The year is 2058. For the last decade, most of the world has known only conflict as east and west waged total war on one another. After the nuclear destruction of many prominent cities across the globe, an uneasy truce was signed and a new order has emerged. Most of Eastern Europe and Asia have fallen behind what has been called a "New Iron Curtain" as a Russian-dominated union spread its influence further across the continent...

-----

An old moped drove through rural Belarus in the very early morning, still hours before sunrise. The driver, a young woman named Irina, knew that she shouldn't have been there. A curfew had been imposed on the entire country for the past six months, after the occupying Russian Union imposed martial law to quell a minor rebellion that had broken out across the nation.

The rebellion wasn't so minor to Irina, however; it had consumed her entire life for months. After witnessing her husband of under a year -- an innocent passerby -- be gunned down by soldiers trying to break up a riot, she searched out a way to join up. She participated in several successful operations, and was now sent out on her first solo mission.

After driving for nearly an hour, Irina reached her destination: An intersection that, according to their intelligence, a convoy of troops was scheduled to pass shortly after dawn. She shut off the moped's engine and dismounted, carrying a small package.  She quietly crept to some thick underbrush near the intersection.

Hearing a very faint rumbling noise, she paused to listen.

"Stop immediately, and put your hands on your head! You are in violation of curfew!" boomed a sudden voice over a loudspeaker. Irina froze, temporarily paralyzed with shock. A blinding light was pointed at her, and she found herself staring at a Russian patrol vehicle perhaps twenty meters from where she stood. Running on a fuel cell engine and sporting infrared sensor technology, the vehicles were silent and nearly impossible to spot in the darkness. There was always a small chance of encountering a random patrol on one of these missions, but it was uncommon this far away from a major city.

"I said, put your hands on your head!" the voice repeated. Irina, having no better ideas, dropped her package and took off running towards some nearby foliage. Her escape was cut short as she was hit square in the back of the neck with a tranquilizer projectile and found her vision blacking out before she even hit the ground.

When Irina awoke, she found her vision obscured by a hood that covered her head, and her hands bound behind her with handcuffs. She was lying on a hard surface; based on the periodic bumps she felt, she figured she was in the small cargo compartment of the patrol vehicle. She had always been told to avoid being taken alive if possible, as the Russians were rumored to be ruthless towards captured rebels. But alas, here she was. She felt sick to her stomach.

The ride plodded on for under an hour, but felt like ages to Irina. She assumed they were taking her to a prison at Brest, the nearest major city as well as the area she and her friends had been operating from. Her arms were getting sore from being pulled behind her back, and breathing underneath the thick hood was difficult, to say the least.

Finally, the vehicle came to a rest. The rear compartment opened and moments later, she felt a rough hand pull her by the arm. Unable to see or pose any meaningful resistance, she complied and followed. Her feet plodded along a short concrete path before she heard a heavy door open. By the sudden increase in temperature, she guessed that she was now indoors. She was shoved along for a few more steps, and then brought to a stop.

"Who is she?" droned a nasally female voice.

"Irina Savitsky," said the man who had led her into the building. "Twenty-six years old, widowed, lives alone in a lower class apartment complex. No record of arrest. Records show that she has worked as a waitress in various restaurants for the last ten years." All of her personal information was accessible by the military via a tiny chip implanted behind her sternum -- part of a program that had been implemented with worldwide collaboration before she was even born.

"She was picked up on a routine curfew violation 80 miles outside of city limits," the man said. "But the patrol discovered that she was in possession of a small incendiary bomb. They were lucky to have come across her."

"All right, take her in for processing," the female voice said. "Put her in 59H in the military wing when you're finished." Irina heard a few items being passed back and forth between the two before she was tugged along once again. A few more sets of heavy-sounding doors opened and closed before they came to a stop.

The hood was suddenly lifted from Irina's head. She was momentarily blinded by the light in the room, but it felt good to breathe freely again. The room was plain and bare, save for a large desk behind which sat a middle-aged soldier. Two guards stood on duty.

"All right, we'll take her from here," said the man behind the desk. The soldier who had escorted Irina turned around and departed.

"Savitsky, was it?" the man behind the desk said. He sounded surprisingly polite for a prison officer. "Listen up. We're going to remove your handcuffs; once you are released, you're going to remove all of your clothing and jewelry and place them on the floor in front of you. At that point, you'll be searched for any weapons or contraband."

Irina felt a chill travel up her spine. She was overly self-conscious about her body and had never been seen naked before by total strangers. One of the two guards in the room walked behind her and removed her handcuffs. She took the opportunity to stretch her arms and rub her wrists.

"Proceed," the man behind the desk said. When Irina hesitated, his tone turned a little harsher. "If you refuse to comply, I can get the guards to assist you." Realizing that she had no choice, Irina bent down and began untying her shoes as slowly as possible, trying her best to delay the inevitable humiliation.

"We're pretty busy here, so we'd appreciate it if you hurried up," the man behind the desk snapped coldly. Irina glanced up at him with a look of nervousness, and began to work a little quicker. She slipped off her shoes and socks and kicked them out in front of her. She removed her sweater and tossed it on the floor, followed by the cotton shirt she wore underneath. She proceeded to unbuckle her belt and slip off her jeans. Now standing in her bra and underwear, she paused.

"All of it," the man snapped. "It doesn't do us any good if we can't thoroughly search you." Irina plucked out her earrings and tossed them onto the floor into the pile, followed by her necklace and ring -- her wedding ring, which she had continued to wear after her husband's death. She felt a tear starting to well up as she realized she was probably never going to wear it again.

Since there was no more postponing of the inevitable, she unfastened her bra and tossed it on the floor. While covering her chest with her left arm, she then used her right arm to wiggle her underwear off, before sticking her right hand in front of her crotch.

"Hands on your head," the man behind the desk snarled, his tone becoming harsher. "Please. It's not like any of us have never seen a pair of tits." The two guards chuckled. Irina, shivering from nervousness and cold, put her hands on top of her head. Her small, light pink nipples stood out hard from her smallish breasts.

One of the guards, clearly having done this many times before, grabbed her pile of clothes and placed them on the desk where the man sitting there began placing them into a plastic bag. The guard then returned to Irina and circled around her, looking over her body. Irina thought that would be the worst of it until he approached and individually lifted up her small breasts. Entirely pointless, Irina thought, as there wasn't much space to hide anything under them.

The guard then squatted down and used his hands to push her thighs apart. He crudely stuck two fingers into her untrimmed patch of pubic hair, spreading her labia and crudely digging around a bit inside. Irina gasped and her eyes bulged at the unexpected intrusion and she blushed, wondering if they ever actually ever found women trying to hide things inside. He then circled behind her and spread her buttocks, taking a quick peek between them.

"She's clean," the guard said. The man behind the desk nodded and the guard escorted Irina, still entirely naked, through another door into a small room containing a small cabinet and a single open shower stall. Irina heard him rummaging through the cabinet for a moment. "Okay, hands at your side, and stand still." Afraid of what the consequences might be if she disobeyed, Irina complied. She felt him pulling her wavy, raven hair out into a bunch and then heard a few quick *snips* -- he was giving her a rough haircut. A few more snips and he put the scissors back in the cabinet. Irina couldn't see herself, but imagined it was probably the shortest (and worst) haircut she'd ever received.

"Okay, now wash yourself off," said the guard. Irina walked towards the stall and turned the knob. Lukewarm water, smelling strongly of a chemical detergent, sprayed down on her. Facing away from the guard the entire time, she rubbed herself down as quickly as possible with her hands. When she finished, the guard tossed her a towel that she used to dry herself off.

