Senate
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THE SENATE
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1948
U.S. SENATE
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
Washington, DC.
Robyn and Jill had been run through a metal detector, patted down, and their papers searched, but the search had not been thorough enough for security to discover the connectors at the back of Hunky and Dory's heads, hidden by their religiously-mandated pony tails. There was not enough concentrated metal in the things to make a metal detector do anything but get a whiff.
The hearing was in the venerable Room 315 of the Old Senate Office Building. It was ten o'clock, and Chairman Samuel L. Boren gaveled the hearing to order.
The first witness of the day was Mr. Michael Evers of Roswell, New Mexico, who owned a ranch that sprawled over many square miles of arid land to the northwest of that town of about 22,000 people. In his opening remarks he testified thus, from prepared notes:
"On July 7, 1947, two cowhands in my employ found a shiny metallic object in the desert that looked like two shallow stainless steel bowls which had been welded together, mouth to mouth. There were many large caliber bullet holes in the object. And when these cowhands of mine took a closer look, they found an Indian inside the contraption who said his name was Jerry Shy Bear. He was severely injured, with a shattered bone in his thigh and a bullet wound that he had somehow managed to staunch with a tourniquet and pressure. The cowhands brought the man to me, and I drove him to a doctor in Roswell to be treated. After that I asked my cowhands to show me where the disk had crashed, and I saw the object with my own eyes, both inside and out. The next day, the Army came out with two trucks, including a crane truck, and carted the object away. Later that evening the local newspaper carried a story that a 'flying saucer' had crashed on my land, which created a sensation I did not and do not want. These are the basic facts, gentlemen, but I am prepared to testify if any amplifying information is requested."
The Chairman recognized Senator Lee Wenden, Democrat, from a state that bordered New Mexico.
Senator Lee WENDEN: Good morning Mr. Evers. Can you tell me how big this disk was that you found?
Mr. EVERS: Bigger than a car, sir, but small enough to fit, perhaps, inside a two-car garage.
Senator WENDEN: And you say there were bullet holes in the thing. Is it safe to say it was shot out of the sky?
Mr. EVERS: I don't think so, sir. There was no odor of fuel. There was nothing in the way of a motor for the thing, or any controls to fly it. The thing was, as near as I could tell, identical perhaps to a toy 'flying saucer' a city might put together in a park for kids to play on, except for the bullet holes. It didn't have the kind of damage one would expect to see if it crashed. There was no scattered debris.
Senator WENDEN: So you have no idea how this object got into the desert thirty miles from the nearest town?
Mr. EVERS: No sir, and the Indian, Jerry Shy Bear, said only that he found it, and crawled inside to look, and fell asleep, and that he had been strafed from the air by planes.
Senator WENDEN: Was Jerry Shy Bear still alive when you checked him in with the doctor in Roswell.
Mr. EVERS: He was alive, sir, and in my opinion, his wounds were not life- threatening. As far as I know, he is still alive. I left my number with the doctor, and told him I'd like to help if I could. This Jerry seemed like a nice kid, and I felt sorry for him, he was in quite a bit of pain when we took him in over some bumpy roads. There was no way to avoid that. To this day I haven't heard anything from the doctor.
Senator WENDEN: Thank you, Mr. Evers. We have here today with us a woman who claims to be the wife of this Jerry Shy Bear. I look forward to hearing her testimony, and I yield the balance of my time to you Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Senator Wenden. Mr. Evers, you may step down. And will the next witness please take his place at the table.
Robyn took that as her cue.
The CHAIRMAN: Please state your full name for the record, and tell us a little about yourself.
ROBYN: Yes sir. My name is Kimberly Anne Shy Bear. I was born in a small hospital in Triplett, near River City. I'm am twenty-two years old. My father Erik Lokken served in the First World War, where he was shot on the Western Front and came home with only one arm. He married a nurse named Clara he met over there in France. After the war he worked as a miner in the coal mines around the Black River Gorge, and that job killed him when I was fourteen. I was a student at a private high school that was operated by my church, but I was not permitted to graduate, for reasons that I will explain shortly in my testimony.
