Icewire: writing : cruft : Atrocity [working title]

***** Pain
I slowly found myself in darkened room with a throbbing head. The pain was so intense all I could do was let my head wobble about and moan. I was unaware of my surroundings; there was nothing but the pain. I could hear the blood rushing in my head, coursing through to bring the healing plasma to the broken capillaries. The blood made a loud rushing ocean of noise. I did not think that I would be able to remain conscious with the pain. My eyes were open, but were unseeing in the pitch darkness. Through the haze of blood and bruises I could slowly sense that I was not alone in the room.
Then the lights came on, bright and glaring with an intensity I had never experienced. I shut my eyes as tight as I could and yet the light streamed through my lids. I tried to bring my hands up to cover my face, but they were bound and were painfully halted in mid-motion as the straps cut slightly into my wrists. My head throbbed and my breath came in gasps as the new pain sensations from these powerful lights seared my eyes.
I wanted to die where I lay, but for reasons unknown I remained alive and conscious as my brain bounced in my head trying to leave my skull. And then the speakers came alive, shouting dissonant tones at decibels not intended so much to be heard but rather to be experienced. My body was pounded from the sound and my ears were burning from within. It was then that I thankfully lost my consciousness and drifted into blackness.
The void I floated through caressed me and held me warm against it. Ocean waves were crashing in the distant adding a gentle rhythm to the darkness. I was enveloped within a void of tactile sensation. There was nothing but the warmth and the white noise sounds. I felt at peace with the disembodiment of my spirit in the void where my consciousness now resided. I no longer had my body and I was happy to have taken leave of it. I could no longer suffer from the pains that it had endured and possibly continued to endure while I floated. I was no longer of the world and its people, but was something else entirely. I was dead.
As soon as that thought had entered my mind, I knew it was a lie. Just as quickly as I had floated away into peace, I was slammed violently back into my body. In writhing agony I lay with my ears ringing deafly and my head throbbing. I was soaked in my own sweat and blood. The light was no longer unbearable, but I could not bring myself to open my eyes.
Someone crouched down before me. ``Mister Seldon,'' a booming voice began, ``You are accused of bringing the greatest atrocity of our times to life.''
***** Suffering
I must have passed out, because when I next awoke, I was strapped to a medical gurney. The lights were dimmer, but I could not turn my head and was left staring at the ceiling. Steel I-beams supported a corrugated tin roof high above. Sodium vapor lights hung down from those beam cast their jaundiced flickering light on the warehouse. The indistinct murmuring of voices could be heard in the distance, along with the pacing of feet along the concrete floor.
Out of the corner of my eye I could make out an IV drip that I was connected. This probably explained why the pain had subsided some. My head still throbbed lightly and the metallic taste of blood remained in my mouth. Breaths that came short and labored seemed to indicate the existence of broken ribs. There were other centers of pain and bruising, but before I could do a more thorough inventory, someone came to into my view.
``Morning, Seldon,'' the baritone voice that had spoken to me earlier came from the man that now leaned over me. Grey haired and distinguished with the strong features of your typical upper management corporate man. He wore a black suit with a dark burgundy tie the shade of dried blood. But whomever this person was, I had no recognition of him. ``Let's see if you can't stay awake this time.''
The black suit moved from my side and out of my vision. ``Hey, wait, who are you?'' and other things tried to be said, but my battered mouth only released unintelligible sputterings and moans.
A hand patted the bed beside my head and he chuckled quietly, ``Now relax, Seldon. We'll have plenty of time for pleasant conversations. But first you will need to recover some more. My men were a bit overzealous when they brought you in and now you are in no condition for what I need you for.''
The suit moved back into my visual periphery. With his back to me he spoke over his shoulder, ``Get some rest and in a few days we'll talk again.''
And with that, I could see him no longer and I heard him walk away. The click of the heels against concrete, the sliding open and close of a steel door, and then mechanical clunk of heavy switches as the lights went out.
Darkness and silence surrounded me. I waited a few minutes and tried to call out. My moan echoed and reverberated off the concrete and steel. The fading after images of the sodium vapor lights pulsed and faded on my retinas as I adjusted to the darkness. But there was nothing to see and no amount of adjusting would fix that. I was left with nothing but my drug suppressed pain, the throb of my blood through my body, and the sound of my ragged breath to keep me company. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this and I was sure that I would go insane in short order.
***** Randomized
I tried to think back to what might have brought me here. But my memories were corrupted and every time I came to recent events I would be shifted to other thoughts. Childhood came into bright focus for no apparent reason. Life in a company compound where my parents were indentured. Being raised with the other company children to be the next generation of employees. Indentured, like my parents, to the company to pay for the costs of raising, educating, and keeping me. It was just a modern form of slavery, but most of us didn't realize it. Company life was much better than anything we had seen of outside the compound walls.
Growing up, I had been complacent enough. Life had seemed good and I had nothing to worry about. Adolescence was filled with the typical empty relationships with other company girls. The fumbling experimentations and minor delinquencies were unexceptional and all part of the company program. I was well on my way to becoming another drone in the hive.