"All right, bring the towel back," said the guard after Irina tried to wrap the towel around herself to hide her nudity. With a look of shame, she returned to the guard and handed him the towel. He grinned and very obviously looked her milky skin over from head to toe. Irina blushed, but didn't dare to protest.

The guard shoved a one-piece orange jumpsuit at her. No bra or underwear, but Irina didn't complain. The sooner she covered herself up, the better. She slipped into it and zipped up.

"Let's get you to your cell," said the guard. He opened a door that led to a dimly-lit hallway. On each side of the hall were metal doors with a tiny little grate towards the top -- prison cells, she assumed.

The guard walked her down the hall, opened her cell and shoved her inside before slamming the door. "They've scheduled you for interrogation in nine hours," he said through the small grate at the top of the door. "Sleep tight..."

Irina looked at her cell. It was bare, except for a nasty metal toilet and a metal bench without a mattress that was presumably supposed to serve as a bed. She curled herself up and fell asleep crying softly, wondering how she got herself into such a mess.

Irina woke to the sound of her cell door opening with a creak. There was a guard standing in the doorway, looking down over her. "Already...?" Irina found herself mumbling. A metal bench wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep. She had woken up several times in the middle of the night and her back was now very stiff.

"Afraid so," the guard said plainly. He approached the still-prone Irina with a pair of handcuffs, which he quickly used to secure her wrists behind her back. "Let's get up." He effortlessly yanked her to her feet. Once she was standing, he produced a hood of the same type that was used during her transportation to the prison. She tried to squirm her head away, but he placed the hood over her head and secured it tightly. Grabbing her by the arm, he led her out of the cell.

Irina's bare feet were stubbed against the concrete floor more than once as the guard tugged her around several corners and through multiple metal doors. After clumsily descending a long flight of stone stairs, Irina was brought through a final pair of doors before the guard brought her to a stop. He let her go, and she heard him turn to leave, slamming a door behind him.

"H... hello?" Irina asked, wondering if she was alone. Her question was answered as her hood was abruptly pulled off. She found herself standing in a room, perhaps ten feet on a side. The floor was bare concrete, and the walls were made of aging cinder blocks. In the back of the room were two metal cabinets and a chest; immediately before her was a wooden table behind which a middle-aged man, dressed in a shirt and tie, sat. Above the table, a chain dangled ominously from the ceiling.

"Please, Savitsky, have a seat," the man said as he pointed towards a chair on her side of the table. Irina apprehensively walked towards the table and sat down. She noticed that there were two armed guards in the room -- the one who removed her hood, and another who stood against the door.

"You should know that you are potentially in quite a bit of trouble," the interrogator said sternly. "Terrorism charges are dealt with most severely." He pulled out a handheld computer and began to use it as he spoke.

"But you know... you are a nice girl -- no criminal record, steady employment. I don't know how you got tangled up in the rebellion.  If you are cooperative, we might be able to work something out. So why don't you be helpful and tell me what you were doing last night?"

Irina's mind raced. She hadn't ever been prepared for an interrogation. Was he telling the truth? She couldn't betray her friends among the rebels after getting caught on her first solo assignment. Their lives would be on her hands!  She concluded that she would try her hand at a lie.

"I wasn't doing anything," Irina said as calmly as possible. "I mean, yeah, I was out after curfew. I saw a package lying in the middle of the road, and I was curious to see what it was. So, I bent down to get a closer look and before I knew it, I was staring at a patrol vehicle."

"Interesting story," the interrogator said in a completely unemotional voice. "But tell me, how do you explain this?" He tilted his small computer towards her and she was presented with an infrared picture of her walking from her moped, carrying a bag. He pressed a button, showing another picture of her standing at the intersection, still holding the bag. Another picture showed Irina walking towards some underbrush. A fourth picture showed her running away from the camera, the package left behind her.

The interrogator stared at her, waiting for an answer.

"Those pictures are out of order," Irina said, rambling off the first thing that came to her head. She knew it sounded idiotic before she even completed the sentence. "I saw the device on the ground, and I was trying to take it with me -- it looked dangerous. You know? I wanted to take it to the authorities."

"Nice try," the interrogator said, his neutral face turning into a sharp frown. "But I'm not that stupid. Not only were these photographs timestamped, but they show you walking away from your moped while holding the package. Explain that?"

"All right! All right!" Irina exploded, small sweat droplets starting to form on her brow. "I was planting it, all right!" She still couldn't let him know who her associates were. "I bought the bomb, you know, on the black market!  I can give you a description of the guy I bought it from if you like, you can match him up in a database or whatever, you know?"

"Your story isn't convincing me," the interrogator said, his face turning into a frown once more. "Your excuses are inconsistent. Your tone of voice betrays you. Now are you going to be honest with me, or are we going to have to make things a little more unpleasant?"

"I swear, I'm telling the truth!" Irina cried. "I don't know what I can say to make you believe me!"

"I think we'll be able to get you to give us a compelling enough explanation," the interrogator said. He looked past Irina towards the back of the room and nodded at the two guards positioned there. On cue, the two guards in the room holstered their weapons and walked towards Irina, taking positions on either side of her.

"What do you want me to say!?" pleaded Irina. "I told you, I'll let you know what this guy looked like, and where I found him!" The interrogator remained silent as the guards pulled Irina to her feet and knocked the chair out of the way. One of the guards attached her handcuffs, which still bound her hands behind her back, to the chain that dangled from the ceiling. He pushed a button on the wall, causing the chain to retract into the ceiling by several feet. Irina found herself suspended in the air by her arms, which were now unnaturally raised together behind her back. Already, a burning pain filled her shoulders, her upper arms, her chest, and her upper back.

"Oh God, oh Jesus, please stop!" Irina cried as she tried to struggle, but it only increased the pain in her upper body. "What are you monsters doing?! My arms are gonna be torn out of their sockets!"

"I don’t know about tearing your arms out of your sockets, but the longer you hang there, the greater your chances of suffering dislocated bones and serious tissue damage," the interrogator said. "So... I highly advise you talk quickly."

"You can't do this to me!" Irina cried, as she choked back tears that were starting to well up in her eyes. "This is against the law!" The pain grew more intense and more unbearable by the moment. Irina felt like she was going to be sick.

"I don’t think anyone would shed a tear over a terrorist being coerced into spilling her secrets,” the interrogator said.  “I’m trying to save lives here.”  He stood up and walked towards her. To his amusement, Irina began sobbing. He hadn't even laid a finger on her yet. Very amateurish. She shouldn't take too long to break.

"What are you going to do to me!?" Irina cried. "I didn't hurt anyone, I'm not a killer! Please don't do this! Just let me go!"

"You say that now," the interrogator said calmly. "But half a day ago, you were willing to send my countrymen to their painful deaths with an incendiary bomb. Who's to say that if we let you go, you wouldn't go out, get a little better-trained, and try again? I know you don't want to hear it, but you’re not going to go free any time in the foreseeable future." This elicited a tortured cry from the prisoner.

Ignoring Irina's sobs, he walked to the cabinets in the back of the room and rummaged through them. When he turned back towards Irina, his hands were full. In one hand, he was holding a rather large pair of pliers. In the other, he carried a piece of thick metal cable. He walked directly in front of Irina's dangling body and set his implements on the table. Even though she was suspended a foot from the ground, he stood almost eye-to-eye with her.

"You can end this," said the interrogator. "Tell us what you know. We'll let you down and send you back to your cell.  No more pain." Irina didn't answer. She merely continued to breathe heavily as she softly wept.

