It had been hours since Jim and Boris had been dragged out of the dingy cell, their new home for now, that they all currently shared. It wasn't really a cell, more one of the many spare cabins within the belly of the great ship, devoid of any comfort, and generously laced with darkness.
That was, until, the creaking groan of the heavy door allowed the dimly lit lighting from the corridors outside to flood in, momentarily revealing the contents to David, who well aware of being part of those contents. Karen was sat alone in the corner, staring into nothingness, or space. When the door was closed, it was dark enough to be space. In his arms, Jo's form clutched him, giving him the only comfort he could obtain at that moment. She was warm again now and no longer cold from her time spent in the ocean. How he wished they were all still in the ocean, and not here.
Squinting, a silhouette, partially slumped, appeared at the opening, flanked by a couple of larger and wider silhouettes. It seemed like the sun had exploded from behind, and David's pupils constricted tightly and almost painfully. The shape was then flung forward, and landed amongst them with a heavy sigh. The light was killed moments later, a tremendous and final clang proclaiming the closure of the room from the rest of the world.
"Jim", David placed a hand on his fallen friend, giving a gentle shake, "Are you all right, mate? Oh Shit, I know how stupid that sounds. What they do to you?"
He felt wetness on Jim's skin. In the pitch black they had once again been plunged into, that wetness could have been a lot of things. Lifting his fingers to his nose, he sniffed. Iron, he thought, it smells of iron; blood.
Groaning, and with help from the group, except Karen who lay motionless, Jim was weakly pulled up and placed against the steel wall. He gasped at the sudden icy touch, but muttered his thanks and sat still.
"You know what these bastards want?" he spoke softly, his voice faltering, "You know what they intend to do? And to us?"
He passed out seconds later, leaving the rest of them with a question unanswered. It wasn't as if the answer was hard to guess. Or was it? That bothered David. Hopefully he would discover the real truth behind Jim's statement later. He sure didn't want to go find out himself, from his captors. All he could do now was wait, with his love, and his friends, suspended in a void.
Karen continued to sit, staring at the other wall, which she was unable to even see. Her mind focused on Boris. She hated it.
The powerful hand came down upon him once more, striking him across the face. He wished so much to fight back, and to prevent that weapon from bearing upon his again. With his hands tied though, that was going to be difficult. To punctuate his hopeless situation, the hand struck again. Blood smattered across his face, he looked up at his subjugator with hatred.
"Answer, you fucking dog", the man yelled. He was on the verge of being outraged, his face flushed with anger, and his veins pulsing in his head. Such was the effect of Boris and his ability to resist such chastisement.
"Sit on it and rotate", he replied, through weary, battered breath, and unable to emphasise with his middle finger due to being restrained. He received another strike for that.
All Boris could see in the room was that man, dressed in attire which made him resemble someone he may have expected to find in a KGB institution. Everything else was just darkness, and the lighting required to make the interrogator stand out. The guy certainly looked like an interrogator. Boris thought about this ironically. He had seen a couple of poor souls, back in the Eighties when he had been working for the Soviet Government, get dragged in for one of those interrogations. At the time he had reckoned them deserving of such punishment. He had never thought he would end up on the receiving end of such horrors. Grimly, he noted they had never come out again.
The strikes kept coming, salvo after salvo of blows, intent on making Boris break. He would not yield though. He would not yield.
A heavy sigh answered his defiant silence. The foreboding silhouette turned away from him, hands clasped behind back, and looked off into the darkness. Had the conditions been slightly more accommodating, Boris may very well have sensed victory.
"You know", the man said, his voice heavy as that sigh, "The other man only got thrown back into his cell because he wasn't the one we wanted. We have no interest in the feats of some unknown hunter."
"You", the man spun quickly, finger pointed accusingly at the restrained Russian, "Are something else entirely."
"I know your past, Mr Ivanovitch", he continued, "And I know it well. I know you're an ex-Soviet spy, and I also know you're still a spy," that last part was laced with menace.
"So", he repeated his earlier question now, "Who are you working for? Who sent you? And what the fuck are you doing here?"
Boris kept his silence.
This time, however, he received no blow.
"If that little party you have back there is directly associated with you", Roland, suddenly aiming for Boris personal, rather than professional, Achilles heel, "I'll have them all killed; thrown to those beasts we have lurking down in the hold."
Boris flinched inside, and desperately hoped it hadn't been visible to his tormentor. He knew that Karen would be affected by that threat, as well as everyone else except him for that matter. But he had been trained by the Soviet secret services for years, and conditioned not to crack under such pressures. If Jim, David, or Jo were threatened, he would resist that unquestionably. Karen though? She was a different matter entirely. The human conscious could only take so much, and Boris had cared for that girl since the beginning. He was emotionally attached, and he admitted that to himself, despite the age difference. It was some predicament; it meant betraying one group of allies for the sake of another.
His silence continued to linger. The shape now leaned in to his face, revealing its own, a face of hatred. Roland glared at Boris. He knew what he would do next; and he knew it wouldn't be pleasant for either of them.
