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Back in the cabin, Tinley suddenly looked at his watch.
"Shit," he said. "Gotta get out and do the course before the sun goes down."
As if a switch has been flipped, everything sped up.
"Get a move on, sergeant!" Thomas said. "Into your gear. Shoes back in that closet we showed ya, clothes in the dresser. Five minutes!"
"Yes sir!" Yarrow shouted, moving to comply. He stripped off his uniform and hung it in the closet he'd been assigned. As he hunted for running shorts and a t-shirt, he heard the Tops doing the same. Tinley disappeared out the front door, and in a flash came back.
"Get movin'!" he shouted, leading the way.
They left the cabin through the front door. The gate was unlatched. Tinley stood there, his gear looking like it was painted on, his dick clearly outlined in his shorts.
"Move it, move it, move it!" he shouted at Yarrow. "Move it, sergeant! Time's a-wastin'!"
They were on a wide, level path, paved with dirt and cinders. Tinley and Thomas led, and Yarrow struggled to match their pace.
"Three miles!" Tinley shouted. "Now! Move it, sergeant! Move it!"
The change in tempo rattled Yarrow. He was huffing and puffling, forcing himself to keep up.
"Get hot, sergeant!" Thomas shouted. "Don't lollygag on us!"
Yarrow felt his muscles straining and his heart pounding. Ahead of him, the two Tops had stopped running, were doing pushups.
"Get down, sergeant!" Tinley screamed. "Give me 40, now!"
Yarrow felt his head get light, but managed to comply. From there, they kept running until the trail looped sideways. The sergeant was relieved when the path veered back toward the cabin, but soon felt his heart sinking. The path replicated the obstacle course back on campus, the one that he had managed to avoid. Members of the Corps of Discipline were expected to run it three times a day, and were encouraged to run it more often. Yarrow had contrived an escape, and had been running the campus course once or twice a week.
But he was still able to climb the monkey net, and use the rope to swing across the artificial pond. Once to the other side, Yarrow ran and kept up with the Tops, and followed them back to the cabin. As they arrived, he was gasping for air. The Tops were barely breathing hard.
"What's the matter, sergeant?" Tinley said when the arrived. "This course is the same one you run three times a day. You been buggin' out?"
"No sir!" Yarrow answered, careful to conceal the truth. "Maybe I've been going too slow, sir."
"We'll let you shower off first so ya can get a start on dinner, but don't linger," Tinley said.
"Yes sir!" Yarrow said, racing into the one bedroom to remove his sweat-drenched clothing.
"Sir?" he called out. "Got a question or two."
"Yeah, what's up, sergeant," Thomas answered. Yarrow emerged from the bedroom, naked. He was lean and muscular, with relatively little body hair.
"Sir, I'm thinkin' I throw the training clothes on the floor for now and then into that washer out there," he said. "Then everything gets washed after dinner, along with towels and washcloths and your and Captain Tinley's stuff? That correct, sir?"
"Yep, that's right, sergeant," Thomas said. "Now get movin' 'cause we'll be on our way in there."
Yarrow jumped into the shower, soaped and rinsed quickly. As he was toweling off, he looked up and saw Tinley standing at the entrance to the head. His massive body filled the doorway.
"How tall are you, anyway, sir?" he exclaimed.
"Six-three and a half, sergeant," Tinley answered.
"Is that hair or a forest, sir?" Yarrow asked.
"Conquest Woods, I guess," Tinley said, chuckling and holding an enormous flaccid dick. "Complete with a nine inch oak tree in the middle."
As Tinley showered, Yarrow donned the olive drab utility uniform he'd worn earlier in the day. By the time he was finished giving the shine on his boots a touch-up, Tinley had finished in the head, tossing his used towel at the sergeant.
"Set up the table out there first and fire up the oven, and I'll show you a thing or two about fryin' up steaks," Tinley said. The sergeant followed the order, and a while later, Tinley was tutoring the sergeant on the fine points of steak and potatoes. By then, Thomas had finished with his shower, and joined the two of them in the kitchen. He reached into the refrigerator for a beer.
