by Ryder Stacy
From the forty-first to the sixty-fourth floor were the communications networks, linking all KGB centers in the country with Mother Russia and their comrades in arms around the world. From Timbuktu to London, from Paris to Tokyo, the KGB ruled supreme. Radio, laser systems and giant radar dishes on the roof, slowly turning their fifty-foot cones to follow their linking satellite ten thousand miles up. Information was sent and received from virtually every corner of the world. The wires literally buzzed with energy as the global Soviet Empire talked to itself.
On the top fifteen floors were the administration offices of top KGB officers. Here the rooms were huge and plush, with Persian rugs and flowing copper waterfalls. The elite of the elite—their death’s-heads cast in solid gold—the most feared men in America ruled from here: Killov, Turgenov, Dashkov, Mukstadt.
Below the ground floor, the original designers of the monolith had built an additional ten stories, pushing a good 150 feet below the ground. Here, it was thought, just in case of counterattack, the structure could be used as a fallout shelter, and thus was built with twenty-foot-thick concrete reinforced walls, airlocks, self-contained oxygen supply and provisions for years. But the KGB had quickly found a much better use for these subterranean floors—a use more fitting to their work: torture chambers. The floors beneath the Center were equipped with over five hundred cells, in case large-scale interrogations became necessary. The most advanced—and primitive—torture devices known to man were here, a regular testing laboratory of the implements of pain. From bamboo shoots inserted under finger nails, still effective on many American fortress workers, to sophisticated electrode devices, which when attached to the genitals were capable of producing an exquisite pain.
The torture squad consisted of nearly a hundred men, the most sadistic of the KGB crews, who had been chosen just for their qualities of mercilessness and cruelty. Down below they had their own world. There were no rules, no one to answer to. God help the man or woman or child who set foot through those basement doors. Most were never seen again. The few that were released were mindless vegetables, their bodies ripped, scarred, their brains reduced to functions of stumbling and excreting. Most could hardly talk, or if they could, wouldn’t. They sat on stoops, and in glass- and brick-strewn lots in the run-down American sectors of the fortresses and moaned softly, unable to communicate their private hell.
Fortunately for them, most did perish within the walls. If death could be termed fortunate, it was here that such a designation would occur. For the KGB of 2089 were experts in every kind of pain that the human body could experience. They studied the ways of pain, the uses of pressure points and blades and electricity and ice and beatings and stretchings and glass inserted in the rectum and broken. But why go on, only those who give torture or feel it would want to know every detail. When death came it was a blessing.
Still, there was one thing that grated on the torture squads. The Free Americans. Somehow, their own scientists and psychologists had come up with a psychological conditioning that could overcome pain. They felt the torture, but blocks came on in their minds that permitted no access to the secret information that the KGB wanted most desperately—the locations of the American Free Cities. The Americans would scream and then spout nursery rhymes, the name of their girlfriend, or their favorite food. Even in death they had the last laugh on their KGB tormentors, who thus far had been totally incapable of breaking through these mind armors.
Until now, that is. The number-one priority of the KGB scientists for the last twenty years had been to develop some method, some device capable of smashing through these blocks, and now, at last, success was within reach. The Mind Breaker, invented by Dr. Nikolai Chernov, would make the difference. The device used laser beams to actually penetrate the brain tissue and short out the brain block, by slicing certain vital brain connections, producing a pain undreamt of heretofore. As Chernov had said when presenting the first of the devices to Killov, “The demons of hell itself would be happy to have such a machine. The pain produced by them is virtually infinite. We’ve only used them at the lowest power and the results are . . . extraordinary.”
Killov immediately ordered extensive testing of the Mind Breaker. If it was true, the shape of America could be changed forever. The Free Cities would be found one by one and destroyed. The last strongholds of resistance to the Soviet Empire would be crushed and Russia could settle into a thousand years of tranquility. Of course, Killov’s future would be assured as well. With the destruction of the rebels he would be next in line for the premiership. Every prisoner brought in from now on was to be hooked up to the Mind Breaker. He wanted every detail of the machine. How it worked, what its limits were, if any. But most of all, he wanted the locations of the Free Cities. Blood would flow.
