Issue 13 - Ray Gun Revival

The Price of Conquest, by Mik Wilkens Pg. 3
What? Guns... But I don’t know how. I don’t
know who.
She didn’t have the answers they wanted.
I don’t know. I don’t know...
Then the bare room with its tiny window on
a door that seemed a million blurring light years
away snapped into place around her and she hurt.
Everywhere, she hurt.
I want to die.
“Not yet,” said a voice.
Dark figures moved before her. They emerged
from a door that should not be there. One figure
stood at the real door, the one with the window;
two others waited by the smaller unreal one, and
two hovered before her.
A hand reached toward her.
Please. Don’t touch me.
It held something near her face. She smelled
pungent spice, chemicals. The hand touched her,
inflicting pain, blackness, and she screamed in
absolute silence.
#
“I’ve neutralized most of the effects of the
sensory enhancers, Colonel.”
The words drifted through Kressa’s consciousness,
running and tumbling together while at the
same time seeming to last an eternity between
syllables. She grasped for the meanings of the
sounds; finally made sense of each word except
the last.
Colonel? The Patrol didn’t use that rank.
Who—?
Someone else spoke from a short distance
away, the words too quiet to make out.
“It shouldn’t matter,” the first voice answered.
“There are plenty of other drugs left in her system
to keep her honest.”
“Just so long as she lives long enough to answer
my questions,” the second voice said, closer now.
“No problem there, sir. She’s in fine shape considering
what she’s been through.”
Kressa forced her eyes open.
She sat in a padded wooden chair, wrists
bound behind her, a blanket tucked around her
naked form. The dizzying effects of the interrogation
drugs whirled through her head, like the
comfortable buzz of a good strong drink, but most
of the pain was gone.
The chamber she was in looked like the
bedroom of a hotel suite, complete with a large
bed, a desk, an armoire, and a small washroom.
A man squatted before her, tawny eyes studying
her, a slight frown on his lips.
For a moment she thought he might be the
Arecian inspector from the port, but he was
lighter-skinned, with auburn hair and smooth,
handsome features. She guessed he was in his
mid-thirties. A second, younger man stood beside
him, drug pad in hand, a medkit open on the
nearby desk. A third man and a woman guarded
the door; another man stood behind her chair. All
five wore plain clothing.
She recalled her last memories from inside
her cell. Had these people rescued her, or was
this some Patty trick, a ruse to get her to talk? If
that were true, why was she tied?
The man before her straightened. “What’s
your name?”
“Kressa Bryant. Who—?”
“Where’s Cameron Thorne?”
She searched his eyes. How did he know about
Thorne?
He watched her for a moment, expressionless,
Ray Gun Revival magazine Issue 13, January 01, 2007