1

He stares ahead. He manages this for about a minute before blinking.

“How do you explain this?” The Inquisition. He has no answers for the officious idiot who stands before him. Thomas Firth, son of Colonel Nathan Firth will not flinch and not bend to this mans demands.

“Nothing?” the man relaxes into a chair that squeaks as the leather strains and twists. “Mister Firth, I know you are trying to protect your friends, but your punishment will be far more severe if you don’t tell me who they are.”

Thomas says nothing. He knows who hacked the school network and he knows how. That’s how he got caught, but it doesn’t matter, no son of a Colonel will snitch.

The ceiling fan has a voice of its own, fluttering, cutting through the air with a waft of enthusiasm. He imagines the noise ‘whop’ and how it sounds like the cane coming in hard against the skin of his classmate. He doesn’t recall the scream or the sucking of gums, just that WHOP.

He sniggers at the noise even as a bead of sweat trickles off his temple and down his cheek. The man frowns.

“Something funny mister Firth?”

“No headmaster.” The only words spoken while he has been sat in the office. He turns his eyes away to avoid falling into laughter. He can hardly see as light from the windows peeks through the blinds into his eyes, so he averts his gaze to the floor. The headmaster sighs and thumbs though a notepad of carbon-copy paper – the punishment slip – peels a form away and scribbles on it in disgust.

“If you will not cooperate, then I’m afraid I have no choice but to punish you.” He puts the slip in an envelope and slides it across the desk towards Thomas. “Last chance; will you tell me who is responsible for accessing the staff private network folders?” he asks sympathetically. Thomas knows this must just be another ploy, a last ditch move to unearth his secrets. He will not flinch.

“Very well. Take this letter to Mr. Jackson, he will administer your punishment.” He pauses and stands; Thomas stands to attention and snatches away the letter from the desk. The rustle of paper sends a shiver through him for a moment. He has never faced the cane before and for the first time feels the weight of his actions.

“Dismissed.”

2

The pains in his wrists were subsiding. Beacon-like they lit, pulsating all the way up his skinny arms making his muscles flex and tighten, aggravating it further. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.

It felt better after a few minutes and the squeak of a rusty hinge and a metallic slam meant that the men had given up for the day. It was quiet, no questions, and no strained exhalations when the stick was drawn across his naked chest, just a miniscule plop of water from somewhere dropping into a puddle in the dark. This would be his respite, it had been like this for three days, he thought. He couldn’t tell the passage of time in a room with no windows. A respite for his body perhaps, but not from his torture, that would start again soon.

But he would not flinch.

Thomas had been dragged in here on the first night, separated from Anna when they pulled the twins from the car. Farg Roe’s henchman threatened them with a gun. “Good children” he said in a voice so harsh it could split wood. Thomas struggled, kicked until his muscles wouldn’t let him, Anna screamed and cried as the men pulled them apart.

But when the questions started, Thomas wouldn’t flinch.

“Where is your father?” the henchmen repeated, his stick setting alight Thomas’s back with a sound as raspy as his voice.

“I don’t know.” Thomas replied, calmly, certainly. He didn’t have a clue. He was sent no more than a missive with travel details and the pick-up points, no addresses, no phone contacts and only a vague idea of the transport they’d take. They didn’t like that explanation it was too illogical. Why would a respected military figure let his children fend for themselves? That was a question that had crossed Thomas’s mind more than once. They resorted to violence after only a short interrogation.

“Where is your father?” Another strike.

“I. Don’t. Know.” Resolute, indefatigable. Thomas braced himself for the inevitable strike at the end of that first night but it didn’t come.

“Fine. Then I’ll have to ask your sister.” Those words hurt far more than any slap of the stick, even as it’s tentacles cruelly peeled away skin and cleansed his back with blood (“character building Mr. Firth” says Mr. Jackson.)

What do you…

“What do you mean?” The only question posed to his captors beyond the obvious shouting and cussing and cursing from the car to the chair.

The door slammed shut.

He fell asleep on that night, his body exhausted from the traveling, the pain and the defiance. Dreamless sleep made even less comfortable as icicle water crackled across him, penetrating his cuts and sending his muscles into spasm. The man didn’t stay; the door still slammed shut and left him in the dark. But the torture had begun again.

This night was the same.

The first scream was always the worst, shrill, defiant, rabid as her breathing paced up. Scream after scream and a cackle of enjoyment from the man that was beating her with slimy hands. Thomas yelled through his gag with a muffled drone that echoed around the empty damp room, his eyes would be seen bulging red and popping from his sockets were there light.

