Lights flickered. Orange and black, blink, blink, blink. He floated below the surface, tethered to the sea bed by his wrists and ankles. Waves crashed above him, distant pulses that swayed him where he drifted far below. The water was thick as he breathed it in, making his chest heavy, filling his lungs with lead. Hard surface beneath him, a soft head filled with cotton. Orange, black, orange, black. Someone in the room. Hard to breathe. Harder to move. If you're too tired to swim lie on your back and let the waves carry you. He lay back and let himself sink, knowing he could breathe the water. The darkness sucked him down, the current drawing him deeper, where the water was icy black and the pressure threatened to crush his bones. His arms were pinned to his sides, his head was reeling, but still the current pulled him, faster and faster now. Silver bubbles streamed away from him. He wanted to breathe but something over his mouth prevented it. He saw the water but his eyes weren't open, he could feel them moving behind his closed lids even as the sea floor rushed around him. He struggled now, wanting to swim, to surface. His eyes flickered and it was white, not orange, sharp and too bright and he flinched. Rough hands grabbed his head and tore tape from his mouth and he gasped, eyes wide and rolling as he desperately tried to focus on anything. His head lolled. The soft, quiet sea called behind his eyes and he almost sank back into it until a bucket of ice water was tipped abruptly over his head. His chest constricted; he gagged, jerked, found that he was bound to a metal chair with his wrists zip-tied behind him. His bare feet and ankles were bound to the chair legs and his jacket was gone, leaving him in his now soaked-through shirt. He blinked rapidly, chest heaving, as a tall man stepped out from behind him, placing the empty bucket on the floor. He smiled in a friendly way, and took a seat in an office chair behind the wide wooden desk that stood opposite. A bright white lampstand with three heads, one of which pointed directly at Sandy, illuminated their corner of the room, which otherwise faded into darkness. No walls could be seen.
The man laced his fingers before him on the desk.
"Pleasant trip?" He asked mildly.
Sandy gulped, struggling to bring his breathing under control as cold reality starkly reasserted itself. The man continued to smile with a mild, quiet calm. He was older than the others had been, maybe in his mid fifties, thin and wiry with an angular face unsoftened by white stubble and unkempt salty hair. His small eyes were a muddy green, and they gleamed with amusement as Sandy swallowed and straightened himself as much as he could. His efforts were hampered by his whole body starting to tremble with violent shivers that clenched his aching neck and shoulders. When they finally abated his muscles felt weak and watery, dull and detached. The chair creaked beneath him. Somewhere behind him there was a low electrical buzz, like a generator or a faulty strip light. He resisted the urge to turn around.
"You appear to have kidnapped me." He said, fighting to keep his voice even despite the shuddering.
"An excellent observation." The man tilted his head. "I hope this isn't too much of a surprise. It seems like you've been doing everything you can to catch someone's attention these last few weeks. Consider our attention caught."
Sandy nodded slowly, internally listing the number of people he'd recently encountered whose 'attentions' might lead to his current predicament. He was dismayed to find several possibilities coming to mind. The man seemed to notice his uncertainty, and the maddening smile inched wider.
"I can see you're having difficulty narrowing it down." He stood up slowly, long limbs unfurling with calm, unhurried confidence. "I'm afraid I can't help you there - I'm what you might call a freelancer. You can call me Grey."
He stepped around Sandy, uncomfortably close. Sandy felt his heart quicken, stuttering slightly in his chest, and forced himself to breathe slowly, for all the difference it would make. He tried to pull at his restraints without much success - his limbs didn't seem to be responding in time, and moving his head too quickly made the room spin. Something rolled on metal castors behind him and he turned before he could stop himself. Grey stood facing away from him, directly behind his back so that he had to crane his neck to catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. Grey's attention seemed to be on a silver trolley in front of him, but more than that Sandy couldn't make out through the gloom and his poor angle. His shoulders tensed as another shiver racked him, and he barely manage to muffle a quiet sound of distress.
"Don't mind the shaking." Grey said behind him. "It's the anaesthetic wearing off. Quite normal."
