Prisoner’s Dilemma – Tickling (M/M)

[bigsmile21]

Adam slowly began to wake. His head was throbbing, and he blinked his eyes several times. He tried to move but he felt cuffs around his hands, keeping them behind his back. His feet were locked into some sort of metal box, anchored to the floor. He was sitting on the floor of what looked like an interrogation room, with a large one-way mirror staring back at him from across the room. There was a single light hanging from the ceiling, but no chair or tables like most of the interrogation rooms you’d see on TV.

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Andrews,” a voice said. Adam looked around but couldn’t identify its origin. It must have been coming from a speaker system. “You were apprehended today by our agents, as we have reason to believe you are working with a foreign body. You will be held here for questioning until you comply.” The voice went silent.

Adam tried to think but couldn’t recall what he was doing before he was taken. Laundry? Grocery shopping? Jogging? He couldn’t pin down anything specific. He moved his fingers and wrists around and felt his hands tightly constricted by the cuffs. There wasn’t a chain link between the metal bracelets, but rather just one rigid piece of metal. He bent his elbows back and forth a few times to work out the kinks from sleeping on them. His neck and back hurt too from drooping. He looked at the metal box holding his feet. It looked partly like a pirate’s treasure chest, made of wood and rimmed with black iron. There was a large lock holding the top and bottom pieces together, which dangled between where his lower shins met the box. Inside, his feet felt bare and sweaty.

“Hey!” Adam yelled at the one-way mirror. “Tell me what’s going on! There’s obviously been a mistake.” He waited. And waited. And waited even more. A minute went by and he got no response from the mirror or the speaker system. “Can you hear me? I’m saying I’m not who you think I am!”

“We have intelligence that says otherwise, Mr. Andrews,” the voice overhead said again. “A person matching your description was seen leaving the night club of a gangster with known foreign ties. That gangster successfully hit a city bank yesterday. While we’re in the process of tracking them down, you are going to tell us everything you know. What is your connection to this criminal? Who supplied you with bank’s security details?”

“I want to speak to a lawyer!” Adam shouted back. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. And what’s with this medieval dungeon setup?”

“The box will not be necessary if you comply,” the voice said. “Tell us what you know, and we can begin setting up protection for you. A new alias. Safe harbor from your former employer.”

“This is ridiculous,” Adam said as he began squirming in his restraints. “You’re the criminals, here. I have rights. Let me out of here now!”

“We cannot provide foreign nationals with diplomatic protection if we don’t know which bodies to contact,” the voice said. “Rights to lawyers are afforded to citizens, not spies. Our intelligence-“

“Screw your intelligence!” Adam interrupted. “You messed up. Or someone under you messed up. Or someone under them, I don’t know, but the point is I’m not the guy you’re looking for. I haven’t been to any clubs and I don’t work at a bank. I’m a fitness coach at Gym Bound!” There was silence for another minute. There, that sorted things out, Adam thought. He was expecting someone to come through the door to release him.

“You were not at work yesterday,” the voice said. “What were you doing? Where did you go?”

“I had the day off, I think” Adam responded.

“You think?” the voice asked.

“Well, I can’t really remember thanks to whatever your “agents” did to get me here.” Adam shot back. “Seriously, let me out. Now!” More silence. Another minute passed.

“You will be confined here until you comply,” the voice finally responded. Adam’s heart sank. There wasn’t anything he could do to get out of this. He was beginning to fear that this bureaucrat of an agent would sweep him under a rug somewhere if his intelligence turned out to be false.

“To help jog your memory,” the voice started, “The box before you will activate in one minute. It will stimulate your feet and is programmed to not stop unless you continuously press button on the ground a foot behind you.” Adam’s hart began to race. Stimulate? What sort of stimulation? He felt around and behind him for any sort of button, but he didn’t feel anything. Then, way behind him, he felt it. He’d have to lean back and reach, but with his wrists cuffed as they were it would quickly become strenuous. He pressed his index fingers into the button and felt it depress into the ground. He heard a click from the box in front of him. Nothing happened. No pain, no hot pokers into the soles of his feet. He was too afraid to take his fingers off the button, though.

