Jorgmund New Hire Interview

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

[This isn’t the first time Buzz has been zip-tied to a chair for questioning, and since it’s the second time, he’s more scared than the first.

He’s still fighting it, wriggling violently against the metal chair and the plastic ties, bellowing authoritatively, but it masks the fear he’s having to keep down as he wonders if he’s about to be blacked out again. What will he have to apologize to perfectly nice people for, if they wipe his memories? Will he get to apologize, or will he just never be himself again? Do they know they can? It was in his user manual, the one he hadn’t bothered to look through to learn the details of after.

That possibility is still more terrifying than the fact that these people have, somehow, managed to figure out how to make him feel a pain so intense, it’s the most intense thing he’s ever felt in his life.]

Untie me right now! This is deeply unethical!

[“This one gave up the false inanimation much faster than the other.” “What setting did it take?”

The dispassionate conversation puts a pause in Buzz’s fighting. Is it true? Did he fold faster than he should, because he was scared and angry, did he give in under torture where he should have held out?

. . . He’s going to have to examine that later. The middle of torture is not time to reflect on his conduct within it.]

Where’s Woody? What have you done to him? I demand to speak to your commanding officer!

[“You’ll see your friend after you finish answering your questionnaire.”

Buzz simply has to stare at the man at that point.]

Are you out of your mind?

[He’s barely finished asking before – there’s the pain again, somehow worse and more than he felt before, like there’s no end to the degree they can dial up this sensation that already should have accompanied him dying –

“As soon as you’re ready to cooperate, the pain can stop.”]

You’ll never get anything out of me. [What in the world do they even want to know? He doesn’t know how he’s alive, and that’s the only thing that he can think they would possibly want to know from him.

[“There’s no need to be so dramatic. It’s a standard questionnaire for New Hires.”]

I never applied for this job.

[Somehow that elicits a little chuckle. In the background, another voice grumbles resentfully, “I had to apply five times before I got a callback.”

”If you were on an island and could only bring three things, what would you bring?”

Buzz’s expression turns from angry and guarded, to confused, then angry and confused.]

You tied me up and tortured me to ask me that?

[Are they doing the same to Woody in another room?

“This isn’t torture,” the interviewer corrects him, without offering an explanation of what it is. The room is fully silent as the humans wait for Buzz to answer the stupidest question he’s ever been interrogated over.]

I would . . . bring a deck of Uno cards. My best pal Woody. [Buzz pauses for narrow-eyed effect.] And a fully fueled, fully functional intersteller spacecraft sized for the two of us.

[”On a scale from 1 to 10, rate me as an interviewer.”]

I think . . . you’ve chosen a very dishonorable way to conduct your life.

[Buzz braces for pain, but none comes.

“Spoken like a spaceman who never had to pay a bill,” the interviewer murmurs, looking at the polygraph readout. ”What is your biggest regret and why?”

Well, now they get to the torture part of the questions. They’re not his friends. They don’t deserve to know his innermost concerns.]

Why does that matter to you?

[“It doesn’t matter to me. Answer the question.”]

No.

[“We’re running overtime.” “Got it.”

Every time they turn on their pain machine, it’s somehow a more impossible pain than before.

They have to dial it up three more times before Buzz answers.]

I put her in jail!

[It bursts out of him, hurting to admit.

“Her who?”

This is somehow worse than the pain. Now he’s exposed Jessie to their awareness.]

Another toy.

[“Interesting. Why did you do that?”]

Because someone erased my memories, told me she was an enemy in an authoritative tone, and that was all it took. [He doesn’t speak it. Here it is, the worst direction they could have gone.

A real space ranger wouldn’t have let them even remotely close to this information.

Maybe he can redirect them -]

I didn’t know her then. I thought she was an enemy.

[“It’s misleading us.” “Got it.”]

What? No –

[More pain. Buzz sags against the chair, panting for air he doesn’t need when they let it up.]

I thought she was an enemy! I was lied to!

[“It’s still being dishonest.” “Really? At this level? Okay.”

He is absolutely going to shatter, or light on fire, or disintegrate in place if they leave this pain on any longer –

Finally, the truth falls out of him. Vaguely enough that perhaps they won’t know how to follow it.]

They wiped my memory.

[“Interesting.” “True interesting, or semi-true interesting?” “Bring me a set of screwdrivers interesting.”

Buzz’s head snaps up. Too late he reminds himself not to show fear.

“Looks like we’re on the right track. I don’t see any screws on the front side. Tie it prone.”

No amount of not showing fear is going to save him now, as an adult hand grabs him by the chest and another adult severs the ties at his wrists, pushes him facedown on the chair, and zipties his waist through the holes in the chair.

“Right on. It’s got screws on the battery pack.”]

Don’t. [Buzz is finally at the begging stage.] Please don’t –

[There’s the slight squeak of tiny screws being unwound, and then he doesn’t have his wings anymore, and no matter how much he thrashes the zip ties don’t give.

“There’s a switch.” “Wonder what happens when it’s on ‘demo’ mode?”]

No!

[The world blacks out around him.]