GWOT 3 - Preliminaries

[Author Note: there is discussion of self harm in this story, which is a recurring theme in GWOT 3 for reasons that will be tolerably obvious. The author is in no danger, thanks for not asking. Echo 18 still has no real idea of what he's in for. If you ever find yourself in an analogous situation, I commend to you the words of Leslie Fish in her song 'Flight 93.' Here's hoping you never do.]

GWOT 3 - Preliminaries

It is said that having one sense denied to you heightens the others.

I can confirm that this is true.

I can breathe with the bag over my head. My arms are in an uncomfortable position because the hinged - not chained - handcuffs are tight on my wrists, but I don't feel the pins and needles of impaired circulation. Yet.

The rumble of the MRAP lurching over pavement.

I know them intimately. This is however the first time I have been inside one.

Know your enemy. A six wheeled armored personnel carrier, single rooftop ring mount typically equipped with a light machine gun, large off road tires somewhat resistant to bullets and to Molotovs, conventional truck brakes with exposed exterior components vulnerable to rifle fire, an armored windshield and vision blocks in case of lasers or paint, rear step-up hatch and clamshell doors on left and right.

My forehead had stopped bleeding from where it had been slammed against the top coaming of that rear hatch.

I know from my reading, of prisoner of war novels before the Firecracker War ended casual reading for me (along with over a million San Franciscans, and a hundred million plus Chinese), that the best time to escape is shortly after arrest.

Unfortunately Homeland knew that too.

So their usual practice with prisoners of risk was to 'sidewalk' them. Casually, brutally execute them in front of witnesses, typically with a single contact shot to the back of the head.

If they didn't consider me high risk, they were fools. I'd managed the physical security of Site. Both by proxy and personally, I'd done almost anything to protect the 2700 people in our little sea of sanity.

I'd also snuck out over 800 in various ways. I had a feeling that was the problem.

But I wasn't going to give them anything, in any sense.

They'd murdered Arturo. I hadn't had leisure to observe the manner of his death, but he wasn't lying on the carpeted floor of the H4 executive offices for his health, and the amount of blood I'd seen and smelled running past him meant massive injury.

Standing orders were to cooperate with Homeland in every way. They had force majure. Only three people were - very quietly - authorized to offer anything less than abject submission to Homeland rule.

The Site Location Executive - SLE - the big boss. Someone else was seated at his desk, presumably the Homeland intrusion leader. They wouldn't do that just to assert their power. So the SLE was not a factor. Likely dead.

The VP of Human Resources. She and I had conspired to forge and falsify thousands of employee and contractor records, partly to cover the removals, partly to launder the origins of those who otherwise would be sent Homeward Bound. We only employed good American citizens, born in the United States, and there existed not a pixel nor a printed page that said otherwise.

She was dead. I had seen the blood jetting out from her headless neck. I had heard the gunshot. But what I didn't know - I'd been a little busy getting bum rushed and having my ass beat - is who had shot her.

Didn't seem like it served Homeland's interests. She had a lot in that lovely skull of hers.

The third was me. I arrogated to myself the authority, on behalf of all contractors on Site, to stand up and represent them to Homeland. I'd put that in the procedures, just as I'd told the Ammunition Technical Working Group (seven lies in four words, I was proud) to blame everything on me in the event of my arrest.

If they were still alive, and following orders, they would be blaming me left and right for everything from the murder of Alan Cartright to the balky driver's toilet in K1 loading dock not flushing properly.

Shane Shreve was too stupid to follow orders. He'd actually, in his blissful ignorance, asked Homeland what they were doing as if it was an ordinary thing, to question Homeland. They of course had shot him.

I had a lot of what ifs to regret. What if we'd pulled into the Motor Pool and face-to-faced with an MRAP? Junior personnel, calling for instructions, an opportunity to talk or to resist. We had a standing plan to Resist - not a very good plan, but better than waiting for arrest and all that would follow.

I had been arrested. This was the 'follow' part.

What if I hadn't taken the elevator, that one time that ended up making all the difference in the world? I might have heard Arturo's murder. I might have been warned by one or more Employees that all was not kosher on the fourth floor. And I would have had a better sight angle that would not have given the Homeland sentries ample warning of my approach, as opposed to a little 'ding' bell.

