The light blinded Sheri when the transportation box was opened. It had been a long, very
uncomfortable drive for the captured girl. The chain holding her to the back of the box
cut into her middle. The handcuffs had tightened up because her hands were caught and
pressed between her back and the steel wall. Her back ached from being bent over and she
had cried herself out of tears during the hours of riding in that steel cage.
As she blinked in the bright light, she felt hands upon her ankles and the handcuffs
there coming off. Likewise, more hands unlocked the chain from around her waist. She was
lifted out of the box and set upon her feet. As her surroundings came into focus, she
felt like crying again. This was obviously a prison. There were armed Guards, bars on
the windows, and shackled prisoners standing nervously in a line.
A Guard with a clipboard came up, looked her over and checked his notes. “Processing
room seven,” he called out.
Two other Guards, whom she had not seen because they were behind her, grabbed her arms
and forced her off towards a row of doors not too distant. Each had a number on it.
Inside of number seven, she found a small room, a desk and two chairs. The one on her
side of the desk was bolted to the floor. They sat her down, making sure that her
handcuffed wrists were behind the chair’s back, and then locked her ankles together with
another pair that were connected by a short chain to the chair. Another short chain came
up and was locked to her handcuffs with a padlock. They left her chained to that chair.
For a long time Sheri sat alone in that room. There was only a single overhead light,
and no windows at all. She could feel air moving slowly through the room but the walls
must have been thick for she could hear nothing from the outside. Nervously she tested
the handcuffs on her wrists and ankles but found them tightly locked.
All kinds of stories came to her mind about those taken by the Guards. All were killed.
Most were sent to slave labor camps. The pretty girls were sent to brothels. A whole
host of horror stories offered up by people who had no knowledge of what they were talking
about. The real trouble for most people was that no one ever returned once arrested by
the Guards. So no one knew for sure what happened to them. The only ones who knew some
of the real facts were a small group who made up the underground, and of which Sheri had
become a member. Even they did not know all the facts, just enough to scare them.
When the door opened she was surprised to see a nun enter. The white on black habit
headpiece proclaimed her profession, but Sheri knew that most of the nuns were not
religious persons but rather the true guards and wardens of the woman’s prisons they
called abbeys. Her connections with the underground movement had taught her a little
about the true state of things in the world.
Without preamble the nun demanded, “Do you know the name James Cartwright?”
“No.”
“James Cartwright was arrested very close to where you were arrested and at about the
same time. He is a known terrorist.”
Sheri felt herself go cold. She did know the name; it was the man Sheri was to pass that
packet of documents on to.
The nun had seated herself opposite Sheri and was looking at a single sheet of paper in
her hand.
“Your name is Sheri Martina. You are nineteen years old. You graduated from Madison
High School and worked for a while at the One World Regional Relocation Center as a
clerk-typist. Then you disappeared. Your whereabouts for the last six months are
unknown.”
Sheri waited tensely for the questions to begin. Those six months had been spent with
the underground movement. She knew a fair amount about the workings of the movement,
enough to be trusted with the delivery of important information. Which also meant that
she knew enough to be of interest to the Guards. And, apparently, also their bosses, the
Church.
No questions came. The nun studied the paper a bit more then put it down with a sigh.
“You will be transferred to Saint Dorina’s. There you will tell all you know of the
resistance movement. After that…” She looked up and into Sheri’s eyes with a very evil
smile upon her face. It was more frightening that she left the sentence unfinished than
if she had made all kinds of dire threats.
“I know nothing of any resistance movement,” she protested.
Ignoring her, the nun rose from the chair and left the room without another word.
Sheri began to shake. What was this Saint Dorina’s? She knew there were abbeys within
or near their city, such as Saint Secundina’s. What and where was this Saint Dorina’s?
Some of the stories she had heard about Saint Secundina’s were bad enough. That there was
a place specializing in making prisoners tell all they knew, she had not known. That very
idea scared her to the bottom of her soul.
Two guards entered the room. They removed the shackles holding her to the chair and
marched her out of the room. Their destination was another room, larger and filled with
crates and boxes and steel cages of assorted sizes and shapes. She was forced to stand as
they took rough measurements of her body. A box looking somewhat like a coffin was
wheeled over and set upon a table. It was made of metal, probably steel, with rivets
showing and hasps on the sides were locks could be used to secure the lid down.
Sheri was forced to sit in a chair and a small cart wheeled over to her. While one guard
held her shoulders down, the other took a small black rubber bag with a hose coming from
it, and inserted it into her mouth. She tried to resist the thing, but their strength was
too much for her. The rubber bag was totally in her mouth when they began fitting a
rubber mask over her head. It was much along the lines of a scuba diver’s hood, save that
it had only one small opening in front. When they had forced the rubber hood over her
head and smoothed it down, the opening was positioned before her mouth. The rubber tube
from the thing in her mouth went through that hole.
The rubber hood was tight around her head and cut off her vision totally. It even
dampened her hearing where it covered her ears. She could not see what was happening but
felt that tube going into her mouth move. There was a hissing noise and the rubber bag
inside her mouth began to enlarge. Someone was pumping air into it! As it grew in size,
it tried to push her jaws open. It also pushed her tongue down. There came a point where
it could inflate no more. The tight rubber hood was working to hold her jaw shut while
the inflatable bag was trying to push it open. Some more movement on the tube and then
the pumping stopped.
The hood and bag made a very effective blindfold and gag. She could not see, could not
talk and already she was uncomfortable. In addition, the rubber tasted very bad in her
mouth. She shook her head but to no avail.
She was pulled up to her feet and the handcuffs taken off. Strong male hands held her
arms while someone else was busy taking off her clothing. She tried to pull back but was
held in place. The blouse was easily removed by unbuttoning it, and then the rest of her
clothing was cut off, save for her panties which were ripped off none too gently. Once
naked she was lifted and turned horizontally. She felt something soft under her back and
pressing in on the sides. But the back of her neck met with a hard edge. She could not
see it, but she had been lowered into that coffin-like box. It was, however, not a coffin
and was, in fact, shorter than she was tall. Her neck had been placed in a half circle at
one end while her feet were up against the other end.
Hands pushed her arms down by her sides. Wide straps began going around her arms and
body, holding her down tightly to the foam backing of the box. Straps passed over her
ankles, knees and waist. More on her arms, even some across her chest. When finished,
she was firmly secured to the bottom of the box. The lip was then closed. She could feel
the foam padding pressing against the front of her body. And the hard edge of the top
half of the head hole against her neck. From the jerking of her box, she could guess that
the lid was being locked down.
She felt herself lifted and rotated until she was standing upright, or at least the box
was. Her rubber-clad head was sticking out of the top but the rest of her body was
tightly pressed by foam padded and tight straps, and out of sight. For a long time she
was left standing like that.
It was not as uncomfortable as the transportation box had been. But then that rubber
hood and inflatable gag were quite unpleasant by themselves. Eventually she felt a couple
jerks, and then she was moving. A whole series of movements and halts occurred, until she
had no idea where she was or what was happening to her.
In reality she was sitting on the loading dock of the Guards transportation division.
Guards moved many such boxes around, loading some into trucks, unloading others. She was
loaded into a truck, left alone for a while, then felt the truck moving out. For several
hours that box with the helpless prisoner inside was driven down roads and over highways
to be delivered eventually to an airport. After another hour’s delay, the box with its
human contents was loaded onto a cargo jet and shipped across the Atlantic to England.
There were several other human cargo boxes on that flight, none knowing about the others,
and all very uncomfortable for the entire trip.
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