Chapter 9

20: Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,

21: Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

22: A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

- Job 10: 20-22

00000

"I ask you again, Kludge, why was Captain Hunt on my drift?"

Harper said nothing; he simply hung by his wrists from the ceiling and waited for the pain he knew would come. This was his third "interview" with Felix and he'd used up all his smart remarks about half-way through the second. Each time he'd been dragged down to this room, released from his wrist shackles, stripped of his shirt, and strung up from the ceiling. Round two had consisted mostly of a good old-fashioned beating, no whips or branding-irons thankfully. Afterward, he'd been tossed back into the cell with Dylan, barely conscious, and left for a long time. They'd been given a little water, but nothing else, and hunger was now adding to his dizziness. He had, however, in between adamant refusals to let Dylan touch him, managed to catch a few hours sleep. It hadn't helped much. Harper could feel the beginnings of a fever setting in from the many wounds that were infected. But, he reminded himself, none of that really matters in the long run, does it?

"Slave, why do you continue to defy me!"

Because it's sooo freakin' fun. Harper would have rolled his eyes if they weren't almost swollen shut.

The pain came right on cue and while he didn't scream, he couldn't help the small jerk his body made. The plus side was this session was still whip and branding-iron free. The minus side was they'd moved on to electric cattle prod. Felix seemed to take great pleasure in applying it to the festering wounds on his back and chest. Personally, Harper couldn't see the fun in it.

"Surely the Captain's secrets are not worth this anguish?" Felix tried again, taking a sip of his drink. It was lemonade today and he sipped it as though at a Sunday School picnic.

Yeah, well, whether they are or they're not, the longer I keep my mouth shut, the longer I avoid a date with those big, nasty nails you keep showing me.

Silence.

Harper waited for the scheduled pain but this time it didn't come. Finally, he cracked a puffy eye open and looked at Felix.

"Seamus, Seamus, I see this is getting us nowhere."

The Nietzschean stepped up to him and ran a hand through his matted hair. Harper jerked backwards but couldn't escape his touch. Felix continued to caress his face, ignoring the boy's efforts to get free.

"You always were the defiant slave. I would have killed you long ago if it hadn't been for your bright mind. Such a talent for fixing things. It would be a shame not to take advantage of it one last time."

His hand strayed down Harper's cheek and onto his neck, resting unsettlingly close to his dataport.

"I see you've gotten a new accessory since I saw you last." His fingers toyed with the metal plug for a minute, and Harper gritted his teeth at the unpleasant sensations it sent through his brain.

Abruptly, the sensations ceased and Felix pulled his hand away, gesturing to his ever present clown squad.

"Move him to the table," he ordered dismissively, already turning away to peruse his trays of toys.

Oh no. The table did not sound good. Harper decided he most definitely did not want to move to the table. Unfortunately, he wasn't given a choice in the matter. His arms were released from the shackles keeping him upright and, completely against his will, his knees buckled.

Traitors, he muttered to his uncooperative legs.

The two goons easily manhandled him onto the cold, metal table. He couldn't stop the gasp that escaped his lips as his back was shoved down onto the hard surface and he was momentarily consumed by pain. Before he could collect his wits, his arms and legs were secured and he was helpless, unable to move. They hadn't even bothered to remove the ankle shackles he'd worn since the very first session; they'd simply secured the new straps around them.

Oh well, Harper decided. Hard metal table had to be better than rough wooden cross.

Resigned to his temporary fate, Harper looked up, trying to see what new torture Felix was going to use. To his surprise, the uber carried only a thin wire lead.

"Our engines are in need of a little repair work and it would be a shame not to make use of your skills."

How stupid could this guy get? Turning Harper loose in the mainframe of his ship…it was like handing him the keys!

Something of his thoughts must have shown because Felix leaned right into his face as he spoke the next words.

"Don't think I'm providing you with the opportunity to escape. This has been specially set up. There is only one place you can go in there and one action you can take. Try anything else and you'll receive a shock so strong we might not have to bother with your execution after all."

Harper couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"If you went to all the trouble to set that up, why didn't you just fix the problem yourself?"

"Because I want you to do it. You are my slave and you do what I say. You will learn that!"

