Chapter CXLIV: Close Encounters

November 30, 2545 (UNSC Calendar)/

Esztergom (Ezhtergom), Viery Territory, Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn it to its advantage."- Friedrich Nietzsche

The air was cold outside, but my belly was full and I was in a good mood. That is, until I reminded where the hell I was supposed to be. My phone gave me the directions and I followed them to a partially finished apartment buildings. It was just a few blocks away, so I made it with minutes to spare. I had no trouble getting inside, seeing as the complex wasn't guarded and there were no security cameras.

My breath left little clouds whenever I exhaled and my hands were beginning to feel numb. I shoved them into my pockets to keep them warm as I waited in the buildings courtyard. The building was not very tall, only forty floors or so. It curved around the middle. It was an old-fashioned design, and this building would probably end up housing lower middle class families. I would love to get an apartment on this one.

I heard a car stop right outside and then take off. Seconds later I heard footsteps. I reached for my knife instinctively, but didn't draw it. I allowed myself to relax when I saw Major Cavallaro walking towards me, back straight and head high. Somehow the body language felt off. Like he was trying to appear inconspicuous. There's nothing more conspicuous than a lone man walking into an empty construction site in the middle of the night.

"Major," I said formally.

"Follow me," he ordered, walking past me.

He climbed up two floors with me following closely in his wake. The major said nothing, instead just climbing the stairs and not even bothering to look back. On the second floor he swiped a card on a panel and a closet door opened. The closet was big enough to fit a table and two chairs, one on either end. I sat on one while Cavallaro took the other one.

"Nice little room," I noted.

"It's soundproof, usually used for torture."

"Huh," I deadpanned, managing to keep my surprise in check. "So?"

"So?" he asked me, annoyed. "You called me."

"I…I want to know everything that there is to know about this Spartan-IV project. I want to know if there's any way that the solution to my problems lies there."

Cavallaro produced a small holo-projector. "The solution to your problems lies there, but so far it's not real yet. Not that I know of at the very least."

"I need to know everything," I said, glancing at Schitzo, who was leaning on the wall behind Cavallaro. "Anything that might help."

"I'll tell you all I know," Cavallaro told me.

"Thanks, but…why?" I asked him. "Why now?"

"My reasons are my own," he replied. "And they are none of your concern. Ask."

"Fine, the Spartan-IIs, they're not the first ones."

"I thought the name was indication enough," he replied irritably.

"Where did the Ones go?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, even less people know about the Ones than they do about the Twos. If you ask me they were a failure."

"Fair enough. The Twos?"

"I know very little about them, only enough for me to do my job appropriately. It started with the Insurrection, back in the 20s, when it was about to get out of hand. This think tank decided that the best way to end it all would be by having an elite team of soldiers that could decapitate the innie leadership. The idea was…less than ethical. Every single candidate had to meet some sort of requisites. Much like you do, but theirs were even stricter."

I listened carefully to everything he said, my eyes getting wider and wider with every little thing that I heard. I admit that I shouldn't have been surprised by the revelation that the UNSC used child soldiers, I mean, I had met Carter and his team in New Constantinople, they were barely into their teens back then, but hearing the story told again only served to incense me. Kidnapping six year olds turns out to be one of the things that really piss me off.

Then he got on with the Threes.

"They tricked kids into fighting for them? Orphaned kids?"

"No, they offered them the chance to fight for vengeance."

"Vengeance!" I exclaimed. "Of course they'd say yes! It's just like kidnapping, but the guy on top gets to feel better about himself!"

Cavallaro shrugged. "It's not my position to judge the morality of their actions."

I was about to point out that this was probably the only reason why he was here, but something held my tongue. "Doesn't matter," I growled. "The Threes."

I leaned back as he explained their purpose. He adorned it and put fancy words on it, but eventually it boiled down to the fact that ONI had chosen to exchange lives for time. I couldn't hold it against them, it was a necessary evil, but what I could hold against them was the way that they had done it.