"Giving me the silent treatment now? Tsk tsk... well, you've been given ample opportunity to assist us."

The man wound back his arm and delivered a slap across Irina's cheek that landed with a loud smack. Irina let out a startled yelp, but held her tongue otherwise. He delivered a harder blow to her other cheek. Irina saw the interrogator wind a third time, landing a blow on her left temple. She cringed -- her vision blurred for a moment as she swung slowly in her restraints, the pain from her suspension quickly becoming unbearable.

"Still not talking?" The interrogator balled his hand into a fist and delivered a nasty blow to Irina's stomach. Another yelp and a few choked coughs from the prisoner. He slugged her a few more times in the stomach and ribs. Between fits of coughing, her breathing had become rapid and shallow... but she wasn't offering any information. Yet. He smashed his fist into her jaw, eliciting a loud cry but little else. She held her head low, eyes closed, and continued to whimper as she breathed rapidly. Beads of sweat were forming thickly on her brow, but still she held her tongue. Time to turn things up a bit.

Irina's eyes went wide as he seized the zipper of her jumpsuit and pulled it all the way down, just past her navel. She wanted to resist, but any movement made the pain in her arms even worse. It was impossible to remove the jumpsuit entirely while she was suspended, but the interrogator peeled it back towards her arms as best as he could. Her small breasts, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, dangled ever so slightly as her delicate pink nipples hardened in the cold air.

Wordlessly, the interrogator reached behind him for the thick piece of cable and abruptly swung it, striking the prisoner's left breast. She let out a sharp scream -- now they were getting somewhere. Relentlessly, he swung it again and again, aiming for her left nipple each time. More screams, more tears, more pleas, but no confession as her entire breast grew reddened and scraped from the beating.

She was holding out a bit better than he thought, but he sensed they were getting close. Her choked sobs were growing louder, and sweat glistened across every exposed inch of her body.

He put the cable down on the table and picked up the pliers. He tauntingly held them up in front of her face, watching her reddened eyes bulge with fear. Without hesitation he opened them, positioned them over her reddened left nipple, and squeezed with a firm grip.

That seemed to be doing the trick. The wailing was loud and constant. Grabbing the handles with both hands for better leverage, the interrogator twisted and pulled the pliers a bit, tugging the nipple around, and eliciting more tortured screams.

"Stop, stop stop!" Irina cried.  The crushing pain was beyond what she could tolerate. "You're gonna tear it off! Stop!" He didn't stop, but looked up into her eyes without remorse.

"You know what you can do to make it stop," he said.

”I’ll talk, I’ll give you addresses… please…” she cried out between tears.

"Now we're getting somewhere," the man said. He released the pliers, bringing a sigh of relief from the prisoner as a trickle of blood wept from the wound. He walked back to his handheld computer.  Irina blurted out an address, and he punched it in to the handheld.

“It looks like this used to be a flower shop. Are you sure about that?"

"I swear, I swear to God," Irina said between labored breaths. "There's an old refrigeration room in the back that was once used to store flowers. There's a hatch inside that leads to a small storage cellar -- the hatch is probably covered by some decomposing flowers that you'll have to push aside. They keep a base of operations down there."

"All right," the interrogator said. "What about names? You have any names to offer?"

Irina shook her head. "First-name basis only... I can let you know if you want -- Victoria, Josep, Antoli... those are the ones I met. Please, please just let me down!"

"That will hopefully suffice. Guards, take her back to her cell. I'll let my superiors know this information." The interrogator looked up to Irina. "If your information is deemed helpful, a tribunal will hopefully go easy on you."

The guards lowered Irina to the floor, zipped her jumpsuit back up, then re-cuffed and hooded her. They led Irina back up the stairs and through the twisting hallways before arriving back at her cell, where they un-hooded and un-cuffed her before tossing her back inside. Irina was left with a cup of water, but no food. She gratefully gulped it down.

-----

That same night, a squad descended upon the old flower shop in cover of darkness. With silent expertise, they broke inside and crept towards the back. True to Irina's word, there was a flower cooler, strewn with rotten flowers that obscured a small hatch.  One of the squad members pulled out a small scanner.

"I’m not detecting anyone else in the vicinity, although they might have a shielded underground compartment.  I am picking up a very small amount of electrical activity, and it appears that a weak radio transmission is coming from the general vicinity.”  He probed the hatch with the scanner.  “Seems clear of any explosives or toxins.”  The squad leader gestured his men towards the hatch.

“Weapons ready.  We don’t know what to expect,” he said, gesturing to one of his men to open it.

“There’s nothing in here!” said the soldier.  He produced a flashlight and scanned the hatch.  “Totally empty… wait!  There’s something in here, something small.”  He reached out and retrieved a tiny metal cylinder, holding it up for the squad to see.

“Looks like the source of the radio transmission,” said the man with the scanner. “Probably activated when we came in here – letting the prisoner’s associates know that there was a disturbance.  Probably the prisoner’s way of letting them know she was compromised.”

“Shit,” the squad leader said.  “Bring the transmitter.  I’ll call in a report that the prisoner likely tipped off her associates.”

-----

Early in the following morning, Irina's sleep was interrupted by her cell door swinging open. As her eyes adjusted to the light streaming through the door, she saw two guards standing above her.

"I bet you thought that was really clever, tipping off your friends," the guard said with a look of rage on his face.  “Thought you’d give your friends time to relocate, did you?”

"I don't know what you're talking about," Irina said. "I gave the man the best information that I knew.  What happened?"

"I think you know what happened," the guard growled.

"I can’t say that I do," Irina said nonchalantly. "I told you everything I know, what more do you want from me?"

“We want the truth!” said the guard.  He pulled the steel baton from his belt and rushed at Irina; before she could react, he smashed her across the shoulder with it.  Irina screamed in pain and terror and darted across the room. There wasn't much of a place to hide. The guard delivered another blow to the side of her face.  The room was spinning… Irina tried to get away, but fell to the floor in a daze.

She was unable to pose much of a resistance as the guard grabbed her by the neck, pulling her to her feet.  She tried her best to flail and kick as the second guard grabbed the zipper of her jumpsuit, pulling it down.  Her efforts were in vain as the two guards, despite her struggling, peeled her jumpsuit off and left it on the floor.

One guard grabbed her underneath her arms as the other grabbed her ankles.  They carried her, resisting her constant wiggling and twisting, through the hallways of the prison.

“Where… are… you… taking me?” she screeched.  Her answer came soon enough as she was returned to her feet, still held under her arms to limit her movement.  She stood naked in a hallway in front of a door, face-to-face with the interrogator who had tormented her a day before.

"Hello," the interrogator said with a slight grin as he scanned her from head to toe. "I bet you thought that was pretty clever, but your deception isn’t going to go over so well with a tribunal."

"I don't know what you're talking about..." muttered Irina, blushing with embarrassment. She knew damn well what the interrogator was talking about, of course. But she tried to sound as convincing as possible.

"Shut up," the interrogator said. "Time works against us now, and we need to discover where your friends are holed up before they relocate and we lose their trail.  We’re going to require more drastic measures. I believe that this will do a good job of loosening your tongue... and other things, as well."

Irina tried to figure out what his cryptic statement meant as the interrogator opened the door she stood in front of.  Irina's eyes bulged -- it was no regular cell. It appeared to be a holding cell for male prisoners, who sat around on benches and cots. All wearing orange jumpsuits, many appeared to be quite rough around the edges.

