Post by Lorpius Prime on Jun 2, 2009 20:49:58 GMT -5
It wasn't until they locked her wrists and ankles in manacles that Reg began to realize just how much trouble she was in. The absurdity of her captors' uniforms, their ridiculous questions, and, well, everything about them had made it difficult for Reg to take them seriously. She still didn't know who they were, what was going on, or even where she was—since it didn't appear to be Neuschwanstein anymore. But after the manacles it began to sink in that whatever was happening, it was real, and it was bad.
The sergeant and Private Watts had taken her to another room. They hadn't frog-marched her there like Ox, but once inside they'd made her sit down at a chair behind a table. Then they'd shackled her legs to the chair and her hands to metal posts on the tabletop.
And then they'd left her there.
Reg had been arrested once before in her life. She'd gone to a party in college that was hosted by an acquaintance, and it was already getting out of hand by the time Reg showed up. The police had arrived before Reg could leave, and she'd been rounded up with most everyone else and spent most of the night in the local drunk tank. That hadn't been fun, but it wasn't nearly so scary as this, at least then there were other people she knew and the cops had taken her handcuffs off after putting her in the cell, and then eventually released her without charge.
Reg had none of that, here. She didn't even know who these people were or whether they intended to follow any sort of law. They'd taken her identification and her cell-phone along with her backpack. Tears grew in Reg's eyes when she thought about that. Would they ever give those things back? Or were they just going to pretend she was a non-person, with no way to contact the outside world? It was like one of those secret CIA kidnappings she occasionally heard about on the news.
"Only these secret agents are wearing freaking carnival costumes," Reg complained loudly for the benefit of the walls. She pounded her fists against the wooden table again, causing the chains to rattle and the iron manacles to dig into her wrists.
She'd been visited twice since being locked up: first by a man who called himself Captain Elkwood, and then by a Major Sylvester. Both of them had worn similar outfits to the first men she'd encountered, but with even gaudier ornamentation. Major Sylvester had walked in wearing a plumed hat that he'd set on the table before speaking with Reg. She'd had trouble keeping her eyes off of it.
They both asked the same questions, anyway. Who was she? Where was she from? What was she doing in the hallway downstairs? How did she get there?
Reg didn't blame them for thinking that her answer to the last question was a lie. She didn't understand what happened herself, and she'd told them so. Falling through the rock face of a cliff? Reg shook her head.
No, what bothered her was that they seemed to think everything else she said was a lie, too. She wished she knew what sort of answers they would believe. At this point, she'd almost be willing to tell them just so that they'd let her go.
The door to the little room opened, and Reg looked up across the table. In the doorway stood Major Sylvester again, holding his hat in the crook of his arm and smiling at her. Oh great.
"Hello again, Miss Odette," Sylvester said. He was a plump little man whose jolly demeanor made Reg want to pluck his eyes out. Perhaps she would have found it more charming if he wasn't keeping her chained to a chair and table.
"Hi," Reg grumbled through her teeth. Sylvester's smile didn't change; he may not have heard her. He stepped through the door and then moved to one side to reveal a second person behind him.
This second man also wore an excessively flashy outfit, but it was a different excessively flashy outfit. His coat and pants were white, with only a single sash of red, although he had medals and braided gold ropes hanging about him that looked the same to Reg as the ones everyone else had worn.
He stepped into the room and smiled at Reg somewhat more softly than Major Sylvester. He was also taller than Sylvester even though he wasn't wearing a hat, which revealed that he had far more hair than Sylvester as well.
"Hello," the new man said. He had a deep-throated accent that Reg couldn't place, but that sounded familiar to her. She didn't think he was a native English speaker.
He walked towards her table, and someone closed the door to the room behind him. The new man pulled out the chair opposite Reg and sat down in it, folding his hands in front of him and then looking her in the eye.
"So you are Regina Odette," he said pleasantly.
"Sure, why not?" Reg was getting tired of this.
Major Sylvester snorted from where he was standing in the corner of the room, but the new man just nodded, still smiling.
