Enhanced Interrogations

[Neutron]

Aslan woke gradually as the seditives wore off. He opened his eyes to see nothing at all. The air he breathed out rustled the heavy black bag that shrouded his face.

He was calm. This was not something he was new to.

"Cowboy, is you heres?"

He knew he was seated, and he could feel the heavy whole arm cuffs over his hands and forearms, up to the elbow. No doubt they were lead lined.

The sound in his ears was a distant white noise, which he assumed to be the engine wash of a light passenger jet. He could feel slight shifts of motion as they hit shifting air pockets. The recycled air in the fuselage felt sterile and a bit cold.

[Stern]

Michael Stern leaned against a bulkhead, feeling the vibrations of a jet engine. His head hurt as an after effect of the drugs. He moved slightly and felt himself restrained by a gurney and several straps. Tubes were connected to his arms. No doubt a blood transfusion or an IV because of the blood loss from his last fight with Aslan.

"Cowboy, is you heres?"

Speak of the devil. But despite the fact that he still hated Aslan, Stern found some kind of comfort in the familiarity of the man's voice. An enemy he knew rather than a possible one he didn't know.

"Yeah, I'm here," Stern said. He opened his eyes. So far his goggles were still there, but there was a big black bag over his head. "What is this?" He asked.

He was still glowing, but until he was sure he was on solid ground he wasn't going to be jumping anytime soon.

[Neutron]

"We go for a trip over for some place."

Aslan pitied Stern at this point. He knew what the kid was in store for, and for all of his verve, the youth just didn't understand how cruel the world was. He was going to find out.

"They is no say. They never says."

[Stern]

Stern would have shrugged if he could have even moved. "Figures. But I bet you a donut they're taking us to Jericho."

Stern had been to the one in Europe once. The doctors there had underestimated him and he managed to escape. He wondered if he would be so lucky this time.

"Got any idea where we are or how we can get out of here?"

[Neutron]

"I been so many of these things places."

Under his hood, Aslan shook his head.

"Guantanamo, the Yucca Mountain, Warsaw, Cairo. They haves for us so many."

[Stern]

Stern nodded. "For 'research' and stuff. That's such BS."

He had no choice but to wait and see where he would end up, but he couldn't really spare the patience. He wanted out now.

"Can you see anything, or are you bagged over the head too? It sucks. I can't tell if there's any light outside these things."

Stern struggled mildly against the straps holding him to the gurney. "I'm strapped down to a cot or something. What about you? What are you doing?"

[Neutron]

"I has hood and shackle. Get you used to it. They takes away things whenever."

Just then, a rifle butt cracked Aslan on the cheek, causing his vision of darkness to explode into stars as he slumped over.

[Stern]

Stern heard the sound of Aslan getting hit and immediately began to fight against the gurney and the straps as hard as he could, despite the pain in his shoulder. Maybe he should phase to light, even to get out of the straps.

Eyes shut tight, he focused on the jump. But before anything could happen, the rifle butt found his temple. Stern laid out limp on the gurney. It would be a while before he woke up again.

[Neutron]

Aslan awoke in some place cold.

"Cowboy?"

He winced at the pain in his head. At least now, the hood was off. Now, he was in a room with blinding floodlights on overhead. He saw no signs of Stern. They must have separated them. He exhaled a mouthful of steam as he painfully tried to sit up. The gunshot wounds were still bandaged and very tender, and he didn't dare try to walk just yet. Besides, there was no point. The room he was in was white-painted concrete, with a heavy white metal door being the only notable feature other than the slab cot and the bank of floodlights above. There was a drain in the floor, likely for the evacuation of blood or urine or whatever else.

[Stern]

Stern opened his eyes and felt chilled from top to bottom. The whole place was bright. It would have been too bright but for his goggles pulling the harshness out of the overhead lights. He looked around and saw that it was only a white room with no windows. There was a drain in the middle. It was interesting. It was like a prison or something. Stern sighed and moved a little. His wounds were bandaged up. The nuclear burn on his chest and neck were covered in gauze or somesuch and his were bandaged up. He wondered if he was the first person to ever experience an exit wound without there being a corresponding entry wound.

Stern sat up scooted to the edge of the concrete slab he'd been laying on. "The haute coutre of style and comfort," he said to himself. He rubbed his neck to get the kink out and discovered he was collared. It wasn't affecting his vision, but he did notice he was no longer glowing.

"Yeah, Jericho. I've heard about these restraining collars."

He wondered why he hadn't been collared in Warsaw. Maybe they just didn't have time. Apparently the American Jericho was much faster on their feet. Or much more paranoid. Then again, he had heard of several mutants escaping from this place before. It was time to add himself to that roster.

