L.I.T. World Ch. 03

Chapter three

Wilburn's Dilemma

"Wilburn I need to see your phone," Silvia said holding out her hand., letting her eyes welcome him to the team, as he gave her his phone. She hit a few keys let his phone touch her phone for a super secure touch only transfer of files. She handed Wilburn his new phone, "a bit of an up-grade on your old one."

While Sylvia explained options, Wilburn watched over her shoulder as Bates seemed to come to a sudden stop. She stood motionless for several moments as Wilburn studied her. It was as if she was listening intently to something or lost in thought. Sylvia's voice flowed around him as he pretended to listen, but what was happening with Karen Bates demanded all his attention. As suddenly as it started, it ended. The old woman did a one eighty, and with renewed strength strode back to where he and Sylvia were talking.

"Sylvia, pull up the latest files from the forensics team in Florida. Put it on the wall." Karen seemed very agitated, when she said, "Find out where Nolan is now, and get him back here ASAP."

Wilburn began to browse through the new files, watching from the corner of his eye as Karen Bates tried to pace about the room. After two laps the pain in her legs was so bad that it forced her to sit, where she silently suffered until the wall filled with images and a video report on Rita Carlton's DNA.

In the video a man in a lab coat held a severed thumb in his gloved hand pointing out the nature of the cuts on the bone; he lay down the thumb and pointed toward the monitor on his wall where there was an image of a hand with the path of the cut painted in a transparent red. "The cut ran from the wrist in a straight line to where the thumb would have joined the hand." The man's voice trailed off to nothing as considered who he was reporting to. This was not part of his job, describing in detail the mutilation of a child to their grandmother. Who also happened to own the company that owned the corporation that ran the lab where he worked. With an effort he pulled himself together and resumed his report, "if it had still been attached to the hand."

"Which brings us to the nature of the instrument that made the cut," the white coated gentleman picked up a hacksaw blade. "Based on the scarring left on the bone of the thumb, we think it was severed from the hand with a hacksaw or possibly just a hacksaw blade. While I agree that it would have been very horrific for the young lady to have to amputate her thumb this way, it seems to be the only way it could've happened."

The scene shifts to a two inch pipe mounted on a concrete block wall with Pipe hanger clamps bolted fast. There are two dozen pairs of handcuffs welded to the waist high pipe. The man in the lab coat was saying, "in my opinion the way the thumb was cut indicates that it was a self inflicted wound. A person locked in a set of the pictured handcuffs would have a hard time swinging an ax or a cleaver, but if she had a hacksaw blade and sawed her thumb off so her hand could pass through the cuffs, then we would find wounds like this." Thinking of who he was talking to, the man tried to dampen any false hope me might be building. "The other question is how did she free her other wrist from the cuffs? There was no other DNA matching hers among the remains, only the one thumb. What I'm saying is that we can't be sure that the escape was successful, maybe she wasn't able to get the other hand free and they buried the body. We've sent a team back to check each set of cuffs for blood or DNA. They'll have dogs and will see if they can find a trail leaving the area but they're not optimistic, its been a long time."

Karen fell back against the wall with an audible thud, Sylvia rushed to her side offering support. Wilburn rushed to help but the feather light weight of the older woman made Wilburn's help unnecessary. Only her strength of will gave Karen Bates the strength to stand on her own two feet while she said. "Sylvia, build a fire under somebody but get Nolan here, now. Wilburn, your days of playing it safe are over. I need a commitment from you tonight, you are going to have to help Sylvia interrogate Nolan, its going to take a while and you're not going to like it but it s got to be done. And it has to be done my way. Are you willing to do that?"

Wilburn nodded his head as he answered her with a solid, "Yes, Ms Bates." And he meant it too. He sat down and started to read his new files in his new phone, preparing for his role as an interrogator.

Sylvia cupped her phone and asked Karen, "Should they leave him in the box?"

Karen nodded, "Just tell them to hurry."

Karen made it to one of the couches and lay down during the twenty minutes they waited for Nolan. During those twenty minutes Wilburn found that Bates had several 'top priority' investigations going at once. He discovered reports of twenty five hundred of the SCM's were missing from inventory at the R and D facility. The facility was located just to the north of Atlanta Ga. Everybody who had ever had access to the SCM's were being audited, while their neighbors and friends were being discreetly interviewed.

