[Illium] Without Empathy

The room slanted, but the strange topography was overwhelmed by the sweltering heat. The thick air was heavy with the nascent scent of eezo. Contained within the center of the room were two things of interest, a naked drell and a chair. They were both chained, the Drell to the chair, and the chair to the floor, to prevent it from sliding. Besides these things of interest, the room was dark and barren.

Time does funny things, when you're alone in the dark. Whose to say how long the drell and chair had been in that room, alone, with only each other as council? The chair certainly couldn't tell. The moon and the sun were left out of the question. How much time passed before something happened? There was no clock around to tell. The drell's omnitool had been taken away along with his clothes to be dissected.

When something did finally happen, it wasn't the flurry of pain the drell might've expected. A door opened, and small footfalls entered. Two voices whispered and giggled, their indistinct twitter indistinguishable from the usual sound of girls gossiping. The metal floor squealed as the figures moved invisible furniture. Then silence.

A few thumps.

Then more shuffles.

Silence.

Someone behind the drell tore the caplet off. Two eyes twinkled in the dark. The only source of light in the room was the eyes and helm of Suri'Neyvi. They gazed at him without empathy.

"Water?" She asked.

Dreams and distant images swarmed Cerastes. Ghosts of memories drifted about him, threatening to swallow him whole as he sat in place, his chin dipped helplessly against his chest. In the center of a dimly-lit room, shrouded behind bars and mesh, a pale drell sat half-conscious in a chair, tied to it as it had been to him for the past few hours.

The world was a pit - black, black, nothing else, mere whispers of sound that pierced his existence ever so sharply. For a moment, he thought he smelled something old, but the scent vanished as quickly as it appeared. Shrouded by shadow, a pair of blood-red eyes slid open, hollow and confused. A breath of air wafted by and made him blink. Cold, musty.

Strange.

White toes grasped at the concrete floor below, seeking purchase. When he found nothing, Cerastes drew a breath and wheezed; his throat was parched. A vague twittering sounded in the distance as he jerked helplessly at his bonds.

Suddenly, there was light. It was an insult to every star to call it that, but used to the darkness as he was, Cerastes adapted quickly to the dim environment that engulfed him. He stared around him - no furniture, no adornments, just walls and hard concrete and suddenly there was her, the young girl before him, far more prepared than she had reason to be.

"Water?"

Slowly, he nodded. Pride might have demanded otherwise, but the drell's throat was crackled and strained; he needed water, and quickly. The irony stung him as he accepted his fate.

The expected act would be that she would bring water just out of his reach. Let him sense it, smell the faint traces it left in the air, then deny it or dash it on the floor. Or perhaps irony would have sufficed, and simulated drowning would be applied.

Neither of these things happened.

Suri lifted a glass from the darkness and pressed it against the drell's lips. She tipped the glass, letting a little trickle down. A sip, enough to satiate, not enough to satisfy. The glass disappeared and returned to the faint shape of the table. The table contained a few things, easily discerned by the drell and quarian's superior night vision. The table included a large pitcher filled to the brim with water, a cloth set besides it. The only identifiable tools of torture however were a syringe and a bottle of pills. A small metal box, predominately made of some kind of mesh was the most curious addition to the repertoire.

"Mr. Cerastes, before we begin, let me make something perfectly clear. Everybody breaks eventually. Everybody," Suri said, "I'm certain you understand this. You are probably trained in techniques to stave off the inevitable, but you know as well as I do that is all you are doing- staving it off."

"As it turns out, Mickey Mouse Vs Doctor Mexta, Battle Royal is airing tonight on multicast and I kind of want to see it. I'd rather not spend a few hours torturing you. So, just tell me a name. Mmmn? Easy as that. Just the name of who hired you. We'll make it look good, but you'll be fully functional and alive. I'll even throw in these iodine tablets so you don't get thyroid cancer... Oh yeah, I should probably mention the longer you're here the more likely you are to get severe cancer. All over. Cancer cancer. Tick tock."

She lifted the bottle of pills, showing it off to the drell, as though it were a shiny new hovercar.

"So, a name, a name I believe, and you can walk away and say we tortured it out of you, my friend here will make it look good for you, and I can watch my cartoon," She put down the bottle of pills. "What do you say?"

A cartoon.

Cerastes had been tortured several times before in his thirty-some years of existence. He knew the drill, just as Suri suspected, and as his consciousness bloomed fuller and fuller within him, he started to prepare for what was to come. The quarian before him at least had enough restraint to refrain from beginning immediately, but she was subtle: the water left his lips long before he'd had his fill, and as the cup pulled away, his gaze settled in on the pitcher and cloth behind her.

