Trying To Heal

Chapter Fourty-Nine

Derek

I roused, scarcely, for the fifteenth time in a bleached chamber, kidnapped and chained to a chair. There are armed men here, attempting to scratch off the metal mask. Each time they caress it, or in a micrometre proximity to the surface, an electric zest burns their fingers. Whoever designed this uniform, I have to find them and congratulate them. Even if they managed to get the first disguise off, the abductors will not discern Derek Matthews. They will discern the face of a dead person.

I was scourged, molested, and persecuted for rejoinders. I obeyed Luke; I fucking shut up. I was starving. Thirsted. Left alone in this place for fuck knows how long. Minutes, hours, days, months, years, time is astray. For what it is worth, my body is weakening and becoming exhausted.

It ... It appears I am in the middle of nowhere. I could not hear the motions of life. I could not hear the chirps of birds, the rustles of trees and nature. But I must be near nature, as the people coming inside this room have their boots freshly saturated in mud. Which means nature is close by. There are also odours of drenched autumn. It has been raining, or cold to wet.

The floor is wooden. The manner it is built ... is this a cabin?

One by one, an agent, an armed man, came in and battered my guts and face. Blood coats my teeth like toothpaste, oozing beneath the fabric of the mask's bedrock. One bravely clobbered a fist into my head, my vision blood-bursting blackness. The plain metal electrocuted his flesh and left fresh scabs. I felt the plastic face break, scraping into my right swollen cheek, undoubtedly forsaking a scar.

My face is gone. It has to be. Bruises. Black eyes. Damaged and bursted capillaries. Inflammation.

The Director of the CIA and FBI, a man and a woman, saunters into the room, alongside Agent Moksh Mandal. They are not senseless to haul me into their legitimate headquarters, and so I conjecture they encased me in the middle of nowhere.

The mask has a tracking device. The suit has a tracking device. The Cyber Team struggled to find me, and in the meantime Luke kept talking to me on the intercom to convince me that he did not leave. He is still here, in America, and the others have left to the Base with the survivors and culprits.

One time, Agent Mandal assaulted me as the guards in this room eagerly watched. In the midst of frenzied pants, he leaned forward and whispered, "You are not him, aren't you?"

I was disorientated. His words glinted fascination. I could not speak, too weak to let alone edge my lips.

"Is he watching us?" asked Mandal, as he sensed that this criminal that the organisation has been pursuing must be powerful. He did not risk a glance at the cameras. "Spade, are you watching us? Are you listening?"

Luke is silent in my earpiece, but he was. "Nod, Derek."

I groaned a reflection.

Mandal's heart pounded. "My wife," he begged. "Please find her, and I will tell you where we are. I will give you two days."

In the present, Mandal notes, "He hasn't been talking."

Anthony Dickinson, the Director of CIA, cocked his head. "The mask is not coming off."

"No, sir. It's weird." Mandal showed the two authority figures his smouldered fingers, bandaged. "Every time we tried to take it off, it electrocuted us."

"Have you tried stripping him naked?"

To get my DNA. "Yes, we tried. Same thing happened."

Anthony Dickinson rolled his sleeves, prowling to me. "Now, Spade." He beckons down for our heads to be levelled. "You won't keep doing this. Five days of no food and water. You're getting weak." He pats my crotch. "C'mon, you gotta take a piss, friend, unless you want to wet yourself like a five-year-old mutt."