Drinking brandies, settled in the comfort of his luxurious office, Maxx elaborated on his appearance here. Four years before, just like Dick, he’d been identified by the Resistance and brought forward in time to overthrow the Party. Suddenly it all became clear to Dick.
‘You were their great hope. The One!’, he exclaimed. ‘But you went missing!’
Maxx leaned forward, gently swilling the warm amber contents of his glass. ‘The Resistance at that time gave me a new identity and trained me well. Then they sent me out into the field to gain entry into the Party and gather intelligence. All this must sound very familiar to you, Dick’.
Dick nodded. Refilling both their glasses, Maxx explained precisely what had happened.
‘Like you must have been, I too was a reluctant hero. I never wanted to carry out any dumb mission but I had no choice. I, too, infiltrated the Party and learned a lot about them. I was committed to my mission but then I had my…
‘Massive genital explosion…’ Dick interjected.
‘Accident’, corrected Maxx with a look of annoyance. ‘After my accident I decided I wanted to work with the Party rather than against them. The Party leader at the time had what I wanted more than anything’
‘A fully operational penis?’
‘Total power’, said the Leader. ‘Total control’.
Maxx explained how he managed to engineer an audience with mid-ranking Party officials. How he admitted who he was, what he was here for and why he wanted to defect. He explained that although he didn’t know the location of the resistance headquarters he had enough information to reveal the identity of its leader and key personnel by their appearances. It took a long time, Maxx explained, before these individuals were eventually tracked down and arrested. Interrogation resulted in a few more members being captured. The result was a severely decimated resistance movement and his acceptance into the higher echelons of the Party. Once there, his ascension was rapid.
‘And what happened to the resistance members who were captured?’ asked Dick.
‘They were removed from society’.
‘Killed?’
‘Liquidated’.
‘What’s the difference?’ asked Dick.
‘None really. But liquidated sounds so much more ruthless’.
‘Then how did you become Leader? What happened to the previous one?’, Dick asked, surprised at Maxx’s seemingly meteoric rise to power.
‘It was tragic. He was working late one night in his office when he fell over and died’.
‘Heart attack? Embolism?’ Dick enquired.
‘No. Shot in the head’. Maxx shrugged. ‘Shit happens’.
‘And you took over?’. Dick asked, a chill rapidly running up his spine.
‘Eventually, yes. There was a bit of an internal power struggle but I persuaded all my rivals that I was the best man for the job. You don’t need to know the boring details of the politics or the body count…’.
There was a buzzing sound and Maxx picked up the telephone from his desk. He looked at his pocket watch, uttered a few noises of agreement and replaced the receiver.
‘I just don’t know where the time goes’, he said. ‘That was Carter reminding me that we need to ask you a few questions about your role in the Resistance. How you kept in contact with them, what your own mission is — everything in fact that they didn’t tell Parnell. Come on, what do you say?’.
Dick couldn’t think of an appropriate response to this, apart from that of assuming a very worried expression, so that’s precisely what he did.
Maxx continued with a creepy smile, ‘I know you’ll want to help us, Dick’.
‘What makes you so sure?’ Dick asked.
‘Torture’, Maxx suggested.
Dick looked confused. He pondered for a short while and then asked, ‘Do we write our names on their backs and let them race. If mine wins I give you information? If yours wins, you let me go?’
It was Maxx’s turn to look confused.
‘Or do we see which one eats the most lettuce?’, added Dick.
Maxx frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand you’.
‘Tortoise. You said we could resolve this issue by tortoise’.
Maxx sighed. ‘I said ‘torture’’
‘Oh’, said Dick. ‘I’m sure you said tortoise’.
‘No. It was definitely ‘torture’’.
‘Sure?’
‘Absolutely positive’.
‘Well’, Dick continued. ‘That puts a whole new complexion on the matter’.
