The first of the Brad torture. Nothing too graphic, though, just lots of references to potentially graphic stuff.
Romilly McAran: Yay! Another Pratchett fan! I love those books. I wish he actually told us what Politician literally means, though. Vetinari is far and away one of my favourite characters.
Alz: Yay! Thank you!
Everybody else: Coz I can't remember when I did this last time, thank you too!
The next few weeks past in a very similar fashion, with Tanya explaining more of Rosenkruez's inner workings each day. The food remained identical, and Bradley suspected they kept reusing leftovers each meal, so that the reason the semolina tasted nothing like semolina was because it was the remainder of breakfast and lunch's gruel. The lessons kept up the level of brainwashing, and Bradley played along, nodding and singing Estet's praises until his throat was hoarse. He continued to help in general studies, learning patience to an excessive degree as he explained for what seemed like the millionth time the difference between Atlanta and Atlantis, or a 2 and a 5.
Once, he saw the redheaded boy in the corridors. The boy gave him the finger, and Bradley ignored him. The people leading him were wearing the white coats of the laboratory, and Bradley doubted he'd see the kid again.
He was wrong, in that respect. Three nights in a row he dreamt of the boy, screaming in a white room until Mr May came to him, then calming down and apparently begging for release in turn for sexual favours. On the fourth night, he dreamt that Mr May refused.
Bradley knew perfectly well that these were visions. They weren't the normal, short-sighted visions that helping him in everyday life, they were pictures of a future that might be. He wondered if his visions were immutable, or whether they could be changed.
On the fifth night, Mr May refused and left, but the boy stopped screaming. Bradley watched as he paced the room, stooping to examine a small drain in the centre. Tanya had explained the layout of these confinement areas, as they were known, and the small drain led straight to a sewer. It was an entirely unpleasant arrangement, but it didn't seem to bother the boy. He managed to pull out the grate, and explored the drain with his thin arms. Bradley smirked in his sleep as both he and the boy realised the drain was actually much wider, and only tiles were keeping the access so small. It took a lot of effort, but the boy was thin, and soon he'd created a small enough gap to fit through.
It didn't occur to Crawford to do anything with this. If the boy got away, good for him. Bu he noticed the treatment of his peers worsen as time past, and came to realise that no matter how docile and obedient he was, it wouldn't be long before he started to get the same treatment.
Beatings seemed a regular part of Rosenkruez life. Bradley took it as 'character building' and accepted it. But Tanya warned him of a much darker side to Rosenkruez's discipline regime, one he refused to accept at first.
The first death was in Physical Education. It was accidental, as a boy was beaten overzealously. Then in Psychic history the teacher wilfully took a life. This shocked the students, watching a girl's heart being ripped still beating from her chest. What worried Bradley most was that it was only shock, not horror. It was accepted in the same cold-blooded manner everything here was. Blood flecked his cheek as the heart was crushed into juicy pulp, and the girl collapsed over a desk. They let her corpse stay there for the rest of the day.
Bradley's dreams had been silent that night. He barely slept, waking from a light doze for a reason he couldn't immediately grasp. He wished he could see the stars, see the sky, but there was no indication of passing time in the dormitory. This was why he didn't know what time it was when the boy from the bunk above his staggered in, naked from the waist down and bleeding.
Rape.
Tanya had warned him, but it had seemed too extreme. Somehow, death was easier to accept. People died all the time. It was a fact of life. But rape was something that sheltered little Bradley Crawford Junior had never been forced to confront before. It made him feel sick.
* * *
*You aren't paying attention, * A crisp English accent interrupted his thoughts. *I warned you. After this, come to me. *
Bradley jerked slightly, and focused on Herr Hertz, delivering yet another mind numbingly hyperbolic lecture on the glory of Estet. Bradley's mental shields slammed down, but he knew the damage was done.
* Yes, Mr May, * he responded meekly.
A vision flashed briefly before his open eyes, and he felt sick. They were going to go to Mr May's rooms. Mr May was going to ask him to perform fellatio.
He had to prevent this! 'There's no way I'm going down on another man, not unwillingly… Not at all,' he hastily corrected himself. He wasn't interested in men in that way. And if Mr May got what he wanted, he'd never would be.
This would be the first test, he decided, of how far his visions could be altered. Because, well, he wasn't going give Mr May a blowjob no matter what. His stomach lurched at the thought.
Mr May led him to the neat suite of rooms as promised, and Bradley stood awkwardly in the main living area. Mr May offered him a drink, but he declined. They faced each other, and Bradley watched the gingerhaired Englishman, barely older than himself, begin to unzip his trousers.
"You understand a lot about Rosenkruez punishments by now, I think?" Bradley nodded. "You'll understand you're getting off easily. I want you to perform fellatio. You know what that means? Good. I like you, and you've been a model student, but this isn't the first time your attention has wandered during a lecture."