Bates had six people in Atlanta, and the locals were providing all the personnel needed. The amount of man hours seemed not to matter at all. Bates had people on the ground from Miami to Baltimore and as far west as Houston.

Bates had printed a letter and had it hand carried and posted with thumbtacks on the bulletin boards of grocery stores, schools, churches, anywhere where groups of people might see it. The letter was short and to the point, it asked three questions. One, did they know, or were they aware of, a young person suddenly leaving home with someone they had just met. Two, were they aware of, or had they seen any young women or men doing acts that seemed out of character for them. Acts, possibly of a sexual nature that 'normal people' would not be doing. Three, If you know someone or are aware of someone that fits either of the cases above, Call this number, give names and times, give two other names that would know about this person. Then you will receive one hundred credits, credited instantly to your account. Dial 156 782 4453 or 1 LOST CHILD. The whole thing seemed to be more church related, like they wanted to help the poor child. It was designed to make you feel like you weren't snitching out your friends to the cops.

Wilburn pulled up the map with the locations of where they had paid the money. Over three hundred hits ranging from Charleston to the north down to Miami. What stood out was the fact that from the coastal village of Tallahassee southeast throug the maze of small islands and swampy channels, the map looked like it had a bad case of heat rash, it was so covered with the red dots.

Wilburn pulled up the list of the names of the disappeared, he let his eyes scan down the page, reading each name, page after page until on page six, mid page he found the name Rita Carlton. Before he could read the whole report the door buzzer went off, Sylvia went to open the airlock and get Nolan. Wilburn relaxed his phone and put it away, he turned to Ms. Bates thinking she might have something to tell him before Nolan was brought in. But she seemed to have gone rigidly stiff, her fist clenched at her side, her facial expressions severe, her eyes hard with hate, watching the spot where Nolan would soon appear. A small voice deep inside his head told him that Bates was over the edge, a very powerful, very dangerous, very crazy woman. What would that make Sylvia, and now after his promise to Bates, himself. Were they both working in the service of a lunatic? Bates watched the airlock, Wilburn watched her, as they waited in silence for Nolan.

They heard the rush of air as the old air was pushed out and the new air pumped in, The airlock door slide open and Sylvia walked in, a Power-Lift dolly following behind her, bringing a large blue box into the room. Effortlessly and expertly Sylvia maneuvered the remote control dolly to take the box perilous close to the steps leading down to the conversation pit, crossing the room and coming to a stop centered in front of the panoramic viewscreen. Turning down the static charge relaxed the 'box' into a cloth which draped down over the rounded shape beneath it.

Sylvia whipped away the cloth and there Nolan was, bent at the waist his back parallel with the floor. He was naked sitting astraddle a heavy duty sawhorse, his legs folded forward letting his ass hang over the edge, his arms pulled down and back to be shackled with chain running behind his knees. Someone had taped a small remote control to his back and the small red light indicated that it was on. Silvia stepped forward to turn it off, and Nolan visibly relaxed as the dildo inside him stopped deep fucking him.

"Oh my god," Wilburn heard himself speak and regretted it immediately, and he pretended to not notice the hard glare Bates threw his way.

Nolan had heard it though and now asked, "Is that you Wilburn, is that you?"

The hope in Nolan's voice was pitiful to Wilburn but before he could answer his old boss, the naked man seemed to have knotted up his body in the most severe way possible, the tendons in his neck like ropes stretched to the breaking points, shaking his head and squirming on the bondage horse he was strapped down on. It went on for several long seconds before the man slumped onto the horse limp as a wet rag.

"We will ask the questions, not you. You will answer when we ask you a question, otherwise I don't want to hear a word from you." Karen Bates had that fire in her eye, that set to her face, that told everyone 'do not fuck with me, because I 'm willing and able to hurt you'.

Wilburn took in the details of Nolan predicament, he was strapped down to the horse and his back and legs were covered in angry red welts, his body had been beaten and carried several dark bruises. His face was covered in crusted cum as well as his ass cheeks; someone had taped his eyes shut with two thin strips of duct tape. Wilburn couldn't let this kind of mistreatment continue to happen, it didn't matter what Nolan had done, he didn't deserve this, nobody did.