A fucking cartoon.

Water-boarding was a perfect choice for a drell. Not only was it the sort of method that resisted training, but the implications therein for his species would intensify the effect. His jaw tensed visibly as he stared at the pitcher, Suri's voice growing distant. Hollow.

Eventually, it stopped altogether, and he raised his red eyes to her.

"Recording devices have been around for several centuries. Have you never heard of them, Ms. Suri'Neyvi?"

The smile that cracked his lips (dry, on the verge of splitting) was bitter at best. He showed her no teeth, not yet.

Droplets of condensed humidity gathered between his scales and pooled on the chair between his thighs. He was well-aware of his nudity, and it was taking all of his willpower to force it into the back of his mind. A nineteen-year-old waif of a girl had tied him up and was now staring him down, he, naked as the day he was born. An internal reminder that she'd have seen drell before calmed him somewhat; she'd been Abattoir's girl, after all. The scars certainly wouldn't be new.

The quarian stood, impassive for a moment. Ah well, it had been worth a shot. Her disappointment faded into resignation. Her hand settled on her knife hilt. Time to get to work. On a saturday. Really she'd expected this to be a quick bag and tag and leave for Miza to clean up. Now her whole weekend looked like it was going to be ruined. She considered indicating to Miza to give the drell a backhand to the head for the defiance, but that wasn't necessary yet.

"I can see why they hired you," Suri said, as her free hand settled on the mesh box, "You're the right kind of stupid. Tell me, did make a real steal of an offer? Maybe partnership down the road? That's what I'd offer a dope I'd expect to die quickly. I will admit, they are quite clever, and I don't like it when clever people go after me. Makes me nervous, and when I'm nervous bad things happen. Bad things."

Her finger tapped the mesh. "Found on your person, safely contained within a faraday cage. One transmitter, location, audio. You don't strike me as the sort of dope who volunteers to be bait."

"Does it matter?"

Not allowing himself to be baited, Cerastes instead settled for relaxing as best he could in his seat. The chains keeping him in place were heavy and bound tight enough to sting, but not so much that they would cut off circulation. Smart. He'd still be able to feel everything, that way. The drell let out a haggard sigh and rolled his head, trying to pop a few joints in his neck.

The crrrrack was pleasant enough, and it would probably reduce pain if she decided to strike him later.

Bitch. The urge to hiss awful words to her in the dark bubbled within him. He had so much anger built inside of him, but it would have to wait for now; taunting one's torturer too much generally led to death rather than tremendous pain. As familiar as he was with pain, he had no desire to die yet.

"Have you burned my things yet?" he asked, out of idle curiosity. "It'd seem like a smart thing to do."

"I'm asking the questions."

This was going to a hard one to crack. He was pretending at confidence, if nothing else. A shame she couldn't threaten his testes, he had none, drell testicles were internalized. Humans usually talked after you took one of them.

Suri stepped around the table. The knife slid from out of its sheath. He'd managed to annoy her. Time to show him that his show was just that, a show. The blade traced the scars, but did not reopen them. They'd been too interested in keeping him intact. She watched him as the tip slid, searching for signs of flinching.

"Right, or left? Or should we just skip to the main event and head downward? Hmmmn? Ever wondered what it would be like to be a eunuch, Mr. Cerastes?"

There was a little bit of an electric sizzle in her gut. Well, it probably wasn't the worst way to spend an evening, even if it wasn't Micky Mouse Vs Doctor Mexta, Battle Royal.

The tip of the knife slid over the cross-hatched collection of scars on his torso, leaving in its wake a trail of fire. Although the temptation to look off to the side was strong, Cerastes settled instead of staring dead ahead, his eyes locked defiantly on the twin glows hidden behind Suri's helmet. His neck stiffened; familiar with drell as she was, Suri could have easily told the signs as his frill bristled with frustration.

"I can't say the thought ever crossed my mind, ma'am," growled the broker. If she were closer, if she weren't in a suit, he'd have snapped forward and used his teeth to tear out her jugular without hesitation. Fucking half-child bitch. As it was, he remained still, muscles tensing occasionally beneath his scaled hide as the blade threatened him.

Trained though he was, the smallest of twinges followed her knife sliding along a long pink scar on his abdomen. It stretched from one side of his front to the other; perhaps an old enemy's attempt at disemboweling him.