"Want one, Dog?" he asked.
"Yeah, Tom, why not?" he replied. "I'll go grab us a couple-a cigars, and join ya out on the deck while the sergeant here makes our dinner."
A few minutes later, the two Tops were leaning back in their chairs, smoking Tinley's cigars and the beers Thomas had brought.
"Going just the way we planned it," Thomas said.
"Yep," Tinley replied, with a snicker. "We nail it in tonight and tomorrow, and pound the shithead on Sunday if all goes like I think it will."
"What if he comes back wet tomorrow?" Thomas asked.
"Swing across that pond when we come to it, my friend," Tinley said, with a laugh. "I don't think we got anything to worry about, though."
"Neither do I," Thomas replied.
"So tonight we get back to Trainees," Tinley continued. "When he comes back dry, show him downstairs. More about Trainees afterwards, then spring it on Sunday morning."
"You got it, Dog," Thomas said. "He's gonna fold like a house-a cards."
"Yep, sure looks like it," Tinley said. "We're got a hell of a week comin' up!"
"Oh yeah, that's for sure," Thomas replied. "Oh yeah. Hell yeah."
"Steak's damn good, sergeant," Thomas said.
"Yes sir, sure is!" Yarrow replied, the praise swelling his pride. The Tops wolfed down the food for a while, and so did the sergeant. He was hungry, and his body hurt from the combined effort of the walk to the cabin and the evening run.
"Sir," Yarrow said, turning toward Tinley, "can I ask something about the Trainees?"
"Shoot, sergeant," Tinley replied, cheerfully. "What ya want to know?"
"A couple things," the sergeant replied. "Sir, have you and Captain Thomas had Trainees before, and how are the Trainees assigned to Tops?"
"Good questions," Tinley said. "Yep, each of us has supervised a Trainee. Commandant makes the matchups, but he makes sure the Trainee knows at least one of the Tops, sometimes both. It's just like conquerors and the conquered. They're never strangers."
"So you know the Trainee who's coming in a couple days?" Yarrow asked.
"Yep, and he knows us, but he won't know that we're going to be trainin' him until he's standin' in front of us as a Trainee," Tinley said. "Element of surprise."
"So who's the Trainee going to be, sir?" Yarrow asked, his curiosity rising.
"Down, boy!" Thomas replied, laughing. "All in good time, sergeant! You'll find out soon enough. You'll recognize him."
"Okay, sir. Just wondering, that's all," Yarrow said. It occurred to him that Tinley was his supervising Top, and that he had played poker with both of the Tops back on campus. He chased his uneasiness away, remembering that they'd so much as told him that he was going to make Captain.
"Anyway, the Trainee that I was overseeing along with Captain Richards, he had gone to high school with Richards and was in the same pod as both of us," Tinley said. "Queer little weasel, it turns out."
"That he is," Thomas said, smiling. "Half these Trainees are queers. Mine ain't, but Stingler? Hell yeah."
"Jimmy Stingler was your Trainee?" Yarrow exclaimed. "Him? His father and his brother ..."
"Yep, his father was a Cadet Major and his brother was a Top, but poor little Jimmy, well, that apple fell pretty far from the tree," Tinley said.
Captain Thomas launched into the story about how his Trainee, Christopher Davis, had propositioned Stingler, who had accepted, but the two hadn't been able to complete the act. It had happened when the Tops had stashed the two Trainees together in a cabin while they attended the academy's Spring Ball with some girls brought in from a distant town.
"Davis ... Davis ... never heard of him," Yarrow said.
"He was a different sort than the typical Trainee or cadet around here," Thomas said. "Most Trainees are swaggerin' fakers, but Davis just blended in. Connivin' little weakling for sure, but different sort in a way."
Yarrow felt a warning stab when he heard the words, "swaggerin' faker," as if the Top was talking about him, but once again suppressed the thought. Meanwhile, Tinley was laughing. They had finished dinner, and the Tops were leaning back in their chairs.
"Sergeant, you get table-clearin' and dishwashin' duty," Tinley said cheerfully. "Better get to it."
