Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Three

  The sounds come to me first. A confusing mishmash of words and phrases that make no sense. Opening my eyes I can see only black. Slowly I realize that something is covering my face.

  A hood.

  I’d like to say the memories come pouring back, but mostly they do not. My name is Axel. That much I know. I remember the dead man in the room and my desperate escape through the streets of Manhattan. I remember the men in the truck.

  A shred of knowledge burns the pit of my stomach.

  I’m in trouble. Big trouble.

  It’s the kind that people don’t usually survive.

  I could die in this place.

  At that instant the hood is dragged off my head and I find myself half blinded by the light. My hands are handcuffed to the arm rests of a wooden chair. My ankles are attached to the legs of the chair via more metal restraints.

  Disconcertingly, the chair is bolted to the floor.

  Blinking into the glare, I find myself in a timber room with bare walls and ripped carpet. It’s some kind of derelict building. Angling my eyes up, I spy a single light set into the ceiling. It is intensely bright. And hot. Must be halogen. It cleanly separates light from dark. A clock hangs on the wall. Ten minutes past six.

  I am afraid.

  But it is not the room that makes me afraid.

  It is the man sitting before me.

  He looks emaciated; his suit almost looks like it is ready to fall off. He is narrow faced, bald except for tufts of graying hair above his ears. He has a tiny chin that recedes straight into his neck. His lips are slender and tight. His glasses have round lenses; they are the type that John Lennon made so famous.

  He smiles.

  I wish he hadn’t done that. It is almost reptilian.

  “Ah.” His voice is soft and calm. “You’re awake. I’m so pleased. I was afraid Terrance had struck you so hard you would never speak again.”

  I say nothing.

  “Speak to me, boy.” The smile has not left his lips. “What is that old expression? Has the cat got your tongue?”

  I slowly shake my head.

  “How are you feeling?” He leans forward. “Is your head sore?”

  I nod. When I speak, my voice is a croak. “Whatever it is you’re after, I don’t –”

  He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “Save your breath. We are still in the introductory phase. We will become friends. You believe that, don’t you? We will be friends?”

  Out of all the things I believe at that moment, becoming friends with this man ranks last on the list. Regardless, it is pointless to antagonize him. I nod.

  “Good,” he says. “Now, would you like a drink of water?”

  “Yes.”

  He rises from the chair, goes to the door and departs. My first action is to try my restraints. There is a tiny amount of give, but only keys will open the locks. The chair is timber and, given time, I could possible rock back and forth on the chair and try to collapse the furniture into pieces, but time is a luxury I don’t have. The man reappears with a glass of water in his hand. He holds it to my mouth and I drink. After the third swallow I wonder if the liquid could be poisoned, but that could be a blessing depending on what this man has in store for me.

  He draws back the empty glass, sits back in the seat and places the glass next to the chair.

  “How easily most problems are answered,” he says. “A man is thirsty. He drinks water and his thirst is quenched. Simple.” He nods. “My name is Doctor Ravana. As they say on television shows, ‘I will be your host for the evening’.”

  I nod.

  “Questions and answers are similarly simple.” He bites thoughtfully on his bottom lip with his thin, even teeth. “As long as the questions are answered correctly, honestly, with humility and verisimilitude there are no problems.”

  He speaks as if delivering a lecture.

  “I will not lie,” I say. “I have nothing to lie about. I don’t know anything.”

  “Everyone says that.” He nods, smiling again, but there is no humor in the smile. “In the beginning.”

  “But I really don’t know anything,” I say. “I woke up in a room. I could not remember my name –”

  “But you remember now,” he interrupts.

  “My name is Axel.”

  “Good,” he says. “We have a beginning.”

  “But I don’t remember how I got there. There was a man in the room. A dead man –”

  “His name?” the doctor inquires.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know his name.”

  “You see,” he says. “This is where we have a problem. How does one separate the lies from the truth?” He makes a motion with his hands as if panning for gold. “It would seem that a person must be not only willing to tell the truth –”

  “I am willing,” I say. “I am telling you the truth!”

  “– but desperate to tell me the truth,” he finishes.

  For the first time I realize the man has a slight accent. German, I think. He is reminiscent of one of those death camp doctors during the war. The comparison does nothing to ease my mind.

  “Desperate,” he repeats.

  I say nothing. The silence in the room yawns between us like the sky at night. Open and endless.

  “Desperation is a powerful emotion,” he says again. “It brings things to the surface. It separates the chaff from the grain. You see, it is not enough that you are telling me the truth.”

  He leaves the chair, kneels in front of me and places a bony hand on my knee.

  “I must believe you are telling me the truth.” He nods, looking down as if confirming the thought in his own mind. “I must believe it.”

  “I will tell you the truth –” I begin, but already Ravana has risen to his feet and crossed to the door. He leaves the room and a moment later I hear the rumble of a trolley. He reappears with a medical trolley and wheels it into the room. An electrical device sits on the upper level. It is a plain, silver box with two lights. One is green. The other is red.

  “Do not be fooled by appearances,” he says. “This is a highly sophisticated device. And equally effective.”

  The device has a hand held wand made from metal. A lead runs from it to the silver box on the trolley.

  “I will ask you questions,” he says. “You will give me answers. The pain from the probe is all consuming. One second of it will seem to last an hour, but fortunately the agony will disappear completely when the probe is removed. In fact, you will feel a strange euphoria. As if you are sitting by the beach on a summer’s day.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say desperately. “I will tell you the truth.”

  “I know you will tell me the truth.” He turns the device on and a low hum fills the room. “They always do.”