A Skinord attack helicopter swooped down suddenly from out of the sky like a black hawk zeroing in on a kill. The KGB chopper with the red skull on the side was one of the KGB’s fleet of one hundred similar, highly armed helicopters used for reconnaissance, counterinsurgency and whatever. It dropped to within a foot of the Center’s landing pad, located several hundred feet to the rear of the towering, black structure. The pilot pulled back on the rotor speed and the chopper dropped softly onto the rubber-padded landing zone. It was immediately surrounded by machine-gun-toting guards who waited impatiently for the side door to open. With a click and a slight whoosh of air from the pressure difference, the steel door slid back and a battered man, face dripping with blood, was thrown out by the two KGB men inside. He landed roughly on the ground, wrenching his shoulder, for his hands had been cuffed behind his back. He was instantly lifted at the elbows by the waiting guards and shuffled off toward the Center.
Lt. Col. Bill Preston, one of the highest ranking officers of Westfort, located some five hundred miles to the east of Denver, had been captured, It was one of the Reds’ biggest catches in years. He had been traveling by hybrid with a force of twenty men, investigating the possibility of a recently uncovered machine factory still containing parts in collapsed rooms. They had traveled, as did all Freefighters in this part of the country, only at night to avoid the Russian unmanned spydrones which buzzed constantly overhead, video cameras relaying information to control centers set up in every Russian fort. But the KGB had set a trap on one of the forest trails that they suspected was being used by the underground. Preston and his men had just come into a small clearing when they were attacked from every side by the black-garbed, submachine-gun-firing KGB commando squad. The Americans, of course, fought back with everything. There could be no capture by the Russians. That meant only one thing. Death was far preferable. Though hopelessly outnumbered, they pulled knives when their pistols clicked empty and flung themselves on their attackers, stabbing guts and slashing eyes. Though the force of the KGB numbered over a hundred men, the fight went on for almost ten minutes. When it was over, thirty-five KGB commandos lay sprawled in pools of blood. Every Freefighter had been slaughtered except for Preston and an unconscious Freefighter, thought dead, who later escaped. Seeing he was about to be captured, Preston turned his pistol on himself, but the damn thing jammed. He reached for the cyanide capsule in his utility belt and lifted his hand to swallow. An alert officer leaped at him, knocking his hand away with the stock of his submachine gun.
“Now we have one,” the Red said with a smile, looking down at the fallen Freefighter who stared back up scornfully.
“You have one, but you won’t get squat from me, comrade. I’ll die before I’ll spill a thing.” He smirked at the futility of the KGB attempts to make Freefighters talk. Many Americans had already died. And many more would before this war was over. He was ready to die himself. Life had been good to him all things considered. He regretted that his wife and children would be alone now. But they were tough. They would fight on.
A helicopter had been called in within minutes of his capture and Preston, handcuffed, had been thrown on board with four guards. Within minutes the chopper was flying, Priority One t
o Denver. All other air vehicles gave way as the shiny black chopper flitted through the air, a messenger of doom. The crescent moon flickered fingerlike shadows on the craft as it soared along, just below the cloud line.
Once landed, Preston was immediately pushed toward the back entrance to the Center. Death’s-head guards, stiffly at attention, saluted and stepped aside as the door creaked open. The captured Freefighter was hustled inside as the inner airlock door rolled quickly closed behind them. He was led to one of ten gleaming chrome elevators and down. Down into the Earth. Preston had never been in the monolith. But he had heard of it. A courageous man, a man who had faced death square in the eye many times, Bill Preston nevertheless felt a knot in his gut as the elevator descended. He tried to imagine what awaited him. He knew that it would be far worse than anything his mind could picture.