"I am General Manz," he said. "Major Sylvester asked me to speak with you, Regina." He nodded his head to one side, as if Reg might not have known who he was talking about.
"Okay," Reg said. "Look, I'm not going to be able to tell you anything more than what I've told everyone else. I really have no idea what's going on here."
"I see," General Manz said, and nodded again. He unclasped his hands to reach into a coat pocket with one, out of which he withdrew a large pocket watch. It had a silver and bronze case with some sort of intricate design etched into the surface, though Reg couldn't see enough to make sense of it. Manz carefully opened the pocket watch and then set it down on the table before him so that he could see the face. Once that was done, he folded his hands back on the table and looked at Reg again.
"Major Sylvester says that you claim to be from Los Angeles in California, but not the Los Angeles, California in the Empire of Mexico." He tilted his head, awaiting her response.
"This again?" Reg flicked the chains of her manacles to turn her palms up, and gave her head a slight shake of incredulity. "There is no Los Angeles, California in Mexico!" How ridiculous was it to even have to say such a thing?
General Manz said nothing, just continued to look at Reg curiously.
She huffed, and pointed at herself, "I'm from L.A.! You know, City of Angels? Hollywood?"
Nothing.
"Are you people stupid?" she yelled. "California, the freaking west coast of the freaking United States! You know, the United States of America? President Bush? Not that I voted for him," she added hastily. But she needn't have bothered; there was no recognition in their eyes. "Come on!" she was shaking.
Neither of the two men spoke for a few moments while Reg caught her breath, glaring desperately at them.
"Miss Odette," General Manz said once she'd calmed down a bit, "where do you think you are right now?" He tapped a finger on the table next to his watch.
Reg sighed, "Okay, look. I spent the night in the hotel in Schwangau. And I woke up this morning, and got my things, and got on the bus for Neuschwanstein. And then we all got off the bus across the bridge from the castle. And I took some pictures, but there was this bird, and this guy, and…" Reg shook her head. "Anyway, we were looking at this—I dunno—this design in the cliff, just carved into the side of the freaking mountain. And I touched it, and I fell, and then I was here," she slapped the table, and then held up her hands as high as the chains would let her. "And that's it!" she said, a little hysterically. "That's all I know!"
General Manz tapped his finger on the table a few more times. Then he put one fist under his chin and turned to the man behind him.
"Major Sylvester," he asked, "what is the date?"
Sylvester crossed his eyes, "June thirteenth, Jakob. It's Victory Day."
"Of course," General Manz nodded.
Reg probably looked about as confused as Major Sylvester, but for a different reason: she had no idea what they were talking about. Victory Day? Had she walked into some weird celebration for a holiday she hadn't heard of?
"Well, then, that settles it," Manz said after a moment. He put his hands on the table and pushed himself back up to his feet. He replaced his watch in his pocket and turned to the man in the corner.
"What?" Sylvester asked, blinking. "Do you think she's dangerous?"
"Oh," Manz glanced at Reg, but looked away before meeting her eyes, "I think she may merely be troubled. But considering the timing, it is better to be cautious. I will put her in a cell until we can be certain the palace is secured."
"What?" Reg pulled at her manacles. "I haven't done anything!"
Sylvester looked at her nervously for a moment before nodding to Manz, "Very well, then. I'll have some of my men escort her to the stockade."
"Thank you, Major," Manz said. "I think I'll accompany them, I have some work to do at my office anyway."
"Hey! You can't just lock me up like this! Hey!" Reg pleaded. But the two men ignored her. The door to the room opened again, and with a snap of Major Sylvester's fingers, two more men with rifles on their shoulders filed into the room and walked towards Reg.
There was a time in Reg's life that she had wanted to be a magician. It was about a two-week phase when she was nine years old. Now, Reg regretted ever giving up that dream. Maybe if she'd followed in the footsteps of Harry Houdini, she'd be able to get out of these damned medieval handcuffs.
