Chapter 099: Misery Loves Company

"You and me

We're in this together now

None of them can stop us now

We will make it through somehow

You and me

If the world should break in two

Until the very end of me

Until the very end of you"

We're in this together - Nine Inch Nails

            They waited until she was asleep. The lights had been on, but neither them nor the sound of the guards entering her cell had woken her. She let out a startled gasp as one of them forcefully hauled her from her bunk, but they didn't give her any time to think. Quickly, purposefully, she was herded out of the cell, down the concrete-walled corridor, past several doors that appeared to belong to similar cells as hers. There was not a sound from any of them, however. Save for the guards' boots and her occasional, barely suppressed whimpers there was no sound at all.

            After having followed the corridor, turning first right and then left, she was ushered through a doorway into a room full of shadows. Still in her waking daze, she took some faltering steps towards the middle of the room, yet she sensed the guards moving away from her. Suddenly the door behind her shut close with a heavy bang, For a few moments the room was shrouded in darkness, but just as she was about to call out lights flared on all around her. They were far too bright for comfort and had been placed all around the room, making it impossible for her to make out clearly any of the other occupants. There had been four or five guards to begin with, she guessed, but she couldn't really be sure, and she didn't know how many had been waiting for her here. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself in a pathetic attempt to gain some comfort.

            There was a slight clearing of a throat off to one side, followed by a bland, impassionate voice delivering a speech to the effect that this was to be her first official interrogation in name of the People's Republic of Quendor to determine the extent of her crimes against the State, after which suitable punishment would be decided upon. Rapidly, efficiently, and without a trace of compassion the voice began to fire questions at her, all to do with Lucius's so-called 'revolutionary movement' and her particular role in it.

            "But we were only supposed to get married!" she cried at what she had begun to realise was a man behind a desk. "I don't know anything about all of this! I haven't done anything! Lucius is no traitor. What have you done with him?"

            Apparently, these were not the anwers they wanted from her. The questions merely resumed as if she had not spoken, repeating over and over again, no matter how much she protested her innocence. She cried, and begged, and pleaded with them, but they would not relent. Although she was alone in the middle of the room, she seemed frightened to move from her spot, having been sufficiently intimidated by their whole approach.

            She was just proclaiming Lucius's innocence once more, when suddely a screen was switched on. It showed a courtyard in some prison or military compound, one figure with his hands tied and back to the wall facing a firing squad. In spite of the blindfold partially masking his face, there was no mistaking the features of her beloved Lucius. She had barely had time to take this in, when his death sentence due to his crimes of high treason was pronounced and with nary a moment to lose the command for ready, aim, and fire was given. She howled in grief as bullets riddled Lucius's defenseless body and he sagged lifelessly to the ground. The camera closed on him, displaying the blood slowly oozing out from his many wounds in some unpleasant and graphic detail, but at that point she was already well beyond ordinary hysterics. An order was given and she was roughly hauled back to her cell, where she cried and cried until she could cry no more.

            In the following days and weeks, she was repeatedly led back to the interrogation chamber, though never at any regular intervals. The questions never changed, however, and her answers were never good enough, or at least her guards never gave any hint of being satisfied. The video of Lucius's execution was at times shown again, although not too often, as if they were wary of her becoming too desensitized by the horrible images. Meanwhile, she continued to plead and beg them to believe her. She knew nothing, she cried, she was innocent, it was all a terrible mistake. However, it seemed that to them there had never been any doubt about her guilt.

            We worked, we ate, we slept. There was little else in between. We could have taken the time, I guess, but both Janice and I wanted to get this over with and leave it behind us. Wearing down Fiona's defenses didn't exactly help us to keep a stable mind ourselves.

            "Have you noticed how she is gradually changing?" Janice remarked during lunch one time. "The way she's defending herself, I mean. She has stopped claiming that Lucius was innocent. Now she just keeps on saying that she doesn't know anything about all the things she's accused of. She's realised that self-protection should be her first priority."

            "Good," I mumbled. "That's the way we wanted it, anyway."

            "We still need to push her further, though. Her despair is not nearly deep enough yet."

            "Perhaps it's time we implemented the next phase."

            Janice looked pensive for a moment, then nodded. "She's about ready for it, I'd say."

