Free writing #4a

        The interrogation lasted fourteen hours. Miranda’s and Jessabelle’s original six hours, and my eight hours. As far as interrogations go, it was very successful, or so it would seem. My method leaves a very heavy toll, which is on both the victim and the interrogator. The victim, of course feels violated and powerless. This feeling usually lasts for a few weeks, but could last forever. However, the interrogator must pull himself away from the darkness of complete control. In the field, the special forces switch out, each person spending no longer than six hours in control each day. A lone operative is advised to spend as little time as four hours, whereas an expert on the subject could theoretically withstand as long as fourteen hours in control. I was good, but I was no expert.

        When I finished, I left the cellar in a stride, and went up the stairs in a slump. Iron bars were across my heart, ice was formed in my mind. I clutched my folder of notes. A pearly tear fell from the corner of my eye. It splashed on the coarse dark wood of the stairs. The click of each heel as I went up echoed up my spine. Jessabelle had long since left the sitting room, in her place was Enrique Demarcus, who was Miranda’s second in command.

        “Is it done?” He asked. I replied with a curt nod and held out my folder of notes.

        “That’s everything, all the information she had.” He hefted it in his hand and looked up to say something, but he seemed to think better of it. He gave me one of his famous fatherly smiles, and took to the door notes in hand.

        I was glad he didn’t ask me any questions. I badly needed to recover from the interrogation. There was a bar on the ground floor of my hotel. I would go there and release these bars and melt my well-formed ice. If Miranda wished to talk, she would need to find me there.

        “His name is Dimitri Lobachevski. He’s working under deep cover to destroy your organization.” I reported to Miranda as I finished my third cocktail. Miranda was the blonde, middle-aged head of a magic smuggling ring that operated across the Republic of the United Cities. I had been working with her and her officers to establish a smuggling route that would allow me collect and sell fae blood in addition to the fireleaf I already produced. Miranda was very involved in the work, and I’d come to like her as a sublime business partner. Today she seemed to be quite beautiful as well, though that may have been the alcohol.

        “I didn’t think you drank on the job.” She scolded.

        “I make two exceptions” I straightened up. “When I’ve been badly wounded, and when I’ve been interrogating.”

        She raised one eyebrow, “I didn’t think an interrogation merited celebration.”

        “Celebration!” I turned to face her, cocktail number four in hand. “This isn’t celebration, this is a safeguard.”

        I received a look of disapproval, not that I took much notice of it. “Fine. What can we do about this undercover Carmalkan spy?”

        “He’s not Carmalkan.” I uttered. “I mean he is from Carmalka but he’s working for the R.U.C. inter-city police.” I took a sip of honey, lemon and gin. “He’s working for them to shut you down and capture you. Has been for two, three years. Abagail in the cellar didn’t know how long in total, she was recruited last year.”

        “How can we find him?” Miranda inquired.

        “I have no idea.” I shook my head. “Those secret service ones are tricky, they don’t follow any, hm, any clear rules. Plus he’s been here a while, enough time to set up his own system. Trained Abagail himself took about six weeks to do it. Odds are we won’t find him for several weeks.”

        Miranda gave me an annoyed look that I was too far gone to appreciate. “Are there no other bases we could search for? No known contacts we could hunt down?”

        “Maybe, I got a list all the names she remembered and as many meeting places as she knew about. I gave it to your guy Enrique. I also made a list of all her known associates as well as whatever professional knowledge she had. Gave those to Enrique too.” I downed the last of number four. “I’ll look at them myself when I’m sober.”

        “You don’t look so bad right now.” She said meaningfully.

        “I will look better in the morning. I haven’t slept since before John went and got captured.” I looked down. “Poor Jacob, poor Edward.” I asked the bartender for a glass of wine.

        “I think you’ve had enough for an evening, we need you alert tomorrow.”

        “Then you should have done a better job interrogating Abagail. Then I’d have stopped at one cocktail. But you failed and I had to do it and know I’m recovering.” I was starting to get angry. “Besides if you had your men in the casino like I’d asked you, then John wouldn’t have been caught and two men wouldn’t have died.” I took a gulp of the wine. “You don’t get to choose what I do now, because I’m in this mess because of two people, and you’re one of ‘em.” I put down what was left of the wine. “I’m returning to my room, if you want anything else, wait till tomorrow.” I went off toward the elevator, grumbling in carmalkan. After flinching out of the way of a stationary column, I made it to the elevator and the attendant within.

