Badd had given up on his solitaire game and wandered into another room. This one looked like a first grade classroom with all the art supplies scattered around, and Badd felt vaguely insulted. He was 60 years old. It was annoying to be treated like a child during the day and then nearly killed at night, nobody just respected him, as a human being. Then again in this deathtrap respect for human rights seemed to be a rare privilege rather than a default.
"Theo Savalas!"
That name again. Ugh. Badd turned and raised one hand resignedly, only to find himself presented with an envelope.
"Mail," the guard snapped. Badd plucked it from his hand and gave a nod of mocking thanks before finding himself somewhere to sit. Mail? Who would be sending him letters? It was probably just more of Aguilar's games. He forced back the small hope that it was Kay sending him a message that she was all right, hidden in code to sneak in under Aguilar's radar. No, they'd never let it get that far.
Badd tore it open and read "Theo's" letter (http://tasteoftruth.livejournal.com/1366.html) with a detached expression. It was long and overdramatic, written from a wife to a instituionalized husband begging him to sober up and bend to the institute's lies. The only thing that would make it worse would have been if they'd dripped water on the paper to look like the grieving woman's tears. If they thought he'd roll over for such a transparent appeal to emotion they really didn't understand how he worked.
The part about the earrings was slightly noteworthy, but it could have been a guess. His false self was obviously still supposed to be an officer of the law, and any detective might give his wife something justice-themed as a present. It also neatly explained away his bullet wounds, too, the only evidence of his previous life that they couldn't take away from him.
Badd folded the letter up and slipped it back into the envelope, and it was only then that he noticed something else had been included. A photograph from the feel of it. He tugged it free and turned it over.
"What the hell is this?" he muttered under his breath. It was him in the photo, at least a decade younger and wearing a tuxedo. He was smiling. And his arm was around a woman whose smile and cackle had been permanently burned into his memory. It hadn't been guesswork. They knew who he was and what he'd been doing, and they knew what strings to pull to make him cringe. The photo had to have been doctored but the only way they could have known to make it in the first place was to know everything about him and then twist it into a dark parody of who he really was.
The woman in the photo, the loving wife in his falsified life...it was Calisto Yew.
no subject
"Theo Savalas!"
That name again. Ugh. Badd turned and raised one hand resignedly, only to find himself presented with an envelope.
"Mail," the guard snapped. Badd plucked it from his hand and gave a nod of mocking thanks before finding himself somewhere to sit. Mail? Who would be sending him letters? It was probably just more of Aguilar's games. He forced back the small hope that it was Kay sending him a message that she was all right, hidden in code to sneak in under Aguilar's radar. No, they'd never let it get that far.
Badd tore it open and read "Theo's" letter (http://tasteoftruth.livejournal.com/1366.html) with a detached expression. It was long and overdramatic, written from a wife to a instituionalized husband begging him to sober up and bend to the institute's lies. The only thing that would make it worse would have been if they'd dripped water on the paper to look like the grieving woman's tears. If they thought he'd roll over for such a transparent appeal to emotion they really didn't understand how he worked.
The part about the earrings was slightly noteworthy, but it could have been a guess. His false self was obviously still supposed to be an officer of the law, and any detective might give his wife something justice-themed as a present. It also neatly explained away his bullet wounds, too, the only evidence of his previous life that they couldn't take away from him.
Badd folded the letter up and slipped it back into the envelope, and it was only then that he noticed something else had been included. A photograph from the feel of it. He tugged it free and turned it over.
"What the hell is this?" he muttered under his breath. It was him in the photo, at least a decade younger and wearing a tuxedo. He was smiling. And his arm was around a woman whose smile and cackle had been permanently burned into his memory. It hadn't been guesswork. They knew who he was and what he'd been doing, and they knew what strings to pull to make him cringe. The photo had to have been doctored but the only way they could have known to make it in the first place was to know everything about him and then twist it into a dark parody of who he really was.
The woman in the photo, the loving wife in his falsified life...it was Calisto Yew.