Shannon McKenna | Character Interview with Shane Masters

CHARACTER INTERVIEW with SHANE MASTERS

From Master of Chaos, The Unredeemables, Book 3

(Prequel Scene)

 

Shane Masters has been held captive for many months by scheming, despotic billionaire Owen Halliwell. He was abducted for the access codes for SmokeScreen, Shane’s genius brother Ethan’s immensely powerful algorithm. Halliwell needs it to execute his megalomaniacal plans.

In this scene, Shane is being interrogated by Halliwell. Since the standard torture techniques have not worked, Halliwell has turned to truth serums, and sensitive instruments to measure Shane’s physiological responses, and then using his own cutting edge AI processor to analyze the data, and basically read Shane’s mind. He means to pry SmokeScreen out of Shane if it’s the last thing he does.

Apologies to Fresh Fiction for using their innocent interview sequence for such a diabolical purpose!

 

 

Shane

Here we go again. I stared through the glass wall of my cell at that bastard Halliwell, who was sporting a wide, gloating smile, his overly whitened teeth gleaming in his bony face. His shock of white hair stood straight up, and his white Uncle Sam goatee straight out. His big, pale green eyes glittered, hot with anticipation.

 

That smile boded no good. Another “session” was in order. Halliwell got off on them.

 

The hag with the wandering hands called Haley stood next to him, and on the other side, the big balding guy with the lantern jaw who they called Dean. Haley was staring at my crotch. Dean just stared straight ahead with cold cyborg eyes. Nobody home in there. No mercy from any of them.

 

Halliwell lifted up his remote, and I braced myself for the hot sting as the retractable needle shot out of the shock collar they made me wear and unloaded a drug into my neck. There were reservoirs of various drugs stored in the collar itself, to make it easy and convenient for them to sedate or immobilize me. Sometimes they used gas and just fogged the whole cell to knock me out, but for what they had planned for today, they needed me fully conscious.

 

If I weren’t immobilized, I would reduce them all to paste.

 

I crumpled to the ground in seconds, limp as a corpse but hyper-aware. The wall ground open and Dean and Haley came in, rolling in the rattling mechanical contraption that functioned as both gurney and chair. I hated having Haley load me up onto the gurney. She liked to grab my ass, stroke my dick. Seemed twisted, to grope a guy who had just been drugged into total helplessness. Maybe that was the appeal for her. It was in keeping with the general vibe of this shitty place.

 

Haley was objectively good-looking. Pretty face, and a trim, athletic body, but her eyes repelled me. Something evil and foul squirmed behind them, and it was a big, dick-wilting turn-off.

 

They got me onto the device and strapped me into it securely. There were restraints on my wrists, ankles, thighs, waist, and chest, to keep me from rocking or tipping in case I convulsed, which I frequently did. Haley worked on the thigh straps, letting one of her hands stray under the waistband of my drawstring pants, her mouth hanging open, breath quickening—

 

The intercom clicked live. “Haley, kindly stop fondling the test subject. It’s unbecoming.”

 

Haley whipped her hand away, and her mouth flattened. She went to the foot of the chair, Dean pushed from behind, and together they rolled me out of the cell, down the hall. I stared at the ceiling tiles, the intermittent lights, the video cameras. Out into the elevator bank. Into the elevator. I couldn’t turn to see what floor we had been on, or where we were going to. Not that it mattered.

 

We headed into Halliwell’s lab. My torture chamber. Surrounded on all sides by huge monitors.

 

Halliwell came in, staying in my field of vision, still smiling, arms crossed over his chest. “Inject him with the first two compounds,” he directed them. “We’ll have fifteen minutes to attach all the sensors while the drugs take effect. This time we’ll be very attentive with the timing of the doses. I’ve been studying the previous sessions, and I think the timing is more important than we knew.”

 

They swabbed my arms with disinfectant, and I got a burning hornet sting on both sides.

