Freddy is not GASSY

The Interrogation Begins

The president of GASSY looked at his plans, and at the Shouting Planet off in the sky somewhere.  True, Freddy was naïve.  Freddy was an immigrant, perhaps, stolen from his home as a baby.  But that was just a guess.  The important thing was that his records had not shown up.  They had been deleted a long time ago, and the reason he was thinking of was the most likely reason for deleting.  Nobody wanted to know where he came from.  Nobody cared, not even Freddy.  Except for Black.  He cared.  He wanted to know.  He needed to know.  And the truth was, until he knew where he came from, he couldn’t trust him.

     *****

     The Sherriff took Johnson into a dark room, with no cameras, and with no wireless connection to the outside world.  What happened in this room stayed in this room, unless it was recorded by the glasses. 

     “Now, we can do this the easy way,” said the Sherriff.  “Or we can do this the hard way.  It turns out that these glasses are only allowed to be used as a way of getting information if you let me.  DO YOU LET ME?”

     “NO.” yelped Johnson.  The books had already broken a couple bones and he was feeling the weakest he’d ever felt.  If only he could have some beer right now.  That would dull the pain.

     “Okay.”  The Sherriff dipped a knife in glitter and held up Johnson’s arm.   “Are you sure?”

     “Yes, as always, I don’t make mistakes.”

     “Until now.” He stabbed Johnson.

     UUUFF.

     “So the first question of the day, is this: why did Freddy want to talk to you?”

     “I don’t know, he was a babbling crazy man.”

     “He doesn’t sound that crazy in the other room right now.”

     “WHAT?”

     “Yes, we captured him too.” Not, of course.  But the Sherriff wanted to give Johnson something worth fighting against if it wasn’t pain.

     “Well, is he okay?”

     “I don’t know, we’re going to find things out from him unless you want to put on the glasses.” 

     “Well, my guess is that y’all are torturing him in the other room, too, right?”

     “Right.”

     “Then that means that he hasn’t put on the glasses either.”

     “Right.”

     “Then I really don’t give a *BLEE…”

     STAB. This time, higher up in the arm.  The Sheriff twisted the knife a bit and put some spicy peppers in. 

     “OWWWWW!”

     “That’s right, if you don’t let me know, you will feel more and more pain, and so will Freddy.”

     Was Freddy going through this?  If he was going through this too, he was really getting mad.  This was not how it was supposed to be.  Clearly some laws were being broken here.  But whatever happened, they must not know that they transplanted pinky fingers.  That would be the end of them. 

     “There, now if you aren’t careful, I’m gonna eventually put the glasses on you anyway.  The only reason why I haven’t done it yet is because I hear you like procrastinating, and because I really think I like excuses to give people pain.  I’m gonna leave you now, just know that I’ll be back.”

     And he left.

     Johnson couldn’t move, every time he accidentaly twitched, pain went all over him.  He felt terrible.  This was the worst he had ever felt.  Sometimes, if somebody was really evil, he would resort to these kinds of interrogation techniques.  He was allowed to do that.  Everybody was allowed to do that.  But nobody was allowed to put the glasses on somebody else.  You could threaten to do that, but that was IT.  So a random guy would be scared to death that the glasses would be put on him, and if “they were going to be put on him anyway,” then why not do it now and end the pain? 

     It was a sick, sick system when IT was happening to everybody.  But literally, if you didn’t want people to know, you could be tortured until you died.  And that was a problem.

     *****

     Remember the beautiful girl from the dream?  Well, she was really saddened to find that Freddy had disappeared.  What was even worse was that he had been attacked.  She had seen everything on the news and was extremely worried.

     Her mom noticed that she was watching the TV.

     “What’s wrong,” asked her mom.

     “Oh, Freddy works at my place of work.”

     “Who’s Freddy?”

     “That guy.”

     “Oh *BLEEP* look at those wings!”

     “Yes, I know.  Very sexy.”

     The dream girl then unfolded her wings and started comparing them.

     “Yeah, but nothing compares to the dreams I’ve been having about the police chief,” said the dream girl.  “He really is the man of my dreams.  I wish I could be kissing him right now.”

     “There’s only one problem,” said her mom, and she pointed at the TV screen.

     The police chief was limping off screen into a tribunal assembly.  An older news story, but a news story nonetheless. 

     “What happened to him?” she gasped.

     “The Sherriff’s private guard of books attacked him, too.  He’s in big trouble, but nobody knows why.”

     “He’s not.  I’ve been having too many dreams about him to know that,” laughed the dream girl.  “He’s not a loser.  He doesn’t even do crime.  He fights crime.”

     She remembered a dream she had where the police chief had saved her from a pack of wild goblins. 

     “Okay, well, what are you gonna do about IT?”

     “Well, I might get arrested, but I’m gonna rescue him!” 

     And off she flew into the evening.

     *****

     The Sherriff knew that Johnson wasn’t submitting to interrogation.  And that was a problem.  There was only one solution: to put on the glasses.  But how?

     The glasses software constantly sent feedback to Glasses Inc..   It just wouldn’t do for the corporation to find out what was going wrong. 

     He decided that he would dissemble the glasses.  He took off the brain wave sensor and connected it to a wooden ruler.

     This was going to work.  He knew that IT was about to get downright interesting, whatever he found out in the next few minutes.