Catalyst

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Her control did not last long. Perhaps two minutes after she had sat down, Osambi opened the door.

  “Dr. Rivers!” Kane called from the other room. “It’s time.”

  She sat for another ten seconds, until Osambi shifted his weight. Standing stiffly with her head high, she looked straight ahead and walked out the door.

  Kane was waiting in his chair, dressed in yet another suit. The silver case sat on the table in front of him, along with two pads that were lined up perfectly with each other and the case. “Ah, there you are. Good morning.”

  She stopped next to the restraint chair. “It’s not morning.”

  “Oh? What do you think it is?”

  “It’s… I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know it hasn’t been three days. You’ve only fed me one meal.”

  “And you were very hungry for that meal, weren’t you? It has been three days, and it’s time for your third lesson. Sit down.”

  She briefly closed her eyes, then sat in the hated chair.

  “Your training is coming along nicely. Let’s see how far we get today.” He brought up the virtual screens on the pads. Pointing to the one on her left, he said, “This is your original manuscript. Over here are the few changes I’m asking you to make.”

  She reached out and angled the right pad slightly toward her.

  He frowned and realigned it. “Read it as it is, please.”

  “I can’t see it clearly.”

  She could see the battle being waged behind his eyes. This would undoubtedly cost her, but right now she didn’t care. She would pay the price to take back a little of her power.

  Gritting his teeth, he said, “Very well.”

  She angled the pad again, a hair more than the first time, and hid her smile at his intake of breath.

  Her self-congratulations lasted exactly as long as it took to read the highlighted paragraphs. Straightening, she said, “I will not put my name on those words.”

  “Dr. Rivers, be reasonable. It’s just a few words. All you’re doing here is admitting to the possibility that some Alseans, once released from the regulatory influence of their culture, may pose a danger to us. You’re not saying it will happen. You’re saying it could happen.”

  “And your DOP employers will take those words and use them to negate everything else in my book. No. You’re also not telling me how you expect anyone to believe this even if I did it. You can’t erase the last year and a half.”

  “Ah, well…there is one other thing we’re asking you to do. We need you on video, explaining that while you have a known tendency to throw yourself into your research and identify with your subjects, you examined your data more thoroughly while editing your manuscript and believe the situation calls for a little more nuance.”

  This time she did smile. “You can invent a recording with my voice on it, but you can’t create my image and make it believable. You need me to do that voluntarily.”

  His expression hardened. “Yes, we do.”

  “You’ll never get that, and do you know why? Because I understand what you’re doing here. You’re never going to let me go. You can’t afford to, because you know I would go straight out and recant everything.”

  She had not thought it through to the obvious conclusion until now, but for the first time since her kidnapping, she was not afraid. Her head was clear and so was her fate.

  “I do so enjoy the intelligent ones,” he said. “And they are so unfortunately rare. You’ve been a joy to work with, Dr. Rivers. I particularly enjoyed listening to you tell me that you would obey me yesterday.”

  The shame welled up, swift and unwelcome, and she felt the heat in her skin. “That was yesterday.” Too late, she realized her error. “I mean, that was before you drugged me.”

  “Don’t second-guess yourself. That was indeed yesterday. Why not obey me today as well? You could save yourself so much…pain.”

  The way he said the word, caressing the syllable like a lover, made her shiver with dread.

  In a last attempt at holding on to her self-esteem, she said, “You’re going to kill me anyway. I’d rather die knowing that I stood up for the truth.”

  They stared at each other in silence. She could not read his expression until a smug smile appeared.

  “Remember those words, Dr. Rivers. Because you’re going to take them back, at the same time you take back these.” He indicated the pad on the left. “Osambi.”

  She didn’t try to run this time. There was no point to it, and Osambi took too much pleasure in hurting her. Nor did she close her eyes as her wrists and ankles were locked to the chair. But she had to when Osambi pushed his disgusting hand against her face, pressing her head back while he locked the band around her throat. He reeked of cologne.

  The forehead band went next, then the circlet. As before, Kane stood up to check the circlet’s placement and trigger the clamping of the tabs. Then he sat down again and pulled out the control unit.

  “Are you ready?” he asked pleasantly. When she refused to answer, he sighed. “Dr. Rivers, that’s such a simple question. If you’ll recall, I told you in the beginning that your job was to answer questions the way I want you to. Let me make things a little more clear. If you answer me, I will only break a low rib. It won’t impact your breathing nearly so much. If you don’t answer me, I’ll break another high rib.”

  She did not want to think about trying to breathe with two broken ribs in her upper chest.

  “I’m ready,” she said, hating every syllable.

  “Good,” he purred.

  The pain seized her on the lower left side of her abdomen, a giant hand reaching in and slowly grinding her bones. She whimpered, trying with all her might not to scream, and she almost succeeded. But the pressure built and built and built, until it finally burst out of her in a wail.

