CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jeanell and Brad appeared in a flash in a special section of the chancellor’s tower in New York, for fifty years the seat of power in the United States. Everything was plated with gold except for the white marble statues and diamond-crusted crystal chandeliers. Jeanell was a bit dizzy, usual after a hole trip, but she refocused quickly and tried to pull her arm out of Brad’s grip.
“Brad, let me go!”
“Of course.” Brad glanced at one of the lobby doors, two armed guards standing in front of it. Another big door on the other side of the lobby was also guarded. Brad said, “There’s nowhere to run and no point in screaming; everybody in this tower is loyal to the chancellor, and nobody’s gonna raise a finger to help you.”
Jeanell looked around and knew he was right. She nodded and, with a strong tug, pulled her arm free, rubbing it to encourage circulation under the skin. “Brad, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why?”
Jeanell repeated “Why? You just kidnapped me! You’re in league with a tyrant and a maniac.”
“That’s what those rebels told you, Jeanell. But did you ever stop to think that they have reasons to lie, that they may not even know the real Chancellor Kana, the person behind the power?”
Jeanell looked around the opulent surroundings. “I think I can guess what kind of person he is, living in a golden palace with all the power in the world.”
“The chancellor also presides over a zero-crime society,” Brad said, leading Jeanell across the lobby. “No starvation, very little disease—”
“But isn’t he keeping the population artificially low?”
“How and why would any single person do that? Those rebels just can’t procreate, they’re dying out. All the better if they can blame their leader, to blame us.”
“Us?”
“Of course. Jeanell, the chancellor is the leader of the free world! Not perfect maybe, but okay, nobody is. It’s time to join the winning team! And you could be MVP if you played your cards right.”
Jeanell huffed. “I’ve never been much of a gambler.”
“No?”
Jeanell had to reflect, and she knew Brad was right. Among other things, Jeanell learned about herself, she realized then that she was much more a gambler than she’d ever known. She’d gambled her life on the Earthtech project, even wound up gambling with the fate of every man, woman, and child in human history.
And she had more hands to play, more stakes to put on the table, not the least of which was her own life. And she knew that the end game was about to begin.
They reached an elevator and they stepped in. Jeanell said, “No polyurethane walls for the chancellor, I guess.”
“The chancellor needs privacy.”
“Unlike everybody else.”
Brad chuckled. “This is the seat of power, Jeanell. Extra security is required.”
Jeanell said, “Lead-lined walls, keep the holes out.”
“Precisely. That landing platform in the lobby is just about the only place a hole can open up in this tower.”
“While the chancellor goes around sucking up stadiums full of people?”
Brad huffed. “Another lie. That’s the, um, the kill hole theory, I take it?” Jeanell nodded, but Brad shook his head. “Pure propaganda.”
“Why would they lie to me about something like that?”
“To keep you on their side, or rather to keep you away from the chancellor. You could do great things together, Jeanell.” Jeanell’s blood ran cold and she knew where Brad was headed with their conversation. He went on, “I hope you’ll at least give the most powerful person in the world a fair hearing.”
“I… I’m supposed to meet this chancellor?”
“Probably. I don’t know what those rebels told you, but you really are famous in this age, Jeanell. You’re considered one of history’s great geniuses.”
“I don’t really know much,” Jeanell said. “All this technology, they developed it after we… were brought here. I’d say almost anybody in the field today knows more about it than I do. You were the one panicking and throwing every switch on the board, Brad. If either of us knows anything, it’d be you!”
Brad chuckled, shaking his head and not even wasting the words to contradict her. The elevator doors opened. Brad and Jeanell walked into another long, golden hallway, light glaring and burning Jeanell’s eyes. Brad said, “Some people find it ostentatious, but I like it.”
“Guess I have simpler tastes.”
They walked down the hall to the office at the end, where an armed guard stood. Brad and Jeanell stepped past them and into the big office. More gold, more chandeliers, and behind a massive gold desk sat a bony-faced man, white in middle age, wearing a smart black and red uniform with gold buttons and military insignia.
He stood up and crossed from behind the desk. “Jeanell Glenn, I presume, even lovelier than I’d heard.”
“Chancellor… Kana, is it?”
