Chain of Command
By: James Austin Valiant

The Professor yawned and stretched. The straw stuffed mattress that served as his bed seemed like a pile of feathers compared to the iron maiden he had been in for eleven hours. Eleven hours, fifty two minutes and thirty seconds. It wasn't hard to keep track of time when there was nothing else to do but work and sleep. They had taken everything from him upon his arrival - his watch, his pipe and tobacco and his sword cane. They had stripped him of his outer vestments - he was left in a simple black cassock, which was quickly becoming the dirtiest cassock he'd ever owned.

A nameless, masked guard approached the Professor's cell, carrying a small tray. Isaak knew better than to let the Professor be able to familiarize himself with the guard; they were referred to as 'wachtposten' rather than by names and ranks. He knew William well enough to know that any distinguishing characteristic was enough to spin the wheels in his mind towards an escape.

The wachtposten set the tray down at the horizontal opening between the bars, and stepped back. His lord's instructions were to watch the prisoner eat and make sure he finished every morsel of food. The guard had no doubt in his mind that the food was drugged; he had seen Lord Isaak treat prisoners much worse than this Albionian priest; as a matter of interest, he'd never seen the dark lord take so much personal interest in one prisoner. Whatever he was planning was big indeed.

The Professor eyed the meal cautiously. While he had resisted eating for his first week of captivity, hunger had overtaken him by the second week and he tore into the multi-colored, pureed substances as though he had become Abel Nightroad. Abel. There wasn't a day that went by that they didn't all go through his thoughts; Abel, Leon, Caterina, Esther...are they even still looking for me? Did they even start? Surely they must have found some lead, some trail to me...

He sipped the pureed piles from his tray; Isaak prohibited silverware, be it plastic, metal or otherwise. Nothing on the tray was identifiable by either sight or smell; too many colors, too many flavors to discern between one from another. Isaak knew William all too well; identification of any culinary distinction might give away the location of captivity. How he longed to once again command a stovetop, to spend hours creating his perfect crepes. Had that truly been the last time he'd seen Abel Nightroad?

"I like your dogged determination, Abel, I always have," He was beginning to sound like himself again. The Professor joined Abel at the table, grabbing the jar of apricot jam. "You and the AX will be more than sufficient."

The two sat in uncomfortable silence, the sound of clinking glass jars and metal flatware much louder that it should have been. The Professor savored the apricot almost as much as Abel enjoyed the plum. Generous amounts of crepes disappeared as the minutes rolled by, and a golden, early morning sky peeked in through the wispy curtains of the kitchenette. He watched as Abel leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stomach. The Professor couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Abel eat to such fullness.

Yes, he thought, how could I have forgotten Abel's dogged determination? Even when the others gave up, even when Caterina ordered him not to, Father Nightroad wouldn't rest until his friend had been found. The Professor only had to think back to Abel's unpredictable behavior after the death of Sister Noelle; he had been so rash and distant that even Caterina had trouble calming him down.

Abel was just one of the components of the AX; they were all his friends. He had known Kate since they were both students at Londinium University, and he'd watched Esther grow into a confident young woman and seasoned warrior. Tres was like a son to him, and William remembered when he and Caterina had brainstormed the idea of the AX. But he had to be realistic. As valued a member of the team that he was, it had been a year and he'd seen no one but the wachtposten and Isaak. He couldn't even remember what AX protocol was for missing agents.

There was a note attached to the underside of the Professor's tray. He stuffed the last bit of multi-colored mash into his mouth and picked it up.

William,

You've had an appropriate amount of time for eating and any facility use. We are at a delicate point in our work. The wachtposten shall escort you to the work room.

Love always,

Isaak

The Professor wrinkled the paper into a small ball and threw it in his toilet. Every day since they'd started work, Isaak would sarcastically sign every single note 'Love always.' Sure, maybe they'd been friends at one point in time. But that was eons ago in the Professor's mind, back when he was one of the four top students at Londinium University. He often wondered if it was a jab at the relationship he knew Isaak was jealous of...

Rebecca. Enough time has passed, but the pain is still there. Her death was the reason he still resisted Isaak as best he could, and the cause of his latest stay in the dark man's torture device. The last time he had seen his fiancee was a scene that never left his mind. How he wished he had hugged her, kissed her. He had been so engrossed in the old Sanctus Lancea that he and Isaak were working on, he had forgotten to say I love you. How it replayed over and over again in his mind: Rebecca, leaning against the doorframe of the laboratory. Rebecca, with her auburn hair and the playful twinkle in her eye. The Albionian priest shook his head and rose to his feet.

Time to get her out of my head.

"Wachtposten, I'm ready." The guard unlocked the cell and escorted the priest down the hallway, gun at the ready.

