"At ease," Dr. Dean instructed the guards. She walked to where Cree sat, stunned and shaking his head. "I have all the control I need right here."
Groggily, Cree looked at the weapon in the Director's hand. "Do that again and I'll tear out your miserable throat, woman!"
The threat didn't seem to faze Beryla Dean. Instead, she leaned over him, knowing he was still too stunned to come after her. "You forget, also, that your life is in my hands tomorrow. The wrong chemical injected at the wrong time could turn you into a gibbering idiot. Terran women have no love in them for Reapers, Captain."
A low warning growl came from the Reaper, but he made no attempt to either get up or harm the Director. But if looks could kill, Beryla Dean would have been decapitated.
"I think we understand one another, don't we, Captain?" Dr. Dean inquired. She moved back, out of his reach.
"I won't always be locked in here," he told her, struggling for a moment until he could gain his feet. He stood there and glared at the doctor, but did not try to touch her.
"That's true, but I think you need to be told something very important about me."
"There's nothing you can tell me that I would give a gods-be-damned shit about!" he sneered.
"Not even that I am General Drae Cree's consort?"
If anyone other than Bridget knew that particular secret, they concealed it well. The expression on the guards' faces did not alter nor did Cree's. He simply chose to ignore the statement, but Bridget could tell he had filed it away for future use.
Beryla smiled. "As I said, I think we understand one another."
"It would seem so," Cree replied.
Bridget's brows flew upward at the soft, capitulating agreement. The man hadn't given in but he had admitted he dared do nothing to Dr. Dean. That, in itself, was a victory of sorts for Beryla.
"Then I suggest you go back to your room and rest," the Director told him. "Tomorrow will be long and tiring for you." When he started to turn, Beryla cleared her throat, gaining his attention again. "And please do not vent your anger on the man who comes to fix the camera, Captain."
Cree's jaw clenched. He glanced at Bridget, let his hawk-like scrutiny rake down her once again, then spun on his heel with military precision. The guards barely had time to move out of his way and fall into step with him as he marched toward his cell.
"I wish he wouldn't do that!" Bridget hissed. "I hate the way he looks at me!"
"It was just that kind of look that caught our attention a year ago, Bridie," the Director reminded her in a whisper, lowering her head so the camera just above their heads would not see her lips moving. "Otherwise, he wouldn't be here."
"I don't like it," Bridget said. She nodded at the engineer who passed them on the way to repair the camera in Cree's cell.
"You don't have to like it, dear," the Director suggested. Her own attention was caught and held by the guards accompanying the engineer. No one wanted to take a chance of the Reaper attacking the poor technician as he replaced the broken camera.
"He gives me the chills," Bridget shuddered, crossing her arms over her chest.
Beryla Dean smiled. "They don't call him the Iceman for nothing!"
"HE LOOKS exhausted," Bridget commented as she watched the Reaper walk toward them.
"He is," the Director answered. "He's had no sleep and the anxiety which is usually controlled by the triso has put him in an even worse mood."
Cree didn't acknowledge the good morning from the Director as he joined her and Bridget at the door to Treatment Suite Seven. He ignored Bridget entirely and fixed his unwavering attention on the red enamel door leading into TS-7.
"Ready, Captain?" Dr. Dean asked. When she received no answer, she nodded and Bridget punched in the access code to the suite.
When the door slid open, Cree faltered. The room beyond was darkly lit and smelled of chemicals that made his flesh crawl. An X-shaped metal table sat in the center of the room; several carts holding strange-looking instruments were grouped around the table. An odd buzzing sound waxed and waned as a door shushed open and four women technicians entered the suite. At the far end of the room was a Siliplex viewing box filled with onlookers.
"I wasn't aware there was going to be an audience to my torture." "Ignore them, Captain," the Director advised. "They are Court-appointed witnesses and should not concern you."
"The more the merrier."
Bridget exchanged a look with Dr. Dean. They both knew the man was jittery as hell, but trying his best to conceal his nervousness. Reapers were not allowed to show weakness of any kind.
