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Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: "The Pretender" is a protected trademark and I'm Just borrowing the characters. I promise to give them back once I've used them, hopefully more or less intact.
I thought of this story when I saw the end of Crazy, where Sydney was actually reading a Braille book. He had only been blinded for a short time and to be able to read Braille with the speed he was reading it takes a little longer to accomplish.
Renewal
part 1
By Giton
“Down Jarod, it’s a bomb!” Sydney’s shout reached him moments before he saw Sydney hurling towards him and throwing him against the floor. From the corner of his eye he saw Mr Parker do the same to his daughter. Quickly thereafter the sound of the blast resounded through the corridor and then there was darkness…
When Jarod came to, he found the weight of Sydney resting on top of him. When he brought his hand to Sydney’s throat he found a faint pulse, he was still alive but unconscious. He gently eased Sydney’s body off him and quickly examined himself; he couldn’t feel any major injuries. He found his way to where he had seen the Parkers fall and found their pulses beating too.
He couldn’t stay here. He could already hear the Sweeper-teams entering the corridor on the other side of the steel door. It shouldn’t be long before they would find a way to get to this side of the corridor. By sheer luck he found one of the air-ducts quickly and disappeared.
***
When Sydney came to he was surrounded by darkness. Jarod should have been lying underneath him, but wasn’t there anymore and it could be construed as a good sign.
He tried to straighten up and was driven back to the floor again by the pain in his back. Understandably, he had his back to the blast, didn’t he? Before throwing Jarod to the floor he had seen the Parkers go down to the left of him and he crawled in their direction to check if they were all right. The first body his hands encountered must have been one of the Cleaners who had come with Mr Parker. Clean-shaven, close-cropped hair and dead.
He crawled over a bit further. Mr. Parker: alive. Miss Parker: alive too. He breathed a sigh of relief. Mr Parker moaned in pain. Sydney’s gentle fingers searched his body for injuries. When he came to Mr Parker’s hands the other man moaned again.
Sydney wondered how receptive Mr Parker was to hypnotic suggestion and if he was aware enough to hear Sydney’s voice. It could alleviate the pain. “Charles, listen to my voice. Just follow the sound of my voice. Can you hear me?” He repeated this a couple of times until Mr Parker responded with a soft moan. “Good! You’ve found my voice. When I tell you to go back to sleep, you will feel no pain and even when you wake up the pain will be slight. Do you understand? (-a soft moan from Mr Parker-) On the count of three you will go back to sleep. One… Two… Three…” Mr Parker’s breathing slowed to normal.
He moved over to Miss Parker and ran gentle hands over her; she seemed to be all right.
At the other end of the corridor he could hear voices coming closer. “There they are!” They could see them? He brought his hands to his face: nothing, but there was no pain or injuries in the face either. When they turned him over and said, “Dr Green is alive.” And he still couldn’t see them it was obvious why.
He had wrongly assumed that the darkness was due to electrical failure because of the blast, but it had been his eyes!
He passed out when they tried to lift him.
***
When again he awoke it was still in darkness. He was lying on his stomach. The surface under his hands told him he was lying on a bed and under blankets, quite possibly in the infirmary. He hoped the others were doing all right as well and that Jarod had managed to escape. He drifted off to sleep again.
***
Awake again he tried to get up. A sharp pain in the back of his head and the skin on his back drawing tight reminded him again why he was in the infirmary.
“I wouldn’t try and move for a while,” the voice of a male nurse, “Your back is pretty blistered and your head received a nasty thump at the back. Want something to drink?”
Up to that point Sydney hadn’t even thought about anything much, but now he felt extremely thirsty. He nodded. The nurse came over and helped him drink.
“Can you tell me what is wrong with me?” Sydney asked hoarsely.
“Slight burns to the back and the back of the head. They should heal soon. There’s also a nasty lump on the back of the head and we suspect a concussion. But since you haven’t been conscious long enough, we haven’t been able to determine how severe it is. Feel up to doing some tests?”
Sydney nodded, which sent new stabs of pain through his skull. He knew what the tests were going to show: blindness due to the knock on his head. He had dealt with it before. Hopefully this was of a temporary nature too.
They prodded and poked and “oh”-ed and “ah”-ed and came to the same conclusion he had.
He drew a blank when he inquired after the Parkers. They were not at liberty to tell him. He was worried for them and hoped they were all right. With disconcerting thoughts he drifted off to sleep.
***
Again he woke up to total darkness. But things had changed. He was still lying on his stomach, but the texture of the linens he was lying on had changed. No longer were they smooth to the touch. The temperature in the room had dropped. It could be night or they could have brought him down to the deeper corridors. He shuddered and promptly fell asleep again.
***
When next he woke he felt better. The skin on his back didn’t feel so tight anymore. The world around him hadn’t changed in perspective, it was still shrouded in darkness, but it didn’t frighten him. Many years ago a knock to the back of his head had rendered him blind for nearly a year.
At first he had been frightened, but he had coped and dealt with it. But it can’t be denied that he was very relieved when eyesight was restored to him again. He suspected, or rather hoped, this to be the same.
Directly behind the bed he felt a wall. He carefully got up from his bed, not wanting to disturb his back more than necessary, to assess the rest of his surroundings. A couple of measured steps forwards before he hit another wall. Feeling to the right he encountered a door after only a few steps and then another few steps before he hit a wall again. Further to the right, just a blank wall before hitting the wall his bed was resting against.
Going back to the left. A number of steps, turn, another couple of steps, door, another blank wall. To the left of the door there was a small table with a chair in front of it, than another blank wall.
He felt his way back to the bed and sat on the edge. He had been able to stretch comfortably on the bed and with his height of six foot three, that must make the bed near seven feet long. At the head and the foot of the bed there was ample space. With the measurements on the opposite wall the length of the room must easily be nine feet long.
Quick calculations told him that the room was approximately nine by eight feet. No windows. Bare walls. The screams from others on this level told him that he was in one of the rooms in the Renewal wing. His hope sank a notch.
He knew he was being watched and they must have seen his measuring of the room, what they made of it was different matter.
Carefully he rested his back against the wall, unmoving, staring ahead. He didn’t care what they were thinking of him. He could keep himself busy quite easily in his own mind; that year, so many years ago, had taught him that.
***
Flashback – Nearly forty years ago
He and Jacob had just starting attending Yale on a scholarly grant and being identical twins caused the necessary consternation.
Jacob had always been the flippant one while Sydney took things too seriously. Well, at least in his brother’s opinion and maybe he did.
Jacob was always playing pranks on other people and that day one of his pranks had gone wrong.
Choosing the biggest school bully, Clint, hadn’t been one of his better ideas. He couldn’t have found it a big surprise that once he had been caught out the bully had it in for him.
Luckily the twins had always been fair runners, despite their build, and Clint had never kept in shape. Chase was given and Jacob ran, laughing tauntingly when Clint and his cronies couldn’t keep up with him.
He just rounded the corner when he ran into Sydney who was walking around engrossed in a book. Jacob grabbed him by the arm, dragging him with him. “Run,” he shouted with a gleeful smile on his face. No further words were necessary. You didn’t need to be twins as close as they were for Sydney to know that Jacob was in trouble… again! He just managed to drop the book in his pocket, before running with his brother. It was just in time. Shortly after that the chasing group came around the corner with murder in their eyes.
The twins picked up their pace.
“What have you done?” shouted Sydney, running next to his brother now.
“Just someone who couldn’t take a joke, that’s all.”
“If that is all, than why are we running for dear life?”
“It’s Clint and he’s bigger, well, at least wider than us,” laughed Jacob.
“Than you, you mean. I could always explain…”
“Sydney, we are identical! Do you really think you can convince the school bully it was all supposed to be a joke? And at his expense? If he can’t have my hide, your hide is close enough like mine to be tanned.”
“You have a point there.”
Clint slowed down in frustration. He could never catch up with them. Hell, both of them were on the football-team and there weren’t that many people who could out-distance the twins. He saw a small rock lying on the ground, picked it up and in pure frustration threw it at their receding backs with all of his force.
Sydney felt the impact to the base of his skull. Instantly everything went black and he could feel himself falling. He never felt the contact he made with the ground.
It took Jacob another couple of strides before he noticed that his brother wasn’t running next to him anymore. When he looked back he saw Sydney sprawled face down on the ground. He stopped, loped back to his brother and knelt down beside him.
“Sydney?” He gently prodded his shoulder. He then noticed there was blood on the back of Sydney’s head. His eyes filled with tears, “Sydney?” but Sydney stayed unconscious.
A rage built up in Jacob. He stood up and glared at the approaching boys. No longer did he care that there was only one of him and four of them. He had forgotten that he had been the cause of all this in the first place.
“Tu l’as blessé!” [You hurt him.] He shouted, while tears of anger were streaming down his face, “Vous allez me le payer! Salouds!” [You are going to pay for this! Bastards!]
When the four had seen Sydney go down, they were shocked at first and had gone over to see if the brother needed a hand. But when they saw the other twin red with rage and shouting foreign words at them, their contriteness was soon forgotten. Whether it was him or his brother who had humiliated Clint with his prank, this one, the one still standing, was going to pay for it!
