Hidden Faults (11 page)

I fell to the ground, scrabbling at my throat for breath, trying to call for help but no sounds came out of my mouth. I heard shouting, feet thudding across a wooden floor. I reached up blindly for aid but no hands grabbed mine. More shouting, and then....

Pain
. Pain so shocking I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, my body completely out of my control. It went on and on and then....

Nothing.

~~~

I didn’t regain consciousness for some time—more than long enough, I discovered, for my life as I’d known it to come to a brutal and complete end. I had passed out a free man—I awoke a criminal, drugged and mandatorily condemned to an indefinite sentence for concealment of paranormality, my job gone forever, my possessions seized to be sent back to my next of kin, and my reputation, privileges and position as an honest professional obliterated. A hatchet-faced Justice official delivered the news in one curt, unbroken speech while I blinked and tried to take in my surroundings and my status. A prisoner in a cell. A paranormal, and apparently a terrorist.

There would be no trial. The President himself authorised internment in such cases. No one wanted to know my defence—all they wanted to know was how I’d managed to conceal my powers for so long. I was dragged out of my cell and to a bare, harshly lit room with one chair, one table, and two Nats who took turns to question me.

Over and over they asked the same things. Who’d helped me? When had I found out I was a pyrokinetic? Who did I know who was a para? I answered the same way over and over, my head fuzzy and my thoughts disjointed from the naksen, being pumped into my body at massive dosages from a newly implanted injector. My arm throbbed painfully from the hasty implantation surgery. No one gave a damn. Just answer the questions. I only had the one answer—I didn’t know.

I asked to see my parents. Refused. Kregan—refused. A request for a lawyer made the sharp-faced men in black fall about in laughter. I wasn’t allowed to see or talk to
anyone
other than investigators. The naksen stopped me from pissing myself from raw terror at the situation, but it didn’t dull me so much that I didn’t know how well and truly fucked I was.

Finally they stopped. I was so exhausted, I could have lain my head down on the grey metal table and gladly slept, right there, in chains and in prison overalls that stank of my sweat and fear. I wasn’t allowed to, of course. Guards dragged me up, while the investigators—I never knew their names—watched with hooded eyes.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, as the door opened.

“Nothing,” one of them said. “You’re going to be in prison until you rot, you fucking para. Get him the hell out of here,” he snarled at the guards gripping me painfully tight.

A para. Me. It looked like I’d have a long, long time to appreciate the irony of that.

They took me back into the bare, freezing cold and windowless cell where I’d found myself upon waking. I had no idea whether it was day or night. Nothing in the room but me, a wooden shelf to act as a bed, and a bucket. I hadn’t eaten since I woke up, but I didn’t feel hungry—partly the drug, partly terror.

I huddled on the ‘bed’ and shoved my fist into my mouth so I wouldn’t scream or beg. I didn’t know where to start trying to make sense of any of this. How could I have suddenly developed pyrokinesis after twenty-nine years? The latest any paranormal was known to manifest was the age of ten, Most were much younger. Adults? Never. The investigators assumed I’d been hiding it. How could I blame them? I had no way of proving any different.

No one could help me. Paranormals were considered potential terrorists. Anyone hiding their powers was believed to be the real thing. The only surprise was that I hadn’t been sentenced to hang, but then I hadn’t heard of a paranormal being executed since I was a child. Was a lifetime in prison better than death?

I pulled up the sleeve of my grey overall with my teeth and stared at the dressing over the new injector site. I already understood why paras loathed naksen so much—but why it was taken by those who didn’t need to, I had no idea. I couldn’t
think
. I could just about feel—but everything was so muffled and slow. I had trouble remembering names. Timo’s full name. The...the woman who worked with Tanika...Ajeile. It was like becoming senile. I would be like this for the rest of my life.

Tears began to run down my face, but I couldn’t work up enough energy to even cry properly. The moisture leaked out while I sat there, despairing, confused, hopeless. No one cared. No one checked on me before I finally collapsed sideways and found a drugged and unrestful unconsciousness.

They woke me by shaking me and shouting, dragging me upright before I was properly aware, to begin my imprisonment proper. Silent, heavily armed men forced me into a secured veecle with blackout windows, and then drove for about an hour, emerging into a large concrete bunker. Two massive guards—a third following with an electroreed and gun at the ready—hauled me, without ceremony and still barefoot and chained, through doors and along corridors until we finally arrived, incongruously, in a shower-room.

There they unchained and stripped me without the least gentleness and thrust me under a cold water shower. They were serious about it too, and wouldn’t let me get out from under the freezing stream until every square midec of skin, my hair, and even under my nails was clean. I was close to hypothermia before they allowed me to get out of the shower.

Next came the medical examination. The medic covered the new implantation site with synthaskin and took samples of various body fluids. The medic’s attitude was one of undisguised loathing. I couldn’t tell if it was me, my profession, or all paranormals which disgusted him, but he managed to make every procedure close to torture. He also managed to do all of it without speaking to me directly once—asking the guards to make me piss into his sample jar, to make me hold my arm out, and so on. I had been insulated from this raw hatred, I’d heard about, seen directed at others. Now it was my life. Like the naksen.

They still didn’t allow me to dress, but at least I was dry now. When the medic indicated with a flick of his hand that he’d finished and no longer required my odious presence, the guards dragged me out along another corridor to a barber who removed all my hair with a brisk, efficient technique. No sooner had his clippers stopped buzzing than I was taken to the room next to the barber’s. There a technician sealed my status permanently as one of our society’s most despised members—or non-members, in my case. A tattoo on both hands, warning anyone and everyone that I was dangerous, and why. The point of doing so was lost on me, since I’d never again use the powers that had so briefly and disastrously manifested, but naturally my opinion interested no one.