"Aslan?" Stern called out. He knew the Chechen wasn't close by, but maybe he was in an adjoining room.

Stern used his good fist and pounded on the walls. Maybe someone would pound back.

[Neutron]

"Cowboy!"

Aslan shouted to apparently nobody. He couldn't hear anything except himself.

That's when the music started. Painfully loud, some sort of American trash. It kept on, and on, and on for hours. The lights and the music worked in concert to make sure that sleep would be impossible.

Aslan curled up on the slab cot to try and conserve warmth. He wore no collar, likely due to what would happen to him if he did. His restraining cuffs were heavy and cold to the touch however. He tried to position his head between them to muffle out the sounds and avert his eyes from the light, but the contorted position made his wounds very painful.

[Stern]

Stern got no response at all from any of the walls. He stood in the center of the room, out of ideas and then suddenly the music kicked on, loud and harsh on his ears. Where they Rick Rolling their prisoners?

Between the concrete slab of a bed, the lights, and that awful music, Stern was getting no sleep. It hurt his wounds and his shoulder to lay down on the slab and the music was getting old fast, but he couldn't drown it out.

Pain and exhaustion gave rise to anger. He was irritable as all get out and all he knew he wanted was to strangle the life out of Neutron. No, they fought, but Stern realized he had been careless and too eager to rush in. If he had fought smarter rather than harder, he might have been able to escape.

Now he had to escape from this place. So he sat on the slab cot and waited to see what would happen next. Maybe eventually he'd get so tired he'd just nod off despite the awful conditions.

[Neutron]

"Won'ts you come and ask me of your fucking questions???"

Aslan screamed at the lights, now driven delirious by what he estimated to be twenty hours of light & noise bombardment. They'd just just cast him in this hole, and left him alone. He had a feeling it was going to be some time before anything changed. He was dizzy from lack of sleep, hunger, pain, and a crushing headache from the light and sound.

"FUCK YOUS!! FUCK YOUS!!"

He screamed at nobody to give him something to do.

[Stern]

Stern had totally lost track of time. The music didn't stop. The lights never went out. He was tired of waiting. He paced, he stretched, he fiddled with his shirt and even tugged at the collar. There was not retaliatory shock when he pulled at it, but he couldn't get a finger between his neck and the metal band. there was no sign of a latch or a button or anything that could be used to unhook the collar. It was either magnetically attached to him or required a particular electronic signal to come off.

"Guys, this is getting old!" Stern shouted at the door. He pounded on it with his fist and kicked it as hard as he could. He hurt his foot, but the rest of him was hurting. It didn't sum up to much in the end. "Run your crazy experiments or whatever it is you do!"

He bounced on his toes. The shouting was giving him a little energy and he wanted to keep his adrenaline up. "You don't know what you're dealing with! Or maybe you do, cowards! Locking me up in here! Stay out of this room or you'll live to regret it! Keep playing your stupid Rick Asley songs, I won't tell anyone you're all gay!"

The door was sealed tight with no aparent way to open it from his side. The lights in the room kept him from knowing if anything got past between the cracks between the door and the wall. Probably not. The hinges were also outside the cell. Or were they? He couldn't tell a thing about how the door opened. All he knew was that it was big and metal. And very very white.

[Neutron]

At last, a partition in the door opened, and a tray was slid through. Ignoring his hunger, Aslan shuffled toward the opening, screaming through it.

"Hey! Yous come back for speaking with! I have to make talk, what day is it? Come and tell to me! Come back! Come back! Come back!"

No response. In a fit of rage, Aslan pulled his tray inside, tossed the contents on the floor, and threw it back the way it came in, hoping it hit somebody outside.

[Stern]

Stern was still pounding on the door when they slid him the food. He looked at it for a moment, surprised that they would give him sustenance when they so blatantly deprived him of sleep.

"Cute," he said to no one in particular.

The partition did not slide shut, but he could hear footsteps walking away. If only he could get that blasted collar off.

"I'm supposed to eat this?" Stern yelled through the opening. "What for?"

Still, he was hungry. He wondered how Aslan was doing. Maybe with the partitions open, they could hear each other. It certainly seemed like there was noise outside. It was better than the music in the room.

"Aslan, you son of a bitch, where are you?" He screamed through the opening.

He was half mad from staying in that room so long. He didn't know the day or time, but that was nothing new to him. But at least before he could see the sun in the sky or the moon or the stars. Here it was the same white walls and the bright intense light.