They advanced on the youth.
Two of Clint’s group were ready to back off when they saw the glint of murder in the standing twin, but Clint and his lieutenant moved on. The two who held back later had problems to recount what had actually happened.
Jacob was fast as lightening and combining French Savate with boxing, his speed kicking was hard and high and he packed power behind his punches. Clint and his lieutenant went down in no time and had no inclination to continue the fight. Once they got up, they ran.
His rage as quickly forgotten as it had come up, Jacob knelt beside his brother again, “Sydney, Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait? Je promets d’être plus serieux, si tu t’en remet. Je le jure!” [Sydney, what have I done? I promise to be more serious if you are going to be all right Honest. I will.] He was sobbing again, but didn’t dare move Sydney lest his injury to the back of his skull was more severe that it looked.
Sydney groaned and seemed to come to. Jacob kept Sydney still.
“Jacob? Why speak French? We’re in America now!” Sydney said confused.
“Sorry, Syd, I’m here, brother. Do you think you can get up by yourself?”
“I think so,” and with the aid of Jacob he got into a sitting position, “Uhm, Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“Have I been out long?”
“Depends how you define ‘long’.”
“Not until evening-time for instance?”
Jacob laughed, “Not as long as that, brother. Only about five or ten minutes.”
“I thought as much,” Sydney took a deep shuddering breath, “Then I must be either blind or someone switched the lights on me,” he smiled weakly.
If the comment and the smile had been meant to put Jacob at ease it failed miserably. Jacob could detect the small shudder in Sydney’s voice and he could feel the fear in his brother. He tried to put up a brave front for Sydney’s sake, “Come and let’s get you down to the infirmary. Maybe it is just a side effect of a concussion or something equally minor.”
Sydney nodded.
***
They got Sydney down to the infirmary where they concluded a concussion. The two boys were then sent to the hospital to get some further tests done. After the testing Sydney was told that he was blind, but that it would probably be of a temporarily nature. There was pressure on the optic nerve, which caused this and it was their experience that such accidents cleared naturally, given time and rest.
They were given the address of an institute who dealt with the blind and might be able to help Sydney cope with the concept. When they were there Sydney expressed the wish to learn Braille and although they said it wasn’t necessary (It might be cleared in weeks!) he insisted, especially since they couldn’t give him an answer in the affirmative how long it would take to clear.
Sydney explained to the counsellor that they had only just started at Yale, that they were there on a scholarship and he couldn’t waste time sitting around, waiting and maybe losing his place at Yale’s. Nor was it fair to his brother if he was the one who kept him back.
He had set his mind to become a psychiatrist and couldn’t afford to waste time waiting for his handicap to clear up.
The counsellor was impressed by the determination of the boy and his lack of fear of being blind. He warned him that it might take a long time to learn and maybe it was all for nought, but still Sydney insisted. With a shrug the counsellor said he could enrol Sydney in his classes. Jacob could bring him after school and pick him up later.
When it came to the matter of payment, the boys went quiet. They had come to America on a scholarship and had no family in the States and what was left of their family in Europe was in no financial condition to help the boys.
The counsellor could see Sydney’s shoulders slump. There was no way they could afford the tuition fees. They just managed a meagre existence on the Grant and hadn’t had time yet to go around looking for work to supplement that. They were also too proud to say this out loud.
“Come, Jacob, we’ll find a way.” Sydney got up and with a surety of step… walked straight into a chair. “Merde!”
The counsellor felt sorry for them and said, “Hey boys, ever heard of the saying “I scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine”?”
“Like tit-for-tat?” asked Sydney.
The counsellor was surprised that the boy had a good grasp of the English language, even though their accents were strong and he had cursed in French. Canadian, maybe? No he had said Europe. “Yes, something like that. We could make a deal.”
“What sort of a deal?”
“I will teach you Braille and in return you will help me with the kids.”
“What can I do for them?”
“I don’t know, keep them sweet. Talk to them.”
“Charity!” Sydney’s face turned red. He was slowly getting enough of having to accept charity all his life, first by strangers after the war. Then by remnants of the family who passed them along from one family-member to another and who couldn’t understand what the boys had been through. The Grant. The list went on, and now this.
“No,” said the counsellor, surprised by Sydney’s reaction, “How many languages do you speak?”
Sydney was confused, what did his language skills have to do with the children? He answered, “Well, English, French, German, some Italian and Spanish. Why?”
The counsellor was impressed, “We have kids from all backgrounds and languages here and sometimes we can’t communicate because we are not able to understand each other’s language and that could slow down the healing process. Now you understand?”
A big smile spread over Sydney’s face, “You got yourself a deal!”
***
During the day Sydney attended his classes, ever so still, absorbing the lecturers words. Then with Jacob to the institute, home and got everything, which he thought of importance, written down with Jacob’s help. They were long gruelling days for both the boys. But Sydney showed an aptitude for picking up Braille and it was soon that he could read it and was now able to order some books from the library and not be such a burden to Jacob. He still went to the institute to fulfil his part of the bargain and found he enjoyed working with children and teenagers. As a matter of fact he enjoyed the more difficult cases best. He decided there and then that should it become time to choose a direction in his studies, it would lean towards child psychology.
Luckily the blindness lasted for under a year. Not too long in a lifetime, but it would have been too long had he had to neglect his studies because of it. He counted his blessings to have been able to study Braille and have a brother like Jacob helping him.
Even when his sight had returned, Sydney continued to spent time at the institute to help the children and to keep up his studies of Braille. It also helped him to improve their small income. Jacob had found employ in a bar where he worked a couple of evenings in the week and where his natural joviality was much appreciated by everyone.
True to his word, Jacob became more serious, but kept most of the light heartedness, which Sydney thought he himself was lacking.
His determination to go on studying against all odds earned him merits from his teachers. Jacob was excelling in his own studies and both boys went on for another year.
***
Present
“Yes,” Sydney mused, “We haven’t done so badly. It’s a pity Jacob hadn’t been able to enjoy it for a longer period.” He sighed. Ah well, apart from being ignored at the moment life wasn’t so bad. If this bout of blindness continued at least he could still read in Braille. He had never let up on it and had been able to use and teach it to some of the children at the Centre and had used in some simulations with Jarod.
Over the years he had also picked up the language for the deaf and dumb and lip-reading, although about the last ability he didn’t let on. The bosses in the Centre had seen this at first as a distraction on his part and then saw the advantage of it when they had some deaf or blind potential pretenders in. At least Sydney had the satisfaction that these potentially vulnerable children were not handed over to Raines due to his advantage over him. The children already had to cope with a lot. Handing them over to a monster like Raines would have sent them over the edge.
Yes, life had not been so bad to him, although the quality of his spiritual life might have been better or improved…
***
“He just sits there,” said Lyle to Raines. He was watching the security-cameras while Raines was sitting in a wheelchair, recuperating from the blast as well.
“What do you expect him to do?” Raines wheezed, “Rave, rant, hit the walls!”
“I would!”
“And hurt himself? That’s not Sydney! We will let him stew for a little bit longer. He should be feeling quite hungry by now. After a while he will be more pliable, you’ll see!”
***
Sydney decided they were deliberately trying to ignore and starve him. He didn’t know how long he had been kept here already before he regained full awareness, but at least four hours must have gone by since he started moving about in the room. The rumble in his stomach told him it had been a while since he had last eaten. He shrugged, he had survived worse.
He ran his hand over his face and detected a couple of days worth stubble. He was also more aware that he hadn’t had a wash or a bath for a couple of days. And now that he was thinking about his hygiene he started to feel a strong urge to urinate.
He tried to recall the layout of the room when he was measuring it. Was there anything that could be used as a makeshift toilet? He got up, moved to the table and felt around and under it. Presto! A metal waste bin, not perfect but better than urinating against the wall; he sniggered.
Ah, that felt better!
He brushed his hand over the table, empty! He moved back to the bed, felt for his pillow and removed the slipcase. This he then draped over the metal-container. It should stop some of the smell.
He lay down again to get some sleep. It would give him some rest and kept his mind off hunger.
***
“Let him stew a bit more! A little more pliable! He’ll feel hungry!” Lyle was pacing the room, “The only ones who are stewing is us! Pliable? Hungry? It doesn’t seem to bother him that much, does it now?”
“Give it some time…”
“We don’t have that much time. They say my father will be out of the infirmary soon and he will want answers. My darling sister is getting fidgety and will be starting to snoop around. We don’t know how temporary his blindness is. And the Triumvirate wants Jarod to be found… fast! I don’t think we have that much time to just wait around. I say, we move in and “coerce” him into reasoning.”
A hungry gleam appeared in Raines’ eyes, “Coerce, I like that word. Let’s “coerce” him tomorrow, shall we?” an evil grin spread over his skull-like face, it even made Lyle shudder.
Lyle looked back at the monitor, “Oh God, he even peed in the wastepaper bin!”
“Where else would you want him to do it? Against the wall?”
Lyle glared at him. Their subject made himself ready to go to sleep again, unbeknownst further frustrating Lyle.