Last but not least, what if I had brought my SBR?

I had no illusion that I would have overcome a horde of Homeland troops in full armor and weapons. Exhausted from the earlier gun battle, with only one magazine of 30 rounds (actually, we loaded to 28 to spare springs) and no reloads, I might have gotten two or three before they got me.

But ... I would have forced them to kill me. And thereby avoided arrest.

I had helped treat the festering wounds of a live Homeland detainee - a vanishing rarity explained only by covert help that had dumped him on us, as beyond his rescuers' ability to care for. I had seen the bodies of two others, and pictures of several.

So having a bag over my head was not an asset. It let me visualize what all too soon my own fingers, toes, teeth and genitals would look like.

There was no radio traffic. I'd tried to time and map our turns, but aside from the connection from Site to the nearest freeway, I had no context to place the data within.

THUMP THUMP.

Suddenly I did. San Jose downtown. Those were light rail tracks we'd just driven over. San Jose's one abortive attempt, pre-War, to host a racing event had ended ignomiously with damaged undercarriages of very expensive race cars.

That meant we were going to the Homeland main building.

I'd been there before. Once, with the VP-HR, to beg for rations.

That would be a hard nut to crack. But my options for escape were best now, and would only get worse and narrower as I was kept in stricter custody and my health worsened.

The loading dock. They would have to walk me from the rear hatch to the loading dock. It was a poor chance, but it was the best I would get.

The MRAP's air brakes hissed and we halted.

Every nerve in my body lit up in screaming electric fire, all at once, starting at the nape of my neck.

Hands dragged me out and down the hatch and across the smooth concrete. I could tell with my naked feet, as they'd cut off my boots with all the rest of my clothing.

A second jolt with the contact stun gun, and I voided myself, bowels and bladder.

The Homeland team carrying me didn't even say anything, nor did they pause. Normal procedure'

Carry me up the ramp, the thunk of automatic opening doors, and a harsh CLICK behind me as the temperature changed from outdoors to air conditioned interior.

A seat, the bag removed, a blinding light in my eyes, flashes. Photography. A gloved hand in my hair changing my angles for the photos.

Then I was chained down to a bolt in the floor.

This was clearly the inmate processing area. All concrete and bars and cameras and mirrors and a handful of words painted on the walls.

"PROCESSING - NO TALKING - NO HOSTAGES"

I knew that last one. We had the same policy at Site. In the exceedingly unlikely event I got free and held someone at weapon-point, they would just ignore my victim and take me out.

"We're going to uncuff you now for fingerprints. If you resist, we will hurt you a lot more," a bored voice intoned.

One at a time, my hands were uncuffed and pressed against electronic readers, one finger at a time, the thumbs, then a 'slap' of four fingers, then all of them.

The left hand posed a problem. They were totally accustomed to it. Gloved hands gripped me tightly from several angles.

I could feel alcohol wipes crossing my hand, painfully, over and over again, wiping off the blood so they could get good prints as the computer demanded. The blood welled up again, and eventually clotted.

It might forestall infection, but it wasn't for my benefit. None of this was for my benefit.

Both hands chained down again, with chain handcuffs as the field team reclaimed their hinged ones.

Now for retinas. Just more bright flashes.

A Homeland medico was next. I ignored his questions of who I am, do I know where I am, do I know what happened, do I know what day it is. Apparently that didn't count as talking.

I'm Echo 18, I'm in the Federal Building in San Jose, likely on the closed side where the Federal courts used to be, you murdered my lover, and it is a Sunday.

He shined a light in my eyes, took my pulse and blood pressure, examined me briefly but head to toe. Not cruelly, not kindly. Just a piece of human livestock in the pens.

Booted feet spread my legs wide apart. Gloved hands went over my body head to toe, carefully, inch by inch, despite the fact I'd been brought in naked.

I was expecting what happened next. They seemed almost disappointed by my lack of reaction as the gloved finger checked the one hiding place every person has and withdrew.

They transferred me to a rolling chair.

I would like to say that I resisted.

They sparked the contact stun gun in the air, I heard the sizzling crack, and I decided not to resist.

A second later, more searing agony anyway.

They had just been testing it before applying it. Not a warning at all.

The chair rolled to an elevator. No 'ding.' The elevator took me up to a higher floor.

