Lost Past by Teresa McCullough, Zachary McCullough Page B

over and roughly pulled off Wilson’s tie, pushed down his suit jacket, and unbuttoned his shirt. Reidar stuck a device a little bigger than a vaccination needle against his shoulder. Linda heard a faint sound.
                  He then went to the back of Wilson’s head and said something that caused the four kidnappers to chuckle. Wilson spoke through closed teeth to ask, “What did he say?”
                  “At least he doesn’t have to worry about the hair,” John translated.
                  Reidar then pulled out a device roughly the size and shape of a pistol with a large caliber barrel. He pulled something out of a drawer and carefully attached it to the end of the device. He placed it against the base of Wilson’s skull as if performing an execution. He held it there for about five seconds and then pulled the trigger. Linda started to jerk forw ard, but John’s calm whisper “Don’t worry ” stopped her. There was a click and a disk was attached to Wilson’s skull. It was a little less than a centimeter in diameter and pale against Wilson’s dark skin.  If it had been put on any of their captors’ heads, it would have blended in.
                  Linda’s turn was next. In spite of Wilson’s calm acceptance and John’s reassurance, she was frightened, but saw no point in fighting. Before she sat down, Brown Hair pulled off her t-shirt, leaving it hanging behind her on her bound wrists. She was glad she was wearing an opaque bra. Reidar adjusted the head restraint to a comfortable height. The shoulder hurt, but the head didn’t. She saw that Wilson looked at a blank wall, rather than staring at her.
                  All the while, Brown Hair and the old man were arguing. It meant nothing at first, but suddenly, it was clear. Brown Hair said, “. . . all the people who know where they sent the duplica tes of the information Mason carried . Mason lied. He wasn’t the only one who heard Zhexp divulge what the Plict don’t want leaked.”
                  “You were excessive, Hernandez,” said the old man. Brown Hair, whose name was apparently Hernandez, was distracted by watching Cara , whose turn it was .
                  I’m stripped to my bra and Wilson looks away, Linda thought. Cara has every man staring at her. Her bra was lacy and nearly transparent, not needing much support for her tiny breasts. Linda felt guilty about such petty thoughts, glad no one could read her mind. Cara looked like she was miserable, making Linda feel sorry for her, genuinely regretting her pettiness, for Cara’s sake, not just for her own self-image. 
                  “Hernandez?” Wilson said to the brown-haired man while Cara was receiving the shoulder treatment. Linda assumed the questioning tone was Wilson’s uncertainty of the name. “Why did you kill Mary Chen?”
                  Linda realized he was talking in Vigintees and that she understood it. She recognized she started understanding it when the disk was put on her head.
                  “Mary Chen is dead?” the old man asked, clearly not happy with the news.
                  “She attacked us,” Hernandez replied.
                  “Mary couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds. She was no threat to anyone,” Linda replied angrily, speaking Vigintees . If Mary died the day before, would she feel as much grief?
                  “Why do you care if she’s dead, but not all the passengers on the plane?” Wilson asked the old man.
                  There was no response from the Vigintees , but Linda replied, guessing wildly, “Because she’s Dad’s wife.” After she said it, she realized it made sense. Mary was unimportant by herself. She was a tenured professor at a prestigious college, with a dozen or more papers in peer-review journals, while people told Linda repeatedly that