text: Luther regained consciousness, his mind shocked awake by the jarring sound of a metallic door retracting. It rolled up slowly, creaking and bumbling, into the metal hood above. The salty taste of blood filled his mouth as rain washed across his scalp wound. Vague memories of a meeting at a bar followed by a crack on the head bubbled up. The men held him under each arm, dragging his limp body, toes trailing on the ground behind. Entering the building Luther noticed an oily rainbow flash off a stain on the ground. A single naked light bulb barely illuminated the room. The unmistakable smell of gasoline clung to his nostrils. I’m in a garage , he thought. Swinging his small frame to full height they dumped him roughly into the chair. The two men held him in place as a third man brought metallic manacles. The circular hand cuffs barely fit around his wrist and the armrest, crunching harshly onto his skin. “Ow, watch it!” he screamed, now fully awake. The skinny man wore a dirty, threadbare tee shirt and pants that were too big. Extra holes were punched into his belt so they would safely stay put. He laughed, his unshaven, twitchy face inches away. “This is just the beginning old man.” Halitosis and body odor washed over Luther, along with a wave of nausea. Gathering himself he said, “You’d better not put the ankle cuffs on, you’ll regret it if you do, I guarantee it.” Skinny man turned, a look of uncertainty on his face. He couldn’t remember if Sensei told him to put them on, or to not put them on. Frowning he grabbed the manacles and clamped them. Better safe than sorry. They crunched into his ankle splitting open the skin and scratching the metal leg of the chair. Luther’s scream echoed off the walls. He knew he’d regenerate rapidly, but the pain was real. Inhaling deeply, he focused on his ankle, feeling the skin tingle as it healed. Heavy footsteps brought him back to the garage. Luther could see himself reflected off the visor of the man’s helmet. He was enormous, standing well over six feet, and wore arrogance like a cloak. What little he could see of the man’s caramel colored face was clean shaven. “I’m Thibault. I extract information. First thing, those cuffs are titanium and cobalt, so you won’t be able to Channel. Second thing, you’re going to die tonight.” Pausing, he allowed that to thought sink in. “Last thing, the sooner you tell me what I need to know the sooner the suffering ends. The truth is I hope you hold out for a while; it makes it more interesting for me.” Smiling, he turned slowly and rolled a tray hidden in the shadows behind him. Several metallic instruments glistened brightly as they passed into the light. Thibault kept his torture devices in excellent working order, the cleanliness discordant with their evil purpose. “Now, tell me where the Mirror is.” Luther stared into the visor trying to ignore the evil sneer on Thibault’s face. For the millionth time he wondered why he let himself get into these situations. For the money , he thought. “I’m not telling you anything. And since I can see you are a professional would you mind swabbing my skin with alcohol before you strike? It’ll help avoid infection.” Lightning-fast Thibault lifted the baton and crashed it into Luther’s elbow. The sickening sound of breaking bone bounced off the walls dully. Luther screamed, then swooned as his vision blurred. Gritting his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut forcefully, he focused on his elbow. Gathering his will, he felt the familiar surge of power. A smooth bulge formed mid-bicep and slowly extended across the elbow in a wave. Three more waves and the bone healed. “What the hell was that?” asked Thibault. “I thought you said he wouldn’t be able to Channel in these cuffs!” Skinny man was shocked. “I have no idea what happened, but that wasn’t Channeling.” Swallowing hard, he tried to process what happened, but to no avail. Intravenous drug abuse and hard living made it nearly impossible for him to problem solve. In desperation he said, “Maybe we should call Sensei?” Softly, Thibault said, “Not yet, junky. He feels pain, so he can be broken.” Stretching his arms, grunting loudly, cracking his neck to either side, he looked carefully at the tray. Smiling he grabbed his second favorite tool. Several hours later, as the torture continued, Luther’s screams bounced off the walls. Thibault had removed his body armor but left the helmet on. Sweat streamed off his powerfully muscled body. Arching his back, he tried loosening the sore muscles around his lumbar spine. Skinny man scratched his arm. He would need a hit soon, the craving crawled along his skin like a centipede. “Hey, man,” he squeaked, voice cracking, “He’s not gonna break. We need to get Sensei in here to do her, you know, thingy.” He punctuated this statement with a double-handed gesture. “No. I’ve got one more trick. Get me the plunger.” Skinny man gaped, “Th...th...the plunger? Are you serious? We can’t kill him before he tells us where the mirror is.” Thibault leapt from his stool and grabbed Skinny man by the throat, lifting him off the ground with ease. Skinny man’s eyes bulged, he gasped for air. “Get me the plunger, junky,” he whispered before rag dolling him into the corner. Skinny man ran to the van and brought back the device. It bounced roughly as it rolled across the uneven ground outside. He quickly wheeled it to Thibault and skittered into a dark corner. Crouching against the wall he bobbed his head back and forth quickly, trying to quell the urge to get high, but not succeeding. Plugging the machine into a cord that hung from the ceiling, Thibault quickly booted up the computer. He tapped away on the keyboard with all ten fingers. The three-dimensional screen popped up above the computer, with a blinking cursor faintly visible near the bottom. Opening the door on the side he removed the device, plugging the heavy adaptor into its slot on the top left side of the machine. Luther had been unable to see what he was doing. As Thibault turned, he held up the device. It looked like a screwdriver attached to a thick cable, but instead of a screwdriver head there was a needle-like trocar. