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RTF check
So anyway, because I haven't done anything worth reading in a bit, you get a strange snippet of a fairly disturbing story. I think both characters are rather weak, but tell me what you think. In the meantime, I'll be checking to see how the .rtf transition went.
Nobody had known quite what to make of the blond teenager, her cheeks red in the cold of the room, so they had erred on the side of extreme caution. Instead of the casual blouse that he had seen her wearing in the photographs he had been showing, she was wearing a heavy cotton straitjacket, which had been elaborately chained in place. Her entire body had been strapped to a metal bed that looked like it had escaped from a sadistic mental institution with one victim still attached, so that she could barely wiggle. They had also taken the time to blindfold and gag her, though given the torn looks of the rags that had been used for the job, that had been a rush job that nobody wanted to redo. There was a folding metal chair in the room. Davion grabbed it and hauled it over to the side of the bed, scraping it across the floor with the hideous sound of metal on uneven concrete, and then sat down in it backwards so that he could lean against the back of the chair. “I’m going to take the gag out now. Do you understand?” he spoke calmly and reasonably. He might as well start this out as pleasantly as possible. She nodded as best she could without banging her head into the iron frame. A moment later Davion had the piece of cloth out and, looking at it in disgust, threw it aside. Someone had probably torn it off their shirt, it looked unsanitary to say the least. “Are you the interrogator?” she asked quietly, her voice dry from lack of water and use. There was strong emotion buried there somewhere, but whether it was fear or anger or determination was hard to tell, submerged as it was beneath resignation. “I suppose you could call me that, but it sounds too formal. I’m just here to ask you a few questions.” She chuckled dryly. “And if I don’t answer?” “You will,” Davion said confidently, “eventually.” “I suppose I might as well. I’ll be staying here for a while, won’t I?” “You could be right,” Davion said, as if this was no matter. “I hope not,” she sighed, moving on the frame as if trying to get comfortable. “It’s very cold down here.” She broke off in a fit of coughing. Davion grimaced and reached into his jacket for the bottle of water he had brought. No point in trying to talk to someone who was too parched to talk. “Drink,” he said quietly, and poured water into her unprotesting mouth. It was not a perfect job, a few drops spilled first in one direction and then another, but most of it managed to stay inside. She swallowed a few times and then ran her tongue around her lips to pick up any spare drops that remained. “Thank you,” she said. “Glad to be of service,” Davion twisted the cap shut again. “So what did you want to ask me about?” she spoke slowly after a minute’s pause. “Why don’t we start at the beginning?” She let out a weak chuckle. “The beginning was when I met him, just lying on the grass outside of school. I thought it was strange, but at first I didn’t even pay attention to it. But then he called to me and I came.” “That was when you saw the book,” Davion prompted. She nodded, “My family is not rich. We’re barely even keeping together. My father was on the fast track to becoming a high-level manager at one point, but he had a flaw. He believed in justice. He couldn’t let some of the things he saw go. So when he found out that the managers were laundering stockholder dollars into their pocketbooks, he blew the whistle.” “And was promptly fired by Enedyne, leading to him having to work as a shift manager for a franchise store. I’ve read your file,” Davion filled in the gaps. “Yes. I don’t think my mother dealt with this well, although she stayed loyal to him until he died. My father…my father did not handle this with grace. At first he retained his pride, but then he started to fall into despair. He had given up a promising career to reveal a crime, and even though he was punished, the true criminals never even got a slap on the wrist. He started to drink, started to hate himself for what he had become, and I started to hate those that did it to him.” Davion felt the anger stir in her words, but she took a breath at the end of this, letting her anger drain out. When she spoke again, her words were quieter, “So I always knew that there was corruption at the top, not only in the corporate world but in the government itself. The whole system was rotten. It needed to be cleaned out. And I always believed that God or karma or something would take care of them. And suddenly there it was, all laid out in