 

The sensation was almost immediate. This raw, horrible naked feeling, like the drug tore the mask of the world off and let me see the bloody skeleton beneath. Like I was looking into the jaws of hell, and my eyes were frozen open. My heart began to race, as they stuck on all of the probes, adjusted the helmet over my skull. Minutes crawled by. I could feel myself starting to tremble and sweat.

 

I felt a hand slapping my face. “Look sharp, Mr. Masters,” Halliwell said. “We’re going to have a look under the hood today. You should be able to speak by now. Are you ready?”

 

I struggled to coordinate my lips, my tongue. “Fuck you,” I forced out.

 

Halliwell let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, of course. Charming, as always. You know the drill, Mr. Masters. In a few moments, when the drug has taken full effect, I will ask you a series of friendly questions about yourself. Don’t bother lying, because it’s not your words that we’ll be measuring. We will be measuring and monitoring every tiny fluctuation in your breath, your heartbeat, your hormones, your enzymes, your brain waves. Data is king. And I know just what to do with it.”

 

I’d been through this before, so I used the only tool I had to work with. I filled my mind with an image. Today, I picked a tree. A big, majestic, five-hundred-year-old oak tree. A huge spreading canopy, enormous boughs, endless rustling leaves, thick rough bark on its massive trunk. I could look at that tree in my mind’s eye for hours. I could zoom in and watch the ants crawl up its bark.

 

“Very well. Let’s begin.” Halliwell’s voice was brisk. “First question. How would you describe your family or your childhood?”

 

The sadness that gripped me made the instruments behind me beep and whine at the surge in whatever my body did when I was blindsided by emotion. I saw my parents’ faces in my mind’s eye, just as they were before they were killed in that car accident over twenty years ago. I saw Mom standing in her garden, Dad puttering around in his workshed. Freya as a little kid, scampering around with that halo of blond hair, laughing. Ethan, my big brother, teasing me, throwing his weight around.

 

Goddamnit, these memories were mine. I did not want to give them to that bastard, not even encoded into fucking data points measured on his fucking machines. They were mine.

 

The oak. The oak. Look at the oak. Be the oak.

 

“I was suckled by wolves in the wilderness,” I rasped.

 

Halliwell grunted. “True to form. Onward. What do you consider to be your greatest talent?”

 

I felt a mad urge to laugh. What the hell was I good at, anyway? It was a meaningless question, in a place like this. Soldiering. Fighting. Strategy. I was good at coming up with last-minute, improvised solutions on the fly. But my mind worked best when my body was in violent motion. When I was immobilized, I felt as stupid as a goddamn rock. No tech-geek like my brother Ethan—

 

Stop. Stop. Don’t think about him. Think of the oak. Be the oak.

 

“Don’t have any,” I said flatly.

 

Halliwell tut-tutted under his breath. “Please. False modesty. I know for a fact that you are quite gifted, in your own rough way. Not intellectually, perhaps, but still. Moving on. Do you have a significant other?”

 

Another hard stab of sorry and regret and guilt. Trish, my wife, gone nine years now. I had failed her. We had failed each other. At least I didn’t have to worry about protecting Trish. She was dead already. Halliwell couldn’t hurt her anymore.

 

“None,” I croaked.

 

“Very well,” he murmured. “Biggest challenge in relationships?”

 

Again, I fought not to let out a bark of laughter. Challenge in relationships, my ass. I didn’t do relationships beyond my immediate family. Since my wife had died, I had succeeded in disappointing a whole lot of women who wanted something from me that just wasn’t there to give. Could that be considered a challenge? Or just a straight-up failure? Jesus.

 

I should my head. “Can’t think of any.”

 

Halliwell, Dean and Haley weren’t even looking at me. They just stared raptly at the data that scrolled on the huge monitors. Like they could process it in real time. Hell, maybe they could.

 

“Where do you live, Mr. Masters?” Hallwell asked.

 

The oak, the oak. Leaves, twigs, sun filtering through, blotting out images of the Mountain House, my town house, my beach condo, the ranch house, where my daughter played with her…

 

No. The oak. Be the oak.

