I used some of the men’s water to rinse the blood off my boots during the trip to make myself look slightly less murderous. I figured walking into a military base covered in blood that was obviously not my own was probably not the best idea.
“Please wait before leaving the vehicle,” said a soldier as I stood up, “standard procedure.”
“Very well.” I grunted and sat back down.
After a few seconds the soldier said “Your escort is here,” and let me leave.
As I walked down the ramp I saw small group of armed soldiers surrounding the foot of the ramp. I smiled mischievously as I neared the crowd.
“Also want me to turn my weapons over?” I asked with an almost vicious tone.
One of the escorts looked at me judgingly before saying, “Normally we would, but the rules in the slums are a little different. If something happens we don’t expect to be able to protect you. Behave yourself and we won’t have any problems.”
I smiled as I said “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glared at me. He almost seemed immune to my charms when compared to the rest of the blushing soldiers.
He dropped the glare and lead me to into a nearby building. I followed him up several flights of stairs and through a maze-like mess of corridors before entering a tidy and surprisingly spacious room.
Inside the room was a hulking figure that stood two and a half meters tall with four arms crossed in front of its chest. Its skin was an earthy brown and its eyes were a golden yellow that glowed in the dim light.
“Captain, we’ve brought her.” Said the soldier.
Huh? Captain?
I Looked at him in surprise and bluntly asked “What’s an Olgym doing in the human military?”
He looked back at me and laughed for a moment before simply saying “Sometimes there’s more going on behind the scenes than you could possibly imagine. The humans don’t exactly forbid us from joining their army like they forbid the other races. Their reasons are mostly political… the reasons for permitting our joining that is, their reasons for denying others is almost entirely dogmatic.”
His voice gave the impression of an unshakeable mountain and was full of wisdom and authority.
“Oh? Care to explain?” I asked, hoping to gleam some more information.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he clicked his tongue while waving his finger at me in a scolding manner, “There are some things you simply don’t want to know. Don’t go poking your nose into matters that you can’t handle, it’s not in your best interests to catch the attention of the superpowers that be. It will end badly for you, Ms Cusith… For now, at least.”
I frowned. His words had so many implications, the last ones especially. What did he even mean? I understand that drawing the attention of the people who stand at the very top of society will not go well for me, but how could simple knowledge bring me harm? Why did he say ‘For now’ as if he knew the future? So many questions but no answers.
I hid my frustration and moved on, hoping to get answers later.
A man casually entered the room behind me and said “The captives have arrived. We will begin the interrogations in five minutes.”
The Captain turned to me as he said “Ah, perfect. Ms Cusith, would you like to join me while we try get some information from some mid-ranked officers? They seemed to have more important objectives than simply taking control of the tower. I’d like to know what those objectives are and I’m sure you’ll also want to know.”
“Sure, I’m curious as to what these ‘other objectives’ might be.” I said acceptingly.
“Lead the way!” commanded the captain.
The messenger nodded and gestured for us to follow.
I fell in line behind the captain as we made our way down the windy passages. I took the opportunity to admire his figure in depth; his broad shoulders and defined muscles held a certain appeal, it was not as appealing as the innocence of the maids, but appealing nonetheless.
Quickly arriving at a larger room on ground level I saw several men tied to their chairs, there seemed to be around twenty in total. A buff man exchanged looks with the captain, the captain nodded and the man approached the captives.
WHACK
The buff man slapped a groggy captive across the face, waking him from his stupor in a snap. Several of the other drowsy men were also woken by the act. The men began to panic, wriggling in a futile attempt to escape their binds. Some of the men in fancier uniforms simply gave us defiant and calculating glares instead. It only took about a minute for the rising noising to rouse the last of the captives.
“ALRIGHT! I’LL MAKE THIS SIMPLE FOR YOU! NOBODY LEAVES THE ROOM UNTIL WE HAVE ANSWERS!” shouted the buff man.
The crowd went silent under the forceful shouts.
“For now, you may call me ‘Pain’ as that is what my face will mean when you fail to answer our questions!” he shouted, trying to play some primitive mind games.
Off to the side, I leant slightly towards the captain and whispered “It’s funny how we always come back to torture, no matter how advanced we become.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The captain let out a small amused grunt and said “Unless you conveniently have a Psion on hand, a little mind reading can do wonders… though it does work remarkably well in combination with torture.”
I let out a small giggle and said “Well, you do have that convenient Psion around, though she is unfortunately unpractised in mind related skills.”
“Oh? Fairly young for a Psion, when did you unlock your powers?” he asked inquisitively.
<[ Don’t tell him all the details. Tell him enough to know that you can’t do much just quite yet. ]>
I smiled wryly and said “… within the last week.”
His smile disappeared as he studied me.
“It appears as though you are less impressive than I thought… why should I let you continue walking around the complex so freely if you aren’t a potential asset to our efforts?” he asked coldly.
<[ I suggest telling him that it was a full awakening, we want to appear powerful and capable. Even if we lost some value for the immediate future we can still make ourselves an appealing future ally. ]>
I straightened head and gave him my best death-glare as I said “You said it yourself, ‘potential asset’. My awakening may have been recent, but it was still a full awakening… I have plenty of ‘potential’ as a ‘asset’. Treating me with hostility will not give me any incentive to play nice with you further down the line.”