"If you will lay down on the table, Captain, we can begin," Dr. Dean told him.
Cree had a wild urge to turn and run, to get as far away from the room as he could. It wasn't just the way the other women— the ones he had never seen before— were staring so avidly and expectantly at him, it was the very atmosphere inside the treatment suite that seemed to pose a threat. From the huge cauldron-like lights over the table to the rolling carts with their gleaming instruments, he felt the emanations of danger.
"Captain?" He turned and looked at Dr. Dean. Behind the tortoise-shell frames of her glasses, the woman's eyes were kind, gentle, and for some reason that infuriated him. "What is it you want me to do?" he snapped.
"Lie down on the table," the Director repeated.
Cree looked at the table, hesitated for a fraction of a second before going to it and hopping up. The stainless steel platform was ice-cold beneath the thin fabric of the pajama's bottoms, colder still on his naked back. As he stretched out— made even more uneasy since his arms and legs were spread-eagle on the table— he felt a quiver of dread tighten his groin.
"We are going to restrain you, now, Sir," one of the women said.
Cree lifted his head as two of the women snapped wide metal bands in place around each of his ankles. Moving up the table like mirror images of one another, they clasped more bands across his knees and upper thighs.
He sat up. "Is this necessary?" he asked but neither woman answered.
"I'm afraid it is. Please lie down, Captain," Bridget told him.
For just a moment he considered refusing, but he knew gods-be-damned well it would not do him any good if he did. He was already trapped, his legs bolted to the table like twin jet propulsion units. With his jaw set, his teeth grinding, he lay down and had to keep from howling out his frustration when the same two women imprisoned his wrists and forearms to the table.
"Where the hell do you women think I can go?" he bellowed, his temper rising. He didn't like being restrained. No Reaper did. To be restrained was to be helpless and Reapers could not afford to be helpless.
"I know this seems excessive, Captain," Dr. Dean agreed, "but assault therapy causes severe convulsions. We don't want you to break an arm or a leg." She looked at Bridget. "Will you attach the monitor leads, Bridie?"
Cree stared at Bridget as she came to stand beside him. He felt her hands on him and flinched as she snapped a metal band into place across his chest. The band was tight, too tight, but he would be damned if he'd tell her so. He realized she was looking intently at his chest, at the spot beneath which his heart lay, and he snorted angrily.
"Worried I'll have a heart attack and ruin your fun?"
Bridget had been staring at the Reaper insignia tattooed on his left pectoral. The crimson drawing of a stylized scythe had been made with a laser brush and had to have been extremely painful. Burned into Cree's chest, there would be no way to remove it other than by shaving off a layer of flesh.
"I wouldn't worry about having a heart attack, Captain," Dr. Dean answered for Bridget. She could tell the younger woman was troubled by the tattoo.
"You aren't the one who'd be having it, now, are you?"
Bridget laughed softly. Being restrained as he was, not knowing what to expect, already so tense and jittery the graph on the monitor attached to his chest was fluttering like crazy, the man was still trying to maintain the aura of his invincibility, d
isplaying his disdain for what was going to be done to him.
"I'm glad you find this so gods-be-damned funny!" Cree glared at the one called Bridget as she leaned over him. He could smell her perfume and found it disturbing. Had he tried, he could have looked down the front of her uniform top, but her hands were at his throat, buckling into place another infernal restraint.
"Take your places ladies," the Director ordered, "so we can begin."
Cree clamped his teeth together and tried to breathe slowly and easily through his nose, but he felt the terror mounting. He heard his heartbeat pounding in his ears and felt the sweat oozing down his breastbone despite the chill of the treatment suite. When Bridget moved to the head of the table and rested her hands to either side of his head, he strained to look up at her, but the pressure on his throat would not allow him. He cursed and wished he hadn't for the weight of the restraint on his larynx was painful.