"Yes sir," Yarrow said, rising to clear the table. Tinley walked over to one of the cabinet, opened the door, and grabbed a bottle of bourbon. Thomas fetched a couple of glasses, and filled them with ice from the freezer, and poured, then added water from the tap to each glass.
"The Captains are gonna have a drink while the sergeant does the dirty work," Thomas said, in a tone that matched Tinley's. "Move it, so we can tell ya the rest of the story."
"Yes sir," Yarrow replied, once again feeling uneasy.
"Oh yeah, them two are real pieces a-work," Tinley said. Yarrow had finished washing and drying the dishes and silverware, and had returned them to the cabinets and drawers, and was now sitting at one end of the couch, next to an easy chair where Tinley sat. The other captain was at the other end of the couch with one foot up on a coffee table and the other on the floor. His uniform trousers were bunched up around his crotch, and the outline of his dick pressed against the fabric of his uniform trousers. But he didn't bother to adjust himself as he would have in a more formal setting. The captains weren't drunk, but the bourbon had loosened them up.
"So they were going at each other full-on queer, sir?" Yarrow asked, curling his lip. "How did they get caught?"
"No one caught 'em," Thomas said, nonchalantly. "Captain Tinley's Trainee confessed. Felt guilty for doing what he'd been told not to do."
"Well, he ain't really my Trainee, of course," Tinley said. "He's Captain Richards's property. I've just been along for the ride."
Yarrow had a confused look on his face.
"Each Trainee starts out with two Tops, but eventually gets an owner for life," Thomas explained. "I'm Davis's owner, and Richards owns Stingler. Captain Tinley here is going to own the Trainee who'll be here in a couple of days, and I'll be along for the ride."
"Y'all are kind of busy with all this overseein', aren't you, sir?" Yarrow said to Thomas, chuckling. "Owning Davis and being along for the ride on this other Trainee? Sounds like the stories I heard about plantations before the war of Northern aggression. The overseers worked harder than the slaves!"
"True, true," Tinley replied. "Lots of 18-hour days for the Conquest Corps. Anyway, there's more to the story. Hell of a story it is too. Tom, why don't you fill him in?"
"Davis is off in Texas having his balls and his dick hacked off, and having tits put on," Thomas said. "Chrissy's gonna be my girl, just like Carolyn has been the Commandant's girl ever since the doctors got rid of Carl."
The sergeant's eyes bugged out.
"Holy shit, sir ..." he began to say, before Tinley cut him off.
"Castration's always been a part of conquest," the Top said. "In one campaign, Genghis Khan had 50,000 conquered males castrated. He ordered his Men to impregnate their women to start a new race. The Indians castrated settlers, and the U.S. Cavalry castrated Indians. Our patron saint, Andrew Jackson, carried a tobacco pouch made from the scrotum of an Indian he de-nutted. The Commandant dips his tobacco from Carolyn's nuts. Does it right in front of her."
Yarrow sat in stunned silence.
"This is the Corps of Conquest you want to join, sergeant," he said.
"It's ... it's just not something I ever thought about, sir," he replied.
"You'll be thinking about it more from now on, buddy," Thomas said, brightly. "Castration's making a comeback."
"A comeback, sir?" Yarrow said to the other captain.
"Historically, conquerors have castrated dead bodies as a way of desecration, and the living for humiliation," Thomas said, his tone in the manner of a teacher. "No problem with the dead, but with the living the death rate was high. There weren't any castrations here at Jackson between 1887 and about 10 years ago, but since then there have been four, soon to be five. It's a safer operation than it used to be, plus they've started doing it for changing someone from male to female. That's brand new. They don't just cut off their balls, but they give 'em a snatch and hooters too."
The sergeant's face showed a look of revulsion.
"That's disgusting!" he said. "How can they even do it, sir?"
"Well, they've got this Nazi doctor from Germany, and they perfected it during the war in the concentration camps," Thomas said. "They carve out a snatch and sort of turn the guy's dick inside out, so they can still come. They give 'em drugs to make their bodies more female, and they eventually grow tits. I've gotta say it sure worked with the Commandant's girl."
