Chapter 19: Chapter eighteen

Thirteen years ago

 

Early on a Tuesday morning, Eleven woke to find himself bound in a small, dark space. His head felt foggy, probably the after-effects of whatever drug he had been given to prevent him waking. Most likely the drug had been slipped into his dinner the previous night, or perhaps pumped into the bunk room while he and the other candidates slept.

He could hear an engine and, assuming it wasn’t a lingering effect of the drugs, he seemed to be moving. Based on that, he was probably in the trunk of a car. He was probably being moved to a remote location, which meant that it was unlikely the Program had decided to eliminate him. They made a poor secret of disposing of candidates that couldn’t keep up with their demands, and they didn’t take them to secret locations to do it. They just shot them, cremated them on-site and had done.

So, he was likely being taken somewhere to be interrogated. This could be because the Program thought he had done something he hadn’t, though that didn’t seem likely given how closely he and the other candidates were monitored. It could be that his abductors weren’t part of the Program at all and were taking him either to obtain intelligence on the Program or to try to turn him. This was more plausible, but still not as likely as the remaining possibility: this was a test. Eleven was in his last years at the Program, which meant final exams. This could be it, or at least part of it. How he responded to this situation could well determine his future in the Program.

Which only left one question, a question which Eleven had a mind to ask as soon as he wasn’t tied up in the trunk of a car.

 He got his chance a little over twenty minutes later when the car came to a stop and the trunk opened to reveal four large men with automatic weapons and grim expressions on their faces. Eleven schooled his expression into one of terror as two of the men grabbed him and hauled him from the trunk while the other two others kept their weapons trained on him. He was deposited unceremoniously in a metal chair which the men then handcuffed him to without cutting away the rope that already bound him. Another man approached with a piece of broken glass and a nasty grin.

“Do you think he will piss his pants?” the man said to the others in Arabic. There were a few chuckles at that, but overall the men didn’t seem too pleased to be torturing what, to all appearances, seemed to be a helpless sixteen-year-old.

Potential evidence of not working for the Program, at least directly. The Program wouldn’t employ squeamish people to do their torturing.

While the man with the broken glass held it near Eleven’s eye, another man approached and spoke in heavily-accented English.

“This man,” he said, indicating the guy with the broken glass. “Likes to hurt people.”

The Program usually doesn’t bother to point out the obvious.

“If you do not tell me what I want to know,” the man continued. “I will let him hurt you until you do.”

Eleven nodded his head vigorously, looking appropriately scared and compliant.

“Good,” the man said. “First thing, who do you work for?”

Question is a poor one. Legitimate enemies of the Program would know who I work for and, given my age, would most likely employ a technique of appearing to know almost everything. Program employees would know this and act accordingly. Hired contractors then. Expendable.

“I work for a secret organization known as the Program that recruits exceptional children to train as superheroes.”

The men looked at one another with a mixture of unease and relief. They thought he had just failed the test he was obviously being given. But he hadn’t finished speaking.

“But you obviously know this,” Eleven continued. “You have been hired to kidnap me and, presumably, test my resistance to interrogation, use of counterinterrogation techniques and ability to escape.”

The men looked nervous at this, confirming his theory.

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“Are any of you marking the test?” he asked.

“How does he know?” one of the men hissed to another in Arabic.

“This isn’t a test boy,” said the man who was ‘interrogating’ him. “This is real. Either you tell us everything you know, or you die screaming.”

“I am going to ask you again,” Eleven said, switching to Arabic. “And if none of you say you are marking this test, I am going to take you at your word and kill you all. Think very carefully about what you say next. Who is marking this test?”

“I told you this wasn’t a test,” said the man, though Eleven would have to have been blind and deaf not to see he was lying. He swung a backhand at Eleven, trying to regain control of the situation

It didn’t work.

Eleven caught the backhand inches from his head, having freed himself from the handcuffs and ropes while he was talking, he broke the man’s wrist and stood up.

The man with the piece of broken glass came at Eleven. Eleven was mindful that, given that this was a test, it was possible that he was under surveillance and so he considered what would be the best response to make here. He wasn’t considering how to best deal with a man with a significant height and weight advantage and the piece of broken glass. That was, to his mind, almost not worth mentioning. Rather he was considering something he found far more difficult.

What expression to use.

He wanted to express complete competency with elements of condescension and a touch of glibness, but how best to do it?

A ‘come and get it’ hand gesture perhaps? No, too tacky.

Maybe a smirk? No, not big enough.

Oh course, he thought, the perfect expression coming to him with mere moments to spare.

He rolled his eyes at the man with the broken glass, being careful not to overdo it for the sake of the potential cameras. If the Program were watching him, they would see everything, no need for overacting.

The man stabbed at Eleven with the piece of glass and found himself on the ground, choking on blood, with that same piece of glass stuck in his neck.

The other two men had guns, neither one got a shot off before they died.

With his captors dead, Eleven left the compound and found himself alone in the wilderness with no sign of civilization anywhere to be seen.

This would be the second part of the test then, Eleven thought as he began the slow and arduous process of finding his way back to the Program.

That was the first day of testing and by no means the hardest.

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