One of the guards accepted the box from the Captain and dropped the wires over Ruppert’s head. They swung against his soaked t-shirt.
The guards retreated back towards the door. The Captain held up a smaller yellow box and extended an antenna from its top.
“Now,” the Captain said, “How would you characterize your relationship with your wife?”
“Terrible,” Ruppert said.
“Good. You see how easy it is to tell the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Now. Tell me where you came into possession of a SinoDyne 8000XR data console.”
“Just a junk store in Chinatown.”
“The name of the store?”
“I don’t remember.”
The Captain touched a lever on the smaller yellow box, and pain filled Ruppert’s body. All his muscles seized up, and he spasmed in every direction, straining the chair’s leather cuffs. The water soaking his skin and his meager clothing helped conduct the electric shock to every part of his body.
“Now,” the Captain said.
“It was on one of the smaller streets. Bamboo, I think. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’d tell you if I remembered.”
“Why did you purchase the unit?”
“I wanted to see the bigger picture.”
“The bigger picture of what?”
“The world. What’s really going on in the world.”
“As a newsman, are you not already in a position to understand that?”
“I only report the official story.”
“You report the truth to the people.”
“Some of it.”
“What’s that?”
“I report some of the facts. A version of the truth. I don’t even know how it gets decided what’s true and what isn’t.”
“So you look for truth in enemy propaganda. Is that it?”
“It’s not all propaganda.”
Another electric surge hit Ruppert’s body. He felt saliva foaming out of his lips.
“If it is anti-American, it is propaganda,” the Captain said. “This should be fairly simple for a man in your position to grasp. In a time of war, we must all band together. You have violated that basic principle.”
“I’ve kept these things secret,” Ruppert said. “I haven’t tried to change anyone else’s mind. I just want to know for myself.”
“I have seen this pattern before. First, you are simply curious. In time, you would be evangelizing for the enemy. Eventually, you would be willing to commit terrorist acts against our country. We have simply captured you in the process of conversion. You are a threat to the state and the people. What do you think we should do with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“I said I don’t know, sir.”
“Tell me this, Mr. Ruppert. If your doctor found a single cancerous cell in your body, would you want him to excise it immediately, or would you allow it to thrive, going its own way, altering the cells around it?”
“I’d have him cut it out,” Ruppert whispered. The strength was seeping from his body.
“Louder.”
“I’d say cut it out!”
“Then you understand. I am the doctor, Mr. Ruppert. And you are the cancer. My role is to protect the rest of the body. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Our enemies are murderers without hearts or souls. They do not care if they die themselves, so long as they bring suffering to our country in some way. You may try to sympathize with them if you wish, in the foolish way that some would sympathize with a venomous rattlesnake, but I assure you, they will never sympathize with you. Your place is here among your own people. That is the only realm in you which you could possibly be of any value. We are in a war for our survival. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now. Explain to me your relationship with this sports reporter…” The Captain’s eyes scanned up and down the screen in his hand. “This Sullivan Stone, real name Kerry Gristone.”
“He was a co-worker.”
“The two of you occasionally took private lunch periods together.”
“It wasn’t that private. Sir. We just grabbed lunch at a place near the studio.”
“Why did the two of you require time alone? What did you discuss?”
“We mainly just talked about work.”
A third electric shock flared throughout Ruppert’s body, sending him surging up against his restraints. He could feel his nerve endings popping like expired light bulbs.
“Again,” the Captain said.
“We had a shared…I don’t know if you would call it…a sense of irony that wasn’t present in many of our co- workers.”
“Irony about what?”
“About…our roles in the world, I guess you’d say it that way.”
“As journalists? Your work at GlobeNet?”
“Yes. Sir. After a while, you start to notice how the truth shifts over time, how the story changes. A war in the Philippines becomes a war in Indonesia without any explanation. That kind of thing.”
“Naturally, facts change over time.”
“Yes, sir. It’s difficult to say what I mean. We talk about freedom and democracy, but we’ve had the same people in charge as long as anybody can remember. We talk about religion, but we bring war to every corner of the world.”
“You attend a Dominionist church?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you understand the unique nature of our place in the world. We fight against evil itself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now. Did you ever fuck Sullivan Stone?”
“No.”
“Did you ever perform an act of sodomy on him?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ever allow him to perform an act of sodomy on you?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect he was a social deviant?”
“It’s easy to suspect that kind of thing.”
“Why did you not register your suspicions with your employer? A public man cannot be allowed to carry on private immorality. It’s damaging to the republic.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I asked a question.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
The electrical jolt hit him again. He could feel his spine twisting like a flag in the wind.
“I should have reported him, sir,” Ruppert said between gasps for air. “I didn’t want to risk ruining his life over a false accusation, sir.”
“If the accusation turned out to be false, there would be nothing to worry about, would there, Mr.