Then I started asking other questions, questions about the training, the augmentations, anything that he knew about their missions, if there were other cases like mine. I asked anything and everything that I thought could help, but he stonewalled me when I asked about the fourth generation of Spartans. It went on for what seemed like hours. Eventually I found myself leaning back on the lone metal chair with my coat in the table in front of me.

"Could I be further augmentated?" I asked. "Would the problems go away?"

"It doesn't work like that."

"I'm just-I'm trying to find a solution to this."

"I thought it was clear that the solution was years away," he told me. "I came here because I gave my word that I would."

"You gave your word," I scoffed. "You're my handler Major, for all I know you might be doing this just because it'll have positive consequences on your resume."

"But I am doing it. Am I not?"

"Yeah…"

This was pointless, I was getting nowhere, even if I now knew an unhealthy amount of information. Literally unhealthy, I could be killed just for knowing this. I tried to come up with more questions, but I couldn't come up with anything.

"I guess that's it then," I said bitterly. "I know a bunch of stuff I shouldn't and I'm still going to lose my mind."

"Nobody said life was fair Castillo," Major Cavallaro said, standing up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I think it goes without saying that this meeting never happened."

I raised my hand in agreement as he walked past me.

There was a loud noise and my face was suddenly wet.

Dust clouded my vision, but as soon as I opened my eyes I saw Cavallaro's body slam down on the metal table. Within a fraction of a second I had grabbed my coat and in a heartbeat I had jumped backwards towards the door. There was a huge hole on the wall, about the size of an orange. Major Cavallaro's head was mostly gone. I opened the door and ran out of the room, only just realizing that the wetness in my face was blood and brain matter.

When I turned the corner I saw two men with SMGs. They were in civilian clothing, but they had vests on top of their shirts. I was about to raise my hands to give up when the lead one fired a burst at me, missing by a few inches. I flipped back round the corner and drew my knife. They were about ten feet away from me, so I took a big risk.

I threw my knife at the lead gunman as I jumped out of cover. The blade hit his throat, just where I had been aiming at. The next second I tackled the falling man, still alive and choking on his blood. His companion was behind him, so both of our weights combined slammed him against the wall. Once there it was a simple matter of disarming him and slamming his head against the wall. I went a little overboard with that action, leaving a nice red splotch on the wall.

"Damn it," I cursed myself, recovering my knife even as I ran away from other voices.

On the stairwell I walked right into three other men, all of them wearing the same vests and using the same guns. I fired on the lead gunman before jumping back out of the door, closing it. I kept my foot on the door, and when they tried to open it I kicked it in, buying me some precious seconds as I ran down the hallway towards another staircase.

This time I found myself running up, after going more than halfway up the building I finally stopped. This floor already had glass on the windows, and some of the walls even had finishing on them. I allowed myself a brief moment of rest.

Next thing I know there are bright lights shining through the windows and they shattered inwards. At first I thought it was a Hornet firing at me, but it turned out to simply be deploying commandos. Two of them ran at me, holding some weird batons in their hands. If I had to make a bet I would say that they were electric shockers. I kicked at the closest assaulter's knee, hearing a loud snap as I did so. He screamed as he fell, but I paid no mind. The second man succeeded in nicking my arm. What seemed like a million volts coursed through my body, but somehow I managed to remain on my feet, more pissed than ever.

I reached for the man's wrist and grabbed it, I surprised even myself with my speed. The man yelped in pain as I squeezed, and he dropped the baton. Still he reached for his sidearm with his other hand. I was quicker, drawing my knife again and slamming it through his palm and into his leg. I considered leaving him there, but my knife was far too valuable for me to be wasted like that. Instead I yanked the blade and shot the man once in each kneecap, prompting more cries of pain.

"Who are you?" I yelled in his face.

Before he could reply I found myself under fire once more. I ran away from the gunshots and ended up in a back room of sorts. There was an empty elevator shaft without any doors. I fired what was left of my magazine before tossing the gun.

"What was the name of that movie?" Schitzo asked himself, deliberately elongating his words. "The one with the spy in the ladies swimsuit."

