Chapter 560: 4th & 10 (2/2)

He scraped another rune into the table. ”The twenty-eight Hells of Hindu were in there.”

Exquisite paused the video. ”These are Terran religions, many of them far older than the Digital Omnimessiah,” she said. ”I'm fast forwarding through this. If you are a scholar in any of the Terran religions, or are curious, I advise you to view the sections and compare his observations to the writings of Pre-Glassing Terra.”

She paused for a second. ”They are extremely close, almost identical.”

Several lights came on of beings wanting to ask questions and Exquisite shook her head. ”No questions at this time, please.”

She unpaused the video and the jump was obvious.

”It was, I don't know, centuries? Millennia? Eons? How do you measure such things?” Nimbly was saying. ”Sometimes I would be stuck, be punished, as my sins, my wrong-doings, replayed for me over and over.”

Exquisite paused it again. ”Psychotherapy with Terrans show that oftentimes Terrans expect, even need, punishment for perceived wrong-doing. Many psychotherapists believe this is a safety function to prevent omnicidal behavior out of a race wired for that same behavior.”

She started it again.

”Finally, I stumbled back into my nightmare again. The atomic blasts, the crying children, the screams of the wounded, and the silence of the dead,” Nimbly said. ”I struggled, slightly, then just stood there, watching, seeking to understand it all.”

He shook his head.

”It was then I understood,” he said. He lifted his face and the cold crimson glow deep in his eyes flashed. ”No man is an island. The death of any sentient being, even if I do not know him, is the death of a part of me. That is why I fight, that is why it hurts so bad, because it has cut away a part of me.”

Exquisite paused it again. ”That part is from an ancient Terran poem. I advise you to look it up.” She restarted the video.

”It was then I heard it. An argument,” he said. ”Two men arguing with a woman. The woman's voice was cruel, mocking. One man was full of rage, Sam, I think his name was. The other was Harry. The woman called them insulting names, they had a name for her, but I will not repeat it,” he looked back down. ”They were arguing over the fact that the woman had pulled me from the end of the queue, before I could be processed, and subjected me to torture. That Sam had deliberately forbade torture.”

”The woman laughed, called Sam a jumped up disk defragger, told him to go check something called 'his fat thirty two' for dicks or something,” Nimbly said. ”The memory vanished, and I was on my knees, naked, in front of the massive demon I had seen stalking the landscape, driving tormented souls before her with a fiery whip to the next section.”

Nimbly shuddered.

”The demon, it looks male, but you know, you figure out how to tell what someone is inside, she reached down and touched the top of my head and told me to tell them my name,” Nimbly looked up. ”I started yelling it.”

”The Ordnance Man,” Watcher guessed.

Nimbly nodded. ”Yes,” he looked back down. ”The two men left in a huff. She looked at me and smiled, told me that I was ready to move on,” he looked back up. ”She stepped out of the demon's body. Naked, looking like one of the Confederate Intelligence Agents, only heavier,” he flushed slightly. ”More endowed, if you know what I mean.”

Peeks nodded, making notes. ”From age, over-indulgence, genetics?”

Nimbly raised an eyebrow. ”Um, age, I think. Maturity would be a better word,” he admitted.

”Can you describe her better?” Watcher asked.

”Um, five foot even, wide hips. Child bearing hips I've heard them called. Thick thighs. Large breasts. Slightly rounded stomach that looks firm,” Nimbly said.

”Buttocks?” Peeks asked without looking up from her datapad.

”Yes?” Nimbly said.

”Describe them. Describe all of her. Every detail, right down to how many bumps on her aerole and how many pubic hairs you know she has,” Watcher demanded.

NoDra'ak listened closely to the description. He wasn't military intelligence, but knew how to handle data. He knew details that were extremely intimate, that he shouldn't know just from a single observation, and some of them were extremely detailed and precise.

”Then what happened?” Peeks asked.

”She led to me a forest. I remember seeing rings of smoke in the trees. We eventually got a brook. There was a tree there with a songbird that sings,” he said. He looked up. ”There was a staircase made of crystal and gold, covered with jagged pieces of obsidian that she told me was my sins.”

”How long did you travel together?” Watcher asked.

”How long is a heartbeat? How long is the life of a star?” Nimbly laughed. ”I don't know. Forever, but no time at all.”

”Were you sexually intimate with her?” Watcher asked bluntly.

Nimbly nodded. ”Yes. I craved human contact.”

