I re-examined the guest from all sides for a couple of minutes before jumping to a hasty conclusion. Tragically no matter how much I examined him I came to the same conclusion, this was a ninja.

I recalled the information I knew about the Gate of Heaven organization. They were active in Asia in far eastern parts, almost exclusively in China, Korea, and Japan. It was never clear who the founder was but it is said that it was a resistance build-up against the Chinese invasions in the yuan dynasty, I could not recall what year but my best guess would be between 1290 and 1380.

That means they were as ancient as our guild, the Truth Seekers. This is all a bad joke. Organizations with such history do not outsource jobs like information extraction and missions regarding their current members or traitors. There was only one reason that our guest would be here.

He was kidnapped from under everybody’s noses.

I facepalmed in annoyance, I felt unsure of where to go from there. This was a mess. I turned to Antoine staring at him with indignation. He looked as comfortable as ever, what a thick-skinned old man.

I chided him, “You are dropping a literal bomb into my backyard. There is no way you do not understand who this is and what a mess this will cause between the Truth Seekers and the Gate of Heaven.”

He calmly explained, “No one will know unless one of us speaks of it. I mentioned that he was a headache for his family. It is not the entire story, his brain got damaged on one mission so he does not form new memories since then. He knows who he is and where he is from. He became a reputable teacher in his organization but he is not permitted to go on missions. We grabbed him when he was going from one facility in Vietnam to another location.”

“That means they already know he is gone?”

“No, it just means we have a limited window before setting him back on his path with the excuse that his car broke down.”

“This is basically Anterograde Amnesia. If he cannot form new memories how can he know where to go since he was not a martial teacher before that?”

“He doesn’t know the full information. At every facility, he watches a video of himself reiterating what happened to himself and his condition. His memories about events may get jumbled but if the information is tied to events before the accident then he is less likely to forget them, at least temporarily.”

“So you are banking on him forgetting all of this with the help of his amnesia and the drugs. I like the idea but this is too risky. What if they are monitoring him via satellite or a GPS tracker embedded in his bones or something. This might blow the cover of the chamber and make an incident.”

“He is wearing two EMP bracelets that pulse every fraction of a second ensuring no electronic device in or on or near him will be functional. Come on give some credit, you know I will not drop the ball on something like that.”

He was acting all hurt, Antoine is careful by nature to a terrifying degree really. However, there is so much at stake here. I knew my father had worked with Gate of Heaven before which is why I know anything about them at all. The super old secretive organizations are on a need to know basis, their information is not dropped as an FYI in education.

Frankly, I feel this is more interesting than scary, maybe my curiosity trumps my fear of the consequences. My mind was already working on how to extract the information needed. I just realized all this time, Antoine hadn’t mentioned what information he was seeking.

I nodded my head and stepped out of the room signaling the guards to prepare the torture chamber and to escort the guest there. I insisted that they keep him under at all times until I stepped into the room.

I turned to Antoine, “How much time do I have and what is the information you need out of him?”

He smirked at me fully knowing I was on board with it all, saying, “At most 12 hours, we already wasted 4 hours to get here, and with how deeply asleep he is he should not notice that his sleep schedule was messed up.”

We stood in the tunnel watching as the chamber staff and my guards prepared everything. Then he continued, “The information I need is a place, I need to know where he was born.”

I frowned, this seemed easy at first glance but I couldn't help but think about why he would go to such lengths just to know that. I did not speak for a few minutes as my mind churned possibilities and suspicions. The only possibility that would make sense was that this information would be traded with someone.

I asked, “You are not the real client behind this?”

“You are too smart for your own good, my friend. I will sincerely advise you to ask no more even I am in the dark here. As they say, Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”

I was stunned for a second, not believing my ears. I looked at him in astonishment and said, “Did you just quote ‘Allegiant’ of the ‘Divergent’ series?”

He was bemused to realize his attempt at flaunting his knowledge backfired. He covered his embarrassment by hurrying me on, “Stop talking and start doing your job!”

He took a seat on the far end of the room. I started thinking about how to get the job done as clean and fast as possible. This was a fair example of less is more, the less I can do will be better for all in the long run.