"Ugh!" Yarrow said. "I'm sorry, sir, but it sounds sick."
"It's more like you're not used to it, sergeant," Thomas said. "You've got people who not only aren't Men, but would be better off as girls. Like the Commandant's secretary, and my Trainee, who'll be my future secretary. You've got to start with a fella who never wanted to be a fella to begin with, and who kinda seems girly."
"You mean like some queer?" Yarrow asked.
"Nah, not queers," Thomas replied. "It's someone who's trying really hard to be a male but just doesn't have it in him. Trainee Davis is like that. Turned out he had girl's underwear hidden all over the place, and wore it in secret. He was real afraid of all this, but he's getting used to the idea."
"Hard to see it, sir," Yarrow said. "It'd always be a man turned into a woman, like some circus freak, sir."
"Remember, sergeant, they weren't Men to begin with," Thomas said. "Question is really if they're male or female. Every now and then, there's one who should've been the other. Carolyn, the Commandant's secretary, makes for a fine girl. So will Chrissy Davis, I think."
Tinley joined in.
"I don't know about this sex change idea either, sergeant, but I think disciplinary castrations are okay," he said. "I'm all for it. If my Trainee gets too far outta line, he's gonna lose his nuts in a heartbeat."
"What, y'all castrate Trainees to punish 'em?" Yarrow asked. "Give 'em cunts and everything too, sir?"
"Nope, just cut their balls off," Tinley replied, casually. "Back in the day, they'd usually lose a lot of blood and die on the spot, or get an infection and die later, but the surgery is safe as can be now. There have been three disciplinary castrations in the past – what is it Tom, five years?"
"I think six," Captain Thomas said. "Trainees who thought they owned that part and could use it when they wanted to."
"Commandant insists that every other method of control be tried first, but it's up to the conquering Captain in the end," Tinley said. "There's a few nutless Trainees in the military right now, serving their conquerors. Commandant says the results are pretty good, so he's less reluctant to okay it than he was some years back."
Reveille was at 0500, as usual. By 0530, the two Tops and the sergeant were starting on the obstacle course. Yarrow was careful to conceal his aches, or so he thought.
"Moving stiff this morning, sergeant?" Captain Thomas remarked as they started out.
"Not really, sir," Yarrow replied. "A little chilly, that's all."
It was obvious from his herky-jerky movements that the sergeant wasn't used to the early run, but the Tops let the matter drop. They even kept a fairly slow pace to make things easier for the sergeant.
"Up ahead before we turn to the obstacle course, there's a path to Captain's Point," Tinley said to Yarrow. "Can't go out there unless a captain's with ya, which means one of the two of us, or the Commandant if he comes out here. Nice view out there, good place to sit."
"I hope I'll be going out there soon enough, sir," Yarrow said, huffing and puffing.
They reached the obstacle course, and Yarrow clambered up the ropes to a high platform with some difficulty. Behind him, the two captains shared conspiratorial grins.
"Okay, sergeant, ya know the drill," Thomas called out.
"Yes sir!" Yarrow replied, grabbing a rope and doing a Tarzan swing across the wide muddy pond below. He released his grip near the end of the swing, allowing for a smooth landing on the dry dirt past the pond. The captains followed, and the three stood on the other side of the pond.
"You do retrieval, sergant," Tinley said.
"Yes sir!" Yarrow replied, internally groaning. The swinging ropes had smaller ropes that enabled them to be pulled back toward the platform for the next swing. Usually there was someone stationed on the platform to perform the task at the end of the swinging, but with only the three of them on this course, someone had to do the resetting. The sergeant made his way back up, reset the ropes, then came back down, breathing heavily.
"Okay, let's get a move on, sergeant," Tinley said, as he set a faster pace for the return to the cabin.
"Breakfast is gonna go down good," Thomas said cheerfully, a grin on his face. "Sergeant, you can have the first shower so you can get right to work on it."
"Thank you, sir!" Yarrow replied, thinking that the captain was a little too pleased with himself. "I'll get right to it, sir."
