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.”