“I feel very par-tic-u-laaar,” his bottom lip curled around the last syllable as if unwilling to let it go, “about the use of physical contact. There are, of course certain psychological benefits to deprivation of human touch over long periods of time, howeverrr,” he rubbed his chin absentmindedly, “the less contact you have with the subject the better. Thinking of them as anything other than a task to be carried out is a road that leads straight to failure… are you listening to me Maldurn?” He prodded at the hooded shape swaying gently in front of him. When he got no answer, he prodded again, harder this time and nodded sagely as he got a muffled grunt in return.
Maldurn was struggling to stay awake. It had been… days… weeks maybe since he had last been allowed to rest for more than what seemed like a few minutes at a time. He struggled to make sense of the noises coming from in front of him. Words, yes, those were words. It was something to focus on. He knew he couldn’t fall asleep. If he did, the instructor would wake him up. And it wouldn’t be gentle. This voice… it sounded like Gorn. Gorn like to talk and he’d heard rumors that Gorn actually liked to cause pain whenever he found the chance. He wasn’t sure if that was true, but with that scar and that voice he wasn’t willing to take any chances. His eyes drooped then snapped open. He couldn’t see, but he could hear the telltale hiss of an iron being quenched in water. Had he been asked a question? He couldn’t remember. Then he started to scream.
“You see,” Gorn waited for the screaming to subside. “You see, Maldurn, there are countless ways to inflict pain and damage your subject. But really, that’s just a quick means to an end.” He reached up and started unfastening the hood. “The goal of torture is not to get information. Poke a man with a sharp enough stick and he’ll sing any song you want to. You’ve seen this time and time again. Even you begged and pleaded well enough in the beginning.” The bag was off and Moldarn blinked against the light. His hair was disheveled and he needed a shave. Sweat was streaming down his face, cutting paths through the dirt on his skin.
Gorn surveyed his handiwork with a critical eye. “The real reason we torture is simple. They pay us to. We don’t know what they’ve done, who they’ve pissed off, if they’re innocent or guilty. That’s not what matters. All we know is how badly to hurt them and how long to keep their stay will be. And we get paid extravagantly for this.” He was picking up steam now and started pacing around the small room.
“Now the reason they ask us to torture varies. Sure, there’s revenge and punishment or even some desire to retrieve information but for the majority of the cases its to control. It’s to send warnings among groups of people to do or not do a thing. To incite fear and control the sheep. And it has an added effect of creating chaos in the mind of the one tortured. We have all gone through this last phase of training and I daresay none of us are completely stable. My own instructor was less stable than most, which is how I got this.” Gorn’s skin, from his eye to his throat was covered with a horrible burn scar.
“Luckily, I’m far better than he ever was.” Putting down the iron, he selected a pair of needles. “Now then, shall we continue?”