Quis custodiet ipsos custodies
An unknown young man has been captured spying on a crime lord and has been handed over to a master interrogator who lives a continent over. No-one comes to his rescue. The doctor who patches him up takes pity on him.
Ten days after the lad arrived, a new guard turns up at the doctor's cell door, demanding to see him.
Chapter 1: An introduction
'Poor lad', James Thorne sighed, as he played with a kid's broken glasses. The unknown man's effects were stalled out on his bunk before him. He'd been brought into the secret complex some eight days ago, handed over to his boss as a token of friendship of one crime lord to another. From what Thorne had heard, apparently he'd been caught spying on the other lord, tortured a bit until they'd figured out the lad wasn't talking.
Even the toughest nut could be cracked by Thorne's boss and his men, who all enjoyed breaking people down far too much. No-one but the worst and most devious scum of the world knew about what he did, calling in favours or simply paying him to get this or that person to talk. His services were among the most despised you could think of.
Among them, James recalled bitterly, giving his doctor a taste of his work and then threatening the man's loved ones with even worse to ensure their compliance in keeping the boss's victims alive long enough.
Thorne dropped the glasses and raked his hands through his hair despairingly. He'd seen the lad, because he'd had to patch him up as best he could between "sessions". He looked far too young, and far too much like his own son. He wished he could help him, he really did. He wished it for all of them, of course, but now more than ever.
He'd had far too many nightmares seeing his son on that table as it is. He prayed fervently again: 'If I only I could help him!'
'Take you up on that', a tiny voice sounded from below. With bugged eyes, James looked down at the glasses in his lap. It had spoken. The glasses had spoken. Had he gone mad at last?
Carefully, he picked them up and looked at them. He noticed suddenly that the glass wasn't corrective- how strange. He put the glasses on and jumped when he heard a voice by his ear.
'Hello' a voice said with a Scottish brogue, 'Nice to meet you. Who are you?'
'Nice to meet you, too?' he answered hesitantly, 'I'm –ah- I'm James Thorne. Who're you?'
'Emrys.'
'Ah.' There was a short silence in which James thought for a moment. 'Does this gadget thing mean that kid in there is a spy after all? Because that- that would explain a lot, actually.'
'It does. You also seem oddly unfazed about that', the voice questioned.
If you'd worked in his business as long as he had, you tended to need a certain amount of unflappability to survive, Thorne mused. The Scotsman agreed.
'So: the boy.', Thorne picked up the conversation after the contemplative silence. 'I gather you're trying to get him out?'
Turns out he did. Apparently Emrys could still see and hear what the glasses recorded, but the tracking system had been broken when the boy had been captured, so the Scotsman couldn't for the life of him pin down where the glasses were. 'It somewhat impedes the rescue I had planned', Emrys drawled, 'but if you could give what information you dare to give, that would help.'
Thorne thought about that a bit. He wanted to help the boy as much as he could. But he was incredibly aware of what his boss and his interrogators were capable of—he'd patched the men's victims up session after session, and had had to store them in the complex's morgue when the men had finished with them. He wasn't ashamed to admit he was terrified of it happening to him or his family.
If he helped Emrys and his boy, there would have to be something in return: the safety of those he loved, and his own safety too if possible.
'Deal', the voice said readily. 'Now, tell me everything you know.'
"Everything he knew" wasn't enough.