Tyrell leans down, brings his lips to my ear.

“This is sooooo gonna hurt,” he says.

He stands.

Dr. Porter is no longer issuing that shiny happy smile. His face is all business. He makes his way across the room, then comes back into view wheeling a mobile stainless-steel cart that looks like something a dentist might use. He’s still wearing his lab coat, only he places a protective plastic shield over his face, as though he’s guarding himself against anything that might fly into it.

I’m trying my hardest to pull and fight against the straps. But even something as simple as blinking seems to take a supreme effort. The television on the wall is still playing Kate’s commercial. I wish it would malfunction somehow. I wish this whole place would somehow catch fire and everyone inside it, including me, would burn up. Somehow, I don’t think my luck is that good.

“Tanya Teal,” Dr. Porter says in as clinical a tone as he can muster. A tone that would probably make Jacquie wet if she were in possession of real sex parts, “I’m going to ask you a series of yes or no questions that I would like you to answer truthfully, honestly, and thoughtfully. Blink if you understand me, please.”

I blink. What choice do I have? I’m lying here naked as the day I was born, strapped to a table inside a room in a building that might as well be on the other side of the world for all I know.

“Now then,” Porter goes on, “when you and Tony Smart decided to go to Gus’s Hotdog Shack this past Sunday afternoon after engaging in carnal relations, did you or did you not understand you were breaking your agreement with the Everest Primary Membership Program and that it would be punishable by Primary Termination? Blink if yes, or don’t blink if no.”

Naturally, I knew we were breaking the law. Everest law, that is. Tony and I even spoke about it and no doubt, Big Sister Jacquie picked up on it. I guess lying would be futile. But what the hell, why should I give in that easily just to please these two sickos?

“Your answer?” Porter presses.

I do not blink.

“Okay, then,” he exhales.

He glances at the stainless-steel tray, picks up a steel pick. Again, it’s an instrument a dentist would use. Reaching for my jaw with his free hand, he squeezes with his thumb and index finger, so I have no choice but to open my mouth.

“This is my favorite part,” a smiling Matt Tyrel says. “Bet you didn’t know Dr. Porter is a dentist, now did you Tanya? He knows where it hurts the most inside that pretty little mouth of yours.”

Heart pounding in my chest, I know what’s coming. Maybe lying was a very bad idea after all.

“Now let’s see here,” Dr. Porter says. He starts picking at my teeth, sending little spurts of pain up into my jaw and my head. “You could stand to have a cleaning soon. For certain, I’m spotting a cavity on rear molar number thirty. If you live through this ordeal and you are reinstated into the Primary Program, I can most definitely recommend a terrific Everest Corp. hygienist. Several dental offices are located within the city limits. An initial streaming face to face video can be performed right from the Everest video app.”

That’s when he strikes a nerve, quite literally. He jams the steel pick into the molar cavity. My body wants to jump off the table. But I can’t move. Electric pain shoots throughout my nervous system. I’m screaming. But no sound is coming from my mouth.

He pulls the pick back out.

“Gee, Tanya,” he says, “I fully realize how much that must hurt. The nerve is very, very tender. You don’t want to go through that kind of pain again. So, please answer the question truthfully. Did you and Tony Smart know you were breaking the terms of your Everest Primary Membership Program agreement when you decided to go to Gus’s Hotdog Shack?”

I blink. Blink several times.

“Okay, good,” he says, that pick still in his hand. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Next question. Did you or did you not have a discussion with Kate Simpson over rumors about the so-called termination of Primary Members who’ve faced said punishment in the past?”

How do I answer this? Is this something that’s going to get Kate in trouble, even if I do hate her guts right now? Okay, yes, I screwed up, and now I face the consequences. But does that mean Kate should also suffer? Sure she turned me in, but at least she’s going to bat for me, or so she says. Maybe by turning me in, it was her way of getting ahead of the situation. As much as it is going to pain me to do it, I don’t blink.

Dr. Porter turns, glances at Tyrel over his shoulder. Then, setting the steel pick back down onto the tray, he picks up a cordless dental drill. He thumbs the latex-covered trigger on drill and squinting his eyes, he brings his fingers to my face and forces my jaw open once more.