“Oh my, no. The chancellor’s floor is just above. I’m Vice Chancellor Lionel Haines, welcome to the chancellor’s tower. Welcome also… to the future.”
“Um, Mr. Vice Chancellor, I… I don’t exactly how to say this, but… I’m not really Jeanell Glenn.”
Vice Chancellor Haines said, “I beg your pardon?”
Brad shook his head. “She’s lying—”
“We, me and Brad and Reeves and Tony Mathers, and a woman, Dr. Ali Chang, we migrated in from Idaho. We were just going to join Ric’s enclave here, consolidate our little population, so to speak. Then your men attacked us and we ran.”
The vice chancellor said, “Miss Glenn, we have sensitive equipment that monitors time travel—”
“But that’s just it. Nobody can travel through time, it’s strictly forbidden. The technology doesn’t exist, the chancellor won’t allow it to exist. And as you know, nothing the chancellor disallows goes on for very long.”
Brad said, “That’s just absurd. Why would I lie?”
“To your new masters? I can’t imagine. How badly did they torture the others?”
“What, torture?” Brad said. “Nah, it’s not like that.”
Jeanell said, “But of course you’d lie to save yourself. I’ll bet Tony said more or less the same thing.”
“He did,” Vice Chancellor Haines said.
“And what kind of promotion did he get?”
Brad said, “Angel, First Class, shot while trying to… escape.”
The vice chancellor said to Jeanell, “You realize that if what you’re saying is true, I have no reason to keep you alive even a moment longer?”
Jeanell knew it all too well; that was her gambit. It was the only way to stave off torture and probably cracking under pressure, revealing the secrets that could undo the entire human race. But Jeanell quickly realized she could play more than one gambit at a time. And this was a gambit she could never have played before and gotten away with it.
She smiled sexily, looking Haines over. He was lean, shoulders straight, hollow faced. She said, “There’s a lot a girl like me could do for a powerful man like you, Vice Chancellor. I’ve seen those rebel girls, and not one would be up to the task of pleasing you, sir.”
“What would I want with a rebel girl?”
Jeanell smiled. “That would depend on which rebel girl you’re talking about.”
Brad looked on, admiration for her cunning clear in his beady eyes.
But Vice Chancellor Haines only broke a knowing little smile of his own. “On the one hand, Miss Glenn, I’m the second most powerful man in the world, second only to the chancellor himself. I can have any woman I desire, and I do.”
Jeanell shot him a pouty, sexy look. “You don’t want me, or… desire me?”
He looked her up and down, shapely under her soiled white clothes. “Perhaps if we cleaned you up a bit.” He said to Brad, “Make… our guest comfortable in the suite the chancellor set aside for… for Miss Glenn.” He turned back to Jeanell. “There you’ll find a private bath, new clothes in the closet… ” He returned her look with a hardened glance of his own before adding, “… a bed, very comfortable. I’ll let you know when I’ve made my plans.”
Brad stepped back and gestured toward the door, Jeanell walking past him without a word of parting to the vice chancellor. She knew he was watching her ass as she walked out, and she gave it an extra little bit of sway before Brad followed her out of the office and closed the door behind him.
Walking down the hall, Brad said, “That was very clever, Jeanell. I’m impressed. But honestly, I think you’re taking the wrong tactic. Just play ball, like I’m doing. In the long run, you’ll be a lot better off, we all will.”
But Jeanell said nothing, strongly suspecting that the hallway was bugged, and that Brad was just trying to trick her into revealing herself to some hidden camera or microphone or nearby drone picking up everything.
Jeanell knew she’d have to be very careful of everything and everyone. She was in the dragon’s lair, and she’d need all her wiles and skills to make it out alive, if that was even possible.
Once in her private suite, guarded by a single armed guard, Jeanell drew a hot bath. She peeled off her soiled outfit and climbed into the tub, the water hot was soothing. Her limbs ached, skin tingled as she dragged a bar of translucent soap over her arms and legs. She looked around at the incredible surroundings, every fixture was gold, every light crystal. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-wall mirror. With her short, black hair and green eyes, luxuriating in a golden bathtub, Jeanell looked and felt like an entirely different person; another time, another place, another person.
