In the dimly lit room, only one screen flickered with a cold glow. The image on it looked somewhat strange, rendered in a single color distinguished only by varying shades. It was almost entirely still, cold, cruel, and utterly lifeless.
Anyone who had actually seen a surveillance monitor would have known that the image on the screen was what Night Vision Goggles displayed.
The image showed a cell so narrow it could scarcely have been narrower. A masked man sat on the bed, staring straight ahead without moving.
After a while, a small opening appeared in the wall before him. There was no one on the other side of the passage, only a tunnel slanting upward. A meal slid down from it: a sandwich wrapped in a special material somewhere between paper and cloth.
With a click, the lock on the mask was remotely released. The mask still could not be removed, but the device fixing his jaw in place stopped working, and the section covering his lips at the center of the mask could be lifted.
Judging from his mechanical chewing, the food probably had no taste. Once he had finished everything, the lock on the mask clicked shut again. A red light lit up above the passage in the wall, and the person sitting on the bed extended the hand holding the wrapper inside.
After the wrapper was taken away, his arm was secured in place. An IV needle pierced his skin, and nutrients and the water required by the human body would be delivered through the infusion.
The infusion lasted around half an hour. Once it was over, a small hidden door, only about half a person's height, opened in the section of the wall near the right side of the passage. Beyond the cramped, low tunnel