The elevator snapped open and again he was pushed out. They led him down a long corridor filled with countless numbered doors. He could hear blood-curdling wails of pain echoing down the hallway. Even steel couldn’t stop the sound of a man screaming for his life. At the end of the corridor they came to yet another large steel door. The guards saluted the officer at Preston’s right and buzzed the door open. Preston was pulled into a fairly small room equipped with futuristic equipment, blinking computer lights, diodes, dials, video cameras and a large, gridded screen. All the guards exited quickly except two who stood by him, hands at ease behind them.
Preson looked around furtively. There were no whips or chains here. Somehow he had imagined a more primitive dungeon, with racks and burning pokers. Instead, a simple plastic chair, body-contoured with aluminum arms and straps for the wrists. It was the object that waited on a mobile stand above the chair that looked forbidding: a large helmet covered with wires and meters. In the center, underneath, right where the head would fit in when the helmet was lowered, two six-inch long, syringelike prongs.
“Please. Deity, let me die before I betray,” he prayed. Death was his only hope. Escape was impossible. He glanced around the room, The device seemed to be wired to some kind of computer terminal, rows of green and amber lights softly glowing, waiting to flash with life. As he swung his head around, he saw a large piece of glass about ten feet off the floor, and behind it, a number of KGB officers stood, talking and laughing, They stopped when they saw him taking them in, and all stared back down at the prisoner. A voice suddenly came over a speaker to the right of the bulletproof, inch-thick glass partition.
“Welcome, Mr. Preston. Welcome to the Center. I am Director Killov. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
Preston stared up at the hawk-faced man speaking into the microphone, “Yes, I’ve heard of you, Killov. You’re the greatest mass murderer alive in the world today. Any loyal American would give his beating heart to see you dead.”
“You flatter me,” Killov said with a slight smirk. “To be so notorious a man to you so-called Freefighters just fills me with happiness.”
“Murder is nothing to be proud of. Your day will come, that I know,” Preston replied, almost shouting now. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with.”
“Kill you?” Killov laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Preston, we have much greater things in store for you than that. How unimaginative of you. Don’t you see that device near you? The chair, with the metal hat. Won’t you have a seat?” The officers around Killov laughed as Preston tried to struggle with the three hulking guards who grabbed him and strapped him quickly to the chair. From a side door, a man emerged wearing a white smock and surgical gloves. He moved slowly over to Preston, a short, fat man with thinning brown hair and black eyes that were dead. Preston shuddered as the man looked him full in the face. He had never seen eyes like that before. They seemed to have no life behind them at all, total blackness that fell back, like a stone dropping into a deep well, never touching bottom.
“I am Dr. Yurov,” the short, smocked man said with the sheerest flicker of a smile. “If you will allow me.” He reached above Preston’s hand and lowered the helmet, attached to a curved stainless-steel arm, until it was halfway covering Preston’s face. The points of the twin surgical probes rested just an inch above the Free American’s skull. Yurov pressed a button on the side of the black helmet that resembled a kind of ultramodern diving helmet as it covered the prisoner’s head. Two foam pads slowly eased out of each side of the helmet and moved forward until tightly pressed against Preston’s temples. He tried to move. God, his head was totally immobilized now. He began trembling in spite of himself. Those hypodermic spikes, what were they going to?
“Ready, sir,” Dr. Yurov said softly, looking up at Killov about twenty feet away behind the glass partition. The KGB leader merely nodded once and waited. An orderly carrying a tray of drinks walked around to Killov and the other top officers giving out brandies and scotches and Killov’s drink, straight gin.
Yurov stroked the hair away from the center of Preston’s head, looked at the spot of bared scalp and nodded to himself. He lowered the two prongs until they rested right on the flesh at the very top of the skull. “Yes, that’s just right,” he mumbled absent-mindedly. The KGB “doctor” walked to the large control panel along one wall, covered with flickering video screens, read-outs, computer-drawn graphs of CATSCANs of Preston’s brain that were being taken by a camera at the top of the helmet every four seconds. Yurov switched the Laser On button, and a row of dark green crystal diodes, stretching along a chrome metal cabinet behind the prisoner’s chair, instantly lit up. “Yes, yes, everything’s working fine,” he muttered again, unaware of his spoken words.
