Revolution World (29 page)

Jason remained in his chair, examining Eric. He leaned forward. "And what does all this have to do with DARPA kidnapping Seth tonight?"

Eric licked his lips. "Well, DARPA got so much bad press for the raid on Floracopia that they really needed to come up with evidence for some terrible terrorist plot to justify shooting Miss Harmony and breaking all that stuff. But they didn't find anything on Floracopia. Made them real mad. They were looking really hard. From what I hear, they got some kind of dirt on that Seth guy so they decided to pick him up."

Clio stared at Eric for a long minute. "What you are saying is that DARPA found something about Seth that they used to justify taking him. So we know how it is that DARPA came to kidnap Seth. But that still doesn't help us get him back," she said slowly.

Max looked around and everyone just shrugged. He shook his head to get the stupid out, but it just wouldn't go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

S
eth shook his head to clear away the groggy sick feeling that was wrapped around it. Then he realized that it was actually a hood. He had a brief but sincere discussion with his stomach over the importance of not throwing up with a hood taped over your head. Just as he felt that he and his stomach had come to an understanding, the bag was roughly pulled away to reveal to foul faces of the crazy DARPA colonel and his flunkies.

"Are we really going to do this? Really?" asked Seth in a uninterested voice. Honestly, he hadn't expected to be bored like this, but he'd been sitting around for hours with nothing to do. He was hungry and his back was killing him. Seth realized that real life happens at a much slower pace than James Bond movies and the villains are much less interesting.

"Boy, you fail to understand the seriousness of your situation," began the colonel. He went on at length, but Seth's attention wandered around the room. He noticed a variety of sharp and wicked-looking implements.

Two men in white coats bustled around in a very efficient manner. That did not bode well. The room looked exactly like what he envisioned a high tech torture chamber would look like.

Seth interrupted the colonel to ask, "Don't you have one of those really bright lights to shine in my eyes?"

"What's that, boy?" barked the colonel.

"We're in here so you can torture me, right?" Seth asked, nodding to the equipment. "That's what all this stuff is? So where is the bright light?"

The colonel appeared somewhat taken aback by Seth's attitude. "I don't think we have one of those." He looked around the room for a minute.

"Why don't you just tell me what you want to know?" suggested Seth in a reasonable tone. "Who knows? You may not have to torture me for it."

Seth began to feel that the colonel had some speech prepared in his mind that he was determined to get out. Perhaps the best thing to do was to let him get through it so they could move on. Seth shut his mouth and looked in the colonel's direction. His mind wandered off, but he tried to nod occasionally to make it look like he was paying attention.

Seth had asked about the bright light primarily because he worried that a bright enough light would have the same effect on him as the sun. It would burn his skin and then the colonel here would know there was something wrong with him. Seth would much prefer that didn't happen.

"What if they decide to torture me by cutting me up? They'll notice when the cuts heal too quickly, won't they?" he wondered.

Seth looked back to the two men in lab coats. He wondered if they were doctors or just DARPA guys in white coats. He could only hope that doctors who participated in torture were not very good doctors. Perhaps they wouldn't notice his medical anomalies.

"You better listen to me, son," growled the colonel.

"What? I'm sorry. My mind wandered there for a minute," apologized Seth.

The colonel turned red. Seth thought that if ever there was a man in need of anger management classes, the colonel was it. He wondered how such a man came to a position of power like this. Perhaps he had been a reasonable and calm person and had cracked under the strain. Who knew?

"Well, I think we have a few ways to make sure you take our time here seriously," the colonel said with a nasty grin. He nodded to the two men in lab coats.

Seth felt incredible pain coursing through him. He looked down and saw electrodes attached to his feet. Seth had never been electrocuted before. Honestly, the experience wasn't all it was cracked up to be. After the pain stopped, the colonel grinned.

"Get used to that kind of thing. You are going to be here a very long time. Maybe for the rest of your life," the colonel announced before he swept out of the room.

"Drama queen," mumbled Seth.

The men in white coats began attaching electrodes to various other parts of his anatomy and all of them were places he would rather not be electrocuted. They also set up a table in one corner with several vials and syringes.

The pain began. In a corner of his mind, Seth was glad that all the equipment he had seen would not involve cutting him or anything else that might show them how different he was. That was a minor blessing, at least. He did not want them to find out about his disease and give him a transfusion. It was strange sort of comfort to know that, one way or another, he would be done with all of this in two weeks.

"Son, I think you are holding out on us. All we want is some information," the colonel said much later. He seemed somewhat subdued after two days of Seth's torture. Seth wondered if the colonel had ever done this before.

"So, come on. Level with me," Seth replied. "Why do you guys do this? Torture, I mean. Of all the scientific studies to be done about interrogation techniques, none of them have ever concluded that torturing people yielded better information than other methods. Like just asking them."

The colonel looked at him blankly.

"Seriously. Torturing people doesn't work. They proved it scientifically a long time ago. So why do it?" Seth asked as he spit blood on the floor. It made him sad to do this. He had dry mouth for hours and even the salty taste of blood was welcome.

"What do you mean it doesn't work?" blustered the colonel. "The United States of America wouldn't do something that didn't work. You hook a man's scrotum up to a car battery and he talks. Everyone knows that."

"Oh please," laughed Seth. "And they put you in charge of the science division of the military? That's pathetic." He was beyond caring. "You electrocute a person's gonads and they talk, sure. They'll tell you anything. Anything at all. Anything they think you want to know. That's the key. Anything they think you want to hear. But that won't be the truth. Maybe they don't know anything and they make up a lie just to get you to stop. Maybe they do know something but they tell you whatever they think will make you stop. Maybe that's the truth and maybe it isn't."