He grasped the arms of the chair and lifted himself. The rope cut into him, the legs creaked and slid disjointedly on the metal floor. He titled backwards as a scream even louder than before suddenly ceased with an almighty slap that echoed through the room as something – someone – hit the outer side of a wall to the left.

Silence.

Thomas lifted again but the chair slipped and sent him hurtling backwards, he struggled as he fell but soon stopped when the back of his head slapped the floor.

He let out a muffled growl through the gag, wincing at the pain and the stupidity of struggling with the chair. He lay shivering on the cold floor, still wet with water, his naked form restrained into a position more uncomfortable for the cuts on his back. His humiliation was complete by his own hand.

At least he had that option. A new series of screaming started a moment later, it was tired, short sharp pains, rhythmic. It was over in a few minutes, screaming replaced by crying that flittered off into the distance as she was moved from the adjacent room, that sweating hulk of a man smiling as he cleans himself up.

Thomas cried at the thought.

Anna.

3

It was still cold. A draft sliced at Thomas’s back as he lay on the floor, still helpless and bound to a rickety steel chair that whined as its rusted rivets rolled around in their sockets. The men hadn’t returned yet. It could have been hours, or maybe mere minutes. Thomas couldn’t tell except that he knew his sleep was deep. Haunted.

He couldn’t get Anna’s face from his mind, that smile that he had only begun to know again after years of occasional visits. And the thought of how that smile might have been twisted at the hands of that henchman made him shudder and wince with tears.

A breeze blew and bit at his back again. The door screamed as it opened and a figure stumbled through from the light, breathing heavily. It tripped over a pile of crates in the dark with a crunch as corrugated card boxes cracked open. Thomas tried to peer over but couldn’t see for his own legs that drooped lazily – numb from the lack of blood flow – over the rim of the upended chair. He’d consider turning the chair over and falling to the side, but something was different here. It was as if this man didn’t know he was there, or didn’t want to let him know he had entered the room.

The figure crouched near the door and Thomas heard a small click and the only indication he had about the man’s presence now.

Decide.

A voice in his head that echoed the words of Billy White, his friend from Jordan who told him to decide if he’d be apart of his scheme.

There was a barely audible commotion outside. Had Thomas not got his head rested on a metal floor that gave the slightest of sounds away he may have never heard it. That cold, torturous floor might be his savior, or his killer.

Decide.

Again he heard sounds, a rat-a-tat-tat and a string of curses spewing forth angrily. A-rat-a-tat-tat. It got closer, louder and more intense. The figure in the room gulped and a wet slip of tongue pressed on his lips as he hunkered down behind the crates.

Footsteps padded along the corridor outside (Thomas assumed given the building and the echoes). He heard the tell tale squawk’s of other doors being pulled open and more rat-a-tat-tat’s and shriek’s of expletives.

He tried to wiggle his toes, but they were like balls of wool that he’d need to unravel. He tried not to moan as the pain in his back and the shivers and goose bumps from the draft made him even more uncomfortable. He could make out voices just beyond the door. They sounded like they were speaking in code, but they were muffled and distorted. More footsteps, running this time like all haste had been called.

He twitched with a draft, the chair squeaked.

Decide.

4

“Decide.”

They sit in a circle under the big tree, none of them know what kind it is, or care that much. It provides wonderful shade on a hot summers day.

Billy asks again: “decide, Thomas.” Thomas looks around for support and they all smile eagerly, they know he’s the best and that they could cause all sorts of mischief.

“Ok.” Thomas finally breaks the tension and the chorus starts; ‘good,’ ‘knew you would,’ ‘spot on mate.’ Thomas smiles and pulls out his phone and sends them all the script he has been working on, the one that stumbles the wireless network. He explains how it works to a rapt audience.

“The ‘Warden’ software is pretty sophisticated at tracking attacks, but if more than one attack occurs it’ll take longer for it to use the GPS to triangulate the position of broadcast.”

They know this. Thomas explained it a little before but it only just dawns on them that their prize is in reach – the access privileges and door codes for the staff mess. The grin, wide eyed and ready to go. They pour over a crude map written on a napkin to see where they need to position themselves, mainly on the edge of the network’s range and away from camera’s so they can scarper quickly should trouble arise.

A cloud parts for the sun and the day gets even brighter and despite the shade from the giant tree, warmer. It is a fine day for mischief and they can only dream of all the goodies they could be consuming tonight. Six ten-year-olds can only dream of such goodies.