***
When next he woke up, Sydney felt a bit better. His back wasn’t hurting so much now, but the hunger was now joined by thirst. He lay still to preserve his energy and with his face to the wall he wetted his lips. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up and how long he had been here already. How patient were his captors?
He tried to remember how long a person could go without water before all sorts of trouble, like kidney-failure, sets in. It only made him thirsty and he couldn’t remember anyway.
He tried to sit up, to attract their attention, but a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him and he decided that lying still would be a better idea. He waited.
***
The motion had not been lost on Raines who had been watching the screen like a patient vulture. A grin spread over his face, he nudged Lyle, “I think it’s time we have a talk with Dr Green.”
***
Sydney heard the door to his cell (he wasn’t thinking of it as a room anymore) open and asked hoarsely, “Who is there?” and was surprised how raw his voice really was.
There was no answer, but he could hear a distinct wheezing intake of breath and the smell of after-shave, which he associated with one man, “Ah, Mr Raines and Mr Lyle! Come to pay me a visit? Did you bring the grapes?”
It infuriated Lyle that, although sounding painfully hoarse, due to the lack of liquids, and being blind, Sydney managed to sound quite flippant and casual. He gnashed his teeth.
Raines, on the other hand, had seen through Sydney’s ruse and saw how he had to swallow deeply to create the effect of sounding jovial. He had also noticed that Sydney managed to fight back a wave of dizziness when he sat up on the edge of the bed. He brought his wheelchair closer to the bed.
Sydney’s face turned to him, “You haven’t come out of it unscathed either, have you?”
Raines felt discomfited. It almost looked as if Sydney’s blind eyes could stare right through him. “Better than you fared,” he retorted.
“Was it one of your oxygen tanks that blew up?” Sydney asked innocently.
“We wouldn’t be talking to each other if it had been. I could hear you shout, “It’s a bomb!” How did you know?”
“Did I?”
“Yesss you did!” Raines’ sibilant whisper became stronger, a sign that he was getting annoyed.
“Why am I put in the Renewal Wing?” Sydney diverted the conversation, “A bit of room service wouldn’t be out of place either.”
Raines said, “If you are willing to co-operate we can do something about that.”
“Ask and I see if I can accommodate you.” Lyle could only stare in amazement at Sydney.
A nasty smile crept over Raines’ face, but before he could say anything Lyle said, “Tell us where Jarod is.” Raines shot a nasty look at him.
“So, he escaped,” thought Sydney. He said instead, “Wish I could help you there, but being locked up in here I know even less about his whereabouts than you do.”
“You must have an idea.”
“You mean you can’t track him? What a pity. How about Broots or Miss Parker? They have been on the chase as long as I have.”
“We want to know it from you!” Lyle said, receiving another glare from Raines.
Sydney “looked” at Lyle, who had to turn his head away, “You mean to say, actually, that you don’t know where he is and that you don’t care where he is at the moment. I am in the Renewal Wing (-he stated that as a fact, rather than a question-) and this is your plan to re-educate me. Knowing full well that I don’t know where Jarod is. Well, those kinds of tactics are not going to work. I would rather die than give in to you!” He should have phrased it differently.
Sydney could almost feel the smile creeping on Raines’ face that would turn his face into a reptilian mask, “You might have to do just that, Dr Green, I can be very accommodating in that respect if necessary. But you are right, asking you now where Jarod is would be like asking Mr Lyle here to tell me the distance to the sun to a hundredth of an inch accurately. I’ll see to some arrangements.”
“It would be appreciated,” Sydney said just as amicably.
“Any immediate questions?”
“Yes, how are the Parkers?”
“Sorry, can’t tell you that! Anything else?”
“No.”
“We see each other soon, Dr Green.”
They left, leaving Sydney alone staring straight ahead. Small lines of worry creasing his brows.
***
When they got back to their observation post, Lyle turned to Raines in frustration, “I thought we were going to “talk” to Sydney. We weren’t even questioning him! We just mollycoddled him!”
“Letting Sydney eat and drink, in moderation of course, will keep some of his strength up, we don’t want him to die on us… yet, do we? It was very unfortunate that you had to ask where Jarod is, now he knows that Jarod is still on the loose. He doesn’t know where Jarod is, but Jarod isn’t his only weak spot. Luckily for us the man is full of principles. We can use that against him. His mind is quite strong at the moment; it will not be easily broken, but it can be… given the right tools.”
Lyle smiled, “You are thinking of lacing his food or drink!”
“Mildly, maybe, and than letting him believe that one day we put it in his food and the other day in his drink. We shouldn’t have to do anything, just let his own mind do the work. If we also only give him minimal supplies of food, he will come to rely on us.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Stronger dosages or physical persuasion, we just have to wait and see.” They both chuckled.
***
Sydney waited. He knew that they were going to play mind games with him. He had no inclination to believe otherwise. He didn’t believe for a minute that Raines or Lyle was going to treat him with kindness. If that had been the case they would have left him in the infirmary instead of stowing him away in the “deeper dungeons”.
He was glad that they had left. The little energy he had used to sit up and talk as if nothing was wrong had used his last bit of strength. He lay down again and gave himself over to sweet oblivion.
***
When he woke up he knew someone had been in. He sniffed the air. The odour of his earlier urination had gone. At least they had taken that out and hopefully replaced it with something more suitable.
With any luck they had left him some refreshments as well. He got up slowly, not wanting to crash into something if his strength would fade all of a sudden, and moved towards the table. His hands moved gently over the surface and his lips curled into a small smile when his hands encountered a tall glass and a plate. He didn’t care if they had laced it, which was probably the case. He brought the glass to his mouth and took a small sip. He had no idea that water could taste this wonderful.
He let it be followed by a couple of more small sips, it would be no good to drink it all at once and be sick on it. He remembered his first taste of chocolate after they were freed from the Camp and even the smell of chocolate could make him feel nauseous nowadays.
He put the glass down and moved his hand over the plate. Sandwiches. He picked up a piece and took a bite from it. Just an ordinary cheese sandwich. He took another couple of sips of water and took one slice of the sandwich with him and sat on the edge of the bed while eating it. He would take the other piece a little bit later.
Slowly he let his stomach get used to having something solid inside him.
***
“This is driving me mad,” said Lyle, “It’s like watching paint dry. If you want to stay with the monitor, be my guest, I have better things to do.” He put on his jacket and without waiting for an answer left the room.
Raines stayed and watched the monitor. Yes, it seemed as if Sydney was untroubled with it all, but still… he had to feel some anxiety with the thought of being blind?
Raines looked with a glint of hatred at the unmoving figure on the bed. It was unnatural that he just sat there, even with a hint of a smile on his face.
Raines remembered his own anxiety when the oxygen tank had been blown up by Sydney and left him to spend weeks in the infirmary in agonizing pain, all for the sake of the labrat. He wanted to see Sydney suffer too, but isolation and blindness didn’t seem to bother him.
He wondered how Sydney would react to physical pain and a smile curled around his lips. He had doubts that physical “persuasion” would make much difference to Sydney, quite some discomfort for certain, only for that Raines would still consider it as a first rather than a last option.
Then another thought struck him, which made him smile even broader. Good, principled Sydney, what would upset him more than physical pain? The threat of others being hurt! He didn’t even have to actually hurt them; just letting Sydney believe that he had or would be. His smile grew when he started to develop the idea in his mind.
***
The subject of his thoughts was doing some thinking of his own.
One: Jarod had escaped, or else they wouldn’t ask him about it. Had they caught him they would rather taunt than ask him.
Two: Broots should be relatively safe. He wasn’t even in the corridor when the bomb went off.
Three: unless Miss Parker was injured in the fall she should be relatively unharmed too. Her father’s body should have protected her from the blast as his body had done with Jarod and Jarod had escaped.
Four: Mr Parker should still be alive, at least, or Lyle wouldn’t have to hide behind Raines but would have already ordered to put a bullet through his head.
For himself he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. He smiled at the analogy, very apt to his situation at the moment. And then he became serious again. To be at the mercy of the two biggest psychopaths of the Centre wasn’t his immediate idea of fun, but dwelling on it could make his mindset worse and he was betting money on it that where those two were concerned matters could go from bad to worse.
***
Raines and Lyle were back in his room and this time they had brought two Sweepers with them.
“It’s time for your re-education lessons,” Lyle said cheerfully. Sydney’s heart sank, but he showed no outward emotion. At a motion from Lyle the two Sweepers hauled Sydney off the bed and marched him out of the room. Behind him he could hear Raines’ wheelchair.
They went to the end of the corridor and they didn’t have to walk far. Mentally Sydney tried to picture the layout, if only to keep himself from imagining what the other two had in store for him. A door opened and they entered a large room. It was cold.
Without saying a word the two Sweepers took Sydney’s clothes off and he was awkwardly aware of his nakedness. He was already barefooted and without his clothes the room was quite cold. They let him stand in the middle of the room and manacled his wrists to two chains hanging from the ceiling.
A strong burst of ice-cold water hitting his body made him gasp for air.
“I thought you could do with a wash,” Raines said menacingly, “I know you always like to look your best. Don’t you think I’m very accommodating now?” He chuckled.
