Chapter Three: Torture
He could trace his history in the lines of the ornate wooden door that blocked his mother's office from the public. The small scratch in the corner was from where he had kicked the door in frustration after his mother had pronounced a particularly unfair judgement upon him. The crack by the handle was from where he had slammed the door in reaction to another argument. The unpleasant memories coagulated in his mind, choking him with the remembered emotions and frustrations of his 'childhood.'
Jack was drawn from his recollections as Rodger knocked on the door. The hollow sound his knock made sent shivers down his spine and he forcefully steeled himself. He was an adult. She had no power over him anymore. She had no power. None.
"Come!" His mother's sharp tone answered the knock, and Rodger pushed open the door.
He wasn't sure what he had expected as he entered his mother's domain. Some change, perhaps? Something different? However, everything was the same. The green fern was still in the corner, still looking as if it could do with some more water. The painting of the Teluraisian mountains still hung over the mahogany desk. And his mother...of everything in the office, she had changed least of all.
She still had the look of frank disapproval on her face that he remembered all too well from his youth. "You're dismissed, Rodger. I can handle Jonathan."
He winced. Jonathan. He hated that name. "It's Jack," he corrected.
"No," Elizabeth replied. "It's Jonathan. I named you, boy. I think I know your name." Her eyes reflected her disapproval of his attire, or rather lack thereof. "Cover yourself, boy. I thought I had taught you better than that." She gestured toward the coat rack in the corner in indication for him to choose a jacket.
Jack shook his head. So it begins. He heard the soft click of the door behind him that signalled Rodger's departure. Now, he and his mother were alone. Her grey eyes bore into his, censure radiating off her in waves. He didn't need her approval, he reminded himself. Not anymore. Not ever. "Whatever." He made no move toward the coat rack.
She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she refrained. "You've been gone a long time, Jonathan. Twenty years...It's good to have you home."
His first reaction was a snort of disbelief. "Good? You were hoping that I'd stay away forever."
His mother's eyes flashed in anger. "You would think that of me? I missed you."
"No, you only missed correcting me. Perfecting me. Oppressing me." Righteous anger burned within him as he strode forward to place his hands on the desktop.
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "Jonathan, that's not the way to speak to your mother."
"I don't have a mother." Jack snarled, leaning forward on the desk until his face was almost in hers. "I had a demanding, heartless woman who didn't raise a son and didn't know how to love. I didn't have a childhood. And that was all thanks to you."
"I gave you everything you could have wanted. I groomed you to be great. And what did you do? You threw it all away. Ran off to join the Time Agency. And you dare to say that I wasn't your mother? That I didn't love you?"
"You loved yourself," Jack corrected, pushing himself away from her in disgust. "I was just a little extension of you. Perfect little Jonathan Harkness. Just like his mother."
"Jonathan Harkness." His name was snapped. "You will not speak to me like that."
"No?" Jack laughed, and there was a trace of bitterness in the sound. "Too late. I already did. And you know what else? I don't care about what you think."
"Yes, you do." Elizabeth stood in a swirl of her multi-coloured gown. He knew that she thought the gowns looked regal on her, imposing. Queen-like, for that's how she saw herself. Queen of her own little kingdom, and he was her fallen prince.
"Why should I?"
"Simple. I have your friends." His mother's lips curled into a cruel smile. "You don't have a choice in this matter, Jonathan. You are going to stay right here and resume your rightful place at my side. You are my son. You are still my successor. And you don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice," Jack snarled. "And threatening my friends doesn't make me sympathetic to your cause."
"I don't require your sympathy. I require your obedience. The girl would make a good example of my intentions." She pressed one elegantly manicured hand against a panel on her desk.
"Yes, my Lady Administrator?" a voice asked.
"The girl that was arrested today. What is her current status?"
"She's still in the cell, madam."
"And her companion?"
"He's in interrogation."
Jack drew in a startled breath. Too soon. It was far too soon for that. "No."
"Very well. Let me know the results of his...interview." She closed the channel and smiled at him. "The choice is yours, Jonathan."
Life or death. The lives of the people he loved most in the universe or his own. There was no choice. "Very well. But you must let my friends go."
"I knew you'd see it my way. You always did." Elizabeth's smile widened to a self-satisfied grin. "As for releasing your friends...in time. That is all you can demand of me, Jonathan."