Senator WENDEN: Thank you Mrs. Shy Bear. You heard the testimony of Mr. Evers just now. He said he found a young Indian named Jerry Shy Bear inside some metallic wreckage on his land. Any relation to you?
ROBYN: Yes sir, Jerry Shy Bear was my husband.
Senator WENDEN: Was your husband? And he lived with you in the River City area?
ROBYN: Yes, Senator.
Senator WENDEN: There is no record of a marriage license filed at the River City courthouse for a Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Shy Bear.
ROBYN: No sir, because I was a fugitive, again, for reasons that will come out in my testimony here today. I was wed by my pastor, in the presence of three other witnesses, but it could not be filed with the state. And now, of course, it doesn't matter, even if I get all the legal stuff squared away, because Jerry is dead.
Senator WENDEN: So it is your testimony that Jerry Shy Bear is dead?
ROBYN: It is my testimony, sir, that Jerry Shy Bear was murdered by Earl Roland. But only Becky Roland can testify how and why, because Earl confessed the murder directly to her. All I can give is hearsay.
Senator WENDEN: Do you know how he came to be in New Mexico on July 7, 1947?
ROBYN: He said he was going to do some kind of Indian spiritual thing, a very long walk in the wilderness, perhaps a bit like when Christ fasted forty days in the desert. But how he ended up near Roswell I cannot say.
The CHAIRMAN: Can you tell the committee what is your present occupation?
ROBYN: I am a singer and piano player in a jazz quartet called Hunky-Dory, sir.
The CHAIRMAN: Why do you call the band that?
ROBYN: From our rhythm section, sir. Dory Fuchs is our bassist, and Sophie Krause is our drummer, but she calls herself Hunky.
The CHAIRMAN: If it becomes necessary to call your two friends before this committee, do you think they will cooperate?
ROBYN: They currently reside in River City, but they, like myself and Becky Roland, are willing and eager to cooperate with this panel, sir.
The CHAIRMAN: Is that so? Why are you eager to cooperate, Mrs. Shy Bear?
ROBYN: I want to clear my name.
The CHAIRMAN: Clear your name? Please explain.
ROBYN: When I was eighteen years old and still in high school, in 1943, I developed a bone cyst on the back of my skull, in the shape of a little white cup. My mother took me to the doctor, but somehow it developed into a federal case. I was quarantined for more than a year at the Olowade Nu- clear Reservation about two hundred miles southeast of River City. Senator, with your permission I would like to enter into the record this photograph of the interior of the clinic there at Olowade where I was imprisoned.
He nodded and waved for his assistant to go fetch it. Robyn gave her the photo, and after Boren looked at it, he gave it to the other senators on the panel to examine.
ROBYN: Senator, I also have pictures of my captors, with their names written across them. Chief among them is Doctor Gary Trochmann, and he was aided by a nurse Karen Ramsey, and a man named Andrew Fulford. These are the only human beings I saw for the entire time I was under quarantine. Doctor Trochmann said he took his orders from Earl Roland.
Robyn passed these photographs forward as well, to be filed in the official record of the proceedings.
The CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Shy Bear, I have to ask how you managed to take these photographs. These could be from anywhere. If I use these images to drag these people in front of this committee, they could be innocents who know nothing of Olowade.
ROBYN: Sir, my friends sent me a camera inside a box of cereal, which in turn was sent inside a CARE package. It is some indication of the real security at Olowade that I was able to get my hands on a camera, and more important, that I was able to get the film out of Olowade and get it de-veloped. I have no doubt, sir, that your staff will soon provide you a roster of everyone who worked at Olowade during the war, and you will find these three names on that list. When you bring them before this committee, you will see their faces match these photos, and that I was telling the truth. In the meantime, please accept that I consider my oath to be binding when I was sworn to tell this committee the truth.
