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Allison was not new to torture and interrogations. They were horrible, of course, but there was fresh, strange kind of terror seeing your own face across the interrogation table. The hand gripping a scalpel, the slitted eyes, the playful voice, all achingly familiar and yet so wrong. Her mind was hazy. Was she drugged? She couldn’t remember any injections, but then again, she couldn’t remember being brought to this room at all. Dimly lit and chilly, almost like a morgue.
Her double leaned closer. Allison was frozen, wrists sore from the too-tight handcuffs. The scalpel blade was pristine. When it dug into her skin, she wouldn’t feel a thing.
At first.
“Tell me who you are and who you work for,” The prompt was followed by a gentle, teasing smile that so often worked on the soldiers back home.
Allison’s vision blurred. “I’ve told you! My name is Doctor Allison Williams and I work for the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group! How many times are you going to ask me?”
She felt her double’s cold hands tilting her head up, forcing her to lock eyes. “Stop. Lying.” Each word was punctuated with a deep slash of the scalpel across the side of Allison’s face.
Warm, sluggish drips down her cheek, then a deep, burning pain rose in her eye and forehead. Waves of nausea in the pit of her stomach. Clammy hands clenched in fists. The same hands that were responsible for awful singing flashes of pain in her head.
Her double stepped back, surveying her work. Allison let her head rest on the freezing metal of the table. Her breaths were coming faster, and everything felt distant and fuzzy.
“Just tell us what we want to know, and I won’t hurt you any more,” Her voice stayed pleasant and encouraging, and it made Allison sick. Just how terrible was this alternative world, that she could hurt someone like this and not even bat an eyelid?
“Now now, Doctor Williams, let’s not make promised we can’t keep.” Rachel—the Professor—reprimanded lightly. She was confident and composed, and for one moment, Allison could believe that she was bringing her a file from Sir Toby, or coming to share some exciting new evidence.
Her eyes hardened as they landed on Allison. The spell was broken. The Professor wasn’t her friend.
“I’ve let Allison have her chance to play nice. Section Leader Gilmore won’t be so lenient.”
Her double’s face fell, shoulders slumped slightly, as she opened her mouth to protest. “‘Play nice?’ Rachel, I—“
Her mouth snapped shut when she saw the thunderous expression on the Professor’s face. “May I please remind you just who is in charge here? You will do as I order, and I will deal with your...insubordination later.”
Her double, still holding the dripping ruby red scalpel, slunk back, knuckles white.
The Professor unlocked Allison’s handcuffs and ordered her to stand up and take off her coat. She could feel the bloody running down her neck. It had probably ruined her scarf. She pulled off her thick coat, the cold of the room even more apparent now. If she ran now, could she make it out the door?
But there was no time. The Professor snapped the cuffs back on, just as tight, and went over to where her double was standing. The Professor didn’t attempt to hide her orders to Allison’s double—what would be the point? There was nothing she could do about them.
“Jenkins informed me that someone with a striking resemblance to me was seen entering my lab in the East Wing. You are to bring her here, using any force necessary. I don’t doubt she is working with your double.” The Professor’s lip curled in disdain. She handed over Allison’s slightly bloodied coat. “This will make your job easier.”
Allison’s double pulled the coat on, and the Professor brushed a stray hair out her face, her hand lingering there. Her double’s eyes were glittering with a startlingly familiar eagerness to make Rachel proud.
And then they were alone. The Professor drew closer to Allison. The harsh ceiling lights shuddered.
“I’ve radioed the section leader. Soon we’ll know every dirty little secret inside that head of yours.”
Gilmore. Stoic, protective Gilmore, so quick to defend her. What kind of monster would he be here? Her face was throbbing with a greater intensity now, and her blood had started to run again. A wave of dizziness threatened to drag her down into unconsciousness.
“He’s been pioneering some very interesting new techniques. The latest reports show a startling amount of effectiveness, with only minimal long term damage. Less, if you confess sooner.”
“I’ve told you everything!” Allison didn’t know why she kept trying.
“I sincerely doubt that," She smiled icily, turning on her heel to leave.