Chapter Text
John gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. (Or the middle of sleeping, anyway. He’s still not anywhere near a window). It’s not a first time; he’s retrained his body and mind by now, thoroughly. The first time he was taken like this, he fought back without even thinking, automaticity and trained instinct. Before he was aware enough to recognize his handlers, until the snapped ‘be still’ sent him off and down. Experimental had found it fascinating, ran pages of tests on his awareness of circumstances and effects thereof. Command had decided he needed new instincts. It’s not his worst punishment, but it’s not that far down the list. John is a quick study, has never been otherwise. Now, he tenses but it goes no further, lets hands close on him, rough and abrupt. Forces awareness into himself.
Not a first time; not to the point of routine, but it’s not exceptional either - mission they’re not waiting with, Experimental with ideas to try immediately, someone in upper levels calling for his company. He’s more than used to being at beck and call, to being told nothing, to setting himself for whatever it might be.
“Close your eyes, shut up, and don’t move.” John recognizes the voice; clearance but not high level, mostly physical. Guard. John knows his hands, knows what his fist feels like inside him, the shape of his cock. He obeys, obviously.
John’s been trained in people, before. Has years of an experience few people get. Without vision and with barely any words, parts of him still gather cues, put them together, shapes behind darkness. Sent unease threading through him, a snake in what wasn’t much of a garden. The guards handle him when they could have told him to move, keep their hands on him in holds that can’t be taken for perfunctory. No casualness in any of their motions, the ease most operatives and employees who are used to him show around him, even when they aren’t using him. Under his enforced immobility, tension follows the thread, the feeling of something out of place. Nothing, overtly, is anything but usual. Something, almost certainly, is.
”Cross your hands behind your back.” His legs are kicked farther apart, his arms dragged into place faster than he can move them. He feels handcuffs fastening against his wrists, more cuffs and a chain at his ankles. Tension is coals under a bellows. The steel, cold and vivid, closes like around his diaphragm, through his throat.
(Sometimes, John still thinks it should all mean nothing to him. That whatever happened, it could hurt him insomuch as he let it only. But maybe even his abilities at a job have limits, or the ISA is just better at their job, or the job of such endurance was never even possible to begin with. At the touch of metal, it’s almost terror that wells up inside him, and he can’t deny it anymore than he can see the chains, can ask anything of the guards, can so much as shift in place.
Can deny it in no part - not the stories that float across his mind as though grabbing one could make it true (It could be nothing - just an upper level who wanted him this way, a fantasy, a present for a valued guest. Experimental with a new idea, a mission team with more concerns than usual-). Not the memories of the other chains, of the basement. Not suddenly running every minute of his past days through memory, any moment that might have brought him this.)
“Get moving.” More voice, more motion. Shapes with edges, hard and sharp. They grab his arms and don’t let go, through the hallways and the elevator and to a room. Tell him to kneel. Release one of his hands but cuff the other to what must be a plate in the floor, by the sound of it secure his ankle chain in place, wrap a different chain around his neck and lock it down. The silence order would keep John from asking questions still even if he was inclined to, hadn’t learned exactly what that would get him. Even if contemplating it didn’t feel like he might choke on them. If there’s a level of pain or stress obedience won’t keep him still through, they haven’t found it yet. It’s been years since he had to be chained down, for anything. Fantasy, he makes himself think. Experimental. Mission. Can’t make himself believe it.
They let him open his eyes. Just the two more guards, both strangers to him. Not a room he knows. The metal plates are sunk into concrete in the middle of carpet, almost incongruous there. Against the carpet, beyond the strange guards’ boots, two sets of familiar shoes. John almost starts shaking. Has to force himself to lift his head.
Near the wall behind one of the guards, the Special Counsel sits in one of the room’s office chairs. Barely takes note of John, not even a remark. John wants to shake again. He’s been pulled out of bed before, for upper leadership. The Special Counsel likes his mouth; whatever he might be sitting in on, kneeling between his legs is almost synonymous with seeing him. Instead he keeps his eyes on the door. On Hersh, who is there, standing. Nothing in his hands, which doesn’t mean enough. The ISA knows their job. Knew what they were doing, sending a consistent torturer. This isn’t a coincidence now.
Outside of the concrete and metal, one more feature divides the room from the bland office it emulates. A hidden second level, partially beyond it, revealed in what could be taken for a grate. When John looks down at himself again, he sees the red dots of a rifle.
The door opens, three more people come into the room. A woman and a man from Experimental, a woman he thinks is from Tech. He recognizes all of them again. (Is almost grateful, for once, for the distraction. As much as it can be.)
