ALICE

Chapter 41: CHAMBERS

Chapter 41: CHAMBERS

 Alice was in the place known as the Chambers, an underground complex of cells and interrogation rooms. Alice was standing there, blood-stained fatigues in all, in front of the masked man. Alice looked at her tools, on the table beside her. Two halves of a lemon, a car battery with jumper cables attached, brass knuckledusters, and a 44. Magnum with six bullets in the chamber.

 Alice looked him over. His black, fingerless, gloves were covered with the childs blood. His black balaclava was already beginning to darken with his sweat, and his nightvision goggles were cracked and sparking. His hands were tied behind the wooden chair he was sitting in, as well as his legs. Alice looked at him, and punched him in the face, smashing the nightvision goggles into his head. Alice then tore them off, and threw them onto the ground. Then she tore the mask off his face.

 Alice saw a small face, with dark, beady eyes. He had short, curly black hair, and had a grey stubble shadow across his chin.

 "Well." Alice said. "First off..." She punched him in the face, hard. 

 The man's head rolled backwards, and he spat his blood up in a red fountain. It splattered on his face, but he managed to maintain a grin. "You..." He levelled his eyes with hers. "Have a hell of a punch."

 "Why are you here." Alice said, keeping the question level instead of making it a querie.

 He said nothing.

 "Don't go this way."

 Still nothing.

 "Warning you."

 Silence.

 Alice nodded to the darkness behind her. The room just had one hanging lamp with a low light bulb, and so the edges were dark and shadowy. Back there, Nine was standing. He walked to the tool-table, and reached for a lemon. He picked it, stabbed it with his knife a little, and then held it over the mans leg. The citrus juices rained down on his gruesome bullet wounds, bone showing and all. He gritted his teeth and groaned, but kept his composure well.

 Alice leaned into him as the downpour continued. "What are you afraid of..."

 She rolled the table with the tools over, and noticed the top was the same height as the chair arm, where his arm was tied.

 She pulled the table over, and then curled his fingers onto it. Then she drew her knife and put the tip underneath his fingernail. She began to apply pressure, and the knife slowly slid up his tender skin under the nail.

 "Oh... SHIT." He moaned. He held out.

 Alice abruptly pulled the knife out. "I could rip this whole arm off, and you wouldn't talk, would you?"

 "No ma'am." He said sarcastically. 

 Alice looked up, and saw the small hanging lamp. She nodded to Nine again, and he leaned over, pushing the light around and making the visible area move back and forth. The man got disoriented, and as he was trying to figure it out, Alice had slipped the knuckledusters on, and punched him in the stoumach, hard. He convulsed backwards quickly, and one of the bars on the backboard splintered out and rolled over behind.

 He was gasping now, struggling to get a breath in. He still said nothing.

 "Okay, to hell with this." She pulled the revolver off the table, pulled the hammer back, and shot him in his right shin. The fourty-four bullet flew through his leg and landed in the concrete floor underneath him. Flecks of bone and small splats of blood flew across Alice's face. Now the man screamed, louder then anything the insulated doors could soundproof. People above ground, in the camp, heard him screaming.

 "Ha! Piss me off again and I'll chainsaw that entire leg off." Then she leaned into him again. "Now tell me what I want to know. Why were you here?!"

 He opened his mouth, and began to say something, but then he closed it.

 "Okay, let's put one in the other leg to even it out." She levelled it to his other leg, and began to pull the heavy trigger.

 He gritted his teeth, gripping the arms of the chair. He winced, ready to take the shot, but yelped in submission.

 "OK OKAY STOPSTOPSTOP I'LL TALK JUST STOOOOOP!"

 Alice let go of the trigger, lowering the revolver. "Go."

 "Okay. My name is Alexie Destraui. I'm an LSF spy here to mess up the base a bit. For taking the LSF base in the Forest. I just was sent here to send here to plant some C4 on your weapons base. I didn't have the chance to put any down. It's in there." He motioned to his backpack that was sitting on the table. Alice walked over to it and unzipped it. Inside was a M1911, with a black silencer and a red dot laser pointer underneath the barrel. There was a magazine inside the handle of the gun, as well of three mags. Alice also found two heavy blocks of cream coloured C4. She laid them down at the table beside the M1911. There were also two black hand-grenades, and a flashlight. 

 "Planned to hit this place hard." She looked at him. "Maybe kill a kid while you're around."

 "I... I didn't come here to do that."

 "What matters is our actions, not our intentions."

 "He was the first person I saw, I needed someone to get out of here alive and interrogate-  

 "Wow, a nine year old floor mopper must know so much."

 "I... Was going to use him as leverage on your general."

 "At your service."

 "You're... The,"

 "Indeed. Keep talking."

 "Look, are you going to kill me after I tell you what I know?"

 "Probably."

 "Look, I know a lot, I can find out more, shoot a gun." As he said this, Alice pulled out the last thing in the bag. 

 It was a small picture of a pretty, dark-haired woman. Her hair went down almost to her shoulders, and her green eyes accompanied an award winning smile. 

 "On one condition," He said. "They'll use whatever leverage they can against me to come back. She can't be taken as a hostage."

 "She?" Alice said.

 "Her." He motioned to the photograph. "I need your people to get her out of the Glacier LSF base."