The lights go out. For a few minutes, nothing happens. Maybe it’s all an empty threat. Maybe Gordon doesn’t know how to work the damn program. Then out of nowhere, an electrical shock zings my right ankle. The pain buzzes straight up my leg and spreads through my body. I smell the stench of burning hair. It hurts so much, I scream, or try to. Slobber drools down my face. I taste rubber. I’m breathing heavier. I don’t know if the buzzing in my brain is from the shock or from fear of the next one.
I’m sweating profusely when the second shock hits my other ankle. More burning hair, more screaming. I’ve never felt anything this painful. I’ve never even imagined this much pain. My jumpsuit is drenched in sweat and piss, I have nearly bitten through the rubber in my mouth. Thirteen to go.
After shock number six, I black out. I come to in horror as the next shock bolts through my body. The room is filled with the stink of burning flesh, urine, and shit. My head is on the table, my brain empty of anything except the searing knowledge of this pain.
When Gordon finally returns, I’m ashamed by how relieved I am to see him.
Maurie enters the room after Gordon. This time, his eyes meet mine. I see something there—is it horror or pity? Or disgust?
Gordon casually pulls out a chair and sits down. He sniffs the room and grimaces. “Don’t be embarrassed, Jake, by your loss of control over bodily functions. Just a natural reaction, I assure you. Should we move on to level five?”
I realize he has done this before. I imagine that it always ends the same.
I shake my head as hard as I can, but I can’t be sure it’s moving at all. “Nnnnnnn,” I mumble, gagging on a foul mixture of spit and rubber.
“What?”
“No!”
He smiles, genuinely delighted. “Okay, then. Good choice.”
Maurie opens the door a crack and mutters something to someone I can’t see. Seconds later, the plumber is back, and he removes the headgear. He starts to unlatch my wrists, but Gordon stops him. “Let’s hold off on that for now.”
The plumber doesn’t respond. Instead he just packs up his things noisily and leaves.
Gordon takes out his iPhone and sets it almost tenderly on the table between us. He takes a clean white towel and wipes the sweat off of my face. “Better?” he asks.
I lick my lips. I taste metal, rubber, and blood.
“You probably want to go clean up,” he says.
I barely manage a nod. My body is still shaking. My bladder has been emptied. I am mortified and miserable, sitting in my own piss and shit.
“Soon,” Gordon says soothingly. “I promise.”
Even though I know it’s all some sick game to him, something in me responds to the kind note in his voice. I want desperately to believe that it’s real.
He sets a legal pad beside the phone. “Just answer yes or no,” he says, tapping the record button on the phone. He reads from the legal pad. “Did you have a previous sexual relationship with JoAnne Charles?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see her at a Pact party approximately two months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see her again a week later?”
“Yes.”
“Did you conspire to meet with her secretly at the Hillsdale mall?”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet her at the Hillsdale mall?”
“Yes.”
“Did you buy her lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Did she make sexual advances to you?”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“What?”
“Yes,” I say more clearly.
“Did you have sex with her?”
“Recently?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes, I have had sex with JoAnne Charles.”
“Please repeat that.” Gordon pushes the phone closer.
“Yes, I have had sex with JoAnne Charles.”
“Did you have sex with JoAnne Charles at a hotel in Burlingame, California, on March seventeenth?”
I look into his eyes, trying to voice the words he wants to hear. Level five. What does that mean? My mind races. Is this just another trick? If I confess, will they use my confession as the rationale for sending me wherever they sent Eliot and Aileen? Worse, will they play the confession for Alice? Will they turn my precious wife against me? What is more dangerous? A false confession, or the truth?
I know one thing for certain: I cannot lose Alice.
Finally, I say, “No.”
Anger flares in his eyes. He turns to the computer and hits a few quick keys. He hands me the towel he used to wipe my face. “You may want to bite down on this.”
“Please, don’t,” I plead.
He looks at me and grins. “Thirty seconds,” he says. “Did you sleep with JoAnne Charles at the Burlingame Hyatt?”
I’m sweating; my mind is blank. Before I can answer, I feel the electricity sizzling through my body. I topple off my chair, moaning, and hit the floor. The cuffs dig into my wrists.
“Thirty seconds,” Gordon says.
I lie here, not even sure if I’m still alive.
“Fifteen.”
My brain is on fire.
“Ten.”
I’m staring at something on the floor. A shoe. Gordon’s shoe.
As the current shoots through my left leg, up to my chest, I flop around on the floor. I smell my skin burning. I look up at Maurie, begging him with my eyes but unable to utter a single world. He winces and looks away.
I’m under the table now, blood streaming down my arms from the cuts in my wrists. I notice for the first time that the wall behind me is mirrored. Who’s watching?
The current shuts down. Someone uncuffs my hands. I lie in my own fluids, motionless, stunned. I want to die. The thought shocks me. I would rather die than suffer through that again.
“Help me,” I whisper.
74
How long have I been lying here? An hour? A day? The door opens.
“Enough,” Neil says.
“Not now,” Gordon says. “We’re so close.”
“Come with me,” Neil says. I think he means me. I try to move, but I can’t. But then Gordon follows him out of the room. “Help,” I say once more.
“You’re going to have to help yourself,” Maurie says. He walks out the door, closing it softly behind him. I understand now, with a sinking certainty, that Maurie will do nothing for me. No one here will do anything for me. They will only stand by and follow orders.
For the longest time, I hear nothing.
Finally, the door opens again. Elizabeth Watson seems harried. Then she sees me on the floor and exclaims, “My God, what have they done to you?”
She helps me up, grimacing. I’m embarrassed by the stench in the room, the stains on my clothes. She reaches into her bag and hands me a bottle of water. I’m insanely thirsty, but I can barely get my hands around the bottle. I struggle to get the top off, and Elizabeth takes it from me gently and unscrews the lid, holds the bottle to my lips. After I’ve drunk the entire thing, water dribbling down my chin, she hands me a new jumpsuit, a pair of white underwear folded neatly on top. “I’m so sorry, Jake. You can get cleaned up now. Follow me.”
I stumble down the hallway, no doubt leaving a trail of filth behind me. She stops in front of a door marked SHOWERS. I go in and stand under the warm water. I stay under the water for a long time, until it turns cold. I put on the clean clothes.
Outside the bathroom, Elizabeth stands waiting. She pulls a packet of peanut butter M&M’s out of her bag and pours a few into my palm. I’m so hungry, but when I bite down on the candy, my whole face aches. She doesn’t say a word until we are in her office and the door is closed.