Chapter 5: Processing a Prisoner

Chapter 5: Processing a Prisoner

The light blinded Sheri when the transportation box was opened. It had been a long, very uncomfortable drive for the captured girl. The chain holding her to the back of the box cut into her middle. The handcuffs had tightened up because her hands were caught and pressed between her back and the steel wall. Her back ached from being bent over and she had cried herself out of tears during the hours of riding in that steel cage.

As she blinked in the bright light, she felt hands upon her ankles and the handcuffs there coming off. Likewise, more hands unlocked the chain from around her waist. She was lifted out of the box and set upon her feet. As her surroundings came into focus, she felt like crying again. This was obviously a prison. There were armed Guards, bars on the windows, and shackled prisoners standing nervously in a line.

A Guard with a clipboard came up, looked her over and checked his notes. “Processing room seven,” he called out.

Two other Guards, whom she had not seen because they were behind her, grabbed her arms and forced her off towards a row of doors not too distant. Each had a number on it. Inside of number seven, she found a small room, a desk and two chairs. The one on her side of the desk was bolted to the floor. They sat her down, making sure that her handcuffed wrists were behind the chair’s back, and then locked her ankles together with another pair that were connected by a short chain to the chair. Another short chain came up and was locked to her handcuffs with a padlock. They left her chained to that chair.

For a long time Sheri sat alone in that room. There was only a single overhead light, and no windows at all. She could feel air moving slowly through the room but the walls must have been thick for she could hear nothing from the outside. Nervously she tested the handcuffs on her wrists and ankles but found them tightly locked.

All kinds of stories came to her mind about those taken by the Guards. All were killed. Most were sent to slave labor camps. The pretty girls were sent to brothels. A whole host of horror stories offered up by people who had no knowledge of what they were talking about. The real trouble for most people was that no one ever returned once arrested by the Guards. So no one knew for sure what happened to them. The only ones who knew some of the real facts were a small group who made up the underground, and of which Sheri had become a member. Even they did not know all the facts, just enough to scare them.

When the door opened she was surprised to see a nun enter. The white on black habit headpiece proclaimed her profession, but Sheri knew that most of the nuns were not religious persons but rather the true guards and wardens of the woman’s prisons they called abbeys. Her connections with the underground movement had taught her a little about the true state of things in the world.

Without preamble the nun demanded, “Do you know the name James Cartwright?”

“No.”

“James Cartwright was arrested very close to where you were arrested and at about the same time. He is a known terrorist.”

Sheri felt herself go cold. She did know the name; it was the man Sheri was to pass that packet of documents on to.

The nun had seated herself opposite Sheri and was looking at a single sheet of paper in her hand.

“Your name is Sheri Martina. You are nineteen years old. You graduated from Madison High School and worked for a while at the One World Regional Relocation Center as a clerk-typist. Then you disappeared. Your whereabouts for the last six months are unknown.”

Sheri waited tensely for the questions to begin. Those six months had been spent with the underground movement. She knew a fair amount about the workings of the movement, enough to be trusted with the delivery of important information. Which also meant that she knew enough to be of interest to the Guards. And, apparently, also their bosses, the Church.

No questions came. The nun studied the paper a bit more then put it down with a sigh. “You will be transferred to Saint Dorina’s. There you will tell all you know of the resistance movement. After that…” She looked up and into Sheri’s eyes with a very evil smile upon her face. It was more frightening that she left the sentence unfinished than if she had made all kinds of dire threats.

“I know nothing of any resistance movement,” she protested.

Ignoring her, the nun rose from the chair and left the room without another word.

Sheri began to shake. What was this Saint Dorina’s? She knew there were abbeys within or near their city, such as Saint Secundina’s. What and where was this Saint Dorina’s? Some of the stories she had heard about Saint Secundina’s were bad enough. That there was a place specializing in making prisoners tell all they knew, she had not known that. That very idea scared her to the bottom of her soul.