"Welcome to the preprocessing center for male civilian prisoners," the interrogator said with a disgusting smirk. He called out into the cell: "I have a little present for you guys!"

Several of the prisoners roared at seeing the naked young woman at their cell door. As Irina screamed curses and pleas at the top of her lungs, the guard shoved her inside and locked the thick door behind her.

Irina fell flat onto her stomach, and scrambled to her feet. As members of the lecherous mob approached, she tried in vein to scoot into a corner.

Outside the cell, the two guards turned back towards the interrogator.

"Didn't let us have any fun with her first?" the first guard complained, half-serious.

"I'm convinced that these thugs will do a much better job of breaking her than you could, Corporal." The interrogator grinned. "Give them a few hours, and we’ll see if she’s willing to talk, now, won’t we?"

Irina drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of little besides the pain that racked her body. Blood from her nose had smeared across half her face. Semen and blood were caked on her inner thighs and buttocks. Her right eye was completely closed due to swelling, and a sharp pain radiated from the eye to her ear. Her breasts, already welted from her beating in the interrogation chamber, were bruised and every breath she took burned from her throat into her chest.

She periodically came to when one of the twenty or so men in the room was taking another turn on top of her, which had by now become an incredibly painful ordeal. At the beginning, she had put up a fight by bracing herself in a corner and lashing out at anyone who tried to come close, but numbers weren't in her favor. Two of the inmates had managed to grab her ankles and pull her out of the corner. After two more men grabbed her wrists, she was pinned spread-eagle to the floor as a fifth inmate raped her. When he was done, there were plenty of others waiting their turn.

One of the men was stupid enough to try forcing her to blow him. He wouldn't make that mistake again -- but Irina's satisfaction at biting his dick halfway off was short-lived, since one of the man's friends repaid her by repeatedly smashing her face into the wall, stomping on her ribcage, and squeezing her throat until she was sure she was going to die. Another prisoner had stopped the assault in time -- although not as a matter of charity. As a "reward" for saving her, he felt he was entitled to use her for a good hour... and he was big enough that the others didn't dare try to take away his prize. Now, she was "communal property" again. Apparently, more than a few of them thought it was exciting enough to fuck someone who was unconscious half the time.

She didn't think it would be possible to feel relieved at the sight of the interrogator... until he opened the door to the holding cell. The guards who accompanied him efficiently cleared the inmates to the back of the room, and then ungracefully picked her up by the wrists and dragged her into the hallway. Her feet scraped along the hard concrete floor as they pulled her, but she hardly cared.

They came to a door, which the interrogator opened for them. The guards dragged her through, then abruptly dropped her on the floor in the middle of he room. She elicited a brief yelp as her chin smacked the concrete. Looking up, she could tell that she was back inside her cell. The interrogator squatted down next to her.

"Happy to see me?" he smirked, looking over her numerous injuries. Irina offered a short grunt in response. "I'd like to say you're looking good, but, ah, that would make me a liar. Honestly, it looks like you could use some medical treatment."

Irina looked up at him with pleading eyes. No shit she could use some medical treatment. Why hell wasn't she at the infirmary?

"I'll make a deal with you," the interrogator continued, ignoring the look of desperation on her face. "I'll be stopping by every half hour. If you're ready to talk, I'll listen. If what you say checks out, we'll bring you to the infirmary."

Irina was silent.

"But if not, I'll continue to leave you here. No food. No water. No clothes. No medical care. Do we have a deal?"

She muttered something that sounded remarkably like "Fuck you."

"Time's working against me, and I need to get results," the interrogator snapped. "So if you continue to be obstinate, we can easily return you to your friends in the holding cell. I'm sure they'll be happy to see you again."

Her eyes bulged slightly in horror, but she said nothing.

"If it were up to me, you'd be going back there right now, since it's clear you're not going to talk right now," he said. "But there are a few... issues I need to resolve. But I promise you, if you're not talking by the time I take care of what I need to do, you WILL be going back." With that, he stood up and briskly walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Left in darkness on the cold concrete, Irina began to feel ill. She slowly crawled over to the filthy toilet and vomited before collapsing on the floor, giving in to the welcome embrace of unconsciousness.

Maria Turov, a well-muscled brunette, sweated slightly as she sat in a chair in one of the prison's subterranean interrogation rooms.  Though she was still dressed in her uniform, her sidearm had been taken away and her hands were cuffed behind her back.

As a low-ranking security officer on the civilian side of the prison, she had been tasked with monitoring various video feeds of holding cells throughout the civilian section of the facility.  Not more than an hour ago, she had seen a horrific sight on one of the feeds: A naked woman was shoved into a room full of male civilian prisoners, who immediately converged on her with less-than-noble intentions.  Maria had immediately sprung from her seat and rushed towards the room in order to retrieve the woman.

On the way, she had been intercepted by Boris Tikotsky, one of the more prominent military officers stationed in the prison.  She knew him by his reputation: He was the lead interrogator in the prison's military wing, tasked with getting information out of suspected terrorists and the like.

She never thought she would be sitting in one of his interrogation rooms.

"Do you know why you're here?" Boris asked pointedly.  Maria shook her head and muttered "no."

"You've been a witness to a classified military operation," Boris said.  "Lacking the proper security clearance, the only solution right now is to detain you indefinitely... after all, we can't have our secrets getting out."

"Secrets?"  Maria said.  "Is this about the woman in the holding cell?  Are you responsible for that?  You don’t want me spreading word that you’re using gang rape as an interrogation method?”

“The woman you saw was a hardened terrorist.  She was refusing to give up information that could prevent attacks on innocent people, and we needed to make her talk,” Boris said.

Maria mumbled a curse under her breath.  “And you’re afraid that if I’m allowed to go free, I’ll tell someone about what I witnessed and cause some sort of scandal about what goes on in our military prisons.”

“Something like that.”  Boris grinned ever so slightly.  “So, Maria Turov, you are formally under arrest by the Russian Armed Forces for compromising an intelligence operation, and are ordered to be detained indefinitely.”

As he talked, the guards waiting behind her hoisted Maria to her feet and dragged her to the door of the room for processing.  She complied in silence.

---

Working through the pain, Irina tried the best she could to use toilet paper to dab up the blood and semen caked between her legs.  It was all she could do to maintain something resembling a shred of dignity.  Every movement caused pain to shoot through her chest, no doubt on account of broken ribs she had incurred during her assault.  Her left eye was swollen nearly shut from being slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall.

What was she to do?  Surely they would continue to find horrible new ways to torture her until she broke down and gave them some piece of legitimate information.  Could she take much more?  Could she wait just another day or two, until her comrades – who must have known by now that she was compromised – abandoned their current hiding spot and set up shop elsewhere?

Her thoughts were cut short by the door opening.  Irina closed her legs and pulled them as close as she could to her chest in order to hide her nudity from the man standing in the doorway: the same interrogator responsible for her previous torments.

“Time to take you back to the holding cell,” he said.  “I’m sure the prisoners will be more than happy to take another pass at you.  That is, of course, unless you talk.”  Irina scooted into a corner as the guards accompanying him entered the room, ready to drag her away.

Dragged through the corridors, still in shooting pain, Irina’s mind raced.  She couldn’t stand another session in there.  With her already broken bones and sore body, there was no way she could tolerate it.  But before she knew it, she was facing the nondescript door to the holding cell again.

Before they could open the door, her nerves got the better of her.  She began heaving and vomited on the floor again.

“You can’t…” Irina muttered, looking at the floor in shame of what she was about to say.  “I’ll talk.”