Jeanell couldn’t deny the attraction of all that comfort and wealth. Garish though it was, it was certainly a striking contrast to living in a cave in the woods, or underground in some dank, dusty, disused particle collider compound.
If it weren’t for the murders and the corruption, Jeanell couldn’t help but think, this might not be half bad. Can it be that the rebels really were lying, that there were no kill holes at all? And the rest, the electromagnetic pulse bomb, maybe that’s all a lie too? But the new infrastructure, the sparsity of the population, something must have happened, something drastic.
But Jeanell only had to review the information she’d been given to see the secret truth.
There could have been a bomb, the Great Darkness, but that doesn’t mean this chancellor knew anything about it, not that anybody can seem to prove. Can it be that it’s just too easy to assume he knew about it? That is just a group of rebels would want me to think. But… why? Because they know the truth about us, about me.
And they were about to kill me for it, Jeanell had to remind herself, about to kill us all. I saw that for myself! This vice chancellor, even Brad, creepy as he is, I don’t know that anybody’s been hurt here.
What about the people in that disco in Prague? They were kill holed!
Weren’t they?
Jeanell thought back, suddenly unsure what she’d seen in that scramble and flash and heated craziness.
What about Brooke and the twins and Reeves? They’ve been captured too. The chancellor’s forces got them in the cave just before we arrived, they must have. And Brad was there, waiting to grab me, just as he did! So if Brooke and the twins are okay, maybe I really need to re-evaluate things.
What about Tony, Jeanell had to remind herself, killed while trying to escape? And what about this vice chancellor and his lusty grin?
Well, Jeanell had to admit, that was the gambit I started, can’t blame him for reacting that way. I would have been a little offended if he hadn’t! And Tony, who knows? He may have been shot trying to escape, but this is a locked facility. He may have panicked, somebody else may have panicked. That happened all the time back in 2017.
But then there’s Brad grabbing me in front of the cave, taking me against my will. Is that the work of a regime that can be trusted? A kidnapping! That’s the work of the kind of regime that would have kill holes, and use them in any terrible way it saw fit.
Then again, Brad did see Ric almost murder me with a sledgehammer, and that was the last he saw. Maybe he thought he was rescuing me. Maybe, in truth, he was.
No, Jeanell scolded herself, don’t get carried away by all this glamor and wealth and power, this isn’t you!
I am who I say I am, Jeanell countered. And wasn’t I carried away by my feelings for Ric? What makes that any more grounded than this?
Ric.
I thought he loved me, but could he have been lying to me the whole time, putting up some act just to win my heart and keep me with him? I thought I was becoming so sophisticated, but it could be I was still the naive bookworm I always was. Ric would have to know what would have been available to me, a life I could never live anywhere else or at any other time. I’m famous, I could be wealthy and powerful, the American Dream. What hardscrabble homeless guy wouldn’t be intimidated to have to compete with that?
Jeanell sighed and sank back into the tub. But it felt so real, so pure and true, I can’t believe he’d do that to me. Could I have misread him that drastically? Could I have been so stupid?
Jeanell’s head began to swim while her heart ached, confusion reigning her mind and her soul. She didn’t know who to believe, who to trust, or how to figure out which way to go. It was a matter of life and death, and not just her own.
No, Jeanell told herself, keep a clear head, stay focused. Find out what happened to the others, if they’re still alive. If they’ve been tortured, then Ric was right and this regime isn’t to be trusted, they’re the liars. If the prisoners are okay, Ric was probably playing me for a fool.
And find out quick, before the vice chancellor comes to accept that offer!
There was a tablet in the room, bolted to the wall, and after Jeanell’s bath, she noticed a message to join the vice chancellor for dinner. She chose the most elegant dress hanging in the closet, white and off the shoulders, formfitting with a flattering hem around mid-thigh.
She sat at the end of a long banquet table in another exquisite room, this one long and vacuous, more chandeliers shining, dripping with diamonds.
The vice chancellor sat at the head of the table next to her, still in his uniform. “Are you enjoying your pheasant?”
“Very much so, Mr. Vice Chancellor. The orange sauce is just delicious.”