Without any further warning, the lead was jammed forcefully into Harper's dataport and he was painfully pulled from reality into the computer world.

He was instantly surrounded by harsh reds and blacks and it was extremely jarring to his senses. The forced entry left him disoriented and it took him a moment to adjust. Finally, his head seemed to clear and he glanced down at his virtual self.

"Aw, crap," he muttered, getting a good look. While his hologram looked just the same as it did when he was inside Rommie's mainframe, the ubers had given him a nice present. His wrists and ankles were still shackled, only not with metal, but with bits of code. These "virtual chains" would keep him from performing anything but his designated task.

He raised his wrists. "Nice touch!" he yelled sarcastically to no one in particular, figuring he was being watched even if he couldn't see them. "Well, at least nothing hurts in here," he mumbled.

With shuffling steps, he started down one of the virtual corridors, noticing how empty the place felt. Apparently, this ship had no AI. He missed the familiar sensation of knowing Rommie was there, watching over him, but this could also work to his advantage. Chains and eavesdroppers notwithstanding, he was after all, Seamus Zelazny Harper, freakin' genius. There had to be something, even if it was miniscule, he could do in here to make their genetically-engineered lives a little crappier.

But, in the meantime, he had better get working on those engines. He really wouldn't put it past Felix to just fry him in here. Of course, that might actually be less painful than the alternative, but he guessed he wasn't in the mood to commit suicide and spending the eternities trapped inside an Uber's mainframe was not his idea of eternal rest.

Five minutes later Harper had drawn one conclusion: working in chains was not fun.

"You know, you aren't making this any easier!" he called to hidden listeners. A simple job like this would have been a snap if he didn't have to keep putting one bit of code down just to reach for another because he couldn't separate his hands far enough to do both at once. And then, if he accidentally brushed something the blasted chains thought he shouldn't touch, he got the joy of a nasty shock.

True, he was also conscientiously working slower than he usually would for several reasons. One, he was still trying to figure out how to circumvent the Dragans' restraints and watchfulness, and it was proving difficult. Stalling was certainly necessary. However, he was also reluctant to return to his own body. Everything hurt out there – everything – even his eyelashes. It was nice to have a few pain-free moments. He was noticing that was a rarity in his life lately and, unfortunately, would probably not happen again until he…well…anyway. Moving on…

Ten more minutes and he had the unruly proton converter back in shape. True, it could have been in a lot better shape, but apparently Felix's engineer did shoddy work and Harper felt no burning desire to provide his best services.

Now what? Harper thought to himself, afraid to say it aloud. He was finished and he still hadn't come up with any brilliant plans. He knew he needed to move back to the entry point or risk getting zappolaed into nothingness, but he didn't want to leave without doing something to the jerks! There were loose bits of information and files floating all around him - Harper marveled again at the incompetence of the Nietzschean engineer - and if it weren't for the darn restraint codes, he'd just reach out and snag a few.

And then it came to him; the inspiration of a true genius. He smiled in spite of himself and shuffled back to the exit point.

"All right Mr. Sadistic Torturer, I'm all done."

He felt the codes break up, freeing his arms and legs, and the instant before he was pulled back down the tunnel to reality, he reached out and randomly grasp the two nearest files and held on. His grin deepened as he processed them instantly. One was worthless – a list of what to get a finicky mother-in-law for her birthday, but the other, it was very good. His consciousness whooshed back into his head, but the files stayed tucked nicely away in his dataport, safe and sound.

Harper couldn't help the groan that escaped as his mind returned to his battered body. Oh man, he'd forgotten how much everything hurt.

"Welcome back, Kludge," Felix was there before he really had a chance to gather his wits, standing over him and blocking the light. As un-gently as before, the wire lead was jerked from his dataport hard enough to cause a few sparks.

"You know, that could have easily been fixed from the outside. What was the point of sending me in there, other than to show off how well you can produce virtual restraints?" Harper ground out through his teeth, still trying to get the renewed pain signals his body was sending him back under control. "There was really no point."

Felix leaned right over him, trying to intimidate, and as Harper was still strapped to the freakish table, he was quite successful. Harper made a mental note to mark working in that section of the Torture Techniques Survey when he got it.