Dick didn’t like the idea of torture. It was worse than the idea of tortoise, even though he actually suffered from a childhood allergy to these creatures, and turtles and terrapins too. In fact, the whole damn family of shelled amphibians.
Waving his gun again at Dick, Maxx stood up. ‘Come on, let’s get the interrogation over with. I’m a very busy man so I can’t stay, but I’ll see you afterwards’.
Carter opened the office door and stood waiting. Dick was nervous. He’d never been tortured before and in fact, had a very low pain threshold. Even getting cramp in the arch of his foot when he woke up would usually make him yelp like a whipped dog. Dick knew he wouldn’t last long under torture so he decided to bluff his way out.
‘Fine’, said Dick. ‘Bring it on. I’m not going to tell you anything! Ever! I can stand being severely beaten’.
Maxx shook his head. ‘Dick, that’s far too crude and besides, in my experience it takes too long. I like to think I’m a man of taste and sophistication. That’s why I favour torture with a certain form of irony’.
Dick’s reaction indicated that he wasn’t at all sure about ironic torture.
‘It seems only just that a penis that has given so much pleasure should now be at the receiving end of a similar degree of pain’, Maxx explained. ‘Carter will make the necessary arrangements’.
Dick didn’t like this. You made the ‘necessary arrangements’ about booking a hotel, a cab or airline tickets. When used in the context of torture it seemed too casual, as if this was an everyday occurrence. Perhaps, Dick thought as he was being led away by Carter, that here in the Party, it was. Dick was marched down the corridor and into an elevator.
‘Press the up button. Press the up button’, willed Dick, concentrating as hard as he could. It was inevitable though that Carter pressed the button marked ‘basement’. Dick didn’t like that. There were never any good things in basements. Basements contained boring things like plant rooms or boilers. But they also contained horrible things like cells and dungeons and it was in one of these that Dick soon found himself.
As dungeons go it was a very clean one; not a piece of hewn rock, dried blood or rusty chain in sight. This one had green-tiled walls and CCTV cameras and what looked like a steel table in the middle of a smooth white floor. It looked, Dick thought, more like an operating theatre than a dungeon.
‘Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?’, asked Dick, half playing for time and half just wanting reassurance that he wasn’t about to have anything pointy and/or hot in close proximity to his genitals.
Unfortunately Carter couldn’t give him the reassurance he sought. ‘It was now or never’, Dick thought to himself. Without warning he swung round and aimed the strongest punch he could at the side of Carter’s head, just above the ear. Almost simultaneously Dick realised that it was the ‘never’ part of his assumption rather than the ‘now’ part that would be true. With an agility that belied his age Carter blocked the blow with his elbow, the same elbow in fact that delivered a sharp jab to Dick’s chin. Whether it was this blow or the knock to the head Dick received when he hit the hard floor is a mute point. What’s important is that Dick was out cold for a short time and when he woke up, found himself firmly strapped to the metal table completely naked apart from something fixed around his waist, covering his groin. Although securely fastened, Dick was able to lift his head a few degrees, which is how he noticed the thing around his waist was actually some sort of box. It was quite a nice one, about six inches square and made of dark tan leather. The sort of box that would be just perfect for keeping letters, keepsakes, photographs or…
‘Wasps’, said Carter.
‘Pardon?’ asked Dick.
‘Wasps. Are you allergic to their stings?’
Dick was confused by this seemingly random question. ‘Er, I don’t think so’.
‘So you won’t go into anaphylactic shock then?’
‘No. Well not as far as I know’.
‘Good, good’, commented Carter with an air of concern. Then, with an air of menace added, ‘Because it’s important that you don’t expire before the torture is fully through!’.
There it was. That damn word again. Like a waiter who can’t stop sneezing, a puncture on a rainy night or the Ghost Rider movie, torture is something you never want to experience. Straining to keep his head raised Dick saw Carter go to a tall cupboard and remove a small jar and a length of clear plastic tubing. Dick said nothing. He wanted to maintain his nonchalant manner and a ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude although this became increasingly difficult as Carter went about his business. The manservant connected one end of the hose to some sort of valve and the other end to the lid of the jar, before filling the jar with something in the corner of the room. It was the sound of buzzing that broke Dick’s resilience and his silence.