front of me, my dream brought to life.” “So you started a personal crusade,” Davion prompted. “No. I did what any girl would do. I ran home and hid in my bedroom. It took me a week to realize what I was holding, what I could do. And then it hit me. If nobody else was going to bring these thieves to justice, then I would. I would expose their entire crooked pyramid, drive them all to ruin. It would be me. If nobody else was willing to step up, then I would.” Davion took careful note of the pronunciation and the inflection in the voice but said nothing, allowing her to continue. “So I tried starting small, and slow. But every piece I was able to uncover, everything I found out, there was always something more, something bigger. So I started going faster and faster. I got careless…” “And you started making enemies, so you started moving even faster to try and get rid of them, which only made more enemies,” Davion continued for her, “and in the end you ended up here.” “Yes,” she looked uncomfortable, biting her lip. “And if you were out of here?” he asked. “I would still be doing it. Except I don’t think you would catch me.” “And your friend?” Her teeth gritted. Davion could imagine the glare she was giving behind the blindfold. “I thought he was offering everything to me. I thought I was using him for justice, but in the end, in the end-“ “In the end, he was using you,” Davion finished. She nodded again, as if the very action itself were painful, “he deserted me the evening before I was captured. That’s why I was so easy to catch.” Inside Davion swore noisily, but outward he kept his face calm. He had to finish here before he could take care of that problem. And that end would probably be messy. “So, that’s why you did all this? To avenge your father’s shame and punish those who took it?” he asked. “Yes,” the voice came back, confident, proud. At least she was hanging onto her pride. As to why she was, Davion had his doubts. “And what do you want?” he asked. “Isn’t it obvious?” she choked on something briefly, “I want to be out of here. I want to see the sun again. I want to have another chance to do what needs to be done.” “Because you think it’s the right thing to do.” “No matter what you do to me, I will always know that I did the right thing,” she answered. “Then why did you get caught?” Davion asked. “I told you. I got distraught. I got careless,” tears were now running down her cheeks. “If only I had been just a bit more thorough when I planned it, I wouldn’t be here.” “Are you sure about that?” Davion asked, peering down at her. The visual gesture was lost on the girl, but he was certain the tone was not. “Yes,” she sounded surprised, “why?” “Then what about the grandstanding you did for your classmates? Why, if you intended to operate in secret, did you reveal so much to those you called ‘friends’? It was that which set us on your trail in the first place. Why were you so careless then?” “Because, well because I was stupid and-“ she began. “Never terribly popular in school,” Davion recited from memory, “always wanted to be one of the popular girls. Never quite made it. Nobody tried to get your attention, but you tried to get theirs. That’s what your classmates had to say. Now, what better way to get everyone to look at you than to show them the face of a great crimefighter?” The girl struggled against the confines of her straight-jacket. “No, that’s not true, that’s not right. I never did…I never meant to-“ “High school can be brutal,” Davion continued, “especially for someone who has gone from rich to poor. How much would you have given to have it all back? Why not take it? You had the power. All you had to do was show them how special you were.” “Nooo….,” she moaned, futilely. “You can think as high-mindedly as you like, but your motivations seem to have an earthly origin that’s not too surprising,” Davion said. A tear streamed down the girl’s cheek, but no words were said while she seemed to fight against herself. When she spoke again she was quiet, in control again, but barely, her will weakened. “Will you get them to let me go? I won’t…I won’t do anything wrong again. I’ll do what you want. That’s what you really want isn’t it? I’ll do whatever you tell me.” “I don’t think we can trust you,” Davion stated flatly. “I don’t want to be forgotten here. I don’t want to die here,” her voice rose to a fevered pitch. “Please, just let me show you. I’m sure I can help you. I’m sure I can make you see just how useful I am. Please, I’ll do anything for you.” The last was said with such a flat, dry air of desperation that it tugged on Davion’s heartstrings far more than any lusty promise could have. Somewhere, a piece of him wavered, but when he stood up, his voice was cold. “Whatever your intentions, thirty-nine people are