"Alakazam!" she shouted. The handcuffs did not release. Reg glowered at them.
General Manz and the two stooges with rifles stopped in their tracks to look at her. Reg glowered at them, too.
"What?" she demanded. Did they think she should be happy in these things? The chains binding her wrists and running down to her ankles weighed as much as her backpack, but did not come with padded shoulder straps fitted for maximum comfort.
"We are almost there," Manz said in his calm voice. "I will remove the shackles once you're in your room."
He turned back around to continue walking. The stooges did the same, pushing on Reg's shoulders to make sure she came along too.
"Oh thank you so much, Mister General sir," Reg said to Manz's back. "It'll just be so nice once you unchain me so that you can lock me in a freaking prison cell instead!" Reg thought seriously about kicking him in the back of the knee, but the chains meant she would have probably just tripped. "How about telling me when you're going to let me go, huh? I mean, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to hold me at all, but just out of curiosity, you know?"
"I imagine you'll be sorted out in a day or two, Miss Odette," Manz said without turning around.
"A day or two, huh? Great, because I only have a hotel that I need to check out of tomorrow morning. Don't suppose you're going to pay for that one, are you?"
Manz didn't answer, which was just fine because Reg was pretty sure it had been a rhetorical question anyway. Right now she was happier just muttering and fuming at the man's back. Screw escaping from handcuffs, Reg wanted laser vision. Then she could have burned a literal hole through the General before just melting her chains.
Reg's guards took her inside a squat stonework building. She wished she knew where she was. The guards had taken her straight out of the big palatial building after freeing her from the little interrogation room, but they hadn't ever let her turn around to get a good look at the building from the outside. It must have been either Neuschwanstein or Hohenschwangau since those were the only two buildings in the area that could possibly have such extravagant interiors. If she knew, maybe she'd have a better idea of just what the hell was going on, but no one would tell her anything. And they'd been walking on a boring path through an ordinary pine forest since leaving. The pine trees were probably pretty and worth looking at in their own right, but Reg was in no mood to enjoy them.
There was nothing else around the building she entered now; it had its own solitary forest clearing. Reg supposed this was the stockade General Manz had referred to since it certainly looked like a prison: iron bars adorned all the windows.
It was heavily guarded, too. Five more men in scarlet costumes were waiting in a lobby barren of all furnishings except a single table and chair. For a moment, Reg again wondered where all of these clowns were coming from. But then the stooges marched her up to stand next to General Manz in front of the clown sitting behind the solitary table. The clown opened his mouth and then quickly shut it again. His eyes darted between Reg and General Manz.
The clown tried again, "I can't take women, General. None of the wings are empty."
Reg wrinkled her nose. She was torn between taking delight or offense at the man's chivalry.
"I'm going to take her to the E wing," General Manz said. Reg scowled. "Our other guest shouldn't be a problem."
The clown at the desk frowned for a moment, but then shook his head. "All right, but how do you want to search her?"
"Her possessions have already been confiscated, I'm confident she's not hiding anything which might pose an escape risk."
The clown bit his lip, "Your confidence is one thing, General, but I can't take responsibility for that if we haven't searched her. And none of my men will be willing to do so," he paused. "Well, any that were willing I'd have to disallow myself."
Manz nodded, "I'll take the responsibility, Major. If you please?" He held out a hand.
The man at the desk opened a large book that was sitting on the table in front of him. He thumbed through it until he found a specific page, then turned the book around and pushed it towards General Manz. He set a pen on top of the open fold.
Manz picked up the pen and scribbled something into the book, before placing the pen back onto the table. The clown smiled with relief and slammed the book shut.
"All right," he nodded to the General, "you can go ahead."
General Manz didn't respond, but straightened up and turned towards Reg. She directed the full force of her scowl towards him, but got no response. He held out a hand to point past her.
"This way, then, please."
As if Reg had a choice. One of the stooges who'd escorted her thus far tugged on her shoulder again, turning her around and marching her in the direction that Manz had indicated.
