by Ian Williams
Phoenix’s brothers were predictable enough to fall into one of these two main categories. Their memories of a happy family life were less tainted than hers, so they could enjoy their time asleep. This was not the case for her. Using D-Stims had become the only way she could conjure memories of that time. Doing so always left her not only wanting more, but needing it too. Whatever damage the addiction was doing to her body was less important to her. The dreams were becoming like therapy.
A distant shout disturbed her as she slowly fought off the confusion that always followed a heavy night of substance abuse. Her mind focused on the sound and everything else was no longer of her concern. Even the yearning for a return to her childhood had now dissipated. She stood, stretched out the aches of sleeping on an old settee and then left the room. Whoever had interrupted her time alone had done so involuntarily. Her night had been bliss in comparison to the poor bastard Anthony had been working on during the night.
Out into the large hall of the building, a ray of strong sunlight bullied its way through the darkness and sent its brightness bouncing around. There were no windows apart from the ones up high on the roof, so this light was all that got in. In every corner of every room, the shadows had set up their permanent encampments and would never leave while Anthony remained there.
The further into the building she ventured, the louder the moans and groans were becoming. Eventually it was beyond only one more wall. This close it became a hard thing to listen to. She stood facing the door, imagining the state the Simova guy was now in after a night of pain and humiliation. Torture was not her thing. Still she understood its need in this situation. Anthony had caught the man stealing from him and needed everything he could find out about The Sentient Collector. She still could not admit to knowing what it all really meant in regards to Anthony’s plan. Only that it meant something bad.
Through the door she could hear Anthony still asking questions and not getting the answers he wanted. She thought about leaving him to it, but she had to ask her own question of Anthony, and delaying would put her rescue plans in jeopardy. She knocked with the palm of her hand, which made a dull thump against the door frame. All of the noise, apart from the moaning, stopped suddenly.
“What?”
Phoenix recognised Anthony’s voice and began to twist the door handle as she replied. “It’s me,” she said.
Pushing the door open, she first saw a glaring Anthony standing a few feet from the man still strapped to the chair. He disapproved of her sudden intrusion. To the side she then saw another man holding a small black box and turning a dial on its top. Hanging from this was a coiled wire that dipped to the floor and then back up again, until it stopped somewhere around the back of their victim. When the door had opened as far as it could go, it was revealed to be connected to a metal neck-brace that had been clamped around the man’s neck.
Whatever they had done to him it had failed to free the answers. Otherwise they would have stopped by now. She could only assume that they were continuing through spite more than perseverance. His face was a few shades away from purple in most places, after a sustained period of battering had been inflicted upon him during the night. Apart from the obvious facial injuries, his exterior was much less damaged than she expected. The toll had left him unmoving and presumably unconscious.
Her eyes danced across the scene, unwilling to settle on anything in particular. If she kept them moving she could at least prevent it from sticking in her mind. The neck-brace was not obvious in its intended purpose, which only added to the dread leaking into her brain like damp through walls.
“What is it?” Anthony insisted.
She stood finally focused on Anthony and nothing else as she spoke. “I wanted to ask you for a favour.”
“Fine, outside.”
Stepping backward instantly placed the door between herself and the odd torture procedure – and the man who endured it. She was then joined by Anthony, who picked up a towel and rubbed his hands with it. When he shut the door behind him, he threw it to the ground by the door and smiled at her. A night spent punishing the Simova guy had not fazed him in the least.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“What is that thing around the guy’s neck in there?” she said, pointing at the closed door.
“Oh that, nothing much.”
Phoenix stood silent while she weighed up his response. The strange devices Anthony somehow got his hands on were rarely just nothing much. She knew him well enough to know he was always eager to describe anything he found distinctly innovative, and the neck-brace fit this category perfectly in her mind.
“OK, OK.” Anthony caved in just as easily as she expected. “It’s a pain stimulator. It interferes with the signals travelling to the brain to create false pain sensations.”
“And you’re trying it out on that guy in there? Why?”
“Seriously? Because I can make him experience any pain I want, and at any strength I like. Torture doesn’t have to be low-tech, Phoenix. Your knuckle-duster is all well and good, but it lacks the control of this. Come, watch.”
Anthony opened the door again and proceeded to the table the other man had taken to leaning against. He picked up the black box with the dial and then waited for Phoenix to enter the room with them.
“Do I really need to see this?” she asked, while still outside.
“Just come in and stop being such a fucking wimp,” Anthony snapped.
“Whatever, just get it over with already.”
A belated smile crossed Anthony’s face, which was quickly removed when he turned his attention to playing with his favourite new toy. “What shall we pick this time,” Anthony said to his companion.
“Please, no more. I can’t…” Elliot began to murmur. The interruption stopped Phoenix mid step. She had not realised he was even conscious.
“What have I told you about begging?” Anthony said, joined by a swift back-handed slap to Elliot’s face. “Now, I think this time we’ll try…”
“I get the point, Anthony. I think we can–” Phoenix said before being stopped short by the raised hand of Anthony.
“Listen to me very carefully, Phoenix,” he said with an intense stare, straight into her eyes. “You’re going to watch this. No ifs, no buts, nothing. OK?”