        “Floor sir?” He asked

        “I’d prefer a bed, but I suppose the floor would do.” I chuckled at my joke. Then I realized I said it in carmalkan. I switched to common “floor seven please,” I answered leaning against the side of the lift.

        The attendant was good, a true professional, he said nothing to me in my dizzy state. I tipped him whatever bill it was I had in my pocket, I think it was a ten because he gave a low whistle and flowing thanks. I made my way over to my room, which thankfully was very near to the elevator. I stood outside my door for a moment, I wasn’t sure why I was hesitating and fiddling with my room key. Then slowly I realized, there was a faint chiming coming from inside my room. I cursed my luck. Someone was spying on my room and I was just standing there drunk.

Random writing #3a

                An hour after Jessabelle asked my help, I walked through the door of the darkened cellar. Everything was arranged as per my orders. Ice floated in a water barrel near the door, to the left a worktable held an oil lamp, the only source of light in the room. There were no chairs, no pictures, nothing soft and nothing reassuring. in the center of the room, strapped to a wooden table was the captive. She had black, bobbed hair, looked to be in her early thirties, had a fresh cut across her right cheekbone, and was clothed only in a blood red sheet. The cut was most likely Miranda’s doing, however the sheet was my idea. Removing control was a far better method than inflicting pain, though unlike some I had known, I took no relish in this particular removal. I carried my tray, covered in a white cloth, to the table with the lamp, paying the captive no mind. She saw me and looked away, concealing whatever thoughts her eyes might have betrayed. I set down the tray and removed the cloth, I then proceeded to use the items on it to mix myself a gin and tonic.

        “There are those who mix citrus juice with their gin,” I spoke aloud in carmalkan, a language I’m certain our captive knew well. “However, I prefer to leave the gin unhindered, all the better to judge its quality.” As it happened, the gin was of excellent quality and I told this to the captive, in great, rambling detail. She maintained eye contact with the wall.

        “It’s rude not to look at someone when they are speaking to you, especially when unacquainted with said person.” No response was given. After a moments pause, I stepped to the center table and folded the sheet up a few inches above her ankles. The captive flinched as I touched the sheet, meanwhile I grinned.

        “Good, you understand exactly what type of predicament you are in. Even still you reveal little, are you perhaps resigned to your fate?” I chirped. ”You have clearly been trained, and you most certainly understand me. Under other circumstances, we might be sharing a drink but you are the victim and I am the interrogator.” The wall held the woman’s rapt attention. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that you can make me progress further. You are mistaken. For, you see, I will not do anything that I do not wish to do. You expect me to harm or otherwise violate you and you think that by remaining silent you will provoke me to such an action.” I sharpened my tone, aware of what she anticipated, but I needed her to know that I had complete control over her, even her thoughts. “You are wrong, you have no such power over me. Your method would surely have worked on those before me. Judging by your gash it did.” I softened my tone. “I’m insulted that you would even attempt to control me.” I poured my drink, three-quarters full, onto the gash and walked out the door, depositing the cup back to its tray as I went.

        Jessabelle looked at me expectantly when I passed through the door into the sitting room.

“Well, what did she say?” She inquired. It occurred to me that her life surrounded by magic created a false impression that things came easily.

        “She said nothing, but the interrogation is off to a good start.” She gave me an incredulous look. “These things take time.” I explained. “If you wanted answers by now you should have put me on this from the beginning. I will have her singing like a finch within the day.”

“Canary.”

        “Excuse me?”

        “The expression is sing like a canary, not sing like a finch.” Her face was blank as she corrected me. I grunted my understanding. Then she furrowed her brow. “Why won’t you use pain? It’s very effective, but you seemed to avoid it.”

        “I will use pain, when the time comes” I replied taking a seat. “But I won’t use it yet because I need to establish control. Pain is good only if it enforces my control over her.” I could see that she wanted more information. I was happy to oblige. “You see, the best forms of interrogation are trickery, sensory deprivation, or coercion. Pain is good for fear, and fear for coercion, but it is easy to resist.” She looked doubtful, but I nodded. “Oh yes, to resist pain you must mentally separate yourself from your own body. There are a few ways to do this, but it just comes down to resolve and practice. When a person is trained the best thing pain can do is overwhelm the senses and muddle their thoughts. We could do this, but it would take longer than it would to coerce her.”

        “So then how long will it take?”

        “Well I said within the day, but more likely she’ll start talking in an hour or two.” Jessabelle raised her eyebrows. “You and Miranda tried for six hours using conventional methods, she was able to resist. This means that she is trained, and my method uses that training against her.”

        Jessabelle snorted, “How in the world can you use her training to resist interrogation to interrogate her?”