The CHAIRMAN: Since you are seated before this panel today, Mrs. Shy Bear, I take that to mean you were not deemed contagious, and you were eventually released.
ROBYN: That is partially correct, sir. I was not contagious, this was confirmed by Dr. Trochmann, but I was not released. That is the important point that I want to testify to you here today, and it is my sincere hope that you call Dr. Trochmann here to confirm it officially. I am not contagious. This is just a bone cyst.
The CHAIRMAN: Will you approach the panel so we may examine for ourselves?
ROBYN: Yes sir.
She lifted her pony tail and presented the little white cup at the back of her head for their inspection. Before she did this, she had rubbed the inside of the cup with her finger to break off all the little black graphite pins, knowing they would grow back later. To show the Senator fifty- five neat little black pins in a perfect hexagonal array would lead to a line of questioning she was not prepared to answer.
ROBYN (after returning to her seat): I remained locked inside the clinic at all times, Senator. It became obvious to me that I would never be released. So I had to escape on my own.
The CHAIRMAN: Please tell the committee how you managed that, Mrs. Shy Bear.
ROBYN: First I would like to enter one final image into the record. This is a picture of the keypad that was used to unlock the door. It has sixteen buttons, labelled zero through nine, and 'A' through 'F'. The combination to unlock the door is just four digits long. One of my captors, the gentleman named Andrew Fulford wasn't very bright, I watched him punch the numbers one day: 7DFC. And this was the same number they used on both doors, the room in the clinic where I was held, and also the front door of the clinic. So one night I punched those numbers in and just walked right out of the clinic.
The CHAIRMAN: And you found yourself, no doubt, in the middle of one the the most carefully protected installations in the United States. How did you get out of Olowade undetected?
ROBYN: Oh, I was detected, alright, Senator. But Olowade was named for a place on the Olo River where it was shallow enough to wade across. I simply walked out into the river and floated downstream. So serious was this Earl Roland character about keeping me there, dead or alive, that he had his guards take several potshots at me with rifles. I had to keep ducking under the water until it carried me far downstream.
The CHAIRMAN: And what did you do after that?
ROBYN: The river wasn't too cold, and not very deep. I could keep touching bottom with my feet, so I let it carry me down to the nearest town, where I got out and called my friends in Wiley. When they picked me up, they said the Army and the FBI was asking about me, and that I was a fugitive.
Senator Jeremiah BORSCH: Mrs. Shy Bear, do you know the third witness we have here today, a Miss Becky Roland?
ROBYN: Yes, Senator. She is my friend and a business partner.
Sen. BORSCH: When did your association with Miss Roland begin?
ROBYN: It was about a year after my escape from Olowade, sir. Sometime in 1945, I'm not sure exactly which month.
Sen. BORSCH: And her last name, Roland, didn't raise any red flags with you?
ROBYN: At the time, sir, she was going by the name Inge Hahn.
Sen. BORSCH: Thank you, Mrs. Shy Bear. Mister Chairman, with your leave I move to use the balance of our time remaining here today to question Becky Roland, but I reserve the privelege of calling Mrs. Shy Bear back as a witness if the testimony so requires it.
The CHAIRMAN: So ordered. Thank you Kimberly Shy Bear, you may step down, but please remain in the chamber until the hearing adjourns. Miss Roland would you take the stand? Would you raise your right hand and be sworn? In this matter now in hearing before the committee, do you swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Miss ROLAND: I do.
Sen. BORSCH: Miss Roland, will you state for the record your full name and home address?
Miss ROLAND: Rebbecca Jeanette Roland, 129 Goode Street, River City.
Sen. BORSCH: Is that the only name you go by?
Miss ROLAND: No sir, my friends call me Becky. And as Kim testified, recently I have gone under the name Inge Hahn.
Sen. BORSCH: Why did you use that name?
Miss ROLAND: Because my father asked me to use it. He wanted me to get close to Kimberly Shy Bear, but he knew that would be impossible if I used my real name.
Sen. BORSCH: And where are you now employed?
