Nobody's Nocturne - Interlude: Hell
"The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."
- Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss psychiatrist, Psychologist and Founder of the Analytic Psychology, 1875-1961)
"Now we're just going to see how your brain is working." Circe knew the subject was tense, and she knew why. She didn't have a way with people like her husband did. People trusted him. It was a fact that only served to reinforce her belief that she had made the right decision all those years ago, when she'd said her vows and committed herself to him.
She remembered one of her cousins gushing on about how handsome Loki was, and what wonderful prospects he had, such a glowing reputation. Circe had cared for none of this. She had seen what he could build. The day she saw his working telekinetic ray-gun in SimScience Monthly, she knew she had to have him. And nothing ever came between Circe and what she wanted.
"Don't be afraid, child," Loki's voice soothed from the doorway. "This is just a routine little check. Nothing to worry about, not at all."
"Oh." The suspicious look had gone from the subject's face. "Alright then. Okay." He nodded slightly.
Circe remembered similar situations from her own childhood. Don't worry darling, I'm not going to hurt you. Those words were inevitably followed by pain. Circe knew torture, better than anyone. In the databank that was her mind she held 238 different methods of torture. And she knew, from first-hand experience, that knowing of torture and living through it were two entirely different experiences.
She flicked the switch. Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't even hear the subject scream.
And so it was in the Beaker household from that day on. As the subject grew, Circe found new methods and new ideas. Though her research took her far, she was always striving to go further. She needed to know the answers. But first she had to find the questions.
The tortures grew more horrific with every passing year, and with every year the subject became more and more withdrawn. As he left his teenage years behind him he was barely able to fend for himself. Neurotic and apprehensive, he developed a twitch and stammered on the rare occasions that he spoke. Circe could tell that it bothered Loki, but to her it was inconsequential.
And then one day it came to her. She knew what to do, and she knew how to do it. It was in fact so simple that she cursed herself for not having thought of it before. All she would need was her scalpel.
A little slice here, move that over there, and who needs two kidneys anyway?
Circe spent a solid twenty-four hours operating on the subject. When she was finished she knew she had done well. Now she would give him a little time to rest, and tomorrow she could start her experiments.
In the thirteen years that the subject had lived with the Beakers, through all the hundreds and thousands of tortures she inflicted on him, Circe never once thought of the hell she was putting him through. Taking a child from the streets, and being subjected to such horrors as are unimaginable to most, pain and torture far beyond the cruelty boundary. She never thought of it, not one single time.
She knew Loki did, often. He rarely watched Circe's research in action, and when he did it was with distaste. He cared too much about feelings.
How did the subject feel? Why should that matter.
Circe had what she wanted. Everything else was insignificant.