"Let's go left then. It's still early. Enough time for foreplay. Give you time to fantasize."

The blade traced downward and edged around his groin. It paused at his thigh. She concentrated for a moment, and then moved the blade over a degree or two. Her memory wasn't perfect, but she was certain it was there.

"Ever study anatomy, Mr. Cerastes? I'll admit I'm still just a student of the science, but I'm fairly certain if I sunk my blade in here, I'd sever what's called your femoral artery. Drell are hardier than say, humans. You'd bleed out in about seven minutes though. We're not stopping here."

The blade came down further, and Suri knelt. "I was thinking of cutting off your fingers at first, or maybe severing the webbing between them, but I think this'll do better."

It stopped at the knee. "I could shoot you here, and it would be more painful, but you remember that femoral artery? Well, it branches off into little tributaries and runs through there, despite the work someone else did. If I were to, I don't know, carelessly discharge a firearm in the wrong way, there's a chance you could bleed out. We don't want that do we, Mr. Cerastes. So, precision instead. We'll be severing ligaments instead, well, since someone has seemed to left the job unfinished. Not good to leave a job unfinished. It's unprofessional."

The blade shifted position, and then sunk into the flesh. Dark droplets of blood formed and dripped from the knee. Suri caught some with her other hand. It was such a shame she couldn't feel it for herself. The tactile feedback was almost sufficient. She let out a soft puff pleased of air.

Foreplay: the word summoned forth from him a chuffing sound, a noise that was bred somewhere between anger and irony. As the blade slithered down over his hip and to the inner of his thigh, he began to search his memories, filtering through one scene after another in an attempt to find something powerful enough to drag him away from this.

So close, so sharp.

She was slower than the ones that had come before her - plunging into him, oh god, save me, please someone HELP BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD - but it was her intent that made her all the more effective. Every languid pause of the knife over his scales allowed him to ruminate, to imagine in grand detail what she planned to do to him. Someone had taught this girl well.

The blade drifted down.

down

down

NO

Finally, Cerastes jerked in the chair, his leg seizing helplessly as he felt the tip of the blade press into the soft part of his knee, the weak point. His eyes sparked in the darkness, showing a brief speck of reality - of emotion - before he seized and his head tossed back. The knife slid between the cartilege, smooth as butter. Every pull of the blade against his ligaments elicited a white-hot shout from him, hoarse and old and agonized. He would never walk again, not without intensive surgery, and he'd already gone through so much could he take it?

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch SHE WOULDN'T MAKE HIM AGAIN

The knife shifted.

Red blood dripped onto the steel floor.

The blade slid in and out, quick, fast, brutal, efficient.

New streams formed and joined the trickle.

The beast moaned.

white everywhere

The muscles on either side of Cerastes' neck strained as he tossed his head backward, sharp howls thundering in the bowels of the Rosenkruez. Pain comes in degrees: there's surface pain, death-by-a-thousand-cuts, typically employed by amateurs. That was the least terrible, and the least permanent. Those that are unused to the sight of blood, the cries of the victimized are less likely to dig deep.

Those that have adapted, however, burrow further inside. They bare their fangs and slit the surface, then dive into the viscera beneath and play with what they find, tormenting, retching. The scar on his belly was evidence of this variety of predator: they hadn't had the balls to kill him, but they'd damn well gotten close.

Finally, there were the experts.

The experts understood anatomy. They knew that the invasion of pressure points, the severing of ligaments and tendons was a terrible, slow process, and that every jolt against these items would cause a new level of hell for the victim. Worse still, they knew that it would last; those that came against the experts would never be the same again, even with the wonders of modern medicine.

Suri was an expert. Every flinch of her blade against the inside of his knee brought a new scream, born both from physical agony and the knowledge that every hour of therapy he'd undergone, every surgery over the past few years was worthless. He could feel the hot, red liquid dripping down from the incision, pooling beneath his feet. Occasionally, gloved fingers drifted near the wound to feel the blood; she was enjoying this.

Every scream she drew from his lips was pleasure to her, but he couldn't stop, not with the knife so far inside, in and out of his knee and the flesh severing and and and oh god when will it stop

"You can make it stop," Suri said, her voice velvety with reasonableness and just a tinge of lust, "Just give me a name. I've got a syringe of morphine on the table. Give me a name and all the pain will go away."

The knife found its next place, behind the knee. It waited, ravenous, but restrained, like a trained varren. A part of her wanted to order Miza to go get her bonesaw. Maybe she would, before the night was through. Such a shame she couldn't see all the exquisite expressions barreling over the drell's face. Once more, she felt a flicker of annoyance at her inability to afford a gray box. If she had one she could do the incisions by rote memory and free herself to enjoy the others delicious mix of rage, agony, and exhaustion.

