Cypher- Revolution

by Eileen Sharp

  Joshua debated. He had no idea what Cristian and Dylan were talking about, but Nic needed attention.

  “I’ll take that chance,” he said, and walked to the office where Dylan had set up his makeshift headquarters.

  He knocked at the door, and Dylan’s irritated face appeared on the screen outside the door. “I said I didn’t….oh, hi Joshua. Did you need me for something?”

  “I found someone else with nanocams in his eyes. And memory erasure.”

  Dylan’s face didn’t register any emotion as the screen went blank. A few moments later the door slid open and he stepped out, his dark eyes boring into Joshua’s face. “You’re kidding.”

  “Can you get them out? Now?”

  Dylan hesitated, looking back. Cristian was sitting on a bamboo chair, his hand scrubbing at his forehead as if it hurt. “No.”

  Joshua almost stepped backwards in his shock. “What?”

  The taciturn doctor waved to the sandy-haired man who had spoken to Joshua earlier. The man trotted over, glancing at Joshua before turning his attention to Dylan. “Brenton, I need you to remove ocular nanocams and possible locator transplants from this young man.” He gestured to Nic. “He also has memory erasure, but we’ll deal with that later.”

  If Brenton was surprised by the unusual list of medical issues, he didn’t show it. “No problem.”

  Within seconds the other two med techs joined the sandy-haired Brenton to escort Nic to a med station and a bed. Shawn started to follow them, but one of the techs drew him away to talk to him in a low voice. Kirk waited at a distance, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he watched.

  Joshua turned back to Dylan. “I think you should be the one to treat Nic.”

  Dylan shook his head. “Cristian is in the middle of something and he can’t be interrupted. This is critical for him, and maybe for your father.”

  The door slid closed, and Joshua stood staring at it. So Cristian was trying to remember some more about his captivity. He hesitated, then rapped on the door, wondering if he was making the right decision.

  Dylan opened the door. “Joshua, if you care about Cristian you need to leave him alone right now.”

  Ignoring the doctor, Joshua stepped past him and walked over to sit next to Cristian.

  “Hey, man,” he said.

  Cristian looked up, his face pale, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Hey. Found s-someone else?”

  “Yeah. But he’ll be okay, I think. Listen,” he paused, keeping his eyes off Cristian’s knotted hands, which were shaking. “Did you want someone here while you did this? Or is it better alone?”

  “You can probably hear m-me even if you aren’t in the room,” Cristian said, looking down at his hands.

  “I can. But only if you want me to.”

  Cristian shook his head. “No. I don’t w-want you to hear.”

  Joshua stood up. “Then I won’t. I only wanted you to know you weren’t alone.”

  Cristian’s mouth twitched, but didn’t quite make a smile. “I know I’m n-not. Thanks.”

  Outside of Dylan’s office, Joshua realized he would have to get farther away from the room if he was going to honor his promise to not listen. Possibly out of the building. Already he could hear Cristian beginning to speak. “I woke up and I was still tied up. They’d taken her body away.”

  Shock flooded through him. Cristian was talking about his mother. He took a deep breath and walked over to Nic and the group surrounding him before he changed his mind. “Hey, I’ve got to get out of here for a while. I’ll come back for Nic.”

  He’d been denying that his mother might be gone, but overhearing Cristian say it again made him physically sick, as if part of him had been ripped out of his body, leaving him hollow and shaken. His mind might not be able to accept the possibility that his mother was dead, but his body reacted with unmistakeable certainty. He walked out of the clinic, his boots creaking on the boardwalk, and then out to the sand, where he stood listening to the waves, his eyes on the horizon, his mind reeling in the same terrible circle.

  ∆∆∆

  Cristian remembered where he woke up. They’d taken him out of the landing hangar of the ship to a room with pale, nondescript walls and no furniture. A metal grid was on one of the walls, with shackles at each corner. He’d lain on the bare floor, his hands still behind his back and aching. He could hear a man screaming behind the walls, and a low persistent voice that murmured between the cries.

  He kicked against the wall. “Leave him alone!” The wall was solid, however, absorbing his kick with only a dull thud. He kicked against it anyway.

