(no subject)

[walk_ins]

[Ten days ago.]

He's not entirely certain how much time has passed. The room itself has one chair, which is fastened to the floor and can't be moved. He's tried.

There's a cot, which folds into the wall, and a recess for other -- necessities -- that does the same.

Walls and floor and ceiling are all the same color -- the palest of blues -- and unbroken by even the smallest line, except when the door opens. There are no windows. Bright white light emanates from somewhere, evenly, but he can't find the source. It never fades, no matter the hour or the day.

It's been days, he thinks, but he can't tell how many any longer. Sometimes he sleeps until he wakes, and sometimes he's startled abruptly from sleep. There's food, at intervals, but he's not certain of the regularity. It's all the same as well, molded protein with no flavor to distinguish it.

Even the questions are always the same. He's lost track of how many times he's answered them. He's lost track of everything.

In effect, Gabriel Tam is slowly losing his grasp on reality.

Comments

[walk_ins]

Cathcart and Charrington watch him, and smile.

"He'll break soon."

"Oh yes."

"His wife has been silenced?"

"With the appropriate promises."

"We ought to go in soon."

"Let's finish our coffee, first."

They do.

Refills.

They enter Tam's cell. The coffee comes with them.

It smells wonderful.

[gabriel_tam]

"Gentlemen."

Gabriel visibly forces himself to a ragged sort of calm, and then smiles a businesslike smile as he stand.

The scent of the coffee hits him with the force of a blow -- how long has it been since he's had something as simple as coffee? Does their having it mean it's morning, or that it's late and they need to stay awake? He has no idea.

[walk_ins]

The door shuts behind them.

They stand, their heads both tilted to the right, steam rising from their cups.

"Long days and pleasant nights," says Cathcart.

[gabriel_tam]

"You certainly have the long days part of that quaint little greeting accurate," he says facetiously.

"The nights might be more pleasant if I were at home; your hospitality leaves rather a lot to be desired, I'm afraid."

[walk_ins]

"My colleague was being poetical." Charrington is cheerful. "That's a line from one of the poems of Jia Lir that you read. I'm surprised you don't know how to finish the greeting, you being such a well-mannered gentleman."

"If you weren't doing things you shouldn't have been doing," says Cathcart, "you wouldn't be here. So whose fault is it really, Mr. Tam?"

[gabriel_tam]

His hands tighten on the back of the chair.

"Surely you don't expect me to remember every single line in the works of an odd imagist poet? I read a lot of things."

Gabriel continues flatly, "And I believe I've already explained -- at length, and on several occasions now -- why I did what I did. Perhaps it was a mistake not to notify the proper authorites immediately, but there's been no harm from it, I'd think."

It's a concession.

[walk_ins]

"You'd think wrong." Cathcart is sorrowful.

Charrington sips his coffee, looking as though he enjoys it very much. "It's 'And may you have twice the number'. For your edification. So nice to have the opportunity to learn things, Mr. Tam, don't you think?"

[gabriel_tam]

For a moment, Gabriel Tam's corporate expression slips, and fear is clearly visible, as well as desperate hope.

"Wrong? Have you -- has something happened to Simon and River?"

[walk_ins]

Charrington, too, looks sorrowful.

He and Cathcart exchange glances.

Cathcart moves to draw something out of his sleeve.

[gabriel_tam]

He straightens, looking back and forth between them now.

It's weakness to ask again, he knows it, but it's hard to remember in the face of his worry now.

His children are criminals. So, too, is he. Gabriel is silent, watching his interrogators.

[walk_ins]

"Hold out your arm, Mr. Tam. Wrist up."

Charrington is being kind.

[gabriel_tam]

He doesn't move.

"I think not, gentlemen. I've been more than cooperative to this point, but every man has limits. My business needs me, I've answered your questions innumerable times-- I'm a citizen of the Alliance, and I deserve more respect than this."

Coldly, with something of the arrogance that he'd first shown when he walked through the doors, days ago.

[walk_ins]

Charrington's glance is now withering.

"Don't try to tell us what you deserve, Mr. Tam. Or have you forgotten that we could still have your name dragged through every news outlet that exists? Can you picture the headlines, Mr. Tam? And if your wife knows about this...why not her, too?"

[gabriel_tam]

"They promised they'd be discreet if you cooperate." Gabriel's jaw clenches tight for several long seconds before he says thinly,

"I remember your promise, gentlemen." A beat, and he bites off the next words as he speaks them. "And I am still interested in that discretion."

He rolls up the cuff of one sleeve and shoves his arm out at Charrington.

[walk_ins]

Charrington sidesteps neatly, hands clasped behind his back.

Cathcart steps forward with the small metal stick. He pushes a button.

This time two smaller wands come out of it.

The end that he uses to read documents is raised in the air, and the other end is pointed downward.

With no hint of warning, he raises it in the air and jabs it downward, the point landing just above Gabriel's wrist.

Cathcart's expression never changes as he presses another, smaller button.

Truth serum.

[gabriel_tam]

River's the genius child, and Simon's the doctor. Either one of them could explain instantly what's happening to their father now.

One interesting fact about sodium thiopental is that it begins to take effect in only sixty seconds. Another interesting fact is that when combined with hyoscine, the cumulative impact can be quite effective-- and very dramatic.

Gabriel Tam is neither doctor nor genius, but within moments of Cathcart's injection he would be able to explain the effects of the serum cocktail as well as either of his children. He staggers backward, disoriented, until he slams into the wall.

"What--why--"

[walk_ins]

Coffee is sipped. It's all very civilized.

"Why, Mr. Tam?"

"Why anything?"

