Wow. I thought I'd written something for this story… and then there's just nothing.
Crap.
Oh, wait! That's right- I did write something. But it was complete and utter bullshit. And I hated it. And it deserved to die. So it did.
Anyway, happy birthday! And to all those who reviewed, followed, favourited, whatever. Sorry it took so long. You might want to re-read the first chapter, I had to. Whatever rocks your boat.
"Where are they?" Alan asked quietly, calmly. This was not the first time he had been down here. In fact, he was well-acquainted with the scents of fear and pain.
The thing strapped to the table stayed silent, taking huge, gasping breaths to fill its lungs with air.
It was stripped bare, its skin covered in filth and scars. It stank, of more thing than many people had ever smelled. It was wet with the torture, and still it was silent.
"Tell me," Coyle said. "Now."
The United States of America stayed resolute, without even the energy to shake its head.
Alan's mouth thinned even further, if that was even possible, and he nodded sharply to the other men in the tiny, concrete room.
Waterboarding, he thought, as they closed in on his prisoner country, is a study in contradictions. Drowning a man on dry land is in itself a contradiction, and it is a surprisingly elegant form of torture- which is, by definition, brutal and clumsy. Dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, as did so many of the best interrogation techniques, it was used by Americans in World War II, Vietnam war, and intelligence officers during and predating those wars.
Sadly, it had fallen out of use thanks to those insufferable do-gooders who thought that torture, whether the person deserves it or not, was morally wrong. Never mind that the information gained from waterboarding (while sometimes unreliable) could arguably have saved their lives many times.
Now all he needed was to break this thing, and it wasn't working. But it would.
Predictably, the USA began to choke and splutter under its towel as the water was poured over its face, thrashing and flexing and twisting, trying desperately to make the torture stop.
Coyle didn't make a practice of smiling, but if he had, this would have brought a grin to his lips. He knew what the country was going through, having been subjected to it during his training, and he also knew that this thing deserved every second of it. It was a traitor. It had directly gone against the wishes of its higher-ups and probably even revealed top-secret information to his counterparts in other countries.
Now all it needed to do was talk. It was good at that, wasn't it?
A sickening snap filled the air, as the USA thrashed so violently that it broke its own arm.
And it howled.
000
Lisa blinked up at the man in the hallway.
She didn't want to trust him; she was old enough to know what men in the hallway meant for her mom (betrayal and pain), and besides, the last two men who'd been in the hallway had dragged the lifeless body of Merry out from number 600. They had been bad people, and for all she knew, Merry was dead.
But there was something about his gaze as he stood in front of the door that made her want to help him; she wasn't sure what it reminded her of, but it was a bad feeling, she was sure, and not something she wanted people to go through. Plus, he just looked so lonely.
"Hey mister, can I help?" she yelled and he jumped a little, like he hadn't even known she was there.
"Sorry, what did you say," he asked, looking pretty distracted.
"I just wanted to know why you're standing there, and if I can help," she said. "You look real upset."
He smiled ruefully, finally seeming to focus on her. "Yes, I suppose I am."
There was a little silence, and then Lisa decided she had to move. So she went up to him and stuck out her hand. "I'm Lisa," she said. "I live nearby."
He took her hand absently, saying "Arthur," and kissed it. She giggled a little. Didn't only old people do that on telly?
He smiled a little, but it quickly faded. "Are you looking for the guy who lived there?" she asked.
He looked back to the silent apartment. "Yes," he said softly. "I have been for some time."
"His name was Merry," she said slowly, looking at the ground. "And he use to scream real loud at night."
His expression twisted for a moment, like he wanted to punch something or cry- she wasn't sure.
"I met him once," she said, hoping it would make it better. "He was nice."
Arthur nodded absently. "Of course he was."
"But the second time he kept on changing… Like maybe there was more than one of him."
Arthur looked back at her. "Did he invite you in?"
He nodded. "But then he said that it was dangerous. And that they were coming for him. And then they did."
Arthur lenaed in. "Who came?"
She tried to think back. "Umm… I think they said they were from the FBI. You know, like from those old movies on the TV.
"The FBI?" he asked. "Really?"
She nodded. "I think so. And then they kicked the door down and dragged him out."
Arthur put his hands over his face, massaging his temples like he had a really bad headache, or he wanted to cry out of frustration and anger and sadness, but didn't want anyone to see. Lisa could relate to that.
He finally raked his fingers through his hair and sat down on the floor, his back to the wall, legs stretching across the hallway. "So how long did you know him?" he said finally.
She sat down next to him. "Well, like I said. He used to scream a lot during the night, and we were all scared of him. I got dared to go say hi."
Arthur's eyebrow raised, and even though he wasn't looking at her, she could see him smiling a bit.
"Were you scared?"
She thought a bit. "Yeah. But not for very long. Like I said, he was real nice."
He grinned wider. "Like I said, of course he was."
She thought a bit, then asked, "How did you know him?"
He looked down at her sideways, and then up at the ceiling. "Well, I was like a brother to him a long time ago. We were family. Even after he left, we worked pretty closely."
"So you had a fight?"
"Mmm," he said softly. "Yes. We fought. I always regretted it, but I don't think he ever did. After all, he got exactly what he wanted."
"What was that?"
"Independence," he said. "He wanted me to stop babying him."
