blake disliked more than being unwillingly separated from his traveling companions. There had been times when they had to go separate ways to complete their tasks, but he always had an idea as to where they went, and it was usually safe to talk through the communicators. Almost as often, however, something else happened to separate his party, and sometimes, it took just as long to get everyone back together as it did to do what they came to do, and it was not safe to contact anyone. The one consolation was that he never had to worry about finding his transport away from the times and places they visited since the Maze would always just pick them up when they were done. This had its downsides in that he could never remain for long, and he had no control over when they left, but as with anything in life, one had to accept the bad with the good.
He was not sure whether his current situation, for example, was bad or good. Gerard was certainly motivated and could find his way around, but he was so certain about this path that Blake had doubts. He could understand Halloway and his easy position, but that did not make sense when it came to a trapped city. Someone had to have tried this avenue before.
Gerard drew him from his thoughts when he held up a hand to halt their expedition. They had reached a break in the trees where a road cut through the forest. No one had spoken a word since they had entered the forest at the insistence of Gerard to keep quiet, and he was continuing this trend by just giving hand signals. Finally he gestured for everyone to come close.
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