They wanted her to see the hook: Annika had figured that out pretty early. It hung directly above the table and its stirrups, attached to a chain wound up around a heavy-duty winch. It looked like it could pull a car out of a lake. And it was positioned directly above her wide-spread thighs.
They had a whole medical theme here; the current vogue in oppression was the idea that dissidents were “sick,” and needed treatment to become proper citizens. It was just a veneer on the same brutality the regime had always longed to inflict. Annika had been passing information for two years now, and knew the risks, but of course she had thought she was invulnerable. Then someone had ratted her out.
Staring at the winch, stripped, shivering and strapped down tight, she tried to convince herself she’d never do the same, never turn on any of her friends.
Not that she’d have much opportunity if they kept the gag in place.
“Good afternoon, Annika,” said the monster when he walked in, lab-coated, pleasantly flipping through a chart. “You can call me Doctor. I see we’ve got a little issue with your political loyalties! Not to worry, we get cases like yours all the time. We’ll get you patched right up.”
She rolled her eyes at him, not that she could do much else. The body straps were tight enough that even breathing was an effort, and she’d already tired herself out testing the others. They clearly had experience here with immobilizing girls.
“Let me give you a little run-down of our standard treatment plan,” he said affably, pulling a rolling stool up to the head of the table and perching on it as he tugged on a latex glove. “Right now all areas of your body with lots of nerve endings–areas you instinctively try to protect–are exposed to me.” He pulled her lips back from her teeth and probed under her tongue; Annika trembled with the humiliation of it, as if she were a sick animal. “I’m going to work on those areas–stimulate them, provoke response. Meanwhile I’m going to hook up some sensors to your wrists, throat, underarms and heart. They’ll let me watch your body’s response in real time.”
Annika stared at him. This was their pretense? This was how they tried to justify imprisonment and torture? He wasn’t giving the faintest excuse about “curing” her at all.
He caught her eye and smiled. “That’s just the diagnosis stage–and it will take a little while. But it will let us identify exactly where in your body this subversive sickness resides.” He leaned in closely. “I have a hunch–just a hunch–that it’s either here…” He tapped her nipples casually, making her flinch. “Or here.” This time he patted her pussy in a horribly familiar way.
“And once we have found it for certain, our real work begins.” He turned to the wall and flipped on a large monitor. To Annika’s horror, it was a video of her former contact Liliya, dangling from that awful hook in a cruel hogtie as this man forced his slippery, gloved hand inside her, while the other pressed a buzzing steel-pronged tool of some kind against her clit.
“Annika!” Liliya was squealing, jerking desperately in her bonds. “Her name is Annika, she lives at 2240 Gerstin, that’s all I know! PLEASE!”
“That’s how we know the treatment has begun to take hold,” said the monster brightly, turning it off again. “Well, Annika. Why don’t we get started making you better?”