Catch and Kill

by J D Lasica

  “I’m glad you’re pleased. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Not so fast! I need to check one thing.”

  Kasparian stepped around Volkov to the right, and now Volkov saw a diminutive pink vanity with a large heart-shaped mirror. Next to it was a mini chest of drawers with an offbeat, asymmetrical Alice in Wonderland melting shape. He opened the top drawer and produced two sets of ropes. He walked past the girls without acknowledging them and set the ropes on the bed. Then he returned to the chest and opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out two sets of handcuffs and a black leather cat o' nine tails bondage whip. He set them on top of the vanity.

  “Excellent. Just as I requested.” He turned to the girls. “How are my little vixens today?”

  Volkov hadn’t expected quite this level of … overindulgence. He and Lucid had gone to great lengths to establish a reputation for Fantasy Live right from the outset. A place for men and women to live out their fantasies in a safe space—no pedophilia, no torture, no hint of force, coercion, or violence.

  The two girls looked at each other and clasped hands. They both had little furry black-and-pink kitty ears perched atop their hairdos—one in a ponytail, the other in pigtails—and kitten whiskers painted on their cheeks.

  “I didn’t opt in for this part,” the ponytail girl spoke up with a worried look.

  “All the better.” Kasparian took another hit from his inhaler and glanced back at Volkov. “I like them feisty. Don’t you?”

  Volkov mulled this over. Should I tell Kasparian to cool his jets? To respect the rules and think about their budding collaboration? Standing there, watching this tawdry fantasy play out, deciding whether to intervene, Volkov recalled the verse from Scripture, 1 Corinthians, 11:9.

  For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.

  The girls turned their expectant eyes to him. What would he do?

  Volkov took a step backward and closed the door.

  46

  Samana Cay

  When Kaden awoke, she found herself in an unfamiliar room. Two bright lights glared down from above her head. She lay sprawled on her back, tied to a wooden table. They must have drugged me.

  “You’re awake. Impressive survival skills. You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble with my superiors.”

  Savić!

  “Mmmm. Kaden, no courtesy title or last name. I remember that right?”

  “You killed Gabriel, you bastard!”

  “Was that his name?” The same ugly thin smile. Same Eastern European accent.

  “You’ll pay for what you did.” As soon as I’m out of these restraints.

  “You think so?” He stepped to the table, leaned down, and pulled the earpiece from her ear. Then he unbuttoned her shirt and pulled the necklace over her head. “Somebody did a bad job of prep.”

  She turned her head in each direction and studied the room. A countertop with cabinets below and two long metal tables lined the walls of the cramped, cold, spare space. Her arms were tied over her head to the edge of the table with tight leather restraints. Ropes bound her thighs and ankles so she could barely move.

  “You know why you’re here?” Savić’s greasy face loomed inches above hers.

  She spit up at his face. Scored some spittle on his left cheek. He wiped it away without comment.

  “You’re here for two reasons.” Savić’s expression was efficient and impassive, as if torture was just another item to check off his to-do list. “First, the Ezekiel file you stole from Randolph Blackburn. We want it back. You open it? Share it with anyone?”

  She’d shared it with Red Team Zero, but she wasn’t about to put their lives in jeopardy.

  Savić glanced at the video surveillance cameras in the two corners of the ceiling. He brought his face down level with her left ear and whispered, “Just between us, I hope you resist.”

  “You’re gonna die, Savić.”

  “So. You know my name. What else do you know? What were you doing in Zug?”

  She kept silent.

  “Good! We can get down to business.”

  Savić wheeled over an elevated metal tray of sharp torture instruments straight out of the Sadistic Dentistry Handbook. He set the tray to the left of her hip. He opened a side cabinet and produced an iron halo brace like one she’d seen in a movie, used to keep the head and neck immobile during a cervical operation. He attached it to her scalp, rendering her head immobile. Now she could look only upward, her field of vision pinched.

