((written by Stitcher, Silver Night and myself. ))
The agent currently going by the name Alain Manenault had been staring at his knees for what felt like hours. There was little else to do, when one was securely manacled to a chair, which was in turn bolted to the floor next to an equally securely anchored steel table, in a square room with only one very solid door. When finally it opened, he was grateful for the chance to raise his head even if the fatigue and lack of food made it feel leaden, twice its usual weight.
He hadn't been entirely sure who his interrogator would be. The Invelen woman, he had supposed. Or the Roth woman's grim-faced, grey-eyed bodyguard Alpassi, maybe.
What he got was a lean Civire man in comfortable white fatigues and a grey T-shirt. Full beard, shavetail haircut, blue eyes that glimmered like glacial ice even in the dim, ruddy lighting of a Minmatar station.
He went on the offensive as the door closed, a ReAw marine stood at ease to protect it.
“And just who the hell are you supposed to be?” he asked.
The Caldari man sat down opposite him, setting a slim hard-copy dossier in front of him as he did so.
“The Yulai convention forbids the cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners.” he said conversationally, by way of an answer.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I figure angry Intaki blondes aren't that unusual, but just to be safe I thought it best if somebody not directly involved in today's incident handled this interview.” he treated Menenault to a weak smile that radiated insincere concern. “You look terrible.”
“So you're the good cop then?”
“I can be whatever kind of cop you like, Agent... just for the record, what is your name?”
“Alain Manenault.”
“Your real name.”
“Alain Manenault.”
“I see.”
A note was scribbled in the margin of the dossier.
“Official record begins, twenty-three hours forty-one, fourteenth of December YC113.” the Caldari intoned solemnly. “Subject: known though unidentified FIO officer impersonating corporate personnel, responsible for security breach and hostage scenario as detailed in attached briefing files and in violation of the CONCORD Pod Pilot Act of YC one-oh-five, perpetrated against Re-Awakened Technologies Inc.”
He fixed “Alain Manenault” with a long, cool stare.
“Alain Manenault. Born on the Eleventh of September, YC seven-zero, aboard the Scope development studio at Deninard VIII, Moon one.” He recited, staring straight across the table and apparently not bothering to consult the notes. “Graduated MSc in mathematics from Caille University in YC ninety-two, winning a Bronze Guillard Prize for excellence in the field of chaos theory. Was accepted into the LeTrise graduate fast-track program and spent the next twenty-two years working for CreoDron, assigned to the Electromagnetic Physics department of their station in Aydoteaux, under Masalle Ambrette. Retired to pursue a better-paid position working for Re-Awakened Technologies Inc.”
The interrogator paused and tilted his head on one side fractionally. “Curious history for a man who would then do something so foolish as to kidnap one of his corporation's capsuleers and torture him with a shock prod in an attempt to extort information from the CEO. I would go so far as to say that it's not the history of such a man.”
When “Manenault” didn't respond, the officer merely shrugged and leaned back in his chair.
“What could you possibly hope to gain?” he asked.
“You've seen the recording.”
“Indeed I have, and it makes you look like a paranoid psychotic. One who's in denial over his good friend's dementia, it seems.”
“I knew Jorion Roth well, right up until shortly before the Debreth incident. I'd have known if he was coming unhinged. He wasn't.”
“And yet he tortured his daughters extensively. I've seen the scars myself, Agent.”
The corner of Manenault’s mouth twitched up. “The interrogator's job is to build trust. Lying isn’t a good strategy.”
“I am not lying to you, agent.”
“Invelen was. That Sansha podder with the funny callsign was.”
“Were they?”
It was a flat statement of scepticism, not a question. The agent treated it as if it were.
“They were, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“You're going to look me in the eye and tell me the same damn thing Invelen did?”
“I know full well that you have a social adaptation chip, Agent. I know full well that it reported to you the last time I said this that there was no evidence that I might be lying, but I will repeat myself – Jorion Roth did terrible things to his own children on Debreth. I have witnessed the physical and psychological scars of that event myself.”
He sat back, leaving “Manenault” to desperately hunt his cybernetic memory for any hint of falsehood.
“Would you like some food?” He asked, pleasantly, after a slight wait.
“Screw you.”
“I'll take that as a no. So, to return to my original question, Agent... what did you hope to gain by assaulting our pilot?”
