I drift into consciousness to see Neil next to me, strapped down, and Leonard nowhere to be seen. He let us basically destroy each other for a couple hours- it was almost enough to make you go insane.
The moment he pulled out the wires I fell unconscious, perhaps just from the stress of having my mind picked apart so much.
I feel like at this point I have nothing left to myself. It's almost dehumanizing. Every small secret I had is available to Leonard whenever he wants it, and available to Neil even when he doesn't.
My thoughts are no longer my own, which scares me.
I look over at Neil, unconscious, and wonder if he feels the same way. Our brains have been picked, our bodies abused. We haven't eaten in ages and our minds are tortured. We've been kept in cages and strapped to tables. What else will be thrown at us?
I understand fully now, why they call this torture. And the sad part is that there's no one left to rescue us. We're on our own.
And I even begin to doubt Neil. He was the one solid thing left in my life, the one person that I could rely on and that I knew would be there regardless of the circumstances. It had always been us against the world. The unbreakable team.
And now it was broken.
.................................................
After a few hours of silence, Neil speaks. "Cecy."
"Yeah, Neil?"
"How come you never told me about Kennedy?"
I let out a long sigh. Neil must have found out when our brains were connected. "Because it wasn't important." Ken was my older brother. He died when I was 11, just a little while before I became close with Neil. Since then I've been an only child; I didn't want to remember that so I never brought it up.
"Of course it was important, he was your brother!" I don't respond. I try to block out the memories, but they take over my mind.
The sharp rap on the door. The officials breaking it down. Them marching inside and ripping Ken from where he was standing. He was only 16, but to them he was a threat. He had been hacking into their software, looking at their plans without anyone knowing. He was so smart, smarter than anyone I knew. I don't think he ever even did anything with their plans, he just looked. He was curious. And because of that he was taken away. We got a letter exactly 5 weeks later saying he had been killed and the threat was neutralized.
He wasn't a person to them. He was a threat. A problem that had to be fixed.
I was only 11, too young to fully understand. If it had happened later I think my hatred for the officials would have grown much quicker, but because I was so young I didn't hate them for it. I only hated that he was gone.
I had blocked out this portion of my memories for so many years that I almost forgot. I almost forgot him. I hadn't thought about him once in months, until Neil brought it up.
"Why didn't you ever tell me, Cecily?"
"Because I was trying to forget. It was before I met you. It was in the past."
"I just wish I had known, maybe I could've helped somehow..."
We look at each other from across the tables and I work one of my hands out of the straps. He does the same and we grab hands desperately.
That small comfort is enough to give me some hope. I hold his hand tightly and then say, "You know there's plenty you didn't tell me, too."
"What do you mean?" He asks.
"...About your mother?" I saw flashes of his childhood in his memories, from before he met me. She was apparently a cruel woman, she was abusive. She would slap him and hit him over the head with things. But his father was kind. His father was his idol.
"Oh," Is all he says.
"Why didn't you ever say?"
"I don't know..." He goes quiet, lost in painful memories.
"I'm sorry I brought it up." I say.
"It's alright." He responds after a moment. We fall silent. We lay there for a while longer, lost in thought.
Suddenly there's a sharp rap on the door, startling us both. In walk four people. Leonard, Lindsey, Carter, and the woman. The one who gave the order for us to be tortured.
"Well you look like death." She says with a cheerful smile. "I see Leonard's interrogation has been working?"
Lindsey glares at the woman and then turns to us. "I'm sorry if Leonard put you through anything too horrific. He was just trying to get information. I never would have let this happen had I known how his interrogations worked."
No one speaks for a moment, so Lindsey continues. "Our offer is still on the table. We want you to work for us. We want you to take down Jupiter. We want you to extinguish the rebels. But if you're to work for us, you have to answer our questions. That was the point of all this to begin with."
Carter adds regretfully, "This time though, it isn't really a choice. Unfortunately your level of treason is punishable by death, so if you don't comply then you will have to be killed."
The woman giggles gleefully, "Just what they deserve."
"Quiet." Lindsey growls at her, and then turns to us. "Unfortunately it isn't my choice, that's the law. But if you work for us we will make everything as comfortable for you as possible, and your salary will be high."
"We don't want your money, how can we hurt our own family on Jupiter?" Neil asks.
"Neil..." I say. As much as it might be the cowards way out... I don't want to die. Not yet at least. Not on their terms. I would rather have my death be my own then die by their hands.