"Right," I grunted. Before I jumped I hesitated, but the gunshots were more than enough incentive. I jumped down the elevator shaft, angling my jump so that I would hit the wall in front. Once my feet hit it I pushed myself back.

I forgot to turn my body and miscalculated, because I hit the back of my head on the wall even as my body flew out of the elevator shaft and into safety. Before I could regain my bearings I found myself falling down again. This time I grabbed onto the ledge and somehow ended up another floor further down, but with actual solid ground under my feet.

"Whoa," I muttered incredulously.

Gunfire rang through the shaft, and I kept on running.

This time I was lucky, managing to avoid all the teams. There were a shitload of them, ideas were racing through my mind, all leading up to one conclusion. ONI had found out Cavallaro was planning to reveal sensitive information and planned to take him out. Why they hadn't bombed the building was beyond me, they could certainly play it out as a terrorist attack or an accident.

They want me alive… They don't know what he leaked.

"Fuck," I murmured.

Half an hour later I was on the ground floor. The rear of the building seemed to hold no enemy soldiers, so I ran out as fast as I could. Five meters before I reached the wall a bright searchlight found me. Cars skidded to a halt in front of the gate and men clambered out, all of them aiming right at me with their submachine guns. I reached for my knife, but the weapons cocking stopped me mid-motion. There was no way in hell that I was going to get out of this, even with full armor and an M247 on me.

I slowly raised my hands and placed them behind my head. As I did that I sank to my knees and remained like I was. The ONI men seemed hesitant to trust my intentions, but eventually a man moved up towards me. He slammed my head with a gun and I jerked to the floor. My head started throbbing, but it wasn't enough to knock me out.

"Ouch," I replied, making my voice as annoyingly deadpan as I could.

Before I could raise my head I felt a sting in the back of my head and all was black.

I woke up in a room that was identical to the one I had been in with Major Cavallaro.

My heart skipped a beat when I remembered what he had said.

Torture.

As I slowly raised my head I could feel a killing headache throbbing, but what annoyed me was an itch in the back of my neck. I tried reaching up to scratch it but was stopped abruptly with a clattering of metal. I realized that I was handcuffed to the chair.

"Gunnery Sergeant Francisco Castillo," a man in front of me said. "Welcome."

"Thanks," I grunted, trying to make myself as much of an annoyance as possible. "Nice place."

"Oh, you like it? That's good, you're probably going to be here for a while."

I shrugged, playing dumb. "I want my lawyer."

The man laughed, he was average height and rather muscular, but he had a smart and calculating face. He was in control here and he knew it. "I don't think you understand the severity of you-"

"Yeah," I interrupted. "Are you my torturer?"

"A rough word, but in essence, I am."

"Pleasure, what's your name?"

"My name is none of your concern."

"So, Torturer?"

He sighed. "Mr. Smith shall do."

"I like it," I rolled my eyes. "Very original."

His fist slammed on the table. "You're trying my patience."

I leaned back, I was scared as fuck, but my ego was too much of a dick to give up. "I apologize comrade. I know that I'm not the expert here, but shouldn't you be asking questions or something?"

Mr. Smith rubbed his temples and muttered something along the lines of us getting wittier every day. I probably wouldn't have heard it if it wasn't for my enhanced hearing.

"What did Major Cavallaro and you talk about?" he asked me.

"A bunch of stuff."

"Like what?"

"Why would I tell you?" I spat. "Your men shot at me, tried to shock me, and all in all botched killing me."

"Ah, yes, about that. You killed two men and severely injured others."

"To be fair, I was scared, there was blood on my face and Cavallaro had just gotten his face blown off."

"Why did you meet with him?"

"To talk." It wasn't a lie.

Mr. Smith sighed sadly. It was probably a very well-practiced expression. It was actually scaring me how good of an actor this guy was. "You know what this is?" he asked me, producing a strange device. It had the general shape of a knife, but it was obviously blunt, and only the tip looked like it had any edge to it.

"Can't say I do," I admitted.

"Good."

With that he slammed the tip on my right thigh.

"Mother fucker!" I yelled loudly, jerking sideways.