Stern slid the tray back through. Someone had to come back for it. He could--no, not that. It wouldn't work. He couldn't reach through the partition. Could he fake sickness? Could they tell he was sick or at least dying? Was there a camera around?

"It's craziness," he said to himself. Still, he was desperate to do something. Anything, really.

"If you want me to eat," he shouted through the door, "come in here and force feed it to me!"

He wondered if Aslan was doing any better.

[Neutron]

Time was meaningless. Aslan lay on the floor, trying to think about something, anything to triangulate his attention on. He picked at some loaf bread that lay on the floor to calm the pangs of hunger. The food was an insufficient portion, and was bland. The vegetables that lay strewn about were cooked to mush. He shoveled a few in his mouth anyway. Maybe somebody would come to clean the mess he made, and he could rush them. If not, at least maybe talk to somebody. He wanted to talk to anybody.

"Please comes in, I have a mess on floor. Comes to clean!"

The music continued to the point where it all sounded homogenous and nearly white noise. Aslan bit on his lower lip hard just to feel pain. Just for something to do.

[Stern]

Stern shut his eyes and took several slow breaths. He pressed his head against the door and toyed with the collar some more. "So lame," he said.

At last he reached his fingers through the slot and pulled the tray so that is stood halfway in the hall and halfway in the room. He ate the bread, which was stale. He waited, focusing all the attention he had on the noise outside. When he wasn't nibbling the bread, he was toying with the tray. He would slide it in and out, shoving it hard out into the hallway when he thought he heard footsteps close to his side of the hallway. Maybe someone would jump or he would hit someone's shoe.

He was just too tired to care. Maybe he would get lucky and just die there. "It takes 40 days for a body to reach the point of starvation," he said. Who knows how much more to actually die of starvation. Man, what a dumb way to die."

He felt another hand on the tray trying to pull it back into the hallway. Apparently someone wanted it back. Stern grabbed on tightly and pulled back as hard as he could, turning himself over on the floor so he could try to get a glimpse at who was out there.

"Say pretty please."

The person didn't answer. They just pulled harder. At last Stern let it go and was rewarded with the sound of the person falling over in the hallway. That was music to his ears.

[Neutron]

Was it five minutes later, or five hours? Five days?

Aslan didn't respond to the sound of the door jarring open. It was the music cutting off that seemed to suddenly dizzy him. The sudden drop in noise was disorienting, and thus he struggled fairly weakly when three men rushed in to subdue him. Again, a black bag went over his head.

"Aaaaaggghhh!!!"

Aslan just screamed at them, for lack of anything to say as they manhandled him out of his cell, and to wherever he would be.

He was forced into a chair, and as the black bag was snatched off his face, he could see he was at a table, in a room with white walls, and a large mirror on one side.

"Interrogations."

He saw two empty chairs. Nobody was coming in for the moment.

[Stern]

Stern looked around the room. The walls were throbbing and there in front of him was a beautiful woman with dark brown curls and big almond eyes. She wore a white sundress and a pretty pair of sandals. She had with her a picnic basket.

"Anita?"

She held two fingers to his lips to hush him and started to set out the lunch she brought. Stern blinked and reached out for her. She smiled teasingly at him and drew away while she set out the plates. She shook her head and wagged a finger at him as though to say, "Not yet."

Stern rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Huh?"

Then suddenly the music stopped, along with the pulsing walls. Anita smiled at him and offered him a spoonful of something. Then it got dark as a black bag engulfed his head.

Stern immediately started to struggle, but he was terribly weak. They hauled him up from the floor and bodily dragged the mutant out of his cell to somewhere.

At last he was made to sit and the bag came off of his head. Anita had followed apparently and over to his left was Aslan. "Hey," Stern said to him. "You got some things on your arms."

His voice was a blue color. He reached for it to see what it would do. "I got a necklace." The blue swirled and cut sharp twists at the hard syllables.

"This is so cool. Dude, can you see this?"

[Neutron]

"What?"

His mouth was dry and his words came out broken. Coughing, he tried to wet his lips with his tongue.

He looked to Stern, and it seemed that the younger mutant was not in his right mind.

"Be strong."

[Stern]

Stern looked over at Neutron. "Dude, your voice is all blackish grey. Probably from all the smoking."

Anita was kneeling at his left side with her hand on his knee looking up at him. Watching him. He looked down at her. She needed him.

Then he thought he felt a hand on his shoulder. Qadir was there with his big bushy beard and his smile. He straightened. "What's going on?"

[Neutron]

"I going to say these once."

Neutron spoke low with a stern tone.

"Stay in heres and now. You sees me? Look at face."