  The giant hand stopped squeezing, and she had just enough time to wonder whether Kane had simply waited for her to perform to his satisfaction.

  Then the unthinkable happened.

  “No!” she screamed when the hand slammed into her upper right chest. “No, no, no…”

  Her screams devolved into cries of pure agony. This was a pain that she had never imagined existing. But neither had she imagined anyone intentionally and repeatedly wrenching a bone that had already been broken.

  When the hand released her at last, her voice was hoarse. Lost in the lingering pain that throbbed through her entire torso, she barely registered Osambi pulling off the circlet and unlocking the restraints. Once again she was hoisted into his arms, carried into the bedroom, and dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.

  Knowing it was coming did not make it any easier. Fire shot through her chest as she hit the mattress, and she wanted nothing more than to roll into a fetal position and sob. But she could not turn onto either side.

  “Dr. Rivers, look at me.”

  Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  “I am addressing you, and I expect your obedience. Do you want to hurt even more than you already do?”

  She peeled open her eyes and found Kane standing at the side of the bed, looking down at her.

  “I need you to understand what just happened. I did not lie to you. I told you that if you obeyed, I would not break another high rib. And I did not.”

  Semantics. He was playing semantics while breaking her apart piece by piece.

  “Had you not obeyed, however, I would indeed have broken a second high rib. You made a wise decision.”

  Then why didn’t it feel that way?

  “It’s important that you understand that while I may phrase things carefully, I do not lie. I’ll remind you of that the next time we speak.”

  He walked out and closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 43:

  Cowardice

  Kane brought in another meal. �
�Time for dinner,” he announced.

  She was almost certain that it had been morning just a few hours ago. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should be. It’s been hours. You need to keep up your strength if you’re going to continue defying me.”

  “How am I supposed to keep up my strength with food you’ve drugged?”

  “Ah. I do admit to drugging your last meal, but you needed the sleep. I haven’t drugged this one.”

  She looked at him, then away.

  “May I remind you that I do not lie?”

  “I’m still not hungry.”

  “Osambi, would you come in, please?”

  She flinched as the giant man entered the room, making it seem smaller just by standing there.

  “Tell me,” Kane asked him in a conversational tone, “how much did you enjoy striking Dr. Rivers in the stomach that first day? Would you like to do it again?”

  Osambi turned a terrifying smile on her.

  She ate.

  When she had finished the meal, Osambi took out the tray while Kane sniffed the air with a grimace.

  “You stink of sweat and fear,” he said distastefully. “I can’t abide uncleanliness. You need a bath.”

  Dreading where this was going, she said, “I’ll take one.”

  “And how exactly are you going to do that? You can’t reach all the places you need to wash, not with a broken rib on each side. You need help. It’s not a weakness to admit that. Osambi!”

  She closed her eyes in resignation and kept them closed while Osambi stripped her bare. At least this time it was easier, with only a button-up shirt and stretch-fabric pants to remove. But he still managed to hurt her by yanking the shirt down her arms.

  By contrast, Kane was extraordinarily gentle. He was solicitous of her broken ribs, shifting her arms with great care as he wiped down her torso. She was mortified when he brushed the wet washcloth over her breasts, but he made no untoward moves.

  Then he told her to spread her legs.

  “I only needed help with my top half,” she said desperately. “I can take it from here.”

  His expression turned stern. “Was that a no, Dr. Rivers? Did we not discuss your job here?” Leaning closer, he said quietly, “Obey me.”

  She stared at him, trying to think of a way out.

  “Your next chair time isn’t scheduled until tomorrow morning, but I can change that.”

  She spread her legs and closed her eyes, a tear leaking out as her torturer gently cleaned the parts of her body that he should never have seen, much less touched. When she imagined confessing her cowardice to Ekatya, she put a hand over her face and choked back a sob. How could she ever find the words to explain why she had given up without a fight?

  Kane did not take advantage, simply moving on to her legs without a word. Then he dressed her in a fresh pair of pajama bottoms and put her arms through a clean top.

  As he buttoned it, he murmured, “You’re an attractive woman, Dr. Rivers. I do have my assignment, but perhaps you and I could make a deal.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “I would rather die.”

  She thought he would be angry, but he simply smiled. “As you’ve so astutely pointed out, you are going to die. The only question is how. I can make it easy for you, or I can make it more excruciating than you can even imagine.”

  He leaned down to the medkit on the floor and pulled out an injector. “Let me give you a sample of how easy I can make this for you.”

  She didn’t flinch from the injector this time, and the reward was beyond price. He hadn’t given her a mere analgesic. He had given her something that made her pain float away on a cloud of contentment. It had been such a constant for the last several days that she had forgotten what it was like to not feel it.

  She remembered now. She gloried in her full, deep breaths, with no broken bones restricting the movement of her lungs, and smiled dreamily. “So nice,” she murmured.

