PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 220 Blindsight
and aware, Cunningham had named the prisoners. Stretch tended
to float spread-eagled; Clench was the balled-up corner-hugger.
Susan, playing her own part in this perverse role-reversal, had
simply numbered them One and Two. It wasn't that Cunningham's
choices were too cheesy for her to stomach, or that she objected to
slave names on principle. She'd just fallen back on the oldest trick
in the Torturer's Handbook, the one that lets you go home to your
family after work, and play with your children, and sleep at night:
never humanize your victims.
It shouldn't have been such an issue when dealing with methanebreathing
medusae. I guess every little bit helped.
Biotelemetry danced across the headspace beside each alien,
luminous annotations shuddering through thin air. I had no idea
what constituted normal readings for these creatures, but I couldn't
imagine those jagged spikes passing for anything but bad news.
The creatures themselves seethed subtly with fine mosaics in blue
and gray, fluid patterns rippling across their cuticles. Perhaps it
was a reflexive reaction to the microwaves; for all we knew it was
a mating display.
More likely they were screaming.
James killed the microwaves. In the left-hand enclosure, a
yellow square dimmed; in the right, an identical icon nested among
others had never lit.
The pigment flowed faster in the wake of the onslaught; the arms
slowed but didn't stop. They swept back and forth like listless,
skeletal eels.
"Baseline exposure. Five seconds, two hundred fifty Watts."
She spoke for the record. Another affectation; Theseus recorded
every breath on board, every trickle of current to five decimal
places.
"Repeat."
The icon lit up. More tile patterns, flash-flooding across alien
skin. But this time, neither alien moved from where it was. Their
arms continued to squirm slightly, a torqued trembling variation on
the undulation they effected at rest. The telemetry was as harsh as
ever, though.
They learned helplessness fast enough, I reflected.