He smiled, raising a glass of chardonnay. Jeanell did the same, and it was crisp and delicious.
She said, “I can see how a girl could get used to this,” and they shared a chuckle.
“If I may, Miss… I didn’t get your actual name.”
Jeanell smiled. “Let’s just go with Jeanell Glenn, it’s… easier.”
The vice chancellor turned a bit, as if for a better glance at her. “Something in your past? Is that why you were out trolling with the guttersnipes?” Jeanell nodded. “But what could such a pretty thing ever do that would ever be so terrible?”
Jeanell shrugged, another refreshing sip of wine washing down her pheasant. “It’s in the past, let’s just leave it there. Isn’t time traveling strictly forbidden?” She gave him a cagy look and he broke out in a little chuckle.
“Quite so. Strange, then, that your companions would all tell the same story.”
“My companions,” Jeanell repeated. “Is Reeves still… a guest here?”
“Reeves.”
“Yeah, big guy, ex-military, um, African American fellow. Do they use that term these days? Anyway, he’ll stand out around here, you couldn’t miss him. He was at the cave when Brad, um, rescued me.”
Vice Chancellor Haines calmly said, “I don’t know the man.”
Thinking aloud, Jeanell reasoned, “Maybe your guards or officers or whatever picked them up and you haven’t heard? I mean, they were at the cave, and all of them were missing when we returned, but Brad was there waiting for me. So they must have taken the others and waited for me to arrive. What else could have happened?”
The vice chancellor said, “The others?”
“Yeah, a whole passel of, um, guttersnipes. I just assumed they were brought here.”
Vice Chancellor Haines just shrugged. “You think I would sully myself with such interactions, among those dregs? Prisoners? Hardly.”
“So, they would be prisoners, not… not guests, like me?”
Things got tense fast. Vice Chancellor Haines said curtly, “It depends, doesn’t it? You’re here as a guest… for the moment. Now that your story is in question, I only wonder if I should go on trifling with you as a concubine.”
“I… I didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Vice Chancellor.”
“You travel among criminals, cutthroats.”
“Not anymore, sir.”
The vice chancellor looked her over. “And what is it you did before deciding to come here and sleep your way to the top… before this troubling turn in your darkest past?”
Jeanell hadn’t thought her backstory through that well, so she chuckled nervously to give herself a few creative seconds. “I was raised in Eugene, Oregon, but had a falling out with my family. I met a guy and made my way east toward Colorado.”
“And I suppose the young man is dead now.”
“Um, no. I mean, I don’t know exactly. We separated en route.”
“And how did that happen? I mean, a healthy young man abandons an attractive woman in this day and age? And out in the woods, no less?”
“Well, he… we didn’t really get along, we started to fight. I stormed off in one direction, he went off in the other. After that, we just sort of lost each other. We’d talked about coming to Boulder, so I imagined I might have caught up with him there. But he never turned up.”
“Instead, you fell in with those rebels in the collider.”
Jeanell nodded, relieved that her lie had worked out so well. “Yes, that’s what happened exactly.”
Jeanell cleared her throat. “What is it they used to say? All roads lead to Rome. I guess that’s as true today as it’s ever been.”
“I see.” He took another bite of pheasant, chewing slowly before washing it down with another sip of wine, the only sound the tinkling of the utensils. “Yet you claimed to have immigrated into the state from Idaho, with these other companions of yours.”
Jeanell thought fast. “Yes, that’s right. My boyfriend, Carl Dennings, and I left Oregon together and broke up in Idaho, where I met up with those others, Brad, Tony. We came to Colorado together. Surely, you didn’t think I trudged all the way from Idaho into Colorado alone? I’m just a girl, after all.”
He smiled at her and Jeanell smiled back, coy and feminine. She now felt a bit more comfortable, more confident.
“Miss Glenn, I must say I find your arrogance admirable. Your performance here is truly beguiling, which makes your previous offer even more tempting.”
Jeanell wasn’t exactly glad to hear it, but was better than the alternative.
“And while I always enjoy a good game of cat and mouse,” Vice Chancellor Haines went on, Jeanell’s heart sinking, blood running cold, “I’m beginning to tire of this one.”
