Repercussions

Part One

Tom closed his eyes and thought of Sloan as two men armed with batons beat him mercilessly, taunting him and laughing with each violent swipe.

If only he hadn’t been under the influence of Ed’s gene therapy he would have been aware of the threat, sensed his attackers before they were upon him.

His last thoughts were of Sloan as he drifted into unconsciousness.

Sloan sat motionless in Attwood’s office, staring sightlessly at the wall, it was two day’s since Tom had been taken, two days since her entire world had been torn apart.

If their had ever been any doubt in her mind about her feelings for Tom, her reaction to his disappearance made them seem laughable.

Whereas in the past she had struggled with thoughts of how she would live with Tom’s differences, now she that she was faced with living without him, differences and all, she could feel only despair and pain.

And it was all her fault, she thought as she dabbed a tissue to her tear stained eyes, if only she hadn’t pressured him to change, to become human, he would have been strong enough to fight them, to sense them…..

“Sloan?”

Attwood looked down at Sloan, wishing that he had some good news, but inside he felt that what he was about to reveal would be only more bad news, perhaps even proof of the death of Tom Daniels.

Ed hovered behind Attwood, worry clearly etched on his face. He pushed past Attwood and kneeled down on the floor next to Sloan’s chair, rapping his arms gently around her. Sloan sank into his embrace sobbing.

“Hey, Sloan it’s ok, Tom’s a tuff guy, he’ll be ok. SShhhh don’t cry, Tom wouldn’t want you to.”

Sloan made a choked, hysterical laugh and her muffled voice could be heard from Ed’s shoulder.

“Tom doesn’t like it when I cry, he, he doesn’t know what to do. I, I don’t think he really understands it, he just gets this puzzled look in his eyes. But, he, he tries so hard to make me feel better, he puts his arms around me and, and that always makes me feel better. Oh Ed, I just want him back.”

Attwood stood uncomfortably by the door, a video cassette in his hands.

“Sloan, Ed, the reason why I called you here, is this tape. It was sent to us less than an hour ago, I believe it’s from the people who have taken Tom.”

Both Sloan and Ed looked up, Sloan’s eyes darting from Attwood to the tape.

“What’s on the tape Walter, it’s not, I mean, he’s not …….”

“I don’t know Sloan, no-one’s seen it yet, I wanted you both here when I put it on.”

Attwood placed the tape into the machine and they watched quietly as it began.

It had been filmed using very cheep home movie quality equipment, and showed Tom, lying motionless on his side. He was shirtless; his back covered in red marks as though he’d been severely beaten. Someone in the back ground could be heard shouting at the camera man to get a better view of him, and the man obligingly moved forward to Tom’s still form.

The shouting man could be seen on camera now; he was wearing a black balaclava and black combat style clothes. He walked over to Toms still body and using his foot roughly kicked Tom in the stomach rolling him over onto him back.

Sloan gasped as a low groan could barely be heard coming from Tom, he was obviously in bad shape, covered in bruises, marks and blood.

The man put one booted foot down hard on Tom’s stomach and began to talk.

“We are the League of Human purity and we have the Dominant Tom Daniels as our hostage. We are dedicated to the eradication of all deviants from the Aryan line, be it Dominants, blacks, Asians or any other inferior freaks of nature. They are all scum.”

As he increased the pressure of his foot on Tom’s stomach, Tom appeared to regain consciousness and move slightly underneath him. Another masked man came forward, and dealt a powerful blow to Tom’s head with a baton. Not content with this the man dealt several more blows to Tom’s upper body and arms.

Sloan flinched as they heard the sickening sound of the baton smashing down on bone.

The shouting man continued to talk, moving away from Tom, leaving him visible in the background being beaten by two other men.

“We at the league believe that the dominant deserves to die, however, we also need more funds to buy arms for our struggle, if you agree to make six payments, of Three million dollars we will allow it to live, and return it to you. If you do not comply with our demands the dominant will be executed.

As the camera went off, Sloan jumped to her feet.

“We’ve got to get the money, do something, we can’t just leave him there, those, those, monsters, they’ll kill him!”

Attwood frowned,

“I’ll deal with this Sloan, it appears that we are dealing with amatures, they must have someone inside to have managed to capture Tom.”

As Walter left the room Sloan collapsed into Ed’s arms sobbing.