Peter Hamilton - Fallen Fragon

"Sir," Lawrence grunted with extreme petulance. If he hadn't been so unstable he would have said fuck it and simply smacked Bryant one.

"Now where is Jones?'

"Sir?"

"Jones Johnson. Remember him?"

"I thought he'd gone back to barracks."

"He hasn't reported in, and the police didn't take him into custody with the rest of you. Where is he?"

"I don't know, sir. Have you checked the hospital?"

"Of course I have."

Lawrence rubbed at his eyes. The capsules seemed to be having some effect. At least the nausea was fading. But he felt desperately tired. "Officially he doesn't have to report back until oh-six-hundred hours, sir."

"Don't play it smart with me, Sergeant, you don't have the IQ to pull it off. Jones is the only person unaccounted for, and he's under my command. Have you any idea how badly all this reflects on me? After this total debacle, I don't want further loose ends. Do you understand that?"

"What I'm saying, sir, is that if he got out from the fight before the police arrived, then he's probably with a girl."

"He'd better be. I want you to take that shambles you call a platoon back to barracks right away. You're on double house duties, and any breakages from the Junk Buoy will be met out of your pay. I shall also be loading an official reprimand onto your record. Now get your act together, Newton."

The curtain was tugged back forcefully as the captain strode out.

Lawrence gave his invisible back the finger, then groaned in misery as he sank back down onto the examination table.

* * *

Jones Johnson woke to a hot ache in his wrists and back. Despite that, he was alarmingly cold.

Not surprising. He was naked, spread-eagled with his wrists fastened in some kind of manacles that hung from an oval frame. Ankles, too, were held fast against the base of the frame. The rest of the room was empty. As far as he could see, it didn't even have a window, just a plain wooden door on his left. The walls were whitewashed concrete, the floor some kind of spongy black matting.

Instinctively he tugged at the manacles. Whoever had built this frame knew what he was doing. His freedom of movement was very limited.

The worst thing about it was, he simply could not remember how he'd got here. There had been some kind of fight in the Junk Buoy. He'd seen a knife flash. Combined with a chair?

What the fuck happened after that?

His brief struggle with the manacles left him panting. There was the dull throbbing on his forehead that indicated a big bruise.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Hey, can you guys hear me? Anyone there? Hey."

He watched the door for a while, expecting someone to come see what the commotion was about. Nothing.

It's a brothel, he told himself, an S and M joint, that's all. I took a hit in the fight, and those turds Karl and Lewis paid for this. Some dominatrix will arrive any minute and start hitting my ass with a cane. The bastards. "Hey, come on, guys, this isn't funny anymore."

Still nothing happened. He couldn't hear any traffic sounds, any voices.

Bastards.

He needed to pee, too. God damn!

And who would have thought that Memu Bay had a cathouse that specialized in this kind of stuff. He stopped that train of thought straightaway.

Some time later the door opened.

"About fucking time," Jones yelled. "Come on, get me out of here."

A man came in, dressed in a dark blue boilersuit. He paid no attention to Jones at all. He was carrying a large, and clearly heavy, glass container, which he placed on the floor by Jones's restrained feet.

"Hey! Hey, you," Jones said. "What the fuck is this? Hey, say something. Talk to me."

The man turned round and walked out.

Jones shook himself about as much as he could. It was all pointless, the manacles never budged. But the door hadn't been closed.

"Look, whatever they paid, I'll match it."

The man came in again, lugging another, identical, glass container.

Jones found he was sweating now. His heart had begun to flutter in that way that acknowledged his subconscious knew something was deeply wrong. He just couldn't admit it to himself, because that would be when the panic and dread would kick in.

"Please," he asked. "What is this?"

But the man had left again.

He didn't want to think it. Not that. Not KillBoy. That this wasn't something Karl and Lewis had thought up for a laugh when they were drunk. That he'd been the dumbest fuck in the universe and let some fanatical resistance group snatch him.

"But I don't know anything," he whispered. "I don't."

Torture was centuries out of date. It really really was. There were drugs, all sorts of techniques. Available to all modern, well-equipped, properly financed police and security forces. Didn't Thallspring have them? Backward primitive Thallspring?

It didn't matter, he persuaded himself, because Z-B would be turning the town upside down in their search for him. The sarge would never let them stop. He looked after his men. Good old sarge. Any second now and the door would fly off its hinges, and the platoon would charge in to rescue him.

The mute man was back again, with a third container. This time he'd brought a load of clear plastic tubing as well, which he left looped round the container's short neck. Jones stared at it, bitterness and furious resentment contaminating his anger. The apparatus was for an enema. He was going to be raped. Gang-raped most likely. Part of the softening up. Part of breaking him.

He clenched his fists, pulling desperately. "God no. No. No." His contorted face so nearly let tears escape down his cheeks. "Why me? Why did you pick on me? It's not fair. Not fair."

The door closed again behind the man. Jones let out a sob, and the tension went out of his body, leaving him drooping painfully from the frame.

"Please," he told the empty room. "I'm nobody. I'm not important. You don't have to do this. Please."

He was sniveling now. Wretched and pathetic. Back on Earth, anti-interrogation training had gone through the routines for strengthening resolve. How to withstand tiredness and strain, how not to be caught out in lies. That was training. That wasn't real. Not when some bunch of psychotic terrorists have got you stripped naked and strung out like they're about to crucify you. Not when you are so utterly helpless that you would genuinely sell your soul to the devil you now want to believe in very badly indeed. Because there's no other way out.

Where were they? God damn it, where were the platoon?

"Everyone is important in their own way, Mr. Johnson."

Jones's head snapped up. There was a beautiful young woman in the room: her long flatfish face was one that any man would find enchanting. Thick dark hair swung around her head as she stared at him. Her movement was birdlike, examining him from minutely different angles. She was twisting a gold ring on her index finger.

"Please," he entreated. "Just let me go."

"No." She said it with a finality that was horrifying.

"Why! What are you?"

"At this particular stage of our mission, I suppose you could call me a revolutionary anarchist. It is my task to bring chaos and disorder to Memu Bay."

"What?" he blurted.

She smiled gently and took a step closer. Her proximity was one he found alarmingly sexual. Then she picked up the tubing. One end was carefully plugged into the top of a container. She began to uncoil the rest.

"Don't," he begged. "Jesus, please."

"There will be very little pain," she said. "I am not a sadist, Mr. Johnson."

Jones clenched his buttocks as if he were going for Olympic gold. "I'll tell you anything. Just... don't."

"I'm sorry. You're not here for questioning. I already know more about the universe than you ever dreamed existed."

He stared at her, coldly shocked by the realization that she was no revolutionary, she was simply insane. Bug-eyed, dancing-in-the-moonlight crazy. It was one of the universe's most heinous crimes that a creature so beautiful should possess such a demented soul.