Sydney could only gasp when the water continued hitting him. When it finally stopped he hung weakly in the chains. He was shivering from the cold and couldn’t stop his teeth from clattering. The two psychopaths were smiling now.
“Now, how did you know there was a bomb in the corridor?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sydney said shivering violently and trying to keep upright.
“Oh yes you do,” said Raines, “I could hear you. Who are you protecting?”
“Nobody! You must have imagined it!” Sydney smiled. This earned him a slap across the face from Lyle. If he could help it he wasn’t going to tell them he had planted the bomb.
“Had Jarod planted the bomb?”
“No! I… don’t know.”
Raines had noticed the slight hesitation, “I think you do know who did.” Sydney stayed silent. “Well, we do have ways of finding out and we have all the time of the world.”
Sydney knew he was lying, he could hear it in his voice. He kept his mouth shut.
“Normally you have so much to tell us. Why not now?”
Sydney said nothing and got another slap across the face from Lyle, “Dr Raines asked you a question, so, answer!”
“Mr Raines should then ask me questions to which I know the answer,” Sydney said defiantly and could almost see Raines’ face when he refused to use his official title. Wrong move. He should learn to keep his sarcasm under control. It earned him two harder slaps across the face. He could hear Lyle walk around him and tried to keep from fidgeting.
Lyle laid his hand on his back, “Your back seem to be healing nicely. It would be a pity if we had to damage it again.” Again he ran his hand lightly over Sydney’s back, it sent an involuntary shiver down Sydney’s back. “Uncomfortable? Or do you like it?” Sydney kept his mouth shut.
“Now, who planted the bomb?”
Sydney thought they must know, maybe they had found the security tapes?
“Not very co-operative, aren’t we?”
Sydney stayed silent. They either knew or they were stabbing in the dark. The analogy brought a smile to his face, but it was soon wiped off his face and a scream tore from his lips when a whip was laid over his damaged back. He hung in his chains, trembling.
“Now, will you be more co-operative or do you want more?”
“Go to hell,” hissed Sydney. He knew there was more to come, whether he was co-operative or not, and he braced himself. The hits on his back and shoulders were hard and brutal and hurt like hell. He couldn’t keep himself from grimacing in pain, but he had the satisfaction of denying them their pleasure of hearing him cry out. It wasn’t long before his weakened condition made him pass out.
Breathing from the exertion Lyle looked at the back of his unconscious victim who hung heavily in his chains. There were some angry welts and one of the lashes had made a cut in the left shoulder. He was frustrated that, apart from the first scream, Sydney had stayed relatively silent troughout the proceedings. He motioned the Sweepers to revive Sydney with the cold-water hoses and had the satisfaction that Sydney gasped into consciousness.
“Are you going to be more amicable or…”
“Go to hell and take your lackey with you,” Sydney gasped shivering. He braced himself again for what was to come and did not cry out when the whip hit his left shoulder.
Another session started and was like a repeat performance, with hardly a peep issuing from Sydney’s lips before he passed out again.
“This is unnatural,” gasped Lyle while he looked at Sydney’s slumped figure. His back had more cuts than welts now.
“No, this is Sydney!” said Raines, “He knows how to play mind games too and will use it to his own advantage, even if it hurts him. I suspect him of having sentiments of martyrdom hidden in him. Pah!”
“But a whipping like that…”
“I told you his mind is strong, even to the extent of suppressing his physical well-being and we need other ways to persuade him.”
“Maybe the electric…”
“Maybe other than giving him a heart attack and satisfying your own pleasure (-he did not include himself in the equation-) it will resolve nothing. Other tactics are necessary here.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Still working on it. It has to be subtle enough to get past his defences.”
“Then why agree to a physical questioning?”
“It could have worked,” said Raines with an unpleasant smile, which made even Lyle shudder. It was no big secret that there was no love lost between the two psychiatrists.
“I better get him dried, dressed and back to his room then.”
“No, leave him like that for a short while. Give him the impression we might continue.”
***
Sydney came to a short while later. He was a bit surprised that he was still hanging from the chains, but that they hadn’t revived him the way they did the last time. He tried to straighten up and winced from the pain in his back. His arm muscles were feeling the strain too of hanging from his wrists. The whole room seemed quiet. Had they left? Most unlikely!
His attempts to straighten out and put less weight on his wrists only resulted in passing out again.
***
“Our Sydney is getting quite a bit of rest lately, hasn’t he?” chuckled Lyle.
“Yes, but watching a sleeping man is getting to be boring!” crumbled Raines who had been just as frustrated as Lyle when they didn’t get the desired effect he had been hoping for. He had guessed that Sydney might defy them on that point, but to see it happen… His off-hand remark about Sydney’s stamina was to cover the hurt of his pride and although the explanation had satisfied Lyle it left a discordant feeling in his own stomach. He would have to find another way to break that spirit. It had been unfortunate that Lyle had slipped the information to Sydney that Jarod was still on the loose. He couldn’t use that card now.
Still, he had more irons in the fire.
***
Sydney had regained consciousness while still tethered. He tried his voice and found it weak, but still strong enough to be heard, “Anybody out there?” he asked tauntingly, and “I’m getting tired of hanging around!” Despite his pain he chuckled.
He gasped when he was hosed down with water again, but this time it helped revive his flagging reserves and when he could speak again he asked, “Can’t you change your repertoire?”
It infuriated Lyle and his hands itched to lay it around Sydney’s throat, Raines intervened, “Do you have a penchant for pain or a death wish?”
“Neither, but your methods are hardly creative, aren’t they?”
“Well, we could accommodate you on the creativity, could we? Any suggestions?”
Sydney was wondering if he had gone too far this time and kept his mouth shut. He was shivering all over his body now from the cold.
“How creative can we be? Any suggestions? Just nod, Sydney, if it is creative enough! We could use the electric rods or an extra dose of caning instead of whipping. No? The Chinese Water torture, perhaps. Hang you upside down to give you a different view to the world, no, that wouldn’t be any good since you can’t see anyway. Maybe a touch of good honest rape?”
An involuntary shudder of disgust went through Sydney.
“Ah, a soft spot there.” Lyle walked over to Sydney and dropped his hands gently on Sydney’s shoulders, caressing it. Sydney had been determent not to show any hint of how he felt, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to draw away from those hands. Lyle moved his hands slowly over Sydney’s chest, “Is there reluctance here? Or is it liking?”
“I’m just cold,” Sydney said with a shiver and tried to keep the revulsion out of his voice.
“Are you now?” Lyle moved his hands towards Sydney’s stomach, “Do you want me to warm you up? Or maybe one of the Sweepers?”
It was no use, Sydney couldn’t keep himself from showing how distasteful this was to him and he spit in Lyle’s face, “Get your hands off me, Lyle, or I’ll…”
“Or do what?” Lyle said, standing in front of Sydney and pressing his hands on his chest.
“This,” said Sydney and brought his knee up to connect with Lyle’s groin, he went down with a whimper. Sydney couldn’t see Lyle’s face, but he imagined what he would look like, lying on the floor, trying to soothe the pain in his groin.
The interaction made Raines smile, stupid Lyle! Who in his right mind stands in front of a victim who hasn’t got his feet manacled to the floor? That will teach him. At a motion from him the two Sweepers walked over to Sydney and held him firmly rooted on the spot.
Lyle had climbed back to his feet and with tear-filled eyes filled with hatred looked Sydney in the face, this time mindful that Sydney couldn’t bring his knee up again. “You do that again and I’ll kill you on the spot!” He hit Sydney a couple of times with his fist in the stomach, “Never again, you hear?” The subject of his abuse hung close to the verge of passing out in his chains.
“Mr Lyle!” a sharp command from Raines made him stop.
On a quick command from Raines the two Sweepers dried Sydney off, took his shackles off, dressed him and dragged him out of the room.
Raines turned to Lyle before leaving the room, “We don’t want him dead… yet, Mr Lyle, not until we have Jarod in our custody, remember that! What happens after that…” He turned and wheeled himself out of the room. Leaving Lyle to nurture the pain in his groin.
***
Sydney came to in his cell again. He was lying face down and when he moved, his back hurt like hell. He tried to lie still, but he was also very thirsty. With difficulty he managed to get himself into an upright position and moved over to the table. The glass was still there and with badly shaking hands he slowly took a large sip of the water. The gulp had been deep and after he swallowed it he thought it tasted strange, but before he could analyse why, he keeled over.
***
When he came to he found himself lying between the bed and the table at an awkward angle. Disengaging himself from this position was a rather painful affair and he imagined Raines’ smiling face if he was watching the cell.
He got to his bed again and lay on his stomach. His back was throbbing now and it was all made worse by a terrible headache. Maybe Raines and Lyle had got the better of him anyway.
For the next two days he was drifting in and out of sleep, if one could call it that. When he was awake he only drank the water in one go after he had taken it to bed and when it tasted all right after a careful sip, which meant he didn’t drink too much. He treated the food the same way.
His brow felt feverish and he guessed that it must have been a combination of the whipping he had received, the cuts on his back had not been treated at all, the cold water dousing, the lack of nourishment and overall weakness. But he was determined that those two had to come up with a better plan to make him think otherwise. Determination was now overriding his natural survival instinct.