        I smiled. “Normal interrogation focuses on rewards and consequences. To resist this method you focus on control, controlling your breathing, whether or not you answer, compliance or disobedience. You keep them out of your head and take control of whatever you can whenever you can. My method, focuses on control, and convincing the victim that they have none. That way when she uses her training, she falls into my trap. She expects consequences and they won’t come, she expects rewards and they won’t come. What will happen will happen regardless of whatever she may choose. Someone untrained, would instinctively resist this method. They would just live in the moment. But someone trained to take control of themselves in an interrogation, they would drive themselves crazy.” I could see that Jessabelle didn’t understand.

        “I’ll give you an example, when I first deserted the carmalkan army a secret service team hunted me down. They were not going to let a member of the special forces go rogue. I knew they were after me, so I set a trap and captured one of them. Using a complicated bit of writmancy I paralyzed him, nothing more. I paralyzed him and started chatting about whatever came to mind. I didn’t let him sleep, I forced him to eat and drink, and moved him into all manner of uncomfortable positions. I suppose you could say I played with him like a doll. Well, after a few hours of that I began to ask him for information, starting with his name and then gradually moving up to the location of his team’s headquarters. When he resisted or refused, I took away his ability to speak. When he cooperated I read poems and discussed philosophy. Each way I was lessening his control over himself, even starting to dictate his thoughts through the choice of poem or philosophy. At thirty-seven hours after I captured him he gave up the location of his team’s headquarters. As a reward he is the only one I left alive.”

        When I finished Jessabelle once again looked her fifteen years. Could it be that she was scared of me? I had known her four months at that point seeing her nearly every day for several hours as we collaborated on establishing a smuggling route but I had never before seen her scared. It was possible that even then she wasn’t scared. However, this was certainly the most vulnerable she had ever looked.

        “Mark,” she took a breath. “Remind me never to upset you.”

Random Writing #2a

        “You had your chance and everything fell to chrishval!” I shouted at Jamie. I took a breath, and regained what I could of my composure. It didn’t work, but I was able to stop myself shouting. “You went off, alone, giving only a vague idea of where to find you, tried to work information out of a known Carmalkan secret serviceman, did not have an escape plan, got caught.”  For the first time since the escape I looked him in the face. Jamie looked guilty as whore in church. The flames had singed him, his interrogation left bruises and his lip was bloody. It was time for me to put the pressure on him make him feel the full responsibility for his actions. “We had to extract you, and fast. A thousand dollars were spent finding your location, the serviceman knows we’re after him, and some hotel owner lost several rooms to a fire.” He looked down and bit his lip, he knew what I was about to say. “Two men died getting you out.” I saw a tear form. “Their names were Jacob and Edward. Jacob was a fae hunter, one of the lucky ones, he survived three expeditions. He was going to settled down on his money, had a girl he was sweet on, worked for me so he could have safe job.” He sobbed, and started to mumble something, I wasn’t about to let up. “ Edward was married, he has a daughter, her name is Lilian, his wife’s name is Marla.” This time the sob came out, he looked away from me into the corner. I started to lose my calm, my voice rose. “His daughter will never remember her father. Marla will have to raise Lilian and tell her why she doesn’t have a father.” I was back at a yell and starting to tremble. “Lilian has no father because of your stupidity! Your arrogance lost two men their lives!”

        “Why are you saying this!” He made eye contact. “What difference can it make!”

        I lost my restraint. “It makes the difference to you!” I allowed him my best, blood-curdling glare. “This rescue was volunteer only. Edward and Jacob died for you, and the rest took the same gamble. I would have killed you.” I paused to gauge his reaction. “I would have cursed or shot you at the first opportunity and if one didn’t come soon enough I’d have made one. I don’t allow loose ends, and you aren’t valuable enough for me to order a recovery. I would kill you now, but they paid for you with their blood, each of them worth six of you. You are alive because of they died.” He had since dropped eye contact. A good thing too, if he hadn’t I may have given him a mark to remember Jacob and Edward by.

        We stood for a minute in silence. “Make yourself worthy of their sacrifice, make yourself worth a child growing up without her father.” I said with venom, I wanted to burn this into him, and I did. He broke into deep sobs, tremoring and gasping with each breath. I snorted satisfaction and marched out the door.

        “Leave him be until he chooses to come out.” I ordered to Miranda’s guard in the hall. She nodded as I passed by. I made my way to the stairs nearly taking out another of Miranda’s guards at the corner. Once up the stairs and on the rooftop I lit a fireleaf cheroot, and paced about fuming in carmalkan. I was on my second cheroot when I finally started to calm down. It was good timing too, just as I put out the half consumed fireleaf Jessabelle came up onto the roof, looking troubled.