Having secured her cooperation, the guards dragged Irina back through the labyrinthine corridors and down to the interrogation chamber where she had previously given a false confession.  She hoped against hope that her earlier ruse, in which she had attempted to tip off her comrades about her arrest and possible compromise, paid off and that her associates had moved on to a new base of operations.

Her bare, sweaty skin stuck to the cold chair.  With her legs and arms crossed tightly to preserve a semblance of modesty, she stared upward at the interrogator.  He stood on the other side of the table, making preparations for her confession on his handheld computer.

"Tell us everything you know," he said calmly after a few minutes.  "Names, places, plots.  The more you help us, the more lenient your sentencing may be when you go before a tribunal."

Irina briefly uncrossed her arms to rub her swollen left eye.  She swallowed the saliva that had built up in her mouth.

"I told you the truth before that I was a low-level operative," she said.  "I only knew people on a first-name basis... and in many cases, I'm sure people went by pseudonyms.  I wasn't privy to any plots.  But... I can tell you where we met."

"Anything that leads to the arrest of more terrorists might cause a tribunal to be more lenient," the interrogator said.  He almost sounded compassionate... although Irina knew it was insincere.

And yet, she gave up the location of the only base of operations she knew.

The interrogator threw her prison jumpsuit at her from across his desk.

"Go ahead and put it on," he said.  "Now let's get you to the medical ward to deal with those unfortunate injuries of yours."

---

Karina Pavlova worked as quickly as she could to load the few remaining items of value in the dilapidated apartment into a pair of large backpacks.  Most of her associates had already cleared the area and taken their equipment with them: Computers, maps, explosives, large weapons.  All that remained were a few electronics and some ammo.  Working alongside Karina was Natalia Markov, a younger operative who had stayed behind to help her with emptying the last of the gear.

Not long ago, a hidden transmitter had been tripped that indicated one of their agents had been compromised.  The only operative currently unaccounted for was Irina Savitsky, a rookie who hadn't been heard from after being dispatched on her first solo mission a few days prior.  Once the transmission was received, the task of clearing out the base of operations had begun.  Everyone else in the organization had moved onto a new location; Karina and Natalia were scheduled to meet with them in a matter of hours.

That all changed when the door to the apartment came crashing open and a platoon of soldiers rushed inside.  Before Karina and Natalia could reach for their sidearms to defend themselves, they were knocked to the floor and pinned down.

"You rebel scum are under arrest," said the platoon commander as he stood above the two women, who were now handcuffed and had hoods pulled over their heads.  "Take them away!"

---

Mikhail Chernenko, one of the military prison's two interrogators, looked through the one-way mirror into the room where Natalia Markov, age twenty, was being forcibly stripped of her orange, prison-issue jumpsuit.  She was screaming.  He had heard secondhand that she bawled nonstop throughout the strip search, shower, and rough haircut that were administered to all new detainees brought into the prison.  She should break easily.

Although she was a little on the heavy side, the interrogator admired her pendulous breasts, which were now exposed as the guard had managed to pull the jumpsuit down to her waist.  She struggled futilely against her captor, who quickly had her jumpsuit down around her ankles and pulled off her feet.  She stood, naked and trembling, facing a white plastic table in the middle of the room.  Her arms were held behind her back by the guard, forcing her chest outward.

"Maybe later I can stick my dick between those nice tits of yours," the guard sneered.  "Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"That's enough," Mikhail said over the intercom that connected him to the interrogation chamber.  "I know Boris is more tolerant of bending the rules, but when you're working with me, we follow strict protocol."  Boris had been the interrogator who extracted the intel that led to Natalia's arrest; although effective, his methods were repulsive to Mikhail's by-the-books way of operating.  This interrogation chamber contained the one officially-sanctioned device for obtaining answers from stubborn prisoners, and it was the only method Mikhail used.

"Strap her in," he said into the microphone.  The guard in the other room nodded and shoved Natalia onto the table, which had plastic restraints fastened to its four corners.  He flipped her onto her back and quickly secured her spread-eagle on the table, then quickly left the room and locked the door behind him.

"I'm going to give you one last chance to start talking before I begin," Mikhail said to her.  She was silent, her face full of worry yet still defiant.

Mikhail sighed.  He took no pleasure in seeing a woman in pain, but he had a job to do.  He flipped a small switch on the console before him.  Immediately, Natalia let out a surprised yelp and began struggling against her restraints.  After five seconds, he flipped the switch off.  She stopped struggling.  "WHAT THE FUCK?" she screamed.

The device in the room was something that had been invented by the Americans several decades ago.  They called it the "Active Denial System" and used it for crowd control; it was a weapon that emitted high-energy microwaves that heated water molecules in the skin, causing searing pain.  The microwaves barely penetrated the skin, so there was no damage to the internal organs.

The Russians had re-purposed the weapon as an officially-sanctioned interrogation tool for military prisoners.  When used properly, the device caused intense pain in the victim but left no long-term damage or sign of its use.  Mikhail saw no need to use anything else, although his fellow interrogator Boris felt the need to be creative.  Mikhail would never say it publicly, but he suspected that Boris was a bit of a sadist at heart.

"I'm going to give you an opportunity to cooperate," Mikhail said over the intercom.  "If you don't, I'll turn it back on again."  Natalia bit her lip and closed her eyes.  She could handle this, she thought.

Mikhail flipped the switch again.  Ten seconds, this time.  Towards the end of the time period, she started moaning in pain.

"GO TO HELL!" she bellowed hoarsely.

Mikhail flipped the switch.  Fifteen seconds.  She arched her back and squirmed as much as her restraints would allow.  This time, she elicited a loud series of screams.  He saw tears start to roll down her cheeks as sweat began glistening across her milky flesh.  He was close.

"Let me know at any time if you want it to stop," he said casually into the microphone.  She was silent, but the tears kept coming.

He increased the duration to twenty seconds.  She screamed the whole time.

"Please, please!" she yelled.  "No more!"

"If you want me to stop, then tell me something that I want to know," he said.  She shook her head back and forth as she sobbed.

Mikhail flipped the switch again.  He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, lit it, and took a few drags.  The screaming was really getting to him... he hoped she would break soon.  But they always did.  Still, she was proving to be surprisingly resilient.  He had hoped she would be ready to talk after the first "dose."

He had lost track of how long he left the switch on that time.  He disengaged it.  She stopped screaming, but was whimpering rather pathetically.

"It's not me you want to talk to," she mumbled.  "It's Karina.  It's all Karina.  I'm just a grunt... I don't know anything.  She's my superior officer."

Mikhail extinguished his cigarette.  Finally, something he could use.

He picked up the phone.

"Boris," he said.  "You might want to up the pressure on Karina."

Karina Pavlova groaned feebly in the darkened interrogation room.  How long had it been?  Surely, several hours had passed since the interrogator, claiming that he would "let her get some sleep," turned out the lights and left her here alone to suffer.

Not long after her arrest, she had been brought by a pair of guards to this room deep in the bowels of the prison, where she was greeted by an interrogator.  After she refused to answer his questions, he got rough.  The guards harshly ripped off her jumpsuit and shackled her to a chair where the interrogator began beating her across the chest with a thick cable, leaving her breasts bruised and swollen.  When she still didn't talk, he went to work on her nipples with a pair of flat-nose pliers until they oozed blood.  She responded by spitting in his face.

