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It's difficult to keep track of time when you're being tortured.
(A scream may last for years, or no time at all.)
Instead, he makes private bets with himself. If he makes it to the end of this session of, say, scorpions, he'll make that comment about his interrogator's nose.
(Then, his mind is slipping down the black abyss of agony and he loses his train of thought.)
*
Always, always, he works his tedious way back to consciousness. Silva was quite right. Life, does indeed, cling.
(Don't think about Sliva. Don't think about the new formula from Q branch in your back left molar, not yet.)
A vivid flash of a rotten mouth, and hollow, sagging cheek-
He banishes the image from his mind.
(Then, steel-capped boots are echoing down the corridor, towards his cell, and it's too soon, too bloody soon- )
*
He wonders how much compensation M owes him at this point.
He shouldn't have bequeathed everything to the Service. Should have given it all to Vesper, just to spite M.
(The bitch is gone, gone, gone... a rasping voice snarls, and when it starts howling he realizes it's his own.)
*
Not long now. He thinks he's got it figured out. Scorpions are only every other day. That makes... seven days. What the Service needs to shut down the operation.
*
If he tilts his lolling head slightly, he can see the interrogator's face out of one swollen eye.
He makes the nose comment.
The reaction is predictably violent. He is far enough gone that this is hilarious.
As he half-sobs his last laugh, he cracks his back left molar.
*
It's water.
Clear, sweet, water, not bitter cyanide.
The newest formula.
*
When he gets out of here, he's going to strangle Q.
(For ruining a perfectly good punchline, if nothing else.)