Flashed to my eighteenth year- the first year I was put to work. The attack and fire had killed so many. Having been so isolated from everything outside the company walls, it was completely unexpected. I had run and escaped into the sprawl outside the walls. The attack had been called a hostile take-over of the company's assets.
Not knowing what to do, I had attempted to get back inside to walls to my company flat. That had nearly gotten me a bullet in the head from the security forces. So ran deeper into the sprawl and lived in bombed out buildings and various other ruins. Like so much flotsam, I wandered lost confused. This was another situation where nothing before had prepared me for what was happening.
This thought brought me back. Suddenly aware again of my pain and the blackness around me, I tried again to remember how I had gotten here. Images of rats cooked over fires in 55 gallon drums flashed into my head instead. My brain was obviously not going to cooperate with me. It obviously was trying to protect me from something and that something was probably the pummeling that I was slowly recuperating.
Then there was a flash of a face-a girl's face. Dreaded locks of dull blonde hair fell around her head. Portia was her name, and she had been trying to steal my tattered jacket. She had claimed that she thought I was dead. If she had found me a few days later, she might have been right. Having been running her whole life, she taught me how to survive. Eventually, she had gotten the jacket, once I had scrounged up a replacement for myself.
Images of crowds, bar, and traveling in cargo containers flitted through my brittle mind. Barren wastes of burnt out cities connected the living section of the sprawl together. We lived on the fringe of the living and the dead. We took what we needed and bartered for everything else.
Net terminals where I learned new uses for my company training came to the foreground. I had gotten better and was less emaciated. Time had come for me to actually earn my keep. The company had not left me completely unskilled. But it took Portia and her clan to show me how to apply my knowledge to something useful outside the compound.
Clunk, pop, pop, pop, and the sodium vapors were coming back alive. The sound of the switches and the hum of electricity exciting electrons to vibrate in the visual range brought me back to consciousness. I don't remember drifting asleep or for how long I was out, but the IV bag was on empty.
A masked face appeared above me. Surgical garb that only exposed a scant area of dark skin and dark eyes. Black hairs peeked out from under the pale blue cap. Our eyes met, but his were so dark as to give the impression of being all pupil.
Suddenly, with a quick motion, kevlar covered hands removed the sheet covering my body. And for the first time I realized that my clothing had been removed. My naked torso was exposed under the harsh lighting and I gave an involuntary shiver. As swiftly as the sheet had been removed, pins were put into various points of my body. Behind the mask the man was mumbling in what sounded like Spanish.
``No comprendo, nada. Hable Inglés?'' I pushed out of my bruised mouth.
The figure glanced up and his eyes smiled, but made no response. He briefly paid attention to my head, placing pins along my forehead and cheeks. Then just as swiftly he returned to the work on my body and continued with his mumbled litany.
For some reason I began to relax. Muscles which I did not realize were clenched and cramped began to release. The pain from the bruising and broken bones seemed to float away. Only by concentrating on this doctor's voice was I able to keep awake. I guess that was the purpose of all the needles being stuck into me, but acupuncture was outside the scope of my knowledge base.
After a minute the man turned and left my field of vision. The murmuring behind the mask had stopped. I could hear him unzipping something and when he returned into sight, he was replacing my IV bag. When he turned back to me there was a stethoscope around his neck. He placed the business end of the scope under his arm while he gently probed my ribs. A quick gasp gave evidence to the location of the breaks. With the stethoscope he listened to my breathing and I was glad to have had the metal warmed before it touched my skin.
Once done with this part of the examination, the sheet was pulled away from my legs. Again the quiet mantra was escaping the mask and more needles were planted into my skin. Slowly and methodically he felt along the length of my legs between pin insertions. I was beginning to fear that I was about to violated.
But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, he stopped. Looking up, he pulled the face mask off his face and moved around the bed to my head.
``You'll live, but for how long is not for me to say.''
``Wha,'' he covered my mouth with his gloved hand.
Leaning forward he whispered in his slightly accented voice, ``Don't speak. I don't have any answers and I don't what to know anything.'' He pulled his hand away from my mouth and walked out of my field of vision. I heard something scrape across the floor a short distance and then he was sitting next to the bed beside my head. The mask was again covering his mouth. He then closed his eyes and hummed tunelessly.
Minutes passed and suddenly he got out of the chair. As swiftly as they were put in, the needles were individually removed. One hand pulling the pins out and transferring them to be held in the other. After they had all been removed, the pins were placed in something metallic outside of my view. The sheet was then fixed to cover my body.
This was the last time I saw the doctor. As he walked away I heard him remove the gloves and pick up a bag from the floor. His steps receded and then the lights were again turned off.
Slowly a drugged sense of euphoria began to seep into my body. Obviously there was something new in this IV. As I stared into the pitch, forms and shapes began to appear. Subtle variations of blackness created wispy monsters and demons that taunted me. But in spite of these frightful visions, I was calm and unafraid. And so I tripped.