Mr. Jay’s Interrogation Room
T he punches were hard, swift, and full of anger. Never had the Pillar taken the Cheshire for such a violent man. Sure he did brutal things, but he’d never seen him torture anyone so much before.
“So?” The Cheshire took a breath, knuckling his fingers and stretching arms. “Have you had enough?”
“More please,” the Pillar challenged him.
The Cheshire took a glance at his outfit. A pope in blood was an image that unsettled him. Torturing the Pillar made him realized how angry he was.
“I’m puzzled why you’re doing this,” the Pillar said. “Your grin is never going away. People make mistakes, you know. You took a drug. It sticks with you.”
“I just feel so much better punching you,” the Cheshire said. “Also, I’m supposed to extract information from you.”
“Then you have to turn this chair around because I keep my secrets in my ass.”
The Cheshire suppressed a laugh. If anything, the Pillar never ceased to surprise him. Deep inside he admired him for being who he was. The Pillar just was. That was the perfect description. A man detached from all social norms, doing what he pleased without ever telling his secrets.
“Why are you doing this?” the Cheshire knelt down to meet the Pillar’s blood-stained eyes. “It doesn’t make sense at all.”
“Does it have to?” the Pillar said.
“Why help Alice? Why play everyone? I can understand you’re after the Keys, though I seem to be the only one who is not. But I can’t figure out on whose side you are? The Inklings? Black Chess? The people? The government?”
“You forgot the fifth option,” the Pillar said.
“Which is?”
“My side. I’m no one’s side but mine.”
“Ha,” the Cheshire said. In many ways, he was on his selfish side as well, not as stubbornly as the Pillar though. “Tell you what? Forget about who you are or why you’re doing all of this. I’ve always had another question I wanted to ask you.”
“No, is the answer,” the Pillar said. “I’m not your father, Luke.”
The Cheshire punched the Pillar again. This time up close up and personal, he could smell the splattering blood. “Answer me.”
“Okay, I will,” the Pillar said. “I AM your father, Luke.”
The Cheshire figured he’d just go and ask the lunatic without introductions. “Why did you get me addicted to the mushrooms?”
“You were a perfect candidate, desperate, poor, and young,” the Pillar said. “I was investing in you.”
“How can you be so evil?”
“And you’re not? You just started a false World War III, convincing the world you’re the new pope,” the Pillar said. “But then again most evil men think they’re doing good for the world.”
The Cheshire stood up again. He wanted out of the room. The Pillar scared him, but he wouldn’t admit it aloud. The man was crazy whoever he was.
“You’re the devil himself,” the Cheshire mumbled. “Look at what you’ve done to Lewis Carroll, Fabiola, Alice, me, and, oh, my God, what you’ve done to the Hatter.”
The Pillar looked proud. He grinned.
“You killed the Hatter too, right?”
The Pillar’s eyes met the Cheshire’s. The Pillar’s grin was ten miles wide.