“I want to know what was done to Jorion, and how it can be un-done.”
“And what proof do you have that anything really was done to him?”
“Please. You don't expect me to buy Invelen's gas about a convenient degenerative condition do you?”
“Please answer my question, Agent.”
“The whole story stinks like a month-dead fedo!”
“That's a subjective valuation based on prejudice. I'm asking what proof you have. Hard evidence.”
“Why, so you can destroy it? Suppress it?”
“Just answer the question, Agent.”
“No. This is a waste of time.”
The bearded man with the blue eyes nodded. “Clearly.” he agreed. “If you actually had anything tangible to go on, you wouldn't have done something so remarkably stupid.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, kidnapping a capsuleer and torturing him with a shock stick? That takes balls that could tank a doomsday, but it's not exactly the most sensible thing I've ever seen a man do. Indeed, you blew your cover to attempt it. What did you think could possibly be worth that?”
“No comment.”
“See, I have a theory. I think you really are just working a coincidence up into a conspiracy through confirmation bias. I think that you've spent too long in a futile hunt for the evidence you need to prove that your friend didn't lose his mind naturally and you finally got desperate. You 'owe' Jorion Roth? What did he do, save your life?”
“No comment.”
“That's a 'yes' if I'm any judge. So, the guy saves your life, sadly drops out of the crazy tree and hits every branch on the way down, and you can't accept that somebody who'd do that for you would turn into the monster who nearly killed both his little girls.”
“No comment.”
“You're as delusional as he was. He saw Sansha in his daughter's brain so in he went with needles and saws and microcontrollers. You saw a monster violating your friend's mind, so in you came with a shock stick and a half-formed plan about getting a confession out of a woman who had nothing to do with it. Sad, really.”
Manenault didn't dignify this with a response beyond producing his best glare, which apparently glanced off without causing any real damage.
The man stood and picked up his dossier “Thank you, Agent whatever-your-name-is, you've been most illuminating. I'll be sure to inform your employers that we don't intend to press charges as you're clearly mentally unaccountable for your actions. End record.”
He turned to go. The door was open and he was half across the threshold when the Agent called after him.
“Why didn't you tell us about Jory?”
“I'm sorry?”
“Jorion. Why hold him at a secure facility and not tell us about his condition? Assuming it's true.”
“I believe Captain Night already gave you the reason, Agent. To quote him: “We had hoped to avoid this exact sort of situation.”
“Your corporation cracked secure FIO cyphers and code phrases and spent months impersonating an officer who had gone MIA in order to avoid inconvenience? I don't buy it.”
“Thank you, Agent Doe, this interview is over.”
“My name is Du Viers. Agent Rober Du Viers, serial 921849-Epsilon.”
“Thank you, Agent Du Viers. That will make it easier for me to contact your superiors.”
In the moment before the door slammed shut behind him, Du Viers finally noticed the gleam of metal at the nape of his interrogator's neck.
“Not bad.” Amieta Invelen had been leaning against the wall outside the interview room, drinking something hot and brown out of a metal mug. Pilot Hakatain had handed his dossier to her the second he left the room, and was busily shrugging on a black sleeveless jacket.
“Rating my performance?” he asked.
“Nice working getting the name,” Invelen said. “Might be able to get a bit more out of him, if we lean a little.”
“I doubt it,” Hakatain said, taking the dossier again
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not.” Hakatain’s voice held neither pride nor modesty. “I won’t get much more from him because he doesn’t know much more. I'm certain of that.”
“Meaning?”
“Du Viers had an intensely personal motive for coming here. He has no solid evidence to back up his accusations against Cia or this corp, and he defied orders to do it. We know for a fact that he has precisely nothing with which he might convince his superiors to launch a more serious investigation of ReAw. Taken together, that's more than enough material to discredit him and see him relegated to desk work for at least the next five years. He's defused, and hopefully so is the Roth situation for now.”
He looked sidelong at Amieta. “Of course, the bigger problem is that he's more-or-less right, isn't he?”
Amieta sipped her tea, “About what?”
“If Jorion really did have that kind of degenerative condition, it would have been simpler, cheaper and more permanent to hand him back over to the FIO and let them worry about their brain-damaged former agent. And you were... not quite telling him the whole truth and nothing but back in the hangar, weren't you?”