Bridget felt an inexplicable urge to stroke the shiny thickness of the Captain's hair to try to calm the anxiety that was making the EKG traces leap across the monitor screen. His sleek dark curls intrigued her. His hair looked soft as a kitten's fur and just as lush; it gleamed in the glow cast from the overhead operating light. The DNA mix that had created this warrior had done an excellent job of arranging the Reaper's genes.
"We will begin now," Dr. Dean said and nodded at Bridget.
"I know you aren't going to like this, but I'm only trying to prevent you from swallowing your tongue or biting through it when the convulsions begin."
Before he could demand to know what she was talking about, Bridget thrust something between his lips, into his mouth, and partway down his throat before anchoring his jaw closed, pressing his chin upward as she braced his head against her belly. He grunted with fury, his eyes flashing brown fire, but she shook her head.
"It's necessary, Captain. I'm sorry." She shrugged at his snort of contempt. "You'll have to endure it."
"This is an artificial neurotransmitter being inserted in the hypothalamus," the Director explained, furthering unsettling him. He felt something cool on the skin just below his elbow then the sting of a needle being inserted into his taut arm.
"Do you have him, Bridie?" one of the women asked.
"Yes."
"He's all yours then."
The women stepped back from the table.
THE FIRST thing Cree felt was the heat. Intense, invading, blistering heat. It flashed across his face, curled along his neck and lapped at his chest. It ran down his outstretched arms, scorched his fingertips, pulsed down his chest, spread to his abdomen, then shot down his legs, singeing the hair. Felt the blood inside his veins boiling, his skin peeling away, exposing cartilage and bone, heard the very marrow inside him breaking open and sizzling. So instantaneous was the sensation, so penetrating, it felt as though he had been dropped into the gaping maw of an inferno. The pain was unlike anything he could have imagined. The heat took his breath away as his lungs began to bake inside his chest.
"Stage One complete," he heard the computer announce.
After the heat came the most frightening feeling he had ever had in his life. Along with the suffocating feel pressing in on his lungs, he began to experience a sensation of impending doom. He was being drawn toward a precipice over which he knew he would be thrown, tumbling, pleading, screaming to his death, his body broken and exposed on the jagged rocks below as it hit, laying the very core of him open to view. The imminent sureness of his death came lunging up at him with the speed of an asteroid hurtling through space and he screamed behind the constriction of the mouthpiece stuck between his teeth.
"Stage Two complete."
He was drowning, water flowing down his nose, his air cut off by the invading thickness. He was sinking beneath a wavering, frigid surface, ice floes hovering just beyond his reach. The water was filling his lungs, inflating them to bursting, filling his body cavities with the freezing liquid. The harder he fought to reach the surface and the cleansing air that would free his blocked lungs, the deeper he plunged beneath the white surface until all light was blocked out. He screamed again, his eyes wide and bulging, yet seeing nothing.
"Stage Three complete."
"Blood dripped from wounds on his arms and legs. His jugular had been ripped open and the dark crimson arterial blood shot out in pulsing jets. Flesh ripped from his body, teeth clamped down into bone, grated, then the lower part of his right leg was torn away. He was growing weaker by the moment as fangs sank into his organs, spreading poison, killing him. Claws ripped into his belly, drawing out his intestines and his bloodcurdling scream was only matched by the howl of the monster that was devouring him, inch by bloody, painful inch. Something pulled free of his lower torso and he watched in horror as his manhood disappeared behind the wicked teeth of his killer. His eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched into darkness.
"Stage Four complete."
Bridget eased her hand from Cree's chin and gently removed the wedge of rubber. There were teeth marks deep in the surface, strings of phlegm clinging to the wedge. She took a cloth from Dorrie Burkhart, one of the techs, and wiped the thin stream of saliva that had dribbled from the corner of the Reaper's mouth.
Cree came awake almost as quickly as he had passed out. He stared blindly up at the woman bending over him checking the reaction of his pupils. The light hurt his eyes, sent jagged bursts of pain through his head. He tried to turn away from it, but found he could not.
"He's stable," Dr. Dean pronounced after checking the computer readings. She straightened and looked toward the gallery. "No intracranial bleeding."