To be continued in part 2 (it became too big for just the one part, sorry)
I thought of this story when I saw the end of Crazy, where Sydney was actually reading a Braille book. He had only been blinded for a short time and to be able to read Braille with the speed he was reading it takes a little longer to accomplish.
part 1
By Giton
“Down Jarod, it’s a bomb!” Sydney’s shout reached him moments before he saw Sydney hurling towards him and throwing him against the floor. From the corner of his eye he saw Mr Parker do the same to his daughter. Quickly thereafter the sound of the blast resounded through the corridor and then there was darkness…
When Jarod came to, he found the weight of Sydney resting on top of him. When he brought his hand to Sydney’s throat he found a faint pulse, he was still alive but unconscious. He gently eased Sydney’s body off him and quickly examined himself; he couldn’t feel any major injuries. He found his way to where he had seen the Parkers fall and found their pulses beating too.
He couldn’t stay here. He could already hear the Sweeper-teams entering the corridor on the other side of the steel door. It shouldn’t be long before they would find a way to get to this side of the corridor. By sheer luck he found one of the air-ducts quickly and disappeared.
***
When Sydney came to he was surrounded by darkness. Jarod should have been lying underneath him, but wasn’t there anymore and it could be construed as a good sign.
He tried to straighten up and was driven back to the floor again by the pain in his back. Understandably, he had his back to the blast, didn’t he? Before throwing Jarod to the floor he had seen the Parkers go down to the left of him and he crawled in their direction to check if they were all right. The first body his hands encountered must have been one of the Cleaners who had come with Mr Parker. Clean-shaven, close-cropped hair and dead.
He crawled over a bit further. Mr. Parker: alive. Miss Parker: alive too. He breathed a sigh of relief. Mr Parker moaned in pain. Sydney’s gentle fingers searched his body for injuries. When he came to Mr Parker’s hands the other man moaned again.
Sydney wondered how receptive Mr Parker was to hypnotic suggestion and if he was aware enough to hear Sydney’s voice. It could alleviate the pain. “Charles, listen to my voice. Just follow the sound of my voice. Can you hear me?” He repeated this a couple of times until Mr Parker responded with a soft moan. “Good! You’ve found my voice. When I tell you to go back to sleep, you will feel no pain and even when you wake up the pain will be slight. Do you understand? (-a soft moan from Mr Parker-) On the count of three you will go back to sleep. One… Two… Three…” Mr Parker’s breathing slowed to normal.
He moved over to Miss Parker and ran gentle hands over her; she seemed to be all right.
At the other end of the corridor he could hear voices coming closer. “There they are!” They could see them? He brought his hands to his face: nothing, but there was no pain or injuries in the face either. When they turned him over and said, “Dr Green is alive.” And he still couldn’t see them it was obvious why.
He had wrongly assumed that the darkness was due to electrical failure because of the blast, but it had been his eyes!
He passed out when they tried to lift him.
***
When again he awoke it was still in darkness. He was lying on his stomach. The surface under his hands told him he was lying on a bed and under blankets, quite possibly in the infirmary. He hoped the others were doing all right as well and that Jarod had managed to escape. He drifted off to sleep again.
***
Awake again he tried to get up. A sharp pain in the back of his head and the skin on his back drawing tight reminded him again why he was in the infirmary.
“I wouldn’t try and move for a while,” the voice of a male nurse, “Your back is pretty blistered and your head received a nasty thump at the back. Want something to drink?”
Up to that point Sydney hadn’t even thought about anything much, but now he felt extremely thirsty. He nodded. The nurse came over and helped him drink.
“Can you tell me what is wrong with me?” Sydney asked hoarsely.
“Slight burns to the back and the back of the head. They should heal soon. There’s also a nasty lump on the back of the head and we suspect a concussion. But since you haven’t been conscious long enough, we haven’t been able to determine how severe it is. Feel up to doing some tests?”
Sydney nodded, which sent new stabs of pain through his skull. He knew what the tests were going to show: blindness due to the knock on his head. He had dealt with it before. Hopefully this was of a temporary nature too.
They prodded and poked and “oh”-ed and “ah”-ed and came to the same conclusion he had.
He drew a blank when he inquired after the Parkers. They were not at liberty to tell him. He was worried for them and hoped they were all right. With disconcerting thoughts he drifted off to sleep.
***
Again he woke up to total darkness. But things had changed. He was still lying on his stomach, but the texture of the linens he was lying on had changed. No longer were they smooth to the touch. The temperature in the room had dropped. It could be night or they could have brought him down to the deeper corridors. He shuddered and promptly fell asleep again.
***
When next he woke he felt better. The skin on his back didn’t feel so tight anymore. The world around him hadn’t changed in perspective, it was still shrouded in darkness, but it didn’t frighten him. Many years ago a knock to the back of his head had rendered him blind for nearly a year.
At first he had been frightened, but he had coped and dealt with it. But it can’t be denied that he was very relieved when eyesight was restored to him again. He suspected, or rather hoped, this to be the same.
Directly behind the bed he felt a wall. He carefully got up from his bed, not wanting to disturb his back more than necessary, to assess the rest of his surroundings. A couple of measured steps forwards before he hit another wall. Feeling to the right he encountered a door after only a few steps and then another few steps before he hit a wall again. Further to the right, just a blank wall before hitting the wall his bed was resting against.
Going back to the left. A number of steps, turn, another couple of steps, door, another blank wall. To the left of the door there was a small table with a chair in front of it, than another blank wall.
He felt his way back to the bed and sat on the edge. He had been able to stretch comfortably on the bed and with his height of six foot three, that must make the bed near seven feet long. At the head and the foot of the bed there was ample space. With the measurements on the opposite wall the length of the room must easily be nine feet long.
Quick calculations told him that the room was approximately nine by eight feet. No windows. Bare walls. The screams from others on this level told him that he was in one of the rooms in the Renewal wing. His hope sank a notch.
He knew he was being watched and they must have seen his measuring of the room, what they made of it was different matter.
Carefully he rested his back against the wall, unmoving, staring ahead. He didn’t care what they were thinking of him. He could keep himself busy quite easily in his own mind; that year, so many years ago, had taught him that.
***
Flashback – Nearly forty years ago
He and Jacob had just starting attending Yale on a scholarly grant and being identical twins caused the necessary consternation.
Jacob had always been the flippant one while Sydney took things too seriously. Well, at least in his brother’s opinion and maybe he did.
Jacob was always playing pranks on other people and that day one of his pranks had gone wrong.
Choosing the biggest school bully, Clint, hadn’t been one of his better ideas. He couldn’t have found it a big surprise that once he had been caught out the bully had it in for him.
Luckily the twins had always been fair runners, despite their build, and Clint had never kept in shape. Chase was given and Jacob ran, laughing tauntingly when Clint and his cronies couldn’t keep up with him.
He just rounded the corner when he ran into Sydney who was walking around engrossed in a book. Jacob grabbed him by the arm, dragging him with him. “Run,” he shouted with a gleeful smile on his face. No further words were necessary. You didn’t need to be twins as close as they were for Sydney to know that Jacob was in trouble… again! He just managed to drop the book in his pocket, before running with his brother. It was just in time. Shortly after that the chasing group came around the corner with murder in their eyes.
The twins picked up their pace.
“What have you done?” shouted Sydney, running next to his brother now.
“Just someone who couldn’t take a joke, that’s all.”
“If that is all, than why are we running for dear life?”
“It’s Clint and he’s bigger, well, at least wider than us,” laughed Jacob.
“Than you, you mean. I could always explain…”
“Sydney, we are identical! Do you really think you can convince the school bully it was all supposed to be a joke? And at his expense? If he can’t have my hide, your hide is close enough like mine to be tanned.”
“You have a point there.”
Clint slowed down in frustration. He could never catch up with them. Hell, both of them were on the football-team and there weren’t that many people who could out-distance the twins. He saw a small rock lying on the ground, picked it up and in pure frustration threw it at their receding backs with all of his force.
Sydney felt the impact to the base of his skull. Instantly everything went black and he could feel himself falling. He never felt the contact he made with the ground.
It took Jacob another couple of strides before he noticed that his brother wasn’t running next to him anymore. When he looked back he saw Sydney sprawled face down on the ground. He stopped, loped back to his brother and knelt down beside him.
“Sydney?” He gently prodded his shoulder. He then noticed there was blood on the back of Sydney’s head. His eyes filled with tears, “Sydney?” but Sydney stayed unconscious.
A rage built up in Jacob. He stood up and glared at the approaching boys. No longer did he care that there was only one of him and four of them. He had forgotten that he had been the cause of all this in the first place.
“Tu l’as blessé!” [You hurt him.] He shouted, while tears of anger were streaming down his face, “Vous allez me le payer! Salouds!” [You are going to pay for this! Bastards!]
When the four had seen Sydney go down, they were shocked at first and had gone over to see if the brother needed a hand. But when they saw the other twin red with rage and shouting foreign words at them, their contriteness was soon forgotten. Whether it was him or his brother who had humiliated Clint with his prank, this one, the one still standing, was going to pay for it!
They advanced on the youth.