The interrogator claimed he was getting bored, so he took the large table in the center of the room and turned it on its side, then forced Karina to straddle the table's edge.  It was just high enough so that her feet couldn't touch the ground, forcing all of her weight to be placed on her vulva.  He then cuffed her wrists behind her back and linked them to a short chain hanging from the ceiling, causing severe discomfort in her shoulders and forcing her to lean forward. A piece of rope that ran underneath the table and was tied around each ankle held her legs in place. With that, he shut off the lights and left, promising to be back to check on her later.

After who knows how much time had passed, the door to the room opened and the lights turned back on as the interrogator stepped back in.  He couldn't help but stare for a moment at her nearly-perfect figure, made all the more titillating by the sheen of sweat that covered her naked body.  He admired himself for never personally taking sexual advantage of the prisoners he was assigned to interrogate -- he had heard of others in his position who did so regularly -- but he couldn't help but briefly reconsider his policy.

"Did you get some sleep?" he asked, mockingly.  "I hope so, because I have some bad news for you.  While you were hanging here, your friend Natalia fessed up.  She told us you were second-in-command of your little terrorist cell, and you'd definitely be able to tell us where your associates moved to."  So he took a few liberties with the details of Natalia's confession, but he figured he was close enough to the truth.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Karina grunted.

"Aww, that's too bad.  So I take it you're not planning on telling me anything?"

"Go to hell, pig."

"Maybe later.  But for now, I have something else planned."  He gestured to the guard who waited outside the still-open door to the room.  The guard came into the room, dragging behind him a struggling brunette who was wearing the bright orange outfit of a prisoner.  She let out a little gasp when she saw Karina straddling the table, her breasts covered in bruises and crusted-over blood.

"This is Maria Turov," the interrogator said.  "Until very recently, she was a security officer in the prison's civilian wing.  Unfortunately, she's been arrested for compromising an intelligence operation."

He walked up closely to Karina and whispered in her ear.  "But between you and me... she's innocent.  You see, a little while ago we apprehended one of your cohorts, a cute little thing named Irina Savitsky.  Like you, she wouldn't talk to me, so you know that I did?  I had her raped by a room full of prisoners."  Karina's eyes bulged at the sickening revelation.

"Poor Maria here inadvertently witnessed the, ah, incident on a security camera and was on her way to save your friend, or alert her superiors, or something of that nature," he continued quietly.  "I couldn't have that information getting circulated around, so I had her arrested on trumped-up charges.  And if I have anything to say about it, she'll never taste freedom again."

The interrogator turned around and walked over to Maria, who was still restrained by the guard.

"Now, Maria, you're going to be a good girl and take off that prison uniform of yours," he said.  "I'm going to use you as part of a little demonstration for Karina here."

"Boris... please..." she pleaded.  "I haven't done anything wrong.  You know I haven't.  Please let me go... I won't tell anyone what I saw, I swear."

"SILENCE!" he snapped.  "Uniform.  Off.  Now.  Or I have the guard here take it off."

Maria gulped and nodded quickly as she fumbled for the zipper of the jumpsuit.  She pulled it down off her body, revealing a tanned, well-toned form that she had built up through her training as a security officer.

Boris condescendingly looked her up and down.  "Shaved pussy.  You like to turn on the men with that, Maria?  Well, you won't have to worry about keeping that up any more.  The only man you'll have to worry about impressing in the near future is the judge of a tribunal in Kiev... but you can worry about that later."

Maria trembled slightly as the gravity of her situation sunk in.

"Let's get started, shall we?" Boris said, addressing the guard who stood behind Maria.  "Cuff her hands behind her back for me."

"You should be familiar with one of these," Boris said as he returned to Maria from one of the cabinets in the back of the room.  "An electric shock baton.  You've probably used one before.  But you're about to become more acquainted with this one than you're used to, I think."

Maria, now with her hands bound behind her back, continued to tremble as beads of sweat began to form on her brow.

"W... what's this about?" she asked, nervously.  "You don't need to get any information out of me.  She's the one you want to squeal."

"See, there's been a little hitch," he said.  "Karina here isn't wanting to talk to me, despite -- as you can certainly see -- my best efforts.  So... I'm going to try seeing if you'll help me out.  If a little pain isn't going to coerce Karina into talking, maybe seeing an innocent third party suffer will change her mind."

Maria began to protest, but Boris abruptly stuck the shock baton on her bare flesh above the navel, and squeezed the trigger.  Maria let out a painful yelp and would have been knocked off her feet, were it not for the guard standing there to catch her.  She began gasping for breath.

"Knocked the wind out of you there, did I?" Boris asked with a sadistic grin on his face.  "Brace yourself, it's going to get worse."

Before she was able to fully breathe again, he applied the prod to the tender underside of her right breast.  Again, she let out a cry and her knees buckled, requiring the guard to support her weight to prevent her from falling.

"Don't bother catching her next time," Boris instructed the guard.  "I'll need her on the ground eventually, anyway."

Boris moved the baton upwards, just under her right nipple, and applied the shock.  Maria was ready for it, and kept her balance after letting out a short yelp.

Karina, still mounted on the table edge, finally chimed in.  "Hey Boris, if this is supposed to arouse my sympathy, you're doing it wrong.  You think I care about some fucking cop?  My associates and I have killed cops.  You and Maria here are on the same side to me."

Tears began welling up in Maria's eyes.  She hoped Karina would give in quickly, but she suddenly got the feeling that the torture would be going on for a long time.

Just as she completed the thought, the baton struck her directly on the right nipple.  Unprepared for the amount of pain it caused, she screamed and her legs gave way, causing her to land on her bare bottom and then fall back and hit her head on the cold, hard ground.  She groaned, wishing her hands were free so that she could massage her injured breast and the back of her head.

Boris didn't hesitate.  He placed one foot between her navel and breasts, dangling the shock baton in front of her face.  Maria grunted from the weight on her chest and followed the movement of the baton with her eyes, now wide with dread.

He returned the baton back to her right nipple and again squeezed the trigger.  With Boris' foot on her chest, she was unable to move away from the pain and let out a long, agonizing scream as he continued to apply the shock.  She futilely kicked her legs above her, hoping to hit her tormentor and earn a brief respite.  But in her present position, it was impossible for her kicks to connect with anything but air.

After ten long seconds of excruciating pain, Boris released the trigger.  Maria writhed in pain beneath his foot, gasping for breaths that became increasingly difficult as he shifted more of his weight to her chest.

Wordlessly, he moved the baton to her left nipple and repeated the process.  As Maria screamed, Karina let out a loud, feigned yawn to imitate boredom at the sight.

"You're a coldhearted bitch, you know that?" Boris said, turning his head to face Karina as he released the trigger.  "You won't be yawning for long, though, I promise."

He released his foot from Maria's chest, allowing her to take a deep gasp of air before letting out a series of groans as she twisted on the ground.  As she squirmed, Boris kicked her legs apart with a booted foot and stood between them, gazing down at Maria's perfectly smooth nether regions.  Maria knew what was coming next -- tears welled up in her eyes and she started quietly begging for him to show mercy.

Silently, he bent down and jammed the shock baton down right at the top of her labia, so that the prongs straddled her clitoris.  He squeezed the trigger, and a guttural scream let loose from Maria's throat.  She instinctively arched her back, which served only to push the baton's prongs even harder into her flesh.  Spittle began to form around the edges of Maria's mouth as he continued to squeeze, electricity coursing through the most sensitive part of her body.

Or so she thought it was.

After her voice gave out, Boris decided he had enough fun and finally released the trigger.  Maria still squirmed on the floor, breathing heavily as she whimpered.  Why her?  She had done nothing wrong.  All she had done was witness Boris subjecting a terrorist suspect to a fate no one deserved... and now she was suffering a cruel fate herself.

