Taking Back Fun Day

He was screaming. If he’d had time to think, he’d have wondered where all the air was coming from to make such a long and loud scream. But there was no time and only the slightest of pauses led to the next scream. Throwing his head back as his body jarred and twitched violently, another scream tore through his dry and shredded throat. When finally the electricity ceased coursing through his pain-racked body, he slumped heavily in the chair, held upright only by the strap across his chest. The chair itself appeared as if it were made from one large continuous piece of moulded plastic - solid, unyielding, unforgiving. The arms each held two sets of straps; one for the wrists, another for the lower arm, near the elbow. The lower half - the front, a solid sheet rather than legs supported an adjustable double-looped strap designed for ankles. It was a simple but effective device, but when the wires and head-clamps were attached to the occupant, the result was pure torture.

Fun Ghoul snatched at painful gasps of air, pulled in with difficulty around the soft rubber bar held firmly inside his mouth. His eyes were closed and he was exhausted. He wasn’t being interrogated, no one was even in the room with him. He had no clue as to how long he had been fastened to the chair; it felt like hours, but it could have been minutes or days. He was confused, hungry, thirsty and his head was spinning. For now it had stopped, but he didn’t know how long it would last this time. There had been one cruel point where he had genuinely believed that it was over, and almost as he thought that, the electricity had powered through him once more. Every muscle ached, occasionally twitched and his head pounded. It felt like he had been hit by lightening a thousand times.

Once had been bad enough - it had happened shortly after he had met Jet all those years ago. Even the sand had been scorched where he had been standing; how he had lived was beyond him.

How he was still alive now was beyond him. Slowly getting his breathing back under control, Ghoul waited; he knew it was only a matter of time before the agony would begin again.

*

Kami Kazee stood near the cash register folding a garment before placing it neatly in a bag for her customer. Normally Kami would engage the lady in small talk, but the woman was distracted and turning to look at her friend who seemed unusually excited for a Wednesday morning.

“Look! Look, it’s on again!” She cried, pushing her phone into her friend’s hand.

The woman dropped the carbons she held as the phone suddenly occupied the space she had reserved for the money.

“Now look what you’ve done!” The woman grumbled.
“Look!” Her friend insisted.
“What?”
“BLI have launched a new channel,” she replied excitedly while the woman picked up the dropped money and handed it to Kami.
“So what?” She replied with disinterest. “None of them are any good unless you’re a Happy, and you want to trip out on the Kaleidoscope channel.”

Kami smiled benignly as she handed the woman her bag and change.

“Do you watch?” The woman asked Kami, catching her by surprise.
“I don’t have a TV,” Kami lied, deciding it best not to advertise what electronic equipment she possessed.
“No TV?” The woman frowned. “What do you do?”
“I design and make clothes or I read.” Kami smiled again.
“You design these yourself?” The woman’s eyes widened appreciatively.
“Carly! Look at the screen!” Her friend insisted once more.
“What?” She snapped in reply. Looking now at the phone, she grimaced, even appearing shocked. “What’s that?” She pushed the phone back into her friend’s hands hastily, almost as if she wanted to distance herself as far from the screen’s content as possible.

“I told you,” she sighed. “BLI’s new channel! It’s their new Traitor channel.”
“Why in the name of Destroya would they for one second think that anyone would want to watch them torturing rebels?”
“It’s not just any rebel, though, is it? They’ve got one of the Killjoys!”

Kami paled instantly at the news. Trying not to give herself away in case the woman supported BLI, she feigned a mere passing interest.

“A Killjoy? Are you sure?” She asked. “How? Which one?”
“See!” The friend snapped. “Normal people are interested! They even have an interactive feature where for a couple of carbons, you can select some of the torture and the levels. I mean, the higher the level, the more they charge; so unfair!”

Kami grew steadily more alarmed as the woman seemed more interested in complaining about the cost of her cruelty than answering her. Eventually, on receiving only a roll of her friend’s eyes, the woman thrust the phone towards Kami.

Her heart leapt into her mouth as she stared at the screen suddenly held up a little too close to her face for comfort. Her hand flew to her mouth at the sight of Fun Ghoul being repeatedly electrocuted while strapped to a chair bolted to the floor of a completely white room. She was grateful that the sound was turned off; her stomach was already churning and her eyes welled beyond her control as she witnessed his agony. Pushing the phone from her sight, she shook her head silently. She felt utterly distraught for both the sight of Ghoul, his face contorting in excruciating pain, and for the possibility that she had involuntarily given away her feelings.