"No no, don't move, it'll only make it worse."

"I'll kill you, you-"

Suddenly pain flashed through my entire being, I had never before in my entire life felt as much pain as I had at that moment. Being shot, nothing. Being cut, nothing. Even the augmentations fell short to the pain. The pain was so much that it blocked out anything else from my mind. Suddenly, just like it arrived, it ceased.

"Cupid's knife," I said weakly.

"Oh, so you know how they work?"

"They cause pain to the victim unless he-" I stuttered, my leg was beginning to throb. "Unless he has affectionate thoughts for his torturer." I yelled as I felt my entire body burning once again. It was a different kind of pain this time.

"Wonder of technology," Smith nodded happily. "I don't even have to connect this baby to your neural pathways, one little stab and ready."

Affection, love, I told myself. Quick, think of something. Something good about this guy. Like what?! I mean, there's got to be something I can use!

"You're looking at it the wrong way," Schitzo said, sounding slightly unnerved. Bad sign.

"Right," I replied. "You've got a nice beard," I told Smith. "Yeah, it's a very nice beard, not a neckbeard and it covers your face rather well. I think I like it."

The smile was wiped from his face in an instant. The smile on mine only grew bigger.

"How long did it take you to grow it? It looks good on you, flattering to your face."

"Not only are you a smart ass," he grunted. "You're actually smart."

I shrugged, very satisfied with myself.

"Oh well," he returned the shrug. Smith yanked the knife, twisting as he did. I yelped in pain, but suddenly I felt much better. "Ever heard of waterboarding?"

"What?" I asked.

"Old torture technique. Clean, efficient, and scary as hell."

"Wasn't torture supposed to be inefficient or something?"

Smith closed in on my ear. "I don't care," he whispered.

The door behind me opened and a pair of strong hands gripped my chair before it was kicked from under me. My wrist almost snapped as they tried to keep me up, but the handcuffs held. Oh, and they cut into my flesh, drawing blood.

"Hand me the towel," Smith ordered.

There was ruffling and I saw a blue towel closing in on my face. I was panicking and I struggled, but I couldn't move, instead resorting to shaking wildly and violently, but still I was held against the chair. I heard sloshing and suddenly I was drowning.

I couldn't breath, water was getting in my mouth and I tried to push it out. When I closed my mouth it got in my nose and I couldn't breath, so I opened it. For a moment I struggled against it, but then I focused every fiber of my being into not drowning.

I was expelling water from my mouth as fast as I could, but every time I spat it out I could draw in less air. Within seconds I was out of oxygen. Water was going down my trachea and I could feel myself dying.

I was dying.

I was as good as dead.

Suddenly the towel was removed and I gasped for air, coughing out water as I did.

And that's waterboarding for you," Smith said cheerily. "Again."

"No, wait!" I yelled, but my head was already covered with the wet towel.

As I felt myself dying, as I felt my body numbing, my mind panicking again. Something deep inside me told me that they wouldn't go through all this bother just to kill me, but I was still more scared than I had been in my entire life.

Again the towel was removed and I indulged myself with three long gasps, trying not to choke on water and spitting it out.

"So, why did you meet Cavallaro?"

"To talk!" I told him desperately.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing, we just got there."

"Again."

The more I went through it the worse it seemed. My hear was beating too fast, too fast.

"We know you were there for hours!" Smith yelled as water was poured into my mouth. "Don't lie to me!"

Suddenly a little something overwhelmed the panic. It didn't make the torture any worse, I would've given a hand for it to stop, but I wouldn't give this son of a bitch the…the satisfaction of beating me. I would kill him. I was going to kill him.

"I'm going to kill you," I growled as soon as I could.

Smith laughed loudly. "Get in line pal."

It went on for what seemed like hours, but every time I was allowed to breathe I spat in Smith's face. When he learned better he stood away from my face, I just threatened to kill him over and over again.

"You know, we're going to give you a serum regardless," he told me. "You're going to tell us everything, you're just making your stay here worse."

"I will kill you."