Experimental 1 likes his cock in her, wraps her legs around him while he’s standing, barely leans into the wall so he’s carrying both their weights. Tech stays on her phone while he fingers her, pulls his head down when she wants to switch it up. Experimental 2 has John beg for the privilege of touching his cock. If he does it well enough, he lets John stroke him off, comes over his face and chest. If he doesn’t, he strokes himself off while grinding his boots into John, has John clean the soles of them from the ground and thank him for it.
The Special Counsel gives a signal. Tech walks around to a table. She opens her bag and pulls his tablet out.
John isn’t stupid, or naive. He’s known since being allowed to have something that it would be used against him in the end. Has imagined it, multiple ways. This wasn’t anywhere near one of them.
”Silence revoked,” a voice says from behind him. “Speak to answer questions put to you only. Do you recognize this device?”
“Yes.” (Of course he does. Would recognize it from much farther away than this. Pass any test on picking out of a crowd. This isn’t that test.)
The speaker walks around into his line of sight. He’s seen her once; she attached electrodes to him and had him describe, in detail, what it felt like.
“Answer with the truth and without omission. What have you been using that device for?” And - this isn’t punishment. Isn’t making a point, isn’t torture for its own sake. This is an interrogation.
“Reading,” says John. Wishes more desperately he had any idea of what might be going on.
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you circumvented or attempted to circumvent the limits in your access?”
“No.”
“Have you accessed or attempted to access a network?”
“No.”
“Have you accessed or attempted to access any data, feeds, or other content, in this building or otherwise?”
“No.” Whatever razor’s edge he might be on, his mind works for him well enough. He’s figuring it out, by now, of course; they’ve had a hacker. Someone they hadn’t identified, possibly weren’t even sure what had been done. And, of anything, they’re suspecting him. Which would be laughable if it weren’t terrifying, more than handcuffs, more than memories. He has orders against doing any of what they’ve asked. They have cameras on him at all times, anything he does on the tablet is monitored. He will, at a command, cut out his own organs, set explosives in apartment buildings and press the trigger. If they’re at the point of doubting all of that, it’s horrific, nauseating to think what it might take convince them. And he’s near certain thinking is about to become the least of it.
“Have you had contact, or attempted contact with, any data, feeds, or other content, in this building or otherwise?”
“No.”
“Have you interfered with any data, feeds, or other content, in this building or otherwise?”
“No.”
The questions continue, barely vary. His answers don’t vary. At some point they stop. He can’t think ‘finally’; knows perfectly well that answering questions chained to the floor is as desirable as anything in this room will get.
At the silence, Hersh walks over to him. (John flinches. He can’t help it, at this point). Pulls an exacto-knife out of a pocket, extends the blade partially, locks it. Hands it to John.
“Stab yourself with it. Don’t hit anything important. You can stop when I tell you.”
After, one of the guards throws him interim medical supplies. John makes use of them, quickly, as well as he can with one hand; knows better than to keep this audience waiting.
The list of questions repeats, slight changes in order, wording. His answers repeat, question by question.
The next phase answers the query of what Experimental is there for. They come up to him with supplies of their own, hook his head up to sensors. Move away again behind him, by the sound and likelihood of it set up a laptop. A guard comes up and unlocks his hand, restrains it at the elbow instead.
“Break the fingers of your left hand,” says Hersh. “All of them.”
This time, he doesn’t get medical supplies, or time. He does his best to keep his arm still.
They go through the questions again. The content, what of it matters, is the same. His answers are the same.
After, Hersh comes up behind him. “Stay still and it’s not your business.” After that, John isn’t sure what happens. Only that it’s agonizing, that he can’t move as much as a muscle. Hersh takes supplies from the guard.
Questions, repeated. Answers, again.
Every time, the space after the last question is like waiting to be struck by lighting. Like waiting to be thrown into ice water, except he’s done that, would take it in an instant, given the chance. Water, shock and frigid, stabbing ache to the bone, is only ever what it is. Now, pain in his leg under the dressing, in his fingers, his back, barely dissipates. But for all he knows, next time they’re bringing him a trigger. (He doesn’t think they’d trust him with a gun, not when they seem to think he’s found some way of disobeying and succeeding at it. A drone, maybe. Remote.) (He wants not to think about it. Knows again that in the next instant he might be doing it.)
“Don’t breathe,” Hersh tells him next. John wants to be relieved. Wakes up on the ground, some minutes later.
Questions. Answers.
This time, they’re still in the middle when the interrogator stops. John braces for the next order without thought for it. Takes a moment to realize their attention is not on him, that the Special Counsel has taken out his phone.