Miss ROLAND: I am the manager of a jazz quartet called Hunky-Dory, but that is not the primary source of my income. The bulk of my living expenses are paid out of a bank account that my father maintains.
Sen. BORSCH: For the record: Who is your father?
Miss ROLAND: He is Earl G. Roland, Jr. and he was connected with the Manhattan Project during the War. Today he says works for an agency called DECON but I don't know anything about it.
Sen. BORSCH: Earl Roland was the Operations Officer at the Olowade Nuclear Reservation during the war. Is that Mr. Roland your father?
Miss ROLAND: Yes sir.
Sen. BORSCH: Do you know why your father was interested in Kimberly Shy Bear?
Miss ROLAND: Yes sir, it was her bone cyst. He was obsessed with it for some reason. I love my father, but I'm not sure he's entirely sane. He has a position of authority in the government, but he used it to take away the freedom of Kim, and the life of her husband. I confronted him at his home in Maryland, and I brought a movie camera to film his confession, and he still told me everything, knowing that it was being recorded. His attitude was one of indifference. I hardly know my own father anymore.
Sen. BORSCH: Are you prepared to enter your film into evidence?
Miss ROLAND: Yes sir, and it is my sincere hope that this will clear Kimberly's good name, and begin the process to give her justice for the death of her beloved husband Jerry Shy Bear.
The Senate projectionist already had the film threaded through the gate of the projector and ready to roll. Boren asked for the lights to be dimmed, and they began to watch the movie.
To preserve the first moments of the film, Robyn had added the usual Academy leader that looked like a black and white radar screen counting down from nine to zero.
Earl Roland stood in the middle of his own living room, wearing his usual black turtleneck shirt under a gray tweed jacket, with no tie. He was bald, with only a fringe of dark curly hair wrapped around the back of his head.
Jill was not seen, but her voice said, "You know how she got her bone cyst, Daddy, but you dance around the issue and refuse to look at it straight on."
"You're wrong, we did have a good look at it."
"Who's 'we'?"
"RCS Zero."
"Your company."
He nodded. "Short for Radar Cross Section zero. We used the government's own engineers and labs at Olowade to analyze it, and learned to synthesize the black stuff on a large scale. It absorbs radar perfectly, at the same time being totally impervious to heat. We've already made a fortune selling the material to a fighter aircraft manufacturer to paint on the leading edges of their wings. It's a goldmine for us. Millions of dollars, Becky."
"So you lied. Kim wasn't a source of a dangerous infection, she was your cash cow."
"I don't call it lying, Becky. I call it dealing with the world adaptively. When Kim escaped from Olowade the whole house of cards almost crashed around the ears of me and some very powerful people who are also involved in this. The only way to keep her from coming forward was to make her a fugitive."
"A fugitive. So you lied to the Army, the police, and the FBI as well."
"Don't think ill of me, Becky. I'm your father. I did it all for you and your mother. Civil service pay is just not enough to give you two the things you deserve to have."
"They won't take me back into Hunky-Dory, Daddy. I burned my bridges with the band."
"You should have tears and a moving story to tell," Roland advised, ignoring what she just told him. "Kim wants to call herself Robyn now? OK. Tell Hunky you want to get right with Robyn. She'll carve a notch on her bow and rejoice, and she'll never realize a wolf will have entered the hen house."
"They'll never take me back, Daddy. Robyn said decisions in her band have eternal consequences."
"That's Bolshevik. They will pretend to be very hurt, of course, to break you down. Steel yourself against this, especially if they weep to put you on the spot, emotionally. Some of the girls may walk off with fake indignation. Let them go and do not chase after them. That is exactly what they want."
"How can they ever trust me again? Everything I told them was a lie."
He dismissed this objection. "Everyone lies. But money talks, Bolshevik walks. The most effective way to regain the confidence of band, as you've already found out, is to give heavily. They will notice your giving jump from the first time you were with them. Your gifts should start out modestly and should finally be very large."
"I've already spent down my trust fund."