"Then proceed!" a woman from the viewing box commanded.
Dr. Dean frowned. "Second syringe."
Cree's eyes went wide. Were they going to put him through that hell a second time? He opened his mouth to protest, but Bridget's cool, efficient hands were once more at his mouth and the rubber wedge being inserted.
"Don't!" was all he got out before his jaw was pressed shut around the bitter rubber.
Then Hell came up to greet him.
Kamerone Cree's whole life, such as it had been, passed before his eyes and he tried to spit out the wedge that was jammed so tightly between his lips. He tried to get up, irrational fury and terror filling him as he realized he could not. He felt the cold swab of the disinfectant, the prick of the needle and the ungodly heat washing over him with blinding speed.
Bridget's brows met as the convulsions began so quickly she barely had time to brace the Reaper's head. She saw his eyes roll back until only the whites could be seen. His body went absolutely rigid as though he was in the throes of electroshock. He shuddered violently as he passed quickly from one state of assault therapy to the other. She felt the intense heat of his high fever, the sweat pouring down his temples. The convulsions that wracked his body— despite the security of the thick metal restraints— lifted him partially off the treatment table. His groans and muted shrieks gave evidence of the absolute terror under which he was existing. She could only imagine the horrors that were invading his mind, driving him to the brink of madness.
"Stage Three complete."
Cree's body shook and he came crashing down, falling past the jutting rocks toward which he had been plunging. Vaguely, in some sane part of his jumbled mind, he realized the sequence of impending destruction had been altered: the drowning came before the falling this time. His mental processes were so scrambled, he had trouble latching onto a single coherent thought even as it entered his mind.
"Stage Four complete."
Bridget re-wet the cloth and wiped his face, his neck, under his arms where the thick brown hair was matted with perspiration. She put the cloth in the water again, noticing that he had awakened and was watching her. He followed her movements so blindly, he reminded her of a little lost dog trailing hopefully behind someone who had been kind to it.
"Third syringe."
Cree whimpered: a lost, hopeless, pitiful thrust of breath from his tortured mou
th. He cringed away from the wedge as it was brought to his lips, but he didn't have the strength to deny it entrance. He tasted the cold slime of his own saliva clinging to it, gagged at the feel of it between his teeth and down his throat. The gentle hand that cupped his chin protectively was cool against his heated flesh as once more the needle pierced his flesh.
Dr. Dean did not have the needle all the way out of his arm before the convulsions started again. She stepped back, her face filled with concern as a trickle of blood eased down Cree's neck.
"Left ear drum rupture," Dorrie remarked, noting it in the computer.
"Both," one of the other women corrected. She gasped. "My god! His blood is black!"
Bridget looked down at the thick ebony blood dripping to the stainless steel table beneath the Reaper's head. She was having a hard time keeping his head still and was aware that he had bitten entirely through the protective wedge as the computer announced:
"Stage Two complete. Flat line!"
Cree felt something sharp drive deeply through his breastbone and shrieked like a madman beneath Bridget's hold. Pain rocketed, exploded in his chest and chilling fluid flooded into his heart.
"That has to be a real bummer for him." Dorrie chuckled.
"Shut up, Burkhart!" ordered Dr. Dean.
He was jolted from the table, slammed down and the shrill shriek of some horrible monster roared after him as he experienced a sudden, blinding white light.
"He's not breathing, ladies!" Dorrie told them. "Move it, Dunne!"
Bridget fumbled the wedge from between the Reaper's teeth then moved quickly out of Dorrie's way as the tech hurried to drop an airline down Cree's throat to intubate him.
The monster was crawling down his throat, plunging into his lungs. He could feel it laying its insidious eggs inside him.
"Syringe!"
How many times were they going to stake him? he thought. Hadn't they already killed him? Why were they tormenting him still? He was thrown upwards against his restraints, then seemed to melt into the table for a moment as the blinding white light seared through his brain and brought intense, sickening pain.
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