dead. Some of them may have been guilty, some innocent. We will never know, and they can never make amends. The courts will decide your fate.” Her face twisted into an expression of rage as she unleashed her anger. Her mouth snarled in a shape that few ever met, and she spat out a series of words in a harsh tongue that no human voice had been made to reproduce. For a moment, Davion could feel flames coalesce out of the air, surrounding him and licking at his flesh. Then they vanished as he smothered them with his will alone. “That won’t work on me. Even at your height, something so weak would never have bothered me. But your powers are fading now. You must realize that. Within days they will be nothing more than a memory, and the media will explain you as a joke. You will be lost and forgotten. Meditate on that for a time.” A thin wail of despair and agony filled the room, cut off as Davion placed a new piece of cloth, a cleaner one this time, in her mouth and tied it tight. As weak as she was becoming, she was still a danger to anyone who came in for the next few days. It was better to be safe than sorry. Then, as she sobbed quietly in the dim light, he went over to the door and knocked. It took a few moments for the guards to verify with the control room that he was indeed who he seemed to be before the door creaked open again and he could step out. Four of the half-dozen police officers at the entrance had their guns pointed at him. They did not holster them again until the door itself was closed and firmly sealed behind him. “Any trouble?” their sergeant asked. “No,” Davion replied, “but bring a space heater down here. It’s freezing in there.” “But,” the cop glanced at the door in fear. “I myself will put it in, but at least have one brought down.” He nodded, not looking happy. Davion, lost in thought, made his way back up the stairs, passing through almost five stories before he reached the room where a pair of officers hovered over the buttons that could release a flood of sleeping gas into the room below. They looked tense and nervous as he entered, and he could not blame them. “Are you all right?” the police chief asked as he entered. “As much as I can be,” Davion answered. “Is it safe down there? We just…we have no idea what she is or what she’s capable of, or how to stop her. It was the best we could think of.” “It will suffice,” Davion said, rubbing his temples, “if anything it’s a bit too restricted. In a few days her powers should vanish, and you can treat this all as if it were just a trick of some sort.” “Excellent,” the chief said, and then glanced at the clock. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go speak to the committee now.” “Of course,” Davion nodded his head at the man and he scurried away quickly, as if not even wanting to be in the monitoring room while people were watching their latest guest. Davion could not blame them. To be asked to deal with something this far out of one’s experience was a sudden shock. He could not expect any of the police to handle it well. Ignoring the way the other officers in the room seemed to shy away from him, he turned to the three people standing in the back, all wearing business attire. Stepping close to them, he lowered his voice. “We have a problem,” he murmured. “What is it?” a dark-skinned man with short black hair asked, leaning forward to mask some of the sound. “She lost the book the evening before they got her,” Davion whispered. “So?” A short man with a goatee asked. “It means that the book has been missing for over twenty-four hours,” the third member of the party was a woman, hiding her eyes behind dark sunglasses. “Which means that he’s probably latched onto another host by now. He’s a tricky bastard,” Davion said. “Any clue what?” the goateed man asked. Davion shook his head. “But I can say this. This time it picked someone who wanted to use it for justice. Next time it will find someone who wishes to use it for destruction. We better find it, and fast.” Apologies to anyone whose friend's page got eaten alive.
It was entirely too thick to be a door, but it opened like one, so Davion Gray stepped through it and listened to the loud creak as the badly oiled hinges shut behind him. The click of the latch closing and the sound of the pair of guards locking it from outside isolated him here, within a box of cold concrete, hidden from the world. It was dark, the only light coming from a pair of electric lamps that swung from the ceiling on aging cords, and from the blinking red lights on the trio of security cameras that now watched this room. Owls were more suited to this light than men, but it was sufficient to see the room’s other occupant.
ETA: Boy did that not work. Cuts went all to hell. Dealing with the source is a pain. Finally fixed 'em