"Three more incisions, and then we move to the right knee. You can end this at any time."

Although she didn't know it, Suri'Neyvi's words were a waste of oxygen. Cerastes was in a different place now, somewhere far away as his head lulled against the back of the chair. His eyes were distant, flickering as they ruminated on one memory after another, desperately grasping at something that would keep him away from the pain erupting in his leg.

A stillness, a silence brought him back.

"C... come here. Here," he groaned, voice just barely a whisper.

He hadn't the strength to look at her, not with the knife burrowed in his knee.

Suri looked up. Her luminous eyes glowed even more than usual, wide and dilated from arousal. This could be a ploy for a temporary reprieve. Maybe even some foolish show of defiance. She wouldn't let him rally. The blade held it's place, the pinprick caused by the point drew blood. Beneath her mask, the girl's face was almost a smile. Stress fractures formed and kept it from being complete, as little ticks of memory of her own trials diluted her pleasure.

"Just whisper, my suit will pick it up. No one ever need know," Suri said, panting a little, as once again the glow of her eyes met the void of his, "Just a whisper in the dark. Then, relief."

So much for that.

Cerastes had hoped for her to come close. It had been his intent to get her near, to spit on that impossibly smooth faceplate and let her ruminate on the hatred that boiled within him. He wanted so badly to affect her, but the quarian was keeping herself far apart; smart, smart, smart.

The nerves in his leg set alight again. A strained sound escaped him.

Breathe. It took incredible willpower to move his right leg, to brush the knee against the nook where her neck and shoulder met. She was young, she was enjoying this - he could sink into that like a starved viper.

"How wet are you under that suit, Suri?"

It was the first time he hadn't addressed her properly. It was also a toss-up, but if he could get any advantage, he was going to take it. He couldn't walk. He couldn't walk. The chair waited for him somewhere, quiet and still; he couldn't walk.

Years ago, back when she'd still been a child, wailing about all the bad things that happened to her, unable to comprehend or put a name on her own sexual impulses, that might've cut deep. Her shame would've overwhelmed her, and she would've felt great anger at him for causing that shame. Now, having seen the extent of the depravities of the galaxy, her minor indulgences seemed petty, and insignificant. Her sexuality was natural and a part of her and her identity. If there was anything to be ashamed of, it was only in breaking professional boundaries, which she hadn't yet because this was a personal matter, and off company time.

Perhaps that was the advantage of an imperfect memory. Wounds healed over, and were forgotten, and when they were brought up again, the bone had grown stronger. The scars faded. The drell on the other hand... Well, it hadn't been hard to see the demon's Abattoir carried with him, moment to moment.

"How did you get these scars, hmmmn, Mr. Cerastes?"

The blade sunk in.

Fuck.

Sometimes, it worked. Oftentimes it was in the reverse, sexually; women would attempt to seduce men, but he'd learned in his time that it occasionally suited men to adapt the same tactics. This was not the case, not in the dark with Suri.

Whatever lust she might have held, it was for blood alone. There was no escape.

The metal of the blade slid back into his knee, striking at the soft entry and digging deep until it rubbed against one of the ligaments that ran along the back of it. Cerastes screamed again, unable to move against the pain, and thrust his head back against the chair compulsively. this was pain unlike he'd known for years, oh--

Eventually, the blade stilled. His breath came in half-wheezes afterwards, high-pitched, especially considering the deep and earthly tone of his natural voice. Suri was a bull-shark: she'd clasped onto her prey, and she showed no intention of releasing it soon.

"WHICH ONES," he hissed through bared teeth. He showed them to her now; she'd gotten close.

"Any of them, all of them," Suri said. It was awkward pulling the blade back out from her angle, but she wasn't about to leave the line of sight of the patient. She'd have to let the back ligament partially intact. Sloppy. Not up to par to a professional workmanship, but she'd do better elsewhere. If anything, the drell's comment had made her restrict her enjoyment and put on a professional air, which was annoying. She'd wanted to enjoy herself. This was the first time she'd gotten to do something like this on a drell. "This knee was worked before. Not as efficiently, but worked. I'll do a better job than them on the right one."

She grunted and finally worked out the blade, she brought before her. The little knife glittered under her gaze, stained with fresh blood.

"Two more," she said, and pointed the blade underneath the kneecap.