”Was it degrading or humiliating?” Peeks asked.

He sighed, looking down. ”It was like all of the amazing pieces of all of my sexual encounters prior, all wrapped up together with something I can't describe.”

”Can you try to describe it?” Peeks asked.

Nimbly shook his head. ”I don't know. Wholly human? How you've known it's always supposed to be but never quite was? Inhumanly perfect but humanly flawed?” he sighed. ”Can we change the subject?”

Peeks nodded. ”What happened next?”

Nimbly tapped his fingers on the table. ”I climbed the staircase. Every step was agony. Every step I remembered things I had done wrong, harm I had done to others. I had already relived those memories, over and over, so I was able to keep going. Eventually I reached the top and found myself back in the hospital, laying on the bed.”

He shook his head. ”The Pubvian nurse came in and told me that I looked better. She gave me tests, there were other doctors there. They checked out my brain, told me that the damage from the radiation had been healed.”

He tapped his hand on the table. ”They released me into a park,” he looked up. ”It was full of people. All chatty, all patiently waiting for their turn to be processed. I met thousands of people, heard their stories,” he looked back down. ”I played with ducklings and hatchlings and squirmlings and babies. I listened to Pubvians tell me about their lives, Treana'ad telling me about how the P'Thok Liberation was changing so much, to Rigellians talking about how the sea was clean again.”

He looked back up. ”Eventually, I found myself on a windy beach. It goes on forever, you can walk as far as you want till you're alone with the storm. I built myself a little shelter, a fire. The cooler always had beer, hot dogs, and cans of beans in it,” he looked back down.

”How long were you there?” Peeks asked.

”Forever. I was content. At peace. As far as an afterlife went, it was bliss,” Nimbly said. ”Just me, the wind, the rain, the waves.”

”What happened?” Watcher asked.

”She came. She talked to me, spent time with me. Told me that she had a job for Mommy's special boy,” Nimbly said.

Exquisite paused the recording.

”Maternal imprinting can be an extremely strong motivator in Terran Descent Humans,” Exquisite said. ”What this entity, this 'Detainee', did to him was extremely effective psychological imprinting.”

She restarted the video.

”She showed me a cave. You had to dive under the water to get to it. At the back was a long tunnel. She told me that if I wanted to go back, if I was strong enough, I could fight my way out,” Nimbly said. ”She warned though, told me what I couldn't do, or I'd fail.”

There was silence for a long moment.

”What was that?” Peeks asked.

”I could not look backwards. I could not talk to anyone. I needed to follow the sound of the song that I could hear faintly echoing in the caves. I had to keep looking forward, keep following the song, and I'd make my way out,” Nimbly said. He shook his head. ”I can't describe the journey. We'd be here for years.”

”And it worked,” Peeks said. Not a question, but a simple statement of fact.

”Yes,” Nimbly said. He looked up, a crazed grin on his face. ”Fight, fight, as hard as you can, you can't kill me, I'm the Ordnance Man.”

The video froze and the words ”INTERROGATION TERMINATED” appeared. Lights immediately began to blink and appendages were raised.

”Wait,” Exquisite said. ”There is still a small part to show,” she said. She paused the video. ”As you know, all interrogation cells are constantly video monitored for security reasons. The following snippet was taken less than an hour after Staff Sergeant Nimbly was returned to his room.”

She unpaused the video. ”Pay close attention, ladies and gentlemen, both and neither.”

The room was empty, barren. As NoDra'ak watched, the shadows deepened and the lights flickered. Soon the only light was on the table, the rest of the white room shadowed in darkness.

A simple flint and steel lighter sparked, the cotton wick soaked in fluid catching with a blue and yellow flame. It illuminated a woman's face dimly, showing her mouth, her cheeks.

And her gun-metal grey eyes.

She snapped the lighter shut and took a drag, the red of the cherry illuminating her face.

”Close your eyes with dread for he on honey-dew hath fed,” the woman said.

She closed her eyes and was lost from view. The shadows drained away. For a split second a monstrous figure could be seen. All heavy corded muscle and sinew, wide leathery wings, a heavy bestial face with tusks and horns. The skin the color of brimstone and hardened lava flows.

Then it was gone.

Exquisite stopped the video and put up a new slide that was just the MedCom wallpaper.

”First, the Digital Omnimessiah,” Exquisite said.

She motioned at the screen.

”Now, the Detainee.”