"Where have you had this man? Why wasn't he in jail like he should have been? Who do you think you are to treat a man this way?" Wilburn was hot and he was getting loud when Bates shut him down with a quite question.

Bates stood just in front of Nolan, but she spoke to Wilburn. "Would you like for me to show Mr. Nolan some loving mercy?"

"No, I don't want you to show him mercy, if he has done the things that you say he has done, he doesn't deserve mercy. What I want you to do is show him the common respect that all men are due." Wilburn knew that he should keep his mouth shut but he could not let this kind of treatment go without protesting to those who caused it to happen. "This is torture for revenge, this is not justice. And justice is what we want to give those girls and women that Nolan enslaved and murdered."

Bates seemed to be considering what Wilburn was saying for a moment, but her eyes never left Nolan when she answered "We're dealing here with relative values, several lives are at stake, not just the life of this piece of shit." She took a moment as if considering how much to reveal and then let an expression of trust flicker across her face before continuing. "This started as an investigation of sabotage and the smuggling of potentially destructive materials aboard our seed pods But now it has turned into an investigation of several murders, countless kidnappings, rapes and slavery. This man knows everything I need to bring it all to a stop."

Nolan, was suddenly enthusiastic about working with Bates, "I'll do anything, I am so, so, sorry for what I did. I couldn't help myself before but I'll do better, I promise. Just please, please, give me another chance" He frantically blubbered

"No Nolan, you've had all your chances. What I am offering you is a quick death rather than the long slow death I had planned for you. There is a camp in the asteroid belt where the young pilots wait for their turn to bring a rock home. There are no women out there, just thirty to forty single young men with nothing to do but wait." Bates bent down to watch the pain displayed on Nolan's face as she began to send the SCM into a punishing rape pace making a brutal but perfect simulation of a cruel fucking by a big rigidly hard cock. "I think those boys would be glad to have you riding your horse in their latrine like you were tonight for those rock jockeys here. You'll be praying for death within hours of your arrival, but it won't come, I think you'll last for months. I want you to last a long time. How long did Mayo last? You son of a bitch, how long did Branford last before you killed her?"

Bates saw her spittle splattering on Nolan's face and heard her own voice as it screamed at him, and was shocked by how hysterical she sounded. She forced herself to shut her mouth and give herself a moment to calm down. The hate she felt for Nolan was an emotional force greater than any she had ever encountered before. She honestly didn't know how to deal with an emotion so strong, having downplayed her emotional side for years. She had apparentlynow found herself unable to maintain self-control. She couldn't afford this weakness now, not when she knew that people thought she was losing it already, she didn't need to offer any more proof.

Her legs started to cramp and she was forced to set down on the couch. The pain in her legs helped to distract her from her hatred of Nolan and allowed her to reassert herself and after a moment she had a better grip on both her voice and her self control. Her pain was shared by Nolan, as she ramped up the temperature.

Nolan moaned a long low moan, and then began to scream at Bates, "Stop, stop, please stop, I can't take it anymore" but the bound man continued to issue his grunts and moans with an occasional plea for Bates to stop, and Bates sat less than two meters away and ignored his pleas. Silvia and Wilburn had their own tasks but they watched from the corners of their eyes as the drama played out between bates and her emotions. Nolan didn't really matter, he was only a chip in the game. After several minutes had passed, Bates got to her feet, and with obvious pain in her own face, walked back over to the bound man.

Bates stood by Nolan's head "Nolan" she said, "all this hate I hold for you is because of what you did to my grandchild Rita Carlton, she was an inmate at the Piney Beach Camp. Up until now I had thought that you had killed her. That's why I wanted vengeance on you and why I broke some rules to get it."

Bates's voice was very soft and low, throaty with her emotion. Eyes as cold and hard as black ice raked across Nolan's naked form as Bates slowly circled the horse. She stopped at his head and continued in that same low deadly voice.

"That was when I thought you and your gang had killed her, but now it seems that your boys only tortured her to the extent that she was willing to cut off her hand to escape you and your friends." Karen Bates gripped one of the pieces of tape over Nolan's eyes and ripped it off. Nolan screamed as his eyelashes were ripped out, Bates paid it no mind at all as she bent down to look in Nolan's one eye, and in that same deadly soft voice said. "You think I was willing to play rough to avenge my blood? Wait until you see what I'm willing to do to save her."

