CHAPTER TWENTY: SECTION 31. OR, IN WHICH KEVIN GOES HEAD TO HEAD WITH SLOANE OF SECTION 31 AND LEARNS FINALLY WHAT IS GOING ON AFTER NEARLY BEING TORTURED TO DEATH.
“Torture you? That's a good idea. I like that.” - Mr. Blonde from “Reservoir Dogs”
“Not the torturer will scare me/Nor the body's final fall/Nor the barrels of death's rifles/Nor the shadows on the wall/Nor the night when to the ground/The last dim star of pain, is hurled/But the blind indifference/Of a merciless, unfeeling world” - Roger Waters, “Each Small Candle”
“Oh, my aching head!” Kevin moaned as he slowly opened his eyes and found himself in what looked like a small room, barely lit up. He noticed Ryan, either sleeping or probably in whatever condition Kevin was in before he woke up. Kevin knew nothing after the point when he got shot with a taser back on Jasper Avenue, so waking up in what could be best described as a prison cell seemed probable. Kevin slowly stood up, feeling groggy and walked over to where Ryan was. Kevin gently slapped Ryan in his head and said to him “Hey, wakey-wakey, hands off snakey!”
Ryan slowly turned over, also groggy. “Ugh, we didn’t do it, did we?” he asked.
“Funny.” Kevin said. “Now, do you have any clue what happened here?”
“I don’t know, all I remember was seeing you get tasered and then someone shocked me as well and here we are now.” Ryan said as he sat up onto the bunk bed.
“What happened to Flair and Richards?” asked Kevin.
“I don’t know. Before I blacked out I remember there being a lot of gunfire.”
“I could only assume that they were successful in their battle and are on their way to rescue us. Right now, that seems to be our only hope.”
“And what if they were gunned down?”
“Then they died as heroes and when we get out of here, we’re pouring two bottles of scotch in their honor.”
The door opened as four men in the similar combat fatigues Kevin and Ryan saw earlier came in. “You, go with them now!” One of the men said as two other men went and took Ryan out of the room. “And you, you’re coming with us!” he said looking at Kevin.
“Not until I get some answers here! Basic Geneva Convention Rights…” Kevin was trying to say until one of the armed men smacked him in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.
“Christ, when is this going to end?” Kevin said as he once again woke up, finding himself in another room. This time, he found himself sitting and his arms were tied to the back of the chair. A bright light shone above him was another thing Kevin noticed as he tried to gain his eyesight back. Looking around some more, Kevin noticed a door opening and in walked a woman dressed in a black turtleneck and black dress slacks. She was also clad in a leather trench coat and had short brown hair.
“Welcome to Section 31, Mister Brody,” the woman said. “My name is Sloane. Just Sloane, which is all you need to know right now.”
“Don’t mind me if I don’t get up to shake your hand, Miss Sloane.” Kevin said rudely. “But between the concussions your goons have given me and being tied to a chair, I’m just not in a polite mood right now.”
Sloane just looked and smiled at Kevin as she put on a leather glove on her left hand. “Well, too bad, I was looking forward to seeing the supposed legendary Kevin Brody charm,” she said as she walked behind Kevin, looked him in the eyes and punched him in the stomach.
“You bitch!” screamed Kevin, who was in obvious pain.
“Well now, that’s no way to talk to someone who is willing to give you…. answers, is it Mister Brody?” Sloane said as she pulled up a chair, turning the backside of the chair to face Kevin. She slowly sat down
“Huh! Answers, huh? Well then, are you going to share with me or are you just going to continue using me as a punching bag?” Kevin said.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work that way, Mister Brody,” said Sloane. “I take it a man with your intellect is familiar with the term ‘quid pro quo’…”
“Of course I am.”
“See? You tell me some things I want to know, and I’ll tell you what you need to know. Failure to cooperate will see me getting a little rough with you,” Sloane said with a smile that was part seductive and part sadistic. “And trust me; the ache in your gut is mild compared to what I am capable of.”
“So, what do you want from me?” Kevin asked.
