Sunrise
The last few hours of sleep I scraped together left me more tired then they should. I slept dreamlessly although I'd startle awake more often than not, seeing threats in every corner cloaked in shadow. My guard had changed, gone was Steve and his soft gait and deep red blush. Instead the man outside my door stood still aside from occasionally slamming his arm into the door. He was here often, and took great pleasure in disrupting my sleep as punishment for the hours he worked. I tried shake his face from my mind, to get ready without dwelling on him. I wouldn't have to see him for long, and any pain I endured was temporary. The mantra settled my fraying nerves and allowed me to compose myself. I dressed in the dim light from the barred window, pulling on a long sleeved shirt and thick pants. My boots remained coated in mud, more than I was willing to trek into an office. Instead I remained barefoot, preparing myself for the inevitable chill that would seep into me throughout the day.
My hair proved difficult. I should have combed it last night, or in one of my moments of waking. Instead I raked a comb through it now, and pulled it back into a hasty ponytail. The guard had opened the door, Jones I think was his name, and stood watching me as he smoked. I didn't react, instead letting myself continue my routine. Eventually I turned to face him properly. “Aren't you gonna wish me a good morning?” He snickered. I remained silent. I knew his tricks, I was intimately familiar with how he'd play with protocol and programming to be allowed to punish me. He didn't drop the thin lipped smile that stretched across his round face, instead reaching out to pinch my cheek. The cigarette in his other hand was almost used through, and it filled me with tiredness to see. “Cat got your tongue?” He teased. I held back a sigh. Surely he had to get bored of this same routine? Jones's eyes hadn't looked away from me yet, watching me expectantly.
Apathy began to fill me as I stepped back in my mind. It was easier to handle him if I let the familiar knowledge of what to do guide me, the routine responses playing out without me needing to see or feel it. I could feel my body open my mouth, sticking out my tongue for him. I distantly became aware of the searing pain. The cigarette taste filled my mouth with the burning and his words barely filtered through my ears as he praised me mockingly. A tap on the chin and I shut my mouth. I ran my tongue cautiously across my teeth, making a mental note where the worst of the pain was. Jones was walking and I was following him through the cold corridors. It was a movement I hadn't realised I was making until I was halfway through the building. I allowed myself to refocus, just enough to hear and feel how I moved. Jones voice immediately filled my ears. He had an uncanny sense for when I was most present. For when his words would stick with me the most.
“You reckon you'll be free tonight Soldier? I've got plans,” The wink Jones threw me would've made my stomach recoil a few decades ago. Instead I blinked. “You always make such good entertainment don't ya? Matthias has been asking about you, you impressed him that much. I've never seen anyone make you cry before, not at a party. I bet he can do it again huh? What did he do to you the first time?” The walls passed in varying shades of poorly lit whites and grey, broken up only by metal doors or windows. I cocked my head towards Jones attempting to remember. I could remember crying, I could remember his parties. I always could, no matter how much I wished I didn't.
Matthias’ hands were familiar to me. I could trace the callouses on them, I could draw the scarred map of them from memory. I could see his brown curls, and practically feel the way his hand had cupped my cheek. What I don't remember is what he did, what he said, that left my body shaking and frail. What left my mind fractured and scared. What had me crying in the middle of the party much to the joy of the partygoers. “I don't remember.” I said eventually. The wrong answer clearly from the way Jones had swung his gun into my side. “I hope they fry your fucking brain enough that you learn some manners this time.” That sentence there was the only reason I tried tune into the rambling slurs and insults Jones would throw at me. He was very good at giving away what would happen to me, good at giving me warning. Today would be one of those days with the doctor. One that left me skin tingling and my brain thick with fuzz and radio static.
If Jones thought I'd be available by tonight they weren't wiping me. They wouldn't be resetting my mission reports or my memory of the past weeks. I wouldn't be frozen. I had to be learning something, putting in some more lines of code. The doctor had explained it to me. Repeatedly, he had said, although I never remembered it happening more than once. He told me about the program I had volunteered through. Of how my mind was fit for learning, for training. Of how unfortunate the pain was but how necessary it was in the end. Each session he would add more code, more programs. Each time I would be better than before, well suited to each task they brought before me. I was his masterpiece.