He looks at me, a question in his gaze, Are you sure?
I'm sure. I try to say with my eyes. If saying that we'll agree to hurt Jupiter is the only chance we have of survival, I'll take it. Maybe if we can pretend to go along with them at first, we'll have a chance to escape later.
"Okay." Neil says, looking at them coldly. "We'll do it."
................................................
I stare at the white ceiling. We're in the infirmary, they gave us one day to rest and recover from the torture, and then tonight we're to start working.
I spent a few hours just trying to sleep, but my mind was whirring; I was running on adrenaline. It was hard to find peace after all of Leonard's tests. I couldn't think straight, my mind kept traveling back to that room, and all the things I hadn't known about Neil.
We lay next to each other on two separate cots, both staring at the ceiling in silence, unable to sleep.
I haven't noticed any security cameras in this room, but I'm sure they're around somewhere. I don't know that I'll ever shake the feeling of being watched.
"Neil?" I finally say.
"What will we do?" He asks in return. "We can't hurt them."
"We play along." I whisper. "And when we can, we run."
He looks at me for a long time without saying anything.
He then gets up from his cot and lays down on the empty side of mine. He hugs me tightly, but then I realize he's only trying to stay out of ear shot of the cameras. He whispers directly in my ear, "Why run? What's left for us?"
I know what he means. Why bother to run, why bother to try to escape? Escape back to what? For all we know everyone on Jupiter is already dead. And there's no guarantee we would make it back to them alive if we ran. On top of which, we'd be caught in an instant. So why not give up?
"I don't know. Maybe nothing." I whisper back. "But we have to try..." I want to say so much more but the feeling of being watched hasn't left me. Think of Natalie. I want to say. Think of Jupiter. We can't give up, we can't just let Mars win...
"I know." He finally says. "I know."
He pulls me closer and we lay like that for a long time, each having our own existential crises in our heads.
Self preservation at the cost of Jupiter, or fleeting preservation of Jupiter at the cost of ourselves. Or maybe just blow up both planets and take everyone down with us.
I'm beginning to think that we humans have become merciless.
Hopeless.
...........................
In a while someone comes in and brings us food, a nice hot meal that tastes like it took hours of time to make. We wolf it down in seconds, leaving me feeling almost guilty, as if I hadn't tasted it long enough to enjoy it.
After the food we try to sleep some more, and with Neil by my side slowly I become more at ease. Slowly my heart stops racing. I stop thinking of the torture room every two seconds. Of course it's still there in my mind, but I've pushed it back, made momentary peace with it. I'll deal with that later.
For the moment I'm just glad to be alive, glad to have Neil, even with all his secrets, and glad that we now have some time to think of a plan.
My mind is still whirring but I manage to drift off, if only for a few hours.
A sharp rap on the door calls me back to reality and I realize that the day is gone. It's evening. Time to work. Time to bring down Jupiter.
A woman walks in and motions for us to follow her. She leads us down never ending hallways of white, as sterile and pure as a doctor's office, before stopping in front of a silver metal door.
"This is where you'll work," she tells us, "They have hired you to carry through with your plans of blowing up a planet, and they expect you to succeed. Although this time, it is your own." With that, the door slides open vertically and we step into a sort of control room.
Screens everywhere, countless computers with software that would take me years to figure out. Some screens show maps of other planets. Some show old blueprints for bombs and missiles. Some are filled top to bottom with cramped writing in a print so small it might as well be in another language.
The room is so technologically advanced that it would have been very impressive if not for the circumstances. In any other situation I would have loved to check out all the equipment; we could've used this back on Jupiter, before we were caught. But now, ironically, the very plan that was meant to destroy Mars is what they're having us use.
Carter walks in and says, "Everything is at your disposal, but is to be used against Jupiter only, for no other purpose. There are guards watching you, and security cameras are stationed around the room, just so you're aware. You will have to work efficiently; the officers have decided that you will be given one week at most. Not my rule, but that's what it is. You will work 12 hours a day, including 3 half hour meal breaks. Tonight is just to get you started, get the plans up and running, and then tomorrow begins a 12 hour day. Any questions?"
It was a lot to take in, but at least we had a week. That was plenty of time to decide what we were going to do.
Neil and I glance at each other and then nod our heads that we understand.
"Then it's time to begin."