 

“I live in a glass box,” I said. “In hell. You should know. You put me there.”

 

“You know I meant, but that’s fine,” he said, sounding pleased. “This is excellent. You’re doing very well, Mr. Masters. Very good data here. I can work with this. Next question. Do you have any enemies?”

 

This time, I couldn’t stop the laughter. “Seriously? You’re the one asking me that?”

 

Halliwell looked hurt. “I am not your enemy, Mr. Masters. You forced me to do this to you, with your own pig-headed stubbornness. I regret the harshness of your conditions very much, but I am not the one who keeps you here. You are, with the choices you continue to make, every single day. It could end whenever you choose to end it. Right now, if you like. Just give me what I need.”

 

I licked my lips, and tried to exhale slowly. To be a beetle, slowly crawling along a branch.

 

“Next question,” Halliwell said. “How do you feel about the place you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?”

 

Sunlight through the leaves. I stared up at the ceiling, creating a dew-studded spider-web in my mind between one branch and another. “Go suck a bag of dicks, you perverted zombie pricks.”

 

“Haley,” he said, his voice sharper. “Give Mr. Masters a boost of hypernodone. Two cc’s, I think. He’s obstreperous today.”

 

Another hornet sting, another fresh yawning look into the gaping maw of hell. I focused on Halliwell’s face, and could see his skull beneath it. His brain, glowing like a hot coal in his cranium.

 

He smiled at me. “Do you have children, Mr. Masters? I think you do. Tell me about her.”

 

Haley let out a purring sound as the machines did a witch-hat surge on the monitors. “Nice,” she murmured. “That’s the strongest reaction yet. Every single part of his brain lit up like a Christmas tree. We should pound on this nail.”

 

“Tell me all about your child, Mr. Masters.” Halliwell’s voice was harsh, commanding.

 

I tried to shake my head, but it was locked in place with the helmet that monitored my brain. I groped for the image of the oak tree, but it kept morphing, changing. The leaves turned darker, shinier, with little pointy bits, and red berries. A holly tree.

 

Holly. My little girl. No, no, no. Couldn’t think of Holly. Didn’t dare let him have even a glancing thought about my baby.

 

My tree image was burned now, so I switched to an old favorite. A towering rock formation in the desert. “Can’t think of any,” I said, my voice shaking.

 

Haley and Halliwell exchanged knowing smiled and low chuckles.

 

“What is your greatest disappointment, Mr. Masters?” Halliwell asked.

 

Shit. It was all breaking down. I hated this part. I was losing my ability to visualize. When the drugs reached their full force, it melted down my defenses. Greatest disappointment? That was an easy one. I saw the whole thing playing out in my memory. The massacre at my security company, Ready Line. The day that they abducted me and slaughtered six of my men. My colleagues, my friends.

 

Yeah, that was a hell of a disappointment. To me. To all of their families. Tears were sliding out of my eyes, trickling down into my ears. They tickled.

 

“Awww, look at that,” Haley crooned. “He’s getting all emotional. So sweet.”

 

“What’s your greatest source of joy, Mr. Masters?” Halliwell’s voice boomed in my ears, now grotesquely amplified.

 

I was helpless now to resist responding to his prompt, at least mentally. I saw them all around the dinner table, eating, talking, laughing. My brother and sister, my little girl, my friends. But my throat was too clutched tight with tears to say anything.

 

“There, there,” Halliwell said softly. “Very good. I think he’s nicely softened up. Time to get to the heart of the matter. Now, Mr. Masters. We know now that the dummy version of the SmokeScreen algorithm was opened up by a Robert Frost poem, recited backwards. The one your sister opened a few months ago. It took me months to work that out, analyzing all of Nicole’s data. I’m guessing that another poem will open the real version. Tell me which poem, and you can rest. Go on. Let’s have it.”

 

He smiled into my face, all noble benevolence, but I still saw that bloody skull, that grotesquely overheated burning coal of a brain inside it.

