We reach the end of Part Three, the story from Eloise’s point of view. About a page of notes for the concluding Part Four, but as I mentioned, I’m off to LibertyCon in two days and being sober and on my best behavior shall be my primary objectives. What posting I do shall likely be related to the Con itself.

What’s below is dark, but being is prison is. Fortunately, it looks as if Aurie’s modifications took. It’s now a race between Bob getting back to Earth and when the kangaroo court decides to have El shot.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“Get up,” a man, one of her jailers, commanded.

It was two men this time, so that meant exercise.  They must want me healthy before they kill me.  If it was two women, that was toilet and food.

Eloise stood from the thin mat on the metal frame bed.  Naked.  Not just to make sure I’m not hiding anything, but to humiliate me.  Do they really think an army leftenant didn’t have Escape and Evasion training?

Down several halls, sometimes they took different routes, just to try to confuse me, they came to a small room which stank of sweat and fear.  Weight machines only; no free weights which could be used as a weapon.  They have me run outside every now and again, but only at night.

She had already established a routine, so Eloise sat and began with her arms.

Handed off to men in civilian clothes on a deserted airstrip somewhere north of the Ohio River north of Louisville, once onto a similar small jet, a bag was placed over my head.  I’ve enough spatial awareness to know that we traveled far enough to be somewhere in southeast Ontario.  Hustled into this jail, I’ve not seen the sun since that airstrip.  I know they wake me up at odd times, trying to make me lose my grasp of reality.  Morons, I had that training, too.

She switched to her shoulders.

No physical harm besides a woman’s gloved fingers up in me twice to check for contraband.  And when that young sadist poorly used a scalpel to gouge the chip from between my shoulder blades.  That bled for awhile.

She sat onto the hard floor for sit-ups.

That was more evidence for my trial.  Trial, there’s a laugh.  Prosecutor, some non-military judge, some bailiffs, and me.  The charges of my treachery were read out, evidence of my complicit behavior with the Russians and imperials, and even the “listening device” I carried in my back into the jail.  I have never hated my country more than I do now.

Back onto a machine for legs.

But, I’m not afraid.  When I close my eyes, I see Bob, my family, and, damn it, Aurelia, too.  Letting me sleep for two hours or ten, I know exactly how many days I’ve been here:  seventeen.  I vaguely recall Aurelia saying something to Colour about “changing her” before I passed out, but I cannot detail what it was.

Onto her stomach, more legs.

I know Bob will come for me.  I don’t know how or why, I just do.  It’s what keeps me alive.  Like that odd feeling when Aurelia had Mass before my departure.

She stood and stared at the two guards.  For the first few days they smirked at her body.  Now, she was just another meatsack to watch before being disposed of.

“Back to your cell.  It’s about nighttime.”

It’s oh-two-hundred, you secret police piece of shit.  She nodded and walked out, one of them ahead, one behind.

He will come for me.