They all synchronise their phones and set the time - late afternoon after classes but before dinner when most people are away from the main school buildings.

“See you later.” Billy muses and runs off to class, the others follow soon after. Thomas contemplates this decision for a second but shrugs it off and smiles.

Goodies.

The bell rings and classes vacate. They all know the plan and get to their positions on time. They chatter with each other on their phones and get the timing perfect.

“Ready?” Thomas asks generally, they all call in. He presses buttons and the device beeps in response as the package is delivered and the attack begins.

“Good so far. We seem to have it confused, I have about 2 megs of data so far, could probably get the access key in a few minutes. How are you doing?”

“I think I have been rumbled Tommy.” Steven Jones states calmly, he is the wild one who doesn’t usually care for his own well-being.

“Ok, pull out then. I have 16 meg now.”

“Shit, a teacher. I have to…” Billy is cut off, not caught, but running. The others panic, there’s pandemonium. The tracker has locked on, the eye in the sky has been sent.

“Crap.” Thomas understates the situation as a drone hurtles around a corner to meet him dead on. It hovers over him with a subtle whir and in a mechanical voice demands that he kneel down and wait for a teacher. He does as he’s told, canceling the app and deleting the evidence with deft hands, the drone doesn’t notice or care.

A teacher rounds the corner a moment later. He has crumbs down his shirt, disturbed during his tea break.

“Crap.”

5

Decide.

Thomas strained and shifted his back in an awkward wiggle, turnrf his hips to the right and jolted them back to the left, swishing the chair like a wave of water in a wobbling glass. The chair creaked loudly, but not as loudly as it creaked when it fell to the side onto the metal floor.

Thomas mumbled – a scream through rag – as the left leg trapped his left leg under his weight. The man in the room rose sharply in astonishment but it was too late for him to curse when the door banged open and the telltale rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire cut him down. He hit the floor with a wet plop followed by the shuffle of displaced boxes. The footsteps were really loud.

Two men stalked around the room, moving aside other crates and prodding cabinets with the barrel of their guns. Thomas couldn’t see. He fell with his back to the door and he looked around in panic until lights told him to pinch his eye-lids shut tightly.

“This is bravo one. We have found the boy, get a medical team to section five.” A radio buzz choked out. The warm voice of a soldier or policeman Thomas thought as the gag was gently removed. He forced himself to open his eyes, the light was painful and only a squat blurred figure was before him.

“It’s ok sonny, we are here to help.” The man brushed his hand across Thomas’s face and wiped away a tear. “Corporal, guard the exit.”

The soldier trotted away and the door squeaked again, Thomas shook at the noise.

“Ok son, I don’t want to move you too much until the medic gets here, but I’m going to untie you,” reassurance, “OK?”

Thomas made a sound barely audible with his lips, rolling his eyeballs back trying to get a look at the man. Still too much light, too much water in his eyes to make him out.

“I’m going to rest my thigh against your shoulder and lower you down, OK?’ He kept talking through the operation until Thomas was lying free under his own weight, on his belly with his face resting on his pale arms. Thomas wouldn’t stay still, the feeling started to rise in his legs and they felt less knotted so he lifted himself upon to his knees. He felt feint and wobbly but the man seemed to just grab out in time and steady him. A flask was at his mouth:

“Drink this.” It smelt strong, like brandy, he remembered getting some last Christmas as a treat for all those at Jordan who didn’t go home during the holidays. He slurped some onto his tongue and it burnt the back of his throat but it felt good as it warmed him. “Just don’t tell the Medic. Huh.” The ‘Huh’ sounded older than the warm voice, a little more weathered than Thomas first thought.

The man squatted in front of him, his black fatigues glistening in the halogen lamps radiance. He was slim, though clearly defined and his face was stern, but had a warm glow – the eyes – they spoke of wisdom and kindness even though the rest of him suggested harshness. His hair was cropped and jet-black… but those eyes, emerald.

“Anna.” Thomas managed. The man closed his eyes and sighed reluctantly.

“I’m sorry, we haven’t found your sister. We think she was taken away last night.” The man placed his hands on Thomas’s shoulders. Thomas collapsed into the man forcing his face to his chest and sobbed.

The door jolted open and footsteps rustled up and down and a blanket was thrown around him.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated softly. Thomas clung tighter and didn’t let go.

“Taren.” An officious voice remarked sternly. The man looked up, but didn’t rise. The other men had stood to attention; Taren wasn’t one of the usual crop.

“Taren. How is my Son?”