Life's Cruel Verity? - Cindy Sees All: Part 1
My name is Jill Tiny
chapter 32
by
copier
· original author:
dr.manhattan
Her elongated pointer finger jabbing harshly into the infinity symbol embroidered over the left bosom of the man's uniform top, Major Kurtz let her fury be known. As she leaned her upper half toward him, the man, a whole head taller than the female major, mimicked the movement with inverted symmetry, almost to the point of falling over backwards. The infuriated woman's rough cut face was illuminated only by the fire burning in her deep cobalt irises. Cholerically, her lips shapelessly mouthed cutting syllables. Or so it appeared, anyway; there was no sound.
The tall man, for his part, did nothing other than tremble in fear. His arms were raised at his sides, palms open, vainly attempting to motion their way out of the blame for whatever it is he was being accused. His mouth made several quavering motions, pathetically failing to utter much more than a single word at a time amidst the violent tirade of Kurtz. His eyes were filled with terror.
Kurtz straightened her posture abruptly, allowing the man to do the same. For a second, it seemed as though his chastising was over. Seconds don't last long, though. The major elevated her right hand, snugged nicely into a jet black glove, leaving it hover just above her bulky left shoulder. The man cringed in frightful anticipation as her violent backhand made a speedy decent toward his face, not daring to block the intimidating Kurtz.
That's when the screen went fuzzy.
"Come on", Cindy whined, then consoled, "Oh well, it's not like I could lip read anyway".
Cindy's vibrant malachite eyes were still fixed on the tiny portable screen, almost as though the cheap mini-camera was still feeding it imaging. She'd placed it there at Jill's suggestion, as that particular room seemed the most popular with Kurtz according to available data. The positioning of the camera wasn't what was on Cindy's mind at that moment, however. It was the level of hatred with which the object of her spying had displayed. During their last and only encounter, Cindy had identified a number of undesirable traits in Kurtzie: sadism, heartlessness, maliciousness; but not blind rage. Something was different. Something was wrong.
"Radioshack, for all your espionage needs", a squeaky voice joked directly into Cindy's ear.
Cindy quickly turned her head in the direction of the familiar voice, though paranoia clouded her memory for the moment. A tiny groan accompanied a weak collision against her cheek as she looked down the empty corridor. She could feel a small force tugging at a few of the long blond hairs nearest her side. Carefully, Cindy gripped the pressured strands at their midpoints, carrying them over her left shoulder and bringing them before her confused visage to examine their catch.
"Sylvie?!", Cindy exclaimed, "What are you doing here?".
"Losing my grip".
This didn't register with Cindy right away, "What?".
The teeny brown haired boy's fingers were slipping through the damp golden follicles suspending him. From the sweaty smell, Sylvan rightly deducted that Cindy did not shower after the day's CQC (Close Quarters Combat) training. Not long afterward, his hands were free of the slippery threads, and he was plummeting toward the hard looking metallic ground at a rather alarming velocity. Fortunately, his demise was interrupted with a pratfall into the center of Cindy's plushy, awaiting palm. Cindy relinquished a sigh of relief as she lifted her diminutive friend back in front of her face. She blushed as Sylvan stared up at her in awe and admiration. Her full lips parted to speak, but approaching footsteps left her vocal cords silent, and her eyes darting for asylum.
"Two rooms down the hall, on the right side", Sylvan directed, "We can hide out there".
With a nod, Cindy set off for the recommended room. The echoing of the footfalls made it hard to tell distance, but she couldn't see anyone coming from either direction yet.
Arriving at the potential door, the digits of the giant girl's free hand fumbled through the left pocket of her uniformed pants, hastily pulling out an ID card. Cindy pushed it into the slit, eliciting neon blue letters to light up on the adjoining panel. The letters spelled out BEHAV RES. Cindy and Sylvan slipped through the opening doorway, not wasting a millisecond waiting for the sliding partitions to complete their shifting.
As the pair roamed into the room, the wall returned to its solidified appearance. Cindy recognized this room, or at least likened it to one she'd seen before. It was fifty feet wide by one hundred feet long, with a waist high metal table stretching from wall to wall attached to the wall opposite the no longer existing entryway. Dividers separated the table every ten feet, and empty Plexiglas containers sat between each of them. Two chairs waited for use at each station. This was exactly like the room Cindy found with Jill and Jackie to during their first trip to the complex.
Cindy walked to a random chair and sat down, setting her occupied hand down gently on the table amongst various tools and instruments, letting Sylvan hop off. She sat her arms in front of him, forearms overlapping, as she leaned forward slightly.
"So", Sylvan was first to speak, "You were checking up on the good major, huh?".
'Um, yeah", Cindy nervously answered.
"Yeah?", Sylvan seemed surprised, "That's it? You're not going to threaten to crush me if I tell anyone, or something?".
"Crush you?", Cindy was shocked at the idea, "I could never do anything like that".