“He was a danger to himself and everyone else for months even before the Debreth breakdown. Hell, he thought he was someone else entirely for a while there - and the FIO was happy to let him run loose. You're assuming they wouldn't just have said 'thanks' and sent him back to 'work'. Forgive me if we didn't decide to entrust Cia and Cami's lives to their competence. We released him once he was far enough along he wouldn't be a danger even if they did.”
“Sounds plausible. But this thing's top of the range.” Verin said, tapping the “third eye” spot on his forehead where social analysis cybernetics were traditionally implanted. “You don't give me much to work with, but unlike Du Viers I'm not speculating without evidence, Commander.”
Something whined into life inside Amieta's hand, though her grip on her coffee mug remained loose and relaxed. “You're free to believe that. What's your point?” she asked.
“No point. I'm certainly not going to shed a tear knowing the bastard's been... unfortunate. Cia may not quite be a sister to me, but I sure don't have any room in me to forgive anyone who'd do that to her.” He pulled a cigar from a slim steel case in his pocket, already trimmed, lit and smoking as the device registered his hand approaching the dispenser. “And I'm definitely not about to share my speculations with her.”
“Then you’ve learned something,” Amieta said evenly. “After the last time you decided to ‘share speculations’ with Cia. Putting her through that again would be … bad.”
“Mmm. Her sister, taking her dad and going into his head with knives and needles and turning him into a Jorion Doll.” There was an edge to Hakatain's otherwise reasonable and understanding tone. He stared philosophically into the glowing mess at the end of his cigar. “That would, indeed, be bad.”
Invelen said nothing, but the mug issued a slight creak as it deformed a little in her grip.
Verin glanced down at it, then back up to her face. “I understand and agree with what you're doing. But the day's going to come eventually where the deception can't be maintained any longer. Do you suppose you'll be able to go to bed that night feeling good about yourself?”
Amieta glanced through the door's one-way glass to where Du Viers was studiously contemplating his own knees again. “The ‘deception’ is in your head, Pilot,” she said, and turned a steady gaze back to Hakatain. “And I sleep just fine.”
The agent currently going by the name Alain Manenault had been staring at his knees for what felt like hours. There was little else to do, when one was securely manacled to a chair, which was in turn bolted to the floor next to an equally securely anchored steel table, in a square room with only one very solid door. When finally it opened, he was grateful for the chance to raise his head even if the fatigue and lack of food made it feel leaden, twice its usual weight.
He hadn't been entirely sure who his interrogator would be. The Invelen woman, he had supposed. Or the Roth woman's grim-faced, grey-eyed bodyguard Alpassi, maybe.
What he got was a lean Civire man in comfortable white fatigues and a grey T-shirt. Full beard, shavetail haircut, blue eyes that glimmered like glacial ice even in the dim, ruddy lighting of a Minmatar station.
He went on the offensive as the door closed, a ReAw marine stood at ease to protect it.
“And just who the hell are you supposed to be?” he asked.
The Caldari man sat down opposite him, setting a slim hard-copy dossier in front of him as he did so.
“The Yulai convention forbids the cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners.” he said conversationally, by way of an answer.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I figure angry Intaki blondes aren't that unusual, but just to be safe I thought it best if somebody not directly involved in today's incident handled this interview.” he treated Menenault to a weak smile that radiated insincere concern. “You look terrible.”
“So you're the good cop then?”
“I can be whatever kind of cop you like, Agent... just for the record, what is your name?”
“Alain Manenault.”
“Your real name.”
“Alain Manenault.”
“I see.”
A note was scribbled in the margin of the dossier.
“Official record begins, twenty-three hours forty-one, fourteenth of December YC113.” the Caldari intoned solemnly. “Subject: known though unidentified FIO officer impersonating corporate personnel, responsible for security breach and hostage scenario as detailed in attached briefing files and in violation of the CONCORD Pod Pilot Act of YC one-oh-five, perpetrated against Re-Awakened Technologies Inc.”
He fixed “Alain Manenault” with a long, cool stare.
