watched the drops of white liquid spatter the grimy basin, burning into the dark crust around the drain. He wriggled his fingers around, making sure Scarface poured it over the large clots sticking to his palms and between his fingers.
His hands began to itch, and then to burn. The green liquid, or its reaction with the dissolving paste, was eating into the skin of his hands. He hissed and tried to draw back, but Broken Nose just tightened his grip on Ruppert’s forearms.
“Burns a little, yeah,” Scarface said. He replaced the jug under the sink, then lit a cigarette. “It’s got to get in there good if you want that crap off your hands.”
The painful burning intensified. It felt like he’d grabbed a double handful of poisonous jellyfish tendrils and squeezed them tight. The burning spread underneath his fingernails, and deep into his knuckles. His teeth ground together, every muscle in his arms seized up tight, and he tried not to shout his pain, understanding that his captors would beat him if he complained.
The bindings on his hands continued to dissolve, with a sound like frying eggs, bubbling and dripping-it looked and felt like his hands were melting away, right down to the bone.
“You know what helps with that?” Scarface said. “Water. Just plain, cold water.” He positioned the wide mouth of the faucet directly over Ruppert’s hands.
“Water does help,” the broken-nosed guard said.
Scarface touched the handle over the sink. “You want me to turn this knob here?”
“Yes,” Ruppert said.
“Yes what?”
“Please. Yes, please, sir, please turn on the water, Jesus God it hurts.”
“I think he called you Jesus,” Broken Nose said.
“Is that right?” Scarface leaned in close to Ruppert. “Did you call me Jesus? Do I look like God to you?”
“Please.” Ruppert’s voice was a pained hiss. His fingers were bent into sharp hooks. He thought he could feel his fingernails peeling away.
“That looks like enough to you?” Scarface asked the other captor.
“Looks okay.”
“I think it’s enough.” Scarface turned the knob and a broad column of cold water fell onto Ruppert’s hands, washing away the reacting chemicals and soothing his pain a little. He twisted and turned his hands to make sure everything got washed off, just as he’d been stupid enough to do when Scarface was pouring the acidic liquid.
“Make sure you get it all,” Broken Nose said. “You don’t want any bone damage.”
When his hands were thoroughly rinsed, Ruppert looked them over. A tangle of red, bleeding stripes was burned into them, from his wrists to his fingertips, and the muscles in his fingers felt very weak. His fingernails were actually intact, though a couple of them felt loose, like scales ready to be shed.
They marched him up a dusty concrete stairwell and down a gray cinderblock hall into another windowless room, which was empty except for a heavy wooden chair with leather cuffs for the wrists and ankles. They strapped him into the chair, then left the room.
Ruppert sat alone for a very long time, but with no way to judge time he could not really tell if it was twenty minutes or an hour, or more. His hands throbbed; the nerves in his fingers felt as if they’d been exposed to the open air. He glanced several times at the room’s only other feature, a mildewed green curtain that partitioned off one side of the room. He could not tell how much space was behind the curtain, or if it was just a wall.
His back was to the door, so when it finally opened again, he couldn’t see his captors until they walked in front of him. Scarface placed a folding card table in front of Ruppert, while Broken Nose positioned a chair on the far side of the table, facing Ruppert. They left again without a word.
It was another long time before the captors returned, and this time they were accompanied by a man in a black-on-black officer’s uniform and cap. The left side of his chest displayed a silver skull next to two colorful rows of ribbon bars, of the kind Ruppert was accustomed to seeing on military dress. It was rare to see them on Terror uniforms.
This man was smaller than the other two, even slender, with fine blond hair and very pale blue eyes. He brought with him a large black bag, something a small-town doctor might have carried on house calls. He placed this on the table and sat down. He had not yet made eye contact with Ruppert or acknowledged his presence.
“The Captain’s going to ask you a couple questions,” Scarface said. “If you don’t play nice with him, we get to play with you.” The two large captors-Ruppert was beginning to think of them as prison guards-turned and walked away, and he heard the door close behind him.
The wiry Captain lifted out a very thin handheld screen and studied it, holding it at such an angle that Ruppert had no idea what he was reading. Several minutes passed before the Captain looked up.
“Daniel Ruppert?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’re a newsreader for GlobeNet-Los Angeles.”
“Yes.”
The Captain shook his head. “We’ve always had trouble with you media people. Even now we can’t trust you. You get your face plastered all over town, suddenly you think that your personal opinion is in some way important.”
Ruppert didn’t know how to respond to this, so he stayed quiet.
“Your parents live in Bakersfield. Retired. Visit them often?”
“Sometimes.”
“Looks like only the occasional holiday. Why is that?”
“It’s…I don’t really know.”
“How’s your marriage?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t fuck your wife very much.”
Ruppert stumbled to find a response. “She’s very religious.”
“Religious women fuck. I see it all the time.”
“We’re not…It’s not a…”
“Yes?”
“We’re having some problems.”
“You just told me your marriage was fine.”
“I would say it’s average.”
“There is no point in lying to us,” the Captain said.
“Our marriage isn’t great. What does this have to do with anything?”
The Captain looked him directly in the eyes for the first time. There was something cold and reptilian in the man’s pale gaze.
“You have been briefed on the rules regarding asking questions?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
The Captain looked past Ruppert and gave a short nod. The two guards seized either side of Ruppert’s chair- they hadn’t left the room at all. They carried the chair to the curtained side of the room, then hauled the curtain aside.
They tilted his chair back into a trough of scummy water, then dunked his head under the surface. Ruppert struggled to break free, but the restraints held firm and cut into him. His lungs began to burn-he hadn’t taken a breath to prepare for this.
They tilted the chair up and he took a deep breath, then they leaned him back and held his head under the water. His lungs slowly consumed the air he’d taken in, and soon they were burning again.
They brought him up again, but he barely had time to exhale before he was back under water, this time squirming and aching for air. The dirty water seemed to swallow him up, and he felt immense pressure in his head, as if his brain were being crushed by the lack of oxygen.
They repeated the process several times, more than once bringing him right up to the brink of drowning before they pulled him out.
“Enough,” Ruppert heard the Captain say. The two men lifted his chair and carried it back to the table, facing the Captain. The Captain lifted from his doctor bag a yellow plastic box strung with loops of stripped copper wire.
