-25-
The impacts of Padre Pedro's flopping, twelve-inch, black rubber dildo did more damage to the inside of Alvin's head than the outside.
In the storeroom full of sex toys and disassembled sections of rubber phalli-studded jungle gym, Pedro's bodyguard had worked hard to find anything close to a normal chair. The one he'd found, in which Alvin now sat, looked normal enough on camera. Nobody would be able to see that Alvin sat on an open-seat chair, like a toilet seat mounted to a chair frame with a medium-high back.
The bodyguard held the holographic imager while Padre Pedro made a few adjustments to the lights and gave Alvin his thoroughly unwanted opinion. “I was very disappointed in your performance during our little warm-up earlier. How can I possibly interrogate you properly when you insist on losing consciousness?” Alvin stared with all the intense hatred he could muster, but the last session had taken a lot out of him; he was weak from the beating.
“The names you finally gave us, the names of the Morituri you corrupted, were useless. We checked them out. Each and every one of the names you gave us is the name of a dead man.”
“I only know dead people. You killed everyone I know,” Alvin said it without any dramatic flourish because it was a hell he'd lived for so long that it was just normal, hellish business as usual.
“Ahhh,” Pedro replied, “that was not me. No, no, no, that was not us. Those killers were Operators of the Global Secular Alliance's Security Service. They are dedicated to maintaining a stable status quo, and you must admit, little Buddha you threaten the status quo with your amotivational espousals. You are, I think, as much of a threat to them as you are to us.”
“I know the Morituri sent agents to kill me. They told me after they abandoned their missions. You sent killers, and when you couldn't kill me, you killed whoever you found that I'd ever had contact with. It's true, and you know it is because you probably ordered it.”
Pedro shrugged.
“Can you really blame us? Someone should kill you. You stand for Nothing. If the world followed your teachings then men would wander the earth like animals, lacking any purpose. You threaten everything. Everything we worked to create since Rome saw the light of heaven.”
Alvin screwed up his face hearing this, and he said, “Rome never stood for anything but itse-”
“Blasphemer!” Padre Pedro lost control. In his anger, he gave Alvin a backhanded slap across the face that left a small trickle of blood running from the corner of Alvin's mouth. Remembering that blood made people look coerced, and therefore, looked bad on camera, Pedro regained his composure. “I wish I had not done that.” He turned his head and looked around the room for something with which he might wipe the blood off, but finding nothing, he used the black rubber dildo to smear it back towards Alvin's mouth. It didn't work very well. Padre Pedro stepped back and discarded the dildo to the side of the room with an expression of disgust on his face.
“We need you to recant,” the Padre said. “Simply tell the world, simply tell the camera, that you are a fraud.” Padre Pedro turned to look at his bodyguard, who moved closer with the imager. Pedro continued, “Tell them that you have always been a fraud, a con man. Recant, little Buddha. Admit to the world that you know nothing of God. Admit to them you are a trickster and a con man. Tell them how you have led a cult of fools. Recant, and perhaps your miserable life will be spared.”
Alvin said nothing. He breathed heavily through his mouth, since his nose was clogged with mucous and blood. Padre Pedro took the imager from his bodyguard and zoomed in slowly on Alvin's mouth. He played with the framing in the viewfinder, turning the imager sideways and zooming in with cruelty, like he was shooting porn. Alvin's mouth, smeared with blood, filled the frame in extreme closeup.
“Recant, little Buddha!” the insurgent priest shouted in anger, “Recant!”