plays hell wiht teh senses. He steps back, breathing hard, & lights a new cigarette. His hands shake
“You absolute idiot. Is that all you can see?” He tears the aviators off his captive’s face; hurls them away. Everything is blazing blue, painful in the snowglare. Spy shakes him viciously, and mad flecks of slaver chill on Sniper’s face. “I have done so much more than that--I have ended this fucking war. And what’s more--my side has won. I have fulfilled my mission to the most exacting degree, with only the tools provided.” Spy releases him, and Sniper stumbles backwards, Medic catching his shoulder.
“Oui, I used you to reunite my lover with his head--but I have also performed the most perfect act of espionage of the modern era, and it is, by the way, very much the modern era.”
“What?”
“How long do you think you’ve been here, you lanky halfwit? Eh? How long? Can you count it in days? Weeks? Years?”
“I don’t--”
“Shut up.” Something is thrust into his face. “Look. Use those perfect eyes for something useful.” Sniper takes the scrap. It is the torn corner of a magazine, and shows a date: June, 1992. The date is shocking; science-fictional. Sniper looks up; the spy is scanning him for a response. He flicks at the paper with one finger. “I found this myself, long ago. I do not know how long, because it is plain to me now that this farcical immortality of ours plays hell with our sense of time. Perhaps they gas us in our sleep, or keep us locked up in the machine for months or years at a time--we have no way of knowing!” He steps back, breathing hard, and lights a new cigarette. His hands shake.