She nodded and bit her top lip to hold back a retaliation of any kind. His tone had been as fierce as she imagined it could be. This was a warning that no-one in their right mind would counter – unless that person cared little for their own survival. She knew when not to push, and this was definitely one of those times.
“Good,” Anthony said, finishing their conversation with the finality of a nail sealing a coffin. He returned to fiddling with the dial on the box until he found the appropriate setting. “Ah, here we go. I believe suffocation is a traumatic experience. Let’s try that, shall we?”
With the dial twisted clockwise, Anthony resumed the torturing. Each time it clicked past a setting of intensity it clicked like an analogue timer. By Phoenix’s count it had proceeded well beyond the fourth setting of a possible ten.
Moments later, Elliot began to react first by repeatedly drawing short breaths. Then with each new intake of air came the sound of wheezing as he struggled to fill his lungs – even though nothing was really blocking them from doing so.
“By now the device is telling Elliot’s brain that his body is lacking oxygen. Except it is in fact receiving exactly what it should. In essence we are lying to the brain and making it ignore the truth altogether. Remarkable isn’t it, how easily the human body can be tricked?”
Sucking in heavy breaths still could not silence Elliot’s attempts to stem the sensations he was being forced to experience. He wriggled in his seat, shoving it to the side with each thrash of his body. Gasping with every shred of effort, he began to swallow the air around him like it were a liquid. Yet nothing he did could stop the panic from reaching his eyes. They searched the room for help.
Phoeni
x watched with an impending sense of fear. The man’s pain was more than enough to spread it throughout her sweating and stiff body like a virus. The real fear came from the obvious warning Anthony had given her; his temper was not beyond even her reach. She had no intention of ever placing herself in his way, especially after this demonstration.
“The difference in this situation,” Anthony began through the sound of Elliot still gasping desperately, “is that, unlike real suffocation, I can keep this going forever. Imagine an hour of this. No-one could withstand such a thing.”
She had seen enough. But she had to be careful how she stopped Anthony. With the hand attached to the dial her main target, she walked over slowly while trying to ignore the noises. Once by Anthony’s side she placed her hand over his.
“I just thought the old way would be more fun,” she lied.
Removing Anthony’s hand from the dial allowed it to spring back to the off position. Elliot was then left inhaling far too heavily. The extreme excessiveness of his breathing had quickly become uncontrollable. Seconds after turning off the device, Elliot suddenly flopped to the side and fell silent. His arms and legs then started to flap about involuntarily, while is eyes rolled back to reveal a disturbing amount of white.
“Goodness me, that’s excellent. He’s hyperventilated,” Anthony said, jumping excitedly on the spot. He laughed and then looked to Phoenix. Upon noticing her expression of revulsion his demeanour changed instantly, and once again his face became straight – or totally unreadable. “Clean him up for me,” he said to the man still watching from the side.
Following a quick glance back to the unconscious Elliot, still flopping about like a fish waiting to be gutted, Phoenix was led out by a quiet Anthony. He shut the door behind him before spinning around to ask: “What was it you needed?”
The sudden change in tempo had her at odds with her own request. Was he in the mood to agree, or would he simply write it off as an unnecessary inconvenience? “I need to find my brothers and I’d hoped you could help me,” she said with a nervous look to his lips; they had not dropped at the sides, so at least he appeared willing to listen.
“Right, OK,” he replied.
She sensed his hesitation to agree instantly. Thankfully, she had been expecting as much and she was ready to counter. “It won’t take long. I could use maybe a few guys to come along and help. That way it’ll be even quicker. I promise.”
“Yeah, that may be a little difficult right now.” He moved away from the door and walked over to a make-shift kitchen area that had been set up in the corner of the large open room. After messily sifting through a small cupboard for a cup, he began to pour himself a drink from a bottle of water he found on the counter. A few loud gulps later and he was ready to elaborate. “Look, there’s a lot going on at the moment. Perhaps after we’ve performed the first few test runs, I could look into it. For the time being I need everyone ready to do what’s required. That includes you, Phoenix.”
“I know, but I thought I could just disappear for a few hours and get them out myself.”
“Not yet, OK?” He turned and carelessly threw his cup down, sending it spinning across the surface.
Phoenix stepped around the counter to face him again. She was far from finished asking. “Please, they’re my brothers. I can’t leave them.”
“You’re not leaving them, at least not permanently. Look…” He stepped toward her and placed his arm around her shoulders, before escorting her toward the door. He led her exactly where she would rather not go: back to the torture room.
“I don’t need to see that again, thank you,” she said, pulling away.
She was then forced through the door and told to look at the results of their work. The man’s face now appeared swollen and purple, with his left eye shut and unable to open again. His lips were almost black and the skin around his mouth still glistened with blood and spit.
“Look at him,” Anthony demanded. “This man has taken from us and his intentions in doing so are still unknown. I’m not doing this for fun. We could have a serious problem on our hands. If The Sentient Collector is real and he is currently seeking out other MARCs, then he could jeopardise my whole plan. I need to find him and shut him down before I can continue. Do you understand how fucking annoying that is?”
