Abandoned World: The Awakening

You see, in this movie, two shuttles were flying away from Earth towards an asteroid, and they passed by a satellite of Earth, the moon… And this moon is very similar in landscape and everything to the planet we're on… We don't really believe we're on Earth, Mr. Heddock… We just listen to your lectures with respect. Understanding how important it is to foster a common faith… Because otherwise we're going to go mad here. We can't survive. We understand that. And this movie… It shows that the Earth looks very different, and that the Earth has a satellite… So we're on the Moon… We can't all watch this movie….

— I hear you, Taylor. I do. Now the most important question. How many people have you told about this? How many people have you told about the movie and that you think we're on the moon?

Taylor wanted to say no one. He had tried so hard to keep this secret to himself, to have it as a bargaining chip in case of anything… A bargaining chip for Natalie… But he had already told Natalie in the end. She was so disinterested in him and everything he said that the only thing he had to do was to tell her. It was supposed to work. It didn't. It hadn't worked at all, except that he'd learned once again that she wasn't interested in that sort of thing… What a bastard she was… It seemed to Taylor at that moment that Natalie had done nothing but mock him all this time. Keeping him talking, making sure he was on the hook. And she'd been withholding all this time. On purpose, so he'd never let go and keep chasing her. She did it all on purpose to torture him, and to be happy that there was someone who was chasing her like that… All those approaches, and even the urge to sit at the same table with her, to attract her with something, were turning Taylor's mind inside out, along with a growing sense of hatred for her.

She'd said she'd be willing to spend the rest of Tosca's days with me," Taylor thought. He imagined the positions in which he'd fuck her, then see her crawling on her knees to avoid getting another blow to her pretty face, and then pleasure him again as he wanted. That's what she'll end up with. Become his slave in this prison, and she's going to regret a lot that she didn't want to be his property sooner.

— Yes, he did. — Taylor answered. — Natalie Jackson… She was the only one I told… At first I only told her about Starcraft, but she started asking me about everything else, threatening to turn me in before I could turn in the flash drive if I didn't tell her everything I'd seen… So I told her about the movie….

— One movie or both?

— What? Armageddon? I told you about it.

— One, then?

— Oh, yeah. The one. Oh. The Shadow? No, I didn't tell you about that one… She frightened me so much that I only told you about Armageddon, forgetting that there was another one… There was nothing about the Shadow that didn't fit your theory, Mr. Heddock.

— So you only told Natalie Jackson about one game and one movie?

— Yes, Mr. Haddock. Just Natalie Jackson.

Heddock looked at him and saw that the boy was getting confused about what he was saying. He had forgotten how many movies he had seen, how many of them he had or had not told Natalie about, and what he had told Natalie. Based on his first words, he had only told Natalie about Armageddon, but at the end he had answered in the affirmative that he had talked about the game, too. Which means that either there was more than one conversation, or it wasn't exactly how he portrays it. Either way, from what Haddock himself knew about Natalie, she wasn't particularly interested in such things, and her latest discovery of helium-3 had only added to her impetus to delve even further into science.

— Do you like her? — Heddock asked.

— Who? Natalie… So…

— You want to fuck her?

— Mr. Haddock.

— Tell it like it is.

— Well… She's pretty, yeah…..

— If I brought her here, could you interrogate her? Tell her everything she knows. Tell me if she passed on what you said to anyone. Could you interrogate her? — Haddock continued to speak quite calmly, keeping his hands on the table.

— Would I be allowed to use force on her? I'm just not sure she'd confess to everything willingly….

— Permission granted. — Heddock replied, still as calm as ever.

— Then yes. Absolutely. — Taylor nodded and smiled. He finally felt like life was moving in the direction he'd wanted it to go for so long.

— And when she tells you everything she knows, you can do whatever you want with her. — Haddock said it without blinking an eye. And Taylor's mouth dropped open at the amazing excitement that was already filling him-that doing whatever you want to her means everything he'd ever dreamed it would mean, and then it doesn't even matter what happens. It doesn't matter, because he'll have everything by then. There's no statute of limitations or boundaries to that kind of value.

— Thank you, Mr. Heddock. — Taylor continued to smile a little. — I won't disappoint you.