Her thoughts immediately snapped back to her present situation as Boris abruptly shoved the cattle prod into her vagina.  Her eyes bulged and she mumbled an incoherent plea as it went deeper and deeper -- further than anything she had ever felt inside her -- and then bumped up against her cervix.

"You didn't even get wet for me, Maria... my feelings are so hurt," said Boris in a mocking tone.  "The baton would have gone in so much easier if you had gotten a little aroused."

The sweat was now pouring freely off Maria's entire naked body.  She knew what was coming next.  She mumbled incoherent prayers to anyone who might save her from this nightmare as she looked at Boris with pleading eyes.

"Please, Boris, don't... anything but this.  Fuck me.  Share me with your guards.  I don't care anymore.  Anything but this.  You know this isn't right."

"What could be more right than saving the lives of innocent Russians from terrorists?" Boris sneered.  Maria could tell from his voice that he cared little of protecting civilians.  He just enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering on anyone he could justify doing it to.  How could she reason with that kind of person?

He reached for the trigger of the baton.  Maria closed her eyes tightly, bracing herself as best as possible for the inevitable, and then...

"Don't do it, Boris," Karina croaked from the table edge that she straddled in the back of the room.  "I'll talk."

The tears that flowed from Maria's eyes were now those of relief.  She had never heard a sweeter thing in her life.  Nor had anything ever felt so good as the baton sliding out of her before Boris tossed it aside.

Irina spent over a week in the hospital ward.  The bed was immensely more comfortable than the slab in her cell, and she actually had sheets to keep her warm at night.  They had treated her kindly enough -- she was given emergency contraception and preventative treatments for assorted STDs, and some of the staff even treated her with something approaching sympathy as they mended her broken nose, fractured ribs and cracked orbit.  But none of them dared ask questions, nor did they listen when she tried to tell her what had been done to her.  Surely, they all had ventured a guess; but to question the government was treason, and nobody wanted to end up in a similar situation to her.

When she was sufficiently healed, she was unceremoniously returned to her cold, dark cell.  With nothing to do, she spent as much time as possible asleep; although her dreams were filled with terrors, the thoughts that she ruminated upon during her waking hours were arguably worse.  She had seen the government broadcasts of traitors and terrorists flogged in some prison yard or another, then later watched the same people dangling from the end of a rope, the life gone from their eyes.  Such was the price of crimes against the state in the new order.  Such was the cost of safety, or so the government had claimed.

Surely, she would share their same fate someday soon.  She had confessed everything she knew, but leniency in military tribunals was scarce.  She had suffered enough already -- how would she be able to stand the lashes doled out by the court?  If they deemed her worthy of capital punishment, would she go proudly or in tears?  What would it feel like once they dropped the hatch below her feet after the noose had been secured around her neck?  The thought made her nauseous.

Meals and water were slid through a small hatch at the base of the door to her cell three times a day.  She ate by the only source of light, which was the small bar-lined opening towards the top of the door.  The opening, which was perhaps a foot wide and half a foot high, provided her only interaction with the outside world.  She heard voices of people passing in the hallway from time to time, and sometimes caught a glimpse of someone walking by the door, occasionally escorting another prisoner.  Once she thought she recognized a fellow member of her resistance group, but wasn't sure.  At one point she tried calling out to people in adjacent cells, but in short order a guard barged into her cell wielding a nasty-looking baton and threatened to "send her back down to Boris" if she didn't shut up.

The water they provided wasn't very good, and she knew the gruel that was served for every meal was the "Wellness Porridge" that was common in prisons throughout the country.  It tasted like cardboard, but was said to contain a perfectly balanced mix of nutrients for the human body.  Although it was disgusting, it served as her only indicator of how much time was passing in the cell.  Having been served twenty-one bowls of gruel and twenty-one cups of water, she knew she had been alone in the cell for seven days now.  How much longer did they intend to keep her here?  Eventually she'd have a trial, but at times she was sure she'd go mad before that.

But on the seventh day, a guard opened her cell door.  At first she thought he came to threaten her, but the handling pole in his hand suggested he intended to take her somewhere.  Her throat tightened.  Were they going to send her back to the interrogation chamber?

"All right, prisoner, it's time for your weekly shower," he said.  "I'm going to slip the collar of this handling pole over your head, then tighten it snugly around your neck and take you over to the facilities.  No funny stuff, or I'll bring you right back here and you won't get to clean up."

This was the best news Irina had heard since being returned to her cell.  Despite the cold temperature, Irina often woke in a sweat from her nightmares; all the perspiration had made her skin greasy, and she started to notice her own body odor.  She didn't think she had ever gone seven days without bathing.  She let the guard slip the collar of the handling pole over her head and secure it in place.  Its four-foot length meant that she couldn't hit or kick him, even if she tried.  She was surely no match for the guard, but they apparently needed to be cautious.

Using the pole, he guided her through the labyrinthine passageways of the prison until she was pushed into a rather large room.  Several women stood against the wall, naked as the day they were born.  The guard shoved her in line with the rest of them, and released the collar from around her neck before departing.

Two more armed guards stood in the room, supervising the women lined up across from them.

"All right, prisoner, remove the jumpsuit.  You'll be given a fresh one after the shower," said one of the guards.

Irina blushed.  Before she was arrested, she had only been seen naked in her adult life by her doctor and her late husband; now, she had already been seen by a number of guards, the interrogator, and the men who had so brutally raped her.  Still, she didn't feel comfortable as she unzipped the jumpsuit and tossed it on the floor.  She always thought her breasts were too small, her nipples too large, and her hips too broad.  To maintain some semblance of modesty, she crossed her arms across her chest.

As they stood against the wall, more women were led in and forced to undress.  Irina was shocked to see among them Karina and Natalia, two of the women from her resistance group.  When they saw her, their eyes grew wide with surprise, but quickly grew surly and never spoke a word to her.  They must have realized that it was because of her failure that they had been caught.

The two of them stripped and stood in line.  Natalia was a bit on the heavy side; her large breasts and soft belly jiggled as she reluctantly pulled off her outfit.  Karina was as beautiful naked as she was clothed; the guards couldn't help but steal glances at her shapely figure and the delicate pink nipples that topped her perfectly round breasts.

Eventually, a total of nine women had been brought into the room and stood naked in a straight line.

"All right, ladies," said one of the guards.  "You're to proceed to the next room, where you'll find a shower facility.  There are bottles of soap, shampoo, and hair removal cream to use as you wish, but don't linger.  Once you've dried off, come back out here and you will be given fresh jumpsuits and taken back to your cells."

The line of women trudged through the doorway into the next room, where a dozen showerheads lined the walls.  On a central pedestal were the soaps and creams, as promised.  The women took some and went to the showerheads.

The water was only lukewarm and smelled somewhat of sulfur, but a shower had never felt so heavenly to Irina.  As she rinsed out her hair, she glanced around the room and was surprised to see several of the women applying hair removal cream to their pubic hair.  Who were they trying to impress?

After cleaning off and removing the unpleasant stubble that had grown on her legs, Irina closed her eyes and let the water run down her body for a few sweet moments.  For a short time, all of her worries were forgotten.

She didn't even hear the approaching footsteps.  One minute she was enjoying her shower; the next, her legs were knocked out from below her and she smacked her head on the wall as she fell to the ground.  Looking up, she saw Karina and Natalia towering over her.  On close inspection, she saw that Karina's torso was covered in faded but painful-looking bruises.