"William! What kept you?" Isaak's voice was uncharacteristically bright.

"Nothing. Nothing kept me." The Professor grumbled and rolled up his sleeves. Isaak had a fresh set of schematics out in front of him, and the priest longed to once again fill the blue paper with his own designs and ideas.

"We need to make sure that the right modifications are made to the high vacuum tube, or else the particles will not be conducted into the atmosphere at the right velocity." Isaak explained, running over his notes.

"I still don't understand why you insist we use tungsten instead of mercury. Mercury is more potent and ensures a better reaction with the supercharged particles." The Professor argued.

Isaak glared. "It's because we used mercury that the last test failed. I keep telling you, tungsten is the only other option. All of your theories have proven to be horrendous failures."

"I haven't failed. I've just eliminated the wrong options. I'm telling you, if we alter the size of the valvular conduit by two millimeters and insulate the bulbs more efficiently, then the tests will prove successful." The Professor reasoned.

Isaak stayed silent for a minute. He had to consider; this was William's invention after all and he himself had spent years trying to construct Sanctus Lancea alone and could not follow the specifications that the priest had come up with all those years ago. Then again, the main reason he needed William to construct this machine was because he was the only one with original copies of the blue prints, and Isaak had promised Lord Cain that the device would be completed.

"What are these modifications? They aren't my design..." The Professor examined them closely. The specifications called for trilithium resin and nitrotrinanium, two elements that were in their infancy of development when he and Isaak were students at Londinium. According to known data, both were highly volatile compounds and the Professor had even heard rumors of a cease and desist order issued by none other than the Empress herself as far nitrotrinanium experiments in the Empire were concerned.

Isaak stayed silent and moved to his own worktable, nonchalantly scanning some vials. "I informed Lord Cain than the Sanctus Lancea would be ready for a demonstration in a week's time."

The Professor huffed. "I hope you cleaned up that iron maiden of yours, because until I get some answers, I am not finishing my end of this project."

"This isn't a bargaining exercise, William. You don't get choices as a prisoner."

"Listen, Butler," The Professor spat, using Isaak's alias as an insult. "You know what the Sanctus Lancea is capable of. The more you jail me, the less time I have to improve on your mistakes, and the more angry your lord becomes."

Isaak refused to turn his attention away from his worktable, and instead nodded to the massive piece of machinery that occupied more than half the room.

"Descend the stairs, William and get to work on that valvular conduit. We'll try both our elements before the day is out."

The Professor grabbed Isaak by the shoulder and spun him around so that they were face to face.

"Someone is making changes to my machine, and I demand to know what they are. You've always been second place to me as far technology and science, Butler," The Professor did his best to control a rising temper, "And if you don't tell me what the means of these added elements are, I will simply refuse to implement them."

Isaak remained aloof. "That threat hasn't forced me to make concessions before. You and I both know you are far too proud to let Sanctus Lancea go on without your seal of workmanship. Now, finish all your work like a good boy and I might think about letting you have a real meal this week."

The Professor swallowed the pool of saliva in his mouth.

"You're not going to get me to reveal anything." Isaak chuckled softly. "Look at these additional particle accelerators," He seemed to float back to the blue prints, "And devise your own conclusions about the necessity of nitrotrinanium and trilithium resin. Surely you haven't lost that intuitive nature. What was it that you used to say? 'There's a way to figure this out. There's always a way.' So get to it, William."

Isaak smiled coolly as the Professor shuffled away. Breaking William had only been half of the process and to be honest, the least amount of fun. It was the mind games he excelled at, the twisting of words and the use of the Albionian priest's intellectual prowess against him. Of course he would want to know about these alterations but he'll have to figure it out for himself. The pursuit of knowledge has always been one of his driving forces, and withholding it might just be enough to drive him.

Panzer Magier took a seat at the table with the blue prints and notes scattered about it, and watched his unkempt former friend work. He simply marveled at how effortlessly the man picked up on the work from two days prior. William was a fine worker, and all the tricks Isaak had to motivate him seemed to be working. At this rate, the Sanctus Lancea would be complete in five days rather than seven, and Lord Cain would be pleased.

Father Wordsworth sighed as he ascended a ladder to the business end of the massive high vacuum tube. Isaak was right; the Professor was far too proud of his experiment to let his life's work end here. Although the Sanctus Lancea was a dangerous machine, he still longed for it's day of completion. He'd been doing this at the University, ignoring the warnings about structural instability and approaching the critical limits of known physics. He'd hadn't heeded them then, and saw no need to start now. Despite the imprisonment and the mind games, he'd find a way to make Sanctus Lancea fully operational.