Jeanell wasn’t sure which of her two gambits he referred to. She realized with shocking suddenness that neither one would go well for her, and it wouldn’t take long for one or the other to blow up in her face.
The vice chancellor went on, “You’re lying about your identity and your circumstances. You know how to create a time hole.”
“Of course, I do not,” Jeanell said, hoping to hide the growing fear in her voice. “If that were true, you think I’d go around using my real name? You think I’d be here at all? That’d be nuts!”
“Using the name is suicide anyway. And you lack the resources, clearly; that does not mean you lack the knowledge.”
“But I do lack it. And as for the name, y’know how it is; these days Jeanell Glenn, it’s like, y’know, Jane Doe.”
“Jane Doe?”
“Sure, it’s just kind of generic.” After a skeptical pause, Jeanell went on, “She’s so famous. A girl calls herself Jeanell Glenn, it’s like saying you’re George Washington.”
“Very well then, President Washington, Jane Doe, or Jeanell Glenn, or whatever your name is, we’ll soon discover the truth.” Two men entered from the end of the banquet hall. Jeanell turned back to face the vice chancellor behind them. She didn’t need to ask who the others were, or what they were doing there. Her heart jumped as all possibilities of escape vanished in front of her scrambling brain. There was nothing to say, nowhere to run, no way to fight.
They pulled her chair back and one grabbed her arm, the other sliding the chair away and grabbing her other arm. She tried to pull herself free, kicking at the guard’s legs, terror welling up in her quivering voice.
The vice chancellor said only, “The interrogation room.”
But Jeanell couldn’t help herself. “No, please! Please don’t!”
But he was disinterested, returning his attention to his meal while the two goons carried her off, dragging her down the hall, every twist and wrench only helping them secure their grip. She didn’t bother to beg those goons to let her go, to convince her of anything one way or another. She knew they didn’t care, it wasn’t their job to listen. It was their job to drag her to that interrogation room, and Jeanell was ready to make that as difficult as possible.
She kept kicking at them, wrenching her arms and pulling with all her dwindling might. But each big goon held her arms with both hands, one at the forearm, one above the elbow. There was a goon on her right and one on the left, and there was no way she could break free.
Soon enough, the point was moot.
The interrogation room was guarded by another armed man, who stepped aside and opened the door for the other two. Once past that threshold, Jeanell knew she’d be trapped, and tortured. What manner of pain, what instruments, what pleasure they’d take using them, Jeanell could only imagine and dread. But she knew that would pass quickly… and terribly …enough.
Unlike the rest of the rooms, there wasn’t a speck of gold nor a single tiny diamond in the whole interrogation room. Instead, it looked much like any medical examination room, with a big chair that looked a bit like a dental chair, except with cuffs at the arms and feet of the chair.
“No!”
The goons spun Jeanell around and threw her into the big chair. Jeanell cried out, panic in her voice as she struggled, the goons wrestling her arms into place and locking down the buckling straps over her wrists and forearms, just above the elbows. Jeanell leaned forward hard, trying in vain to thrust herself forward. Then she backed into the chair as far as she could, hoping to pull her arms out. They could hardly budge an inch.
By then, they had her ankles strapped in too, the goon lingering over the sight of her exposed legs. Her evening dress wasn’t designed for that chair. Unable to do much but unwilling to do nothing, Jeanell spat in the leering goon’s face. He pulled his hand back to give her a powerful smack across the face, and Jeanell braced for it. It would only be a taste of what was to come.
But the other guard stopped him with a sharp, “Orders!”
“Bitch spat in my face!”
“Orders!” He looked at her, bound to that chair, and nodded. “We’ll square things later. C’mon.”
The goon wiped his face and said to Jeanell, “Have a good time, sweetie.”
They left her alone. She strained at her bonds for a while, unable to free herself. She finally let out a long, shrill cry for help, and then another. It echoed around the little room, banging against the inside of Jeanell’s skull.
No, she finally had to tell herself, that’s what they want. This is psychological torture; they’re just priming me, getting me ready. I’m not gonna fall for it. I’m not gonna give right in, crack under pressure!
No matter what they do.