A sharp pain to my head made me pause. Joens was behind me now, hand wrapped in my ponytail. “You think you're better than me? You stop when I stop.” I nodded my assent, trying to retrace mentally what had happened. It was futile. “I'm sorry sir.” You could practically see Jones’ ego puff up. “You'll wait in here, don't move a muscle until someone comes to get you.” I nodded again, my head briefly exploding with pictures of him colliding with my first. Jones sprawled out on the ground bleeding. Before I could dwell on them a heavy ache set in, pounding at my brain. “Yes sir.” Jones tapped in a code and the doors slid open. A room, all sharp corners and straight lines was behind it. With another whack from his gun I stepped forward, walking in to stand against the wall. From here I could see both doors, the one I entered through and another on the opposite wall. A bench lay across from me but my body refused to move to sit. Instead I stood frozen, not blinking and barely breathing as I waited. “Don't move a muscle” I could certainly do that well.
I let my mind blank, just feeling the waves of pain from the headache slowly fade. Time had passed, not time that I could measure however. Eventually the far door opened to reveal the doctor. He was a short man, with thick brown hair he kept buzzed. I'd never seen him without his glasses on, magnifying his grey eyes. “James! Hello, did you sleep well?” I nodded. I don't know why he asked. Any disturbances were reported by the guards and otherwise ignored yet each day he'd ask me. “Good, good now follow me okay? We have a busy morning ahead of us.” He moved quickly into the next room, despite his short strides. I followed silently. The doctor was a strange man, passionate and friendly enough to me yet I never felt comfortable around him. I suppose it was a reaction to the pain his work caused although I knew it wasn't something he could control.
It was the same set up as normal, the chair and its heavy straps, the machines that poked and prodded, the bright lights and the staticky screen. Familiar was a positive at least. The doctor began rifling around with files and papers immediately. I sat down, pleased with my decision not to wear shoes yet. It was a hassle taking them off for the doctors tests and check ups, and he grew less gentle the more time I wasted. The metal chair made me shiver despite my long clothes. I reached for the mouth guard, I'd learnt my lesson about resisting it. My teeth had been replaced more than I liked. Taking slow breaths I placed my arms in the correct position - the one that snapped the restraints into place. They bit into my arms, too tightly pressed against me to rub the skin off. My circulation was sacrificed instead.
The feeling of desperate terror began to rise in me, fighting against the dreary apathy that gripped my body. I tried fight it, fight both to stay present and in control. Rationalising that I didn't need to escape, that this wasn't a bad thing, that I could handle the pain. The doctor had walked over to me from his raised dais as I fought against myself, smiling fondly at me. “You're doing well James, now I need you to answer some questions as I do this okay? I shall read you them and you reply. Understood?”
“Yes Doctor.” I said quietly.
“Do you understand me James?”
I frowned, “Yes Doctor.” The doctor frowned more, matching me.
“James, pay attention. Do you understand me?”
I paused, letting the internal conflict fade as I listened not to his words but the sounds that made them. He had switched to speaking Russian. Something the German doctor rarely did.
“Da doktor, ya ponimayu.” I replied. The doctor grinned at my confirmation. “Perfect! Now James are you ready? I'll give you the shot, as normal, and you just relax okay? Don't focus on anything but the questions.” I nodded, flexing my flesh arm in the restraints. The shot made me feel ill at best, at worst it had me begging to be knocked out. I wasn't sure what changed the intensity of it, I was never told the dosage. All I could hope was if the doctor expected me to answer questions that he didn't allow the shot to disrupt me. The needle went in, smoothly and I turned my head to watch. The doctor smiled at me, as he so often did. The strange blue liquid injected into me as he talked of how he had great hopes for today.
The doctor moved to his platform again, standing in front of the strange switches and measurements. He must have pressed one for my head was clamped into place suddenly, the tight grip of it bringing back my earlier headache. His voice rang out across the humming machinery. In the early days he would just yell, but I soon proved to be too loud to be heard over. Now he had a microphone, and the tinny voice rang in my ears from speakers hidden about. “Can you hear me James?” I could no longer nod. Concentrating as best I could in quenching the nausea that came from the injection I mumbled a reply. “I need an intelligible answer now Soldier.” I sighed minutely. “Yes Doctor, I can hear you.” I don't know how he heard me over everything yet he didn't ask me again. The whirring noise that was filling the room reached its peak and the pain set in.