One of the stockade guards pulled open a heavy iron door set into the back wall. Beyond it was a narrow staircase leading down to a lower level. A single lamp above the doorway provided the only light. Reg was herded gently towards the stairs—if they'd pushed her, she probably would have fallen right down them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the stockade guard hand a ring of keys to General Manz.
Reg took the stairs slowly; she had to with the chains binding her feet to one another and to her hands. Behind her the stooge kept a hand on her shoulder, but merely let it rest there, allowing her to descend at her own pace. She was halfway down the steps when she heard the door behind them close.
A loud tapping sound rang out as someone thumped the stone wall. General Manz's voice called out, "Oh, Phillip! It's your lucky day!"
Reg grimaced, but tried to concentrate on climbing down the remaining few steps without stumbling. Ahead of her, the hallway turned right and ran perpendicular to the stairwell.
A cheerful male voice floated up from around the corner, "Indeed it is, General! Although I wonder if you will agree in the future."
Two more steps. Manz chuckled, "I've brought a friend to join you down here, Phillip."
"Oh, have you now?" the happy voice bubbled in return. "Not worried that I will drive him mad?"
"No," the General said simply as Reg dropped her foot off the final step and onto the floor below. She sighed in relief, and then grumbled as the hand on her shoulder started pushing again. Reg walked around the corner.
The hallway was much more brightly lit than the stairwell. It had more lamps, but also a fair amount of sunlight coming in through barred windows at the very tops of the walls inside the cells. There were four of those, two on each side of the hall. The cells looked like all the stereotypical unpleasant medieval dungeons Reg had ever seen in movies or television. They were little boxes made of stone with doors made of iron bars. Each one had a set of bunk beds hanging from the wall with thin mattresses, a small window near the ceiling, and a bucket. Reg tried not to think about the bucket.
Someone was whistling softly and tunelessly in the cell at the rear left. Reg presumed that was Phillip, although she couldn't see anyone inside from here. The stooge behind her grabbed her shoulder to stop her at the very first cell on the right.
General Manz walked around in front of Reg holding the key ring. He selected one of two long skeleton keys pushed it into the lock on the cell door. It turned with loud ka-tunk noise, and Manz pushed the bars open.
"All right, Miss Odette," he beckoned Reg forward, "I promised I'd remove the chains."
Reg stepped forward, and Manz fished another, smaller key out of one of his pockets. She managed to keep glowering at Manz the entire time he spent unfastening the manacles. She was grateful to have them removed, but that didn't mean she had to be grateful towards him.
The last of the cuffs fell loose. Manz gathered up the chains in one hand, and handed them to the stooge behind Reg. She rubbed her wrists. Manz put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed Reg towards the cell doorway. A part of Reg's mind screamed that she ought to put her fingers in his eyes and try to run for it. She didn't, however. Perhaps she was still having trouble believing that this all wasn't some sort of bizarre nightmare. The attempt probably would have been futile, anyway. Reg stepped passively into the cell.
Manz swung the bars shut behind her and set about locking them again. Reg crossed her arms, summoning up her remaining defiance now that it was useless.
"So, what?" she asked. "I just stay here? And I just believe that one of you bozos is going to decide to let me out sometime?"
Manz finished locking the cell door, and smiled. Rather than answering her question, he fished his big watch out of his pocket and flipped it open to look at the face.
"It looks like you've just missed lunch," he said. "Dinner will be in about five hours, and someone else will be down then."
He turned to leave.
Reg raised her arms. "Thanks!" she screamed at him.
The General walked away, quickly disappearing around the corner to the staircase. A few seconds later, the door at the top groaned. And then it shut with heavy boom.
They were gone.
Reg was still standing there, staring dumbfounded at the empty hall.
After a moment, she grabbed the iron bars in front of her and shook them with all of her strength. That hurt her shoulders, but didn't move the bars at all. Reg hollered at the top of her lungs, just venting her frustration.
"Hey," a voice called after she was finished. It was the same voice that had talked to General Manz before, but it had lost its creepy manic quality.