Tattoos shitting hurt, much more than I thought they would. What they’d been like in the day when the tattooists used actual needles instead of hyposprays I had no idea, but even the naksen didn’t dull the pain. They were also revoltingly ugly—certainly by design. The least of my problems, without doubt, but it still bothered me more than the other indignities. Those, I could try to forget. This thing would be a reminder for the rest of my life.

At last I was apparently ready to be taken to a cell. In a small, bare room with nothing but a table and metal chair, the guards allowed me to dress and gave me a pair of thin shoes that would probably fall apart if they got wet, a pack of basic toiletries, and no other personal possessions of any kind. They provided food and water and gave me ten minutes to eat and drink. Then they removed the tray, though I wasn’t quite done. They told me to use the washroom off to the side to relieve myself and clean my teeth. And then they finally took me to my new home. The guards tossed me into a cell without a word and left me to get on with it.

I’d never been in a prison. I didn’t watch dramasims set in them, and the media was not allowed inside to report on them. I was completely unprepared for the reality—a tiny barred cell with bunk beds, a sink, a toilet, and what looked like hundreds of pictures of naked women on the walls.

And one very large male occupant.

“So you’re the fresh meat.”

The voice rasped, deep and menacing. Damaged vocal chords, I noted absently as I moved back against a wall, my head against an image of a woman’s implausible breast. The voice’s owner stood up and walked over to loom in front of me.

“Uh...hi.”

I was tall but this guy was taller than me by at least half a head and three times as broad, muscles bulging out of the thin material of his overalls. The shaven head and broken nose made him look feral. I forced myself to remember I probably looked as threatening.

“I’m Jodi.”

“What’cha in fer, Jodi?”

He moved closer. I tried not to cringe as he bared a mouth full of broken teeth at me. I doubted it was a smile.

“Er...” I held up my newly tattooed hands. “Para.”

“S’at right?” He leaned a hand on the wall beside my head. “I’m Ganwe.”

“H-hi—”

“Shhh.” He ran his thick fingers down my face, and I shivered. “Now, Jodi. ‘S few things you gotta get clear from the start, ‘kay?”

“L-like what?” I couldn’t help it. I started to shake, hugging myself. He was so huge and right in my face. If I moved, he could swat me like a crippled bug.

“Like, this is my cell. I’m the boss. And you belong to me. Got it? Paid good for you. You’re mine.”

“Paid? Why?”

He did that teeth baring thing again that did so little to reassure me. “Last one didn’t last too long. Didn’t understand the rules. My rules. You gonna understand them better, or am I gonna have to get rid of you the way I did him?”

“I—”

“Before you answer, you better know that he ain’t doing too good now. He got kinda all broken.”

“Please...don’t hurt me.”

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, Jodi.” His voice now a parody of a sultry whisper. “‘Less you don’t follow the rules. Tell me the rules like you heard ‘em.”

I swallowed, trying to think through the drug and the terror. “Y-your cell. You’re the boss. I belong to you.”

He patted my cheek. “That’s good. That’s real good. You’re smart, ain’t ya. Talk kinda fancy. Are you smart?”

“I...uh...am...was...a doctor.”

He raised his eyebrows. “For real? Not much use to me. Don’t let paras be doctors, do they?”

“No.”

He rubbed his hand on my chest. I very much wanted him to stop. I couldn’t tell him to.

“So, what you are to me is a pretty boy with an arm full of the good stuff. Don’t use myself, but I got friends who like it.”

What was he talking about? The naksen was no use to him or anyone else. Was this his idea of conversation?

He suddenly gripped my jaw agonisingly hard. “Right. Enough talking.”

He made a movement too swift for me to follow, and something sharp poked me in the gut.

“This thing? Will kill you. Not fast, not easy. Medics here don’t like paras. They won’t help. So you do what I say or you die hard.”

I couldn’t even nod in frantic agreement but he seemed to approve of what he saw in my terrified eyes.

“Now, get on your knees, my pretty little Jodi, and suck me off. Make it good, no teeth, and I won’t hurt you. Understand?”

“Yes,” I mumbled through his grip on my face. I didn’t think this situation could get worse. How wrong could a man be?

He let me go, and I fell to my knees. He unzipped his lower fly and his fat cock poked out. “Waiting here, Jodi. Making me wait? Not a good idea.”

It took too long, and when I finished, he shoved me back and zipped up, uncaring now he’d got what he wanted. I staggered to the toilet and threw up, hanging over the bowl and wishing they’d killed me outright in that bar. Why keep me alive just to go through this?

A hand touched my shoulder and I instinctively belted it away before I remembered who it belonged to. I turned and cringed against the wall, expecting a beating. Ganwe stood over me, looking down with a strange expression, one almost of pity.

“Get up, boy. Rinse your mouth out, you don’t want to sleep with that taste in your mouth.”

I nearly snapped out something about which taste did he mean, but bit my tongue. I didn’t look at him as I got up and went to the sink. The water helped, though I retched again.

“Here.”

I jerked as a bottle with something brown inside it appeared near my face.

“Mouthwash. It’ll help.”

“Leave me alone.”

He left the bottle on the sink. I heard him walk away, but I didn’t look. Was the ‘mouthwash’ poisonous? Maybe I could....

No. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, and turned around. He sat on the floor, still looking at me strangely. “You okay?”

“You mean, for someone who just got raped? Yes, I’m fine.”

“You done good, Jodi. That was the test. I’m gonna keep ya.”

I found a patch of floor as far from him as I could get, which only put me about ten midecs from him. “So I can suck you off when you want? Is this supposed to make me happy?” He’d kill me for saying that. I found I didn’t care.

But he didn’t seem angry. “I ain’t into guys. You are, I can tell. You did it too good for it to be the first time.”