No, I won’t.
I won’t divulge a thing.
Drugged and waterboarded, deprived of light and laughter,
I’ll hail the Great Hereafter-I’ll die before I’ll sing.
Again that soft crack widens... the door and jamb divide...
The sounds of fencing voices... a figure slips inside.
Beatings or injections... electrodes... come what will,
The code will never pass my lips;
I’ll die before I’ll spill.
A woman shows, dressed all in black.
She tiptoes to the table... gives her eyes a cryptic roll...
Breathes my number, names some names... peels a tear-stained eyelid back.
She knows the mission’s details; every player, every mole...
It’s almost like she’s scanned me... like she’s read my soldier’s soul.
Angel or demon, Our side or Theirs... right then she’s Mercy,
Sweet Mercy, she’s all that cures and cares.
She claims she’s from Extraction; she thought she’d find me dead.
She frees the straps and checks my pulse. She gently lifts my head.
She says her name is Sheila.
“Pleased-” I manage, “but... what are you? A figment, a whim...
“An implant, a dream... a drug-induced seductress...” Her features start to dim.
“Whatever, Sugar-you’re the loveliest illusion these bleeding eyes have seen.”
“Hush up,” she says. A pistol parts my lips.
She checks the used syringes, shines a penlight in my eye.
“They’ve shot you full of crap, man, so cut the tough-guy quips.
I’ll make it short-” That barrel rolls and reams.
“All I want’s an answer; a simple, straight reply.
“Are you compromised? We’ve got to know!
“Did you leak the code? Focus! Yes or no?”
I lose my lunch. “Get up!” she snarls, and lifts me by my dreams.
The woman prods me left and right, across the room and out the door.
What happens next is all a whirl: she lobs a small grenade mid-stride,
Pirouettes and leaps, shoves me flailing to the floor.
Half the building falls in heaps, half is blown aside.
Stumbling through the smoke and dust, we kick our way outside.
I’m in awe, in tears, in shock and crippling pain.
Sheila has to drag me to a step van in the rain.
Fading, falling, barfing out my brains,
Retching from that lethal stuff they pumped into my veins.
Sheila hauls me nape and heel, boots my logy butt inside,
Hops up front, regains the wheel, and straps in for the ride.
“The code... ” I gasp. My eyes are glazed, limbs quickly going cold.
“Don’t die!” she snaps. “And cool it with the code!
“Don’t ever render ciphers! Hear? They’re ‘Base’s Ears Alone’.”
She turns the engine over, and throws it into gear.
I’ve never seen a woman drive so fast or brake so hard.
Sheila knows which ways to take, which ways to disregard.
It’s humps and curbs and potholes; all tangled up I sprawl,
A mass of purple bruises being battered wall to wall.
My consciousness takes cover, barrage by black barrage;
As Sheila swerves our hearse into an underground garage.
She checks the cars and spaces, picks a place to park.
This is it... I’m going... gone... way too many sessions on
That table in the dark. Sheila scurries to the rear,
Rains kisses on my brow, drags her mouth down to my chin.
No, I won’t take secrets with me...
I’ll tell her now... before I die I’ll bring her in...
One final breath, one final sin-
I gasp and blurt the code into her ear.
And the van dissolves.
Those four familiar walls return, but certain things have... changed.
The stretcher’s now a bed, the details rearranged.
That same old stench of sweat and fear... the tape recorders,
Mics and gear... a hundred horrors coalesce, roll past and disappear...
The voices of the victors, taunting, trickle by.
The door shuts with a sigh.
My angel flickers, fades and blurs.
“Love is brief as Breath,” she purrs. “Only Death endures.
“We’re not who we appear, my dear, we’re merely what we seem:
“Nature or injection, a dream is just a dream.”
“Witch!” I cough, too weak to rise, my forearms made of lead.
Her eyes, seeking redemption, return to mine instead.
“A ‘drug-induced seductress’: I’m sure that’s what you said.”
Filling out my fantasy, her tough exterior shed,
Sheila strips and sprawls across my body on the bed,
Crawls out of reality, and back inside my head.