Again the drowning came, I yelled, I screamed, I begged them to stop, but they wouldn't relent. Suddenly something felt wrong. Something felt very wrong. My chest felt like someone was sitting on it and all of my body went numb.

"He's going into cardiac arrest," an unknown voice said calmly.

"Shock him," Smith ordered.

I yelled as electricity coursed through my body again, this time in my benefit.

"You lucky bastard," Smith shook his head. "Heart attack, which means that we're going to have to take a little break from the waterboarding."

"Thank god," I cried. Literally cried. "Thank god."

"Yeah, you might want to wait a little bit longer pal." Smith grunted.

Suddenly my nose shattered. The pain was immense, but it was infinitely better than getting waterboarded.

"Fuck!" I yelled. "You! Fuck you!"

Why Frank? Just tell them goddamnit. No! As long as they don't know they'll keep you alive!

A hook to my jaw twisted my head sideways. My hatred for this Mr. Smith was growing with every second. Suddenly I had an idea. Not a good one, but it was better than nothing. As Smith drew his arm back for another punch I took advantage of the only thing that I had.

My strength.

I made my neck and jaw stand as hard as I could just as he brought his fist towards my face. My head didn't move a single inch.

I heard bones crunching and a huge pain in my jaw. I cursed myself for being so stupid before I realized that Smith had cried out in pain.

"Mother-" he started before he caught himself. "Bastard," he insulted me. "You bastard." He looked at one of the men behind me. "Bring me the syringes, a whole dozen." Then he turned back to face me. "So, let's talk about your mom," he smiled.

"Sure you don't want an ice pack for that?" I asked, mumbling my words in account of my hurt jaw. "Might be broken."

He nodded. "You, bring me an ice pack."

"Your mom, persistent vegetative state, am I right?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

He sighed. "Still, I take it you care about her. A sizeable portion of your earnings goes to the hospital that keeps her alive and you've given donations to labs researching a cure for whatever she suffers."

"I'm a nice guy."

"A thanks," Smith said taking an ice bag from one of his henchmen. Instead of putting it on his hand like I expected, he gently placed it over my swollen jaw, it was humiliating. It made me hate him even more. "As I was saying…Is that too much pressure?"

"Fuck you."

"Well, I'll cut to the chase, if you don't tell me what I want to know I'll kill her."

"Some would argue it's a mercy," I bluffed.

"But not you," he replied without missing a beat. "So, I can make a call and she'll be dead in a week."

"Anything happens to her," I said. "I will make your death as slow as possible. If I don't, my brother will."

"Ah, your brother, curious that you brought him up."

I cursed myself for my stupidity.

"An interesting man your brother, fell pretty far from the tree. That he did." He seemed to want to go on, but the other man returned. "Thank you very much," Smith said, taking a small case from a pair of arms. "You know what this is?"

"A case," I replied. It had only just begun to synch in that I had had a heart attack. "Made out of…polyester?"

"Plastic, believe it or not."

"Isn't polyester a type of plastic?" I asked, smiling.

The smile was returned. "Too clever by half," he told me. "Just because of that I'll skip the courtesy of explaining you what this does."

I recoiled from the needle, but the liquid went into my arm and there was nothing I could do about it.

"You know, it's a shame that such a decorated soldier would be willing to betray his government. Your record is, I'll admit it, spotless."

As Smith droned on and on about motives, pride, and the like, I felt myself growing numb. The numbness turned to pain and the pain slowly turned to agony. It wasn't as bad as the knife, but it was close. Suddenly I felt my lungs failing to respond. They still drew in air, but not when I told them to. My eyes moved without me wanting them to. And worst of all, my heartbeat became slower. I could hear every heartbeat, each more distant than the last, weaker.

It was like being water-boarded all over again. I started panicking, trying to yell and scream, but my mouth wouldn't do what I told it to. I tried to move, but my eyelids fluttered shut, my whole body burned and I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest. My head felt empty, my brain was trying to keep my body alive. I screamed, I screamed and screamed but no sound came out. I felt myself become isolated from everything. The pain in my wrists disappeared. The pain in my right thigh disappeared. The pain all over my body just increased.