Two of Clint’s group were ready to back off when they saw the glint of murder in the standing twin, but Clint and his lieutenant moved on. The two who held back later had problems to recount what had actually happened.
Jacob was fast as lightening and combining French Savate with boxing, his speed kicking was hard and high and he packed power behind his punches. Clint and his lieutenant went down in no time and had no inclination to continue the fight. Once they got up, they ran.
His rage as quickly forgotten as it had come up, Jacob knelt beside his brother again, “Sydney, Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait? Je promets d’être plus serieux, si tu t’en remet. Je le jure!” [Sydney, what have I done? I promise to be more serious if you are going to be all right Honest. I will.] He was sobbing again, but didn’t dare move Sydney lest his injury to the back of his skull was more severe that it looked.
Sydney groaned and seemed to come to. Jacob kept Sydney still.
“Jacob? Why speak French? We’re in America now!” Sydney said confused.
“Sorry, Syd, I’m here, brother. Do you think you can get up by yourself?”
“I think so,” and with the aid of Jacob he got into a sitting position, “Uhm, Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“Have I been out long?”
“Depends how you define ‘long’.”
“Not until evening-time for instance?”
Jacob laughed, “Not as long as that, brother. Only about five or ten minutes.”
“I thought as much,” Sydney took a deep shuddering breath, “Then I must be either blind or someone switched the lights on me,” he smiled weakly.
If the comment and the smile had been meant to put Jacob at ease it failed miserably. Jacob could detect the small shudder in Sydney’s voice and he could feel the fear in his brother. He tried to put up a brave front for Sydney’s sake, “Come and let’s get you down to the infirmary. Maybe it is just a side effect of a concussion or something equally minor.”
Sydney nodded.
***
They got Sydney down to the infirmary where they concluded a concussion. The two boys were then sent to the hospital to get some further tests done. After the testing Sydney was told that he was blind, but that it would probably be of a temporarily nature. There was pressure on the optic nerve, which caused this and it was their experience that such accidents cleared naturally, given time and rest.
They were given the address of an institute who dealt with the blind and might be able to help Sydney cope with the concept. When they were there Sydney expressed the wish to learn Braille and although they said it wasn’t necessary (It might be cleared in weeks!) he insisted, especially since they couldn’t give him an answer in the affirmative how long it would take to clear.
Sydney explained to the counsellor that they had only just started at Yale, that they were there on a scholarship and he couldn’t waste time sitting around, waiting and maybe losing his place at Yale’s. Nor was it fair to his brother if he was the one who kept him back.
He had set his mind to become a psychiatrist and couldn’t afford to waste time waiting for his handicap to clear up.
The counsellor was impressed by the determination of the boy and his lack of fear of being blind. He warned him that it might take a long time to learn and maybe it was all for nought, but still Sydney insisted. With a shrug the counsellor said he could enrol Sydney in his classes. Jacob could bring him after school and pick him up later.
When it came to the matter of payment, the boys went quiet. They had come to America on a scholarship and had no family in the States and what was left of their family in Europe was in no financial condition to help the boys.
The counsellor could see Sydney’s shoulders slump. There was no way they could afford the tuition fees. They just managed a meagre existence on the Grant and hadn’t had time yet to go around looking for work to supplement that. They were also too proud to say this out loud.
“Come, Jacob, we’ll find a way.” Sydney got up and with a surety of step… walked straight into a chair. “Merde!”
The counsellor felt sorry for them and said, “Hey boys, ever heard of the saying “I scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine”?”
“Like tit-for-tat?” asked Sydney.
The counsellor was surprised that the boy had a good grasp of the English language, even though their accents were strong and he had cursed in French. Canadian, maybe? No he had said Europe. “Yes, something like that. We could make a deal.”
“What sort of a deal?”
“I will teach you Braille and in return you will help me with the kids.”
“What can I do for them?”
“I don’t know, keep them sweet. Talk to them.”
“Charity!” Sydney’s face turned red. He was slowly getting enough of having to accept charity all his life, first by strangers after the war. Then by remnants of the family who passed them along from one family-member to another and who couldn’t understand what the boys had been through. The Grant. The list went on, and now this.
“No,” said the counsellor, surprised by Sydney’s reaction, “How many languages do you speak?”
Sydney was confused, what did his language skills have to do with the children? He answered, “Well, English, French, German, some Italian and Spanish. Why?”
The counsellor was impressed, “We have kids from all backgrounds and languages here and sometimes we can’t communicate because we are not able to understand each other’s language and that could slow down the healing process. Now you understand?”
A big smile spread over Sydney’s face, “You got yourself a deal!”
***
During the day Sydney attended his classes, ever so still, absorbing the lecturers words. Then with Jacob to the institute, home and got everything, which he thought of importance, written down with Jacob’s help. They were long gruelling days for both the boys. But Sydney showed an aptitude for picking up Braille and it was soon that he could read it and was now able to order some books from the library and not be such a burden to Jacob. He still went to the institute to fulfil his part of the bargain and found he enjoyed working with children and teenagers. As a matter of fact he enjoyed the more difficult cases best. He decided there and then that should it become time to choose a direction in his studies, it would lean towards child psychology.
Luckily the blindness lasted for under a year. Not too long in a lifetime, but it would have been too long had he had to neglect his studies because of it. He counted his blessings to have been able to study Braille and have a brother like Jacob helping him.
Even when his sight had returned, Sydney continued to spent time at the institute to help the children and to keep up his studies of Braille. It also helped him to improve their small income. Jacob had found employ in a bar where he worked a couple of evenings in the week and where his natural joviality was much appreciated by everyone.
True to his word, Jacob became more serious, but kept most of the light heartedness, which Sydney thought he himself was lacking.
His determination to go on studying against all odds earned him merits from his teachers. Jacob was excelling in his own studies and both boys went on for another year.
***
Present
“Yes,” Sydney mused, “We haven’t done so badly. It’s a pity Jacob hadn’t been able to enjoy it for a longer period.” He sighed. Ah well, apart from being ignored at the moment life wasn’t so bad. If this bout of blindness continued at least he could still read in Braille. He had never let up on it and had been able to use and teach it to some of the children at the Centre and had used in some simulations with Jarod.
Over the years he had also picked up the language for the deaf and dumb and lip-reading, although about the last ability he didn’t let on. The bosses in the Centre had seen this at first as a distraction on his part and then saw the advantage of it when they had some deaf or blind potential pretenders in. At least Sydney had the satisfaction that these potentially vulnerable children were not handed over to Raines due to his advantage over him. The children already had to cope with a lot. Handing them over to a monster like Raines would have sent them over the edge.
Yes, life had not been so bad to him, although the quality of his spiritual life might have been better or improved…
***
“He just sits there,” said Lyle to Raines. He was watching the security-cameras while Raines was sitting in a wheelchair, recuperating from the blast as well.
“What do you expect him to do?” Raines wheezed, “Rave, rant, hit the walls!”
“I would!”
“And hurt himself? That’s not Sydney! We will let him stew for a little bit longer. He should be feeling quite hungry by now. After a while he will be more pliable, you’ll see!”
***
Sydney decided they were deliberately trying to ignore and starve him. He didn’t know how long he had been kept here already before he regained full awareness, but at least four hours must have gone by since he started moving about in the room. The rumble in his stomach told him it had been a while since he had last eaten. He shrugged, he had survived worse.
He ran his hand over his face and detected a couple of days worth stubble. He was also more aware that he hadn’t had a wash or a bath for a couple of days. And now that he was thinking about his hygiene he started to feel a strong urge to urinate.
He tried to recall the layout of the room when he was measuring it. Was there anything that could be used as a makeshift toilet? He got up, moved to the table and felt around and under it. Presto! A metal waste bin, not perfect but better than urinating against the wall; he sniggered.
Ah, that felt better!
He brushed his hand over the table, empty! He moved back to the bed, felt for his pillow and removed the slipcase. This he then draped over the metal-container. It should stop some of the smell.
He lay down again to get some sleep. It would give him some rest and kept his mind off hunger.
***
“Let him stew a bit more! A little more pliable! He’ll feel hungry!” Lyle was pacing the room, “The only ones who are stewing is us! Pliable? Hungry? It doesn’t seem to bother him that much, does it now?”
“Give it some time…”
“We don’t have that much time. They say my father will be out of the infirmary soon and he will want answers. My darling sister is getting fidgety and will be starting to snoop around. We don’t know how temporary his blindness is. And the Triumvirate wants Jarod to be found… fast! I don’t think we have that much time to just wait around. I say, we move in and “coerce” him into reasoning.”
A hungry gleam appeared in Raines’ eyes, “Coerce, I like that word. Let’s “coerce” him tomorrow, shall we?” an evil grin spread over his skull-like face, it even made Lyle shudder.
Lyle looked back at the monitor, “Oh God, he even peed in the wastepaper bin!”
“Where else would you want him to do it? Against the wall?”
Lyle glared at him. Their subject made himself ready to go to sleep again, unbeknownst further frustrating Lyle.
***
When next he woke up, Sydney felt a bit better. His back wasn’t hurting so much now, but the hunger was now joined by thirst. He lay still to preserve his energy and with his face to the wall he wetted his lips. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up and how long he had been here already. How patient were his captors?