            For the first time there were other noises. The sounds of the guards were familiar, but instead of them coming to her cell she heard them opening another door, close to hers. There was the sound of something heavy being thrown on to the floor, followed by human sobs as the guards locked up and left the scene. It took her a few moments to realise that the sounds were coming to her through a grille that probably covered a ventilation shaft or something like that. For a long while she remained as quiet as a mouse, merely listening to the sounds of what seemed to be a fellow prisoner and trying to decide whether it would be safe for her to speak.

            Of course, in the end her curiosity got the better of her, and she softly called out, asking the other person's name and whether he'd heard anything about Lucius. The sobbing stopped, but a reply was not immediately forthcoming. She called out again, a little bolder this time, and again, and again, until finally the other person replied. His name was Javier, he said. As for Lucius, well, he was dead.

This shocked her into silence for a while, as if the repeated video images had still not done enough to convince her. Now that first contact had been made, however, Javier wanted to talk more, and after some time she relented, wanting to know what he had seen or heard of Lucius's death. There had been a public announcement, he replied, seemingly surprised that she had not heard about it before.

            Javier told her that he had been a minor secretary in Lucius's bureaucracy. The counterrevolution that led to the establishment of the People's Republic of Quendor had taken everyone by surprise, he said. Lucius had quickly been imprisoned and had subsequently been executed for what they claimed to be his crimes against the State. Just when Javier thought he had been safe, they had come for him too. He said he didn't know what they wanted with him either, since he had not been important enough to warrant any special attention. He was rather uneasy, though, for there had been other disappearances before his capture and as yet he had heard of none who had returned.

            It was only natural for him to want to know who she was and why she had been arrested, but she was oddly reluctant to give him a straight answer. Apparently, she was still inclined to distrust her fellow prisoner, or at least not to trust him completely. Javier was a bit angry at first; after all, he had told her his story, so why shouldn't she return the favour? After a while, he simply ignored the issue with an air of "be that way, then". When she finally told him, he was rather surprised and a bit worried too. She, of course, had been quite an important figure, and he said he could understand why she was here, even if she was as innocent as she claimed to be. The fact that he had been imprisoned in the same section as she was alarming, though, for it seemed to indicate that they considered him far more important than he had ever dreamed himself to be. There wasn't anything she could offer him by way of comfort, though. She didn't have anything left for herself.

            The conversations between them were short, interspersed with periods of sleeping, the times when either of them was led away for questioning, or simply long spells of silence. When they were talking, it was only for the meagre comfort another person's voice would give. Gradually they began to rely on one another's presence there, and something of a bond began to grow. She remained a bit aloof, though, and tended to keep her distance as soon as she herself became the topic of conversation. Perhaps it was just her way of needing more privacy than Javier thought necessary.

            There was little change in either of their conditions, or rather, if there was any change, it was not for the better. Nothing was ever clearly said about it, but during interrogations a feeling began to make itself known, an undertone of threat and violence, stronger than the earlier intimidations. It was the sense that these sessions would not be going on indefinitely, and that although it still wasn't clear to either of them what their interrogators wanted to hear, some answers had to be given, or else… This unspoken threat was just left dangling, and it quite increased the overall tension. Their conversations became rather strained, as they racked their brains trying to discover what it was that their interrogators wanted. She, especially, turned quite desperate, for by now she had tried each and every answer to their questions that she could think of and nothing seemed to suffice.

            Then one day Javier returned from his interrogation in a state of shock. It took her a while before she could get any sense out of him, but slowly it became clear that he had been given the undeniable impression that the end to his ordeal was much closer than he had anticipated, and that it wasn't going to be good either. He began to rail at theit whole situation quite desperately, going on about how there had to be a way out of this. There just had to be, but how?

            Suddenly, she remarked that, yes, he was right, things did not have to be like this. Before she could go on, however, she fell silent, seemingly surprised and a bit puzzled by her own statement. It was as if another part of her had spoken, with a kind of certainty that she had never been capable of before. The moment passed, however, and they went back to fruitlessly trying to look for some kind of escape. Their attempts appeared as ineffectual as their interrogators' efforts to get the required answers.

            "That was interesting," Janice said. "The way she surprised herself just then."

            "A hopeful sign," I commented. "Do you think she's ready?"

             "She'd better be. I don't think we can afford to wait any longer. This is taking too long as it is." She sighed wearily, and I cast a worried glance at her.

            "Alright. Tomorrow we'll try the final phase. And let's just hope that we got it right…"