Never such disbelief outside of a courtmartial. In desperation my eyes jerked around looking for escape. They slid over, and back to, the ventilation fan purring on the wall. I sucked in a loud gasp. The blades of the fan slowed to where you could see them as individuals, and the motor housing began to smoke.
"See?" I yelled at them. "Believe me now?"
The blades came to a standstill and the black smoke oozed toward the ceiling.
"See?" I yelled again. "Look at that fan!"
Their eyes showed their astonishment. The smoke began to disappear in the stillness. "What about that? Now do you believe me?"
Maybe they did. No one said anything. They took me back to my room. About an hour or so later they came after me again. The chair felt no more comfortable than it ever had, though it was beginning to shape itself to my seat. The same faces were there, but the air was a little different this time. On the desk, where I had seen sit no one but J. Edgar Hoover were a half dozen fans, plugged to an extension cord that snaked away and lost itself in a dark corner. My ears twitched hopefully. Maybe this was going to get me out of here. One of the younger men spoke up.
"Mr. Miller," he said briskly, "can you stop these fans as you did, apparently, the other?"
I started to tell him that "apparently" wasn't the right word. One of the older men broke in.
"One moment," he said. "Can you stop any one of these fans, or all of them? Any particular one, and leave the rest alone?"
I thought I could. "Which one?" There were five fans whirring silently away.