“Alain Manenault. Born on the Eleventh of September, YC seven-zero, aboard the Scope development studio at Deninard VIII, Moon one.” He recited, staring straight across the table and apparently not bothering to consult the notes. “Graduated MSc in mathematics from Caille University in YC ninety-two, winning a Bronze Guillard Prize for excellence in the field of chaos theory. Was accepted into the LeTrise graduate fast-track program and spent the next twenty-two years working for CreoDron, assigned to the Electromagnetic Physics department of their station in Aydoteaux, under Masalle Ambrette. Retired to pursue a better-paid position working for Re-Awakened Technologies Inc.”
The interrogator paused and tilted his head on one side fractionally. “Curious history for a man who would then do something so foolish as to kidnap one of his corporation's capsuleers and torture him with a shock prod in an attempt to extort information from the CEO. I would go so far as to say that it's not the history of such a man.”
When “Manenault” didn't respond, the officer merely shrugged and leaned back in his chair.
“What could you possibly hope to gain?” he asked.
“You've seen the recording.”
“Indeed I have, and it makes you look like a paranoid psychotic. One who's in denial over his good friend's dementia, it seems.”
“I knew Jorion Roth well, right up until shortly before the Debreth incident. I'd have known if he was coming unhinged. He wasn't.”
“And yet he tortured his daughters extensively. I've seen the scars myself, Agent.”
The corner of Manenault’s mouth twitched up. “The interrogator's job is to build trust. Lying isn’t a good strategy.”
“I am not lying to you, agent.”
“Invelen was. That Sansha podder with the funny callsign was.”
“Were they?”
It was a flat statement of scepticism, not a question. The agent treated it as if it were.
“They were, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“You're going to look me in the eye and tell me the same damn thing Invelen did?”
“I know full well that you have a social adaptation chip, Agent. I know full well that it reported to you the last time I said this that there was no evidence that I might be lying, but I will repeat myself – Jorion Roth did terrible things to his own children on Debreth. I have witnessed the physical and psychological scars of that event myself.”
He sat back, leaving “Manenault” to desperately hunt his cybernetic memory for any hint of falsehood.
“Would you like some food?” He asked, pleasantly, after a slight wait.
“Screw you.”
“I'll take that as a no. So, to return to my original question, Agent... what did you hope to gain by assaulting our pilot?”
“I want to know what was done to Jorion, and how it can be un-done.”
“And what proof do you have that anything really was done to him?”
“Please. You don't expect me to buy Invelen's gas about a convenient degenerative condition do you?”
“Please answer my question, Agent.”
“The whole story stinks like a month-dead fedo!”
“That's a subjective valuation based on prejudice. I'm asking what proof you have. Hard evidence.”
“Why, so you can destroy it? Suppress it?”
“Just answer the question, Agent.”
“No. This is a waste of time.”
The bearded man with the blue eyes nodded. “Clearly.” he agreed. “If you actually had anything tangible to go on, you wouldn't have done something so remarkably stupid.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, kidnapping a capsuleer and torturing him with a shock stick? That takes balls that could tank a doomsday, but it's not exactly the most sensible thing I've ever seen a man do. Indeed, you blew your cover to attempt it. What did you think could possibly be worth that?”
“No comment.”
“See, I have a theory. I think you really are just working a coincidence up into a conspiracy through confirmation bias. I think that you've spent too long in a futile hunt for the evidence you need to prove that your friend didn't lose his mind naturally and you finally got desperate. You 'owe' Jorion Roth? What did he do, save your life?”
“No comment.”
“That's a 'yes' if I'm any judge. So, the guy saves your life, sadly drops out of the crazy tree and hits every branch on the way down, and you can't accept that somebody who'd do that for you would turn into the monster who nearly killed both his little girls.”
“No comment.”
“You're as delusional as he was. He saw Sansha in his daughter's brain so in he went with needles and saws and microcontrollers. You saw a monster violating your friend's mind, so in you came with a shock stick and a half-formed plan about getting a confession out of a woman who had nothing to do with it. Sad, really.”
Manenault didn't dignify this with a response beyond producing his best glare, which apparently glanced off without causing any real damage.
The man stood and picked up his dossier “Thank you, Agent whatever-your-name-is, you've been most illuminating. I'll be sure to inform your employers that we don't intend to press charges as you're clearly mentally unaccountable for your actions. End record.”
He turned to go. The door was open and he was half across the threshold when the Agent called after him.
