WARNING! This part is very dark and brutal.

The Angel of Chicago

Part Sixteen: Questions

by

Rodford Edmiston

The hood was yanked from around Melody's head, but the fiction burns the rough fabric produced were a minor discomfort compared to what she was already experiencing. She gasped for air, half suffocated by the thick cloth. She was already manacled, with the chain on those fastened to a heavy eye in a heavy metal table, which she soon realized was - like the metal chair in which she sat - bolted to the floor. Both had stains from blood and worse, as did the floor. She was in a concrete room with a bare bulb hanging on a wire overhead. One of those large, awkwardly dressed men sat across from her.

"Where were you?" he asked, in a low, emotionless tone.

"What?" said Melody, confused.

He punched her in the face. She dropped, brought up short by the chains. Two more men moved in from the shadows to roughly pull her back into position.

"Where were you?"

"I don't know what you..."

She saw the punch coming this time but couldn't dodge. The repositioning repeated.

"Where were you?"

"When?!" she gasped, cringing as he drew his fist back. "I want to answer but I don't know..."

Another punch.

"Where were you?"

This time she left her head on the table for a while. Through the haze of pain something about his voice seemed familiar. Then she realized what it was. She lifted her head, and gave him a grimace meant to be a smile.

"I get it now. You're empowered. You have the same sort of spoken charisma as Malak and Arielle... though not as strongly. That's why they have you ask the ques..."

She had wanted to get something back at him, perhaps even to cast doubt on his status with his companions or superiors. Melody immediately realized that her petty attempt at retaliation was worse than useless.

This time he didn't just punch her, he beat her, for several minutes. Then he heaved her onto the table and pulled down her panties. As he undid his belt Melody tried to scream, but could only manage a faint wail.

* * *

The angel entered the dark, stinking cell and moved immediately to the sole prisoner. She was dressed in tatters and laying on a hard bunk of rough planks. Sickened, he quickly moved to lay hands on her. Even as he did so, she stirred, looking up at him.

"What took you so long?" she managed to whisper, through broken teeth and shredded lips.

Malak healed her enough that she could survive the trip, then quickly gathered her in his arms and faded from sight. Her shackles fell noisily to the concrete floor.

* * *

"My God..." breathed Arielle, as she entered the room at the clinic, saw Melody and stopped, stunned. Even after multiple healings by her father and others, the sleeping reporter looked horrible. "What did..."

"Not now," said her father, quietly but firmly. "Save that for later. Right now, she needs you to be supportive. Most of her physical hurts have been healed and the rest soon will be, and I can heal her mind with help from others and time, but her spirit needs care I can't give."

Arielle nodded, and quietly moved in to sit by the bed of the still figure. She took the reporter's hand, and simply sat, holding her.

* * *

Melody was in and out of wakefulness over the next day and a half. She repeatedly woke screaming, then fell back asleep as soon as Arielle comforted her. Medical personnel - some of them empowered - tended her, healing her physical hurts until there was not even a bruise. Arielle knew the bulk of her recovery still lay ahead.

Finally, Melody fully woke, looking desperately around. She quickly realized she was safe, in part due to feeling Arielle holding her hand. The empowered woman was sound asleep, but had not let go. Melody hated to wake her, but beyond normal curiosity her reporter's instincts were producing an itch which demanded scratching. She lifted Arielle's hand and kissed it, and the older woman stirred.

"What... happened?"

"You really need to rest."

"Then just tell me what happened after... after you found me."

"You weren't the only one," said Arielle, quietly. "That place was being used to interrogate and then kill and dispose of anyone the conspirators found sufficiently annoying. My father and others rescued twelve more people and found several bodies they hadn't burned yet."

"Burned?!" said Melody, alarmed.

"They actually had a crematorium on site."

Suddenly, the magnitude of what she had been through hit her. Melody cried out, and lunged towards her love, who rose and hugged her.

"They... they took turns..."

"Shhhh, shhhhh..." said Arielle, rocking Melody in her arms. "Live in the here and now, focus on us."

"Wh-where's your father?" said Melody, after a while, sitting up and drying her eyes.

"If it's any consolation," said Arielle, sounding like she wanted to join them, "he and some friends are busy arranging Old Testament style retribution for some people who desperately deserve it."

* * *

"Two days," said Melody, amazed when Aaron spoke with her later. "They had me for two days. I barely remember the first two hours."

He didn't say that was probably a mercy.

Instead, Aaron leaned back in his chair and considered her for a moment. He had made a point of excluding Arielle from this session. He needed Melody to focus on him, at least for now. His daughter would be allowed back in as soon as they finished.

