Brett Battles - The Collected

“Congratulations. Can I go back to my suite now? I have a massage scheduled in a few minutes.”

Romero began to shake with anger. As he tried to speak, he suddenly began to cough.

Moving quickly to his side, Harris could see that Romero’s face was turning red as he continued to hack. Harris ran over to the water pitcher on the credenza, filled one of the glasses, and hurried back. “Drink this,” he said, holding it to the old man’s lips. “Janus!”

The big Ukrainian threw open the door and rushed into the room.

Harris shot a glance at the prisoner. “Take him back to his-”

“No,” Romero croaked. He coughed again, and took another drink. “No. I’m not finished.”

Janus looked at Harris, unsure of what to do.

“Maybe you can continue this later,” Harris suggested.

Romero shook his head, no longer coughing. “No. Now.”

“At least allow me to get your nurse.”

“No!”

Through it all, the prisoner had watched the old man, his only movement a growing wry smile. “How much longer do you have?” he asked.

“Longer than you,” the old man shot back.

The prisoner snickered, his smile unwavering.

Harris studied Romero for a moment longer, then took a step back and nodded at Janus. With a shrug, Janus walked back into the hallway and shut the door.

The old man locked eyes with the prisoner.

“I assume you also know why you are here,” Romero said.

“A petty act of revenge?”

Harris eyed his boss, worried the old man was going to lose it again, but Romero seemed to be in control now.

“Petty is a matter of perspective. If you wish to think of it that way, be my guest. As long as you know why you’re here, that is all that is important to me.”

Romero paused, as if expecting some kind of retort, but the prisoner merely stared at him.

“One more thing before you return to your cell, something I want you to know and live with in the short time you have left. Since you were the one in charge and organized the…what do they call it?”

That was Harris’s cue. “Termination,” he said.

“Right. The one who organized the termination , you will be the last to die. That way, you can watch each of the men from the team you put together take their last breath, and know that you are the one who brought this on. You are the one killing them.”

If the smile faltered on the prisoner’s face, Harris didn’t see it.

The old man leaned back. “Okay. Now I’m done.”

“Janus!” Harris said.

As Janus reentered the room, the prisoner stood up. He gave the old man a slight nod, and did the same with Harris. As he rounded his chair, Janus latched on to his arm and guided him forcefully toward the door.

Before they could exit, the prisoner stopped and looked back. “One thing you should probably know.”

Both Harris and the old man looked at him.

“You’re wrong about which one of us is going to die first.”

“Get him out of here!” Harris yelled at Janus.

Janus all but threw the prisoner into the hallway. Once the door was shut, Harris looked at Romero. The old man’s head was bowed, his hands tightly clutching the edge of the desk.

“He’s just trying to-”

Romero cut him off. “I want you to move up the start time of the next round.”

“Of course. When would you like to begin?”

“Right now.”

“What now?” one of Nate’s fellow prisoners whispered.

They had once again been hooded and led from their cells into the courtyard, but instead of being guided onto pedestals, they had been lined up next to each other and told not to move.

The cooling breeze bespoke the onset of evening, and would have felt good if not for the fact it kept blowing the new shirt Nate had been given against the untreated wounds on his back. But that was more of an annoyance. The true pain that continued radiating through his body at a steady, unrelenting pace needed no wind to aid it.

Thirty minutes passed with no new instructions. Nate knew it was meant to weaken their minds, by allowing them to speculate what might be coming and letting their worst fears rise from their unconsciousness. But Nate-and the others, he was sure-had been too well trained for such a simple trick to work.

In the distance, he heard the whine of the same electric motor he’d heard that morning before the whippings occurred, and now knew it must be a wheelchair bearing the old man from the office.

This was obviously his show.

The noise grew until it was somewhere in front of them, and then stopped, silence filling the courtyard.

Nate expected either Harris or the man in the chair to lecture them on what was about to happen, but instead a sudden hum filled the air. Before he could even figure out what it might be, there was a loud, unmistakably electric crackle.

There was a pause, then another crackle, this time only a dozen feet in front of him, the air nearby tingling with the charge.

And yet another, a little farther away.

“Who would like to go first?” Harris asked.

No one said a word.

“No volunteers?”

Silence for several seconds, then the old man said, “Him.”

The sound of bodies moving. Nate was jostled to the side, and the man who’d been standing next to him was grabbed and pulled forward.

“Hey!” the prisoner called out. It was Berkeley. “What are you doing?”

“On the table,” Harris said. “Strap him down and remove his shoes.”

Nate tensed. Shoes ?

“What…what are you doing?” Berkeley asked again.

“Remove the hood.”

A pause, then Berkeley said, “Oh, God. No! Please, no!”

“It’s going to happen one way or another, so there’s no use struggling,” Harris told him.

For the next few minutes, there was only the sound of movement.

“We’re ready,” Harris finally announced.

“Proceed,” the old man told him.

The hum started up again.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” Berkeley repeated.

Without warning, the volume of the hum increased, and Berkeley’s pleading became a guttural, stuttering groan. This lasted several seconds before the hum decreased. Berkeley sounded like a balloon giving up its last bit of air.

Electroshock. There was no question. And from what Harris said earlier, at least one of the electrodes must have been attached to a foot. That was a big, big problem. While the synthetic material around Nate’s faux foot was good, it wasn’t skin. Even if they didn’t notice it, which he was sure they would, the material would melt as the massive amount of electricity shot through it.

“Again,” the old man said.

The hum increased, sending another shock through Berkeley’s system.

Next up was Lanier. He made no struggle or pleas for divine intervention. The only thing he said after he was strapped in was, “What are you waiting for?”

“Next?” Harris asked.

“Him,” the old man said.

This time the hands seized Nate. He let them maneuver him to a table.

“Here. Let me help,” he said. He kicked off his left shoe before the hands moved to his feet.

What he didn’t know was if they needed both or just one.

As the bag was removed from his head, he looked down to see a man remove his left sock and place an electrode against the sole of his foot. His right shoe, the one on his artificial leg, was left untouched.

He was so relieved that he barely noticed as they placed the secured electrodes to his body.

“Ready,” Harris said.

“Proceed.”

All thoughts vanished from Nate’s mind as every nerve in his body caught fire. There was no time, no place, no nothing. Just a brilliant spike of white, searing pain.