Dejection spewed from Sylvan's slumped shoulders and lowered head, "You could bluff, at least".
Cindy gazed down at the puny teen, befuddled. Still, if it would make him happy...
"If you tell anyone about this", Cindy tried to sound menacing as she moved a hand above Sylvan's head, "I'll crush you...like a bug".
"Crush me?", Sylvan tilted his skyward to reveal his straight moue to Cindy, "Come on, Cindy. We both know you could never do anything like that".
Cindy placed her unrested hand onto her forehead, massaging it as her eyelids pinched tightly shut.
"My head hurts".
"I do that sometimes", Sylvan grinned as he confessed, "The bug thing was a nice touch, by the way".
"Thanks", Cindy perked back up, "So, why were you spying on me back there?".
"Because I want in, Cindy", Sylvan's face turned serious.
"In?", Cindy asked.
"Yes, in", the minuscule boy answered with confidence, "I followed you because I thought you hated this place. I thought you were like me. I was right wasn't I? You're going to take this place down?".
"Yeah", Cindy replied in amazement.
"I want to help", Sylvan offered.
Cindy paused before posing her next query, "But why?".
Sylvan didn't answer. Instead, he started walking toward the divider on his left. Cindy's eyes hung on his every movement as he straddled and climbed past its outside edge, putting him in front of another transparent cage. Sylvan repeated this process once more, causing Cindy to stand from her chair and move over two places. Seeing Sylvan stopped, she took a seat at the new station. She also happened to notice that the container here had a small hole carved in it.
"I'm so rude", Sylvan announced, "We were so close to my home, and I didn't say a word. I'd invite you in, but...you know, what would people say".
"You live there?", Cindy pointed to the Plexiglas cage.
"Mm hm", Sylvan acknowledged, "You see, I used to go to school up there", his eyes glide to the ceiling, "But one day, a goon in a uniform, not unlike the one you're wearing, just...grabbed me. They threw me in one of these fancy cages, and started feeling me up".
"That's horrible", Cindy stated, her thoughts going back to Nathan and Sally.
"I thought so, too. So I left".
"Wait. You left?", Cindy was in disbelief, "How did you manage that?".
"A magician never reveals his secret", Sylvan teased with a wink, "Anyway, I couldn't find my way out of the complex, so they caught me again. I broke out two more times before they realized these cages weren't going to cut it. Then, they threw me in the Bastille".
"The Bastille?", Cindy quizzed, "What's that?".
"Scary", Sylvan retorted solemnly, "And once I got away from there, they decided maybe I had a better use than getting poked with needles and touched in places. So, they put me in the internship program, and gave me this nice, cozy place to live. Ain't life grand?".
Cindy was silent, gawking down at tiny boy.
"That's why I want to help you", Sylvan continued, "Well, what do you think?"
The tall man, for his part, did nothing other than tremble in fear. His arms were raised at his sides, palms open, vainly attempting to motion their way out of the blame for whatever it is he was being accused. His mouth made several quavering motions, pathetically failing to utter much more than a single word at a time amidst the violent tirade of Kurtz. His eyes were filled with terror.
Kurtz straightened her posture abruptly, allowing the man to do the same. For a second, it seemed as though his chastising was over. Seconds don't last long, though. The major elevated her right hand, snugged nicely into a jet black glove, leaving it hover just above her bulky left shoulder. The man cringed in frightful anticipation as her violent backhand made a speedy decent toward his face, not daring to block the intimidating Kurtz.
That's when the screen went fuzzy.
"Come on", Cindy whined, then consoled, "Oh well, it's not like I could lip read anyway".
Cindy's vibrant malachite eyes were still fixed on the tiny portable screen, almost as though the cheap mini-camera was still feeding it imaging. She'd placed it there at Jill's suggestion, as that particular room seemed the most popular with Kurtz according to available data. The positioning of the camera wasn't what was on Cindy's mind at that moment, however. It was the level of hatred with which the object of her spying had displayed. During their last and only encounter, Cindy had identified a number of undesirable traits in Kurtzie: sadism, heartlessness, maliciousness; but not blind rage. Something was different. Something was wrong.
"Radioshack, for all your espionage needs", a squeaky voice joked directly into Cindy's ear.
Cindy quickly turned her head in the direction of the familiar voice, though paranoia clouded her memory for the moment. A tiny groan accompanied a weak collision against her cheek as she looked down the empty corridor. She could feel a small force tugging at a few of the long blond hairs nearest her side. Carefully, Cindy gripped the pressured strands at their midpoints, carrying them over her left shoulder and bringing them before her confused visage to examine their catch.
"Sylvie?!", Cindy exclaimed, "What are you doing here?".
"Losing my grip".
This didn't register with Cindy right away, "What?".