[Stern]

It took Stern a long moment to break from those big beautiful eyes Anita had locked on him to turn to face Neutron.

"You're still ugly," he said after locking eyes with his nemesis.

Here and now. Stern needed to figure out what was going to happen. "Table and chairs. Pretty basic."

Stern thought a moment and picked at his restraining collar. "Do you know much about this?"

He was trying his best to stay on task. Stay focused. It was just so hard not to pause and look at Anita all day.

"How does it come off?"

[Neutron]

Aslan laughed.

"Good Cowboy, you just make focus on my ugly mug, that will do good."

He started talking about the collar.

"That I know little of. I think if I could gets my gloves off maybe."

He frowned.

"They make sures I don't."

[Stern]

Stern looked around. No one was there yet aside from himself, Aslan, Anita, and Qadir. Maybe. "Aslan, how many people are in the room?" he asked.

He couldn't tell if what he saw was real. "I don't know how many people are here and who is real."

Still he looked over the strange leaden covers on Aslan's hands. Maybe he could get them off if he was fast enough. At least he was starting to understand that not everyone was real. Maybe some of them were even his captors. Whatever happened next, he had to react fast.

[Neutron]

Aslan's brow furrowed.

"What you mean? Is you and me."

He started to realize that the psychological torments they were receiving might be wreaking a lot of havoc on the young man's mind.

[Stern]

Stern nodded. "Ok, that's fine. Just let me know if something happens. I'm going to try to get these things off of you."

The younger, less disabled mutant looked over the things keeping Aslan's hands behind his back. They seemed to be metal clasps of some sort. "Do you think we'll need a key to get these things off of you?"

[Neutron]

Aslan shrugged a bit.

"I think it by remote controlling perhaps. Some guy press button somewhere, maybe we not even see."

He looked seriously at him.

"They is coming bring man in heres probably. Make you say things."

[Stern]

Stern could find no way to get the things off of Neutron.

"They can blow me," Stern said. "What do I know that they could possibly be interested in?"

The door opened and the unbound mutant took his seat and kept focused as best he could. Anita still knelt by his chair and Qadir still stood at his back. They were there to support him.

Stern stayed tight lipped.

[Jack Brocius]

Jack stepped through the door with a file folder tucked under an arm.

"Good morning."

Clad in a black golf shirt and khakis, he pulled the seat opposite of the two mutants, as another beared man stepped through and closed the door.

"My name's Jack Brocius, and I'm here to debrief you both."

[Stern]

Debrief them? It's one hell of a debriefing. First the big lights and the Rick Rollling, bad food, and now he's going to debrief them? Stern nearly jumped out of his seat, but he decided to keep a close eye on Neutron and follow his lead. As much as Stern hated to admit it, Aslan might be the only one that could help him get out alive.

Stern glared at Brocius behind his goggles and said not one word. It seemed to him that Brocius held a higher spot on Stern's hate list than even Aslan at the moment.

[Jack Brocius]

"Let's start, for the record, with names."

Jack pulled a microcassette recorder from his pocket, and hit record.

He looked at Stern, and nodded.

"Just speak into the recorder, son."

[Stern]

Stern's body bowed up like he might try to raise up and hit the guy, but there was too much milling around and he couldn't quite sit straight up. Anita took his hand and held it gently. The man's voice came out the color of baby food.

"Dude," Stern said, "your voice is a gross color."

Stern also wanted to tell Brocius to go to hell. "My name? Record? My records show I'm dead. What difference does my name make now?"

The walls were pulsing. Nothing mattered. There were no guarantees and all he wanted at that moment he had. Anita was holding his hand and looking at him so sweetly.

"Wait," Stern said. "She'd never hold my hand."

He took the hand in question and waved it through the space where Anita had been. She disappeared as his fingers cleared the space and reformed later. "It's not real. Is any of this real?"

[Jan Claasen du Toit]

Jan stood at the doorway, shifting his weight slightly. He retrieved two bottles of water from a duffle bag he'd brought into the room, and set one each in front of the prisoners.

"The sooner you help us out, the sooner you'll get out of here."

[Jack Brocius]

"I'm real. You're real. Your Chechen friend, he is also real."

Jack had seen this sort of disassociation happen in a few isolation subjects. It was a coping mechanism.

"What's your name?"

[Stern]

Stern picked up the bottle. He turned it over in his hands a while trying to keep his head on straight. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a sip. For a moment his mind flashed a warning at him that it might have something in it to make him more cooperative, but Stern couldn't see how being belligerent was going to get him out any faster.

"Michael Stern."