“See?” Her customer snapped at her friend. “I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to see that!”
“He’s a rebel,” the woman grumbled at the reaction of both her friend and the shopkeeper. “He deserves it.”
“I’m sure he does,” Kami forced a response. “And maybe more besides, but I don’t want to see it! And I certainly don’t want to pay for it!”
“Huh!” The woman shut off her phone and pushed it into her pocket as she turned on her heels and headed for the door.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the customer took Kami’s hand gently. “She’s not very considerate of anyone who... well... she doesn’t understand.”
“That’s okay,” Kami nodded. “Everyone’s different.”
“You look really pale,” The woman appeared concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Kami nodded decisively; all she wanted was for her customer to leave.

“I am,” she nodded again. “I just wasn’t expecting to presented with anything quite so graphic. I think I’ll break for an early lunch.”
“Good idea,” The woman squeezed Kami’s hand before letting go. “The blouse is beautiful, you’re very talented, you know.”
“Thanks,” Kami forced a smile, all the while silently urging the woman to leave.

Following her to the door, Kami was relieved to finally close and lock the door. She felt sick at what she had seen and no small amount of guilt for feeling relief that she hadn’t been looking at Jet in that chair. She had to let the others know.

*

It was a subtle and slow beeping noise that bordered on irritating the longer it went of for. Red could hear it, but there was no obvious clue as to from where the sound was emerging. Giving up after four or five double beeps, Red turned an expression of curiosity towards Kobra, whose attention was firmly on the coffee pot he was filling with too much coffee.

“Hey! Caffeine Kid, what’s that noise?”
“Huh?”

Kobra turned his head, at first hearing the words but not fully making any meaning from it. As the words finally filtered through, so did the noise.

“I said...” Red began only to stop short as Kobra’s eyes widened and he darted past her to behind the counter where the old cash register still stood gathering dust.

As he ran Jet’s ears pricked and he turned his head towards both the sound and the blur of yellow and black. Pushing himself to his feet, he ignored the pain from his shoulder and headed for the counter. Party, too, looked over but was held in place by Death Defying’s stern glare as he continued examining him.

Lifting the satellite phone’s receiver and switching on a scrambling device adjacent to it, Kobra answered, his tone one of concern. Jet’s expression as he looked on lay somewhere between a frown of concern and curiosity.

“Go for Kobra.”
“What’s wrong?” Red whispered in Jet’s direction.
“Scrambled satellite phone,” he began. “There’s only about four people who have the number and it’s only used for emergencies,” he explained.
“Kami, hi, what’s up?” Kobra’s voice audibly calmer than it had been. “Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.”

Pausing for a few moments with his hand hovering over the switch, Kobra’s brow creased as he listened to her reply.

“Uh... yeah, he’s... Okay.”

Assuming the call was for him and possibly private, Jet took a couple of steps closer only to receive a wave from Kobra that suggested that he should wait. Exchanging glances, Jet and Red looked at each other, both shrugging, puzzled by what was happening.

“Oh, Ghoul?” Kobra let out a sigh of relief that it was something he already knew about. “Yeah, we know. The doc’s patching us up, so when we’re fit we’ll go get him. It’s not ideal, I know but it’s okay, she won’t hurt him.”

Another brief pause led to more explanation.

“Evelyn Hart, the crazy museum woman? She took him... oh, you mean the patching up? Jet and Party got hurt in the... Oh, what then?”

Another pause, longer this time.

“What?” Kobra gasped. “Are you sure?”

Kobra closed his eyes as she relayed what she had witnessed on the woman’s phone. Now it made complete sense to him that she didn’t want to be placed on speaker and why she had asked if Party was nearby.

“I don’t understand... how did...?” Kobra paused as Kami explained that that was all she knew but would do her best to find out more. “Okay, we’re going now...”

Kobra pulled the receiver away from his ear briefly as Kami grew suddenly agitated.

“I know I said we were... but that was when we thought.. No... but we don’t have a choice any more.” Kobra sighed; he sounded deflated. “Sure, hang on.”

Turning to see all eyes were on him, Kobra explained as briefly as possible as he held the phone out to Jet.