"Oh, but there is always a point, slave. Your sense of self-worth and importance has grown too large in the years you were away from me. I had thought our little chats would remind you of your place, but I forgot how stubborn you are. You fancy yourself an engineer, a mechanic. You're wrong."

At these words, he produced another wire lead from somewhere outside of Harper's line of vision, but this was no ordinary dataport cable. This thing screamed sinister by its very design. Harper barely had time for the fear to well up inside his chest before the plug was crammed into his port. "I hope you enjoyed your walk in the virtual world. It will be your last."

Felix flipped a switch and suddenly Harper's whole brain was on fire. Pain danced across sensitive nerve endings so fast his breath was sucked away and he couldn't even find air to scream. Instead, his mouth opened wide in voiceless agony, but all control of his body was gone. Through it all, he could feel the electricity coursing through his dataport, frying the delicate circuitry and heating the metal up until the skin around it started to burn. The sound of wires popping inside was like thunder within his head. Just when he knew he could stand it no longer, the current was gone. But, the damage had been done.

Gasping for breath, his fingers clawing at the cold metal beneath him as he fought to regain control, Harper let out a small whimper.

Felix smiled evilly at his victim before leaning down to whisper sweetly in his ear.

"You're mine, boy, for as long as I choose to keep you alive. You are not an engineer! You're a slave! A SLAVE! I wanted you to go into that mainframe for the repairs, even though they could have been done outside, to show you who had the power. I allowed you to make those repairs, and I took that power from you, and you will never be able to use it again! I can take or give you anything. Icontrol every aspect of your pitiful existence."

Satisfied that his subject had gotten the picture, Felix backed away. He was so convinced he'd won the round and the words were so quiet, he almost missed them.

"Not a slave. Seamus Zelazny Harper, super-genius."

It took all the willpower he had left to force those words out through the agony he was feeling, and even then they were more like wisps of air; but it was enough. For once Felix's controlled aura slipped and he smashed his fist across Harper's face in anger.

"ENOUGH!"

He was seething, his face contorted in rage.

"I will tolerate this no longer! My guards will prepare the beams now, and you will watch. In half an hour I'll return and we will finish this! I will show you who is in control!" He leaned close to Harper one more time, his eyes blazing. "And after I have you mounted on wood like the insect you are, I will march your captain in here to show him what happens to slaves who think too much of themselves."

00000

Terror. Pure terror. This was what it felt like.

Harper thought he'd known fear before, after all he had survived battles, Magog raids, torture, infestation, slavery… He thought he'd stepped into the ring with terror already and come out, if not the winner, at least with a truce. He'd even faced death before, and accepted it.

He now knew he was wrong.

Pure, unadulterated terror was something unique, and you could only feel it once.

As the straps from the table were released and Harper was pulled to his feet, he was oblivious to all his hurts and pains. His shirt was forced back on, but he hardly noticed. His eyes were fixed instead on the rough wooden post stuck upright in the floor, and the other laying patiently on the ground: waiting. And his mind was far away, thinking of all the things he had never said and should have, and all the people he would never see again.

He offered no resistance as he was dragged to the cross-beam and forced onto his back on the floor. What would be the point? He was outnumbered four to one, and he was half-dead anyway.

"I've been told a healthy man can last up to seven days on the cross. Would you like to bet on your outcome?" Commander Gaius Felix was back in his armchair, observing the sport.

Harper said nothing as his arms were stretched out and tied to the wood. He doubted he could have formed words right now if he wanted to.

It was when he felt the sharp coldness of steel touching his right palm that he finally started to panic. The fog cleared from his brain and reality set in. This was actually going to happen to him! They were going to pound great metal spikes through his hands and lift him up to hang from them until he was dead!

No! Wait! Please! I don't want this to happen! Please!

The uber holding the nail shifted slightly, giving Harper a view of the hammer raised in his other hand, waiting.

No! I don't want to die! Please!

And then the hammer fell.

Cold steel pierced warm flesh and Harper was silent no more. The scream that tore from his throat told of unspeakable agony, the like of which he had never felt before. Because this was more than just physical pain, this was the agony of a soul who had finally given up – a soul who had lost more than could be counted.

It was almost a scream without words, but if one listened hard enough and knew what to hear, they could make out one word, a prayer and apology in one, all buried in the pain. One word: Beka.