"You sold us out, you little bitch," Karina snarled.  Irina tried to shield herself hopelessly against the flurry of kicks.

Maria Turov quickly rinsed shampoo from her eyes as soon as she heard the commotion break out at the other end of the shower room.  She looked over and saw two women furiously kicking at a third, who was curled into a ball on the floor to shield her stomach and chest from the worst of the blows.  Angry screams of "bitch," "traitor," and worse names were shouted by the two assailants as the woman on the floor screamed out for mercy.  By then, the other women in the room had all turned to see what the commotion was all about.

Within a few seconds, Maria recognized one of the two attackers as Karina Pavolva, the rebel who had remained silent for so long while interrogator Boris Titovsky applied brutal electric shocks to Maria's most sensitive areas.  Whoever the woman on the floor was, she was clearly an enemy of Karina's; that was cause enough for Maria to help out.

Maria approached the two women from behind as they continued their assault.  Neither had seen her coming when she grabbed the fatter one by her crudely-cropped hair and slammed the side of her head as hard as she could into the hard concrete wall.  She let out a yelp and slid down the wall, collapsing on the floor.  Karina quickly turned around and her eyes bulged wide as soon as she recognized the woman who had entered the fray.

"This is none of your business, whore," Karina started to growl before Maria's fist slammed into her cheek just below the left eye.  She stumbled backwards and tripped over the woman who was still curled into a ball, and fell on the floor.  She took the impact on her upper back, grimaced, and struggled to her feet -- a challenge considering how slippery the still-falling water had made both her skin and the floor.  As she started to rise, a kick in the jaw from Maria sent her reeling back to the ground, where she groaned and cradled her face with her left hand.

The fatter one had managed to get up on her knees, and before Maria could knock her down again she wrapped her arms around Maria's right leg and sunk her teeth into Maria's thigh.  Blood streamed from the wound as Maria tried to shake the woman off her leg, but she stubbornly refused to let go with either her arms or her jaw.  Maria tried pounding the top of the fat girl's head, but was unable to get at her from a good enough angle to make her relent.

While Maria screamed in pain and frustration, the woman who had been curled up on the floor crawled on her hands and knees over to the entangled duo, and put her hands around the fat one's throat.  After she dug in tightly with her fingers, the girl released her grip from Maria's leg and tried to get the other woman off of her neck.

Sensing victory, Maria walked over to Karina, who was once again trying to get to her feet, intent on knocking her down for good.  As Maria approached, Karina's eyes grew wide.

It wasn't until a few seconds later when the baton cracked down between her shoulder blades that Maria realized Karina's panicked expression was actually due to the half-dozen guards who had rushed into the shower rooms.

Once the four aggressive prisoners were properly subdued with well-placed baton strikes, the guards slipped the collar of a handling pole around each one's neck.  Pulling them to their feet, the naked, still-dripping women were led out of the shower area.

"I -- I didn't do anything wrong!" Irina pleaded nervously.  "I was minding my own business when I was attacked.  I had to defend myself!"

"Quiet, whore," snarled the guard who wielded the handling pole secured around Irina's neck.  He abruptly shoved the pole forward and down, causing Irina to fall and scrape her bare knees on the concrete floor.  Before she could clamber back to her feet, he yanked the pole upwards, lifting her back up by her neck.  After letting out a couple of gagging noises, she was silent for the rest of the march through the labyrinthine corridors.

At long last, the four women and their handlers reached a solid iron door at the bottom of a narrow staircase.  One of the guards opened the door, revealing a dusty room.  Paint was peeling from the stone walls.  In a corner was a long coil of rope.

The only real distinguishing feature of the room was a noose suspended from an eye hook bolted into the ceiling, beneath which was a wooden stool.  

"Bind them," said the guard who appeared to be in charge.  A fifth guard retrieved the rope from the corner of the room.  Cutting it into eight lengths with the knife at his belt, he deftly tied the wrists of the four women behind their backs.

He got down on his knees to tie their ankles together.  Irina, Natalia, and Maria complied without incident.  When the guard approached Karina, she delivered a well-timed kick to his jaw.

As he went reeling, the guard holding Karina's handling pole slammed her forwards into the wall.  With a sickening crunch, she met the wall nose-first and blood immediately started gushing down her face.  With her hands bound, all she could do was wildly kick backwards, but from her awkward position she connected with air every time.  A few more slams into the wall finally made her stop, and she too was subdued.

"You say you were defending yourself from the others?" the lead guard asked Irina.  She nodded silently.

"Put her on the stool."

Irina screamed hopeless pleas as the guard wielding her handling pole maneuvered her towards the stool that was placed below the noose.  Once she was in place, he unfastened the pole from around her neck.  She sobbed loudly as the guard lifted her up onto the stool and fitted the noose around her neck.

Standing in front of her, the guard placed a hand on her inner thigh and squeezed softly.

"You may not be the prettiest of this bunch, but I hear you moaned like a whore when you were given over to those male prisoners," he whispered to her.  "Wish I could have gotten in on some of that action."

The humiliation, the reminder of the gang rape, her apparent impending demise -- it was too much for Irina to bear.  She let out an anguished scream.

"Please don't do this," she begged.  "I didn't do anything, I was defending myself, I..." her voice was cut off as the guard kicked the stool out from underneath her.  There was little enough slack on the noose that she fell by only an inch or so.  Her eyes bulged and her bound body contorted wildly as she gagged for air.

"Since you all couldn't get along, we've decided to put together a little teambuilding exercise," the head guard announced.  "Your fates are all tied to hers.  If you let her die, you all die."

With that, the guards released the handling poles from the other three women, collected the stool, shut off the lights, and filed out of the room before slamming the door shut.

Karina, Natalia, and Maria stood dumbfounded in the dark for a few seconds as Irina continued to choke.

"What do we do?" screeched Natalia.  "We can't let her die -- you heard them!  They'll kill us!"

"Fuck her, the little snitch," Karina said coldly.  "They're probably bluffing.  And if they're not, I plan on taking my death with pride, knowing that I gave my life for the people."

Without saying anything, Maria sprung into action.  While her eyes got adjusted to the blackness, she hopped around the room until she collided with Irina's struggling body.  With her hands bound behind her back and her ankles secured together, she paused for a moment, wondering what she could possibly do to keep Irina alive.

Then it hit her.  She would replace the stool.  She clumsily fell to the ground beneath Irina and positioned her right shoulder immediately beneath Irina's struggling feet.

"I'm right underneath you!  Stand on my shoulder!" she barked.  Irina desperately thrashed around, trying to get a foothold on Maria's shoulder.  For what seemed like an eternity, her bound feet struggled to find the right place.

Finally, she managed to get her feet into place.  It was awkward as hell, but she took in a choking gasp.  The noose was tight enough to make breathing difficult, but it was possible.  Barely.

Maria groaned as Irina's full weight pressed down upon her one shoulder, but what alternative did she have?  She sat in silence as Irina continued to fill her lungs to the best of her ability.

Eventually, she couldn't take the weight any more.  Fortunately, Natalia agreed to take her place for awhile.  Irina was left dangling for a short amount of time while they switched out, but she quickly found a foothold and desperately sucked in air once again.

After a time, they switched off again.  And again.  And again.  The guards never returned.  The whole time, Karina sulked in a corner of the room, unwilling to help.

Thirst, fatigue, and soreness began to take their toll.  How long must they do this?

Finally, Maria realized what had to be done.  The guards wouldn't let them out until all of them helped Irina cling to life.

Somehow, she had to get Karina to agree to help.