Apocalypse

Chapter 8

{Trigger Warning: Some violence, but not overly graphic. Just results of punches thrown.}

"So, you're the one who's been puttin' up those stupid flyers all over the city." The soldier reared back and threw a vicious hook that landed squarely on my cheek. His knuckles smashed my skin against my jawbone, cracking against my teeth. My head lurched sideways and then jerked back when my neck reached its limit. Pain blasted across my face, penetrating deep, and radiating outward like a bomb exploding against my skin. "That violates Martial Law rules set forth by the federal government."

I spat blood, which only made my torturer grin with satisfaction.

My captors had taken me to the detention center building, put me in an empty office with a sturdy metal chair, which they tied me to with my hands behind my back. That was the second punch. The first one had pummeled my left eye and tore a cut under it, which bled.

"It also exposes you as the one who's running that website." He stabbed a finger at me, almost poking my eye.

"Not necessarily. It could be anyone." My vision swayed, blurred, cleared. "I could just be a grunt... a lowly assistant to the mastermind behind it all."

"We have your laptop, man!" He paced back and forth in front of me. "We'll get past your security measures and discover the truth."

"Jesus is the truth."

Another haymaker to my jaw. Same side. This time I felt a molar in the back of my mouth turn loose. I spat it on the floor next to the soldier's foot as a prize.

"Nice." His glare turned into gloating. "The first of many."

"My laptop will shut down and erase all content if someone enters the wrong password too many times," I said. "I use it for work. They don't want their designs, mine in this case, to get stolen. Legally, it's their intellectual property." I shook my head to rid myself of the cobwebs clogging my brain from the blows I had sustained. It helped a little. "As for the internet history, and any potential log-in information for any website, if it were me, I would use a private browser. It would erase my history every time I logged out. And I would have help from an expert to help me keep the site untraceable and unidentifiable. If I had help from that person, he would, theoretically, help me make sure anyone who cracked the initial password to see what's saved on my laptop, like internet history, he would make sure there was nothing to see. And my design files are password protected too."

"You think you're cute. Don't you?"

"No. Just smarter than you."

This time the punch landed in the center of my stomach, blasting the air from my lungs. The pain burst like a grenade in my gut. I wheezed and gasped to breathe. My throat strained for enough oxygen to restore what I'd lost with the blow. When I finally settled down, my stomach roiled with the residual pain.

"There's more where that came from." The soldier snatched me by my hair and raised my face up to look at him as he drew back his fist for another blow.

Another soldier barged into the room. "Sir, you need to look at this."

My tormenter released my hair and my head dropped. I couldn't keep it up at the moment. Didn't want to.

The man who entered handed a tablet to the soldier who I assumed was a higher ranked individual. "Sarge, check out the flag on his profile."

The sergeant aimed a suspicious eye at me. "Daniel Abrams."

"That's me."

"You've been marked by President Raven as a priority asset." He handed the tablet back to the lower ranked soldier and then glared at me. "We're not allowed to terminate you. And I really want to." He sighed. "Also says I can't hit you anymore, and I really want to do that too." He scratched his forehead and turned to the other soldier, who appeared to be awaiting orders. "Dismissed. I'll radio up the chain-of-command and release the prisoner to Colonel Epps. Have his laptop and the case sent with him to regional HQ."