“You and your little group have seen a lot of things since the Iranians struck Edmonton, no?” asked Sloane.
“I guess one could say so,” said Kevin.
“Well, shall we start with the corn creatures you and Doctor Sarah Bellum dissected in Vegreville?”
“I thought they were insignificant?” asked Kevin
“In a way, they were. They were merely a beta version of a more advanced plant life form that has now overtaken Taber thanks to us” said Sloane.
“Wait a minute, speaking of which, how the hell did that Julia broad survive? I made her explode with a logical paradox I posed to…”
“Well, to be honest, the Julia Katz you encountered was also a prototype...”
“… Makes sense” interrupted Kevin, who received a slap across the mouth from Sloane.
“Don’t ever interrupt me again!” she snapped at Kevin. “But yes, the Julia Katz you came across here in Edmonton is the real deal in the flesh. What you destroyed was another Section 31 project, like the vines infused with the nanoprobes.”
“So, if you know of all our misadventures, why do you insist on asking me questions?” Kevin asked. Sloane then got up, moved her chair out of the way and smacked Kevin with a roundhouse kick, knocking him to the ground.
“I do not tolerate back talk, Mister Brody.” Sloane said, standing over Kevin, who groaned in pain and doing his best not to cry.
“Then what do you want from me?” he screamed at her, showing the amount of pain through the tone of his voice.
“What I want, Mister Brody is to know how much do you REALLY know what has gone on here?” she said as she pulled up Kevin from the ground and returned him to a sitting position.
“I don’t know. If I knew, I would have figured it out by now!” he protested.
“Pity,” Sloane said with a tinge of disappointment in her voice. “For a man who once wanted us to put the brains of wolverines into Venus Flytraps and resurrect the late Chris Benoit, I was certain you would have come up with some crazy theory of what is going on here.”
“Well that depends,” Kevin said with a smirk on his face. “Are you really the Dharma Initiative?”
Sloane, not being impressed with Kevin’s sassy mouth, once again slapped him across the face. “Such a smart man, yet you are such an idiot!” she proclaimed.
“Look lady, we could play this game all day here, or you could enlighten me into what you are really fishing for.” Kevin said with a tinge of resistance in his voice.
Sloane just stood and sighed. “Very well, since you really didn’t contribute to anything we already knew, I will give you a little bit of the information you seek…”
“Okay, what is this ‘Section 31’?” asked Kevin.
“We’re a loose affiliation of scientists, politicians, and others with high standings in the global decision making process here in this great nation of ours. In fact, we defend Canada’s interests home and abroad. The United States has the NSA, Britain has MI-6, the former Soviet Union had the KGB, and Canada has us” she said.
Kevin just laughed at Sloane’s little explanation. “What exactly does Canada’s interest have to do with creating sausage craving zombies?”
“Such a foolish way of looking at things,” Sloane said after slapping Kevin again across the face. “Now there was an anomaly that needed to be rectified immediately, which we did.”
Kevin, wincing from the last slap bluntly asked “So why allow these ‘anomalies’ to run amuck if you’re just going to ‘rectify’ them?”
“Because Mister Brody in the process of creating a new society, mistakes will be made, and thus they need to be fixed before they create too much chaos. And to be perfectly honest, that is what Section 31 is about – correcting mistakes.”
“Well sweetheart, you have one hell of a mistake with most of downtown Edmonton turned into rubble!”
“You would think so, but in a way, we have already begun repairs. Tell me Mister Brody, what do you know about temporal rifts?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “I thought I was done with that bullshit. Why are you bringing it back, huh?”
Sloane looked confused and told Kevin “What would you say if I told you that Section 31 has the technology to repair within a specific timeline events in the recent past?”
“I would say you are all fucking nuts! Such technology should not and does not exist! Plus I have it on good authority that this should not be happening at all!” Kevin shouted back. Sloane just looked at him and gave a sly smile before punching Kevin in the stomach again. “Whomever gave you that information was either erroneous in doing so or gave you a little bit of misinformation” she angrily, yet softly, said to Kevin.