“Now, this is going to hurt,” he said to Preston, walking back over to the helmet. “It’s going to hurt quite a bit. So the best thing I can say to you is to give in to it. The quicker you surrender your personality, your thoughts, your obedience, the quicker the pain will be over.”
“Oh, cut all the goddamn bullshit and torture me, I’m getting bored,” Preston snapped, trying to maintain a tough front. He steeled himself inside, steeled his guts and his very soul for what was about to come.
Yurov threw a switch at the top of the metal helmet and two brilliant lights shot out from the ends of the needle-sharp prongs. The lights were of an extraordinary green, like the star fire of a burning gem, incandescent. Yurov slowly began turning a small lever which lowered the probes toward Preston’s skull. The heat of the laser beams shooting out from the tips instantly vaporized the flesh and bone at the top of the Freefighter’s head. He screamed and kept screaming. The probes continued at a downward angle moving at the prescribed rate of ten millimeters per second. The million-degree, green fire of the laser probe burned and sizzled away at the brain tissue, bubbling it and disintegrating it into putrid smoke that rose from the top of Preston’s head.
One of the officers behind the partition turned to Killov. “That’s apparently one of the only problems, sir,” he said in a whisper. “They say the brains smell quite awful as they burn.”
“Really?” the KGB boss asked. “The premier won’t like that at all when we demonstrate this for him. Tell them that something will have to be worked out. A miniature ventilation fan to suck in the smoke and the odor. Priority!” Killov’s right hand man, Colonel Dobrynin, took out a small, red leather notebook and quickly wrote down Killov’s command. Every word of the Blackshirt leader must be obeyed. Every.
Dr. Yurov glanced over at the video monitor on the wall displaying Preston’s CATSCAN. Every layer of the brain crossed across the green-tinted screen in waves of imagery. The probes could clearly be seen biting into the central tissue of a human mind.
“We’re now reaching the cerebral section, sir,” Yurov said. “Now is when the process actually starts. You see, as I burn away the older memory system and also apply excruciating pain, the patient is put into an entirely different consciousness.” The doctor of torture moved the lever again, and the burning arc of purest pain bit deep into the prisoner’s brain.
Preston screamed and screamed, but he no
longer knew that. He no longer knew who he was. The screams were entirely involuntary, his lungs filling, hyperventilating with air and rushing back out through his throat with a ghastly wail. His body attempted to jerk wildly in response to the overwhelming pain. But strapped tightly on both sides, he nearly cracked his bones within their muscle and skin confines. The pain! Teeth, razors, flames, ripping through the center of his very being. White hot pain. Memories of his life, his wife and daughter, his childhood, burned and defiled, ripped out and torn from his mind as if they had never existed. He could feel his mind disintegrating, falling into pieces of dust, exploding in every direction.
The pain! The pain! It was so intense, pushing everything to the side as it gripped him in clawlike vises of sensation. He was being sliced by razor blades of liquid fire, slashed open and cut, his backbone and veins, his guts and his tongue and his boiling eyes, all cut and twisted into knots of flame. At last, all he was was his body, and his body was sheer, infinite, unbearable pain. He suddenly snapped, a shudder coursing through the super taut arms and chest, and fell unconscious, held upright only by his bonds.
“Good, good,” Yurov said, muttering to himself again. He pulled the lever the opposite way and the prongs lifted out of the smoking brain. He pushed the Laser Off switch and the green streaks of hellfire died out. He put smelling salts under Preston’s nose and slapped his face as the prisoner groaned.
“Very good. Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Yurov asked blandly. “Now, just one more question and then you can go to sleep. Where is your city?”
Preston’s eyes half opened, bloodshot, dead. It wasn’t the same man as it had been five minutes before. His brain was different now. He felt . . . He didn’t understand. Where was everything? Where was he? He had no past memory beyond the last few hours. He was afraid, so afraid. These men, they had hurt him. He was an animal—dumb, unaware even of his humanity.