        “Mark, we need you downstairs.” At that moment she looked every one of her fifteen years, a bit timid and weak, which is very rare for her.

        I raised my eyebrow “What’s the problem?”

        “Miranda and I can’t get our lovely captive to talk. We figure we could use a professional's help.” She seemed almost afraid to say it. I didn’t blame her, I broke into a near manic grin.

        “A return to old habits may be just what I need.” I looked her in the eye, she flinched. “Madam, you have an interigator.”

*to be continued*

Random writing #1a

        I looked out the window into the rain. The rain that had threatened to come all day. It had come in a carpet, covering all the city. There was a darkness that joined it, and together they ruined the view from my hotel room. So I allowed myself to fall into Mother Nature’s rain trance. A flash, a crack, and the roll of drums. A flash, a crack, and the roll of drums. Flash, crack, drums. Flash, crack, drums. Flash crack, drums. Flash, crack, knock, drums. I turned to face the door, the source of the interruption. A shadow was in the slit below, someone wanted to see me. I stepped around a table, walked up to the door, and peered through the glass.

        The man that I saw was broad and hairy, like a lumberjack in a suit. I took note of a tattoo. A very subtle tattoo was on the inside of his ear, it had the shape of a black heart. I swung the door open and presented myself.

        “Mr. Nurend,” he started, “I bring you the polite regards of Miranda and welcome you to the city.” I nodded acknowledgment, the messenger continued. “As a gift to show her welcome, Miranda wishes to inform you that a private detective named John Doe has been hired to find you and keep tabs on you. He was hired earlier this day.” Again I nodded, this time indicating I understood. He returned my nod with one of his own, “I wish you a good night Mr. Nurend.” He turned and walked toward the elevator. I shut my door, and looked over my room, dispelling the last of the rain trance.

        It was a posh affair, if perhaps a little small. From the door there as a sitting area, complete with elegant chairs and a sweeping settee. The coffee table boasted expensive teak legs with a sleek marble top. To my right was the open door to the bedroom. Within that room stood a grand wardrobe and drawers as well as a regal four poster affair humbly referred to as a bed. The adjoined bathroom was tiled and tubed well enough for Solomon himself. All of the walls displayed art, or some modern trash pretending to be art. Doubtless within each frame was a minor treasure, but I didn’t care for any of it at all.

        I took a breath and set to work. Striding across the carpet, I opened my still packed luggage, and began to search for something. After a moment I pulled out a little wood box. From inside the box I drew out what to normal people would be a wind chime. It was not a wind chime, it was a charm with three golden-yellow disks and a sizable pearl of iron. I hung it by its chain from a light fixture above the coffee table where it could warn me of any unwanted presence. I then removed from my pocket a case of what resembled cigarettes, but they were not of tobacco. I removed one and set it to my lips. It ignited as I deftly tapped the end with my finger. For a moment I faced the wide window as the rain splattered upon it. Then I blew into it a fog of smoke that stuck onto the glass, before fading away. I paced about the suite and continued this process with the door, the heating vent, the bedroom window, and even the drains in the bathroom. I completed my protection by flicking white-gray ash at the base of the door, where an improbable breeze sorted it out into a neat line across the bottom of the doorway. Satisfied with my work, I snubbed out the non-cigarette in the rooms crystal ashtray.

        Feeling famished from my recent excursion, I plopped down into the fine chair beside the redial phone. I lifted the receiver and dialed nine for room service. A girl spoke through the phone, “Good evening. How may be of service?”

        “Good evening,” I said through my Curmalkan accent. “I would like to order dinner to my room, suite seven one five. Do you, perchance, serve stuffed cabbage?”

        “If you will allow us a little time sir, we absolutely can serve you your stuffed cabbage.” She chirped.

        “Such wonderful service. But I was hopping something in a short time. What would you suggest?”

        “Lamb with mint is our most popular entrée. I could have it up to your room in just a few minutes, if that’s what you’d like?”

        “Lamb is perfect. But I don’t want any wine with it, just some iced water if you would.”

        “Yes, sir. That will be up to you in a few minutes.” She sounded gleeful that I took her recommendation. “Would you like me to bring you anything else?”

        “Hmm. Yes, surprise me with a dessert of your choice. The stronger the better.” I said giving in to my taste for sweets.

        “Yes sir! I’ll have them right there.”

        “Thank you.” I put down the phone on its receiver and awaited my meal.