J Bryan - Dominion

It was another long time before the captors returned, and this time they were accompanied by a man in a black-on-black officer’s uniform and cap. The left side of his chest displayed a silver skull next to two colorful rows of ribbon bars, of the kind Ruppert was accustomed to seeing on military dress. It was rare to see them on Terror uniforms.

This man was smaller than the other two, even slender, with fine blond hair and very pale blue eyes. He brought with him a large black bag, something a small-town doctor might have carried on house calls. He placed this on the table and sat down. He had not yet made eye contact with Ruppert or acknowledged his presence.

“The Captain’s going to ask you a couple questions,” Scarface said. “If you don’t play nice with him, we get to play with you.” The two large captors-Ruppert was beginning to think of them as prison guards-turned and walked away, and he heard the door close behind him.

The wiry Captain lifted out a very thin handheld screen and studied it, holding it at such an angle that Ruppert had no idea what he was reading. Several minutes passed before the Captain looked up.

“Daniel Ruppert?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’re a newsreader for GlobeNet-Los Angeles.”

“Yes.”

The Captain shook his head. “We’ve always had trouble with you media people. Even now we can’t trust you. You get your face plastered all over town, suddenly you think that your personal opinion is in some way important.”

Ruppert didn’t know how to respond to this, so he stayed quiet.

“Your parents live in Bakersfield. Retired. Visit them often?”

“Sometimes.”

“Looks like only the occasional holiday. Why is that?”

“It’s…I don’t really know.”

“How’s your marriage?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t fuck your wife very much.”

Ruppert stumbled to find a response. “She’s very religious.”

“Religious women fuck. I see it all the time.”

“We’re not…It’s not a…”

“Yes?”

“We’re having some problems.”

“You just told me your marriage was fine.”

“I would say it’s average.”

“There is no point in lying to us,” the Captain said.

“Our marriage isn’t great. What does this have to do with anything?”

The Captain looked him directly in the eyes for the first time. There was something cold and reptilian in the man’s pale gaze.

“You have been briefed on the rules regarding asking questions?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

The Captain looked past Ruppert and gave a short nod. The two guards seized either side of Ruppert’s chair-they hadn’t left the room at all. They carried the chair to the curtained side of the room, then hauled the curtain aside.

They tilted his chair back into a trough of scummy water, then dunked his head under the surface. Ruppert struggled to break free, but the restraints held firm and cut into him. His lungs began to burn-he hadn’t taken a breath to prepare for this.

They tilted the chair up and he took a deep breath, then they leaned him back and held his head under the water. His lungs slowly consumed the air he’d taken in, and soon they were burning again.

They brought him up again, but he barely had time to exhale before he was back under water, this time squirming and aching for air. The dirty water seemed to swallow him up, and he felt immense pressure in his head, as if his brain were being crushed by the lack of oxygen.

They repeated the process several times, more than once bringing him right up to the brink of drowning before they pulled him out.

“Enough,” Ruppert heard the Captain say. The two men lifted his chair and carried it back to the table, facing the Captain. The Captain lifted from his doctor bag a yellow plastic box strung with loops of stripped copper wire. One of the guards accepted the box from the Captain and dropped the wires over Ruppert’s head. They swung against his soaked t-shirt.

The guards retreated back towards the door. The Captain held up a smaller yellow box and extended an antenna from its top.

“Now,” the Captain said, “How would you characterize your relationship with your wife?”

“Terrible,” Ruppert said.

“Good. You see how easy it is to tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Now. Tell me where you came into possession of a SinoDyne 8000XR data console.”

“Just a junk store in Chinatown.”

“The name of the store?”

“I don’t remember.”

The Captain touched a lever on the smaller yellow box, and pain filled Ruppert’s body. All his muscles seized up, and he spasmed in every direction, straining the chair’s leather cuffs. The water soaking his skin and his meager clothing helped conduct the electric shock to every part of his body.

“Now,” the Captain said.

“It was on one of the smaller streets. Bamboo, I think. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’d tell you if I remembered.”

“Why did you purchase the unit?”

“I wanted to see the bigger picture.”

“The bigger picture of what?”

“The world. What’s really going on in the world.”

“As a newsman, are you not already in a position to understand that?”

“I only report the official story.”

“You report the truth to the people.”

“Some of it.”

“What’s that?”

“I report some of the facts. A version of the truth. I don’t even know how it gets decided what’s true and what isn’t.”

“So you look for truth in enemy propaganda. Is that it?”

“It’s not all propaganda.”

Another electric surge hit Ruppert’s body. He felt saliva foaming out of his lips.

“If it is anti-American, it is propaganda,” the Captain said. “This should be fairly simple for a man in your position to grasp. In a time of war, we must all band together. You have violated that basic principle.”

“I’ve kept these things secret,” Ruppert said. “I haven’t tried to change anyone else’s mind. I just want to know for myself.”

“I have seen this pattern before. First, you are simply curious. In time, you would be evangelizing for the enemy. Eventually, you would be willing to commit terrorist acts against our country. We have simply captured you in the process of conversion. You are a threat to the state and the people. What do you think we should do with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s that?”

“I said I don’t know, sir.”

“Tell me this, Mr. Ruppert. If your doctor found a single cancerous cell in your body, would you want him to excise it immediately, or would you allow it to thrive, going its own way, altering the cells around it?”

“I’d have him cut it out,” Ruppert whispered. The strength was seeping from his body.

“Louder.”

“I’d say cut it out!”

“Then you understand. I am the doctor, Mr. Ruppert. And you are the cancer. My role is to protect the rest of the body. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Our enemies are murderers without hearts or souls. They do not care if they die themselves, so long as they bring suffering to our country in some way. You may try to sympathize with them if you wish, in the foolish way that some would sympathize with a venomous rattlesnake, but I assure you, they will never sympathize with you. Your place is here among your own people. That is the only realm in you which you could possibly be of any value. We are in a war for our survival. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Now. Explain to me your relationship with this sports reporter…” The Captain’s eyes scanned up and down the screen in his hand. “This Sullivan Stone, real name Kerry Gristone.”

“He was a co-worker.”