Absently I felt a prick on one of my limbs. Was it an arm? No, maybe it was a leg. Or the neck? I didn't know. All that I know is that the pain got worse before it suddenly disappeared.

Dead?

No.

Suddenly I felt the pain in my wrists, the bump in my head, the cut in my leg. I felt everything. I felt fear like I had never before experienced. But something else woke up inside me. Hate. Hate very much like the one I had felt when being water-boarded. A hate so animalistic that even I was scared by it. A hate that something in the back of my head told me wasn't completely natural. And with that hate came aggression. Aggression and strength.

"Now, I can do this all day," Smith started.

I yanked my hands up. A part of me was surprised when I saw the handcuffs snap free of the table, but most of my mind focused on enjoying the expression of utter shock and fear on Smith's face.

I kicked to the back, hitting something. I felt joy when I realized I must've nailed one of the henchmen in the balls. I then kicked at Smith, slamming him against a wall. Then I turned and punched the other man in the chest. I felt bones crunching and almost laughed when I realized that they weren't mine. Suddenly I was on top of Smith.

"How?"

"I told you I would kill you," I said, too calm.

I started punching him, softly, softly for this newfound strength at least. I could hear his ribs breaking, but I avoided his face. I wanted him to feel as much pain as I had, I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him broken.

As my punches got higher he started coughing blood. Those coughs came in between pleadings of mercy and him begging me to stop. I didn't. Instead I grabbed his right hand, the swollen one, and crushed it with mine, the broken bones snapped completely and the noise was clearly heard.

"Now you can die," I said to the man.

And then everything went black.

Yay, another dark room with grey walls.

I groaned, my wrists were firmly tied to the chair that I was sitting in. Actually, it resembled a throne. Either of my arms was sitting comfortably on an armrest, tied down to it with three different leather belts a quarter of an inch thick and three inches wide. My legs were equally tied down to the legs of my new throne. Even my head had been firmly secured against the back of it. I tried shaking a little bit, but I couldn't move.

Besides, I had just had a heart attack and felt on the border of dying.

"Good…" the person in front of me looked at her wrist. "Morning already."

"Morning," I replied. "Smith?"

"He's alive," she replied. She sounded old.

"Damn," I cursed.

I took a second look at the woman in front of me. There was something about her, she was short and old, but there was something about her that cooled my blood as surely as liquid nitrogen would've.

"I will forgive your language because you do not seem to know who I am."

"Sorry, sir," I replied. "I haven't had a very…pleasurable evening."

"Oh, I am perfectly aware of that. In fact, I am perfectly aware of every single aspect of your miserable life."

"Sir?"

"And enough of that 'sir' bullshit. You can call me Admiral."

"Um, sorry Admiral."

"Better." The woman sat down on a chair in front of me and crossed her hands in front of her face, her cold eyes examining me.

"Careful now," Schitzo warned. "I don't like this one."

"Admiral, I know that I'm probably in no position to ask, but why am I here?"

"Because someone dropped the ball," she replied simply. "You've very obviously heard of Section Three?" Before I could open my mouth she went on. "Well, our late Major Cavallaro worked in that particular section of Naval Intelligence. Unfortunately for him, someone caught on to his plan to reveal classified information and reported him."

I nodded slowly, my head hurt and I was feeling dumb.

"Then Internal Affairs screwed up like they never before had."

"Internal Affairs?" I asked, mostly to myself.

"You didn't think that ONI would run without a special section supervising every single project, plan, operation, and employee, did you?"

"I…I never thought about it," I admitted.

"Of course you didn't," Admiral said. There was no tone to her voice, it was just cold. "IA immediately set after him, and when they saw that he was meeting with an unknown in a safe room they thought what anybody would think."

"That he was informing insurrectionists," I finished.

"Exactly. They killed him first, so that he couldn't reveal any information, but even then they botched it. They were too late."

"Admiral…"

"Shut up," she ordered. For some reason I obeyed. "Then they got you after you gave them more trouble than they would've thought one man could give."
I almost smiled at that.

