It had been several days, not that he could really tell how much time had passed since he had seen any person other than this Lewis character, who obviously was assigned to guard over him. Colin, of course, had learned about solitary confinement; a form of torture to break him down. The reality was there was nothing worse that they could do to him than what had already been done. They took Freya from him; there was nothing left for them to take or to do. He knew now that whatever they had planned for him, they had no intention of returning him to his home. If only they would tell him why, but he supposed that was part of their game, part of how they were to break him.
***
“James, why, what a pleasant surprise,” Colin said. “How nice of you to drop by for a visit.”
“I see you have settled well into your new environment.”
“Oh yes, and I am doing such great work in my new honorable position,” Colin shot back. “It feels so super amazing to contribute, you know, work for my food and water and such.”
“Great to hear.” James slid a tablet into the meal slot. “You start your training today. Every night, you will leave this tablet in the meal slot for Lewis to charge.” He simply left without saying another word.
Colin wanted to scream, punch the wall, kick, yell profanities, but he simply closed his eyes and held it in. He refused to give James that kind of satisfaction. He had to stay in control. Whatever this game was, he couldn’t let them win. If he broke, if he did anything to even let them think he was being worn down, it would be their victory. They could lock him up, take everything away from him, isolate him, but he would not give in.
He sat on the small cot, leaving the tablet behind in the slot. The cell was made up in a simple manner. Other than a cot it contained an open shower stall, a toilet and sink, and one small and simple wooden chair. It was getting difficult for him to keep track of the number of days he had been stuck there, but he finally accepted the truth: it simply didn’t matter. Freya was gone; he was going to be stuck down here until the State found it more beneficial to kill him than to keep him alive.
When food was brought to him, he would eat every last morsel. It was not within his strength to starve himself. It was not fear of losing his own life that stopped him, just simply a lack of willpower. He had tried to stop eating in the beginning, which had lasted one day. The more he started to accept his fate, the less desire he had to keep fighting
“You are to take the tablet and begin your training,” Lewis said from outside the cell, jostling Colin back to the present.
“What’s the point? You aren’t going to let me out of here,” Colin yelled from the cot without getting up.
“You are to start your training today, or there will be consequences tomorrow,” Lewis answered, and left him once more.
Colin remained right where he was on the bed. He didn’t care what the training was about; he wasn’t going to do it. There was a part of him that desperately wanted to pick up the tablet, to see whether he could send messages, or at least read or do a puzzle, but he already knew that wouldn’t be the case. The tablet would be locked. It would only have the information the State wanted him to look at, nothing more. So he simply lay there, closing his eyes, trying to put the tablet out of his mind until sleep finally took him.
***
Colin was startled awake by Lewis cuffing his hands together. He tried to fight him off, but Lewis had been stealthy in his attack. His ankles had been chained and cuffed; once he was awoken by the chaining of his wrists, it was too late for him to be able to put up much of a fight.
“Is this my consequences you spoke of? You sneaking in here in the middle of the night to fulfill some pervish gay fantasy of yours?”
Colin knew his taunting would have no effect on military trained personnel, yet it still made him feel better. Without even acknowledging his remark, Lewis grabbed Colin, stood him up and slipped a hood over his head. The hood seemed quite unnecessary to Colin as they didn’t walk very far. He seriously doubted there would be an exit sign to help him escape as he walked.
They arrived wherever it was that Lewis was taking him. Lewis unhooked the chain between his ankles and wrists, and then with the help of another man, hoisted Colin up. He instantly felt the cold water against his bare feet. Before his mind could adjust, his hands were chained above him. Fear shot through him.
It was the first time since he had been taken that he was truly afraid. He suddenly understood what the hood was for. Not knowing what kind of torture was coming, the mind could create things that were so much more terrible than reality. If he could see it coming, at least he could prepare himself for it. The blow, the shock, the burn—at least you would know what to expect.
A faucet was turned on, and he could feel a stream of freezing-cold water flow down his body. Next came a slight pressure near his navel. If his skin had not been so cold, he would have recognized it as a knife much sooner. Colin sucked in his breath, waiting for the knife to cut his skin. He knew Lewis—if it was still Lewis—would not stab him. The purpose of this was not to kill him, just break him down. The knife slowly ran up his stomach; he braced himself for the stinging pain, yet it didn’t come. He thought it must just be a fear tactic, until he felt his now cut open shirt be removed completely.
Lewis would most likely start with a series of punches to his stomach, ribs, kidneys; Colin expected they would keep his face free of evidence. The cold water was mostly meant as mild torture, which he did feel as his entire body shook, and his teeth chattered. It was hard to brace himself physically when he had so little control of his body.
