Page 261 of Operation: Defiance

Electrodes.

Mouth guard.

Marisol screams. Her body jerks and flails against the straps. Tears stream down her temples.

“Response minimal. Increase amplitude.”

The second burst of electricity ravages Mari’s body. She’s not screaming anymore.

“Cardiac instability noted,” one of the contractors says from off camera. “Monitor for five minutes.”

Marisol cries softly. Her eyes are open, but I don’t think she’s seeing anything.

In the video, the rapid beeping from the heart rate monitor starts to skip. Then slow.

I…can’t. I can’t.

The room disintegrates in pieces. The laptop fades into nothing more than the glow of the screen. I can’t feel the chair under me. Or my hands on the table. My body…isn’t here. Isn’t…anywhere.

Pressure builds behind my eyes. I’m breathing wrong. Too fast and too shallow and too loud. I can’t slow it down. Can’t find where the inhale ends and the exhale begins.

The coin falls from my hand. I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything.

Something pulls at me. It’s tiny, but real. And cold.

I’m on the floor, my back against the cabinet, knees drawn up, with the world returning an inch at a time. First, sounds. The dull buzzing from the fridge. The slow soothing music from the living room. The long, harsh tone piercing my ears from the laptop speakers.

I try to reach for the trackpad, but my arms won’t listen to me. I need it to stop. I have to make it stop.

It does. Two seconds later.

“Subject expired at 18:02. Send the body for incineration.”

The cold, clinical tone from the asshole on the laptop screen does what nothing else could.

It brings me back. And splits me open.

The sobs come before I can stop them. Quiet and desolate, grief that’s been waiting three years to find me.

Mari. Sarcastic, funny, brave Mari. Strapped down, her last moments filled with such fear and pain, I can still see the tears in her sightless eyes.

I let myself have sixty seconds. I count them. Every shaking breath, every tear that drops onto the kitchen tile, every second of grief I never knew I owed her until now.

Then I pick up the challenge coin, press it to my sternum, and shed one final tear for Asher. For what he’s going through.

I stagger to my feet and reach for the coffee grinder. Making myself a pour over this time, I get back to work.

With my log file on one side of the screen and the Procedure Index on the other, I use Asher’s tablet to open the affidavit file I started the other day.

The first lines of codes cover only fourteen minutes. Less than a quarter of an hour to strip me of everything I thought was mine.

A sip of coffee steadies me enough to revise the opening of my affidavit.

Day One - Intake and Initial Containment

The codes timestamped from 1704 to 1718 covered my intake. The process took approximately fourteen minutes.

I arrived already restrained. I was hooded, then given a pat down over my clothes. After that, my jacket, shirt, pants, bra, and underwear were cut off me. My socks and shoes were taken. A more thorough—yet still clinical—pat down followed. My personal effects were removed: one ring from my left index finger. A small gold hoop earring from each ear.