Reg leaned her head forward against the bars.
"Hey," she said back, looking at the floor. "Phillip, right?"
"That is what the General calls me," the voice said. "But I would be happier if you would call me Theodore."
The sergeant and Private Watts had taken her to another room. They hadn't frog-marched her there like Ox, but once inside they'd made her sit down at a chair behind a table. Then they'd shackled her legs to the chair and her hands to metal posts on the tabletop.
And then they'd left her there.
Reg had been arrested once before in her life. She'd gone to a party in college that was hosted by an acquaintance, and it was already getting out of hand by the time Reg showed up. The police had arrived before Reg could leave, and she'd been rounded up with most everyone else and spent most of the night in the local drunk tank. That hadn't been fun, but it wasn't nearly so scary as this, at least then there were other people she knew and the cops had taken her handcuffs off after putting her in the cell, and then eventually released her without charge.
Reg had none of that, here. She didn't even know who these people were or whether they intended to follow any sort of law. They'd taken her identification and her cell-phone along with her backpack. Tears grew in Reg's eyes when she thought about that. Would they ever give those things back? Or were they just going to pretend she was a non-person, with no way to contact the outside world? It was like one of those secret CIA kidnappings she occasionally heard about on the news.
"Only these secret agents are wearing freaking carnival costumes," Reg complained loudly for the benefit of the walls. She pounded her fists against the wooden table again, causing the chains to rattle and the iron manacles to dig into her wrists.
She'd been visited twice since being locked up: first by a man who called himself Captain Elkwood, and then by a Major Sylvester. Both of them had worn similar outfits to the first men she'd encountered, but with even gaudier ornamentation. Major Sylvester had walked in wearing a plumed hat that he'd set on the table before speaking with Reg. She'd had trouble keeping her eyes off of it.
They both asked the same questions, anyway. Who was she? Where was she from? What was she doing in the hallway downstairs? How did she get there?
Reg didn't blame them for thinking that her answer to the last question was a lie. She didn't understand what happened herself, and she'd told them so. Falling through the rock face of a cliff? Reg shook her head.
No, what bothered her was that they seemed to think everything else she said was a lie, too. She wished she knew what sort of answers they would believe. At this point, she'd almost be willing to tell them just so that they'd let her go.
The door to the little room opened, and Reg looked up across the table. In the doorway stood Major Sylvester again, holding his hat in the crook of his arm and smiling at her. Oh great.
"Hello again, Miss Odette," Sylvester said. He was a plump little man whose jolly demeanor made Reg want to pluck his eyes out. Perhaps she would have found it more charming if he wasn't keeping her chained to a chair and table.
"Hi," Reg grumbled through her teeth. Sylvester's smile didn't change; he may not have heard her. He stepped through the door and then moved to one side to reveal a second person behind him.
This second man also wore an excessively flashy outfit, but it was a different excessively flashy outfit. His coat and pants were white, with only a single sash of red, although he had medals and braided gold ropes hanging about him that looked the same to Reg as the ones everyone else had worn.
He stepped into the room and smiled at Reg somewhat more softly than Major Sylvester. He was also taller than Sylvester even though he wasn't wearing a hat, which revealed that he had far more hair than Sylvester as well.
"Hello," the new man said. He had a deep-throated accent that Reg couldn't place, but that sounded familiar to her. She didn't think he was a native English speaker.
He walked towards her table, and someone closed the door to the room behind him. The new man pulled out the chair opposite Reg and sat down in it, folding his hands in front of him and then looking her in the eye.
"So you are Regina Odette," he said pleasantly.
"Sure, why not?" Reg was getting tired of this.
Major Sylvester snorted from where he was standing in the corner of the room, but the new man just nodded, still smiling.
"I am General Manz," he said. "Major Sylvester asked me to speak with you, Regina." He nodded his head to one side, as if Reg might not have known who he was talking about.