Anger burned within his soul as he stared at the heartless woman who called herself his mother. "Yes, Mother."
She stepped forward and patted his cheek condescendingly. "Good boy."
He fought the temptation to lay her out on the floor with one good punch.
He rested against the hard-backed chair, closing his eyes with nonchalant ease. He had been in the interrogation room, surrounded by the tools of the torturer's trade, for about thirty minutes. Typical. These silly apes never tried anything new. What worked once, must work again. Even if it's on a non-human. On one hand, he could agree that it was a clever use of psychological torture. Leave someone amongst the devices long enough, and they'd start to worry about how it would feel with them being applied to their flesh. When the interrogator entered, they'd be more than willing to tell their tale. On the other hand, it was rather camp.
The door creaked open and he opened his eyes. The interrogator was stereotypical, right down the surgical gloves and apron. The bald head and dour expression only cemented his first impression. He rather suspected that the man would speak like Boris Karloff, so he was oddly disappointed when the other man spoke with the same flat colonial accent as Jack. "Let's get down to it, shall we?"
"Oh let's," he said dryly. "The accommodations leave much to be desired. There's no running water. Oh, and this chair doesn't have enough cushioning."
The interrogator didn't even bat an eyelash at his words. "Who are you? What is your name?"
"The Doctor."
"The Doctor?" Apparently his name deserved repeating.
"That's me."
"Very funny. What is your real name?"
"That is my real name."
"You expect me to believe that?" The interrogator's hand strayed perilously close to one of the sharp knifes.
"You can believe what you like." It was, after all, one of the fundamental rights. Then again, it might not be on this colony. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if it wasn't.
"What is your name?"
"I told you my name. It's the Doctor. Really, are you all this dense or are you unique around here?" He leaned back in the uncomfortable chair with apparent ease.
"Doctor who?"
"Really, can't you even be original with that question? It's just the Doctor. That's it. No more."
"What. Is. Your. Name?" The interrogator brandished the knife threateningly.
The Doctor looked bored. "If I tell you John Smith, will you be happy?"
"You lie!"
"Yes, well, you weren't satisfied with the truth..." He shrugged. "If you'd be more clear with what you're looking for, might make things a little easier for you."
The interrogator seemed to decide to change tracks. "Why are you here?"
"Well, some of your friends decided to show me the sights of this lovely interrogation room - love the knives, by the way. Oh, you mean before I came in here." He flashed the other man a brilliant grin. Judging from the slight tic in the corner of the man's eye, he was getting on his nerves. Good. "I'm on holiday. Heard the swimming was good around here."
"You are obviously in league with the resistance. You will tell me where their headquarters are. You will tell me who their leader is. You will..."
"A resistance movement?" Fantastic! "That's brilliant! I knew that you lot couldn't all be taken in by your Administrator's lies." Plan C would be easy. Find the resistance movement, help them to topple the corrupt government, save Jack and Rose, and get home in time for tea. Easy.
The interrogator growled. "If you will not cooperate, then I have no choice."
"I am cooperating!" he protested.
The other man's lips stretched into a malicious smile as he hit a control next to him. "You will."
Straps suddenly wrapped around his torso, securing him to the chair. "Ah, so now we're getting serious. I was starting to wonder." The Doctor pointedly yawned.
The interrogator picked up one of the knives, considering its lustre in the harsh lighting of the room. "Did you know," he began, speaking almost as if to himself, "that torture is an art form? Go too fast, and the victim is unable to tell you anything for unconsciousness comes far too quickly. Go too slowly, and you can easily kill your victim from too much agony. I pride myself on my work, Doctor-with-no-name. I can tell that you are going to be a particularly enjoyable subject. What shall we start with first? The ears? Or the fingers?" He tapped the blade against his chin thoughtfully.
The Doctor wondered why he was always the one blessed with the insane captors. Couldn't he, just once, have someone who was not a) bent on global domination, b) a megalomaniac of some sort, or c) an escaped mental patient be his captor? Just once? Was it too much to ask?
"I think you'll have to try harder than that if you're trying to frighten me. Try making faces. Those can be scary."
The other man grinned. "I think I know. I have the perfect starting point. We'll start with your feet. Just the little toe, first. We want to prolong the agony, after all."
