"This is a violation of my privacy rights," Lae protested loudly, when they were arrested for their outstanding warrants. The police had newly installed face recognition software in their stations, and it had blipped on both Lae for her theft of hired property and Mindeham for his escape from jail.

"You voided those rights when you evaded the law," the arresting officer said sternly.

"You can't leave me alone! They'll get me, they'll drag me back!" Leonard was shouting.

"They kidnapped my sister! You have to do something!" the woman with the gun shouted over the top of him.

"Can we go to an interview room or something, somewhere more quiet?" Mindeham asked his arresting officer, who happily obliged.

"Mindy," the arresting officer began the interview, looking over her notes.

"Manuel," Mindeham corrected hurriedly.

"You were going by Mindy before."

"Manuel's on my passport."

"We're sticking with Mindy in the paperwork, so we'll stick with that for the recorded interview," the officer said. Mindeham sighed.

"That's fine, then," he said.

"You were travelling with a lady named Elvie, yes?"

"My sister," Mindeham agreed. "There's no point asking where she is; she owns her own station, and it won't extradite her."

"I didn't know there were privately-owned stations," the officer said skeptically.

"I've been to a few. Unless you're immensely rich from royalties like my sister, though, it seems to be mainly because you're the last person alive from the original station settling group."

"Nevertheless--"

"Sorry, I won't give her name," Mindeham said apologetically. The officer sighed.

"We know from the camera footage that she was the one who instigated the escape. If you tell her who she is, we will give you a lighter sentence."

"While you make throwing my sister under a bus sound awfully tempting, I'm afraid--" Mindeham broke off, as faint shouting and yelling came through the thick interview room door.

"Stay here," the officer ordered, and went to the door.

"Hang on," Mindeham said. "Hell!"

An officer was lying bleeding on the floor. Mindeham's interviewer ran to assist, just as a green-clad gunman came round the corridor.

"Hey!" Mindeham shouted by the door to the interview room, distracting the gunman enough so that the interviewer had time to draw her stunner. By the time she had it out, the gunman had aimed at Mindeham. He pulled the trigger.

*

Mindeham looked at the ceiling, and took a breath. Cautiously, he took a deeper one. Nothing seemed to be wrong with his lungs, or seriously wrong with the adjacent organs. He moved his feet and hands, and his limbs seemed to be okay. He sat up. Nobody appeared to be where he was, and he couldn't hear any fighting going on. It must have only stopped a short while ago, though, else he would have been moved somewhere else. He wandered down the corridor, stepping over the green- and uniform-clad bodies at the end of it. He found a bathroom, and washed the blood and gore from his face. He took a breath, and looked in the mirror.

"All right," he said to himself, and walked into the front receiving room. Two more police were dead or unconscious on the floor, and he could hear an ambulance on its way. He couldn't see Lae, or Leonard, but found the officer who had interviewed him, and went up to her. Her arm had a long scratch on it and her mouth was bleeding, but she seemed to be okay otherwise.

"What happened?" Mindeham asked, making the offer jump.

"You were dead," she said.

"Just injured," Mindeham said quickly. "Who were they?"

"The cult," the officer said simply.

"The--the Mindeham cult?" Mindeham asked, turning white.

"Yes, those."

"Why did they come here?"

"I don't know. They all have implants in their brains that kills them if they are stunned, so we don't have anyone to question."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Where is Lae?" Mindeham asked, looking around again.

"They took her with them to the hotel, when she tried to stop them taking back their glorious leader."

"I'm very sorry we took him here," Mindeham said.

"Yeah, well. I guess that's what we're here for."

"Keep safe," Mindeham said, and walked out the door.

"Wait, stop!" the officer shouted, but Mindeham was already gone.

Mindeham walked back to the docks, and onto his ship.

"Welcome back," the ship said.

"Hello," Mindeham said. "Lae's been kidnapped."

"That's not good," the ship said.

"Not very," Mindeham agreed. "Can I access the weapons hatches without a space suit, do you know?"

"As long as the engines are not powered up, you should be fine," the ship said. "May I remind you to review local laws and customs before deciding on any course of action that may run contrary to them?"