He tried to remember how long a person could go without water before all sorts of trouble, like kidney-failure, sets in. It only made him thirsty and he couldn’t remember anyway.
He tried to sit up, to attract their attention, but a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him and he decided that lying still would be a better idea. He waited.
***
The motion had not been lost on Raines who had been watching the screen like a patient vulture. A grin spread over his face, he nudged Lyle, “I think it’s time we have a talk with Dr Green.”
***
Sydney heard the door to his cell (he wasn’t thinking of it as a room anymore) open and asked hoarsely, “Who is there?” and was surprised how raw his voice really was.
There was no answer, but he could hear a distinct wheezing intake of breath and the smell of after-shave, which he associated with one man, “Ah, Mr Raines and Mr Lyle! Come to pay me a visit? Did you bring the grapes?”
It infuriated Lyle that, although sounding painfully hoarse, due to the lack of liquids, and being blind, Sydney managed to sound quite flippant and casual. He gnashed his teeth.
Raines, on the other hand, had seen through Sydney’s ruse and saw how he had to swallow deeply to create the effect of sounding jovial. He had also noticed that Sydney managed to fight back a wave of dizziness when he sat up on the edge of the bed. He brought his wheelchair closer to the bed.
Sydney’s face turned to him, “You haven’t come out of it unscathed either, have you?”
Raines felt discomfited. It almost looked as if Sydney’s blind eyes could stare right through him. “Better than you fared,” he retorted.
“Was it one of your oxygen tanks that blew up?” Sydney asked innocently.
“We wouldn’t be talking to each other if it had been. I could hear you shout, “It’s a bomb!” How did you know?”
“Did I?”
“Yesss you did!” Raines’ sibilant whisper became stronger, a sign that he was getting annoyed.
“Why am I put in the Renewal Wing?” Sydney diverted the conversation, “A bit of room service wouldn’t be out of place either.”
Raines said, “If you are willing to co-operate we can do something about that.”
“Ask and I see if I can accommodate you.” Lyle could only stare in amazement at Sydney.
A nasty smile crept over Raines’ face, but before he could say anything Lyle said, “Tell us where Jarod is.” Raines shot a nasty look at him.
“So, he escaped,” thought Sydney. He said instead, “Wish I could help you there, but being locked up in here I know even less about his whereabouts than you do.”
“You must have an idea.”
“You mean you can’t track him? What a pity. How about Broots or Miss Parker? They have been on the chase as long as I have.”
“We want to know it from you!” Lyle said, receiving another glare from Raines.
Sydney “looked” at Lyle, who had to turn his head away, “You mean to say, actually, that you don’t know where he is and that you don’t care where he is at the moment. I am in the Renewal Wing (-he stated that as a fact, rather than a question-) and this is your plan to re-educate me. Knowing full well that I don’t know where Jarod is. Well, those kinds of tactics are not going to work. I would rather die than give in to you!” He should have phrased it differently.
Sydney could almost feel the smile creeping on Raines’ face that would turn his face into a reptilian mask, “You might have to do just that, Dr Green, I can be very accommodating in that respect if necessary. But you are right, asking you now where Jarod is would be like asking Mr Lyle here to tell me the distance to the sun to a hundredth of an inch accurately. I’ll see to some arrangements.”
“It would be appreciated,” Sydney said just as amicably.
“Any immediate questions?”
“Yes, how are the Parkers?”
“Sorry, can’t tell you that! Anything else?”
“No.”
“We see each other soon, Dr Green.”
They left, leaving Sydney alone staring straight ahead. Small lines of worry creasing his brows.
***
When they got back to their observation post, Lyle turned to Raines in frustration, “I thought we were going to “talk” to Sydney. We weren’t even questioning him! We just mollycoddled him!”
“Letting Sydney eat and drink, in moderation of course, will keep some of his strength up, we don’t want him to die on us… yet, do we? It was very unfortunate that you had to ask where Jarod is, now he knows that Jarod is still on the loose. He doesn’t know where Jarod is, but Jarod isn’t his only weak spot. Luckily for us the man is full of principles. We can use that against him. His mind is quite strong at the moment; it will not be easily broken, but it can be… given the right tools.”
Lyle smiled, “You are thinking of lacing his food or drink!”
“Mildly, maybe, and than letting him believe that one day we put it in his food and the other day in his drink. We shouldn’t have to do anything, just let his own mind do the work. If we also only give him minimal supplies of food, he will come to rely on us.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Stronger dosages or physical persuasion, we just have to wait and see.” They both chuckled.
***
Sydney waited. He knew that they were going to play mind games with him. He had no inclination to believe otherwise. He didn’t believe for a minute that Raines or Lyle was going to treat him with kindness. If that had been the case they would have left him in the infirmary instead of stowing him away in the “deeper dungeons”.
He was glad that they had left. The little energy he had used to sit up and talk as if nothing was wrong had used his last bit of strength. He lay down again and gave himself over to sweet oblivion.
***
When he woke up he knew someone had been in. He sniffed the air. The odour of his earlier urination had gone. At least they had taken that out and hopefully replaced it with something more suitable.
With any luck they had left him some refreshments as well. He got up slowly, not wanting to crash into something if his strength would fade all of a sudden, and moved towards the table. His hands moved gently over the surface and his lips curled into a small smile when his hands encountered a tall glass and a plate. He didn’t care if they had laced it, which was probably the case. He brought the glass to his mouth and took a small sip. He had no idea that water could taste this wonderful.
He let it be followed by a couple of more small sips, it would be no good to drink it all at once and be sick on it. He remembered his first taste of chocolate after they were freed from the Camp and even the smell of chocolate could make him feel nauseous nowadays.
He put the glass down and moved his hand over the plate. Sandwiches. He picked up a piece and took a bite from it. Just an ordinary cheese sandwich. He took another couple of sips of water and took one slice of the sandwich with him and sat on the edge of the bed while eating it. He would take the other piece a little bit later.
Slowly he let his stomach get used to having something solid inside him.
***
“This is driving me mad,” said Lyle, “It’s like watching paint dry. If you want to stay with the monitor, be my guest, I have better things to do.” He put on his jacket and without waiting for an answer left the room.
Raines stayed and watched the monitor. Yes, it seemed as if Sydney was untroubled with it all, but still… he had to feel some anxiety with the thought of being blind?
Raines looked with a glint of hatred at the unmoving figure on the bed. It was unnatural that he just sat there, even with a hint of a smile on his face.
Raines remembered his own anxiety when the oxygen tank had been blown up by Sydney and left him to spend weeks in the infirmary in agonizing pain, all for the sake of the labrat. He wanted to see Sydney suffer too, but isolation and blindness didn’t seem to bother him.
He wondered how Sydney would react to physical pain and a smile curled around his lips. He had doubts that physical “persuasion” would make much difference to Sydney, quite some discomfort for certain, only for that Raines would still consider it as a first rather than a last option.
Then another thought struck him, which made him smile even broader. Good, principled Sydney, what would upset him more than physical pain? The threat of others being hurt! He didn’t even have to actually hurt them; just letting Sydney believe that he had or would be. His smile grew when he started to develop the idea in his mind.
***
The subject of his thoughts was doing some thinking of his own.
One: Jarod had escaped, or else they wouldn’t ask him about it. Had they caught him they would rather taunt than ask him.
Two: Broots should be relatively safe. He wasn’t even in the corridor when the bomb went off.
Three: unless Miss Parker was injured in the fall she should be relatively unharmed too. Her father’s body should have protected her from the blast as his body had done with Jarod and Jarod had escaped.
Four: Mr Parker should still be alive, at least, or Lyle wouldn’t have to hide behind Raines but would have already ordered to put a bullet through his head.
For himself he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. He smiled at the analogy, very apt to his situation at the moment. And then he became serious again. To be at the mercy of the two biggest psychopaths of the Centre wasn’t his immediate idea of fun, but dwelling on it could make his mindset worse and he was betting money on it that where those two were concerned matters could go from bad to worse.
***
Raines and Lyle were back in his room and this time they had brought two Sweepers with them.
“It’s time for your re-education lessons,” Lyle said cheerfully. Sydney’s heart sank, but he showed no outward emotion. At a motion from Lyle the two Sweepers hauled Sydney off the bed and marched him out of the room. Behind him he could hear Raines’ wheelchair.
They went to the end of the corridor and they didn’t have to walk far. Mentally Sydney tried to picture the layout, if only to keep himself from imagining what the other two had in store for him. A door opened and they entered a large room. It was cold.
Without saying a word the two Sweepers took Sydney’s clothes off and he was awkwardly aware of his nakedness. He was already barefooted and without his clothes the room was quite cold. They let him stand in the middle of the room and manacled his wrists to two chains hanging from the ceiling.
A strong burst of ice-cold water hitting his body made him gasp for air.
“I thought you could do with a wash,” Raines said menacingly, “I know you always like to look your best. Don’t you think I’m very accommodating now?” He chuckled.
Sydney could only gasp when the water continued hitting him. When it finally stopped he hung weakly in the chains. He was shivering from the cold and couldn’t stop his teeth from clattering. The two psychopaths were smiling now.