I had a few ideas, I paced around the room as the staff shackled the ninja to a slanted bed. The bed looked like a cross with the guest’s arms laid horizontal to his vertical body while overall at a slant of 30 degrees from the floor. Everything in the room is optimized for truth extraction from the lighting to how many buttons my on job suit had.

The ideas were becoming clearer. There were three options for how I can do this in the limited time we had and constraints of no torture to show on his body. The first scenario is mimicking a traffic accident, he got into an accident and he was in the hospital passed out for a checkup. We marvel at how he was completely fine, displaying photos might be over the top so maybe we can say that he was in a taxi at the time.

So it was not his car that was in the accident which will save us some time in staging such photos as we had taxi-in-an-accident photos on the ready. We ask for his information and birthplace, maybe sneaking in a question of do you want us to phone someone to come get you?

The second scenario would be covering his eyes and going over quick snappy acupuncture painful torture. It shows no signs externally but might leave lasting nerve damage if he is too hard-headed. Darkness will inspire more fear in addition to protecting everyone’s identities.

The third scenario is a rather funny one. There is a psychological reading trick to get information out of unsuspecting people used by frauds. People unconsciously react to their information, for example when you say the birth date of someone there will be a slight reaction no matter how noncommittal they try to act. Implementing scenarios two and three together will be good, maybe one and three will work as well.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I quickly went over what I planned to do, then I called the staff of the chamber through the security line. I detailed what I needed and made sure they would understand how time-sensitive this was.

We waited for about ten minutes, then the staff called to ask for permission to enter. After all, if a chamber is in use even the council is not authorized to just burst in. I buzzed them in, they came in through the other entrance, the one connected directly to the Truth seekers hall.

The truth-seekers hall in any city connects to all the chambers of truths in its vicinity. Of course, there are some undocumented chambers but those are illegal and liable to cause problems in the long run.

The staff set up everything I asked for. The guest was escorted back to the cell and just as a precaution administered a light dose to knock him out for half an hour.

The staff began with the torture chamber, the bed sheets changed into hospital ones with this distinctive smell. The room was refurbished with a fake window and a PA system right out of the door. The staff will have some stay as actors for it all.

The eye drops I asked for were supplied as well, even if he is half-blind never underestimate a combat class person. The senses honed in battle are scary to the point that I know of an archer who lost 80% of his eyesight on a mission but against all odds he stayed in the business with almost the same level of skill. So being cautious always pays off.

The eye drops will cause near blindness for about 12 hours, manufactured by our friend Antoine. They cause optic nerve inflammation for a limited period and it is naturally resolved by the body, it is ill-advised to be used repeatedly as the body either weakens in resisting it or becomes completely resistant to it, a flip of a coin.

I headed to the guest room cabinet and brought out a set of silver acupuncture needles.

I planned to simulate some damage to his body by acupuncture before he wakes and then using the excuse that he needs an operation to set his body right again.

Under the combination of all of these, I do not believe he will be hard to crack. Even if he had a harder shell, I had another plan but I would rather not use it.

I went to the cell to follow up on my plan. He was laid on the floor of the cell, I entered with 3 of the guards just in case he was starting to wake up. One needle after another went in and out after I was done I ordered them to carry him to the torture chamber which has become a hospital room.

Everything went as planned, so far so good. It got on my nerves working on such specimens with such high combat ability. You can never imagine what this combat personnel is capable of, even the most exciting action movie would not come close to the carnage they can do.

I administered all the IV solutions to his arm and made sure the lighting was right. I rechecked everything once again then I woke him up.

You can understand a person from how he wakes up, there are ones who get from fully asleep to half asleep as a transition to waking up while others just open their eyes fully awake like they were not even asleep.

Our friend here is of the second type, his eyes just popped open, it scanned the room a couple of times in three seconds it had come to rest on me. The intensity of his gaze sent shivers along my spine, I just knew that whatever martial arts or combat training I have gone through would do nothing to save me if he attacked.

I had to keep reminding myself that his sight is supposed to be severely diminished but he acted like he could see everything crystal clear. This is very off-putting. Even temporary blindness or narrow sightedness will throw someone with a normal vision not to mention a ninja-like him. There is a chance he was trained to see or deal with such bad eyesight.