But Jeanell shuddered to think of what that would be. She looked around the room, white cabinets and sleek electronic machines dominated the walls and corners, big surgical lights fixed to the ceiling above the chair.
She knew then that she’d miscalculated terribly, that the chancellor’s regime was all that Ric said it was, perhaps worse. Or even if Ric couldn’t be trusted, the vice chancellor and his criminal crew certainly couldn’t. And that’s a lesson she was going to learn at a terrible price.
Ric. Where is he now? Does it make a difference? Maybe Reeves and the others are still back in Colorado. Ric’ll probably stay with them, cut his losses on me, get back to his life as usual. I’ve brought him nothing but death. I couldn’t blame him for turning his back on me. Even if he wanted to come for me, he’ll never get in here, not without getting himself killed. He knows that. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted, short but nice, like life.
And death is going to be terrible.
Jeanell’s heart pounded just dreading the pain, the prolonged agony that would soon be upon her.
Her arms and legs stiffened, muscles tightened, blood collected around her cuffed wrists, elbows, and ankles.
Finally, the door opened, Jeanell’s heart skipping in her chest, breath short in her lungs. It was the vice chancellor, still in his uniform. He walked slowly, wearing a devious little half smile and carrying a riding crop.
“Um, okay,” Jeanell said, nerves making her voice tremble. “I’m still not sure what happened back during dinner. I thought we were having a perfectly pleasant conversation.” He said nothing, approaching the chair and tapping his riding crop against the side of his leg. A lump rose in her throat.
Jeanell’s heart started beating even faster, fear rushing in her veins. “So, is this like, your thing? Because, y’know, it’s not so unusual. I get it, I really do.” The vice chancellor tapped the riding crop against her bare chest, hovering near to where the white dress barely clung to her round breast, heaving with her rising fear. Jeanell went on, “I even think it’s kinda… hot.” The vice chancellor tapped that crop down her arms, slow and menacing, lingering near her bonds.
Unsure what do say or do, Jeanell asked, “So, you want me to do? Should I… call you master or, y’know, whatever you want, I… we want to keep things light, right?”
He tapped the crop down her thigh to her knee and then back up, a few more intimidating taps making her legs quiver. Jeanell looked up at him, unsure of what the man truly wanted with her, or what lengths she could go to, or if she’d ever make it back.
“Um, do you want me to struggle or just lay here, or—?”
“I want you to tell me the secret of how you traveled here through a time hole.”
“I… I didn’t! I just wanted to meet you, because I heard how… how strong and masculine you are. I knew you could, um, put a girl like me in my place.”
“Enough of this whore routine, Miss Glenn. I know who you are and I know how you came to be among us.”
Jeanell swallowed hard and looked up into the vice chancellor’s cold eyes, his unmoving expression far past patience. “Okay, Mr. Vice Chancellor, I… I wasn’t going to deny it, I wasn’t. I guess I thought you wanted to do… all this too, like role play or something. And I wasn’t about to deny a powerful man like you.”
“Miss Glenn—”
“But I am Jeanell Glenn, and I did come here… somehow, from 2017.”
“Yet you lied to me.”
Jeanell chuckled nervously. “I was told it might be dangerous in, um, in certain circles.” The vice chancellor chuckled too. Jeanell went on, “You might have done the same thing, right? But don’t take it personally, I, um, I didn’t mean to disrespect your office.” Vice Chancellor Haines said nothing, turning to a small white machine, with LCD lights and other controls. Jeanell’s eyes were locked on it as the vice chancellor wheeled it up to the side of the chair.
She asked, “What’s that? What is that thing?” But the vice chancellor offered no answer. Jeanell went on, “Anyway, I was working on this black hole thing early on, that’s true. And I guess you could say I was one of the earlier researchers to stumble on a few key points, but… but we really never mastered it. And as for the time element, I’m really not sure how it happened. That idiot Brad scrambled up all the controls in a panic, there won’t be a way to recreate it. We stumbled our way through time, honestly.”
The vice chancellor picked up a small band with two wires connected to it. Without a word, he reached out and slipped it over Jeanell’s head. She jerked her head to the side, trying feebly to pull away. Then she jerked the other way, anything to avoid him slipping that band over her head.