"I am very sorry we took so long to find you," he said, quietly. "Far more people than Blackpool and myself worked on finding you, both empowered and norm. Even though officially you died in the fire at your apartment building."

"How many others?" she whispered. "In the fire, I mean. I knew many of those living there..."

"They're still counting. Perhaps sixteen. There were fire and smoke alarms, but some are thought to have already been trapped on the upper floors by the time those sounded."

"Bastards," said Melody, spitting the word. She looked at him, her in that crisp, white bed, him in that old-fashioned but spotless white chair. "What about the others in that... dungeon?"

"Physically healed and being treated. Most were there longer than you, but most were not as intensively... questioned."

"Not funny," she snapped.

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to be funny. Just... diplomatic."

"You're very good at this," said Melody, after a moment. "Patient, caring, pushing just enough then backing off. I guess you've had a lot of experience."

"That I have," said Aaron, nodding. "As well as good training. There are always those hurting, from many causes. Including deliberate abuse."

"I just... don't understand what they wanted of me. They asked nonsense questions, and hurt me no matter what I answered."

She twisted the sheet in her hands, almost crying.

"I would have told them what I knew! None of it was secret! It was already in my articles!"

"The purpose of torture is not to gain information. It's to punish the person being questioned. Those... people had been given orders to deal with you. They were told who you were, where you were, and what vague questions their bosses had. Those questions simply being used to provide justification for the kidnapping and torture. The details of your capture, how they covered that up and how they questioned you were left to the men at that facility."

"Insane..." said Melody, shuddering.

"Yes. In a sense they are. Many torturers are convinced that they're doing good or even holy work, and claim to detest what the prisoners 'force' them to do. No matter how far they go in that work. Others have simply learned not to feel anything except accomplishment in doing their horrific jobs. It's a form of dissociation, often voluntary, sometimes innate."

"Insane," Melody repeated, heat in her voice.

"What's really insane," said Aaron, more quietly, "is that their bosses, knowing that their efforts were coming under scrutiny after the failure of the plot with the chemical repository, pulled back and cut off contact with most of their underlings. Including those at the dungeon. They gave no warnings, no additional orders to prepare those they abandoned for the lack of communication. The men at the bottom simply kept following the last orders they had received, since no-one had told them to stop."

Melody stared at him for a moment, then suddenly began weeping. Aaron wondered if he might have gone too far too quickly, but there was nothing for it now but to comfort her.

* * *

"You still haven't told me how you even knew to look for me," said Melody, during the next day's session.

"The main clue was that they burned the building," said Aaron, in a bitter tone. "Just like they did with Blackpool's. You were unaccounted for, the fire was arson by a rather sophisticated means... They couldn't even be bothered to come up with a different method to cover their tracks. This particular group had no concerns for those whom they left behind in a burning building, of course. No real thought for the consequences of their actions. They had been deliberately chosen by the conspirators for those specific qualities. More to add to the crimes of those in charge."

"So you two went looking for me."

"It wasn't just us. This matter has attracted the attention of empowered who normally don't get involved in mundane matters. Nineteen of them were looking not just for you; some of them were not even looking for you at all, but for others who were likewise kidnapped."

"Who knows that I'm alive?"

"Only those participating in the rescue, those here at the clinic and Arielle. We have not informed your boss or coworkers. That seemed like the wisest choice, to keep the conspirators in the dark."

Melody sighed and nodded.

"I think it's better if I stay missing for now," she said, though reluctantly.

Aaron nodded with her.

"With communications between the conspirators and the torture facility cut off, they probably don't even know it was found and destroyed."

"How much progress has been made finding the bosses?" said Melody, an odd earnestness in her tone.

"Considerable," said Aaron, with a trace of triumph. Though this quickly faded. "Unfortunately, so far we have nothing sufficient to give to prosecutors. Even if we did, some of those involved are high government officials and others are high military officials. We need to get people at least as high in the administration behind us to even have the conspirators investigated properly, much less prosecuted."

"We need to get to President Sandusky," said Melody, firmly.

"That is the consensus. However, his mind may have been poisoned against the empowered by his Chief of Staff. Simon Dundee is the most highly placed and most politically and practically powerful of the conspirators and he has the President's trust and confidence. With Dundee being so outspoken against the empowered, it will be difficult for any of us to even gain access to the President. Convincing him of the conspiracy - especially that a man he trusts is involved - will be even more difficult."

"What if it wasn't an empowered who made the pitch?" said Melody, looking thoughtful.

"Again, you echo our thoughts. However, you are too..."

"Consider it work therapy," said Melody, looking him on the eye. "Let's get to it!"