Mathias managed not to limp though his little toe was dislocated and though he left a smear of blood on the filthy concrete with every step he took. The gaoler prodded the small of his back with a black baton but Mathias walked at his own pace.  Graceful, dignified, head up, steady.

      It wasn’t defiance. He merely knew his own worth. Understood it. He wouldn’t hold the posture for long. They’d beat it out of him in the chambers before they settled down to ruining him one piece at a time. 

      They wanted information. He refused.

      “There are three separate joints on each of your fingers, two on each of your thumbs. That makes twenty-eight the total. Assuming we give you Sundays off, that’s one joint a day for the next month, 457.”

      The Minister placed a pair of gleaming, oiled wire cutters on the table. Unable to help himself, Mathias counted to make sure the Minister’s maths was correct. It was. One month and then his hands would be worthless. Actually, they’d be useless before the month was up, depending on the order in which the Ministers decided to remove the bones. Maybe they would do one hand first, leave him a little hope before they took it all away. They were patient men. Knew what they wanted and how to get it. He assumed they hadn’t once failed to discover what was inside a prisoner.

      After fingers, it would be the toes. Then God knew what.

      “You’re a criminal, 457. A terrorist. You’ve become subhuman. Out there in the world, your countrymen have the privilege of Ministerial care. In here you have our contempt. Despite your crimes, the State is offering you reinsertion into society. Under certain restrictions, obivously. You’ll never go back to the freedoms you used to have, but you will be out of gaol and you will have a modicum of liberty. All we ask in return is the names of your accomplices, their codes and signals and their meeting places. And access to the concast, of course.  Just a few words is all it will take for this unpleasantness to cease. We want to help you. But first you must help us.”

      This was the manner of their opening offers. Offers became less appealing every time Mathias failed to negotiate. Sometimes they showed him footage of his life. Mathias with his wife, Sunnie, and their twins, Raja and Rani. Mathias at work. Mathias with his friends. Mathias knew they’d been monitoring him and so he appeared to behave normally. Watching himself, even he was fooled. But no one saw inside. Only he knew what he’d thought and felt on those days.

      They showed him the footage while they monitored the response of his skin and his heart and breathing. Excitability wasn’t proof of anything, even to the Ministers, but they knew it was psychologically wearing for him to see his previous life and offer him a little freedom instead of more pain.

      It wasn’t as though he didn’t think about turning the others in - Dominic, Peter, Iain, Paul, Tracy, Giles, John, Ishbel, Vernon. Even Sunnie. They were all involved. He debated their betrayal at every shift in the negotiation. No matter what they’d done to him, he hadn’t yet found his own life to be worth more than the people he loved or the destruction of the State. His pain and his inevitable demise weren’t enough when, on the other side of the scales, rested the freedom of all.