“That cavity is chuck full of decaying material,” he says. “Let’s get rid of it, shall we?”

He inserts the drill. I feel the solid sharp diamond tip entering into the cavity and I jump out of my skin. But I don’t really jump. Whatever drug their feeding me won’t allow it. It’s blocking all physical movement other than my ability to blink, breathe, hear, and pump blood throughout my circulatory system.

He turns the drill on.

The screaming drill excavates my molar and I am transported to a place where pain is more than excruciating. It’s a place where pain is so profound, so bone deep, and so overwhelming, that my soul exits my body, and I find myself looking down at my own body from above. He pulls the drill out and my soul drops back into my body. Once more, the electric pain fills my head. Searing hot nerve endings throbbing, jumping.

“Same question,” Dr. Porter goes on in his even, machine-like tone. “Did you discuss rumors of terminated members disappearing with Kate Simpson?”

I feel like I’m nodding my head while blinking, but I am only able to blink. Judging by my now blurry vision, I realize I am also weeping.

Porter exhales.

“Excellent, great, excellent,” he says. “We’re cooking with Wesson now. Next question. Is Gus Truman a member of the Everest Resistance? What will it be, Tanya? Yes or no?”

My God in heaven, how in the world can I expose poor old Gus and live with myself? What would Tony do if he knew the truth about Everest? He would resist. What would my father do if he knew the whole truth? He would resist. What would Scout do? Resist with every muscle fiber in her body. Even my mother would try to resist, bless her heart. What did my authors use to call it when you exposed someone with a pure soul like Gus? Ratting him out. If I blink, I am ratting out Gus. Oh good God in heaven, help me get through this.

Porter shakes his head in disgust.

“Make it really hurt this time, Doc,” Tyrel says. “Teach the bitch a lesson.”

Porter shoves the drill into my open molar.

He drills.

When I come to, the drill is not in my mouth. But instead, Porter is probing the gaping hole in my tooth with the steel pick. What was electric pain is now an inferno of pain that feels as though my lower and upper jaws are on fire and melting away along with the muscle tissue and skin that covers it. My tears are flowing down my face and, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I am about to die.

Gazing at Tyrel I can’t help but make out his beaming grin. The way he’s tightly crossing his arms over his chest tells me he’s so excited and happy, he can hardly control himself. Porter removes the steel pick and stands. He walks to the opposite side of the room. I can hear him going through some drawers.

“Hell you doing, Doc?” Tyrel says.

“Trying to prove a point,” he says.

“We’re not done,” the Everest cop says. “We’re just getting started with her.”

“Listen, Captain,” Porter says, “if not for Tanya’s relationship with Ms. Simpson along with Simpson’s testimony on her best friend’s behalf, Tanya would already be on her way to total Termination and the upstate fulfillment center. I need to prove to her that if she makes a real attempt at re-education, she can once more be reinstated as a Primary Member.”

“You’re a pussy, Doc.”

“You are a crude and rude man, Captain.”

Seating himself once more, Porter forces my mouth open again. I honestly don’t think I can take any more of this . . . this torture. But that’s when something wonderful happens. Porter reaches into my mouth with the tips of both his thumb and index finger. He’s holding something in between them. It’s a little ball of clay-like material about the size of a ball bearing. He shoves the ball into the hole in my molar and what had been seething, unbearable pain is now completely painless.

Removing his fingers, he takes hold of a tool that looks like a flashlight but that contains an ultraviolet bulb. He shines the ultraviolet light into my open mouth.

“I’ve just filled your tooth with a fast-acting mercury-based resin filling. The tooth is now as good as the day the God of earth and Everest created it.”

“Like I said,” Tyrel says, rolling his eyes in their sockets. “Pussy.”

My tears suddenly dry up. For the first time since these creeps entered into the room, I feel a small ray of hope.

“Just to prove to you that we mean it when we say we wish to re-educate you, not terminate you, I am willing to ease your pain in exchange for the truth. All you have to do is tell me if Gus Truman is a part of the Everest Resistance.” Porter forces a smile, while setting the ultraviolet light device back onto the dental tray. “Just tell me yes or no.”

