Welcome back, my dear readers! Here's chapter eleven, where we find out two things: one, who was the unfortunate soul at the painful end of Marcos' elbow (yeah, you guys guessed right… I should have made it more difficult…) and two, that Marcos truly has some dirty secrets, the first being revealed in this chapter. Indeed, Marcos is no saint. If he was, he wouldn't be tested, would he? Hope you guys still love him after that…
Oh and I'm sooo relieved you guys like chapter ten! I was really nervous about that one, to be honest. My reaction at your reviews was the following: "yay", *jumps from chair*, "I can write porn!" *face melts* "oh…".So glad you understood the psychological implications too, though…
Enjoy chapter eleven…
Warning: blood and torture…
Chapter Eleven – The Second Test: The Haystack And The Hourglass
Marcos stepped back in horror after recognizing the voice chastising him.
"… E-Engstrom?"
"Marcos, I swear, if I have so much as a bruise, you're dead!"
Take a number, he thought. He couldn't believe it: Engstrom was actually here! She must have been kidnapped at the same time as him because she was dressed in the same clothes he had last seen her in, in her usual underrated sexy style: dark denims, long-sleeved but tight fitted white t-shirt and black jacket. He was also kinda hoping she still had her holster, preferably with her gun in it.
"How the hell did you get here?"
"I could ask you the same question! I just woke up! And just where is 'here'? Can you just tell me what the f…"
Engstrom stopped talking and lost her trail of thought. She had just noticed the light coming from the room Marcos had stepped in from. She slowly walked to the door frame, her eyes widening in horror when she noticed all the wires and the timer…
"Oh my god… no… no, this can't be…", she stuttered, on the verge of tears.
"Sophia, please…"
"We're in a fucking Jigsaw game, aren't we? We're being tested!"
"Yes, but listen…"
"How could this happen?", she panicked. "I never did anything to deserve this! I never wasted my life like the other subjects! I should not be here!"
"You're not being tested, Sophia, I am."
She slowly turned her head to look at him. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that…
"You're being tested?", she growled.
That's it, I'm dead, Marcos thought.
"You're the reason I'm here?", she spat, advancing on him.
"Now, now, let's not do something we might regret…"
"Somehow I can't see how smashing you into a pulp could be regrettable!"
"Sophia, please! This isn't a joke! We need to work together if we want to get out alive! Isn't that you were telling me? That we need to analyze the situation calmly and rationally before engaging action?"
Engstrom considered this for a moment. Marcos had actually listened to her? At least once? The world must be coming to an end… She paced the crudely lit room for a short moment, then collapsed with her back against the wall, hugging her knees. Marcos was beside her in an instant.
"This isn't happening…", she whimpered. "This is NOT happening… It's just a horrible, horrible nightmare… any minute now I'm going to wake up…"
"Sophia, I'm so sorry… look, the recording said you were a tool…"
"Said I was a WHAT?", she snapped.
"Sophia, PLEASE! Will you let me finish? I know it's not flattering, but I think we're a bit past that right now… It said that I needed the t… you to pass the test. In other words, you gotta help me or we're both dead… I don't suppose you have your gun with you, have you?"
She glared at him. "I don't have to do squat! You're the one being tested, you go ahead and die! No, I'm just going to stay here and wait for backup, they're bound to find us sometimes…"
"Remember the zoo victims? How long had they been locked up when we found them?"
"This is different! I'm a cop and you're a fed: somebody is bound to come looking for us, or at least for you! I just…"
She was interrupted by a shrill beeping sound. It was coming from the small room she had been locked in. Marcos got up quickly and went over to look… As he advanced, he noticed that the beeping pace was becoming faster. He looked inside…
… and noticed the accelerating blinking light on top of the nail bomb…
"SOPHIA! THE BOMB!"
Moving at lightning speed, Engstrom got to her feet and they both bolted for the door. Marcos got there first and opened it as fast as he could. Once they were both on the other side, he closed it and they got to each side of the door, flattening their backs against the wall.
The blast almost took the door off its hinges, and the vibrations through the wall were so violent the law officers almost fell to the floor. Once they got their breaths back, they stared at each other… and realized how badly they could see each other. The only source of light was a skylight about 35 feet above their heads. The sky was dark, but a bright full moon shone through. It was pretty much all they could see…
"What the hell?", Marcos said, panting. "Why did he blow the bomb up? I passed the test!"
"My guess is he wanted us to keep moving… so much for my idea of waiting for backup…"
I don't think they were coming anyway, babe…, Marcos thought, but instead said: "Do you see a light switch on your side?"
Engstrom fumbled for a second, but finally found the switch and flipped it. Right away, several overhead neon bulbs came to life. The room they were now in was much bigger than the previous one. In the middle of the room stood a large glass-looking rectangular box, lined with metal, closed with a heavy-looking padlock, and with a thick metallic cylinder connecting the top of the box to the ceiling. There seemed to be something in it, but they couldn't tell what. On the opposite wall was another door, with the usual camera looming above it. Also, the walls of the room seemed to be lined with…
"Tumbleweed?", said Marcos. "What's the deal with that?"