The Tops took showers and dressed slowly, allowing the sergeant plenty of time to prepare the meal, even to rest. Yarrow took it as a sign that they sympathized with the difficulty of making the meal so quickly after heavy exercise, and thanked them for cutting him some slack. Breakfast was a similarly leisurely affair, with more talk about the Trainees. But this time not of castration, which Yarrow appreciated. The previous night's discussion of that topic had seemed almost menacing. Tinley's enthusiasm, and his occasional glance directly in Yarrow's eyes had made the sergeant more than a little uneasy.
"There's no such thing as a Trainee in the world," Thomas said. "That's just what we call 'em here. It's their rank here. But it's not what they actually are. It's just what we call them."
"I don't get it, sir," Yarrow replied, a quizzical look on his face. "And I still can't figure out why they stay."
"Ah, yeah, I guess we left that kinda hangin' out there didn't we?" Thomas replied. "Okay, the Jackson Military version of conquest says that a conqueror is part killer, part educator, part trainer, and part master of the conquered. Except we don't kill the Trainees or destroy 'em like other conquerors in history have sometimes done. We confront 'em with their nature as a walking lie. We correct 'em, which is to say punish. And then we train them for the life they'll lead if they choose it. Which they just about always do."
"But that's just it, sir!" Yarrow said. "Why do they choose it?"
"Here's why, Thomas said. "You know how it was when you were a kid and you couldn't keep your lies straight? Imagine what it's like for someone who is a walking lie. It's chaos. It's even worse for a Trainee, because just about all of them have figured out how to fake it on the surface. Trainees hardly ever get caught for disciplinary stuff. It's always honor stuff, and once they get a microscope put up onto 'em, everything unravels.
"They don't know how to be true. They have been faking their goddamn manhood. A lot of 'em are queers, and the rest are some other kinda pervert. They ain't even Men, and by this point they'll never be Men. Once we crack that egg, they'll never put it back together, and they know it. So they request lifetime Trainee status. No matter how hard their life will be, having a Man to run them is better than being on their own."
The sergeant fell silent, contemplating the words and trying to ignore their irresistible appeal.
"What are their lives going to be like, sir?" Yarrow asked.
"They take an oath," Thomas said. "They renounce their Manhood and swear absolute obedience. They become a Cadet Captain's property. They'll serve him however he wants. No questions, no appeal, no letup."
"Sir, what's in it for conquerors?" Yarrow asked. Before he could continue, Captain Thomas interrupted.
"Hey Dog, we better get a move on," he said. "Already 0900."
"We'll pick it up later, sergeant," Tinley said, getting up from the table. "Plenty of time to talk about this stuff."
"We're gonna take another run at the course," Thomas said to Yarrow. "We'll do it on our own while you do all the cleaning and laundry around here. You can do your run in a couple hours after you've gotten everything here in order. Then when you get back it'll be time for some lunch, and after that we can show ya around downstairs."
"Sure thing, sir!" Yarrow said, doing his best to convey enthusiasm.
Once they were out on the course and jogging together, Thomas laughed at the sergeant's discomfort.
"He looked like he was going to shit a brick sideways when I told him he'd be taking the course again!" the captain said. "Big Dog, your intelligence about our Trainee-to-be's exercise habits is flawless. What a lying sack of shit!"
When they reached the obstacle course, Tinley smiled.
"I want to do this, Tom," he said. "Since I'm gonna be the one to own him, I want to nail his ass!"
"You got it, Dog!" Thomas said, laughing as Tinley climbed up to the rope platform, and then over a series of beams to where the three swinging ropes were secured with sturdy black metal bolts. One by one, Tinley replaced them with rubber versions he'd brought along. The rubber bolts were engineered to break under the weight of a swinging body, and deposit it smack into the middle of the pond.
"Now this'll be good when he comes back dry!" Tinley called out. "How much ya wanna bet he goes out to Captain's Point too?"
"I don't think there's any doubt of it! Sir!" Thomas shouted back, laughing. "Sir!"
Snorting all the way, Tinley clambered back down, and they resumed their jog. They made sure to set a slow pace, to allow Yarrow time for the Point.