At first, I don’t blink. He presses his lips together and takes hold of the drill again like he’s got no problem with drilling the filling back out. I blink. He smiles again.

“Excellent,” he says. “We’re making great progress.”

For long beat or two, he just sits there staring at me. My eyes shift once more to the Everest commercial being broadcast endlessly on the big flat screen. There’s the happy couple in the park, and then there’s a little boy seated in the dentist’s chair, and then a happy old woman being tended to by a medical doctor in brightly lit office. A young mother is grocery shopping with her little kids, and a family is viewing church services on a Sunday via a large high-def monitor broadcasting Everest live video. A big black Army tank, like the one that almost killed Tony and me, is being rolled out of a factory while a brand-new fighter jet screams overhead. Finally, the President of the United States is sharing a moment with John D. Rutherford, the CEO of Everest Corp., in the White House Rose Garden on a sunny brilliant summer’s day. The tall, white-haired, fifty-something Everest founder shifting himself to the podium where he is to deliver what will become a famous speech about America’s new strategic and financial alliance with the Everest Corporation. It was the day the CEO became more powerful than the President, and therefore, the most powerful man on earth. He was already the richest.

“Captain Tyrel,” Porter says, after a time, “the note please. If I could have it.”

“You asking or telling, Doc?”

“Please, Captain,” Porter says, showing signs of stress for the first time. “Time is getting short and I wish to finish up with this first session before the drug wears off and Tanya begins to convulse with spasms.”

Reaching into the chest pocket on his black military work-shirt, Tyrel pulls out a sheet of folded white paper. He hands it to the doctor. The doctor unfolds it, reads it. Reads it again. He then turns the paper around, revealing what’s written on it.

Gus’s

It’s scribbled in my handwriting.

“We discovered this in Tony Smart’s back pocket not too long ago,” Porter says. “It’s tangible proof that Mr. Smart has not only implicated himself in going against the contractual rules of the Everest Primary Membership Program, but it is also proof that he is conspiring with the Resistance. Turns out, Michael Smart wasn’t the only traitor in the family.”

If my stomach could drop anymore it would be lying on the floor. He’s about to ask me if Tony is a member of the Resistance, and when I say no, he’s going to torture me again. Maybe I will have a chance to get out of Primary Termination because of Kate, but I can bet that as God as my judge, Tony is not going to get out of it. Maybe my own parents aren’t going to get out of it either. What’s the point of going on with my life—with the Everest Primary Membership Program—if I can’t do it with my loved ones?

“Now, Tanya,” the doctor says. “I want you to tell me the truth. Is Tony Smart a part of the Everest Resistance?”

There, he asked it. Exactly the question I thought he would pose. I gaze over the doctor’s shoulder at Tyrel. He’s staring at me with his little round eyes, the smirk on his face like that of a hungry vulture. He knows I’m caught between a rock and very hard place. Say yes and Tony is terminated forever. Say no and I face unbelievable torture that will last until I give in and say yes anyway. Funny thing is, in order to give them the answer they want, I have to lie.

The room goes quiet, and everyone goes still. The only movement is what’s coming from the Everest commercial playing on the television. Porter holds the sheet of paper up with both hands so I can’t possibly miss it.

“Is Anthony Smart a part of the Resistance?” he asks again. “Is he the enemy of Everest like his brother before him?”

I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I cannot possibly lie to save myself from the pain.

“Tell me what I want to hear, Tanya,” Porter says, his tone turning angry, his face flushed with blood. “Tell me or I will not only drill that filling back out, I will drill every one of your teeth, one by precious one. Do you understand me?”

“Now, that would be something to see,” Tyrel comments, the masochist’s grin turning into an ear to ear smile.

I don’t blink. How can I? The doctor picks the drill up off the tray.

“You leave me with no choice, Tanya,” he says.

Maybe it’s impossible for me to move my body, but it goes rigid anyway. The tears are pouring out of my eyes, heart is pounding inside my throat, and my brain is screaming with adrenaline. I am caught in a nightmare that is impossible to escape. Impossible to wake from.

Then the ceiling collapses.