A word hadn't yet been invented to describe the delicacy of those waffles. The friendly cook explained she had learned to boil and grill as soon as she stopped crawling in her home village in Madagascar. Skyler asked for seconds, if it wasn't too much trouble.
"Of course, Mr. Landau. No matter what they say, the only sin in this life is not enjoying food."
"Thanks, Fy. And call me Skyler."
He swallowed his way through the copious breakfast and then left the kitchen to take a stroll through the place, first returning to the terrace where he had awakened. The building, now bathed in morning sun, sat on the edge of a titanic hole in the ground, surrounded by a road splashed with armed black and white men spiraling into the land. That must be the famous uranium mine, he thought. And the building had to be a station, since it seemed as bureaucratic from the inside as it was on the outside. The guts of the place confirmed that impression: sober, geometric, dull, by no means cozy, with cracks in the ceiling and paint peeling off the walls. It seemed clear this was likely all but a passing point.
He reached the other end of the building and peered out the window, and he was so taken aback that he had to fill an upspringing gag reflex with a vocalized curse. After glancing around to ensure no one had heard him, he steered his unbelieving eyes back to the courtyard.
On the left, roughly thirty men were being held by their napes, forced to hold their breaths and sink their heads into buckets of ice water. The enforcers deliberately ignored any shaking or gurgling, and they sunk their victims' heads deeper if they noticed any hint of them trying to get to the surface.
In the center, another thirty bare-breasted men were tied to chairs with bags on their heads, subjected to intermittent electric shocks that as many others applied to their torsos with cylindrical plates. Some remained stoic. Others' legs shook hectically. One pissed himself.
On the right, the last thirty men hung in the air by their wrists while receiving varied blows from all angles. Some were beaten so fiercely that they swung like fiendish bloody pendulums.
Roughly a hundred men. All tortured for the whole world to see. Tortured, not interrogated; nobody attempted to elicit information from anyone. They seemed to do it just for art's sake. How was that possible? How was it possible that no one from this side of the wall cried out in protest? Maybe it was a message to the people in the station? Who ordered that? To whom was it done? Skyler looked below, towards a man with his back to him, staring at the scene. A military man, fully upright, with his left hand behind his back and his eyes stuck on the timer in his right hand, the tip of his boot tapping on the ground.
"Time's up. Stand at ease!"
Almost in unison, heads came out of the water, plates were taken away from the chests, and feet touched the ground again. Some men exchanged high-fives. Others simply took a breath.
"Five-minute break!"
"Sir, Clemens has passed out!"
It was in the electricity section. The guy, Clemens, collapsed as soon as he stood. The closest men swarmed him and fanned him with the shirts in their hands.
"OK, take him to the Sick Bay. Training's over!"
"Training," mumbled Skyler, halfway between laughter and fury.
"You can convince anyone to do anything if you call it training."
Skyler turned to his right, toward a man coming his way. The man was in his forties, dark-complected, and almost proficient at hiding his Eastern accent.
"Even if they're training for death?"
"Death's just training to make you feel alive. To keep up the fight. That's what he says. We live to fight. That's the vector. You must have the same spunk. You're his brother, after all."
YOU ARE READING
King Acid
Historical FictionA young man wakes up in the desert. He doesn't remember anything, not even his name. But he does recall the face of a young woman. And somehow he knows she is somewhere out there looking for him. He stands up over the dry sand and resolves to find...