"I'm going to deposit twenty large in it today. The trick is to lay low for a while, then you should come to Robyn after a meeting and say something like 'You need some time off. Take this and you and your husband go some nice vacation spot and relax." What WDF member doesn't think that she is over-worked?"
"She doesn't have a husband anymore, remember? You tortured Jerry Shy Bear to death."
"In that case you should pay for a new tour bus, or give to some other need that will seduce Robyn. Do it under the pretext of secret giving, but make sure it somehow gets out anyway."
"Father, it's kind of a tight group, it'd be hard to play politics like that."
"Well, my point is that you have to spend a few weeks impressing them with your faithfulness. Then suddenly take Hunky's side in some disagreement, especially if you see that she is wrong."
"You're crazy, Daddy!"
"No, I'm practical. Ally with Hunky. Guide her into a position of power. One-person rule can be fanned into existence by a real problem or rebellion you can use to prove she needs to control the band more."
"Pop, look, you don't really know what the group is all about."
"Use their constitution and Robert's rules of order to 'move the previous question' and 'table the motion,' until hate is raging on every side."
"Dad, it's not like that. The band is already run like an army from the top down."
"Then talk about the lack of zeal in the band members to Robyn alone. It will sound like sweet Becky is really concerned. And talk about Robyn to the other members. Get Dory alone and try something like this: 'Robyn is sure doing a great job isn't she? But gosh, don't you think she is a little over worked? I hope she is finding enough time to really think about her decisions. Do you think her decisions are a bit weak at times? Perhaps she is a little too harried.' See what I'm getting at?"
"But then Dory will feel lousy because we talked about Robyn behind her back."
"Exactly. There will be a breach between that band member and Robyn. And Robyn will have no idea anything has happened."
"You can't hide anything from them for long. Don't you see, Dad? They have total sharing. But you haven't listened to a word I've said. Robyn will never take me back still knowing that my father killed her husband in a US government torture chamber."
"She will test you. She will set you up up with you in a series of situations where you can be seen as anti-Earl Roland. She will even get blunt and attack me violently when you are in conversation with them. If you get really uncomfortable, She will come out and confront you dead on."
What am I supposed to do then, ask Robyn, 'Why do you think I am an Earl G. Roland infiltrator? Other than the fact that I'm his daughter and I've been caught infiltrating you before.'"
"If you sound serious enough she will tell you all of the observations and tests they've used on you. She will say you keep failing the test, and that you keep getting uncomfortable when it is time to kick dear old Dad. Who are you anyway? And the answer, of course, is that you're her cash cow. Impress that upon them, and the power will shift to your side."
"Stop that film!" a voice was heard, and everyone saw it was Earl Roland, the star of the movie.
Roland was accompanied by three thugs, one of whom advanced straight to the film projector. Another thug took his position near the switch that controlled the lights in Room 315. The last thug stayed with the bald man. This last thug was Ed Conley, and Jill recognized him of course, from Jerry's final memories.
"Father!" Jill cried out.
The thug near the film projector spoke a few words to the projectionist in hushed tones. The projectionist looked quite upset and left Room 315 in a hurry, speaking no words, leaving the thug standing there in his place.
The film abruptly came to a stop, and the lights were turned back on.
Earl ROLAND: "I think, dear esteemed Senators, that in your rush to get these ladies before your panel you moved a little too fast, and you didn't give thought as to whether these hearings should be public, and not in secret session."
Senator BORSCH: "The Senate answers to nobody but the American people. And you, sir, whoever you are, you are out of order."
The CHAIRMAN: "Mister Roland, thank you for coming, you have saved us a little time. I was about to ask my staff to prepare a subpoena to have you appear. We have many questions that require your immediate response."
Earl ROLAND: "Senator Boren, this is a matter of National Security. You will not allow that film to be shown in an open hearing."
Senator BORSCH: "Mister Chairman, if I may, since I still have the floor. The gentleman will proceed to show the film, notwithstanding the objection by the intruder. And after we have seen the film, I think we should immediately discuss why the intruder should not be held in contempt of this body."