  “Mmmm. You have a nosebleed.” He attached a nose clamp so she could breathe only through her mouth. “This will stop it.”

  She gulped for a breath of air. “You’re wasting your time.”

  He moved out of her line of sight and brought back a pair of rubber goggles. He set them on the tray. He leaned down closer and inspected her face more closely. “What’s this? Contacts. No. Smart contacts.” He brought his pungent, rancid fingers to her face, held her eyelids open, plucked the contacts from her eyes, and placed them on the tray. He reached for a small plastic vial and applied eye drops to both eyes. Then he fumbled around on the tray before he found a small steel device. She recognized what it was from the time she had LASIK surgery. A speculum. Creeps me out to this day. He positioned it to prop her eyelids open so she couldn’t shut her eyes or blink. He placed the goggles around her head and tightened the steel brace.

  “I mentioned two reasons you’re here with me today.” Savić moved away for a moment and returned with a mobile tablet. “Not much evidence about whether Chinese Water Torture works. My superiors want to see if it’s a better option for our rebellious Opt-Ins.”

  The phrase Chinese Water Torture caught her attention. Strange. I didn’t see any apparatus in this room that contained water.

  “Wouldn’t be my first choice, you know? So consider yourself lucky. But it’s your choice. Don’t talk and we’ll do it my way. What do you know about the Chairman?”

  “Who?”

  “Last chance. Anything to say?”

  She ignored him, focusing on a way to get out of this.

  “Let’s begin then.”

  Savić tapped a few times on his tablet. Then he rolled a tall, thin metal stand over and positioned it over her head. The stand had protruding metal arms that held a large, clear container of water. The container fed down a tube to a small device perched above her forehead; she narrowed her eyes and realized what it was. An eye dropper.

  The first drip pinged her forehead and she flinched against the head brace, not ready for it. The second drip came two seconds later. Cold. Wet. Not too bad. Not yet. It’s just water.

  “I’ll be back in a half hour,” Savić announced at the doorway. He exited and locked the door.

  Drip. She counted two seconds. Drip. One, two. Drip.

  She thought back to her torture survival training during boot camp at Lost Camp in the sticks of Alabama. It was five years ago, but she remembered the two hours of waterboarding she underwent, a vivid memory that chilled her to this day. How would this compare?

  Her mind released a floodgate of thoughts as she lay immobile. How did I get here? She retraced the journey that brought her here. Not the Brooklyn to Zurich to Nassau to Samana Cay journey. Earlier. To the discovery that Randolph Blackburn was her grandfather. To her hack of his digital vault. Was my hack clean? Or did he want Project Ezekiel exposed because he wasn’t on board? He wasn’t at that gathering of the Summit. Was he using me—again?

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Her thoughts turned to Bo. Her biological father. She thought about the holidays they’d never spent together. The fatherly advice she never received. The normal childhood she should have had.

  But was she falling into a pattern again? Was Bo just using her? She sensed he was still holding some things back. All my life I’ve been subjected to master manipulators, beginning with adoptive parents who turned out to be paid actors. Is it any wonder I’ve got trust issues? But can’t dwe
ll on that. I’m not a victim—even now.

  Drip. Drip.

  Her own life was a work in progress. She had dared to imagine a normal life with Gabriel. Look what happened when I tried to bring someone close to me. Isn’t that the lesson? By trusting in another person, putting yourself out there, you just open yourself up to heartbreak and misery.

  Drip. Drip.

  She racked her brain—ha! rack!—for what she knew about Chinese Water Torture. Drops of water falling one by one will form a hollow on a stone over time. The theory goes that the same principle applies to waterdrops flicking down on the forehead. Eventually, a prisoner goes mad—or confesses.

  Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. The unrelenting rhythm of the water seemed to taunt her.