"It's not that I don't appreciate the glory of Estet, and our potential to become part of it," Bradley explained softly, "I just don't feel that hearing about it for an hour a day is a constructive use of our time. We could be working towards helping Estet, rather than listening to Herr Hertz telling us we ought to be doing just that."
"I agree, and I'm glad I usually live a long way from here, just to stay away from that annoying prick, but it's the principle of the thing." Gregory walked over to Bradley and rested a hand gently on his shoulder. "You've never done this before, have you?"
"If I could show my wholehearted support for Estet in another way, would I be let off?" Crawford took the plunge.
Gregory lifted his hand form Crawford's shoulder. He sensed the change in the young man. "How do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.
"I've been having visions. It's my gift. Recently, I've been dreaming them, which usually only happens when it's some distance from happening, but could change the course of many events."
"How do you know this?" Gregory folded his arms and stared at Crawford. "If you've been withholding information, there'll be trouble."
"Partly through the lessons, partly through experience. I admit, I could have acted upon this earlier, but I wanted to speak to you first, as it involves you intimately." Crawford began to reel the Briton in carefully. If he were to escape what had seemed to be his fate, he would have to play it very cautiously.
"We haven't seen each other for a while" Gregory said softly. "I've been avoiding the lecture when I can, and we move in different areas. Go on…"
"There is a certain boy, with hair approximately the same shade as your own?"
"Yes…"
"He… I think he is attached to you. You visit him, correct?"
"You know all this from the vision?" Bradley allowed the suspicious telepath access to the visions that had tormented his nights for almost a week. Gregory watched the scenes play out. "He'll escape?"
"I believe so."
"I believe not," Gregory told him with a contemptuous laugh. "No one escapes from Rosenkruez. You did right to come to me first with that information, but in future you can go to anyone. I will let you off your punishment," he mused, "but I think you ought to visit Madame DuBois. You seem to be confusing dreams and visions."
Gregory zipped his trousers up again, and Bradley gave a sigh of relief. Gregory shot him an amused look. He gestured for Bradley to sit down.
"Please, have a drink. I offered you one before because you were so nervous. It's not easy, being a telepath, especially not here. The redheaded boy, he's one too. I'm trying to train him, but he hates it here. He and I established something of a rapport at my home in the Sahara, but he seems to utterly regress when I'm not with him now."
Bradley took a polite sip of the sour wine Gregory thrust lazily into his hand. "Really, I don't like punishing, but Herr Hertz has had such an eye on me recently. They all know I hate being here, and do anything to get out of it. Telepaths are so rare, I usually can. They don't want to risk me, you see, and I'm really Estet property, not Rosenkruez. Hertz is just sore because the Elders made him stay here. It's not often you find someone classed as 'too sadistic to be a field agent'." Gregory seemed quite at ease, gesturing with the wineglass and splashing wine across the bare floor. "Look at this place. You wouldn't guess I'm on one of the highest paying levels, would you? This place is so Spartan. Hertz, again. I don't like short people," he declared.
"Do you live in the Sahara?" Bradley pieced information together, remembering a comment the redheaded boy had made in the shower.
"Yes, yes I do! So wonderfully quiet out there. I have my own plane, you know. One of those ancient things, all canvas and wood. Don't know why…" Gregory stared into space, and Bradley realised the man was far drunker than a few glasses of wine. "Yeah," Gregory responded to the unspoken thought, "I drink a lot here. I'd rather be in Tokyo than Rosenkruez, when it comes to my talent." He slipped into another glazed smile. The hand holding the glass slipped lower and lower until it dangled over the arm of the chair. The lass slipped from wine slicked fingers to break on the floor. "Oh, are you still here?" Gregory roused himself. "You know, you do have the most remarkable mental shields for a person your age. You may go."
"Thank you, sir." This final formality left Gregory with a benevolent smile on his face, and a general impression of a very helpful, very loyal young man who was far too good for this first year nonsense. Bradley left with an impression of a job well done, and he gloated as he strode towards the dorm room.
Bradley knew they wouldn't act on the information. He wasn't sure why not, but his power reliably informed him he would be overlooked until the actual escape. He also knew that his vision had been absolutely correct, and the ambiguity of his ability frightened him a little. Gregory had demanded fellatio, and the vision had implied that Bradley would have to perform fellatio, but he'd gotten around it. This had happened before. He had usually known when a person was going to hit him, but he hadn't known he or she would hit him, and he usually managed to get out of the way. There was an important difference, and one Crawford didn't like. It gave him control over his future, but lessened his power, as others could alter it as well.
A week later, Hertz summoned him. The boy had escaped, and Bradley was going to be moved into the next year. His grovelling had paid off.
