GWOT III - Going Under
Sep. 29th, 2023 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT III - Going Under
At one point in my life, I'd had some exposure to various attempts to treat what is sometimes called Post Traumatic Disorder or its evil bastard child, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
As a child, the treatments, such as they were, were thoroughly mixed. It's awkward, for example not at random, to be treated for childhood sexual abuse by being taught how to suc... never mind.
Certainly I had no use for drugs, prescription or over the counter or illegal. A friend had slipped me shrooms without my knowledge or consent at one point, thinking they would help. Three weeks later, they were homeless - someone had mysteriously emptied their bank accounts, notified their landlord of their dealings, tipped off the police who had found not only their drugs but a lot more drugs during the raid. I commiserated with them but had neither support nor sympathy.
The shroom trip had forced me to look at my own life sideways, as I thrashed on the floor of my bathroom spewing from all orifices. I'm told that is not a normal trip. I guess I'm just special.
As I laid on my side in the punishment cell, moving just often enough to avoid being shot again with pepper balls, I reflected that the most ferocious punishment in Homeland's arse-nal (pun intended) was forcing me to have endless amounts of time to think.
I could recall in meticulous detail every time I had been traumatized. Recently, such as watching the VP of HR's head get blown off. I hadn't known there was something specially devastating about observing someone you'd fucked lose their head in kinetic fashion.
Also in childhood. And as a menial employee, except that I could fight back, if only by changing jobs.
I was having trouble with the more recent traumas, i.e. all of the ones in this building. Oh, I remembered being face slapped with a handgun, if only because it was so unexpected. I knew somehow all the details of being tortured with electricity. Anally. I'd been spared the worst of the cut rate dentistry, if only in the service of preserving my ability to talk, but a couple sessions with electrical probes and loose fillings were ... memorable. My hand told its own tale, and the cell extraction team had rebroken it just as it was starting to knit.
I'd fought back. Here, in this building. I'd gotten loose of my restraints and I'd used that selfsame handgun - unloaded - to beat my interrogator literally to death.
In theory it's supposed to be this awful thing to kill someone.
It had felt good.
A moment of control in a world of shitty helplessness.
Oh, I knew before I did it, while I was doing it, and after I had done it, that I would be in an absolute world of shit. Homeland would pull out the stops, and my best hope was that they would accidentally kill me in an excess of zeal.
Now I was in the shit and it was the same shit as before.
Not much of a deterrent for my future behavior.
If they had the common sense God gave a gopher, they would sidewalk me at once. Bullet to the brainpan. A flash of white light, and no more.
If the firearm had only been loaded.
If only.
So I would just have to keep misbehaving until sidewalking was the only solution.
This entire cell - the overhead grid, the concrete walls, the plywood ramp to cushion the fall from the overhead hatch, the lack of a door - was clearly for keeping a dangerous person on ice.
They were going to have to decide what to do with me.
###
"I concede that we underestimated this prisoner. This makes it even more essential that we break him and get his secrets."
"We finally got his Master File. He was in the Agitator's Index."
The FBI was as dead as J. Edgar Hoover, but her files persisted. It had taken time to pull them from archive. There weren't very many people who could work with that archive any more. Some had disappeared, some had died or been killed, and some of those who had died, had died under interrogation.
"Well?"
"Severe complex PTSD."
"So?"
"Pre War," was the growl. "Childhood onset, in fact," and the 'You idiot!' was silent.
"Oh."
Americans were resilient. But California had been hit hard. Losing San Francisco. The removals, first of anyone who looked Chinese, and then of the refugees, and then Homeward Bound for anyone with foreign ties. And the necessary Homeland operations to keep the liberal, restive state controlled.
People who had recently suffered intensely were ... malleable. Could be molded, could be shattered.
A person with a lifetime of PTSD lived in a forest of broken mirrors dripping blood. Sometimes they would shatter. More often they would rebuild themselves in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
Childhood PTSD was even less predictable. It was the breeding ground for special operations troops, and also for serial killers.