  She struggled again by yanking at the ropes that bound her wrists and feet until they burned. No good. Her brain was spinning, overstimulated. She knew she’d have a hard time lying here for hours on end. With her nose sealed shut, the overwhelming feeling pressing down on her was a drowning sensation. No, I’m not suffocating or drowning! Breathe in, breathe out. She needed to calm her wild mind.

  She counted the seconds between drips like counting sheep. Drip, one, two. Drip, one, two. Drip, one, two … three? She noticed the intervals varied. Two, three, four, as many as six seconds elapsed between drops. She realized what this meant—and why Savić left the room. To keep her focused on the drips and nothing else. To let her mind worry about anticipating the next drip.

  She knew behavioral scientists found the most effective form of conditioning comes with something called variable-interval reinforcement rather than the steady, reliable kind. It’s why mice will keep pushing a button that dispenses a food pellet—because sooner or later a pellet will appear. It’s why gamblers hit the slots—after some period of time, they’ll get a payoff along with a norepinephrine hit.

  So this wasn’t just Chinese Water Torture. It was sensory deprivation combined with physical discomfort and the unpredictability of variable reinforcement.

  Drip! Drip! We have a winner! Ha ha! She was starting to feel punchy.

  She needed a change in plan. A change of mental scenery. She and Nico often listened to mindfulness podcasts after their kickboxing bouts. She’d try to apply some of those lessons. Meditation lite.

  She focused her attention on her own body. She experienced the rise and fall of her chest. She shut out everything else and observed her breathing and how her body moved with each inhalation and exhalation. She noticed the small movements in her rib cage, stomach, upper shoulder muscles. She wiggled her toes and relaxed her knees.

  She needed to stay strong and not crack. For her Red Team Zero team members. For the captured girls on the island. For the untold number of people whose lives would be at risk if Project Ezekiel were allowed to unfold with no one to stop it.

  She needed to get past her primal instincts, past the constant striving, past the despair and anxiety that kept her up at night. She needed to use the drips, not fight them. To go inside herself. To let go and accept. To cast off her responsibilities and wants and needs. To surrender her defenses, her feelings, her will. To just be. Seconds, minutes passed. She found herself being transported to a calm, beautiful resting place. The world no longer judged an experience as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. Instead of judgment, there was acceptance.

  That’s when she felt it.

  Her first shoulder spasm.

  47

  Samana Cay

  Volkov stepped through the blue door and emerged in a drab, musky space. He could see shadows and forbidding shapes. As far as he could tell, he was alone. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The room resembled—

  No. Could it be?

  He looked around, transfixed. Fantasy Live had transported him to his youth. To the habitat of a teenage Maxim Volkov before he became Incognito.

  The lighting was faint but there was no mistaking this room: the antechamber in the basement of his parents’ Belarus mansion. His parents almost never came down here, and the room was off-limits to chambermaids and servants. The help, though, was always game to spread dark whispers about what took place inside “the master’s dungeon,” as they called it. In a way, he was grateful for the rumors. It propelled him down the path of epic myth-making and toward his destiny.

  He spun around and moved deeper into the familiar space with its dark medieval furnishings. There on his left, the solid-oak Emperor Throne with its engraved carving of Adam and Eve with the serpent. Off to the right was the large wooden casket with incised leather and iron mounts embossed with scenes of courtly lovemaking and debauchery. Scattered about were the 1400s walnut dining table, Gothic armoire, late Roman iron folding stool, ornate hand-carved chest. All were playthings and curios of rich parents. Members of the Belarus elite who dabbled in collecting oddball antiques that would be out of place in a normal collection.

  He stepped through the room, heels echoing on the hardwood floor. There, on the far wall—the pair of Louis XIV period mirrors he'd smashed so long ago. But what was this? The mirrors were intact! Flawless, in fact.

  He approached and examined his reflection in the mirror. He drew close, closer, inches away in the frail light. Lucid must have done this—created a youthful likeness of him. How? He must have stitched this together through facial reconstruction algorithms and digital reverse-aging technologies and the spatial augmented reality face masking they’d used in Zug. That, combined with the fact Lucid was the only living soul who knew Incognito’s real identity.