"Can you believe what an idiot he is, Dog?" Thomas remarked as they ambled down the path toward the cabin.
"These liars fuck it up every time, Tom. Someone like Yarrow tells so many lies he can't keep track," Tinley replied. "I think that's one of the surest fire ways to know if someone's a Trainee or just a common piece of shit."
The Tops returned, and as they expected, the sergeant noticed that they'd taken longer to complete the run this time.
"Yeah, we took it slower," Tinley said, completing Yarrow's set-up. "Two courses back to back, that'll slow ya down."
The Tops showered and dressed again, creating more laundry for the sergeant.
"Okay, done in the head!" Tinley called out. "All yours, sergeant!"
"Yes sir!" Yarrow replied, feeling put-upon by all the work. "I hope you don't mind me saying that I'm looking forward to having a Trainee around here, sir!"
Tinley laughed at the sergeant's remark.
"Yep, that boy's gonna have a pile of it," he replied, cheerfully. "Big, big pile. No end of things to take care of around here."
The two Tops grabbed some academy materials and headed out to the deck, leaving the sergeant alone. Over the three hours, while the Tops studied, Yarrow scrubbed floors and toilets, transferred laundry between machines, and then to the ironing board. Finally, he was finished, and ducked into the cabin's main room for a rest. After he'd caught his breath, the sergeant changed into exercise clothes and made his way out to the deck where the Tops were sitting.
"Sirs, I'm finished inside and figured I'd do the course now," the sergeant said, brightly.
"Okey-doke," Tinley replied, barely looking up.
Forty-five minutes later, Yarrow came trotting back, looking rested.
"Took your time, sergeant," Thomas said, with a smile. "Nice day out there, huh?"
"Yes sir," the sergeant replied. "Spring's here, that's for sure. I guess I've got to admit that I hung around on the rope deck to look at the river before I swung across the pond, sir."
"Good view up there," Thomas said. "I've been tempted to stop up there myself."
Yarrow caught the subtle dig.
"Easy to lollygag, I suppose, sir," he said.
"Easy for some, anyway," Tinley said, frowning. "Anyway, as soon as you shower up, it'll be time to make us some lunch, sergeant."
"Yes sir!" Yarrow replied, hoping his enthusiasm would smooth things over. As he turned to head inside, he noticed that the captains had started doing pushups on the deck. Not only had he not swung across the pond, but the sergeant had skipped the exercise portion of the course. He'd used the extra time to jog out to Captain's Point and sit by the river, carefully matching the time he was away from the cabin to the time the Tops had taken on their second run of the day.
"Well don't take forever to get our food up, Sgt. Yarrow," Tinley said. "It's already 1200."
"Yes sir, I'll get a move on!" he called back over his shoulder.
A half-hour later, Yarrow called out to the Men, asking whether they wanted lunch outside or inside. They came back inside and sat down to eat.
"At breakfast you were asking what's in all this for the Tops," Tinley said, resuming the morning conversation. "Remember that?"
"Yes sir, I do," Yarrow replied.
"Yer bringin' the truth home," Tinley replied, more seriously. "That's what conquest is about, whether it's millions or one by one. Trainees have been livin' a lie and need the truth. Captains are the kind to bring the truth. Somethin' in our makeup."
"I still don't get why the Trainees volunteer for it, sir," the sergeant said. "Sounds like it's lifetime slavery. That's somethin' I know a little bit about being a southerner, and I never heard of too many slaves who wanted to stay slaves."
"I'm not a mind reader," Tinley said, "so all I can really do is guess. From what I've seen they need it."
Thomas spoke up.
"I do think the Trainees get drawn to the idea of life-long service," he said. "Takes a lot of burden away. By the way, I bet there were some slaves who missed it."
"And the Captains need to ..." Yarrow began.
"Bring the truth," Tinley interrupted. "Conquerors are the ones who say, 'Okay, shithead, the jig's up.' That's what we're here to do, and yeah, it's somethin' all of us captains go for."
"Why not just confront them if all we're trying to do is get them to see the truth?" he asked.