“Now, how did you know there was a bomb in the corridor?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sydney said shivering violently and trying to keep upright.
“Oh yes you do,” said Raines, “I could hear you. Who are you protecting?”
“Nobody! You must have imagined it!” Sydney smiled. This earned him a slap across the face from Lyle. If he could help it he wasn’t going to tell them he had planted the bomb.
“Had Jarod planted the bomb?”
“No! I… don’t know.”
Raines had noticed the slight hesitation, “I think you do know who did.” Sydney stayed silent. “Well, we do have ways of finding out and we have all the time of the world.”
Sydney knew he was lying, he could hear it in his voice. He kept his mouth shut.
“Normally you have so much to tell us. Why not now?”
Sydney said nothing and got another slap across the face from Lyle, “Dr Raines asked you a question, so, answer!”
“Mr Raines should then ask me questions to which I know the answer,” Sydney said defiantly and could almost see Raines’ face when he refused to use his official title. Wrong move. He should learn to keep his sarcasm under control. It earned him two harder slaps across the face. He could hear Lyle walk around him and tried to keep from fidgeting.
Lyle laid his hand on his back, “Your back seem to be healing nicely. It would be a pity if we had to damage it again.” Again he ran his hand lightly over Sydney’s back, it sent an involuntary shiver down Sydney’s back. “Uncomfortable? Or do you like it?” Sydney kept his mouth shut.
“Now, who planted the bomb?”
Sydney thought they must know, maybe they had found the security tapes?
“Not very co-operative, aren’t we?”
Sydney stayed silent. They either knew or they were stabbing in the dark. The analogy brought a smile to his face, but it was soon wiped off his face and a scream tore from his lips when a whip was laid over his damaged back. He hung in his chains, trembling.
“Now, will you be more co-operative or do you want more?”
“Go to hell,” hissed Sydney. He knew there was more to come, whether he was co-operative or not, and he braced himself. The hits on his back and shoulders were hard and brutal and hurt like hell. He couldn’t keep himself from grimacing in pain, but he had the satisfaction of denying them their pleasure of hearing him cry out. It wasn’t long before his weakened condition made him pass out.
Breathing from the exertion Lyle looked at the back of his unconscious victim who hung heavily in his chains. There were some angry welts and one of the lashes had made a cut in the left shoulder. He was frustrated that, apart from the first scream, Sydney had stayed relatively silent troughout the proceedings. He motioned the Sweepers to revive Sydney with the cold-water hoses and had the satisfaction that Sydney gasped into consciousness.
“Are you going to be more amicable or…”
“Go to hell and take your lackey with you,” Sydney gasped shivering. He braced himself again for what was to come and did not cry out when the whip hit his left shoulder.
Another session started and was like a repeat performance, with hardly a peep issuing from Sydney’s lips before he passed out again.
“This is unnatural,” gasped Lyle while he looked at Sydney’s slumped figure. His back had more cuts than welts now.
“No, this is Sydney!” said Raines, “He knows how to play mind games too and will use it to his own advantage, even if it hurts him. I suspect him of having sentiments of martyrdom hidden in him. Pah!”
“But a whipping like that…”
“I told you his mind is strong, even to the extent of suppressing his physical well-being and we need other ways to persuade him.”
“Maybe the electric…”
“Maybe other than giving him a heart attack and satisfying your own pleasure (-he did not include himself in the equation-) it will resolve nothing. Other tactics are necessary here.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Still working on it. It has to be subtle enough to get past his defences.”
“Then why agree to a physical questioning?”
“It could have worked,” said Raines with an unpleasant smile, which made even Lyle shudder. It was no big secret that there was no love lost between the two psychiatrists.
“I better get him dried, dressed and back to his room then.”
“No, leave him like that for a short while. Give him the impression we might continue.”
***
Sydney came to a short while later. He was a bit surprised that he was still hanging from the chains, but that they hadn’t revived him the way they did the last time. He tried to straighten up and winced from the pain in his back. His arm muscles were feeling the strain too of hanging from his wrists. The whole room seemed quiet. Had they left? Most unlikely!
His attempts to straighten out and put less weight on his wrists only resulted in passing out again.
***
“Our Sydney is getting quite a bit of rest lately, hasn’t he?” chuckled Lyle.
“Yes, but watching a sleeping man is getting to be boring!” crumbled Raines who had been just as frustrated as Lyle when they didn’t get the desired effect he had been hoping for. He had guessed that Sydney might defy them on that point, but to see it happen… His off-hand remark about Sydney’s stamina was to cover the hurt of his pride and although the explanation had satisfied Lyle it left a discordant feeling in his own stomach. He would have to find another way to break that spirit. It had been unfortunate that Lyle had slipped the information to Sydney that Jarod was still on the loose. He couldn’t use that card now.
Still, he had more irons in the fire.
***
Sydney had regained consciousness while still tethered. He tried his voice and found it weak, but still strong enough to be heard, “Anybody out there?” he asked tauntingly, and “I’m getting tired of hanging around!” Despite his pain he chuckled.
He gasped when he was hosed down with water again, but this time it helped revive his flagging reserves and when he could speak again he asked, “Can’t you change your repertoire?”
It infuriated Lyle and his hands itched to lay it around Sydney’s throat, Raines intervened, “Do you have a penchant for pain or a death wish?”
“Neither, but your methods are hardly creative, aren’t they?”
“Well, we could accommodate you on the creativity, could we? Any suggestions?”
Sydney was wondering if he had gone too far this time and kept his mouth shut. He was shivering all over his body now from the cold.
“How creative can we be? Any suggestions? Just nod, Sydney, if it is creative enough! We could use the electric rods or an extra dose of caning instead of whipping. No? The Chinese Water torture, perhaps. Hang you upside down to give you a different view to the world, no, that wouldn’t be any good since you can’t see anyway. Maybe a touch of good honest rape?”
An involuntary shudder of disgust went through Sydney.
“Ah, a soft spot there.” Lyle walked over to Sydney and dropped his hands gently on Sydney’s shoulders, caressing it. Sydney had been determent not to show any hint of how he felt, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to draw away from those hands. Lyle moved his hands slowly over Sydney’s chest, “Is there reluctance here? Or is it liking?”
“I’m just cold,” Sydney said with a shiver and tried to keep the revulsion out of his voice.
“Are you now?” Lyle moved his hands towards Sydney’s stomach, “Do you want me to warm you up? Or maybe one of the Sweepers?”
It was no use, Sydney couldn’t keep himself from showing how distasteful this was to him and he spit in Lyle’s face, “Get your hands off me, Lyle, or I’ll…”
“Or do what?” Lyle said, standing in front of Sydney and pressing his hands on his chest.
“This,” said Sydney and brought his knee up to connect with Lyle’s groin, he went down with a whimper. Sydney couldn’t see Lyle’s face, but he imagined what he would look like, lying on the floor, trying to soothe the pain in his groin.
The interaction made Raines smile, stupid Lyle! Who in his right mind stands in front of a victim who hasn’t got his feet manacled to the floor? That will teach him. At a motion from him the two Sweepers walked over to Sydney and held him firmly rooted on the spot.
Lyle had climbed back to his feet and with tear-filled eyes filled with hatred looked Sydney in the face, this time mindful that Sydney couldn’t bring his knee up again. “You do that again and I’ll kill you on the spot!” He hit Sydney a couple of times with his fist in the stomach, “Never again, you hear?” The subject of his abuse hung close to the verge of passing out in his chains.
“Mr Lyle!” a sharp command from Raines made him stop.
On a quick command from Raines the two Sweepers dried Sydney off, took his shackles off, dressed him and dragged him out of the room.
Raines turned to Lyle before leaving the room, “We don’t want him dead… yet, Mr Lyle, not until we have Jarod in our custody, remember that! What happens after that…” He turned and wheeled himself out of the room. Leaving Lyle to nurture the pain in his groin.
***
Sydney came to in his cell again. He was lying face down and when he moved, his back hurt like hell. He tried to lie still, but he was also very thirsty. With difficulty he managed to get himself into an upright position and moved over to the table. The glass was still there and with badly shaking hands he slowly took a large sip of the water. The gulp had been deep and after he swallowed it he thought it tasted strange, but before he could analyse why, he keeled over.
***
When he came to he found himself lying between the bed and the table at an awkward angle. Disengaging himself from this position was a rather painful affair and he imagined Raines’ smiling face if he was watching the cell.
He got to his bed again and lay on his stomach. His back was throbbing now and it was all made worse by a terrible headache. Maybe Raines and Lyle had got the better of him anyway.
For the next two days he was drifting in and out of sleep, if one could call it that. When he was awake he only drank the water in one go after he had taken it to bed and when it tasted all right after a careful sip, which meant he didn’t drink too much. He treated the food the same way.
His brow felt feverish and he guessed that it must have been a combination of the whipping he had received, the cuts on his back had not been treated at all, the cold water dousing, the lack of nourishment and overall weakness. But he was determined that those two had to come up with a better plan to make him think otherwise. Determination was now overriding his natural survival instinct.
To be continued in part 2 (it became too big for just the one part, sorry)