Bates seemed to be locked into a staring contest with Nolan's one wild and fear filled eye, after several seconds she said. "I want to kill you. I want you and everybody like you to be dead. But, I can't afford to kill you because you have knowledge that I need to be able to save Rita's life. That knowledge is the only value that your life holds and I am only going to make this offer once. You give all your knowledge to my people tonight, work with them to find my Rita, and I will only do to you, what you were going to do to her."

"What do you mean?" Nolan had already started to think of himself as being as good as dead, with nothing but suffering separating him from his grave. But now, was Karen fucking Bates offering him a way out? "What do you mean,?" he asked again.

"You think about what I said Nolan, and while you're thinking, you do what you can to help my people save my grandchild. You think that you've seen my bad side but you're wrong about that, you been seeing my sad side, because I thought that my Rita was dead. I'm getting ready to unleash my bad side though, you may get to see it soon enough." Bates voice stayed the same, low and sincere, almost like she was talking to a friend. She stood up and walked away.

Bates came to where Sylvia and Wilburn were standing and said. "Black, you should make another pot of coffee, it's going to be a long night. " Bates focused on Black, "you'll have a lot of late nights now that you're on our team Mr. Black. Silvia and I are dedicated to the job, we expect no less from you." Turning on her heel Karen Bates said as she walked back toward Nolan , "Make a full pot and don't be stingy with your coffee, make it strong Mr. Black"

Nolan watched the tall woman approach with bone shivering dread, and all his reasons for fearing her were confirmed again when he felt the SCM start to heat up inside of his body. While his brain knew that he wasn't really cooking, his nerves conveyed the same signals as if he were, and those signals were in the form of pain. He felt his tissues burning, felt the burn of melted body fat as it drained from his ass. Nolan could actually feel his own body as it was cremated, but the cremation never ended. Nolan was in hell, really in hell, just as the bible described it, everlasting fire and pain. "Please, God, kill me." Nolan screamed the sound loud and harsh in the closed room. And then he started to shake his head and plead "Please, please please kill me. Kill me please"

" I'm afraid I'm as close as you'll ever get to God. I will be the last person that you think of before you cease to exist, I'm going to be the one that kills you Nolan." Bates stopped the burning. "I can roast your sorry ass until you lose your mind or I can kill you in a quick and merciful way. You're mine Nolan, your only hope is to tell us everything you know about everybody we ask you about, if you do, maybe I'll let you live. Afterall, you and your friends never intended to kill those girls did you?"

Nolan was crying, and he sounded like a whipped child when he answered through his sobs, "no, no, we didn't want to kill anybody."

"Why did you take those girls? You had money and there is enough poor people that I'm sure you could've found any number of girls who would've gave you what you wanted for a handful of credits, or maybe even a few containers of food." Sylvia asked but before Nolan could answer he was cut off by Bates.

"You should remember that I can cook your ass anytime I think you're not telling us the truth or are holding back. Nolan I got things that I can do to you that you wouldn't believe, but you can take my word for it when I tell you, you won't like them."

"It was the feeling of power, being able to know the women would do like you wanted them to. The fact that they couldn't tell us no, no matter what we asked. It was the power." Nolan was still crying but he was able to talk between the sobs and sniffles.

Karen walked toward the viewscreen and pointed at the wall with the pipe and handcuffs, "I want to know the names of everybody who worked or lived around this site." Bates turned toward Nolan, "can you see the screen?"

Nolan saw the screen and he knew the place. It was where he and the guys used to keep the new girls shackled, naked their hands behind their back chained to the pipe. He could see them in his mind's eye, their young nude bodies, the fear in their eyes as they begged for their lives. Later after they got the SCM's they didn't need the shackles, why would Bates be going there, it hadn't been used in years. His thoughts were rudely interrupted when the SCM in his ass throbbed powerfully and began to expand. "That is Mack's Place, it's over by Perry in north Florida." He felt another jolt as the SCM drew back inside his ass like it was getting ready to jump or lunge forward. "We used to keep the girls there when we first started collecting, but that was several years ago. We haven't done anything there since," Nolan seemed to be trying to remember exactly how long it had been, "must have been ten years before I came to the moon."