“Not your business.” Hersh gives him a command after all. Whatever the Counsel says blurs out like Hersh’s movements had, out of focus, impossible to bring back into it. The subsequent conversation continues in it. If he tries, he can tell who’s speaking. The Special Counsel, first, relaying presumably. Experimental, probably with whatever readouts they were getting. Hersh. The guards. John waits on his knees. Tries to fight down tremors, make his lungs keep working again. If they think he can disobey, they’re trying to test him, find something he couldn’t do if he was able not to. If they think he can evade top quality surveillance, hack government systems after years of barely touching a computer, they have - a very high opinion of him. The two together - end horribly, or not at all.
“Pay attention.” Hersh is back to him; the room fades into focus again. The interrogator is also back.
“Were you aware of any attempt to obtain unauthorized access to any data, feeds, or other content, in this building or otherwise associated with this organization?” That’s - almost a repeated question, but not exactly. Different format, different, he thinks, intent.
“No.”
”Were you aware of any intent to make such an attempt?”
“No.”
“Would you have informed the relevant authorities of such an attempt, or such intent, had it become known to you?”
“Yes.” He’s under orders for that too, has been for years. Has always been glad, in some sense of it, that the scenario seemed hardly likely.
There’s another set of questions, in this vein. John thinks about them, of the phone call, the consultation. Had they caught them, then? The hacker who’d actually done - whatever this was, sent them to these lengths with it. He doesn’t know if to be glad now. It could be terrorists. Could be journalists, or privacy activists, or anti-torture campaigners. Who might disappear off the street, get the obituary of an ‘accident’, fall to a gun that would never be found. His gun, for all he knows (the ISA is many-faceted, sometimes).
The interrogator falls silent again.
“Multiply 267 and 983 in your head and tell me the answer,” says Hersh.
“Touch your hand to your chest every time I say the word “to” in the next paragraph.”
It continues like that, simple obedience exercises. John does as he’s told. His leg, his back pulls when he has to move, his fingers jar more when he can’t brace them. If the freedom of the decision existed for him, he’d give no word of complaint.
”Tell me about the first time you drove a car.”
“Resist the following as long as you can. Look in that direction and lift your hand if you see anything blue.”
It’s 25 minutes, maybe a little more. He’s dizzy by the end, as much from the release of tension he can’t quite trust as from anything else. At the end, there’s another discussion he’s not allowed to listen to. Then Experimental comes back over to him, takes their equipment back. The red dot disappears from his chest. Two of the guards unlock his chains, remove them.
Hersh keeps watching him from where he stands. John stays where he was left. The other occupants walk back to leave a clear line to the Special Counsel. This time, he does look at John.
“The people in this room have gone to a lot of trouble for you. Show them some gratitude.”
John knows, of course, what that means. (Orders are orders, in as much as he understands them. He can pretend he doesn’t to the same amount as he can misinterpret them on purpose. And the same cost. Has less than any intention of even trying it, here.) He isn’t sure he can stand up without command; shuffles over on his knees and tries not to fall over. The Special Counsel is first, just as obviously. He takes his own cock out, opens his legs. Puts a hand at the back of John’s head, strokes his hair with a finger as he pushes him down.
They indulge him a kindness, after that. Don’t put him over the table just yet. Experimental 1 goes first. Has him stand up, wraps herself around him. John carries her weight by the same ability that kept him still before, that kept kept his lungs immobile and set impenetrable nothing across his throat. His leg folds almost as soon as she lets him go.
Tech lets him crawl to her too, climbs on the table herself. “Other hand,” she tells him when he touches her. Plays with his fingers when she pulls him between her legs, lets him react enough to feel it against her.
After that, it is the table. The guards, Experimental 2. A man in black clothing who must be the sniper, must have come in while John was occupied. Two of them want him on his knees before, two of them after. Experimental 2 puts him on his knees as well. Must have been watching Tech; grabs John’s left hand, drags it forward. Closes it around his cock.
The interrogator got an insertable from somewhere. She lets him see it before she has him lie down on the floor. It’s thick, widens more in places he knows he’ll feel. “Don’t hide anything,” she says as she pushes it inside him, moves it. Watches his face, his body. Varies rhythm, presses down a few times over his stab wounds.
In the end John stops in front of Hersh. He doesn’t quite dare retain hope. That they seem to have accepted his - innocence. Doesn’t mean that this is going to be over.
“Get to it, we don’t have all day.”
Hersh lets John do the work with his mouth, fucks him with brutal efficiency. John kisses his shoes afterwards, curls at his feet. (If he has in his life been more grateful for his own rape, he can’t remember it.)