"It's not tumbleweed, Marcos.", Engstrom explained with a weary sigh. "It's razor-wire. Large balls of intertwined razor-wire. One of Jigsaw's classics. Hoffman seems to be carefully following the boss' footsteps…"
Marcos felt a chill going through his spine. He didn't even want to think about what he would have to do here… but he knew deep down that, whatever it was, it would hurt.
Suddenly, the shadow inside the box moved… it was a person! He or she stretched its arms, and then jerked its head around, clearly beginning to panic. Engstrom ran to the box and knocked on it: "Hello? Can you hear me?"
The form turned around, revealing a pretty twenty-something girl, skinny, long straight blonde hair… and completely naked. She started to scream: "WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"
"Ok, I guess you can hear me then… Look, stay calm, we're here to help! My name is Sophia, I'm a police officer, and this is Agent Marcos, he's FBI!"
The blonde looked at Marcos… and both gasped as they recognized each other.
"Oh my God…", said Marcos. "Sheila? Is that you?"
"Julian? What the fuck? Why am I here?"
"I take it you two know each other…", said Engstrom, her eyes quickly going between the two, then fixing on Marcos. "Care to explain?"
"Long story…", sighed Marcos. Engstrom understood from the tone of his voice that she wasn't going to get any more information out of him, so she changed the subject.
Well, don't just stand there! There must be something around here to tell us what to do! Start looking!
Marcos quickly scanned the area. No nail bombs anywhere, that was definitely a plus… and then, there it was, taped to the damaged door they had arrived through: a tape recorder. He took it off the door, called out to Engstrom, who in return signaled Sheila to be quiet. Marcos pressed "play".
Hoffman's voice filled the room.
"Welcome to your first test, Julian. I trust you will have recognized Sheila, a former, shall I say, 'business associate' of yours. Hopefully detective Engstrom has joined you at this point. As you both know, one of the most important conditions to join the FBI is for the candidate to have a clean criminal record. We both know it wasn't your case, was it, Julian?"
Engstrom's Jaw dropped. Marcos started to sweat heavily…
"It just happens that Sheila here is a master hacker. You went to her and, for her usual fare, she magically erased your previous wrongdoings, making it possible for you to enlist at Quantico. Now she made her choice to live in illegality and cheat her way through life, but how can YOU expect to be a hero when you can so easily and without remorse twist the truth? Well, now is the time when you can right that wrong… The key to Sheila's freedom is hidden somewhere within this room, I will let you guess where…"
Marcos looked at all the razor-wire, and glanced at his hands, already slightly burnt from the previous test and therefore extremely sensitive… I was right, he thought. This is going to hurt…
"You have two minutes to find that key and free Sheila. Of course, she will then be free to reveal your secret to anyone. Past those two minutes, however, she will die, taking the said secret to her grave. The next door is neither locked nor trapped, you can easily leave. So here's your choice, Julian: save the girl and be a hero, above your faults, or you can just walk away, leaving her to her fate. Life or death. Make your choice."
The recording ended, and Engstrom sneered at Marcos. "'Long story', huh? And yet it only took him thirty seconds… Jesus, Marcos, how…" She was interrupted by a booming noise coming from the cylinder above Sheila's head. Sheila looked at the law officers, lingering of Engstrom, who had never left her side, with tears filling up her eyes. A few seconds later, she disappeared behind a shower of a shiny material coming down from the cylinder at high velocity, and she screamed. When the "shower" stopped, she was still screaming… When she reappeared, it was to slam her body against the glass… smearing it with blood. She was bleeding all over her naked body.
Marcos and Engstrom looked at each other in horror. Engstrom crouched and examined the shiny material more closely at Sheila's feet: broken glass. She looked up at Sheila: she still had some pieces embedded in her skin… The stuff wasn't just falling on her, it was projected…
"Marcos! For fuck's sake, do something!"
Marcos snapped out of his reverie, and stared at the razor-wire. The key was somewhere in there, he knew it, but he couldn't bring himself to start looking…
Engstrom seized the padlock and tugged at it. She knew, of course, knowing Jigsaw, that it was useless, but she had to try…
Just then, Sheila was again doused in broken glass. The scream she let out was just petrifying… When it stopped, she was knee deep in shards, and in her panic started to thrash around…
"No!", shouted Engstrom. "Sheila! Don't move, you'll only make it worse! Marcos, where's that fucking key?"
Marcos had not moved from his spot. Engstrom calling out to him again made him react at last. He went over to the first bundle of wire, took a deep breath… and started digging in.
He cried out as the blades cut into his hands and wrists. It hurt like hell, but he tried to ignore it, for Engstrom's sake.