"Of course you may," Mindeham said politely. He went to the weapons hatch, and looked at the combination lock.

"I assume Preasi would still use the old one, unless Case has been telling her off about it," Mindeham muttered. He punched in some numbers, and the lock opened.

"Right," he said. "Ship, I may need your help figuring out which of these are which..."

Mindeham walked into the lobby of the Northern Hotel, and went to the receptionist.

"Hello," he said politely. "I have heard that members of your cult all have stunkiller implants. I have in my hand the payload of an EMP missile, designed to take out medium sized ships. If you don't all want to die, may I suggest releasing your prisoners?"

The receptionist held up a gun. Mindeham smiled, and held up the bomb.

"Dead man's switch," he said. "I wasn't born yesterday."

The receptionist slowly lowered the gun. "I will get our leader."

"Do that," Mindeham said.

"You know the hospital is right next door?" the receptionist said, after typing something on her keyboard. "You'll get them in the blast."

"Did you in any way get the impression that I was a good person?" Mindeham countered with.

"I don't think you're going to do it."

"No matter the consequences, I'll still stay sane," Mindeham said, briefly grinning. "What is there to worry about? Terrible memories? I have plenty of them. Guilt? I'll have just as much if I let you go."

"There are more consequences than just the ones to you, you know," the receptionist said quietly.

"Yeah, but I've always been selfish," Mindeham said. The lift arrived at their floor, and Mindeham looked around. A strange, slightly dented silver ball carried on a dais by four green-clad cultists moved out, and came to a stop at Mindeham.

"The threat is real. I am surprised. You really have an EMP," the silver ball said.

"I'm not the kind of person to make idle threats," Mindeham said.

"Very well, you have my attention," the silver ball said.

"I demand that you release your prisoners," Mindeham said.

"All of them?"

"All of them," Mindeham confirmed.

"Most are imprisoned in their daily lives. Imprisoned in medical facilities, in medical hazes, imprisoned from their natural state. I let them live the way they should."

"Wait," Mindeham said. "You've--" He fell silent. A cult of Mindeham would be a cult of insanity as well as everything else--perhaps more than anything else. Kidnapping people with mental diseases made just as much sense as anything else they had done. "Kidnapping people from reliable regimes and giving them unorthodox treatment is what was done to Mindeham. It's what he is against."

"All should see the light like he did," the silver sphere said. Mindeham's fingers twitched on the trigger. He had never felt so close to murder.

"Let them go, or I will activate this," Mindeham said.

"The implants are in the prisoners, too," the silver ball said.

*

"You've fallen a bit in their favour, haven't you?" Lae said to Leonard. The basement they were in was ill-lit, and filled with bean bags. People sat around on them, talking to themselves or doing nothing in particular; there was nothing for anyone to do. One or two of the people seemed ill; there was a person in a corner continually scratching their arms, and another sitting on a bean bag emitted periodic wails.

"I think we might be in trouble," Leonard said. "They've put us in The Pit of Enlightenment."

"What is--" Lae looked at Leonard’s terrified face, and turned to the nearest denizen instead. "Where are we?"

"The Pit of Enlightenment," the woman she had turned to said. "They keep us mad people here because of some weird cult fetish or something."

"I may make some dubious choices sometimes, but I am not mad," Lae said.

"That's what Ive says," the woman said, nodding toward the wailing man. Lae supposed there was no real way to answer that.

"I'm Lae," she offered.

"Sreta," the woman said.

"Sreta like the spaceball player?"

"Exactly the same."

"No way!"

"I couldn't play now of course," Sreta continued. "The bastards took out my chip. It's at least okay for me in here. It's dark, and nothing really changes."

"I'm sorry about that," Lae said. "My plan is to change things a lot around here."

"I take it you mean escape rather than change the decor," Sreta said.

"Well, yes. I'm going to escape. We're all going to escape."

"Someone managed to escape earlier with the help of someone with a gun," Sreta said, "but I think we'll need something bigger to get all of us out."

It was at this point, one of the green clad cultists burst into the room, and hurried to one of the guards.

"There's a man with a bomb outside! He's going to kill us all!"

"Luckily, there's a god on my side," Lae said, watching the panic unfold.