Turncoat: Turncoat Trilogy Book 1

Chapter 15.2

I plopped down on the bed in the corner of the cell, curled up and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up the cell was dark and the hallway silent. I looked at my wrist interface only to see that there was no signal. I guess that made sense. They couldn't take my wrist interface because of my bionics, but they could cut me off from the outside world.

I reached into my boot and pulled out my cleaning kit and set to work on my feet and ankles, working the dirt and gunk out of them from the last month. The rag continued to get dirtier and dirtier as I worked, feeling some of the extra weight leave my ankles as I worked. I slowly worked my way up, stripping my calves down to the bare essentials as I worked.

Slowly, my fingers grew tired from the work and my back ached from sitting hunched over for so long, so I put my legs back together and set the rag aside. Slowly the lights in the hallway came up, but my cell stayed mostly dark. Probably something to do with the glass door itself rather than lighting controls. I did anything I could to stay entertained in the boring cell. I exercised; recited lines of code from memory; spun a dirty tale about Captain Otto and Captain Becker doing some rather illegal things with each other involving butter and their handcuffs; really anything I could think of. At one point, a guard slid a tray through a slot in the door loaded down with food and a bottle of water.

"Hey, what time is it?" I asked.

The guard walked away without a word and I started into the food, surprised at how hungry I was. It didn't taste very good, but there was enough water in the cup to clean my rag. As the day progressed I went back to cleaning my legs, disassembling my knee next and wiping down the individual parts and carefully reassembling the join. Soon, with both knee's cleaned, I returned to telling stories, some true some fictional, most directed at the Dead Head Captains or Commandant doing very illegal things. When had talked myself hoarse, I resorted to staring into the inky darkness up at the ceiling. I drifted off to sleep after my second meal, delivered with the same grace and manners as the first, and washing my rag once more.

When I woke up, my maintenance kit had vanished from where I left it. The room remained completely dark today and the footsteps from the guards suspiciously missing. When the tray of food slid in, I had to grope around to find it and I ate cautiously. I must have dozed off at some point, because the tray was gone when I came back. Was it getting colder? I rubbed my arms and paced about the room. Food didn't come after that last tray, and I began to grow hungry.

Stomach pain gnawed at my sides, a familiar pain from my time in the slums. How could I be so stupid to think that with Vicki back in my life everything would go back to normal? I could deal with this, I could survive this and come out on top. This is nothing different than my stint in intensive care at the hospital. Dark, quiet, alone for weeks on end, the doctor's didn't speak to me and they didn't feed me much. Granted, I was never hungry then.

Lines of code began streaming through the darkness, different intrusions and defenses, things I memorized by heart in training. They were so pretty, I reached out to try to grab them but I never could. They were always just out of reach. A brief thought crossed my mind but then vanished into the recesses, wishing to be long forgotten.

This is what crazy is, I'm officially going crazy.

I couldn't sleep, or if I did sleep, it did nothing for me. I couldn't distinguish between awake and asleep. Nobody was coming to save me, they broke one man out of here but the government wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. I was alone in this hell and there was nothing no one could do to save me. Time blurred together with the hallucinations for hours, possibly days on end, and then, the lights turned on.

Painful white light burned down on me, searing the inside of my eyes and sending a sharp shot of pain through my skull. I cried out and curled up in a ball where I sat on the floor. Spots danced before my eyes as I lay there, quivering in pain. The door opened with a deafening bang and I squeezed my hands over my ears. A pair of hands grabbed me and I couldn't resist as they pulled me to my feet. My feet dragged over the ground as I left the cell.