Down in the Hole
The
time that had passed was abstract. True to the style of the House, the torture
was not physical, but a forced disorientation. The last span of darkness, he
was sure, had lasted over forty-eight hours. But how long it was beyond that he
had no way of knowing. He had been stripped of his clothes other than his
underwear, which was rank with the smell of sweat and had gone from a clean
white to a filthy tan. There was actually a little toilet – one of those
portable devices a person can put on a yacht that isn’t attached to any
plumbing, but sequesters away waste until it can be extracted and disposed of.
There was a bottle of hand sanitizer that they provided him with, though it
wasn’t enough that swallowing it would put him beyond their reach.
The
room had a concrete floor and a large glass window facing outward onto what
seemed like a dark garage or bunker – a space wide enough to accommodate a pair
of large trucks and was featureless save for a few light bulbs that were bare
except for simple plastic cages. He could not see the end of that space to the
left of his cell, but the cell’s right wall was shared with the back of the
room. The glass wall between his cell and the open space seemed to be a couple
inches thick, but was manufactured precisely so that it would not distort
subjects on the other side.
His
own cell was about seven or eight feet wide and maybe twelve feet deep. There
was a door in the back wall that they would use to access him when it came time
to inject him with psychotropic drugs. He could only theorize that this was
accomplished while he was asleep or somehow sedated by an invisible gas, as he
could not remember seeing anyone come in the door nor remember receiving
injections, but his arm was covered with little spots where the needle had
clearly gone in, and the mind-warping experience of the drugs spoke for
themselves.
He
had come, in his less lucid periods, to doubt the existence of gravity. He had
a very specific memory of sitting on the wall, with his back to the ceiling,
bawling his eyes out over an obscure line of poetry that, in a dream-logic sort
of way, he could not remember. There was a line from this poem – a poem of
which, in his right mind, if such a thing existed, he had never heard – that
chronicled irony and arrogance:
“Look
on my works, ye mighty, and despair.”
He
was consumed, in that moment, and thereafter as if experiencing aftershocks of
an earthquake, with an unsettling note of horror: had the engraver, or the king
he claimed to quote, known of his fate, and left those words not as a boast but
as a warning?
The
House was dying. Or rather, the House was mutating, evolving into something mad
and cruel and, the man who was variously called James Tarson and Chris Thatch
and Four Eyes feared, self-destructive. The House was meant to emerge as a new
god built of people, rational, immortal, and eternal. Yet here were those who
would have it become some writhing mass of destruction, destined to burn out
its host and thus perish along with it like a cancerous growth.
When
the lights came back on, it was usually Question Time. A tall, handsome black
man, about fifty years old, would pull up a metal folding chair and sit down.
He was dressed in a cheap, moth-eaten suit that seemed utterly wrong on him. This
was a man who was clean-shaven without a hint of stubble and looked as if he
had his hair cut on a weekly basis, with a perfect fade and flat-top that never
seemed uneven. He was the only human face that Four Eyes had seen since he was
captured, and he found him beautiful, and that just made the suit feel all the
more wrong.
Mr.
Cheap, as he had come to think of him, popped open the document case that
doubled as a clipboard. He seemed to review his notes for a solid twenty
minutes before he spoke, and Four Eyes had gotten in the habit of waiting in
silence rather than fruitlessly attempt to engage his captor.
Making
a little note, Mr. Cheap finally looked up. “Four Eyes, I hate to be the one to
tell you this, but Six Coins is dead.”
Four
Eyes took a moment to process this. Could be a lie, meant to make him feel less
on solid ground, or it could be true. Four Eyes decided he would try not to let
the information change his behavior.
“When did he recruit you?”
Four
Eyes remained silent. He knew better than to offer up information without any
incentive.
“Fair
enough,” said Mr. Cheap. “Orville Sacker, thirty-three years old. Born in Kelmar,
Omlos Province to Mayla Proudley, born Sacker. Half-sister Jaina Proudley. You
attended Aligheri University, graduated with honors age 21, worked at Reben
Arts Endowment before dropping off the map at age 25. We assume that’s when you
were recruited, but I’d appreciate it if you could confirm.”
Four
Eyes had to fight not to wince. Yes, Orville Sacker had become just one of many
identities for him, and he had long ago accepted the possibility that threats
could be made against his family in a situation like this, but it was never
enjoyable to see such a hypothetical see realization.
He
hadn’t spoken to his mother or his sister in a long time. He had not faked his
death, as some Agents were known to do when they entered the House. It had
never really bothered him to think that they might be concerned with him. The
House had not chosen them, and that meant that, ultimately, they were not all
that important. The House had a way of detecting remarkable people and bringing
them into the fold. He had a general sense that he would prefer these two women
to live comfortable and happy lives – he did not feel any resentment toward
them – but again, it did not concern him terribly.
What
did concern him was that he was having trouble imagining a scenario in which he
walked out of this cell alive. It
was possible they had taken him out of fear that he might reveal something he
knew about the House. A panicked thought shot through his mind that it was his
own faction that had captured him. But if they wanted him dead, that would have
happened a long time ago.
“You
haven’t killed me yet. So I have something you want.”
“That’s
an interesting theory.”
Four
Eyes smirked. “Right, so there’s nothing you want me to tell you? I’ve got to
be costing you a thousand tolls a day at least, with all the drugs you’re
putting in my system. So clearly I’m worth something to you.”
“Not
to us, no.”
Ok… thought Four Eyes. Don’t let them know you’re confused.
“To
be honest, Mr. Sacker, my main purpose here is to keep you engaged and focused.
I’m here to keep your mind from fraying on the edges. Do you know what
prolonged isolation can do to a person’s mind? It can lead to intense
depression, self-destructive behavior, and even hallucinations.”
“The
drugs seem to be taking care of the hallucinations just fine.”
“Drugs?”
Mr. Cheap made a note on his pad. “What drugs?”
Four
Eyes chuckled. “Ok, look, if you’re going to fuck with me, I’d appreciate it if
you put in a little more effort, I mean, look at the tracks on…” and with that,
he looked down at his arm. All the pinpricks were gone.
“What
makes you think I’m fucking with you, Mr. Sacker?”
“That…
uh…” Four Eyes backed away. The lights in the outer room were blinking off one
by one. “Where am I?”
“You
don’t need to know, Mr. Sacker.”
And
with that, the whole outer room went dark, and Four Eyes could not see anything
but his own reflection in the thick glass.
(Copyright Daniel Szolovits 2017)