I was wheeled out down what the echoes told me was a corridor.

The hands that held me now wore much heavier gloves.

Cell extraction team.

They unhooked me from the chair, carried me three steps forward, and laid me down on a concrete block so that my head and torso and stomach were supported on the block and my knees were ...

###

I have never welcomed a sexual abuse flashback more in my life.

It was actually a considerable improvement over what was happening to me, in the real world. It was a familiar uncomfortable feeling, almost warm and friendly. Because soon enough he would be done, and I would clean myself up with toilet paper and limp or crawl back to bed.

###

Someone was speaking. I wasn't listening, so they shook me again.

"We're taking the handcuffs off now. If you move, we will shock you at once. Do you understand?'

Two sharp little prongs at the back of my neck. The contacts of a stun gun. I hadn't felt them before because you don't feel them when activated.

I felt the cold metal leave my wrists.

Jangling as they retreated hastily from the room. The prongs lifted without activating.

The cell door slammed, metal on metal.

I got up, despite not having permission to move.

Or tried to. I lurched. Nothing really worked.

After a few moments, I managed to roll over and sit up on the bunk, mildly surprised that my butt was not sore.

There was someone waiting at the door, which was heavy steel with a waist-high slot for removing handcuffs and providing dinner trays.

"You are a Homeland detainee," she said, as if reading from a card which she probaby was. "You will be provided with food, water, shelter and medical attention. You will cooperate with questions and you will not resist or engage in acts of violence. Your stay can be pleasant or horrible, the choice is always yours. Cooperation will be rewarded with privileges and resistance will be ferociously punished. Again, the choice is yours."

The smaller door in the slot closed and footsteps walked away.

I was in a concrete cell. I knew I would have plenty of time to learn every detail. But it had the basic amenity - a sink-toilet. No window, just a high slit set with either glass or plexi in the outside wall.

There were exactly two things I could do immediately to improve my situation. Drink water and wash my wounds.

The slot opened again, something was shoved through and this time it slammed shut.

A yellow-white gown, no ties, stenciled DETAINEE on front and back.

Three things.

I did not put it on. I did spread it open - no packaging, I could think of things I could have done with the plastic if they had been stupid enough to give plastic to a prisoner - and huddled in it for the tiny warmth it lent.

I had said a number of times, to others, both in my head and out loud.

'This is defeat. Avoid it.'

This was the start of a new war, a new battle.

I knew things. Too many things. Homeland wanted to know those things. And the things I would talk about, if I broke, could kill 2500 people at Site, another 800 elsewhere, and people who had casually helped us without knowing what they were risking. Not just for themselves, but for their families and friends.

Experiment showed that the gown was not air tight, nor strong enough to be converted to a rope.

I could start banging my head against the wall.

Once I started that, I would have to keep going. The first couple times would be OK. Then I'd start progressively giving myself a concussion. Hopefully leading swiftly to brain injury.

But the unwinking eye of the camera in its little mount, as well as the pounding, would bring the cell extraction team back and I would get padded walls, and likely a straightjacket.

So I'd have to slam hard and fast, because only the one attempt would be allowed

They would react slower in hours of darkness. Humans are like that. So I had time to think about it.

That's how they get you, you know.

Procrastination. Hope. It can always get worse. Little differences, like chains versus hinges. Or gruel versus soup, if they followed through on the feeding promise.

I was less than a day into the fight, and already I was losing.

I'd keep playing out the bad hand until my personal lights went out.

That meant keeping some cards in reserve. Self injury would be a late card in this deck, not a lead one. Mostly because it would be slow and unreliable.

I held out hope instead for self murder. Swift. Self. Murder. As in plastic stuffed down my throat, a fall from a height, strangulation. That sort of thing.

I could also go mad.

Arguably I was already insane, several ways over. I'd certainly been told that enough times.

There's a great song by a guy or a band, I didn't know or care which, named SEAL.

I resigned my hope of surviving this.

Time to get, in the words of the song and also its title.

A little crazy.

But if I had the chance to fly instead - if they let me near an unguarded edge.

I would fly, leading with my head.

I'd seen it done, twice, successfully. One with death at once, one after an agonizing half hour in which I'd held the decedent's unknowing hand.

Another reason I regretted the elevator.

I could have taken the stairs.