In a strange way, it was a relief to be caught. She had no idea what Secor had planned for her, but they weren’t there for the moment, so she found it hard to care. She’d worry about it when they came back. Right then, however, she could just feel the tension fading from her to be replaced by an exhaustion that seemed to soak through her flesh down to her bones. She leaned forward as far as the straps would let her and her head sagged until her chin touched her chest. They would probably use sleep deprivation against her soon, she thought. She’d better grab any sleep she could now.
She was asleep when they came for her. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but it didn’t feel nearly long enough. She was roused by the arm straps being released and was still drowsy and only half aware when she was dragged to her feet. She guessed they were taking her somewhere new, so she stood straight and waited to be guided from the room.
The punch to her stomach was completely unexpected. She grunted and doubled up, but somebody grabbed the back of the bag over her head and pulled her upright again, the cloth stretching tautly across her face. Then she was punched in the stomach again. This time she was allowed to fall, her head banging smartly against the edge of something — The chair? A table? — as she did.
“Careful,” she heard someone say, but they said it as if a cup was at risk and not a fellow human’s skull.
The blow to her head stunned her, and she felt disorientated, her sense of which way was up wavering badly. She could offer no resistance when she was pulled back to her feet and held while somebody punched her once, twice, in the face. She tasted blood in her mouth and could feel that a tooth was loose. Every blow disconnected her further from reality. It was becoming harder to believe she had ever woken up.
Her feet were kicked out from beneath her and, unable to use her hands to break her fall, she went down heavily, her head banging on the floor. Somewhere away from the pain, she distractedly thought, They’re going to beat me to death.
A boot caught her in the pit of her stomach, a new agony borne upon her. She vomited violently, bringing up little but water that reminded her vaguely of expensive coffee. It soaked into the fabric of the hood, the stomach acid stinging her skin.
“Don’t let her choke,” said the voice again, offhand with a mild air of disgust. “Secor want her.”
So she wasn’t going to be beaten to death here and now after all. She had no idea whether to be relieved or disappointed.
The hood was untied and pulled off. While she screwed her eyes shut against the brilliant light of the interrogation room they gagged her mouth open with the end of a baton. One of them cleared her mouth with a gloved finger and made sure her tongue was clear of her airway.
“She’s fine. Pass me the water.” The officer washed the vomit from his hand and threw the rest of the beaker’s contents in her face. “The bag will need rinsing,” he added offhandedly.
There were voices elsewhere. Orders given and accepted. Still groggy, Katya was pulled back to her feet. She grimaced, tensing her stomach for another blow, but they only put her back in the chair and strapped her upper arms to it once again. There was a table, she saw, and another chair opposite to her. That one didn’t have restraints. The FMA officers left her then, leaving the door open.
A moment later the Secor agent entered. The door closed unbidden behind him as he walked over to the table and sat in the free chair, placing a metal briefcase by his chair.
He looked at her, and then at the discarded bag and pool of watery vomit streaked with blood on the floor.
“This isn’t how it works in the dramas,” said Katya, her speech slurred. “The hero on your side of the table asks questions, the fellow on my side lies, gets caught in a lie. ‘Curses, you caught me out. I’ll tell you everything.’ Maybe I missed where the hero beats the crap out of the fellow.”
“Oh, that wasn’t part of the interrogation, Katya,” he said. “That was just some patriotic citizens expressing contempt for a traitor. This,” he waved a hand back and forth to indicate the both of them, “this is the interrogation. The first of many, I’m sure.”
He lifted the briefcase onto the table and opened it, the lid blocking Katya’s view of the contents. “We don’t get many traitors, Katya,” he said conversationally as he took out a memo pad and placed it on the table beside the case. “Not proper ones. Federal citizens are very loyal to their fellow citizens.” A recorder joined the memo pad. “You’re really something of a rarity.” He took out one last item and held it in one hand while he closed the case and returned it to the floor with the other. Katya’s felt cold; it was the Yagizban device she had planted.
He placed the device on the area of empty table between them, rested his hands on the table edge, steepled his fingers, and looked at her expectantly. Katya returned the look defiantly, although she was having trouble keeping one eye open. One of the punches to her face had caught the cheek bone, and the flesh was swelling. If she had seen him on the halls, she would have thought he possibly worked in engineering, he had that air of practicality about him. Dark, close cut hair, somewhere in his mid-thirties. Otherwise, it was difficult to get a grip on what sort of person he was. His clothes were the sort of thing an engineer might wear, too, right down to the sleeveless jacket. People who worked in the docks often wore them because it could get cold there, and the jackets provided extra pockets for gear.
He tapped the box. “What is it?”
Katya shrugged.
He watched her keenly for a moment, and then made a note on the pad. Then he asked again, “What is it?”
Katya shrugged again.
The Secor agent pursed his lips, thinking. Then he reached inside his jacket and produced a maser. He placed it carefully on the table and gestured at it.
“You’re a traitor, Katya. You will never be interrogated to find out if you are or not, because we know you are. It’s an empirical fact.” He smiled warmly, and laughed. “We don’t even care why. Maybe later, but not right now. Our concern at this immediate moment is what were you doing in the traffic control centre? What were you doing with this?” Again, the light tap of a fingertip on the box’s metal casing.
She looked at the gun, then at him, but still didn’t reply.
He looked at the gun with the mildest mannered surprise, as if he’d forgotten he put it there. “What’s this for? That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s your ticket out of this. I’ve seen your file, Katya. You’re no idiot. You know what happens to traitors, and you know what’s going to happen to you. There are still choices you can make, however. A maser bolt to the head, in the right place, will kill instantly. You’re not even aware of it.” He snapped his fingers, a life going out. “Or, you can live. Day in, day out. Week in, week out. Months, and years. The men who beat you, look at the mess they made. No training. We can make your every day a hell, Katya. Your every living day.” He laughed again, leaning back in his chair and shaking his finger at her. “I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking, ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope,’ aren’t you?”
His smile slowly faded. He leaned forward again. “Life is pain, Katya Kuriakova. You can guess how much pain. Now, answer my questions, and I can save you living a life that is ten shades worse than death. The box. What was its function?”
Katya looked at the box. Then slowly, she turned her head to one side and spat blood on the table.
“I can see cut marks on it,” she said. “You’ve already had it open. You know what it is.” She could also see a band of discolouration across the bare metal where it seemed to have oxidised. She hoped it meant what she thought it did.