Prologue : The Interrogation
October 31, 2012 :: 9:19pm :: New Guantanamo Military Prison, Arlington, Virginia, USA
A splash of freezing water hits each of their faces and they're alive again. Each of the six captives' hearts are beating ferociously against their chests and it's all they can do to maintain them from bursting through. Pain is etched across their faces, calling them, coaxing them back into unconsciousness, and three of the six almost give in although none are foolish enough to do so.
A teenage boy shrieks loudly as a man in horn-rimmed glasses slaps him square across the cheek with the handle of his pistol. Behind the lenses of his glasses, the six can tell he's at a dark point: a loss of self, of sanity, of control. The man - his fine suit covered in grime and filth, his white collar stained with blood and sweat, his pants torn and singed, his weapon trembling in his veteran hands - is at a loss of hope.
In his temporary state, flooded over with emotions and weaknesses uncharacteristic to himself, he raises his weapon further back and higher than before. A sinister grin overcomes his already dangerous face and an unforgiving darkness emanates from his eyes. He strikes forcefully toward the teenage boy again.
"Wait," another man, though much younger, intervenes, catching the hand of the middle-aged assailant. "Not even Parkman can get anything out of them if you knock them out."
For a moment, they stare each other in the eyes, their glares fighting one another, distrustful. Suddenly the man in the horn-rimmed glasses with little force shakes his arm free of the younger man's grip. He coughs and immediately removes his attention from the eyes battling his, replacing them on the floor embarrassedly, ashamedly.
"You're right," he concedes, his stressed voice cracking pathetically. "So what do you propose?"
This time a woman's voice intervenes. "A gentler touch, Noah."
The two men jerk their heads toward the cell door, left ajar, though their captives don't dare look. They recognize her voice well. They already know who she is: the one with the power of pain at her fingertips.
Noah Bennet - the man in the horn-rimmed glasses - backs away, the angry lines in his forehead and sleepy stretches of his crow's feet contort themselves, changing the previous moments weakness and desperation into shock and awe. It was unbecoming of him at one point in his life; weakness and desperation, shock and awe, and somehow he feels this, so he quickly backs away from the captives. The younger man however stretches a rekindled smile across his face, eyes wide open in the flames of interest.
"Thought you'd never join us," the younger man can barely contain his enthusiasm as he starts toward the woman.
"Never send a man to do a woman's job," she delivers with a condescending laugh, her sharp blue eyes appraising the two men. She slicks back a single disobedient strand of her long blonde hair into a tight, neat bun before turning her chin up. "I'll be taking over from here, Luke," she explains, taking off her gloves as she shoves past the now-blushing younger man, ignoring him, her high-heeled footsteps clashing harshly against the solid stone floor.
The six captives look upward, studying every inch of her face in contempt. One, a tiny kindergartener, lets out a piercing yelp and begins to cry and a redhead girl attends to him. Another, a college student in her mid-twenties, attends to the gunshot wound of an Indian man. In the far corner of the room, a curly-haired teen sits defeatedly. The teenage boy, eye swollen shut and still on his hands and knees, tries to afford himself the strength to raise himself but drops back to the ground when the blonde woman ends her trek before him.
"This him? Is he the one?" She throws her inquiry into the thick air asking no one in particular.
"We think he is," Bennet answers immediately, the muscles in his face twitching nervously.
"Think so? That's not good enough."
"Barbara-"
"Like I said. 'Never send a man...'" She grabs the teenager by his sleeve and helps him to his feet and he doesn't struggle. Bennet doesn't hesitate nor struggle under her gaze either, speeding forward to hold back and control the boy. "Are you him? Are you Rebel?"
"No," he rebounds with powerful fervor, "and I'll never give him up to you."
Placing her ungloved hand inches from his face, she avows "Tell me where he is or I'll make you and all your friends feel pain beyond your imagination."
With this, he spits in her face. "Never."
Clawing the saliva from her face and with a twisted smirk, half-disgusted, half-intrigued, she retaliates with just the touch of her naked hand on his skin. He reacts, screaming, arms flailing violently, sweat seeping from his pores. His cries of terror incite fear in the other captives, who quickly slide to the back wall, attempting to put distance between themselves and the blonde woman named Barbara; the witch with misery in her hands.
"Stop it!" The redhead captive pleads aloud as she shelters the kindergartener from the despicable sight within her bosom. A single tear runs down her cheek.
"Leave him alone! He's just a kid!" The Indian captive joins.
The curly-haired teen stands up and rushes forward. In the corner of his eye, he can see the disapproval of the other captives: their pleading stares, their shaking heads, tear-soaked cheeks and even a hand reach out calling for his retreat. Don't do this.
"Let him go. It's me you want. I'm Rebel."
Barbara frowns, disconcerted with losing an opportunity for torture, for pain. "Let him go."
This time Bennet hesitates. Did he simply not hear her to heed her order or is he weighing his options? Momentarily, he obeys, releasing his grip on the teenage boy who falls back to his knees, back into the puddle of his own blood and sweat covering the floor.
"Tell us everything you know, Micah," Barbara nods to the curly-haired teen accusingly, replacing her silk gloves onto her small hands. "And start at the beginning."