Carter saw his puzzled expression. ‘Wasps’, he explained.
‘That’s the third time you’ve said that’, said Dick.
‘Aren’t you remotely interested in what I’m going to do with them?’, asked Carter, an evil smile crossing his lips.
Dick hadn’t seen Carter this excited before. Out of the leader’s shadow he seemed to be relishing his temporary position of power. If Dick could have moved his shoulders he would have shrugged them, but the straps across his chest were too tight to allow that sort of movement.
‘All right, I’ll tell you’, said Carter. ‘You’ve probably heard of the old Native American punishment where they staked their enemies out in the scorching midday sun and rubbed a sweet tasting and smelling substance on to their chests…’
Dick had heard of this and he didn’t like where this history lesson was going.
Carter continued. ‘This attracted the attention of fire ants in their thousands who would swarm over their victim and literally sting and devour them to death’.
Dick farted. A dull metallic ring bounced off the table.
‘The lucky victims died fairly quickly due to shock. The unlucky ones died slowly in unimaginable agony as first their skin and then their organs were literally eaten away in front of them’.
Another metallic reverberation.
‘Well that’s what used to happen. We’ve updated the technique somewhat’.
‘You’re using wasps instead of ants?’, Dick asked, knowing the answer.
Carter shook the jar. A muffled, angry buzzing sound confirmed this. He brought over a small container and with a brush, began to smear a sweet-smelling paste over Dick’s chest.
‘Aren’t you worried that the wasps will fly away?’, enquired Dick, smelling the paste and finding it quite appealing.
‘Not really’, added Carter. ‘Because I’m going to introduce them to the box fixed over your groin’. He attached the free end of the hose to an inlet on the underside of the box that Dick couldn’t see. He banged the jar a few times. ‘By now the wasps are very annoyed. When I turn the valve they’ll enter the box and start swarming around’.
‘But the paste is on my chest’, observed Dick with more than a hint of panic in his voice.
‘Precisely’, added Carter, banging the jar some more. ‘The wasps can smell it but they can’t get to it. Think how much more frustrated this will make them’. He smiled his evil smile again. ‘Have you ever received multiple stings to your penis?’ Carter enquired.
Dick thought for a moment. He was about to say ‘yes’ but then had to admit that he hadn’t.
‘Well, the Wasp Box usually gets our suspect talking. In between his bellowing screams, of course’.
Carter slowly turned the valve. Dick raised his head to see a few wasps already in the clear tubing beginning their short journey into the box. The valve was opened a little bit more. Dick wasn’t sure why it taking so long to wake up from this terrible dream. Then he realised why; it wasn’t a dream. Dick had never pleaded for anything in his life. Not for justice, for forgiveness or like now, for mercy — but then again, he’d never ever been this helpless with wasps about to crawl all over his manhood. His bowels went momentarily before his resolve.
‘Stop it! Please! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!’, he shouted.
‘I can’t hear you’, said Carter. The wasps were now halfway down the tube.
‘Please! I’ll tell you everything!’. Dick was now screaming.
‘What?’, Carter asked. The wasps were now mere inches from entering the box. The buzzing became louder and louder, in fact far louder than it should have been.
Dick heard Carter swear under his breath then close the valve. The loud buzzing wasn’t from the wasps but from a wall-mounted speaker near the door. Carter walked over to it and pushed a button. Maxx entered. He winced, wafting his hand in front of his face theatrically as if he’d been offended by a particularly nasty smell like, for example, the aftermath of someone voiding their bowels.
‘I’m so glad you agreed to co-operate Dick’, he said smugly. ‘After you’ve cleaned yourself up tell me all you know and I’ll let you live’.