A squeaking noise sounded beside him; the water started to warm slightly. For a moment, Colin wondered whether he was to truly be tortured physically, or whether Lewis would continue with his fear tactics. This thought didn’t hold long in his mind, as the water grew hotter and hotter, searing his skin. An aching pain started to radiate through his entire body. The hot water was not hot enough to burn his skin to the point of blistering, yet he could feel every individual droplet as hundreds of individual pin pricks.
He heard the squeaking sound again, and the cool water came as an instant relief over his body. It did not last long, however, before the numbing of his skin turned into a new kind of pain—an ache that he felt down inside his tormented bones. The water was hurting his delicate, raw skin.
The sound of footsteps indicated Lewis leaving the room. How long would I be left here? He had expected something so much more violent, but somehow, this was worse. If only Lewis would strike him, or cut him—that kind of pain he could endure. This was torture beyond his comprehension. Colin wanted it to stop. Whatever was on the tablet, he would do it. It didn’t matter anymore.
It felt like hours had passed since Lewis had left the room—maybe they had, but maybe it had only been a few minutes. Colin could not tell; his mind was past keeping track, observing, trying to anticipate Lewis’s next move. All Colin knew was he wanted it to end.
He was jostled out of his thoughts as something soft touched his side, followed by excruciating pain. His body thrashed violently. He saw stars behind his eyes, and then it was over. Colin tried to right his body position, trying to catch his breath, and then the sensation ran through him again, only this time it lasted longer.
The electric shock stopped again, except this time, he didn’t have it in him to correct his body. He hung there limply from his wrists, his knees bent. Then it came again. This time, he vomited into the hood, nearly choking in his own fluid being pressed against his mouth. His bowels released; he had no control over any part of his body. The sensation came again; this time it lasted until Colin lost consciousness.
Cold water splashed on him, jolting him back to the present. He looked around in a haze; his vision was blurred, and his eyes struggled to come into focus. The hood had been removed. Colin became aware of a great pain in his upper body just as another splash of stark-cold water hit his face. Some of the water had made its way into his nose and mouth,
having been caught unaware. He coughed and choked and strained to stand up properly.
The pain in his arms, shoulders, neck, back: it all led him to the conclusion that he had been left hanging there unconscious for a lengthy amount of time. The faucet turned back on, and Colin could not control letting a whimper escape his lips. The water, however, was not particularly warm or cold, more a tepid middle ground.
“Wash yourself.” Lewis began to un-cuff Colin’s hands. It momentarily surprised Colin to not be restrained. He quickly realized that he was not in any way capable of fighting, which explained the abandonment of binding him. Lowering his arms from above his head was more painful than he could have anticipated.
His wrists were bloodied and bruised from where his restraints had rubbed his flesh raw. It was difficult for him to stay on his feet, but he didn’t want to give Lewis any further excuse to touch him. For one of the first times in his life, Colin followed instructions and remained silent. Lewis told him to wash, and so he did.
Lewis stood off to the side of the open stall, and handed Colin a towel and clothing once he finished. Another man came into the room as he dressed himself, and then they led Colin back to his cell. The unknown man walked in front, with Lewis closely behind. The tactic was not necessary; it was so difficult for him to walk, he could not fathom attempting to run. The three men walked in silence until Colin was locked back inside of his cell. He fell into the cot, and was asleep mere seconds after his head hit the pillow.
***
The sound of Lewis delivering the meal tray woke Colin. It was difficult for him to comprehend how much time he had been sleeping. All natural cycles of sleep, day or night, had escaped his understanding. His entire body was stiff and ached down deep into his bones. He slowly rose up from the cot; it was quite difficult for him to find the strength. The tray consisted of a mere bowl of broth. It could have been days since he had eaten; it was all he would most likely be able to keep down. He sat on the cot and sipped the broth slowly. The warmth spread through his body. In only an instant it seemed he felt as if he could endure his suffering.
Once the broth was finished, he rose up, more easily this time, and placed the tray back into the slot. He knew he would not stay conscious for long; he was still so tired, too depleted. As he sat back on the cot, his eyes focused, seeing the tablet which had been brought in for him, placed simply on the wooden chair. Colin did not know what awaited him on this tablet. All he knew was that he must read it; he must do what was required of him. He turned it on. It held but one icon, one file on the screen labeled Training. It was a simply laid-out file, not terribly different than the tool used during his training for Security.
He was to read a lot of text with the addition of a few instructional videos, followed by a test to ensure he understood the information. It started with simple information on communications, all of which he had learned before becoming a Security officer. Why would they make me learn this again? It was elementary information. He worked on the course until Lewis returned, not just to take his tray, but to bring him more of the broth.