"Okay," Reg said. "Look, I'm not going to be able to tell you anything more than what I've told everyone else. I really have no idea what's going on here."
"I see," General Manz said, and nodded again. He unclasped his hands to reach into a coat pocket with one, out of which he withdrew a large pocket watch. It had a silver and bronze case with some sort of intricate design etched into the surface, though Reg couldn't see enough to make sense of it. Manz carefully opened the pocket watch and then set it down on the table before him so that he could see the face. Once that was done, he folded his hands back on the table and looked at Reg again.
"Major Sylvester says that you claim to be from Los Angeles in California, but not the Los Angeles, California in the Empire of Mexico." He tilted his head, awaiting her response.
"This again?" Reg flicked the chains of her manacles to turn her palms up, and gave her head a slight shake of incredulity. "There is no Los Angeles, California in Mexico!" How ridiculous was it to even have to say such a thing?
General Manz said nothing, just continued to look at Reg curiously.
She huffed, and pointed at herself, "I'm from L.A.! You know, City of Angels? Hollywood?"
Nothing.
"Are you people stupid?" she yelled. "California, the freaking west coast of the freaking United States! You know, the United States of America? President Bush? Not that I voted for him," she added hastily. But she needn't have bothered; there was no recognition in their eyes. "Come on!" she was shaking.
Neither of the two men spoke for a few moments while Reg caught her breath, glaring desperately at them.
"Miss Odette," General Manz said once she'd calmed down a bit, "where do you think you are right now?" He tapped a finger on the table next to his watch.
Reg sighed, "Okay, look. I spent the night in the hotel in Schwangau. And I woke up this morning, and got my things, and got on the bus for Neuschwanstein. And then we all got off the bus across the bridge from the castle. And I took some pictures, but there was this bird, and this guy, and…" Reg shook her head. "Anyway, we were looking at this—I dunno—this design in the cliff, just carved into the side of the freaking mountain. And I touched it, and I fell, and then I was here," she slapped the table, and then held up her hands as high as the chains would let her. "And that's it!" she said, a little hysterically. "That's all I know!"
General Manz tapped his finger on the table a few more times. Then he put one fist under his chin and turned to the man behind him.
"Major Sylvester," he asked, "what is the date?"
Sylvester crossed his eyes, "June thirteenth, Jakob. It's Victory Day."
"Of course," General Manz nodded.
Reg probably looked about as confused as Major Sylvester, but for a different reason: she had no idea what they were talking about. Victory Day? Had she walked into some weird celebration for a holiday she hadn't heard of?
"Well, then, that settles it," Manz said after a moment. He put his hands on the table and pushed himself back up to his feet. He replaced his watch in his pocket and turned to the man in the corner.
"What?" Sylvester asked, blinking. "Do you think she's dangerous?"
"Oh," Manz glanced at Reg, but looked away before meeting her eyes, "I think she may merely be troubled. But considering the timing, it is better to be cautious. I will put her in a cell until we can be certain the palace is secured."
"What?" Reg pulled at her manacles. "I haven't done anything!"
Sylvester looked at her nervously for a moment before nodding to Manz, "Very well, then. I'll have some of my men escort her to the stockade."
"Thank you, Major," Manz said. "I think I'll accompany them, I have some work to do at my office anyway."
"Hey! You can't just lock me up like this! Hey!" Reg pleaded. But the two men ignored her. The door to the room opened again, and with a snap of Major Sylvester's fingers, two more men with rifles on their shoulders filed into the room and walked towards Reg.
* * *
There was a time in Reg's life that she had wanted to be a magician. It was about a two-week phase when she was nine years old. Now, Reg regretted ever giving up that dream. Maybe if she'd followed in the footsteps of Harry Houdini, she'd be able to get out of these damned medieval handcuffs.
"Alakazam!" she shouted. The handcuffs did not release. Reg glowered at them.
General Manz and the two stooges with rifles stopped in their tracks to look at her. Reg glowered at them, too.