  “Yes, it is. Good night, Dr. Rivers.”

  Before she drifted off to sleep, she thought he kissed her cheek.

  CHAPTER 44:

  Hope

  “Good morning, Dr. Rivers.”

  She had grown to detest that phrase. Last night’s pain-free euphoria was a distant memory, and she was back to feeling the full impact of two broken ribs—on opposite sides of her body, just to make things as difficult as possible—all of the muscles used to break them, and the continuing ache in her stomach muscles from Osambi’s fist. Her neck also hurt from the pinch he had put on her the first day they had stripped her. She could not move her body nor turn her head normally, and she could only take shallow breaths. Her entire existence was again focused on getting enough air and trying not to hurt more than she already did. She wanted another injection, despised herself for wanting it, and hated Kane for creating such opposing needs.

  The intellectual side of her, still holding itself distant from the proceedings, saw very clearly how she was being psychologically manipulated. But that didn’t stop her from feeling what she did. All it did was make her feel even more helpless.

  “Isn’t this the part where you tell me it’s not morning?” Kane asked with a knowing look. He wore yet another new suit and was leaning forward on the table, his forearms resting on either side of the closed silver case.

  “I don’t know what time it is.” She sat in the restraint chair without being told to. There was no point in resisting.

  “Then I do believe we’re making progress. If you’d like, you could end this right now by changing those few words in your manuscript and speaking into that recorder.” He gestured.

  She had not even seen the camera in the corner. Up until now, she had prided herself on noticing every detail of her captivity. She was slipping.

  “I won’t lie for you,” she said tiredly. “I won’t betray the Alseans, and I won’t betray my own integrity. So let’s just get this over with.”

  “As you wish. Osambi?”

  She gave the huge man no reason to handle her roughly, but he still found a way. In what was becoming depressingly normal, she was soon immobilized.

  “Are you ready, Dr. Rivers?”

  Obey me, she heard him say, even though he had not spoken the words. If she refused to answer, he would make her hurt more than he was already planning to.

  “I’m ready,” she whispered.

  “Oh, look at that. You’re doing so well. I’m going to reward your obedience today. I promise you that I will not break any bones.”

  She perked up. That seemed unbelievably generous.

  She changed her mind when the muscles of her stomach seized, in exactly the same place where Osambi had struck her the first day. Except that Osambi had only struck her once, while this felt like being struck again, and again, and again, and again…

  The scream tore out of her throat despite her best efforts. But unlike yesterday, when Kane had stopped upon hearing her, today he kept her in the throes of agony.

  “Stop!” she cried. “Please!”

  It stopped.

  She nearly sobbed with relief. Until this moment, she would not have believed that anything could rival the pain of slowly breaking her ribs, but she had underestimated the capabilities of Kane’s interface.

  “Did I hear you say you’ll change your manuscript?”

  Tears ran down her cheeks at the sheer hopelessness of it all. “No,” she croaked, knowing that she was signing on for more suffering. The first day had been one rib. The second day had been two. Kane loved order, so today was going to be three sessions, and she still had two more to go. The only question was which area of her body he would target next.

  “Very well.”

  He targeted the same place.

  She howled as her battered muscles seized once more, the pain spreading to her lower ribs and back. Far off in a dista
nt part of her mind, her intellectual self marveled at how much anguish could be inflicted without causing permanent damage. In a more visceral part of her mind, she saw Osambi in the doorway, lunging forward and burying his massive fist in her stomach.

  Again, and again, and again…

  When it stopped, she had no air left in her body. Her ribs were on fire once more; she must have taken deep breaths in between the screams.

  She had barely adapted to the lower level of suffering when her muscles seized for the third time. Kane was not breaking bones, but he was tearing apart her abdominal muscles fiber by fiber. She honestly could not say which was worse.

  After an eternity of pain, the seizure stopped and she gasped for air once more. Her whole torso throbbed, and even shallow breaths hurt. She thought she might never breathe normally again.

  When Osambi dumped her on the bed and closed the door, she spent several minutes trying not to cry because she didn’t have enough air to do so. She felt light-headed and dizzy, and when she saw Ekatya standing next to the bed in her regular uniform, she did not even question it.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Ekatya sat on the bed, her weight making no dent in the mattress. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I’m not strong enough. He’s going to kill me and I can’t stop it. It hurts so much, and I’m starting to wonder how I can make him angry enough to just kill me and get it over with. I can’t live this way.”

  Ekatya touched her cheek so gently that it made her eyes water. “You have to keep fighting. Remember the day we met?”

  The smile felt foreign on her face. “You looked so good on that stage. All of those merchant marines, watching you like you were an oracle.”

  “And I was telling them the rules of capture. What is the first rule of capture, Lhyn?”

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember, then opened them again because she couldn’t bear not seeing Ekatya. “It wasn’t really your words I was paying attention to.”