The colonel gestured to the men in white coats to continue. And Seth talked. He talked about video games he hated and his favorite kinds of clouds. He talked about Clio and every girl he'd ever dated and his favorite algorithms. Seth spun incredible tales about dragons and security systems and Japanese animation. Actually, he was fairly sure they were lame stories, but it passed the time. He had analysts working around the clock to find the meaning in his madness.

"Science shows torture is pointless. If it doesn't work, why do it, Colonel?" Seth asked between jolts of pain. "Do you just like being the kind of guy who tortures people? Are you just a cruel sadistic jerk who can't find enough butterflies to rip the wings off of?"

The colonel gave up and stalked off. The men in white coats turned off the machines. One of them brought Seth some water. Seth sipped at it gratefully.

"I think it has more to do with the past than the future," the man said. Seth looked up at him.

The white coat continued, "They never try to get information out of you to prevent some future terrorist attack. They say they do, but that's not it really. They are trying to get you to confess to something. They want revenge and they want you to be their scapegoat. The truth never seems to have much to do with it."

Seth thought about asking him why he was involved in this, but decided the answer was bound to be unfulfilling. They moved him to his cell. Seth had to admit that this cell was a pretty impressive piece of torture technology. The ceiling was just slightly too low for him to stand up straight and the walls were slightly too snug to allow him to lie down comfortably. It was cold and dank. The lights were dim and flickered. There was a nauseating static sound that faded in and out. In short, it was like every airplane toilet in the universe.

If he'd been in a mood to crack and tell them everything, this cell would have had him talking on the first day. But Seth wasn't in the mood. He wondered if the program he wrote would do its job and alert Omerta that he had been taken. He wondered if any one would come for him.

Over the next few days, Seth spent quite a bit of time thinking about Clio and Gloria. At least he thought it might be a few days. He couldn't be sure. He thought about the kind of life he wanted to have and how he might go about getting it. Seth thought about what was really important to him. He thought about what he would do differently if he ever got out.

Seth frequently chuckled to himself in a less than lucid way. Other people paid buckets of money to life coaches and psychologists and gurus to help them figure out how to live. He got all of that for free plus more electricity than any sane person could want, courtesy of the American military. What a bargain.

Sometimes, Seth allowed himself to hope that his family would negotiate for his freedom. He spun luxurious fantasies in which he would be released and go on to live a long and peaceful life. As the days passed, Seth tried to keep those thoughts out of his mind. They just made it worse. The pain that began in his stomach and joints served as a distraction. Seth's body was breaking down.

Sometimes in the torture room, Seth almost cracked and told them that all their equipment couldn't come close to achieving the level of pain that his body was in already. Whenever he thought about doing that he laughed maniacally. The men in the white coats told the colonel that his mind had broken and there was no point in proceeding.

Seth wondered if that was true.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he governor had never seen The Elephant Room so packed and he'd been drinking in that bar for more years than he cared to add up. He still managed to secure his usual table, although he suspected the bartender had moved some folks to accommodate him.

As he waited, he watched the wallscreen show the news. He wasn't the only one. The screen showed the Texas capitol earlier this week when the military had announced stricter gun control laws for Texas to be enforced immediately.

The governor winced as the image of himself filled the screen. He hated seeing himself on the screen. He always looked so old and angry.

"This amounts to nothing less than the forced disarmament of a peaceful country," he was shouting out of the wallscreen. "The right to bear arms was so cherished by our forefathers that, when they founded the United States of America, it was the second amendment. The second one. The only thing they thought more important than the right to defend themselves was the right to freedom of speech. They crossed an ocean and fought a war for those rights. How can we be expected to just give them away?" The crowd assembled on the capitol steps roared.

The screen switched to the image of a little old Texas lady in lavender pantsuit with a fluffy white bouffant. She was clutching a shotgun and screaming, "You can take it from my cold dead hands!"

That clip still made the governor smile. He smiled every time he saw one of the thousands of shirts, bumper stickers, and yard signs that had sprung up in the last week. The ones with the slogan "Come and Take It" written across the Lone Star Flag.

Lord knows he needed something to smile about these days. The whole world had gone crazy.

The senator slid into the booth. "Don't you feel like a jerk, sitting in this booth alone when this place is packed?"

"I just thought that's what it felt like to be you all the time," the governor shot back, passing his friend a beer.

"I've arranged for some people to meet us later. I think you'll find their conversation to be very stimulating," the senator replied.

The governor nodded. "Any luck getting that Omerta ambassador freed?"

The senator shook his head. "Those military jerks are like a dog with a bone. I don't know what they think that kid is going to tell them, but they're all excited about it. Now that they've done the unthinkable and snatched a foreign dignitary, they refuse to admit that it was a mistake and turn him loose. Honestly, I think we'll get him out eventually, but it's going to be a while."

"He doesn't have a while," said Jason appearing from the crowd. "He has another week at the most."

"Governor, this is one of the men I wanted you to meet," said the senator, moving over to make room for Jason in the booth.

"Seth has a medical condition that will kill him in less than a week if he does not receive treatment," said Max as he slid into the booth next to the governor. A short man with flame red hair followed behind them. This man dragged a chair over and sat down without comment.

"And you vouch for these men?" the governor asked the senator.

"I do indeed," said the senator. The governor removed the scrambler from his pocket and turned it on. Max leaned over to pick it up.

"Sir, I am flattered that you have one of my inventions, but please allow me," Max remarked as he pulled up his sleeve and tapped a button on his wristband. The wallscreen immediately went dead and a cry of disappointment went up from the crowd. "My personal scrambler is a little overzealous, but you can't be too careful these days."

"Governor, may I introduce Max," said the senator. "He's the other programmer-ambassador from Omerta. It was his nephew who was taken."

The governor shook Max's hand vigorously. "I'm very sorry about your nephew. We are doing all we can to secure his release."