  The door finally opened and two men walked in. The first man was huge, his dark-skinned body a massive hulk of muscles moving under a tight, sweat-stained gray shirt. He knelt down next to Cristian, grabbing him and laying him on his back. Cristian’s back arched up over his bound arms. One big hand pressed down on Cristian’s chest and the other on his left knee.

  The second man was in his thirties, his skin a pale, creamy color and his eyes a wintry blue. His nose sloped down in an aquiline curve to a small mouth. He wore a light gray overcoat splattered with blood, his hands casually in its pockets. Cristian’s heart beat faster. He’d already heard the screams, so he knew what was coming.

  “Good morning. I’m here on behalf of the Nostekoi, a name you probably don’t recognize. All you need to know is that we are numerous, and we are everywhere. You will not escape from here. However, you can leave if you choose to cooperate. We need you to find your red-eyed friend for us.” His voice was soft, and his face betrayed nothing other than absolute peace and calm.

  “Why?” Cristian asked.

  The dark-skinned man looked at him warningly.

  “Answer my question,” the blue-eyed man said.

  Cristian remembered the nausea that rose up in his throat. “I’m not going to tell you where he is.”

  The blue-eyed man knelt down, reeking of blood. His hand reached into his bloody pocket and took out a knife and a pair of pliers. With a lazy, almost hesitant motion he stabbed Cristian’s thigh, through the fabric of his pants, and slowly drew the knife down, tearing fabric and skin as he went. Cristian had screamed through clenched teeth as the blood flooded over his leg.

  “Where is your friend?”

  “I’m not telling you,” Cristian said, and he made the phrase bounce in his head, repeating itself. If he lost his mind, it was all he wanted his brain to be able to say. I’m not telling you.

  As the calm, blue-eyed man peeled away skin, muscle, tendon, cartilage and bone, Cristian screamed until he was hoarse. He cried as his knee came apart, and sometimes he looked up at his torturers trying to find some small bit of mercy, but there was none. He knew it was futile, but he begged them to stop. He couldn’t help himself. But he didn’t tell them where Joshua was.

  He was shaking so much in the end that the big man had to bear down on him with his full weight to keep him still. When the blue-eyed man grasped the knee cap and ripped it out with the pliers Cristian lost consciousness.

  “Here, drink this,” Dylan’s voice broke the agonizing reverie.

  Cristian took the cup with shaking hands. He put the liquid to his mouth, spilling it as he found his lips.

  “He didn’t torture you for information,” Dylan said, his dark, intelligent gaze boring into Cristian’s.

  Cristian closed his eyes, letting the liquid go down his throat. “What m-makes you say that?” He ignored the stuttering as well as the shaking that racked his body.

  “He knew you couldn’t tell him. No one could endure that much pain. He finished off your knee because he liked it,” Dylan broke his dispassionate demeanor and rubbed his forehead. “It makes me sick.”

  “Th-that makes two of us,” Cristian said weakly, letting his head fall into his hands. “They tortured me for the n-next few hours. Electric shock. The hole where my knee was. They cut me and put in the locators and the n-nanotech in m-my eyes.” He paused, struggling
to regain his composure. Out of all the things he’d endured, the needles in his eyes had scarred him as badly as his knee. He drew a breath. “Then they brought in his f-father.”

  The room hadn’t been cleaned, so it reeked of vomit and blood. Cristian lay in the puddle of it all, barely conscious. He’d been staring at the walls, curled up on the floor. They were a neutral shade of slate gray, the ceiling white. There were no windows. The floor, where it wasn’t splattered with blood, had been white. It was cold, but he let it seep into him. He wished he wasn’t breathing. He’d wanted to die a thousand times over during the past few hours. When he spoke, all he could say was “please no” and “I don’t know.” Sometimes he said them even when he wasn’t being tortured.

  He heard footsteps and his heartbeat started throbbing in his ears. They were coming again. He didn’t move, though a tear leaked out of one of his eyes.