Fear is your best friend in such situations, it helps you distinguish the prey from the predator and what we had in here was an apex predator that fed on other predators. His actions of not reacting to his altered eyesight or the pain from my acupuncture procedure was a superhuman feat of someone who just woke up and should be disoriented.

I did not hide my fear from his glance after all a normal doctor would feel intimidated by his gaze. I decided to alter my plan a little bit, although I knew he was fearsome nothing prepared me for him to be that fearsome.

“You had an accident last night and you have been unconscious for two hours,” I lied just to throw him off in case he was more aware of his body’s condition than planned.

He frowned slightly as he tested how his body felt and how much damage was done, he just ignored me for half a minute as he affirmed how hurt he was.

He replied, “You have my gratitude in saving me, where was I found?”

His amnesia will prevent him from remembering specific details but I am sure before he moved from one place to another he uses something to make sure he can easily recall what he had forgotten. Antoine mentioned nothing about it but this was the only plausible explanation for him moving around with no escorts or at least watchers.

I can only assume it is a reflex movement of his when he attempts to remember something. So far all his movements were just testing out the damage done and he had not done anything else.

I gave him an address that was near where he was staying, it was only 3 km away. It seemed like he would not ask about his injuries. He might assume he fought with someone in the same profession but he just does not recall. I can use that to my advantage if it was the case, but I needed to confirm what he was thinking.

“I have to say that you were quite lucky to have only these injuries. The ambulance report says you were thrown out of the car onto an open field. The lacerations on your back,” which were all thanks to me, “and the dislocated shoulder and hip were the only injuries on you. However, you may have a concussion but it should only be a mild one. Is there any discomfort or pain you feel other than those?”

Some of the commonly seen vision problems after a concussion are blurred or blurry vision, focusing difficulties, reading difficulties, eye pain, double vision, eye tracking or eye teaming problems, jumpy vision, lack of recognition, and more. I should be on the safe side if he thinks that this is caused by a concussion, not to mention I did kick him in the head a few times, of course, nothing too terrible just enough to ensure he feels as if it was a concussion.

I observed him intently as he processed what I had said, any reaction or a tell would be great. So far what I had gotten from him was a flash of pain when I attempted to flex his arm and some discomfort from lying on the bed. There was no bewilderment or curiosity as to what had happened. It is possible this is not the first it had happened at least not the first time before the anterograde amnesia.

He looked at me and asked, “Can I have my phone? I need to get someone to come to get me as I do not have enough cash nor do I have health insurance.”

Smart move! The only way is to play along and listen in on the conversation.

I said, “There is no hurry, we just need to make sure you are in a stable condition and it is advised for you to stay one night under watch to avoid any complications.”

“I would rather inform my family that I am well and we have our hospital. As assured I am of your professionalism, I trust our family doctor more.”

Of course, they had their hospital. I mentally sighed, I can trigger a complication from where I am standing but maybe we can trace the call or even better just knowing the other number will help us triangulate where the phone is.

“I will arrange so that your belongings are brought to you, however, you need to write some information down first for the hospital files. It will only take as much time as your belongings are brought here.”

He nodded and used the bed remote to have himself in a seated position with his legs stretched out front. He casually asked what time it was right now, I told him it was two in the morning. He looked at the window and blinked twice in a row, now that seemed like nothing special but his blinking rate changing is a bad indicator.

Blink rate during choice-response tasks can provide a reliable measure of cognitive processing which meant he was reassessing the room. However it makes no sense, he should be almost blind thanks to the eye drops.

Only now did I recall what my dad had told me regarding ninjas, he made me promise him to never take a job involving them and if I had to do one then I must have a ninja accompanying me. Ninjas by trade are an elusive tricky bunch, even the best of drugs may or may not work on them not to mention various hidden tricks up their sleeves.

It only took a second for me to recall what my dad had said, but my regret was immense. I knew it had all gone wrong and I must cut losses, at the very least keep my poor life. I had my face disguised, nothing superb but he should not know my actual features. I did not know how much he knew but his escape was only a matter of minutes.