Chris Jordan - Torn

Missy says, “When this is over, I never want to see snow again.”

While they bicker and whine, I try to concentrate on what to do if the worst happens. A full-fledged assault with guns. Where to hide, how I might escape. I’ve sort of figured out the hide part-the Barlows have a cast-iron tub in one of the guest bedrooms that looks bulletproof-but I’m having trouble picturing escape. Escape to where, exactly? Into the frozen night of the Rocky Mountains, in the dead of winter? Where would I run to, over the snow and ice? How would I stay alive?

Better to give myself up, if possible, and take my chances.

Thinking long range, maybe I can pretend to be a Ruler. Convince them I believe all their selfish, control-your-mind-and-you’ll-control-the-world nonsense. Why not? Plead my case to be reunited with Noah. Make them think I’ll help Mrs. Delancey with the tutoring, or the indoctrination, or whatever it is. Be a good little Ruler and agree with everything they say. The important thing is I’ll be with my little boy.

Beyond that, I can’t think or even fantasize about what might happen. How do you survive a civil war without taking sides? Because that’s what this feels like, a war between the wackos. Arthur Conklin’s wife and her followers, Ruler Weems and his, and me and Noah caught in the middle, pawns in a game we can’t possibly understand.

“Oh my god,” Missy says, her voice piping with fear. “Look, it’s him. Oh my god, we’re all going to die.”

They both stare at the new presence on the monitor. A tall, rangy-looking guy in a hooded, fur-lined jacket. The way the security guards respond-they do everything but salute-it’s obvious he’s the boss.

“Kavashi,” Eldon says.

Then he wrestles me to the floor-stronger than he looks, the bastard-and slips a heavy plastic fastener around my wrists, pulling it tight. And when I tell him he’s scum of the earth, and I hope he really does die, the sooner the better, he slips a gag into my mouth.

Missy helps.

Shane lies on the floor of the holding cell, attempting to gather his thoughts. A full blast from a Taser doesn’t make you lose consciousness, it makes you wish you’d lost consciousness. Aside from anything else-the fear, for instance-the experience is totally humiliating, both physically and mentally. You go from being a strong, physically fit individual to a bag of twitching Jell-O in the time it takes to squeeze a trigger. Individuals deranged by drugs or psychosis were sometimes able to overcome a Taser attack, ripping out the darts, but a normal person is rendered totally helpless. On an intellectual level you’re aware that a Taser jolt is low-amperage, nonlethal, and that you’re not going to die. But on a physical level it feels exactly like death, a horrible, humiliating death where you lose all control of your dying body.

The only reason he didn’t wet his pants is because he’d used the toilet shortly before Kavashi arrived. Small favors. Of greater concern is the fact that he can’t seem to think straight. Did Kavashi blast him two times, or was it three? No, wait, it was the three trigger pulls, prolonging the experience. Something must have malfunctioned, because it lasted, much, much longer than the thirty seconds it usually takes for the battery to discharge. Or did it? Maybe his perception of time got all messed up. Is that possible? Did it scramble his brain? But-and this comes back to him in bits and pieces-according to the instructor at the Academy, a Taser doesn’t affect the brain directly, it subdues a perp by short-circuiting muscles and nerves, more or less locking the brain out of the process.

So why can’t he think straight? Did something go wrong, did the Taser short-circuit his mind, as well as his muscles? Can’t think, and physically he feels totally spent, as if he’s just run a marathon, or endured a flood of adrenaline, or both. Shaky, shaky. What he really wants to do is escape into sleep, let his brain recharge. If a Taser can recharge, why not his brain? Does that make sense? But he can’t let himself sleep because something bad is happening, only he can’t seem to remember what, exactly. Something Kavashi knows. Something that can hurt Haley Corbin.

Right. Kavashi knows who Shane is, and why he’s here. He knows Shane is looking for Haley Corbin and her little boy. He knows Shane has been asking about a Ruler named Eldon Barlow. And just before blasting Shane for the second time-or was it third?-he put it all together. Something in his eyes, a glint of triumph.

Stupid, stupid. You assumed Kavashi knew all about Mrs. Corbin, but he didn’t, not until you helped him find her.

Sit up, you stupid man. Think of something. Do some thing.

Without warning, the door to the cell opens.

Before Shane can stop himself he rolls under the bed, curls into a fetal position, wanting to hide from the Taser.

“Mr. Shane?”

Out of a bleary, bloodshot eye, he sees, not his tormentor Kavashi, but a strange little man. Something wrong with the man’s face, as if he’s been badly sculpted in kindergarten clay. Wearing black like a priest, but without the collar.

“Randall Shane? I’m Wendall Weems. I know where Mrs. Corbin is hiding. We’ve got to get you out of here, Mr. Shane. You’re her only hope.”

Something about the man’s manner and voice is strangely calming, and the tension leaves Shane. He’s still afraid of getting zapped with a Taser-physically terrified-but he’s able to pull himself together, drag his body shakily upright.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m great.”

He’s far from feeling great, but Weems leads him from the holding cell, and then he’s out in the cold clean air and suddenly his mind is clear and he knows what to do. More or less.

A few minutes later, as they load gear into a borrowed BK Security van-okay, stolen-Shane asks Weems how he managed to get inside the security station without being seen, let alone into the holding cells.

“I have my little secrets,” Weems says, handing Shane body armor and a police-issue tactical shotgun.

They’ve already loaded in the smoke canisters and the flash-bang stun grenades, borrowed-okay, stolen-from the BKS armory.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Of course,” the little man says. “That’s part of the plan.”

“So you do have a plan?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good,” says Shane. “Always helps to have a plan. Get in, fasten your seat belt.”

“Where are we going?” asks the little man. Although he already seems to have a pretty good idea.

“Scene of the crime,” says Shane.

“What crime?”

“The one that’s about to happen. That’s my plan.”

It’s weird. I’d been thinking of the cast-iron bathtub as a possible refuge and that’s where Eldon decides to stow me. Bound hand and foot with plastic ties and some sort of ball-rubber gag in my mouth, like a pacifier only much bigger. He slips me into the cool dry tub without ceremony. A moment later Missy lifts my head, provides me with a pillow.

“There you go,” she says, as if the pillow will make it all better. “I’m really sorry, but Eldon’s right, we can’t have you running away. What if we need to trade you? I mean, in a funny way you’re all we’ve got right now, okay?”

No, it is not okay. If looks could kill, Missy Barlow would be a smoking pool of melted protoplasm by now.

Leaving me helpless in the tub, they return to their master bedroom suite to watch the monitors and, from the sound of it, to bicker and whine like a couple of overbred whippets.

I told you so! No you didn’t! Shut up! No, you shut up!

F. Scott Fitzgerald-I read The Great Gatsby in eleventh grade and loved it; go Daisy!-had it partly right. The rich are different than you and me: if the Barlows are any example, they’re really, really stupid. If that’s what you get after years of improving your mind, I’m happy to remain unimproved. And relatively poor, just as a precaution.