  The door slid open, and two men walked in, dragging Joshua’s father between them. His face was battered, and he was bleeding from several clean-looking incisions. No doubt the work of the blue-eyed man. Cristian looked up at him, too weak to move.

  “What have you done to him?” Joshua’s father asked, his voice a hushed whisper.

  The blue-eyed man walked into the room. His clothes were clean now, though in Cristian’s mind he still saw blood on the man. “Get up,” the man said to Cristian.

  Cristian did as he was told, pushing himself up on his arms and sitting up. He couldn’t stand.

  “Since you aren’t going to help us find your friend, we’re bringing in his father. Maybe that will help.”

  “What are you d-doing?” Cristian had stuttered.

  They dragged the older man over to the metal grid and shackled him in. Joshua’s father had looked up from the grid. “It’s all right, Cristian. Let them kill me. I’m as good as dead—“

  A hand cracked across the older man’s mouth.

  “Now,” the blue-eyed man said, firing up an electric prod. “Unless you want to kill him, tell me where to find Joshua.”

  Stunned, Cristian only stared at the older man stretched out on the wall. “N-no. I c-can’t tell you.”

  The older man’s body arched as the electricity flooded through him, convulsing and screaming. Cristian found the strength to scream at them, a new horror gripping him. The blue-eyed man had kept the electricity flowing through the twitching body until the old man’s eyes rolled back. He let go, and the Joshua’s father went limp, his head dropping to his chest.

  “NO!” Cristian screamed again, his voice so hoarse the sound barely came out.

  “Wake him.” the blue-eyed man commanded one of the guards.

  “You’re going to k-kill him!”

  “I might. I don’t really need him anymore. I just need to know how to find his son. Perhaps if you tell me, his son still might have a father. Since he no longer has a mother.”

  “No. You’ll k-kill Joshua.”

  “I might not. But someone is most certainly going to die right now if you don’t tell me.”

  It took them a long time to wake the older man, and he didn’t seem quite aware of his surroundings when he came to. Cristian thought furiously, but all his traumatized brain could manage was, “I can’t tell you.” He needed another solution.

  When Stewart’s back arched again, and the grid shook with his convulsions, Cristian heard himself screaming out, “B-benning! He’s probably going to Benning!!”

  The prod immediately retracted and Stewart West went limp, his face rising to look in Cristian’s eyes.

  “It’s all right son,” he’d breathed. “It’s not your fault.”

  They’d unshackled the older man and taken him out of the room. The blue-eyed man nodded to the guards. “Get him cleaned up for surgery.”

  He remembered trying to silence his agony when they pulled him across the floor, his mangled leg dragging behind him. They’d drugged him, and when he woke, the pain that had been a constant companion was faded, still there but in the background. It was such a profound relief. He found himself desperate enough to do anything to keep the blissful numbness.

  He’d been given clothes and his cell band back, and time to rest. Only because he’d agreed to betray Joshua. To save Joshua’s father, he reminded himself, but when he swallowed his first mouthful of food, it was guilty ecstasy.

  In new clothes and showered, his leg elevated and numbed, he lay in a different room. Outside a window he could see they were orbiting a planet he didn’t recognize. A bright pink nebula was out in the distance, and then a swath of space where there were no stars.

  “Stop.” Dylan’s voice brought him back to reality.

  Cristian took a deep breath, triumph jumping in his veins. “I just d-discovered where I was.”

  Dylan nodded, a grim smile on his dry lips. “Yes. You did.”

  “But I was on a ship. They c-could have moved by now.”

  “Or you know where the base is.”

  “At least it’s something.”

  “Do you want to stop now?”

  Cristian shook his head. “No. My m-memories are still coming to me, real clear. I want to keep going until there isn’t anything left to know.”

  He brought his mind back to the new room. A bed and a wall filled with a vid screen made it almost feel like he was someplace normal. He’d put his finger out towards the screen and the screen responded, a crescent blinking, waiting for his next move. He searched the news databases for any information on the attack at Huron, but there was none. Not a single word.

  The door to the room slid open. The blue eyed man came in, but he was alone. The tremors of terror still fluttered in Cristian’s chest, however. They always would when the cold gaze found him.