  He touched his face, tugged at the skin, examined the left side of the face that had been stripped bare, ravaged to the bone by a mother furious at his insolence, a mother who doted on his older, stronger, more handsome brother but who came to look upon her younger son as a mistake. A mother who refused to ever look him in the eye after her act of malice.

  This room!

  During his youth, it was everything to him. A refuge from his mad mother. An escape from the world’s cruelties.

  When he was coming of age, he would bring local girls down here and force them to wear blindfolds during long conversations about life, culture, sex, culminating in fumbling efforts at making out. After the incident, he would bind the girl’s hands as well and they would experiment with some kinky positions while blindfolded on top of the ancient dining table or the leather-bound casket. Once, a girl ripped off her blindfold in a fit of passion. He was wearing only an eye mask not large enough to cover his disfigurement. Repulsed, she began screaming.

  Without remorse, he snuffed out her screams.

  But that was not the youth he now saw in the mirror. He took a final look at the clean-shaven teenage boy who bore a striking resemblance to the boy he might have been. This apparition, this avatar, this illusion is how Bailey Finnerty would see him, as young, handsome, and virile.

  And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. Revelation, 13:3.

  He wrestled with a welter of feelings about this. Years ago in Belarus, he’d considered a face-transplant operation, but he decided to pursue his epic destiny and shun the herd. His disfigurement was burned into his identity. All historical figures are outcasts or contrarians.

  He knew he was a breed apart from the millions of malleable consumers with their notions of skin-deep beauty. Nearly everywhere he turned—shopping malls, television ads, the movies—he saw the premium placed on superficial looks and counterfeit happiness. The lies, the vanity, the hypocrisy! He would be the epochal figure who would bring it all down. He would answer the historical call for a cleansing.

  Beginning with the Fantasy Strain.

  He took in the room again, this time to plan out how the night would go. The furnishings were real, though some flourishes, like the composition of a painting on the wall, were superimposed with AR. But it all looked real. He walked—no, glided across the dark marble floor to the smaller side room cloaked behind
an ancient Chinese screen. The inhaler was working. He was ready to begin.

  He moved around the screen and saw her. Bailey. Young Bailey, standing there waiting for him against a wall of antiques and artifacts illuminated by the glow of candles resting in tall, black candelabra stands. She was dressed as he’d requested, in a sheer white nightgown that reminded him of the ones his mother once wore.

  He positioned himself in front of Bailey’s pretty downcast face and ran his fingers through her fragrant dark hair. She pulled her head back, shook her long dark hair. But resistance was no longer an option.

  “Do you know why you’re here, child?”

  Fear lined her face, but he saw something else in her eyes. Defiance. She kept silent.

  “You know the consequences for breaking the rules.”

  She hesitated, as if deciding the least bad course of action. “I broke the rules. This is my penalty.” Her voice was a whisper. Still, Volkov didn’t detect remorse.

  “Other girls at Immersion Bay have resisted. Have any succeeded?”

  She shook her head.

  He began walking around her, exploring the eighteen-year-old fom every angle. She began to turn. “Do not move!” he snapped.

  He stood behind her and began to tell her the story of how Immersion Bay came to be. “Many months ago, we considered stocking Fantasy Live with call girls and women of the night. But it soon became clear that such an approach was all wrong.”

  He moved to her right side and curled a loose strand of hair over her ear. “Fantasy Live was never meant to be a high-priced brothel. I had a larger vision. To take a select group of girls through the Transition and into the Reset. To use our girls to reboot humanity itself!”

  Volkov finished circling her, his face now inches from hers. His forefinger touched the bottom of her chin and lifted her head to make her eyes meet his. “I see leadership qualities in you. You can help lead the girls into the new era.”