The next five minutes were frustrating. Adam had to focus on keeping the same position, and his body was starting to tense. He tried to get his thoughts to clear up, but he couldn’t remember anything past signing off from his last shift at the gym. Tired and sore, he leaned up to give his arms and abs a rest. Immediately after his fingers left the button, the box in front of him clicked and he heard a whirring noise from behind the wood. Then he began laughing. And laughing. His feet were being assaulted by what felt like feathers and scrubs, mechanically moving in and around his toes and soles. Adam tried to kick but his ankles were on complete lockdown. He desperately tried to reach behind him for the button and after twenty seconds was finally able to find it, press it, and hold it. But the malicious mechanics inside the box continued to attack his feet. Adam pressed the button again and again, but it didn’t seem to do anything.

Who were these guys, he thought. What in the world did they want? Why wasn’t the button working?! He expected the voice to come on and gloat “ready to confess?” like a Bond villain. But nothing. More silence from overhead. The only sound Adam heard was his own laughter. After what felt like a feature-length movie, Adam heard a click from within the box though it continued to tickle him. He reached back and strained until he pressed the button. He heard another click and the box went silent.

He sat there, breathing quickly and then eventually breathing heavily. Why hadn’t the button worked earlier? Was there some kind of lock-out period if he released it? Or was there a glitch in this…this torture device? And whoever was asking the questions earlier had just left Adam to stew. He started to panic. He hadn’t been able to clear up his thoughts, and now he was stuck with a defective torture box. If he slipped from the button again, he wasn’t sure it the button would even work to deactivate the machine. He wanted desperately to talk to his interrogator, to learn what he’d been strapped into. However, he wasn’t ready to give a false confession.

He drew his attention back to the button on the floor. His wrists and elbows were getting sore again, even though it had only been five minutes. His fingers were starting to sweat, so he pressed into the button even harder to make sure he didn’t slip from it. Another five minutes passed. The strenuous position was leaving Adam with sore fingers, quaking abdominal muscles, and a progressively sore tailbone. He tried carefully to shift his weight around, all the while keeping his fingers pressed firmly into the button on the floor. Dreading what was to come, he couldn’t take the strain any longer. He bent his elbows to bring new life into them and heard the familiar click from behind the box.

This time, the box didn’t immediately assault his feet. Oddly enough, there was a five second pause before Adam heard another click, followed by the familiar whirring sounds. He was soon laughing and yelling at the top of his lungs, trying to move his feet around to avoid the feathers and scrubs. He shook and pulled but the box hinges didn’t budge. A few moments later, Adam reached behind him and pressed the button, once again to no effect. The mechanics within the box continued to attack his feet. He pressed the button over and over, but never heard the clicking noise. Adam could only sit back, resigned to what may be the rest of his life.

Someone else within the compound, Agent Simmons stared at a pair of screen monitors. One of the monitors showed a live feed of Adam Andrews, laughing hysterically under his present predicament. The other screen showed a man of similar build and features, Andrew Adams. Currently, Andrew was breathing erratically, holding his fingers firmly into the ground behind him. Agent Simmons’ intelligence had indicated with high certainty that one of these men was the spy. But which one, thought Agent Simmons. One of these men was working for a foreign power and in the business of supplying sensitive information to criminal connections.

Due to a recent change in the reporting standards at his agency, first and last names were to be changed in the intelligence briefings. The witness, his only witness in this tiring case, had disappeared soon after giving their testimony. Agent Simmons wasn’t sure if they’d been intercepted, or simply left the city for their own protection. He’d started with these men’s names and began tracking their daily behaviors. His superiors were putting pressure on him to close this case and quickly, before it gathered any more national attention and their leads sources dried up. So he’d had to move fast to apprehend them and “encourage” a confession. If he solved this case he’d be a national hero.