"What we should have done is recruit him. He would have been perfect for a task force command."
Obviously too late now.
"The unknowable question is whether he actually knows anything useful. Resistance activity at Site if anything has increased. So either he was not leading it, or they had really robust succession."
"Break him."
A sigh.
"He's likely not breakable. Or at least he won't stay broken. We've already tried sleep deprivation, severe torture to the point of multiple cardiac arrests, life altering injuries and all the psychological tricks. Cutting him up for steaks and chops can only be done once, and I don't think it will work."
They had all seen the remains of surgical interrogation. Can't torture body parts that have been removed. The Chinese had called it the death of a thousand cuts.
"OK. Put him back together. THEN break him. So ordered."
###
I was required to crawl to the top of the plywood ramp. I was covered not merely by several Special Troops with pepperball guns, but a tactical team with low caliber rifles. Not just ARs, but .22 long rifles suitable for small game and for inflicting painful non lethal wounds.
"If you resist you will be hurt, not killed."
I believed them.
I turned and painfully raised my arms behind myself for application of hinged cuffs. The cell extraction team lifted me from under my shoulders. Set me down, standing, on the grid.
I was prodded forward to a room. Standard cell extraction tactics removed my cuffs. The room was locked from outside and I was alone inside it.
A shower cubicle. A steel push button dispenser that jetted out a little soap with each press. A metal snake shower head that could not form a loop. Two really big, really fluffy towels beyond my power to tear into strips and make into a rope. A loofa too big to get into my mouth and cram down my throat.
Controls for cold and hot water.
A wooden bench, bolted to the wall and floor.
A voice from above.
"You have one hour to clean up. You will be reminded at 30 minutes and 10 minutes."
Shit.
They'd pulled out the big guns.
Homeland was being kind.
I shuddered despite the unexpected warmth of the room.
Ain't nothing for free, boy, mocked the voice in my mind.
At one point in my life, I'd had some exposure to various attempts to treat what is sometimes called Post Traumatic Disorder or its evil bastard child, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
As a child, the treatments, such as they were, were thoroughly mixed. It's awkward, for example not at random, to be treated for childhood sexual abuse by being taught how to suc... never mind.
Certainly I had no use for drugs, prescription or over the counter or illegal. A friend had slipped me shrooms without my knowledge or consent at one point, thinking they would help. Three weeks later, they were homeless - someone had mysteriously emptied their bank accounts, notified their landlord of their dealings, tipped off the police who had found not only their drugs but a lot more drugs during the raid. I commiserated with them but had neither support nor sympathy.
The shroom trip had forced me to look at my own life sideways, as I thrashed on the floor of my bathroom spewing from all orifices. I'm told that is not a normal trip. I guess I'm just special.
As I laid on my side in the punishment cell, moving just often enough to avoid being shot again with pepper balls, I reflected that the most ferocious punishment in Homeland's arse-nal (pun intended) was forcing me to have endless amounts of time to think.
I could recall in meticulous detail every time I had been traumatized. Recently, such as watching the VP of HR's head get blown off. I hadn't known there was something specially devastating about observing someone you'd fucked lose their head in kinetic fashion.
Also in childhood. And as a menial employee, except that I could fight back, if only by changing jobs.
I was having trouble with the more recent traumas, i.e. all of the ones in this building. Oh, I remembered being face slapped with a handgun, if only because it was so unexpected. I knew somehow all the details of being tortured with electricity. Anally. I'd been spared the worst of the cut rate dentistry, if only in the service of preserving my ability to talk, but a couple sessions with electrical probes and loose fillings were ... memorable. My hand told its own tale, and the cell extraction team had rebroken it just as it was starting to knit.
I'd fought back. Here, in this building. I'd gotten loose of my restraints and I'd used that selfsame handgun - unloaded - to beat my interrogator literally to death.