Roland turned to his thug next to the film projector and gave a hand sign.
He began to unmount Jill's movie and mount one of the films Roland brought along to be shown in its place.
Earl ROLAND: "Very well, Senator, you are of course correct. We will immediately comply.
His other thug killed the lights, and the new film began to roll.
It wasn't Jill's film at all. In this short movie, the Republican Senator Jeremiah J. Borsch, Mister Family Values, who was also the pastor of a large church, was seen leaving a bar that was well-known to be frequented by homosexual men. The film showed him entering a cab with one of the well-dressed patrons of this bar. After that, the film, shot through the windshield of another car, showed the Senator being tailed. Through the rear window he could be seen kissing the man. And the film wound up with images of the Senator entering a seedy Washington hotel with this man.
The hearing room erupted into a cacophony of disbelieving roars and hoots, bringing on a long spate of gavel-banging by Senator Boren before order was restored.
Earl ROLAND: "Senator Borsch, I believe this film will be of some use to you on your Senate Select Committee on Homosexual Activities, which I understand you chair. I'm hardly one to judge, but in this day and age this sort of thing can be a real career killer.
Borsch looked at Boren and he had the answer to his unspoken question why Boren was allowing Roland to disrupt the hearing.
Earl ROLAND: Mister Chairman, I am prepared to show two more short films at this time, of a similar nature. One will be very useful to Democratic Senator Lee Wenden on his Senate Committee on Communist Influence in Government. The second film will be of some interest to you, Mister Chairman, in your other capacity as chair of the Senate Sub-Committee on Graft and Corruption.
Senator Boren said, "This hearing is on hiatus until further notice. The Master-At-Arms will take custody of Kim Lokken and Becky Roland, and transfer them into the custody of the Domestic Enemies Classification, Observation, and Neutralizaion Agency. That will be all."
And he punctuated the proceedings with a final sharp bang of his gavel.
Roland's substitute projectionist gave his three short films to Senator Borsch, but in return he was keeping Jill's movie.
On his way out, Roland told Ed Conley, "I want the names and addresses of everyone who watched this hearing from the gallery."
Robyn and Jill were taken by a series of feints and car switches and devious routes to underground accommodations at the Domestic Enemies Classification, Observation, and Neutralization Agency complex in the suburbs west of Washington, DC, on the Virginia side of the Potomac.
DECON was created in 1942 to administer the internment of Japanese-American citizens in the western United States. Later, with the invasion of Sicily, Italian-Americans came under DECON surveillance. German prisoners of war, taken in 1944 and 1945, were detained in DECON camps, including, coincidentally, one 5,000 man camp at Roswell, New Mexico.
When Nazi agents attempted to commit sabotage inside the borders of the United States, they were placed in the custody of DECON for questioning, after which they were summarily shot. As a result of these interrogations, DECON was led to develop dossiers on every US citizen of recent German descent.
The first all-electronic computer, running entirely on vacuum tubes, was created to crack German military codes. The second one was created to generate range tables for artillery. The third one was created for DECON to manage their dossiers of potential subversives, which were stored on many miles of yellow paper punch-tape.
After the War, DECON found itself with amazing potential powers and absolutely no mission to justify its existence. But all large bureaucracies, whether consciously or unconsciously, operate in ways that tend toward self-preservation. The resources of DECON were turned against lawmakers and other politicians, and used to accumulate embarrassing tidbits and evidence of sexual peccadilloes on nearly everyone with power in Washington DC, the forty-eight state capitals, and a number of leading cities.
People naturally resent being blackmailed. To engage in manipulation of this kind was to grab the tiger by the tail. One must be prepared to hang on for dear life. Losing control of DECON would not be as simple as a career being over. The agency head would be physically vulnerable to powerful men who dreamed every day about how slow to make his death, one for the record books, but whose hand were stayed only by the threat of compromising images and other evidence getting out to the newspapers.