"Because that's what it takes," Thomas said. "You've got to remember, these are not normal people. They're males, but they are not Men and they'll never be Men. Always keep that in mind."
Tinley pushed his chair back from the table.
"Okay, sergeant, you clean up, then we'll show you around downstairs," he said. "See where the Trainees get trained."
"Yes sir!" Yarrow replied, as the captains left the table and headed out to the deck.
"You been back here yet, sergeant?" Tinley asked as he led the three of them toward the door to the basement, his key ring jangling as he walked.
"No sir, not yet," Yarrow replied. It wasn't true; in fact, he'd seen the olive-drab door with the words, "TRAINING ROOM" stenciled in black paint. Unknown to him, the captains had seen him looking.
Tinley unclipped the ring, and found the key to the door. He opened it, and flipped a light switch.
"You first, sergeant," he said. The captains stepped aside to allow Yarrow to pass. As he did, he felt a sense of foreboding, but chased it away as he had before. They stepped onto a landing, and Thomas swing a heavy metal door, which closed behind him with a dull thud. They descended steep, sturdy wooden stairs. The ceiling wasn't sloped but consisted of a series of flat spots ending in vertical drops, each painted white and lit by a dim, loudly buzzing fluorescent bulb. On the first panel, the phrase, "I AM A COWARD," was stenciled in black lettering. On the second, "I AM WEAK" was stenciled. On the third, "I AM A LIE."
It was cold. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Thomas flipped two switches. Bright fluorescent lights bathed the room in a harsh, almost blinding light. In much larger letters on the wall 15 feet in front of the last step, the stenciled words, "I AM NOT A MAN," confronted the sergeant. He gasped involuntarily, and attempted to stifle his shock.
"It'll warm up in a while," Thomas said. "But a lot of times we keep it cold."
The room seemed gigantic. It was the size of the upstairs living room and kitchen, but with less furniture and a much higher ceiling.
"Soundproof down here," Tinley said. "Ya could fight a war and no one would hear it upstairs or outside."
"Jesus H. Christ," the sergeant said in a near whisper, a primal fear washing over him. "Jesus Christ!"
Tinley took the lead, gesturing to his right toward a wide opening without a door. He led them inside. Directly ahead, there was a toilet with what looked like a sort of scaffolding on the sides, a urinal, and a large, deep sink with overhanging faucets. Farther into the room there was a low wall with a row of faucets, separating the toilet area from the shower room. In that area, a shower head hung from the ceiling, along with some hoses. The shower area's floor sloped downward toward a drain in the middle.
"The Trainee stands under the shower head, and his trainers control the temperature," Tinley said.
He gestured back toward the toilet and sink and pointed out a large set of shelves with metal grating in front. It held a variety of bottles and boxes, along with linens.
"Towels and washcloths, and soap and enema stuff to clean a Trainee inside and out," the captain said. He pointed toward a bucket, with a brush inside. "The Trainee scrubs this room after every use, and hoses it down. If he can't do it at the time, he does it when he can. The arms sticking off the sides of the toilet are so the Trainee can lean forward while he's given an enema if he needs it. He can be shackled there if it's required."
Tinley turned back around and headed back out past the stairs into the main room. He pointed upwards toward a series of ropes, pulleys, and chains overhead.
"It'd take me all day to show you all the ways that stuff can be used," he told the wide-eyed sergeant. "For now, let's just say that any way you could hang someone, he can be hung here."
He gestured towards widely separated pieces of furniture, some of which had wheel cranks attached. There was a flat table, several chairs, a gigantic wooden post, and something that looked like a large "X" with leather cuffs resting on the floor, attached by hooks near the bottoms of each side with with cuffs hanging from hooks up high on each side, and a wide belt dangling from a hook on the flat end of a board that covered the point where the beams crossed. There was also something with a place to kneel, and a flat space to lean forward on. It had two crank wheels, one on each side, and leather straps hanging from various spots.
"Just about everything you see here is at least 2,000 years old," Tinley said. "The stuff down here isn't antiques, but it's similar to what the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Mongols, and the Chinese had a long time ago. Some mechanical improvements, but not all that many."