Lisa snorted. "That's a stupid reason to fight."
He did the eyebrow-raise thing again. "Oh?"
She nodded emphatically. "Well, I always tell my mom that I don't want her to take care of me, but when she's not here, I get scared."
He went back to staring at the wall, chewing on his lip, like Marvin did whenever he was doing homework. Like he was thinking real hard about something.
"Well, like I said," he whispered, almost too soft for her to hear it. "He never seemed to regret it."
Lisa wasn't sure what to say to that, s she kept quiet for a while. Then she remembered.
"When Sharpelle and Karen were fighting, I went and asked him for help."
"What did he say?"
"He said that once I got to his age, I would have been in too many stupid, pointless fights to count, and that the important thing was whether you made up after them. And that it might take a long time for two people to make up, but that you had to make sure they knew the fighting was pointless. And then he said that he had made way too many mistakes, and not to do the same thing."
He was frowning at the wall now, chewing his lip in concentration. "He did?"
"He did."
"And what did you do?"
She smiled. "What he said. And it worked."
"He shook his head. "That's got to be a first."
"He said that, too."
Arthur nodded and got up. "I'm very sorry, miss Lisa, but I have to go."
She got up too, and looked at him, standing right in front of him so he knew she wasn't scared.
"Are yu going to save him now?"
He looked deep in her eyes, and nodded. "Yes. I am."
She nodded, then stuck out her hand for him to shake. "Good."
But just as he was about to leave, she yelled after him. "Wait! Arthur!"
He turned. "Yes?"
"When you save him, you night have to fix him on the inside too."
He smiled sadly. "I think you might be right."
And then he was gone, and all she could do was hope that Merry was alright.
000
"Why don't you talk?" Coyle asked during a brief respite.
It blinked, and asked in a voice grated bloody from screams and coughing and water, "What?"
Coyle came closer to the thing on the table, his voice deadly quiet. "Why won't you sell them out? Your duty to your people is more important than your duty to the other creatures. So why don't you talk?"
The thing smiled slightly, a simulation filled with pain and mechanical bitterness.
"Because, for one, I can't remember anything beyond some colours. There is nothing to tell. Like I have said."
Coye blew air from his nose, a snort so filled with contempt it didn't even bother to be a proper snort. "Yes, you aid that. What else?"
The thing shook its head slightly, then laughed, a cruel, facsimile of a mockery of a maniacal cackle. "Because as little as I remember, I know this: I will not, under any circumstances, subject another person to what you are putting me through."
Coyle slapped his hands down on the table and yelled. "You know the locations of the agents in the governments of every single country on the planet, agents that you are in league with, things lie you that you have told our national secrets!"
The thing on the table suddenly went even colder. "I told them what you told me to tell them! I was loyal to you until my last breath, and then you SHOVED ME IN A FUCKING CELL AND STOLE MY MEMORY! YOU TORTURED ME FOR INFORMATION I COULDN'T GIVE YOU AND THEN YOU TORTURED ME MORE FOR BETRAYING YOU EVEN THOUGH I FUCKING DIDN'T!"
Coyle stepped back into the shadows. "You deserve everything you get," he said, wiping spittle from his face. "Your act doesn't fool anyone."
The thing rolled its head to the side, meeting his eyes with a look of pure malice. "I will get out again," he said. "And this time, I won't try to hide. I will hunt you down."
Coyle shook his head, then disappeared. "You will never see the light of day again."
000
England stood up at the podium at the front of the meeting, waiting for the paper-shuffling to die down. TI would, he knew. It was the beginning of the meeting, so there was still a decent dose of concentration in the room.
(He had long stopped hoping that a certain someone would crash the doors open and proclaim himself the hero, because it had been more than 50 years, and he'd almost forgotten what that disruption was even like)
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said loudly, trying to calm his nerves. "There has been a development in Project GPS."
The room fell silent. Dead.
He looked down at his hands, trying desperately to stop the shaking, because of course he was worried, bt he was finally within reach-
"What sort of development, Igirisu-san?"
He looked up at Japan, whose usually taciturn face was showing his emotions freely- hope and fear, and a healthy dose of trepidation, all washed down with relief.
"I found where he had been living in his capital city. Brooklyn, to be more specific."
"Had been?"
"He's not there anymore. As of a few days ago."
There was an audible groan. "England, maybe this is enough. We must accept that we cannot find him."
England shook his head vehemently. "This time he didn't move. He was found. The FBI."
Another dead silence.
"Oh god," France said, in a moment of uncharacteristic seriousness. "They found him?"
"Yes," England said. But there is a positive side to it."
"What could possibly be positive about this?!" France asked, quickly returning to his usual, melodramatic, self.
England sighed. "Yes, they've found him. However, that means that there are only a few places he can be. There are few facilities secure enough to hold a nation, and what with the result of his last imprisonment, they won't be taking any chances.
"so," he said, pulling his gun out of his holster and placing it on the podium, "With the right application of intelligence and strength, we can free him. We are nations, after all."
Predictably, that was when the flames began.
000
2000 ish words. I can probably finish here.
So anyway. There'll be at least one more chapter, for the escape, and at least another chapter after that, for the epilogue. But maybe more.
I will do my utmost to update as soon as possible, but now that I know exactly what I'm doing, it shouldn't be long.
I hoped you liked it! It was a relief to finally get that out.