 

“If you do not cooperate, I will simply continue until you do,” Halliwell said. “I have a very, very long attention span. Tell me, Mr. Masters. And you can rest.”

 

I shut my eyes, and suddenly saw my mother again, staring at me. She was standing in her garden, wearing her gardening overalls. I realized that she looked like Freya. And Holly.

 

Go away, Mom. He’ll use my memories of you against me. Please, go.

 

            She shook her head. No, baby. Come with me. I’ll show you where to hide.

 

            I stared, helpless and frozen. She reached out and grabbed my hand. I could actually feel it, the dryness, the calluses, the dirt, from always having her ungloved hands in potting soil.

 

            She pulled me after her, right into her cornfield. Suddenly I was small again, like I used to be when I followed her through the towering aisles of corn, as high as a forest.

 

            Go in, she directed. Keep low. I’m out here watching. He can’t get you here.

 

            I slipped into the cornfield like a shadow, crouched down just as a flock of crows flew over, cawing harshly, flapping their wings like a hurricane.

 

I could still see the room with the monitors co-existed, but it seemed faint, very far away. I could barely hear the yelling. Halliwell was bellowing at Haley. “What on earth? How the hell is he unconscious when you gave him hypernodone? It’s not possible! Did you give him the wrong drug?”

 

“No, I swear, I gave him two cc’s of hypernodone, exactly what you told me to give him!”

 

“He’s not registering anywhere! It’s like he’s in a goddamn coma! What did you do to him? You incompetent hack!”

 

Haley had begun to cry, noisily. “I’m sorry. Don’t be angry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

 

“Stop sniveling and get out of my sight! Send Jana to me! Right now!”

 

I huddled lower, made myself small. Listened to the wind in the stalks of corn, rustling and sighing as they swept through. I would stay right here, as long as my body would let me.

 

I’d stay here forever, if I could figure out how.

 

Do you want to know more about what happens to Shane? Check out Master of Chaos, and find out! This scene is a prequel to the action in the book.

 My thanks to Fresh Fiction for featuring Shane on their blog!

MASTER OF CHAOS by Shannon McKenna

The Unredeemables #3

NYT and USA Today Bestselling author Shannon McKenna presents the third installment of her new romantic suspense series…

She’s as beautiful as a fallen angel...

I don’t know how long I’ve been locked in Halliwell’s dungeon. That psycho billionaire is still trying pry my brother Ethan’s all-powerful algorithm, SmokeScreen, out of me. The only escape is death. I’m ready. More than ready.

Then the redhead sneaks in. Smart, sexy, smoking hot, even through a six-inch wall of reinforced glass. She’s doing me no favors. Making me feel again when I’m better off numb. Maybe she’s acting, maybe I’m hallucinating, but now Halliwell has decided to put me down… and just when I start wanting to live again.

The redhead might be my way out… but only at a price I can’t afford to pay…

He’s as deadly as a caged tiger…

I shouldn’t be poking around in the secret depths of Owen Halliwell’s headquarters. The guy might be my biological father, but I’d known that he was a monster even before I saw Shane Masters, the prisoner down in Level Eight. Before my knees started to quake, and my heart to gallop like a herd of wild horses.

I’m stuck in this hellhole for my own reasons. My little sister has a rare disease, and Halliwell has strong-armed me into writing malware for him in exchange for a cure. It’s keeping her alive, yes, but this place is next-level toxic.

Even multiple layers of security and the obscene shock collar can’t diminish the power emanating from that man. Then I discover that the algorithm Shane refuses to reveal could save my sister… and that Halliwell has scheduled his execution.

That can’t happen. I have to break him out. He’s a commando warrior, furiously angry, completely unpredictable. He could be my salvation. He could be my ruin.

All I can do is roll the dice…

 

Romance Suspense | Romance Billionaire [Oliver-Heber Books, On Sale: February 20, 2024, e-Book, ISBN: 9781648395574 / ]

Danger, intrigue and romance fill these pages!