Waking up a little bit before Buddie’s alarm, Ed carefully pulled himself away from Zara so as to not wake her up. He crawled out from beneath the blankets and reached for his new phone.

Sitting on the side of the bed, he started setting up his phone. On the surface, it didn’t look much different from a modern day phone on Earth, but Ed wasn’t sure what strange features it might have had.

It didn’t take long at all to set it up. The SIM card was already in place, probably also purchased by Zara. So after editing his own contact information and memorising his phone number, there wasn’t much left for him to do.

Seeing the time, he realised that there wasn’t much use in going back to bed, so he decided to wait out the few minutes for Buddie to wake Zara up.

The time quickly passed as he scrolled through his phone, checking to see what kinds of apps were available.

“Good morning.” On time as usual, Buddie’s voice rang out, waking Zara up.

“Morning.”

Zara looked over at Ed, slightly confused about why he wasn’t in bed. He waved his phone around, telling her that he was just setting that up.

The two took turns washing up, then had breakfast. They exchanged phone numbers over the dinner table, then once they were finished eating, went off to work.

Name: Chris Bronson

Age: 47

Occupation: Government interrogation officer

Biography: Born to parents John and Sarah Bronson, Chris was an only child. Both of his parents were government officials and he followed in their footsteps after graduation. He joined the military and was deployed overseas, where he fought in a war. He came home once his service was done and took on a more behind the scenes role in protecting his country.

He took on many roles and duties over the course of his life, until he eventually settled into a position as an interrogation officer, eventually in charge of interrogating major international criminals.

Everything was going fine for a while, until his methods started becoming a bit more intense. There were some criminals who wouldn’t talk, so he forced them to through horrific means. Despite how bloody the process was, he got results, and his actions were secretly condoned by the government.

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Nobody died from the wounds he inflicted while interrogating them, but no one left that room quite the same as how they were when they entered. Losing a part of themselves, either physically or mentally.

-End of document-

Phew, okay. No need to hold back on this one. He somewhat sympathised with the victims here. Although he knew that they were criminals, and he didn’t know what kind of crimes they committed, he believed that they shouldn’t have been put through something like that.

Hypocritical I know. What I’ve done is far worse than this guy. But I don’t have too much of a choice. It’s my life or his. Buddie won’t tolerate me breaking the rules for that much longer.

Now, what should I do?

Ed started off by creating the interrogation room that Chris was familiar with. It looked like a very plain room. Three bare concrete walls, with the final wall having a two-way mirror.

A metal desk sat in the middle with one seat either side. All of which was bolted into the ground. Chains came out from both the top and bottom of the desk, assumedly to connect to the prisoners handcuffs and to trap their feet in place.

The room was very clean, with nothing else in it. There was no blood, and nothing that looked like it could be used as a torture device. There were no signs of the heinous crimes that had been committed in this room.

Guess I can’t use his tools on him, might as well bring in something of my own then. Giving it some thought, he remembered an old torture device that he had heard about a few times.

He wasn’t sure if it was something that had ever actually been used in real life, but the myths and stories spread of it made it incredibly well known—the Iron Maiden.

It was a tall metal chamber large enough to hold a person, in this case, specifically designed to hold Chris Bronson. It had two doors that could swing open, and was filled with sharp metal spikes that would dig into the body and cause the person to bleed out and die a slow death.

The addition of the Iron Maiden immediately changed the atmosphere of the room. Bringing it closer to his initial thoughts of what it would have been like.

He placed Chris’ model in the iron maiden, and strapped him in there so that he couldn’t escape. Ed fiddled around with the design of it so that the metal spikes would be constantly prodding him in the back, but wouldn’t impale him and cause him to bleed until the doors were closed.

A slight bit of constant pain and discomfort, and I’ve got his death sorted. Now I just need to figure out what will determine whether he lives or dies. “Buddie, can you confirm whether a person is telling the truth or lying?”

“I cannot, but we have people and devices that can,” Buddie said.

“Is it 100% accurate?” he asked, wanting to make sure his plan could work.

“Yes.”

“Perfect, let’s make this an interrogation then. Ask him questions where he will have to confess to his sins, but if he lies, the doors will close in on him a little,” Ed explained his idea.

“If he tells the truth, the spikes will grow and draw blood, but if he answers everything honestly he will be released and have his wounds healed.

If he lies three times, then the doors will close on him fully and he will slowly bleed out. The way for him to survive is by confessing to all of his sins without leaving anything out. That is all.”

“Thank you Ed. I will let you know when the trap is ready. Now you should go and check in on your interns.”