Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Juniper’s Daughter: The Final War, A novel by Nick Armbrister

Strapped to the dentist chair Sarah was helpless but this was no sexual assault, a mental invasion to rape her mind of her military secrets of which there were many: the lock up garage full of weapons, info on the Rochdale vets including strength, how they operate, weapon inventories of many more groups, the trade of the armoured car, what it was exchanged for, her own fighting experience in the civil war when Scotland and Wales gained independence, several major ops against the newly formed English army including the last one against the armoured car.
   Her mind collapsed or was rather re-shaped, barriers were lowered, synapses opened up and pathways to her secrets that the army wanted revealed. She tried to stop this, not physically but in her own mind in a small battle, imagining her own freedom fighters rushing to kill the threat but an English army boot stamped on this and squashed them dead, so all her secrets flowed forth like water, unstoppable. In a drunken rambling voice Sarah told all while the serum raped her mind. Her secrets flowed forth being recorded by multi media devices – an old video camera, an equally ancient tape recorder, six digital recorders, still photos and data entered onto a computer by a man who spoke into a microphone, intermittently typing.
   Captain Cook oversaw the interrogation, asking questions when needed, working with several specialists on certain key subjects (like planning ops against the English army, what about any future ones?). So many questions, over forever in this surreal stretched out waking dream time, on and on and on and on…

   After her interrogation Sarah was returned to her cell to recover, for the serum to wear off. She was comatose, oblivious to current events. How much was her mind protecting itself, with a natural wall? Would it be there forever? For ten hours she slept without pause or dreaming, on waking she saw a meal had been provided with a drink, she didn’t touch it at first but hunger drove her to consume the grey tasteless goo and water.
   Later the door opened and Sarah was taken blindfolded down winding corridors. It was removed, daylight blinded her, her vision blurred, returned, focused on ten figures tied to upright posts. She saw they were fellow freedom fighters from the town, snatched after the battle; it was obvious what was going to happen.
   Captain Cocksucker stepped out of the doorway and spoke, “This’ll happen to you…”
He walked over to the squad and issued orders. Glancing over to Sarah he shouted, “Watch this Sarah”. More orders ended in, “FIRE!”

   Ten people died a bloody death. Cocksucker walked up to each corpse, kicked it to see if it moved and fired into the top of the head with a pistol if it did. Sarah retched up her gooey meal, violently being sick before collapsing into her own puke…

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