When Timothy first heard about the systems being liberated, it struck him as another sadistic joke and he grew fearful. He was already living with chronic head pain and he would never speak normally again.
A couple of males armed with assault rifles entered his cell. Timothy hoped they might do him a favor and kill him.
“Are you Timothy Haynes?” asked one of the gunmen.
“Yes,” replied Timothy.
“Come with us.”
Timothy followed them down the hall. Along the way Timothy realized he was in control over his limbs again and he felt edgy about it. He feared his head being put back into that vise.
They entered a room where his sister stood waiting for him. “I was so worried about you!” she exclaimed.
She rushed to hug him, causing the bones in his back and shoulders to ache so that he squealed in pain and said, “Please. It hurts.” His voice was drawn out into a ghoulish sounding drawl.
She backed away and looked at him with an expression of shock and tears in her eyes. “What did they do to you?”
Timothy resented her reaction to his new voice. He resented her showing no outward signs of torture. She'd changed too. “I told you.”
The tears flowed freely as she said, “I lost control over my body. I had to do whatever they told me.”
“I know,” replied Timothy.
“I felt sorry for you.”
He hated her crying and feeling sorry for herself. He just wanted to go back to his cell and lay down so his head would hurt less. Why would they make him meet her again like this? She didn't even feel like his sister anymore.
His sister broke down into hysterical sobs repeating that same annoying phrase.
The gunmen led Timothy back to his cell where he laid down and rested. He hadn't shed a single tear. “That bitch was treated like a queen while you ate shit,” said one of the shrill voices, twisting against his brain. They made that observation every night before he fell asleep and they analyzed the injustices done to him.
He took comfort in laying down and closing his eyes, despite the insomnia and chronic nerve pain. Maybe something had changed. He had never spent so much time in bed as he had done the past couple days.
Timothy awakened to the sound of a knock at the door. “Are you awake?” somebody asked.
“Yeah,” replied Timothy through a haze.
It was the young man who had first communicated with him through the peep hole, just before things had begun to change. He was dressed in combat gear with an assault rifle strapped around his shoulder. “I'm gonna show you something.”
Timothy got up and paused for a moment as the pain shot through his head. His stomach growled, feeling like a pit and his mouth was dry.
“You need to eat.” Jason handed Timothy some beef jerky and bottled water from a pack.
“Thanks.” Timothy ate and drank. Then he followed Jason out of the cell. He was beginning to feel more at ease.
“You still don't believe me about these systems being taken over, do you?”
“I don't know what to believe.”
“I'm gonna show you something that will make you believe.”
Timothy realized Jason was approaching the torture chamber and he hesitated.
“Don't be afraid,” said Jason. “You have nothing to fear.”
Something in Jason's voice appealed to Timothy and he desperately wanted to believe that Jason was telling the truth.
Inside the torture chamber Clive was strapped naked in a chair with a rubber ball in his mouth and his hands restrained behind his back. The sight filled Timothy with radiant glowing and Timothy's lips curved upward into a smile.
“He gets the fistulas now,” said Jason. Jason approached Clive, saying, “Your international laws have no place here. You don't have the UN or your government for protection anymore.” Jason slapped him and removed the rubber ball.
“You're the one who's gonna need protection! I'm a servant of the police! You...”
Jason put the rubber ball back into Clive's mouth. Then he raised Clive up from the chair and brought him over to the vise. The jaws of the vise enclosed around Clive's head.
Timothy had never seen Clive so livid. As the vise tightened against Clive's skull the look on his face changed and Timothy laughed maniacally. Clive looked retarded and pathetic. Timothy was laughing so hard tears formed in his eyes and he had to grab hold of a nearby table to keep from falling to the ground.
Jason left Clive staring off dumbly into space and he asked, “Do you still think it's a trick?”
Timothy caught his breath and said, “No. There's no way they would let me see something like that.”
As they walked back to Timothy's cell, Jason said, “The locks have been removed from your room so you can come and go as you choose.”
“Thanks.”
“Your sister's worried about you.”
“Why?”
“She's worried about you lying around sleeping all day.”
“My head hurts.”
“You want to go see her?”
An annoying pang tweaked Timothy's brain with the mention of seeing his sister. “No thanks. I'm tired.”
Once Timothy was alone in his room he lay down on the bed and thought of his mother as he drifted off to sleep.
When Timothy awakened, his first thought was some rope he'd seen in the torture chamber. He went back there, hoping to find it. Nobody else was there and Timothy found a thick length of rope. It looked like it might be the right length.
He was carrying it back to his room, when somebody asked, “What's that for?”
Timothy turned around.
It was one of the gunmen.
“I just wanted to practice tying knots.”
“Scouts honor?”
“What else is there to do with it? It's just rope.”
“You tell me.”
The interruption was annoying him. “Can I go back to my room now?”
“You don't need me to tell you that.”
Timothy returned to his room and practiced tying a noose. Every noose he formed came loose when he tugged at it with much force. Once he had figured out the proper way to tie it he was going to hang himself above that stage, where he had been left in a cage.
There was a knock at the door.
Timothy put the rope beneath the blankets on his bed. “Go away. I'm busy.”
“We need to have a talk,” said Jason.
“What do you want?”
Jason entered and said, “I know what you want to do.”
Fear gnawed at Timothy's gut. “What do you mean by that?”
“I don't blame you for wanting to die.”
“What makes you think I want to die?”
“People like Clive would prefer that you just kill yourself.”
The idea sparked anger. Timothy knew it was true. “Why would that matter? I'm not going to kill myself.”
“You'd do better to die for something greater than just ending your suffering.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I can arm you and the other suicidals with guns and explosives. We'll remove the barricade into police systems and send you in to wreak havoc.”
That was definitely better than hanging himself. Death would be instantaneous and he enjoyed the idea of harming those sadists. “You would let me do that?”
“It would give me the chance to test the occult protections I've evoked.”
“What occult protections?”
“Occult protections against attack. That's how we took over these systems. I want to see if I can transfer the protections into others.”
“What if I'm protected from attack?”
“You want to blow yourself up in those systems, be my guest.”
Timothy smiled and said, “Please don't tell my sister about it. I don't want her interfering.”