I see the bare wires and the water on the stone floor, and I tell Benton that we can’t reach Troy without running the risk of being electrocuted. But Benton is in the same mode Marino was in moments ago. You do your job. You risk your life. You sacrifice if that’s what it takes because that’s what people like us are sworn to do.

Troy reaches a shackled hand up toward the silver key. He swats at it feebly, spastically as if he’s half awake during a terrible dream. Then he tries to grab the knife, and each time the mobile stirs it completes an electrical circuit. There’s a boom and a blinding flash and Troy screams. As he jerks his head I notice the gaping linear wound running down the back of it, a dark gory crust where part of his scalp has been cut from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck.

His narrow white chest rapidly moves in and out as he almost hyperventilates from panic. His gaunt face is patchy with stubble and a fuzzy mustache, and he cowers at the sound of approaching footsteps. But we don’t see anyone. No one seems to be in here except the three of us, and I realize what we must be hearing is another recording that is being infernally piped in wherever Carrie decides. The footsteps sound again and seem to be closer, and Troy’s reaction is Pavlovian. His reflex is to react with terror.

“No! Please no!” He begins to make whimpering sounds like an infant, tiny cries interspersed with gasps as metal clanks and scrapes against stone. “No,” he begs as his legs go out from under him.

He slips on the wet stone floor and struggles to regain his balance. He seems too exhausted to stand as the weight of his body threatens to pull his arms out of their sockets. He’s collapsed like a rag doll, and then he’s standing again, swaying and looking around blindly. He flaps at the key again and hits the bottle of water, and it knocks into Mister Pickle and the thudding slams and booms and the light flashes each time Troy is shocked.

“Not again! Please!” he spits through the space where his front teeth used to be. “Please don’t hurt me anymore. Please …” He cries convulsively and can barely speak. “Please …!”

He cowers, turning his naked back to us, and the long linear burns covering it and his shoulders are puffy and different shades of red. He grabs at the key hanging almost in reach of his shackled hands, and then another boom. He shrieks and collapses, balling up on the wet floor like a threatened centipede.