But she could only manage a few seconds of resistance before he secured that cloth band around her temples. She gasped in fear, the wires tracing down each side of her head. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I swear I would!”
He tapped a few buttons on the machine and smiled at her. “It’s a crude device, old fashioned. But some things never change, eh?”
“I’m telling you, it was just a scrambled mess! He panicked and just started pressing buttons like an idiot. I didn’t even see what he was doing! If anybody knows, it’s Brad, not me! Strap him down into this thing! That son of a bitch deserves it.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Vice Chancellor Haines said with a little half smile, “he’ll get what he deserves.”
He turned to her with a small rubber mouthpiece in his hand, shaped like a pair of teeth clamped over a short breathing tube. Jeanell knew where that was going. “No look, honestly—”
But it was all she had time for before the vice chancellor jammed it into Jeanell’s mouth despite her flinching and struggling. “This will prevent you from biting through your own tongue, my dear, keep all the teeth in your head from shattering to bits.” Jeanell shook her head as he held the mouthpiece in place with one hand and turned to push a button on the other. “You wouldn’t be very pretty then, eh?”
Jeanell’s vision went white, ears a dim hum as the electricity shot through her brain. Her jaw locked, biting into that hard rubber, panting through the breathing tube. Her head snapped back, muscles clenched, fists tight as her arms failed to pull free of the shackles. Her legs twisted, hips bucking as the jolt shook her body. But the vice chancellor knew there was nowhere for her to go and no way for her to get there.
He said, “Can you hear me, Miss Glenn?” Her heart was near to bursting behind her ribs, panting, jaws still locked. “Stay with us, Miss Glenn. It’s going to be a long night, and we’re just getting warmed up.” After another few minutes, he pulled the mouthpiece out of her clenched jaws. She was still panting, mouth dry, head pounding, muscles almost snapping under her sweating skin.
“Miss Glenn?”
“I… I just… I don’t know—”
He jammed the mouthpiece back into her mouth, nearly breaking her teeth. Another click brought another flash of agonizing pain, blinding and deafening, whole body shaking in that chair. Her hips nearly dislocated as her body twisted, frazzled instincts seeking desperate release and not finding it.
Vertebrae popped up her spine and neck, the bones of her skull grinding together like tectonic plates. Her throat contracted, shoulders arching up to her ears. She snapped back once and then again, her body straining to hold onto its grip on life itself.
The vice chancellor yanked the mouthpiece out of her mouth, her jaws clacking together, chipping two teeth. A tortured gasp spilled out as she strained for life-giving breath, tears rolling down her cheeks.
He shouted, “Why are you willing to die for what we already know?”
The words echoed in her memory, barely able to fashion a thought. “The… God Particle,” she said, barely recalling that her team would know that, they’d reasoned it out. And if Brad knew, the chancellor’s forces almost certainly did too.
The vice chancellor repeated, “The God Particle.”
Jeanell nodded, still straining to catch her breath, body cramping forward and then back, every fiber contracting, pulling her in every direction at once.
“That’s… that’s all… I… know…”
“That’s what your partners said,” Vice Chancellor. “But how? How do you make it work exactly? You must know, Miss Glenn. I have to know!”
She shook her head, still gasping for breath. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know… please, it hurts so much… I swear. I don’t know…”
He looked her over with a satisfied smile. “I believe you. There’s a certain place where a person reveals the truth, and I believe we’ve come to that place.” Jeanell nodded, her head falling forward and then rolling exhausted on her shoulders. “Do you think you could do it again?” Jeanell shook her head. “How can you be so sure? We can provide you with everything you need.”
“No,” Jeanell said, a dry sob rattling out of her throat.
“You cannot, Miss Glenn, or you will not?”
Jeanell knew what she faced, the choice she tried to escape—her destiny, a moment of truth she hoped she’d never face.
“Miss Glenn?”
“No…” she said, eyes refocusing on his, her voice low and wheezed. “Just… no.”
He smashed the mouthpiece back into her mouth and she screamed, body already tense to anticipate what was coming.
Then it came. It was a bigger blast than the others. Jeanell was hurled into unconsciousness, a wave of darkness overtaking her and sending her toppling into the empty void, a Great Darkness of her very own.