Phoenix nodded and immediately turned her back to the man in the chair. He had been silent for a while now and was presumably unconscious. It did not stop her feeling slightly nauseated at the state of him, and the weird metal cage surrounding his neck. The fake sensation of suffocation had caused him to draw in a dangerous amount of oxygen, leading to him collapsing in the chair. If he screamed in pain, she would have understood the purpose of the torturing. But what she saw was far more unhinged. Anthony was not just intrigued by Elliot’s suffering, he was revelling in it. By staying and watching, she worried what that might say about her.
“What are you going to do then?” she said.
“I haven’t decided yet.” He stared fiercely at Elliot as he spoke. “Once this little problem is fixed, I promise I’ll help you get your brothers free. Is that OK for now?”
“Yes, thank you.”
At the end of the conversation, Phoenix stood watching as her boss continued to stare at their prisoner. His gaze did not move at all, he was deep in thought. She assumed he idly focused on nothing as he planned his next move, rather than the lines of dried blood running down Elliot’s face and neck.
“Is there anything you need me to do now then?” Phoenix asked, eager to move things along. She had had her fill of Anthony’s company by now.
His response came after a delay. Only when the man attending to Elliot’s cuts dropped his wringing wet wash cloth into the bowl of water set down to the side, did he stir at all. “Actually, there may be,” he said. He walked away half in a daze, exactly as he always did when an idea came to mind.
Staying only a metre or two behind, Phoenix walked after him. In a small room, off to the side of the large central one, was where all of Anthony’s gadgets were stored. In there were a large collection of nasty and often highly dangerous toys that he had accumulated abroad – she could never learn where. Her only interest was with the devices she could make use of, such as the nano-circuitry spray she used to commandeer electronics. There was in fact much more than that held within the treasure trove this small room represented to Anthony.
Hanging from metal shelves were a row of weapons that inflicted various types of injuries and were much more severe than the usual ones used every day in the city. There were no Dilatant guns like those the police used. These were all intended to kill or maim, and took no consideration for the victims survival at all.
Anthony searched the top shelves, standing on a chair to see above them. He threw the items he had no interest in to the floor. The longer he spent looking for the one device in particular that he wanted, the more frustrated he appeared. “Where the… fuck’s sake,” he said.
“What are you looking for?” Phoenix asked.
He ignored her and continued to pull things out and throw them back into the pile. When he found the one he wanted, he leapt down from the chair and handed it to Phoenix.
“What’s this,” she asked, while trying to decipher the device’s workings. Holding it up one way and then the other provided no clues. All it appeared to be was a yellow hexagonal box with arm straps hanging from its sides. On the top was a message written in red, on a yellow background that simply read: Aim this side away from body. She flipped it over and found a black metal surface perforated with small holes across it, which gave nothing much away.
“That is going to expedite my quest to find The Sentient Collector,” he replied.
Phoenix went along in the hope that he would demonstrate his plan soon enough. She had to skip at first just to keep up with him as he raced away like a giddy child on his way to the park. He rushed back across the large hall and headed straight for Elliot’s chair. Once again she tried not to look at
the man for long. With his chin resting against the metal neck-brace his cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk after a bloody feed, and it freaked her the hell out.
The man by the table spun around in surprise at their sudden return, his reddened wash cloth still in hand. He had made sure Elliot was much cleaner now at least.
“We’re done,” Anthony said.
“But I haven’t tried all of the different settings yet,” the man said, gesturing toward the black box with the dial, sat on the table behind him
“That will no longer be necessary. I have another way of eliciting Elliot’s cooperation. Besides, I think we can take his word for it when he says he doesn’t know where The Sentient Collector is. No-one could take all of this without eventually snapping.”
The man frowned while he reluctantly began to gather up his things. He noisily dropped the black box into the large bag sat on the table. Then he pulled the coiled wire until it snapped out of the back of Elliot’s neck and recoiled back to the table. When he had everything roughly placed into the bag he zipped it up and left the room, visibly disappointed to have been stopped early. On his way out he stopped to address Anthony, but then continued on instead. His shoulders hunched as he pulled the heavy load up higher in his arms.
With the door closed and only her, Anthony and the still unresponsive Elliot inside, it became eerily quiet. Most of the people that followed Anthony were either elsewhere on a job or situated at the main HQ. This building was where the nastier parts of the job were carried out, as demonstrated by the torturing of Elliot. Phoenix and those of her ilk were rarely allowed at the HQ building and instead were usually found hanging around this building or one of the many hide-outs Anthony had set up around the city to house them. The fact that none of them were sat wasting time around the building suggested they were being put to use too.
Phoenix watched as her boss placed the device he had searched for in the centre of Elliot’s chest and then trailed the straps around his arms. When he struggled to keep both straps in place, she felt compelled to help – even though she still had no idea what the machine was. Each strap went around the back of Elliot’s midriff, under his sweat soaked arm-pits, and were clipped together with a seat-belt like clicking noise where they met. Each strap was pulled tight around Elliot’s body, tugging his shoulders down slightly. Once attached, all they had to do was switch the thing on.