There were four scenarios of how this day would resolve:

1) Adam Andrews was the culprit
2) Andrew Adams was the culprit
3) Both were guilty
4) Neither were guilty (not a good outcome for Agent Simmons)

Scenario 1 or Scenario 2 were interchangeable. It didn’t matter to Agent Simmons who was guilty, as either could easily be putting on a show. Adam Andrews was a currently employed as a fitness instructor for Gym Bound, a tech-savvy gym. But he’d requested a personal day yesterday and Agent Simmons had lost track of him at some point. Andrew Adam was a rookie cop in the Grandview police department. Or at least he had been last week but was fired for too many late clock-ins for his shift. Suspicious activity, or just oversleeping and too much partying?

The restraints holding the suspects’ wrists were rigid handcuffs, locked in place to prevent them from tightening any further. Agent Simmons had installed the boxes for advanced interrogation for foreign informants, since tickling would not physically harm them. And one of these men were definitely a spy, so it was okay. It had to be, for the case to close. Interrogating two subjects would be draining on Agent Simmons, and he didn’t want to slip that there was another suspect. The boxes holding the men’s feet were hooked up to the button behind them as well as to the ones in the other room. Andrew Adams, the rookie cop, had started with his box on tickling because Agent Simmons had not liked his cocky attitude. After that, he let the matter of who would be tickled up to his suspects: if Adam Andrews pressed and held his button, Andrew Adams’ box would activate. If Adam released his button, Andrew would get a chance for revenge, for as long as he held his own button. Then, at the end of three hours, Agent Simmons had set a reminder to return for his next round of questioning. He’d rinse and repeat the process until he got to the truth.

The day continued, and neither man seemed to be nearing a point for confession. Both seemed to be wearing down physically. Agent Simmons could mute the sound from either interrogation room, and when he occasionally turned one on, he could still hear their laughter, though by this point he could hear their exhaustion. Even worse, they were starting to work out that their box didn’t always activate after they’d released their buttons. Both interrogation rooms were on opposite sides of the compound and padded enough that they wouldn’t be able to hear the laughing from the other prisoner. And while it was incredibly tempting to press the button to stop the tickling as soon as the initial click was heard, each man began testing the theory that the box would remain dormant if they didn’t press their button. Which was true. If they just didn’t play along, then the boxes wouldn’t tickle the other prisoner. And that would mean a lot more work (paper and otherwise) for Agent Simmons. He was beginning to get a headache from the pressure of the case. He wanted this to be over, and it was just getting started.

In truth, Andrew Adams was the spy, though Agent Simmons didn’t find that out until a day later. Andrew had trained for a myriad of interrogation techniques, but tickle torture hadn’t been one of them. He’d been investigating the Grandview police department’s new civilian restraint technology, but had trouble keeping up his professional and social personas. He’d felt pressure from Agent Simmons’ investigation, and for the last two weeks had been looking for a way out. He thought he’d found one in Adam Andrews, a man who looked oddly like himself, and he thought he could frame him for long enough for Andrew to make his escape. He had found a hole in Simmons’ surveillance, knocked Adam out the night before with drugs and hidden him away somewhere suspicious. Andrew needed to make one last information drop before ditching town, but he wasn’t fast enough to escape Agent Simmons in full.

After his arrest, but not official booking, and predicament with the restraints and tickling, Andrew had worked out that Agent Simmons hadn’t discerned who the real culprit was, at least not yet. He stopped pressing the button for longer and longer, despite how annoyingly fast Adam must have kept pressing his. Eventually, Agent Simmons had to give up his little game and switch to manual override, leaving both men unforgivably tickled by their machines at the same time for hours at a time. Andrew had kept up his façade for as long as possibly but knew that Adam wouldn’t be able confess to everything and Agent Simmons would at some point discover the full truth. So, regrettably, Andrew confessed. He confessed in full. But his machine didn’t stop. It continued for as long as it took for Agent Simmons to 1) do a happy little dance around the control room, 2) communicate the situation to Adam Andrews and get him to comply with a non-disclosure agreement, and 3) communicate to his superiors that the case was closed. The name Andrew Adams would disappear, after his full cooperation with the authorities. Due to classified information, only Agent Simmons knows what happened to him.