Having made my point, I returned to a comfortable position and dropped the topic. We stood silently for a minute, soaking in the moans and groans of men being tortured as he processed my words.
“Wait… exactly how old are you?” the captain asked, seemingly dumbfounded.
I smirked and said “Younger than I might look.” Knowing full well how Nova cheated when developing my body.
I left the captain in silence, though that silence was filled with the sounds of an ongoing interrogation. Even if we didn’t pay attention to the interrogation now, it is being recorded so we can review it later.
Suddenly the interrogation caught my attention with the words ‘Kronos Cells’. My vision snapped to the captive being tortured and I directed all my attention to the mangled mess being interrogated. He seemed to be a low-ranking officer, only a step up from the grunts.
I left my place by the wall and approached the interrogation. The interrogator tried to stop me, but a signal from the captain behind me seemed to have held his tongue before he could get in the way. In the short time it took to reach the captive, I held a mental debate to decide my approach to interrogation. I hadn’t watched the interrogator so I couldn’t think of any proper torture methods.
How do we get information from him?
<[ Threaten to kill him. Fearing for one’s life tends to result in a loose tongue. ]> stated Nova calmly.
<( Bah! Threaten? I prefer the word ‘warn’! We have twenty guys to work with! Show them we mean what we say! )>
Agreed.
Having decided my method of interrogation I drew my pistol. I got within a step’s distance of the man and stopped, raising my gun to his forehead and putting on the most intimidating glare I could.
“I heard you mention something about ‘Kronos Cells’… I want to know more.” I said coldly as I glared at him, “Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention earlier so you’ll have to go back to the beginning for me.”
“What?” he said, confused by the sudden change in interrogators.
“You have ten seconds to speak. 10…”
He looked at me blankly as I began the count.
“9… 8… 7…”
It had taken a few seconds, but he finally figured out what was happening. His response was to laugh and insult.
“HAHAHA! A little whore like you wants to ask questions?”
“3…” My response was to drop a few seconds.
“Stop bluffing. It won’t do you any good!” he laughed smugly.
“Alright.”
BANG!
I abandoned the fresh corpse and walked to the next captive.
“You heard my demands already. 10…”
He looked at me in absolute horror.
“9… 8… 7… 6…”
He began to tremble in fear.
“5… 4… 3…”
The panic set in and he began to hyperventilate.
“2… 1…”
BANG!
I moved on to the next source of information.
This time I only locked eyes for a few seconds before starting to count.
“10… 9…”
“Wait! Wait! I’ll talk!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, forcing him to catch his breath again.
After a moment, he was still catching his breath. This irritated me so I continued the counter.
“8…”
Evidently, this man was relatively smart. Instead of falling into a panic he decided to start spilling whatever facts he could think of.
“I don’t know all the details, what I do know is that my job was to escort some cargo into a deeper part of the slums. The guys at the top refused to tell us what was inside but the guys who loaded it spilled the beans. They mentioned a woman, they said the woman was known to have done some work with Kronos Cells. That’s where the mention came from. There were some crates addition to the woman on board, though what was in the crates I have no idea. Us grunts were given strict orders not to pry. If you want to know more maybe one or two of them will know.” He finished his speech by gesturing towards the guys in fancier uniforms.
I glared at him silently for a few seconds, not once moving the aim of my gun away from his head. After a long and tense stare I simply asked “Is there nothing else? What happened to the vehicle with the cargo you mentioned?”
His head hung as he answered regretfully and fearfully, “It escaped when we were captured. That’s all I know.”
“Thank you for complying.” I said with a smile, preparing to pull the trigger when I was interrupted by Nova.
<[ Let him live! I doubt the others will talk if they believe that they will die regardless of their answer. ]>
Fair enough.
I walked away and he heaved a sigh of relief.
I looked back at the captain and the now idle interrogator and said “Did you guys keep an eye on that vehicle?”
“Unfortunately, no. We underestimated its importance when we encountered the convoy. The Kronos Cells themselves aren’t a secret, but the research on them has just about the highest level of classification on it. If they got their hands on one of the scientists involved, then we have some major problems… retaking that vehicle will likely become a priority after I report to the higher ups.” Said the captain.
“It wouldn’t take all that long for a vehicle to escape the area, unless you mobilise quickly you might as well consider it lost.” I said sceptically.
“Worry not. We did hit the vehicle’s fuel delivery system pretty hard during the skirmish, so it isn’t going very far without repairs. Sure, it might have been able to make an escape with the fuel already sitting in the engines, but it certainly wasn’t going very far before stopping for repairs.” Said the captain nonchalantly, pausing for a moment before ordering someone to start a search for the vehicle based on travel time.
I walked back to the captain, satisfied with my findings.
“You aren’t going to interrogate the higher ranked guys?” asked the captain with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m interested in the Kronos Cells for various reasons, all I want is some time with the woman, their objectives mean little to me… They’re yours now.” I stated factually.
“Can’t say the higher ups will gladly let you chat with her, but I’ll try to squeeze something out of them.” Said the captain defeatedly.