Rook

The various section leaders looked pale, and Gestalt looked absolutely stricken. It was as if they had just received confirmation that Satan had arrived and was in the process of eating Glasgow.
    “Hmm,” she said, as if she understood the significance of Van Syoc’s words. She’d ask Ingrid later. Meanwhile, Crisp was gearing up for another question, and judging by the intent stares of the rest of the audience, Myfanwy thought this would be the truly important one.
    “Why are you here?” Crisp asked with a terrible focus. His fingers had tensed on the delicate pressure points of Van Syoc’s hand, and it was evident that the pain was increasing. “What are they doing?” he demanded. The muscles of the subject’s face were straining. His jaw was clenched shut, and his eyes bulged. Nevertheless, he did not speak. Gestalt made a sound in his throat, and the doctorreleased his grasp on the prisoner’s hand. Crisp moved closer to the glass and looked straight ahead, his hands by his sides.
    “Yes, sir?” he asked. Gestalt steepled his fingers, seemingly lost in thought, and stared at the man slumped in the chair. Eventually Perry summoned up the nerve to break the silence.
    “Rook Gestalt, we really must know what is going on here.”
    Gestalt assented dully. “Extract the information, Dr. Crisp. You are authorized by the Rooks,” Gestalt said.
    “Excuse me?” Myfanwy spoke without thinking, surprised at not being consulted, earning herself a startled glance from her counterpart.
    “That is, if you have no objections, Rook Thomas?” said Gestalt, a little bemused. The entire room was again staring at her in surprise.
    “Um, no. I suppose I have no objections,” she said. “Please proceed, Dr. Crisp.” The interrogator gave a short bow and turned back to the man in the chair. He placed himself carefully behind Van Syoc and spread his fingers wide, then cupped them around his victim’s skull. He began to press and stroke the skin.
    “Why are you here?”
    Van Syoc
writhed
in his chair, his limbs fighting themselves. Beneath his shirt, there were strange shudderings, as if his organs were attempting to rip themselves from his torso. A peculiar popping sound chattered through the room, echoing eerily through the microphones. For a moment, Myfanwy could not see the source of this sound, but then she realized it was Van Syoc’s teeth, rattling in their sockets. A thrill of horror went through her, and her flesh crawled.
    “What do they want?”
    The agony of the man was palpable. Indeed, she almost fancied that she could
see
the man’s sensations. They throbbed in front of her, like burning ribbons that flared and ebbed as impressions flowed through the channels of his body.
    “Why are you here?”
    Myfanwy shook her head, trying to focus on Van Syoc rather than the torment that washed out of him. In desperation, she turnedto look at those around her and blinked in surprise. Around each person shivered an aura of sensations, concentric rings that overlapped one another. She felt that with a brush of her mind, she could leave every person there lying comatose on the floor. Her attention was dragged back to Van Syoc and the pain he was enduring. His senses flickered against hers, and she reeled internally. Her stomach heaved. She swallowed back her bile.
This is why Thomas was always ill,
she realized. She stared at the subject and felt pity.
    Myfanwy reached out to the man with her mind. Hesitantly, without really understanding what she was about to do, she touched the current that blazed most brightly, and turned off his pain.
    “Why are you here?”
    Van Syoc’s body continued to rack itself under Crisp’s touch, but Myfanwy could tell that his mind no longer felt it. Though the cords in his neck still stood out, his eyes darted around, looking for an explanation.
    Sitting on the other side of the glass, the explanation maintained her contact with Van Syoc’s system.
Amazing,
she thought, tracing the paths of his nerves.
So this controls pain
. She turned her attention to another portion.
And this web is linked to the eyes. But what is
this?
This can’t be right.
As she examined the anomaly, she frowned. Much of his system seemed obvious to her, almost self-explanatory, but there were sections that made no sense at all. Then a pulse rippled through his system, the work of Dr. Crisp. With an effort, she dragged her attention back to the rest of the world, where all was not well. The