"In my defense-"

"I don't care," she interrupted me. "They did a quick background check, but Section Three hid your files so goddamned well that they didn't even come across them. They just thought you were a glorified soldier."

"Marine," I corrected instinctively. I gulped at the expression on her face.

Admiral leaned back on her chair. "Spartan-IV, huh. I authorized that project, and until now I had barely even bothered to check on updates. Probably because of a severe lack of them."

Well, that sentence was grammatically ambiguous, I thought quietly.

"Of all the coincidences in the world, we got this one," she said regrettably.

"Am I going to be…disappeared?"

"No, no," she said a little bit too quickly. "You're far too valuable for that. Perhaps if you hadn't managed to break out of your handcuffs you would've been considered a failure, but that little show you put impressed some people."

"And yourself?"

"I am not so easily impressed," Admiral told me sternly. "But I have to admit that I know potential when I see it."

I almost smiled until I realized that she wasn't talking about me in particular, just about the program.

"Your little escapade resulted in the death of two of my men," she told me. "And their boss is calling for your blood. I'll handle him, and I doubt that he has the balls to go after you himself, but even then, be on the lookout."

"Admiral?"

"What?" she asked as she stood up. "I've got nothing more to say to you. You'll be assigned a new handler and we'll put this little business behind us, all right?"

"Uh, sure," I replied. That easy? "I won't let anything like this happen again."

Admiral laughed quietly. "Of course it won't, but not because of you, Sergeant. Oh, and before I forget, I consider letting you live as a favor, and sometimes even people like me need to call in favors."

I nodded, understanding what that implied. Until I paid her back or until I died I was leashed to that woman. I just hoped that she had better people to do the job for her.

Within minutes I was being unstrapped and led out into a small room. My knife was returned to me and I was blindfolded and sedated. When I came to I was in Hanna's living room, on her couch.

"Francisco, your luck never ceases to astound me," Schitzo said, shaking his head and smiling.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield and Alshep for proof-reading this chapter.

First off, I'd like to thank all of you for all your reviews, seriously, it was a bunch of them, so thanks. Most of you didn't enjoy Chapter 141, mostly because it had nothing to do with anything. Now, while I plan to give those characters recurring roles or at least additional appearances I understand why you didn't enjoy it and I'll try not to do that again. Now, if you took the time to review, I'll take the time to address them. One review in particular drew my attention, it pointed out that conversations in this story are mostly one-liners. That's true, characters go back and forth very quickly, I started doing that in an attempt to mimic real-life conversations, people very rarely go on for more than a few sentences unless they're telling a story or giving a speech. Anyways, that's my justification for that. To the reviewer "Guest" who asked me to make Frank less alluring to women, remember that this story is in first person, which means that it's basically in Frank's POV. He sounds like the kind of guy that would believe himself better than he actually is.

At alricstrife: The first one was related to Michael J. Fox appearing in Teen Wolf and Back in the Future. Granted, it was obscure but it was there. I liked your explanation for kings to aces, but the answer was much simpler. Kings and aces are both cards and aces to dogfighting is easy. Still, you win the bonus points, feel free to tell me what you prefer for a prize.

I'm glad to know that so many of you really enjoy this story, I'm sorry for the delays in posting, but school's been tough lately. Just know that I'm doing my best to update as fast as I can. Also, the grammar and spelling mistakes issue has been addressed and I've asked my proof-readers to double check everything. I would do it myself, but you just have to look at the first few chapters to realize that I'm not very good at that kind of stuff.

As for the chapter itself, I purposely made the torture not-bloody. I dislike fics where the protagonists are cut open and slashed and stabbed with impunity. I don't know why, I just dislike that. Besides, this is much more...cleaner and futuristic. Right. I used some accounts from people who were water-boarded to make this as realistic as possible. I personally haven't had the experience and I am content to keep it that way. The third and final torture was a bit of a mix from several books I've read, scary shit.

So, the question of the day is: Do you think Frank would've broken if the torture was prolonged? Anyways, feel free to review some more (yes!) and tell me what you thought.

Stay strong.

-casquis