"You want to know what we're doing here?" he whispered through harsh speech, "And why we have all these dinosaurs, and more to the point, why we want them?"
"Although I suppose you already know", he added, "Don't you?"
Boris gazed back. He was actually trying to disengage himself from the immediate surrounding environment. He wasn't going to crack, he kept telling himself, and disengagement would help reduce the pain. It was a form of meditation, almost.
"Is that why you took it?" was the next unexpected question. This time Boris replied.
"Took what?" his voice monotones and blunt.
Now the blows resumed, a couple landing upon him in quick succession.
"The egg, you sneaky fuck", was Roland's response, "An egg went missing from our labs, and we found evidence of your being there soon after. No coincidence, I think, eh?"
Another blow, one straight into the solar plexus. Boris gasped with pain. He felt on the verge of passing out. In a way, he wished he would, since it would mean temporary escape from this nightmarish hell.
"I'm sure whoever your working for would love that egg as a trophy", snarled Roland, then laughed mockingly, "A shame you no longer have it."
That was true. Boris had taken an egg. He originally expected he had been saving the poor creature inside. Now it seemed doomed anyway. Last he ever saw of it was when he had left it on the boat. He assumed it had gone up with the explosions.
"You see", said Roland, and Boris now felt he was about to finally realise the truth, something he had failed to find out for himself earlier on, "There is a very good reason for having these creatures, and for continuing to breed them. It's quite simple really. Warfare."
The answer stunned Boris, though he wouldn't have said anything anyway.
"Imagine it", he said, slight excitement entering his voice, "Armies of Raptors, and Tyrannosaurs, and of course, the superbly aggressive Metriacanthosaurs, all rampaging through a trouble spot. No need for a bullet to be fired to suppress uprisings, just teeth and claws. Even those blasted little Compies would have their uses. Nothing would escape such a force."
"Madness", uttered Boris, unable to come up with anything else to say.
"It may sound like that at first", replied Roland, "But you haven't seen them in action. Ferocious beasts they are. And all will be genetically modified for the conditions they are to be used in. They'll be deployed in desert, snow and urban settlements. They'll change the face of biological warfare."
"Your crazy", murmured Boris, "It'll never work."
"Oh, it will", came the louder and adamant response, "They'll go hand in hand with psychological warfare; terrorism will take on a new meaning; and I will profit from it considerably." Greed, just another of humanity's traits, thought Boris.
Whoever Boris was working for would indeed find that piece of information valuable. The problem now, was how he would get it to them. This all depended on whether he managed to hold his tongue through pain and misery. It may not be the KGB he worked for anymore, but it was still an organisation whose secrets would be preferred to remain secret, and wouldn't care for it to be divulged to anyone for any reason. Miraculously having survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, the breakaway group Boris was a part of, assisted militarily by the Spetznatz, would intend to remain hidden from the rest of the world, and especially from this organisation who intended to develop horrific new weapons which were unlike anything humanity had ever seen before. Communism was no longer a goal for Russians; peace was. Peace through secrecy.
"So", said Roland, his voice now strangely soft, "Who are you working for?"
Perhaps he thought, now that he had told Boris the truth, that Boris would return the favour. He was quite wrong. That same silence rang out, almost painfully, for both men knew what would now follow.
Sighing again, and with sudden rapid movements, Roland lurched across the room, and yanking hard, dragged a trolley noisily towards the chair in which Boris was held. He knew too well what the numerous clattering of equipment rested on the top were, and had an intimate knowledge with the purpose of each sharp, pronged, blunt, possibly to be combined with heat/electricity/drugs, instrument, that shined grimly in what little dim light existed in the room.
Torture was another very human trait. It proved so efficient in the extraction of information, regardless of the suffering caused in order to get it. Efficiency was what Roland wanted.
Once more that dark void they were all forced to be suspended in gave way to a burst of penetrating light, as that heavy door was hauled back. Again, three silhouettes stood there, the middle one somewhat slumped and supported by the other two; much like the last time. Jim, still battered from his own encounter, knew exactly what the man had just been through, and would have been surprised had his posture been any other.
The shape was jettisoned into the room. Boris gasped in pain, as he landed hard on the cold steel deck. Karen was quick to rush to his aid, lovingly bearing his head and rested it upon her lap. She didn't keep it up for long though.
"Rest of you", snapped one of the tough shadows in harsh tones, "Out."
It was slightly confusing at first, but they soon got the message; though not quickly enough for the man's liking. A vice like grip yanked David onto his feet, and out into the corridor. It didn't prevent him from hitting the wall on the way out either, and he flew across and into it, banging his nose on the piping that crisscrossed through the passage like so many iron snakes.
The others followed, and the room emptied, as if it had contained liquid. They were forced into a line of single file, Karen, at the back, having come out last. The last thing she could hear was Boris.
"I'm sorry", he gasped, and coughed, "There was no other way. I'm so sorry."
He passed out soon enough, and Karen, and the rest, held by the two unknown figures, and too weak to fight their way out of the situation, were forced down the walkway, without so much as a good bye.