"What?" she demanded. Did they think she should be happy in these things? The chains binding her wrists and running down to her ankles weighed as much as her backpack, but did not come with padded shoulder straps fitted for maximum comfort.
"We are almost there," Manz said in his calm voice. "I will remove the shackles once you're in your room."
He turned back around to continue walking. The stooges did the same, pushing on Reg's shoulders to make sure she came along too.
"Oh thank you so much, Mister General sir," Reg said to Manz's back. "It'll just be so nice once you unchain me so that you can lock me in a freaking prison cell instead!" Reg thought seriously about kicking him in the back of the knee, but the chains meant she would have probably just tripped. "How about telling me when you're going to let me go, huh? I mean, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to hold me at all, but just out of curiosity, you know?"
"I imagine you'll be sorted out in a day or two, Miss Odette," Manz said without turning around.
"A day or two, huh? Great, because I only have a hotel that I need to check out of tomorrow morning. Don't suppose you're going to pay for that one, are you?"
Manz didn't answer, which was just fine because Reg was pretty sure it had been a rhetorical question anyway. Right now she was happier just muttering and fuming at the man's back. Screw escaping from handcuffs, Reg wanted laser vision. Then she could have burned a literal hole through the General before just melting her chains.
Reg's guards took her inside a squat stonework building. She wished she knew where she was. The guards had taken her straight out of the big palatial building after freeing her from the little interrogation room, but they hadn't ever let her turn around to get a good look at the building from the outside. It must have been either Neuschwanstein or Hohenschwangau since those were the only two buildings in the area that could possibly have such extravagant interiors. If she knew, maybe she'd have a better idea of just what the hell was going on, but no one would tell her anything. And they'd been walking on a boring path through an ordinary pine forest since leaving. The pine trees were probably pretty and worth looking at in their own right, but Reg was in no mood to enjoy them.
There was nothing else around the building she entered now; it had its own solitary forest clearing. Reg supposed this was the stockade General Manz had referred to since it certainly looked like a prison: iron bars adorned all the windows.
It was heavily guarded, too. Five more men in scarlet costumes were waiting in a lobby barren of all furnishings except a single table and chair. For a moment, Reg again wondered where all of these clowns were coming from. But then the stooges marched her up to stand next to General Manz in front of the clown sitting behind the solitary table. The clown opened his mouth and then quickly shut it again. His eyes darted between Reg and General Manz.
The clown tried again, "I can't take women, General. None of the wings are empty."
Reg wrinkled her nose. She was torn between taking delight or offense at the man's chivalry.
"I'm going to take her to the E wing," General Manz said. Reg scowled. "Our other guest shouldn't be a problem."
The clown at the desk frowned for a moment, but then shook his head. "All right, but how do you want to search her?"
"Her possessions have already been confiscated, I'm confident she's not hiding anything which might pose an escape risk."
The clown bit his lip, "Your confidence is one thing, General, but I can't take responsibility for that if we haven't searched her. And none of my men will be willing to do so," he paused. "Well, any that were willing I'd have to disallow myself."
Manz nodded, "I'll take the responsibility, Major. If you please?" He held out a hand.
The man at the desk opened a large book that was sitting on the table in front of him. He thumbed through it until he found a specific page, then turned the book around and pushed it towards General Manz. He set a pen on top of the open fold.
Manz picked up the pen and scribbled something into the book, before placing the pen back onto the table. The clown smiled with relief and slammed the book shut.
"All right," he nodded to the General, "you can go ahead."
General Manz didn't respond, but straightened up and turned towards Reg. She directed the full force of her scowl towards him, but got no response. He held out a hand to point past her.
"This way, then, please."
As if Reg had a choice. One of the stooges who'd escorted her thus far tugged on her shoulder again, turning her around and marching her in the direction that Manz had indicated.
One of the stockade guards pulled open a heavy iron door set into the back wall. Beyond it was a narrow staircase leading down to a lower level. A single lamp above the doorway provided the only light. Reg was herded gently towards the stairs—if they'd pushed her, she probably would have fallen right down them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the stockade guard hand a ring of keys to General Manz.