“Why didn't you tell us about Jory?”
“I'm sorry?”
“Jorion. Why hold him at a secure facility and not tell us about his condition? Assuming it's true.”
“I believe Captain Night already gave you the reason, Agent. To quote him: “We had hoped to avoid this exact sort of situation.”
“Your corporation cracked secure FIO cyphers and code phrases and spent months impersonating an officer who had gone MIA in order to avoid inconvenience? I don't buy it.”
“Thank you, Agent Doe, this interview is over.”
“My name is Du Viers. Agent Rober Du Viers, serial 921849-Epsilon.”
“Thank you, Agent Du Viers. That will make it easier for me to contact your superiors.”
In the moment before the door slammed shut behind him, Du Viers finally noticed the gleam of metal at the nape of his interrogator's neck.
*******
“Not bad.” Amieta Invelen had been leaning against the wall outside the interview room, drinking something hot and brown out of a metal mug. Pilot Hakatain had handed his dossier to her the second he left the room, and was busily shrugging on a black sleeveless jacket.
“Rating my performance?” he asked.
“Nice working getting the name,” Invelen said. “Might be able to get a bit more out of him, if we lean a little.”
“I doubt it,” Hakatain said, taking the dossier again
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not.” Hakatain’s voice held neither pride nor modesty. “I won’t get much more from him because he doesn’t know much more. I'm certain of that.”
“Meaning?”
“Du Viers had an intensely personal motive for coming here. He has no solid evidence to back up his accusations against Cia or this corp, and he defied orders to do it. We know for a fact that he has precisely nothing with which he might convince his superiors to launch a more serious investigation of ReAw. Taken together, that's more than enough material to discredit him and see him relegated to desk work for at least the next five years. He's defused, and hopefully so is the Roth situation for now.”
He looked sidelong at Amieta. “Of course, the bigger problem is that he's more-or-less right, isn't he?”
Amieta sipped her tea, “About what?”
“If Jorion really did have that kind of degenerative condition, it would have been simpler, cheaper and more permanent to hand him back over to the FIO and let them worry about their brain-damaged former agent. And you were... not quite telling him the whole truth and nothing but back in the hangar, weren't you?”
“He was a danger to himself and everyone else for months even before the Debreth breakdown. Hell, he thought he was someone else entirely for a while there - and the FIO was happy to let him run loose. You're assuming they wouldn't just have said 'thanks' and sent him back to 'work'. Forgive me if we didn't decide to entrust Cia and Cami's lives to their competence. We released him once he was far enough along he wouldn't be a danger even if they did.”
“Sounds plausible. But this thing's top of the range.” Verin said, tapping the “third eye” spot on his forehead where social analysis cybernetics were traditionally implanted. “You don't give me much to work with, but unlike Du Viers I'm not speculating without evidence, Commander.”
Something whined into life inside Amieta's hand, though her grip on her coffee mug remained loose and relaxed. “You're free to believe that. What's your point?” she asked.
“No point. I'm certainly not going to shed a tear knowing the bastard's been... unfortunate. Cia may not quite be a sister to me, but I sure don't have any room in me to forgive anyone who'd do that to her.” He pulled a cigar from a slim steel case in his pocket, already trimmed, lit and smoking as the device registered his hand approaching the dispenser. “And I'm definitely not about to share my speculations with her.”
“Then you’ve learned something,” Amieta said evenly. “After the last time you decided to ‘share speculations’ with Cia. Putting her through that again would be … bad.”
“Mmm. Her sister, taking her dad and going into his head with knives and needles and turning him into a Jorion Doll.” There was an edge to Hakatain's otherwise reasonable and understanding tone. He stared philosophically into the glowing mess at the end of his cigar. “That would, indeed, be bad.”
Invelen said nothing, but the mug issued a slight creak as it deformed a little in her grip.
Verin glanced down at it, then back up to her face. “I understand and agree with what you're doing. But the day's going to come eventually where the deception can't be maintained any longer. Do you suppose you'll be able to go to bed that night feeling good about yourself?”
Amieta glanced through the door's one-way glass to where Du Viers was studiously contemplating his own knees again. “The ‘deception’ is in your head, Pilot,” she said, and turned a steady gaze back to Hakatain. “And I sleep just fine.”
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