One man had the money to toss around and the testosterone to rise to the challenge, and his name was Earl Roland, the former operations officer at Olowade. And his secret weapon as he grabbed the reins of DECON was his close associate Ed Conley.
Ed Conley was a bland looking man whose face looked like the averaged sum of thousands of bland-looking caucasian, blond men. Moments after meeting him people were often hard pressed to recall what he looked like. He had grown to be utterly trusted by Earl Roland through his exquisite cruelty.
What motivated Conley to become a specialist in producing pain was his pronounced fear of death. He was obsessed with it. He was terrified by the inevitability of his own end. Most people drowned their fears in religion,which provided sure answers that remained constant through the centuries. Conley became a torturer, so he could look in the eyes of his victims at that moment when they overcame their natural death phobia and begged for release. Such a moment was an epiphany for him, his own religious experience. DECON found plenty to do for a man such as him, who loved his work so.
Torturers had to be among the most trusted personnel in the agency, because whatever intelligence was given up by the subject under his ministrations was also known to the torturer, after the torture, obviously. Ed Conley was not only trusted utterly by Earl Roland, he was held in some awe, and over the years he would become something of a legend in DECON.
When Mike Evers delivered pain, he believed in starting off with enormous pain and letting it grow to become vast. Often the cruel logic of his techniques would only become apparent to the victim gradually, a horror which would blossom slowly in their minds as they moaned and screamed in their suffering.
Another reason Evers was famous was his rumored role in a certain type federal internal investigation that was a DECON specialty. It used to really cut into the country's annual budget for employees to go out on early retirement with a bogus disability claim, only to be seen the first weekend chopping wood in their back yard. Often a visit from Ed Conley was all it took to make these ailments miraculously clear up, such that his nickname among the workforce became "Jesus," although this was never said in his earshot. And if the ailments didn't clear up, he made sure they really had a disability to go out on. In either case (and Conley had no preference either way) the number of false claims fell to zero.
So Ed Conley was something of a bogeyman in DECON. People who passed him in the halls glanced down and went out of their way to avoid brushing against him.
He accompanied Earl Roland in the torture chamber he had arranged for Robyn and his own daughter. The room was lit with a sickly red light, that evoked mental images of blood. Per standard DECON interrogation procedure, both Robyn and Jill were naked.
Earl said, "That film was the damndest thing I ever saw. I don't remember you bringing a camera to the house."
"So you're saying we faked it?" Jill asked.
"No, it was real enough. I can only surmise that you took it from your own memories, somehow. Such a thing would be unbelievably useful to me here. Think of the pornos I could make!"
Robyn snorted. "Good luck. The technology we used is literally out of this world."
"Nevertheless, you will tell me all about it."
"We will not."
"Ladies, I don't believe the quiet man with us has been introduced. Meet my best guy from Special Inquiry. Ed Conley."
Ed and Earl manhandled Jill into a chair and slapped tape over her mouth, forcing her to breathe in panicky snorts through the nose.
"This shoots a little post under toenails or fingernails up to the first knuckle", Ed explained after withdrawing his gadget from its case. "Now usually, when you get injured your body lets you know with a shot of pain, but after a while your pain is handled with endorphins because your brain is saying, 'Yes, I know about the damage, it's being taken care of.' Not with this. The post under your nail is a toxin that takes many hours to dissolve away, so the body never stops getting messages that it's being injured...well let's just say no one ever volunteered for another one."
“So I will ask you one more time to tell me how you made that movie,” Roland said. Robyn refused to speak, so on Earl's signal Ed Conley applied the gadget to Jill's thumb. SNICK.
Robyn was horrified at the agony in Jill's eyes and her attempts to scream beneath the gags
"That was for making the movie of your dad, honey. And right now I'd like nothing more than to see what it would be like to have all twenty of your fingers and toes on fire at once, but not today. I think Kim gets the idea that I'm serious. So I'm going to let you go. I think Kim is going to talk to me now. I think she knows I can have you back here any time, along with her friends and her mother."
