John Ringo: Cally's War

“Last time you wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get it all out of my carpets.” He went to the coat closet and took out a plastic rain mat, unrolling it beneath her feet. “You know meat tenderizer takes out blood stains? Okay, well, you’re a girl, you probably do.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh God. Save me and I’ll never do anything like this again. Oh God… please, mister, I’m not whoever you want, please don’t hurt me.”

“Mmmm. I love leather.” He walked over and pulled out the bullwhip, asking again, “Who sent you, sweetness?”

“I’m a secretary !”

The distant sound of the dampened screams rolled over Worth like ambrosia. No matter how jaded you got, you didn’t ever lose your taste for this. He eventually noticed the red light blinking and fastened his jeans again before answering the door.

A squat man with a receding hairline and a pizza box ducked through the door and bolted it behind him. Setting the box down on the bar and opening it, he glanced over at the woman hanging limply from the rings.

“Geez, Worth, you didn’t leave me much to work with. At least she’s still got teeth. Man, I’ve been standing out there punching the bell for ten minutes!”

“She’s got most of them. You know I can’t hear when the system’s on.”

Sam went into the kitchen and brought back three beers. “You want one?”

“Nah. I just keep ’em for you, man.”

The shorter man shrugged and took a bite of his pizza, carrying a beer over to the working wall where a set of clean sharps were already laid out for him.

“At least you were smart enough to leave the sharps to me. You must be more suspicious than usual of this one.”

“Maybe I’m gettin’ cautious in my old age.” Worth shrugged, mixing himself a fresh martini.

“You’re not too bad off.” The interrogator snickered and poured a good half of the beer over the blonde’s head, nodding to himself as she spluttered. “Of course, that’s bad news for you. Lady, I’m sorry to say that my amateur friend’s part in this is over. Now, Worth’s a talented amateur, and he’s a real pro at his job, but he’s not me. You really need to save yourself a lot of pain and answer my questions now, instead of later.” He picked up a small scalpel and looked at it coldly, “What’s your name. Your full name.”

“Sarah Eileen Johnson,” she breathed weakly.

He looked up at Worth, who shook his head and handed him a small purse. He pulled out the already ruffled contents and looked through them.

“Driver’s license, two credit cards, a business card for Sinclair and Burke — attorneys-at-law, a few receipts, miscellaneous business cards, a little cash, a checkbook, some makeup, change… none of it new. Good documents. Very professional.” He sighed and put the scalpel down, walking over to the cabinet under the bar and pulling out a small bag. He took out a needle and a small bottle. “I always like to do sodium pentathol, first, but then I’m a bit old-fashioned.”

He injected her expertly and set the needle next to the sharps, looking at his watch. “Okay, what’s your name?”

“I’m… I’m Sarah Eileen Johnson. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Hmm… interesting.” He pulled a small flashlight out of a pocket and checked her eyes. “You want to explain to me why you’re immune to sodium pentathol?”

“I… I told you,” she stammered. “I’m a legal secretary. I handle confidential files. You… you have to get treatments and a doctor’s note or they won’t hire you.”

“Yeah?” He pulled out another bottle and a fresh needle. “Let’s try the next one.”

Five bottles later he smirked at her. “Pretty thorough protections for a secretary.”

“They’re… the insurance companies… they’re paranoid. I… I… please, please don’t hurt me anymore. I’m just a secretary!” She wailed in despair, “I don’t know anything!”

“I think the back teeth, next. Who are you?”

“Who do you want me to be?” She screamed, and pleaded, “I’ll be anybody you want me to be! Please, please…”

“So, who are you?” he asked, after waiting for her to wind down.

“I’m a secretary! Just a secretary…” she trailed off, sobbing.

A couple of hours later, he stripped off the rubber gloves he’d had to add at one point, looking up at Worth.

“There’s really no more point. Her story’s changing randomly and none of it’s very inventive.” He wandered into the kitchen and came back out with a paper plate. “It’s getting harder to revive her.” He shrugged. “We could pull an all-nighter, but I really don’t see the point.” He put a piece of the cold pizza on the plate and took it back to the microwave and came back to where Worth was scowling at the limp and half-dead mass of blood and matted blond hair. “In my professional opinion, my friend, that,” he gestured with his pizza, “is a secretary.”

“Damn. She would have been good for the whole weekend. Cut her down I guess, while we decide where to get rid of her.”

“It’s Friday.” Worth took out a bottle of solvent and started the laborious process of cleaning the blood out of his whips. “The guy who runs the incinerator on Oak Street can sell all the GalTech drugs he can get his hands on. For a couple hundred hits of Provigil-C he’ll walk around the block.” He tossed a damp and bloody paper towel into a trash bag and grabbed another, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam cut her down and she collapsed on the mat.

He had an instant to register that the squat the body landed in was oddly coordinated before she erupted upwards into a leaping roundhouse that caught the torturer behind the jawline at an angle. The man collapsed as though his strings had been cut and the red blur flipped off of his dead friend’s waistband and landed facing him. She paused just long enough to pivot around one hip and hit him with a side kick to the solar plexus. It connected with enough force to throw him back against the coat closet door, his head cracking against it solidly, and leave him on the ground, gasping up through sickly doubled vision, “Who… who are you?”

The last thing Charles Worth saw was the muzzle flash from his late colleague’s pistol, in his victim’s leveled hands.

“I’m somebody that doesn’t chit-chat while they’re killing people.” She walked over to the body and tilted her head appraisingly a moment, before carefully and deliberately spitting on it. “The name’s Cally O’Neal, and that’s for trying to kill me when I was eight.”

The door burst open to admit three heavily armed men in black body armor.

“You’re late , Granpa,” she snapped coldly.

“The traffic was miserable.” The team point pulled off his mask and ran a hand through blazingly red hair, absently tucking a plug of Red Man in between cheek and jaw. He was a medium height man with a broad, low-slung body and long arms that gave him something of the impression of a gorilla. He looked to be about twenty but something about the way he moved, the look in his eyes, gave an impression of age and experience.

“Three hours?” Cally asked, incredulously, twisting her still naked body slightly as if stretching out a sore muscle and examining her pulled fingernails. “It had better have been a full scale pile-up. I was supposed to be bait not the trigger puller, dammit!”

“Hi, Cally,” Tommy Sunday said, pulling off his balaclava and grimacing. “Tough day at the office, huh?” The number two was a huge man, broad across the shoulders and heavily muscled, with bright green eyes in a face that was almost movie star handsome.

“Yeah, those files were miserable,” she replied. “Give.”