Branch
Light refracts within your cornea; you are someone else, somewhere else.
Branch
Stand up.
You cannot. Rope bites into your skin, the fibres damp with weeping flesh. Each movement sends a bolt of electric agony through your arms.
Branch
Look around you.
A man and a woman look down at you and at each other. There are cages strewn over the floor.
A casual intimacy to the interrogators' posture, slouched toward each other. They're partners.
Branch
"What's happening?" (Proceed.)
"She's confused. I told you not to hit her in the head."
"Yeah, yeah."
He'll do it again.
"We just need a name, dear. Your Opera handler. Who got you into this whole mess?"
"My dad has a lab, I work there. I don't know anything."
"I'll try again."
Brace yourself.
Knuckles dig swift into your eye-socket and back out again, next to your nose, something cracks.
"Stop!"
"We will when you let us. You think we want to be here? Whole city reeks..."
The room scrambles, fades, returns.
You can feel something in your ears now. The woman caresses a device in her palm.
The crease of latex against plastic, amplified in your skull.
"What did they promise you? Money? Did they tell you they'd make you a big-time communist operant? It doesn't have to be this hard..."
"Know nothing..."
The woman smiles, closes her hand around the device.
Aural torture. Wicked.
Whispers. Words crawling over each other, turning into one. Fractal, burrowing under skin.
Shake your head, get the sound out.
Chitinous legs rippling inside your skull...
Branch
The device isn't making any sound; it's triggering a psychoauditory response -- tuned specifically to the individual.
"Don't pass out, shit. Ohh, there you are."
"Keep your crappy tech away from me!"
"'Crappy'? This is brand new. My design."
"Aha."
"Tell us about your assignment."
SILENCE.
"There was no assignment."
"Unbelievable."
"Come on." Low growl, frustrated. "It's my turn."
A white flash, cold. Static. The room buzzes, fades. Clarifies.
"Not again, let me out of here!"
"I smell death... Her wounds are beginning to decay. Disgusting."
"She's shivering. The sepsis will kill her before we get anything."
Whispering to each other in low, urgent tones. They're beginning to panic.
"Suckers."
"Look what you're doing to yourself."
He grabs your hair, forces your gaze downward. You see your bare chest, rotten and oozing. He massages pus into your open wounds with his knife.
"No!"
Still gripping your hair he slams your head back. You open your mouth to gasp and he plunges his knife between your lips. You taste the rancid, wet crumbs of your flesh on its blade.
Bitter.
"Swallow for me."
Swallow.
The chunks feel rough as they go down.
The sensation will haunt you.
"That's a good girl."
"Please... stop..."
"Maybe we should bring Dr. Hugo here to visit you. Is that what you want? To see your daddy?"
The doctor blows onto his tea. A smell of mint rises with the steam.
"We'll say that his little girl told us that he was the head of the network... He'll die thinking you sacrificed him to save someone else."
"No... leave Dad alone..."
"It's up to you whether we have to bring him here or not. We'll keep him right downstairs, you'll be able to hear everything."
Kick, thrash.
It hurts...
Make it stop!
"There was a carabinero named Vespar, there was a Ramses, Tempo del Sur..."
"Who was in charge? There must be an operant in there..."
Come on... Don't tell them... Lie...
"I don't know... I never met them... I just got messages from the others...."
It feels like drowning, like clawing your way through dark water, like you don't know which way is up --
Branch
Grit your teeth.
Spit at him.
Pieces of you splatter across his face, black and yellow.
He wipes his face and then forces his hand back into your mouth. His fingers plug your throat, you choke. Vomit splutters out of your nostrils.
You cough, it burns.
"Did you like having his hand inside you, do you want him to do it again?"
"Stop..."
"Doesn't it look good? Try it."
Look away.
"Pathetic."
"Look at yourself."
Say nothing.
"There's more?"
The cosmonaut! Where is it?
You catch a glimpse of orange in the back of the room, breathe easily.
Don't say anything.
"What the fuck was that..."
"A lullaby."
"Stop, stop it!"
Listen...
Stay quiet.
"I don't know anything..."
"For fuck's sake."
"I don't work at an opera, I'm a student."