The teeny brown haired boy's fingers were slipping through the damp golden follicles suspending him. From the sweaty smell, Sylvan rightly deducted that Cindy did not shower after the day's CQC (Close Quarters Combat) training. Not long afterward, his hands were free of the slippery threads, and he was plummeting toward the hard looking metallic ground at a rather alarming velocity. Fortunately, his demise was interrupted with a pratfall into the center of Cindy's plushy, awaiting palm. Cindy relinquished a sigh of relief as she lifted her diminutive friend back in front of her face. She blushed as Sylvan stared up at her in awe and admiration. Her full lips parted to speak, but approaching footsteps left her vocal cords silent, and her eyes darting for asylum.
"Two rooms down the hall, on the right side", Sylvan directed, "We can hide out there".
With a nod, Cindy set off for the recommended room. The echoing of the footfalls made it hard to tell distance, but she couldn't see anyone coming from either direction yet.
Arriving at the potential door, the digits of the giant girl's free hand fumbled through the left pocket of her uniformed pants, hastily pulling out an ID card. Cindy pushed it into the slit, eliciting neon blue letters to light up on the adjoining panel. The letters spelled out BEHAV RES. Cindy and Sylvan slipped through the opening doorway, not wasting a millisecond waiting for the sliding partitions to complete their shifting.
As the pair roamed into the room, the wall returned to its solidified appearance. Cindy recognized this room, or at least likened it to one she'd seen before. It was fifty feet wide by one hundred feet long, with a waist high metal table stretching from wall to wall attached to the wall opposite the no longer existing entryway. Dividers separated the table every ten feet, and empty Plexiglas containers sat between each of them. Two chairs waited for use at each station. This was exactly like the room Cindy found with Jill and Jackie to during their first trip to the complex.
Cindy walked to a random chair and sat down, setting her occupied hand down gently on the table amongst various tools and instruments, letting Sylvan hop off. She sat her arms in front of him, forearms overlapping, as she leaned forward slightly.
"So", Sylvan was first to speak, "You were checking up on the good major, huh?".
'Um, yeah", Cindy nervously answered.
"Yeah?", Sylvan seemed surprised, "That's it? You're not going to threaten to crush me if I tell anyone, or something?".
"Crush you?", Cindy was shocked at the idea, "I could never do anything like that".
Dejection spewed from Sylvan's slumped shoulders and lowered head, "You could bluff, at least".
Cindy gazed down at the puny teen, befuddled. Still, if it would make him happy...
"If you tell anyone about this", Cindy tried to sound menacing as she moved a hand above Sylvan's head, "I'll crush you...like a bug".
"Crush me?", Sylvan tilted his skyward to reveal his straight moue to Cindy, "Come on, Cindy. We both know you could never do anything like that".
Cindy placed her unrested hand onto her forehead, massaging it as her eyelids pinched tightly shut.
"My head hurts".
"I do that sometimes", Sylvan grinned as he confessed, "The bug thing was a nice touch, by the way".
"Thanks", Cindy perked back up, "So, why were you spying on me back there?".
"Because I want in, Cindy", Sylvan's face turned serious.
"In?", Cindy asked.
"Yes, in", the minuscule boy answered with confidence, "I followed you because I thought you hated this place. I thought you were like me. I was right wasn't I? You're going to take this place down?".
"Yeah", Cindy replied in amazement.
"I want to help", Sylvan offered.
Cindy paused before posing her next query, "But why?".
Sylvan didn't answer. Instead, he started walking toward the divider on his left. Cindy's eyes hung on his every movement as he straddled and climbed past its outside edge, putting him in front of another transparent cage. Sylvan repeated this process once more, causing Cindy to stand from her chair and move over two places. Seeing Sylvan stopped, she took a seat at the new station. She also happened to notice that the container here had a small hole carved in it.
"I'm so rude", Sylvan announced, "We were so close to my home, and I didn't say a word. I'd invite you in, but...you know, what would people say".
"You live there?", Cindy pointed to the Plexiglas cage.
"Mm hm", Sylvan acknowledged, "You see, I used to go to school up there", his eyes glide to the ceiling, "But one day, a goon in a uniform, not unlike the one you're wearing, just...grabbed me. They threw me in one of these fancy cages, and started feeling me up".
"That's horrible", Cindy stated, her thoughts going back to Nathan and Sally.
"I thought so, too. So I left".
"Wait. You left?", Cindy was in disbelief, "How did you manage that?".
"A magician never reveals his secret", Sylvan teased with a wink, "Anyway, I couldn't find my way out of the complex, so they caught me again. I broke out two more times before they realized these cages weren't going to cut it. Then, they threw me in the Bastille".
"The Bastille?", Cindy quizzed, "What's that?".
"Scary", Sylvan retorted solemnly, "And once I got away from there, they decided maybe I had a better use than getting poked with needles and touched in places. So, they put me in the internship program, and gave me this nice, cozy place to live. Ain't life grand?".
Cindy was silent, gawking down at tiny boy.
"That's why I want to help you", Sylvan continued, "Well, what do you think?"
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August 15
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