One way or the other not one of the numerous predatory eyes believed me. This will be so embarrassing for them when I peacefully pass away sometime tomorrow. Although, perhaps I can manipulate their wish to hear what they wanted to hear and get at least a tiny reprieve, along with a little more time.
I didn’t pay attention to their following prompt and spoke over it instead, “If you want something from me, I need something too.”
The observatory stilled and their attention reached laser focus. “What is it?”
“Water.” I was so unspeakably thirsty. I’d guzzle down bleach at this point.
Augusta turned back to the panel of important people and commented, “He keeps asking for it. We theorise that it’s how he connects to the entity.” The microphone muted and they discussed possibility further, whatever that meant.
Brilliant minds hard at work. So glad I never got to paying any taxes. This was just sad.
Speakers came back to life with a bark, “Is that true?”
I grappled with facts and wondered which answer they’d prefer. “Wouldn’t you like to see?” I employed my smart mouth, figuring the big window was here for a reason.
“Regardless. We’re confident in the holding. We decided to permit it,” boss lady announced. “As a show of good faith.” It was implied there was more where that came from, if I behave. I didn’t even need to delve into my past experiences to decipher this.
Disproportionally tall ceiling opened up and mist of clear water sprayed the walls. There was a hatch up there hiding all sorts of mechanisms. They probably hoped monsters would have harder time getting to it. I doubted it, but I wasn’t a monster specialist and they apparently operated just fine.
I wrestled with the mist in a losing battle until it turned into simple stream in the centre of the cell. I crawled and gulped it down greedily. This must have added a day or two to my lifespan. Perhaps in few more days the chemicals monster left behind would clear out and they’ll snap out of it?
Spa treatment has come to an end. Everyone stared at me with an open-mouthed anticipation.
“Ta-dah!” I fluttered my hands enthusiastically. No, this wasn’t it. I grabbed at my chest and pretended to writhe in pain on the wet floor, which wasn’t much of an exaggeration because I had moved my leg and it was now determined to kill me. Someone in the peanut gallery even stood up to see better. I straightened out, but didn’t sit up anymore. “Sorry, heartburn. It’s what happens when you don’t feed your prisoners for days on end.”
“There’s no need to pretend to be in a weakened state. The only way you’re getting out of here is through thorough cooperation and proving you can be of use to us,” one of the brass dismissed my theatrics.
I got a clear impression it was the truth. This was about furthering their goals, not saving anyone. I knew, and yet had to ask. My tired mind could be imagining an extra layer of despair in this diminished capacity.
“… And if - if - I am but a puny human and you’ve wasted all this time and effort?”
The scornful general was about to confirm my suspicions, but was cut off by the male scientist, “Are you really not aware you’ve been made into a mouth?”
I scoffed with some eye rolling. Outrageous idea – though I only had words of a monster to go by. “Who even came up with that naming? It’s beyond ridiculous.”
“Yet you know what that means,” stern woman’s voice pointed out again.
Touché. “You keep repeating it, would be stranger had I not figured that out,” I replied and diverted attention with some other dangerous topic, “Have you considered that I am… not that?”
The committee side-stepped walking in circles and went on with their grand list of inquiries, “Was the other abnormality a part of you, another mouth or some other structure?”
I scrubbed the face hopelessly. I couldn’t showcase any grandiose feats of a monster. Telling the truth will get me killed, which at this pace is going to happen anyway, so I went for it. “You’re not listening. I keep telling you, it just tried to eat me. You people showed up right on time for me to escape that.”
My version of the story was not believed. Again. Pretty smart of them, since I lied about most everything anyway.
Then there was a slew of meaningless questions I could not even begin to process. My mind drifted through most of them.
“What can you tell us about the coin?”
“How much platinum can you produce?”
“Are you an eye?”
“Did the gas hurt your main body?”
“Is that why you cannot restore yourself?”
“How did you establish contact, communicate with the entity?”
There was finally, something I could actually answer. I muttered, “We just talked. Normally. Perhaps you coulda had nice interview with someone more informed had you tried speaking instead of shooting first?”
“What did it want?”
How should I know? Vacation? A pet. The line of inquiry irked me. “World domination,” I spilled some of that roiling irritation onto my rapt audience. To say they were alarmed was an understatement. My cell was cut off from the discussion again. They acted as though two copies of that spooky monster weren’t already scooped up by ladles and tucked away in another lab.
The roomful of powerful people settled down and proposed a question, “What did it ask about?”
He wanted to know what upset me. How few people have ever asked that. I covered my face to hide from the brutal lights. The all-important visitors kept on badgering me about something but I was lost to the world.
The metal floor punished me harsher than just with passive aches and the cold. Electrocution shook my body. It wasn’t unbearable, but the speaker advised me to get serious. Apparently that was the lowest setting. My leg was leaking anew.
I stared at all the people who’d gathered here today to get their answers no matter what.
“Your way of getting cooperation sucks,” I wheezed out weakly.
“We tried simply talking. It is getting us nowhere.”
“That’s because you’re not listening… If I was some badass monster, I’d so fuck you up.”
The speaker sounded awfully smug next time he asked an irrelevant question I had no chance of replying to, as if expecting me to flip out and reveal my cards. Well, I was in for a bad time.