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re either going to tell me where the Mirror is, or I’m going to drive this trocar through the squamosal portion of your temporal bone, into your brain, and remove the information by force. The thing is most people die. With you it’s hard to tell, but do you really want to take a chance?” He paused, allowing the device to hang from its cord. “I’ll give you a minute to think about it.” Thibault walked away leaving Luther to stare at the evil device. Light glinted off the tip as it slowly swung like a pendulum. For several minutes the only sound was the pitter patter of rain off the garage roof. Luther breathed in deeply, knowing what he had to do. “What’s it going to be? The Mirror or your life?” Luther just stared at him morosely. “Fine.” Thibault picked up the trocar with his right hand, placed his left on the opposite side of Luther’s head, and drove it into his brain. Luther froze, eyes open, mouth slack, a dribble of saliva slowly drifting down his chin. On the three-dimensional monitor flashed a series of images without sound. A much younger Luther pulling the oval, handheld Mirror from a basket in an antiques shop. Luther talking to an old woman attempting to decipher the hieroglyphs along the edges of the Mirror. Luther removing his hand from inside the Mirror pulling out a pulsating red glob of fluid. Luther arguing with his wife, her leaving with the kids, him walking alone down a desolate highway. The final scene froze in midair above the computer: Luther staring at himself in the Mirror not recognizing the thing he had become. In the chair, dead-eyed Luther stared at his frozen virtual doppelganger above the computer. Thibault frowned, tried rebooting the device, but then gave up. He looked at Luther with side eyes, grabbed the trocar and pulled it out with a squishy jerk of his hand. “Better get Sensei.” Shaking his head in disbelief he vaguely listened to the echo of Skinny man’s steps sprinting down the hallway. Luther slowly mended his fractured brain. Several minutes passed before he could talk, the words feeling like glue in his mouth before he caught a second wind. Glancing to his left Thibault sat slump-shouldered on a stool, the very picture of defeat. “You don’t want the Mirror, believe me. That Mirror has cost me everything, my wife, my kids, my job, everything.” With a self-deprecating snort he added, “I used to be an accountant if you can believe that. But I was seduced by the Mirror, by the offer of power. Anyway, this’ll all be over once your Sensei gets here.” Thibault smirked, looked at Luther, and said, “You got that right.” As if on cue the door opened, and Skinny man entered followed closely by a figure walking with the staccato gait of a cyborg. “You failed, Thibault. This is most disappointing,” said Sensei who spoke with a sultry female tenor. She stopped a few feet from Luther. “Why does he have ankle manacles on? I specifically told you to not use ankle manacles.” Luther looked at the cyborg. “Don’t be angry at him, Sensei, it’s what you get for using drug addicts. And by the way, thanks for using titanium and cobalt manacles. If you ever get to use the Mirror, you’ll find there really is no better catalyst.” Luther inhaled deeply through his nose, eyes widening as he concentrated fully on the transformation. The manacles softened, melted, and then absorbed into his pores. Skin became like packed dirt as his body expanded. One moment he was a man, the next a nine-foot-tall earth golem. Letting out a guttural roar he extended his fists impossibly long, crashing into Thibault and Skinny man, killing them instantly. Next, he enlarged his hand and enveloped Sensei, pulling her closer. His voice was deep, like the rumble of an earthquake. “So glad you came to me, you really are impossible to find. Give me the chip and I’ll be on my way.” He emphasized this by crushing her legs as if they were papier mâché. “You know I cannot give you the chip, my programming forbids it. I know you will never remove it intact without my help. We are at an impasse.” Luther thought about that for a few seconds, looked up and realized he needed help. Focusing on his throat, a bubbling, gurgling sound escaped through his lips. Several seconds later he regurgitated a visor with a left ocular attachment. “That was disgusting,” said Sensei. “Yeah, I know. Felt bad, too.” Placing the visor across his forehead he pressed the button on the eye piece and said, “Command one, this is Luther, over.” “Command one. Good to hear your voice, Luther. How did it go, over?” “Bad. Their guy used a plunger. I hate those things. Anyway, I’ve got Sensei. I need to know how to get the chip, over.” “I’m sorry to hear that. What you do is for the greater good, I hope you know that. Right, um, she is an AP-47 so you’ll find the button through the base of her neck, over.” A look of shock crossed her face. “How do they know about the...” Before she could finish Luther had formed his index finger into a snake-like appendage. It entered a nearly invisible slot near the base of her neck and penetrated deep into her chassis. Her head opened like a mechanical onion in stepwise fashion, top, middle, bottom. Carefully reaching in he removed the onyx chip. Immediately, the faint light pulsing across the chip went out, as did Sensei’s life. Leaving the garage and walking quickly down the dark alley Luther frowned. As always, low-level depression washed over him when he transformed back to human. I should’ve stayed an accountant.