“Korse has got Ghoul. He’s torturing him live on a new BLI interactive TV channel. Kami wants to talk to you.”

Jet’s eyes glazed at the sudden and shocking news. Had they been wrong? But if Ghoul had been taken from the diner by BLI, why just him? It could only have been Hart, but how had Korse known? Surely she wouldn’t have handed him over willingly? Taking the phone from Kobra’s hand. Jet put his muddle of thoughts to one side to speak to Kami. Behind him, Party was trying hard to stand but being pushed back into his seat by the older man.

“Kobra! Get over here!” The doctor called. “I can’t keep him still!”

Uncertain what to do for the best, but deciding to give her brother some privacy, Red followed Kobra to where Party sat, fidgeting impatiently.

“Make sure the gun batteries are charged,” Party called to his brother as he approached.
“Done it! They’re at max.” Jet replied forgetting to move the phone from his mouth as he shouted.
“Jet!” Came the mildly annoyed voice down the phone.
“Sorry,” he replied genuinely contrite. “Sorry, baby, I’m kinda blindsided here.”
“I know, sorry,” she replied quietly. “I am too. Kobra said you’re hurt. What happened?”
“Where are the backups?” Red called back to Jet.

Reluctant to shout back again, Jet signalled, pointing to the general direction of a metal box behind the practice dummies. Repeating the hand gestures, Red followed the direction only to look back to see Jet shaking his head in frustration and pointing to the left of where she stood.

“Jet, sweetheart, answer her. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” he sighed, pulling the phone away and covering the mouthpiece. “In a metal box behind Dummy One, the key’s in its... ah, left ankle... actual left, not your left.”
“Thanks!” Red gave a thumbs up sign, allowing Jet to return to his conversation.
“Kam, are you okay?” He asked, his brow creased with concern.
“Me? I’m...” Kami sighed. She had been so concerned at the news that Jet was injured that she hadn’t even considered her own feelings. “I feel physically sick, actually. This woman just pushed her phone in my face and there he was - tied to a chair, being electrocuted over and over!”

Jet heard the catch in her voice and knew from just that one sound that tears were already forming in her eyes.

“Sweetheart, I’ll be there in just a few hours, don’t worry.”
“You can’t,” she replied, surprised by the words. “Kobra said you’re injured. How are you? What happened?”
“There was an explosion after Ghoul was taken, Party and me took the brunt of it. He’s concussed and I’ve banged up my shoulder.”
“Explosion!” Kami gasped at the news, now more than ever wanting to see Jet to check on his condition with her own eyes.
“Yeah,” Jet sighed. “Hart definitely took Ghoul... or more likely her gorilla, Sorby. They took him out in a helicopter after a guy in a car hit him with a tranq dart. It was the car that blew up as it drove off. If I had to guess, Sorby was getting rid of witnesses.”
“But... they left you all alive? Wouldn’t they know you’d go after him?”

Jet frowned deeply; Kami had a point. It didn’t make sense, unless...

“Unless they wanted us to.”
“Unless that’s what they wanted?”

Jet and Kami spoke almost simultaneously, confirming each other’s fears.

“I think we need to have a word with the crazy museum lady,” Jet growled.
“What?” Kami replied alarmed. “You’re actually going to walk willingly into whatever trap she’s set for you?”
“That wasn’t exactly the plan,” Jet corrected calmly.
“Well, you better calm that other hothead down, or that’s exactly what you’ll be doing.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jet could see Kobra complaining about something to Party and receiving only smirks and rolling eye responses in return.

“I wondered what it was that made him suddenly so sullen,” Jet chuckled. “Doesn’t take much, does it?”
“Jet, I’m serious,” her voice suddenly pleading for attention.
“We won’t be taking any risks, baby. I promise.”
“Yes you will,” Kami sighed. “I know you will. Just... stay alive. Please!”
“We will,” he replied firmly. “I gotta go. Love you, Kam.”
“I love you too, Jet.”

As she replaced the handset, a pang of guilt rushed through her as she realised that as much as she loved them all, in that moment her words had been specifically for Jet.

Notes

Hey lovely readers. Sorry again for the delay - uni stuff. It’s taking forever to find time to write, but I need to do it, it’s quite relaxing, so I maintain that it helps the uni work too :D

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Poor sweet Ghoul :( He doesn’t deserve any of this, he’s too perfect! :(

Hugs
Sas xx