Reg took the stairs slowly; she had to with the chains binding her feet to one another and to her hands. Behind her the stooge kept a hand on her shoulder, but merely let it rest there, allowing her to descend at her own pace. She was halfway down the steps when she heard the door behind them close.
A loud tapping sound rang out as someone thumped the stone wall. General Manz's voice called out, "Oh, Phillip! It's your lucky day!"
Reg grimaced, but tried to concentrate on climbing down the remaining few steps without stumbling. Ahead of her, the hallway turned right and ran perpendicular to the stairwell.
A cheerful male voice floated up from around the corner, "Indeed it is, General! Although I wonder if you will agree in the future."
Two more steps. Manz chuckled, "I've brought a friend to join you down here, Phillip."
"Oh, have you now?" the happy voice bubbled in return. "Not worried that I will drive him mad?"
"No," the General said simply as Reg dropped her foot off the final step and onto the floor below. She sighed in relief, and then grumbled as the hand on her shoulder started pushing again. Reg walked around the corner.
The hallway was much more brightly lit than the stairwell. It had more lamps, but also a fair amount of sunlight coming in through barred windows at the very tops of the walls inside the cells. There were four of those, two on each side of the hall. The cells looked like all the stereotypical unpleasant medieval dungeons Reg had ever seen in movies or television. They were little boxes made of stone with doors made of iron bars. Each one had a set of bunk beds hanging from the wall with thin mattresses, a small window near the ceiling, and a bucket. Reg tried not to think about the bucket.
Someone was whistling softly and tunelessly in the cell at the rear left. Reg presumed that was Phillip, although she couldn't see anyone inside from here. The stooge behind her grabbed her shoulder to stop her at the very first cell on the right.
General Manz walked around in front of Reg holding the key ring. He selected one of two long skeleton keys pushed it into the lock on the cell door. It turned with loud ka-tunk noise, and Manz pushed the bars open.
"All right, Miss Odette," he beckoned Reg forward, "I promised I'd remove the chains."
Reg stepped forward, and Manz fished another, smaller key out of one of his pockets. She managed to keep glowering at Manz the entire time he spent unfastening the manacles. She was grateful to have them removed, but that didn't mean she had to be grateful towards him.
The last of the cuffs fell loose. Manz gathered up the chains in one hand, and handed them to the stooge behind Reg. She rubbed her wrists. Manz put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed Reg towards the cell doorway. A part of Reg's mind screamed that she ought to put her fingers in his eyes and try to run for it. She didn't, however. Perhaps she was still having trouble believing that this all wasn't some sort of bizarre nightmare. The attempt probably would have been futile, anyway. Reg stepped passively into the cell.
Manz swung the bars shut behind her and set about locking them again. Reg crossed her arms, summoning up her remaining defiance now that it was useless.
"So, what?" she asked. "I just stay here? And I just believe that one of you bozos is going to decide to let me out sometime?"
Manz finished locking the cell door, and smiled. Rather than answering her question, he fished his big watch out of his pocket and flipped it open to look at the face.
"It looks like you've just missed lunch," he said. "Dinner will be in about five hours, and someone else will be down then."
He turned to leave.
Reg raised her arms. "Thanks!" she screamed at him.
The General walked away, quickly disappearing around the corner to the staircase. A few seconds later, the door at the top groaned. And then it shut with heavy boom.
They were gone.
Reg was still standing there, staring dumbfounded at the empty hall.
After a moment, she grabbed the iron bars in front of her and shook them with all of her strength. That hurt her shoulders, but didn't move the bars at all. Reg hollered at the top of her lungs, just venting her frustration.
"Hey," a voice called after she was finished. It was the same voice that had talked to General Manz before, but it had lost its creepy manic quality.
Reg leaned her head forward against the bars.
"Hey," she said back, looking at the floor. "Phillip, right?"
"That is what the General calls me," the voice said. "But I would be happier if you would call me Theodore."