He had to figure a way out of this. There had to be something he could do. "Sorry. Have to give that effort a C. If you put in a little sneer, you might've got a B. But without that sneer...that only merited a C."
The interrogator did not bother to react. Instead, he pressed another control and the chair tilted backwards. The foot rest was a little too short for his lanky body and his feet dangled over the edge. Now that, he decided, was not right.
The Doctor turned his attention to the knife. He had no illusions that this would not hurt, and unlike his hand, he would not be able to grow them back. Might be interesting to have a missing toe. Could be an amusing conversational piece. He could only hope that Rose and Jack were faring better than him.
The knife moved closer.
The Doctor braced himself.
It dipped toward his foot.
He forced himself not to react.
The tip of the blade touched his skin.
The door banged open.
"Bjarte!" an unidentified woman snapped.
The interrogator fumbled the knife and a razor-thin cut appeared on his toe. "What?" the newly identified Bjarte demanded.
"You have new orders. This man is not to be harmed, and he is to be moved into my custody."
"Miss Troudeau, this is most irregular. You have interrupted at a most crucial time." Bjarte tisked.
The woman moved into view, but his attention was mostly on the fact that somehow his bonds were looser than before. If he could just...move...
There. That was one hand free. Now the other.
"That does not matter, Bjarte." Troudeau replied. She studiously avoided looking at him, though he suspected that she might have something to do with his suddenly loosened bonds.
"Of course it matters. The Administrator wants..." Bjarte protested.
Troudeau interrupted him. "What she wants is for him not to be harmed. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Madam Troudeau." It was obvious that his interrogator did not care for this turn of events.
One foot was loose. Now the other...
"You are dismissed."
He was free. The Doctor slowly pushed himself off of the chair, waiting until his feet touched the floor. Bjarte was a problem. Troudeau, he suspected, was an ally but did not want to be found out. There was only one choice available to him. He only hoped that he could remember his Venusian Aikido.
The nerve junction between the shoulder and the neck should do nicely. He was on his feet in an instant, his arm moving in a Venusian Tala-te manoeuvre toward Bjarte's neck.
The interrogator never stood a chance.
"You certainly took your time," Troudeau commented, eyeing the downed Bjarte with a disgust.
"Still wasn't half-bad for a man wearing swimming trunks," he shrugged. He offered her a brilliant smile and held out his hand. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."
"Evelyn Troudeau. But we don't have much time, Doctor."
"Resistance?" he asked.
She smiled and in her eyes he could see the confirmation. "There's someone you need to meet. But first things first." Evelyn slung her purse off her shoulder and reached inside to withdraw a very familiar brown pin-striped bundle.
"My clothes!" He all but grabbed them from her, running his fingers through the material and finding - much to his amazement - that the sonic screwdriver was still there. Without bothering to ask her to look away, he pulled on the clothing. Much better. Sometimes, it was rather hard to be threatening when you were only wearing swimming trunks.
However, before he would meet whoever it was she wanted him to meet, there was something far more important to ask. "What about my friends?"
"We're working on freeing the girl. As for Jack..."
His startled glance must have told her all she needed to know.
"Yes, I know him. He's with the Administrator. I'm afraid he's beyond our reach at the moment."
"That's not good enough." He wanted to rescue him. Rescue them. Be the one to shut down the force field and help Rose out of the cell. Be the one to defeat Elizabeth Harkness and bring Jack home. However, he knew that that sometimes he just wouldn't get what he wanted.
Evelyn's expression was sympathetic as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Doctor. But there isn't enough time. You have an important meeting to get to, and I assure you, we'll do our best to rescue the girl."
"And Jack?"
Troudeau sighed. "We'll try. But I can't promise anything. Once Elizabeth has her hands on something that she wants, it is all but impossible to get it away from her again."
He was not happy about her response, but he could accept it. For now. "How do I get to this meeting?"
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "Follow these instructions to the letter, and avoid the main hallways. From this point, until you reach your destination, you're on your own."
He accepted the sheet, glancing at the notations. "Right, then. Better be off. I've got a clandestine meeting to attend, after all." He headed toward the door, but paused before he left. "Evelyn? Thanks."
Evelyn Troudeau smiled. "You're quite welcome, Doctor."
And then he was gone.
To be continued...