  “We will need you to bring Joshua to us.”

  Cristian wanted to protest that he’d done enough, but he was mute with terror. His whole body was paralyzed by this man. “I gave you what you w-wanted.”

  “Yes, you did.” The man smiled, his small mouth parting to show white teeth. “But we’ve decided it would be better for you to meet him. To put him at ease.”

  Summoning up whatever shreds of courage he had left, Cristian shook his head.

  The blue-eyed man leaned forward, his voice soft. “Then we kill his father. Do you understand? You cannot say “no” to anything we ask unless you are willing to let him die.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He’d sent the message they instructed him to say. Don’t go home. Maybe Joshua knew something was wrong and wouldn’t answer. Joshua was smart; somehow he must know.

  The screen flickered and Joshua’s face appeared. Shocked, Cristian could barely respond.

  “Joshua?”

  So he’d laid the trap for Joshua and Caina, whether he wanted to or not. After his conversation with Joshua he’d been escorted through the ship without the blue-eyed man. It was like a city, levels rising up as far as he could see, lights in the distance. They walked across a bridge that went between two glass walls filled with training rooms. He watched them, surprised at how competent the drills were. In one of the rooms however, he saw something that made him think he was hallucinating.

  The combatants in this room moved so quickly his eyes could not follow them. He only saw them when they began to move and then they ended, the space between nothing more than a black blur. It was supernatural speed. One of them jumped up to the ceiling, and clung there, suspended over the floor. Cristian stumbled on the guard’s feet in front of him. He gave one more backward glance at the black blurred figures in the room. What was he seeing, exactly? Was it real?

  He’d boarded a gray interplanetary transport with no markings, easily forgotten. Once inside, he was strapped into a seat and left alone. The blue-eyed man boarded, and all the black-uniformed soldiers saluted him.

  “At ease,” the man said, almost absently. He sat across from Cristian. “Here are your instructions. You are to meet Joshua and his sister at the landing bay, then take the
m to your home.”

  “What did you do to my parents?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if they were home or not, but if they were, these people would probably kill them.

  “Nothing. They aren’t there. They had business—which we had nothing to do with. A bit of fortune for them, I should think.”

  “What do I do once we are at m-my house?”

  “We will take care of the rest.”

  Cristian stopped his memories, standing up in Dylan’s office. “That’s all. There’s nothing more.”

  Dylan didn’t answer, waiting.

  “I think. I don’t know. I don’t want to r-remember this part. You know, when I lied to them.”

  “Well, we know for certain where the Nostekoi are by that very distinct nebula. Daedalus.”

  “Right.” Cristian remembered the white dot on the holomap, sitting on the edge of the starless abyss. The bright pink nebula hovered on the other side of the black divide. There was no other planetary formation like that.

  Thinking about the holomap brought back the memory of Caina. He wanted her warmth and sweetness after the cold ugliness of his memories. If only he believed he deserved her.

  “I have to tell Joshua where his father is,” he said.

  “How do you know he hasn’t been listening?” Dylan asked with a wry smile. More than anyone, the doctor was aware of Joshua’s abilities.

  “Because I told him not to. He k-keeps his word.”

  Dylan stood up. “That’s why I like him.”

  Rolling his wrist over, Cristian sent a message to Joshua. I think I know where your father is.

  The response was immediate. Joshua’s face flickered on the wrist band. “I’ll meet you back at your room.”

  Before he left, Cristian thanked the doctor. Dylan gripped his shoulder, his thin hand surprisingly strong. “You were given impossible choices.” He paused, his enigmatic gaze going deep. “You need to know that your resistance to that type of pain is…extraordinary. Everyone breaks. Do you understand? I’m going to repeat that—everyone breaks. You were remarkable for holding out as long as you did.”

  The praise stayed with him as he left the clinic for the guest quarters. A warm breeze followed him in the darkening night, and he turned the words over in his head. He’d never thought of his humiliating captivity as anything to be proud of. It was possible he never would, but seeing it from someone else’s eyes made it seem less degrading.