"Why did you choose to hide things from us?"

"Why did you choose to send your daughter to a government-run academy instead of a private school?"

"Why the 'verse?"

"None of that matters."

"None."

"We want information."

"You haven't given it to us."

"So we'll take it."

"Do you have any other questions for us before we begin?"

So pleasant. It's almost like one of Regan Tam's famous dinner parties.

[gabriel_tam]

"It was--" He bites his own tongue as he snaps his mouth shut, and the taste of blood is bitter.

Both hands against the wall now, for support, as the drug spreads through his system. His skin turns chalky and beads of sweat break out on his forehead.

The room begins to waver in front of his eyes, and Cathcart and Charrington seem to loom like nightmarish shadows-- white light eaten by the darkness of their suits.

"Lăotiān, bù--"</small?

[walk_ins]

"We'll call that a 'no', I think?"

"Let's."

Stepping closer to him. "My dear Mr. Tam."

"Let's start at the beginning."

"Where are your children?"

[gabriel_tam]

His hands scrabble against the wall as he fights to stay upright. The ground almost seems to be sliding from under his feet.

"I don't know--"

[walk_ins]

"You're lying."

They say it together, with a bare second's exchanged eye contact.

[gabriel_tam]

"Milliways is the bar at the end of the universe..."

It's a whisper of a female voice, deep down, lost in the sea of confusion that are his conscious thoughts.

"I'm telling you, I don't know where they are!"

[walk_ins]

"Who's got them, then?"

Another step closer.

[gabriel_tam]

"Nĭ míngmíng zhīdao..."

He shakes his head, trying to clear it, and starts over. "You already know-- I've already told you what I know-- I don't have the letter--"

He backs further away, and finds himself trapped in the corner of the room.

There's nowhere else to go, and the bright light is blinding to his eyes now.

[walk_ins]

The light gets brighter.

Charrington has a tiny remote in one hand.

"We don't think you've told us what you know."

Moving forward.

"And we're going to find out what you know."

"What is the connection between gunslingers and your children?"

[gabriel_tam]

"I don't know, I can't think--"

Fear is rising, and the taste of blood is still bitter and acidic with growing terror as they take another step toward him, steady and implacable. The light from above and around them makes it so he can't see clearly, and the world is swimming anyway with his dizziness, near delusion.

Research has shown that some subjects may exhibit reactions to sodium thiopental and sodium amytal that are not unlike those seen in old experiments with lysergic acid diethylamide. It would appear that Gabriel Tam is one of those unfortunates, or perhaps the blend of drugs used is designed to elicit this reaction.

Gabriel's hands are flat on the wall, which feels soft and almost rotten under his fingers, like oiled silk.

"The letter-- I told you about the letter, they said if I researched 'gunslingers' I could find them, Simon and River, I could find them--"

[walk_ins]

"Quit babbling." Harsh.

"And you researched. Did you hand over everything you found?"

[gabriel_tam]

"You húndàns, you niăo shī de dŭguĭ-- leave them alone! Leave us alone!"

Gasping for breath, he attempts to stagger to the side, to get past them. To his half-blinded eyes, the light seems to have changed, growing fainter and more firey -- yellowing and orange now, with shadows cast on the floor that are long and shaped wrongly.

[walk_ins]

Charrington, blank: "It's entirely too late for that, Mr. Tam."

Cathcart, low: "You want to hold still, Mr. Tam."

Charrington, sly: "Don't want to get brought in for assaulting Alliance officers."

Cathcart, calm: "Last thing you'd want."

Charrington, menacing: "So tell -- what do you know about gunslingers?"

[gabriel_tam]

(we have killed your friends every friend is now dead)
He can't hold still. It's too much, it's all too much now, and the cacophony of the drug-induced delusions on top of the sensory deprivation and strain of the last ten days is overwhelming now. Every man has his limits.
(O, Discordia)
"I couldn't find them!" It's an anguished scream from a broken man, pushed beyond his limits at the last.

"I couldn't find them-- I couldn't find any of them-- just poetry and old histories and all the rest of it --" He chokes on his own blood from where he's bitten his tongue again in his drug-induced horror--

(just like when Simon hit me)

--and as he slides to the ground, Gabriel Tam begins to weep.

"I couldn't find them. I lost them. Simon took her and fled and I didn't listen to him, I didn't listen, and I lost them."
(even if you leave this room, you can never leave this room)

[walk_ins]

They look at each other.

And then Charrington turns and throws his coffee cup across the room. It splatters on the wall. "He doesn't know a damn thing."
And I was gonna get me an ear, too!
Silence.

After a moment, Cathcart speaks tonelessly. "You're free to go, Mr. Tam."

It's pointless.

As Cathcart and Charrington walk out the door, Cathcart drops the little injector-stylus in the trash.

The door slides shut silently behind them.

[gabriel_tam]

It takes a while.

It's a quarter of an hour at least, maybe more, before the drug slowly releases its grip. He spends this time lying on the floor where he'd fallen, wracked with intermittent near-convulsive shudders.

His eyes are closed, but he can still see the two men surrounded by the sickly yellow-orange light in the strangely altered room.

Finally, however, the effects do fade, and Gabriel Tam struggles to his feet.

"I couldn't find them." It'll be years before he forgets any of these past days, if ever, and he's certain of one thing: he'll always remember this. How he failed his son, and his daughter.

"You've forgotten the faces of your children." It's a whisper from somewhere in his mind, one he can almost hear, but not quite.

He moves to the door, and attempts to open it as he's already done so many times.

This time, it's not locked. Moving with the slow care of an old man, Gabriel Tam walks out of the room.