LISA
"Awake at last. I hope you're feeling sufficiently refreshed."
My head is pounding. When I try to move, I find that my wrists and ankles have been secured to an operating table. Snively is standing above me. "Why am I here?" I manage to say, although my mouth is sore and drier than hell.
He casts a malevolent smile: the kind just subtle enough to register chills. "You have been referred to me by a certain prisoner, who shall remain anonymous. He said you might have some information leading to the location of one or more of your hidden Freedom Fighter outposts."
He's lying -- he has to be. I don't know any more about the other outposts than he does. "None of us know where they are," I say plainly. "They don't tell us. Try somebody more important; you're talking to the wrong kitty."
"Whether or not you're actually retaining useful information is irrelevant at this point. In fact, we've known where to find the rest of your friends for a number of days now."
"Oh, is that so? I think you're full of shit."
He shrugs. "Believe what you will. It's only a matter of time before Robotnik's forces have finally crushed your pathetic resistance. Regardless, the fact remains that Robotnik has more on his agenda than simply destroying you. Why do you think we've gone through all this trouble in the first place—this prison, this elaborate scheme?"
"Because the roboticizer is broken, numbnuts. You've run out of ideas. Why else?"
"Oh, you poor, naive little creature."
He moves behind me, and soon I can hear him flipping switches at the control panel. With a mechanical whine, my operating table tilts forward and stops at a 60-degree slant. I tug at my restraints, getting nervous.
"What are you doing?"
He ignores me. "You might be interested to know that the roboticizer is once again operational."
My heart stops.
"Although Robotnik has explicitly requested that we refrain from using it for the time being—with the exception of one last victim, who will be apprehended in due time."
Sonic. Somehow, he managed to avoid capture. Or maybe he escaped. Maybe he can still save the rest of us.
I bite down and remain silent. Better to hide my glimmer of hope than risk snuffing it out.
Snively approaches me from behind. "We can make plenty of our own robots, you know. We don't need to roboticize any of you. From raw components, worker-bots are no more difficult for us to manufacture than SWATbots are. The roboticizer is nothing more than a means through which we demonstrate our contempt for the enemy: humiliating you by forcing you to work for us."
He gives a brief pause. I can feel his fingers gently brushing my cheeck. "Of course," he continues, "you might say that the roboticizer's recent malfunction was... a pause for reflection. An epiphany, if you will. Why bother to roboticize you at all? Why not humiliate you through other means? Why not ruin your lives so carefully, so thoroughly, that you have nothing left to fight for?"
When he moves into my sight again, he lowers his voice to a whisper. "This isn't about you, Lisa. You're just one element in the equation."
"What do you mean?"
He is so close that our faces are nearly touching. His fingers move slowly from my neck to my waist. "He doesn't really love you."
"Who?"
"You know."
"Colin?"
"You were merely a catalyst. The first domino. We grouped all of the prisoners very carefully."
"I don't understand..."
"It doesn't matter." His hand is resting on the inside of my thigh. I'm naked.
"What are you doing?"
"Shhh. You won't feel a thing, I promise."
I notice that he's holding a small power saw.
"No..."
My eyes flutter open, weakly. I can't feel my legs.
"God, Lisa, no... no no no, not you too..."
Colin is cradling my head, sobbing. I'm laying in his arms. He brushes the hair out of my eyes and pulls me closer, comforting me with the warmth of his embrace. I feel so disconnected, like nothing is wrong. I want to tell him about Sonic. I want to tell him that we have nothing to worry about anymore—that help is on the way. I want to tell him that I love him and that I've always loved him and that I want him to be happy and that he should stay with Taylor because they're destined to be together. I'll be fine.
But I'm too weak... too weak to say anything. I feel cold all of a sudden; I start shivering. He tightens his arms around me, crying, "No, no, Lisa, please, no," and he kisses me. I close my eyes as my last breath dissolves... and the cold vanishes.
COLIN
There are thick, violent splashes of red everywhere in our cell: the sheets, the walls, the floor. The mirrors display the carnage in a series of never-ending reflections. She looks almost as though she has been torn open. I'm holding her in my arms when I feel her slip away, but I still can't let her go. Hours later, the nighttime anesthesia seeps into the cell, and I fall asleep next to her.
In the morning, her body is missing. But not the blood.
We're sitting in Snively's office. He turns his desk chair to face me and sighs. "I don't approve of what they do here," he says. "All the torture and the agony and the suffering... it's so... not me. Really, I just work here. All I want is information."
Sitting on the couch, I remain silent. I haven't spoken since Taylor and Lisa died.
"I can understand that this is terribly upsetting for you. But let's not forget who was responsible."
My fault. All my fault.
"Checked on your neighbors lately? I hear they're not doing so well."
Worse than that. One morning I awoke and thought that the occupants of my neighboring cell were still sleeping. After three days, I concluded that they were dead—all of them. Probably lethal gas. Not that the murdering bastards didn't deserve it. Nevertheless, it seems I'm surrounded by death these days.
"This doesn't have to hurt," Snively says. "We're just chatting. I want to help you, Colin. If you give us the information we need, you won't have to go through this anymore."
When I finally speak, it is with a strained whisper. "Will you kill me?"
He smiles. "It would be my pleasure."