The wheels moved closer behind him. Sandy felt the gooseflesh prickling along the back of his neck.
"I don't suppose there's any point asking where I am?" He ventured shakily.
"Hm?" Grey shifted something on the trolley behind him. Paper rustled. Metal clinked against a hard surface. "Oh no, not at all. It barely matters anyway. Suffice to say we're not going to be disturbed."
He circled around Sandy, coming to a halt in front of him. He was holding a cylindrical leather case, tapping the lid absently with his left hand. He looked down at Sandy appraisingly.
"Your condition means we're going to have to do a little careful testing before we really get started. I know you're a smart man so I won't beat around the bush - I'm going to hurt you, very badly, and I need to know how much pain you can take without passing out. I suspect your tolerance will be a little lower than most since I understand that your attacks can be brought on by stress, meaning your baseline levels will naturally be a little higher."
He opened the case and showed Sandy the contents, drawing one item from inside. A single long, very fine needle, maybe 8 centimetres in length, with an orange plastic head. There were several dozen more in the case.
"I can't imagine you're the sort who believes in alternative medicines." He said with another smile, closing the case. "This is an acupuncture needle. Normally they're used to alleviate pain through manipulation of the body's vital energy. When used incorrectly, however, they can cause some significant damage. People have even died, from a careless placement of a needle through the lungs or the heart."
He moved like a spider, long, spindly limbs curling and uncurling. He knelt on the floor on Sandy's left side. Sandy's eyes were transfixed on the needle in his right hand, and he flinched hard when Grey gripped his leg just above the knee, pinning it to the chair.
"You'll be pleased to know that I am not careless. I promise, nothing that I do today is going to kill you. That's for the people waiting outside."
Sandy began to struggle in earnest, but it was like punching in a dream. His limbs refused to answer, heavy and unwilling, and Grey held him down with a strength belied by his sticklike frame. Even his throat seemed to have closed up, sticking shut around the too-obvious protests of stop, wait, please don't.
"I'd try and stay still once this is in, if I were you." Grey said calmly, gently placing the tip of the needle against Sandy's twitching outer thigh and beginning to push. Sandy gritted his teeth, determined that at least no further sounds of pain would escape him. It wasn't so bad - a thin, dull ache, and incessant pressure, and then suddenly a shock of electric agony jolted through his leg from his hip to his knee. He shouted in wordless pain, immediately betraying himself, and his whole leg jerked in spasm, the ties around his ankle biting against the skin. Grey sat back, the bright orange head of the needle still projecting from Sandy's leg.
"That was your anterior cutaneous nerve." He said calmly. He reached out and flicked the needle and Sandy cried out, biting down quickly on the sound, clamping his mouth shut as his leg trembled and his stomach roiled. "A useful starting point. I'm sure you can extrapolate where we go from here, though I suppose I could leave the choice of the next needle up to you. What do you think?" He reached up to prod Sandy's shoulder. Sandy flinched away, panting hard through his nose.
"The suprascapular nerve? The lateral brachial? One of the intercostals, perhaps?"
Sandy swallowed. His leg with filled with an electric hum, flickering pins and needles that cracked and sparked with every movement. He wasn't an idiot. He'd considered this - or something like this - as a possibility for a long time. Grey was right - he'd made a habit of making a nuisance of himself to some very dangerous people. He'd hoped in the moment he'd be able to face it with cocky defiance, or failing that cold stoicism. But pain and terror were a lot easier to contemplate from a comfortable distance. Nobody knew he was here. The agony in his leg was only too real, as was the smiling man and his box of needles.
Bravery, then. He swallowed, finding his mouth uncomfortably dry.
"Whatever it is you want -"
"No no, we're nowhere near that yet." Grey waved off his bravado impatiently. "As I said this is just the preliminary stage. The preamble, if you like. When I actually want anything from you, you'll know about it."
He stood, picking up the box.
"How about the radial nerve? Somewhere near the wrist. Start at the outside and work our way in."