In theory it's supposed to be this awful thing to kill someone.
It had felt good.
A moment of control in a world of shitty helplessness.
Oh, I knew before I did it, while I was doing it, and after I had done it, that I would be in an absolute world of shit. Homeland would pull out the stops, and my best hope was that they would accidentally kill me in an excess of zeal.
Now I was in the shit and it was the same shit as before.
Not much of a deterrent for my future behavior.
If they had the common sense God gave a gopher, they would sidewalk me at once. Bullet to the brainpan. A flash of white light, and no more.
If the firearm had only been loaded.
If only.
So I would just have to keep misbehaving until sidewalking was the only solution.
This entire cell - the overhead grid, the concrete walls, the plywood ramp to cushion the fall from the overhead hatch, the lack of a door - was clearly for keeping a dangerous person on ice.
They were going to have to decide what to do with me.
###
"I concede that we underestimated this prisoner. This makes it even more essential that we break him and get his secrets."
"We finally got his Master File. He was in the Agitator's Index."
The FBI was as dead as J. Edgar Hoover, but her files persisted. It had taken time to pull them from archive. There weren't very many people who could work with that archive any more. Some had disappeared, some had died or been killed, and some of those who had died, had died under interrogation.
"Well?"
"Severe complex PTSD."
"So?"
"Pre War," was the growl. "Childhood onset, in fact," and the 'You idiot!' was silent.
"Oh."
Americans were resilient. But California had been hit hard. Losing San Francisco. The removals, first of anyone who looked Chinese, and then of the refugees, and then Homeward Bound for anyone with foreign ties. And the necessary Homeland operations to keep the liberal, restive state controlled.
People who had recently suffered intensely were ... malleable. Could be molded, could be shattered.
A person with a lifetime of PTSD lived in a forest of broken mirrors dripping blood. Sometimes they would shatter. More often they would rebuild themselves in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
Childhood PTSD was even less predictable. It was the breeding ground for special operations troops, and also for serial killers.
"What we should have done is recruit him. He would have been perfect for a task force command."
Obviously too late now.
"The unknowable question is whether he actually knows anything useful. Resistance activity at Site if anything has increased. So either he was not leading it, or they had really robust succession."
"Break him."
A sigh.
"He's likely not breakable. Or at least he won't stay broken. We've already tried sleep deprivation, severe torture to the point of multiple cardiac arrests, life altering injuries and all the psychological tricks. Cutting him up for steaks and chops can only be done once, and I don't think it will work."
They had all seen the remains of surgical interrogation. Can't torture body parts that have been removed. The Chinese had called it the death of a thousand cuts.
"OK. Put him back together. THEN break him. So ordered."
###
I was required to crawl to the top of the plywood ramp. I was covered not merely by several Special Troops with pepperball guns, but a tactical team with low caliber rifles. Not just ARs, but .22 long rifles suitable for small game and for inflicting painful non lethal wounds.
"If you resist you will be hurt, not killed."
I believed them.
I turned and painfully raised my arms behind myself for application of hinged cuffs. The cell extraction team lifted me from under my shoulders. Set me down, standing, on the grid.
I was prodded forward to a room. Standard cell extraction tactics removed my cuffs. The room was locked from outside and I was alone inside it.
A shower cubicle. A steel push button dispenser that jetted out a little soap with each press. A metal snake shower head that could not form a loop. Two really big, really fluffy towels beyond my power to tear into strips and make into a rope. A loofa too big to get into my mouth and cram down my throat.
Controls for cold and hot water.
A wooden bench, bolted to the wall and floor.
A voice from above.
"You have one hour to clean up. You will be reminded at 30 minutes and 10 minutes."
Shit.
They'd pulled out the big guns.
Homeland was being kind.
I shuddered despite the unexpected warmth of the room.
Ain't nothing for free, boy, mocked the voice in my mind.