You mean Sheila's sake, his conscience whispered. Yeah, that too…
Sheila was screaming like a banshee, and despite Engstrom's warning, thrashing around like crazy. That is, until she was doused again in broken glass. She was crying now. Engstrom saw she was going to go into shock soon…
"Marcos, please! Hurry up!"
"I'm trying! I can't find it! You could give me a hand!"
"No, I can't! The test is designed for you, and Hoffman's watching us!", she said, pointing at the camera. "If he sees me helping, he's capable of just ending the test sooner that planned… and that would not be good for any of us!"
Damn, Marcos thought, always fucking right… He started moving around again. His hands were bleeding, but only from scratches. Marcos was not going to just grab the wire to push it aside… too painful… so he was just fingering it until he saw a shining object in the middle of the fourth stack…
The key!
But if it could only be so simple… It was attached to the razor-wire with… more razor-wire! He groaned in anticipation for the pain to come…
In the box, Sheila was now up to her waist in glass shreds. She was crying noisily, hitting the glass panel with both her bloody fists… Engstrom was still by her side, trying to soothe her with words of comfort… to no avail…
Marcos stared at the key… he really, really didn't want to get it right now…
Engstrom turned away from the poor girl to look at Marcos, and saw him motionless. What the fuck…? "Marcos!", she shouted. "Wake up, damn you! She is going to fucking DIE!"
Marcos looked at her, ashamed to be caught… well, at being a coward. "Yeah, erm… I found the key…"
"Well? Get it here, then! She hasn't got much time left…"
Easier said than done…, he thought. He reached for the little bundle and took one end of the wire between his fingers and pulled. It didn't move. He pulled harder, cutting the pulp of his fingers and he winced… then only did the wire move. Looks like I can't avoid it…
He started to move the wire around the key… Eventually all of his fingers were cut into, and he was swearing under his breath…
Engstrom was starting to panic now and tugged again at the lock in desperation… the glass had reached shoulder-level…
With a growl of pain, Marcos finally undid the wire… the key was in his bleeding hands… He almost jumped with joy!
"YEAH! I GOT IT!"
"Quickly!", shouted Engstrom. Marcos threw the key at her. She caught it and in the same motion put it in the lock and turned. The box opened just as another glass shower went through. Engstrom jumped aside as all the shreds fell out and spilled across the floor, Sheila on top.
Engstrom ran to her. She carefully tried to remove as much glass a possible from the girl's frail and damaged body. She was weakened, but conscious. Marcos was busy removing his shirt and tearing it into strips to bandage his hands.
Engrstrom looked up at him. "What did you do?"
"What?"
"The things you did that got this poor girl into this mess? What were they?"
"What the hell? I didn't put here there! She's a hacker! A criminal!"
"And yet she's here because of your actions, Marcos, not anyone else's! See a link there, maybe? As for being a criminal, well, it seems to take one to know one! Answer me now: what did you do?"
Marcos clenched his jaw…
"What was it, Julian?"
He looked at her again, surprised. It was the first time she's called him by his first name… She looked almost pleading… That was different for her… He inhaled and answered her question.
"Manslaughter.", he almost whispered. "I was 16."
If Engstrom's eyes could have gone wider, they would have. How could he hide something like that? She turned to the barely conscious girl: how could she hide something like that? That's one heck of a hacker…
"OK… well right now, we have more important things to deal with… but you're going to have a lot to explain later…"
Marcos thought Yeah, if we all make it…
Engstrom took off her jacket and put it on Sheila's back, then helped her up very carefully.
"I don't get it…", Marcos said. "If you're supposed to help me, why couldn't you… well, help me?"
"You're being tested, Marcos, not me. I think I'm supposed to help you by keeping you focused… you seemed to be having trouble with that earlier…"
Marcos ignored the comment. But he noticed she was calling him by his last name again. That stung a bit…
He finished bandaging his hands. Engstrom was holding Sheila up. What do we do now?, he thought, but the answer was obvious: they had to carry on. The next door seemed to be waiting for them. The girl was going to slow them down though…
As if reading his thoughts, Engstrom spoke to him in a soft voice. "You passed two tests so far, Julian. I'd say the odds are in your favor." For now, she thought, but did not voice.
Marcos nodded, touched. They made their way to the door, he opened it for the girls. As he let them through, he stared at the camera.
I know you're there. And guess what? I'm winning, asshole…
With a smirk, he gave the lens the finger.
Just so you know, I did do my research, and you do need a clean criminal record to enter the FBI. As in completely clean. Even if Marcos had been cleared of the charges, it's still on record, so he wouldn't have been able to join normally. They sometimes make exceptions if the postulant has had an exceptional conduct report or if they show a remarkable ability in one the fields the Bureau specializes in. But we can all guess that's not the case…
Let me know what you think…