“So, which unfortunate soul did you procure this technology from?” Kevin asked after getting his wind back from the last punch.
“It was a joint project, really. A little bit of competition between the Americans and the Russians for a piece of an unearthly form of technology. Why do think the Russians were so eager to try stake a claim in the North Pole?”
“Cleary, if you have this power to correct things, why not go further back and say, oh I don’t know, stop that coked-out whore from getting into that accident?” asked Kevin.
“Were you not paying attention, Mister Brody? It only can go within a limited window into the past, plus it needs a large amount of energy to generate. Energy…”
“… From a giant nuclear explosion, I gather?” Kevin interrupted Sloane, who surprisingly did not strike him for such insolent behavior.
“Exactly,” she said. “That is why if you tried to gather any form of radioactive readings, you would find almost nil to very miniscule amounts of radioactivity in the area. Fascinating, is it not, Mister Brody?”
“Except, your little temporal rift fixer does cause a little side effect you are not able to control, right?”
Sloane kicked Kevin’s chair back. “What are you talking about?” she sneered at Kevin.
“Brief flashes into people’s lives and allowing people to relive moments within their lifetime – please stop me if I am hitting the nail on the head here sunshine.” Kevin said.
“Yes, you finally got something right here, Mister Brody. That and it causes massive damage to the cerebral cortex, essentially turning people into zombies.” Sloane sighed.
“So, why hasn’t your little band of covert mercenaries been turned into mindless drones? And that doesn’t explain all the other weird shit that has…” Kevin was interrupted by another blow to his body from Sloane. She then went on to say: “Everything else that has gone on is to serve as a distraction for the regular armed forces, not for those who are in the know. What better way than to give the military a false sense of importance than to allow them to exterminate false threats like the ones you have encountered while we work on the real project, which is right here – restoring the damage done to Edmonton and rebuilding a new city completely run by Section 31.”
“And with most of the population dead from either the initial bombs dropping, the remainders will be rendered brainless and easier to pick off?” asked Kevin again.
“Exactly, Mister Brody, and only do those we deem worthy will live to see things.” Sloane said.
“And let me guess, I’m one of the lucky ones to live, right?” said Kevin sarcastically.
“That is up to you now, Mister Brody.” Sloane said with a bit of smirk on her for most parts cold face. “Quite frankly, I would not like to see the same fate fall upon you that came down on the rest of your party.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Kevin.
“Both Misters Flair and Richards were terminated when they foolishly tried to stop us from your capture. I also assume that the second group has also been dealt with when we extracted Donald Bellum from them.”
“Why tell me this now?”
“Because Mister Brody, that is the fate for those who refuse to cooperate with us completely, comply and you live; resist, well, now you know.” Sloan was about to go on until she noticed a vibrating motion in her left breast pocket of her coat. She removed a cell phone and began to talk.
“Yes, what is it? I’m in the middle of something here,” she went on, with no way of Kevin hearing who was on the other line. Though he could probably gather it was a subordinate of Miss Sloane from her end of the conversation. “Excellent, I assume the Bellums have been happily reunited? Good. What do you mean there was no confirmed kills on the remaining members of that group? Who ordered the withdrawal? Higgins?” Sloane said as she slammed her phone shut and put her hands on her hips.
Dean, you magnificent bastard! Kevin thought to himself, knowing that perhaps he is still alive.
“Seems like there may be a little fly in your ointment, huh?” Kevin said while giving a bit of a chuckle. That seemed to impress Sloane too much as she made her way to the door and opened it. Kevin noticed her motion for someone to come in, and sure enough two men in black combat gear came in and untied Kevin from the chair and picked him up to stand.
“Take him to Room 4-G, remove his clothing, and wait for my arrival!” Sloane ordered the two men.
“Oh geez, we’re not going to fuck, are we?” asked Kevin dryly.
“Please don’t flatter yourself,” Sloane said as she came close to Kevin’s body only to knee him in the groin, “You’re not my type. Although we are going to do something together that you may find a little… shocking.” With that, Sloane gave a quick and quiet laugh as the guards led Kevin out of the room and onto a potential new horror.
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