Colin did not hesitate to retrieve the broth, although he was still cautious to sip it slowly. Once his belly had been warmed, he placed the tray back into the slot, and returned to his work. Colin wished the tablet would display the date, or at the very least the time, but this was all a part of his punishment. No more information would be given to him about his captivity.
All he could do was study the file on the tablet. He knew what would happen if he didn’t work, and he didn’t know whether he could withstand another session. Colin studied until he could not stay awake any longer. He would have set it aside long before, but he kept pushing himself to keep going. There was no way to know whether he had done enough to keep himself safe, but he had done all that he could.
***
Despite his inability to keep track of time, Colin thought it had been about a week since he had started his training. At first it was all sorts of things about communication devices he had already learned in his civil duty training. After he had worked for a day or two, he started to notice slight differences. It wasn’t just training him on the different types of devices that could send messages or data, but it was also teaching how to build it, and what it was made of.
It was also clear that he was to be working with devices that had longer ranges than anything he had worked with previously. It was getting quite advanced, and then abruptly came to an end. There was more training to follow, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
The next set of topics was really scattered and random. Nothing went into great detail, and then it switched to train him about something else on an elementary level. It didn’t make any sense. Why would they train me to be an expert in communications, and then what people used to call a jack-of-all-trades? Most of the training was in general labor, maintenance, agriculture, hand crafted weapons, and such.
It had him completely stumped, until he got to the section on animals. It was not only on identifying different types of animals, it was also on how to butcher them. To watch them, track them, hunt them, and then eat them. There were no specifics into each kind of animal—simply how to understand which were predators and which lived off plant life, posing no threat.
It became so clear to him in that instant—the State was building a new city. It was time to go aboveground, and he was to be a part of building their new home. He nearly threw his tablet as he jumped off the cot. They were going to the surface, and he was responsible for building the communication devices.
He suddenly wished he knew more information, that he could talk to someone. Was this my responsibility alone? Or would I be part of a team? There was no way the State could rebuild the Security system aboveground; it was not possible. With all that open space, cameras could no longer see all. No. He was to begin construction and be the voice to report the progress back home.
He also figured they were running him through general training. Once communications were set up, he would be expected to be a laborer to build the new society. He fell back to his cot, overwhelmed with emotion. Two realizations had struck him at once. Freya was not lost. They would be together again; however, it would take a very long time. It could be months, years even, before they would be together, but it would happen.
She popped into his mind hundreds of times a day, and every single time, he had forced the thought of her out. Forcing himself to forget her existence had been his only hope for survival. Thinking about her, about never seeing her again, crippled him.
This hope of being together again would be his new burden to bear. His days would become longer, every moment spent in anticipation. Already he felt the loneliness of his captivity that he had also managed to push out. No matter what happened, no matter what they told him, he would obey. The more he fought against this, the longer it would take for them to be reunited.
A new energy came to him, a new drive. He was going to get through the training as quickly as possible and perform as well as he could. No longer would he work only hard enough to appease Lewis to keep himself safe. Now was the time to work, and work harder than he ever had worked before in his life. He had never been this motivated for anything.
He would study, but when he needed a break from his training, he started to exercise. His body had atrophied a surprising amount in a short period while in captivity. He was becoming thin, weak, and frail. If he was to rebuild a new city, he would need to have strength and endurance.
It started with a few push-ups, sit-ups, and then pulling himself up on the bars in his cell. He experimented with different stretches and movements, finding the right way to make each muscle in his body light up. Lewis would come in at every mealtime, but still remained silent, even with his new routine. He stopped counting what he thought of as days; he just counted how much of his training he had completed, and how much he had exercised.
If he had kept better track of his progress, it might not have come as such a great shock when h
e finished a training module and the tablet exited out of the file and shut down. Colin looked around, trying to decide how to flag Lewis, or anybody down. He was doing what he was supposed to do, and then the tablet just shut off. He put it in the meal tray and began to exercise. It would soon be mealtime, and surely Lewis would be by soon to fix it. When he heard the door open, he jumped right to the cell door.
“Lewis, my tablet is broken. You have to fix it!” he nearly yelled. It was not Lewis who walked through the door, but James.
“It is not broken. You have finished.” A soft smile pulled up the sides of James’s lips.
“I’m done?” he asked. “Oh, did you bring me food?”
“No, Colin, there is no food for you tonight,” said James. “I have a special finale for your training, just for you. I think you would enjoy it more on an empty stomach.”
The State Series Box Set Page 72