Purge of Prometheus (29 page)

The door to the observation room opened and Horace’s bulking shape slipped through the doorway.
 
Taking his place next to Yen, they both stared through the one-way glass at the dejected and sobbing form of Vangore, whose body shook with pain against the metal chair.

“Do you truly believe there was more than one person involved?” Yen asked without taking his eyes from Vangore.

Horace shrugged.
 
“Does it matter?
 
The questions I asked him are real concerns and, as of right now, he doesn’t have the answers for me.
 
Either way, he’s an admitted murderer and will be executed.”

“But you are still concerned about how he transported the body?”

“Of course,” Horace replied.
 
“I’m the Security Officer and, somehow, Vangore moved a body of a senior officer through the halls without anyone noticing.
 
You can’t tell me that you aren’t intrigued as to how he pulled that off.”

Yen nodded.
 
“Granted.
 
I really would like to hear his answer to those questions.
 
I just…”
 
Yen paused, leaving his sentence unfinished.

Turning, Horace looked down on the smaller Yen.
 
“You just?” he asked.

“I just wonder if the Crown is really the best way to go,” Yen said.
 
He gestured toward Vangore, who rolled his head limply from side to side.
 
“In four hours, you got the confession you wanted, but at what price to his mind?
 
Can he survive another four hours of the Crown without his mind melting?”

Turning back toward the prisoner, Horace grunted to himself.
 
He knew that there was at least some truth to what Yen was saying.
 
Lithid research had proven that there were certain parts of the brain that worked as inhibitors, physical membranes that worked as mental blocks, compartmentalizing thoughts into “secrets”.
 
The chemicals used by the Crown deteriorated these membranes until prisoners were willing to answer honestly any question posed by the interrogator.
 
Should the prisoner be exposed to lengthy sessions under the influence of the Crown, however, the chemicals began acting as bile, seeping into the abdominal cavity.
 
Like an acid, the chemicals spread, destroying parts of the brain controlling motor functions, speech patterns, and memories.
 
Leave a prisoner under the influence of the Crown for long enough and they were left in a completely vegetative state.

“And if we don’t use the Crown,” Horace asked, “how do you propose to get the answers we need?”

Yen turned to the Oterian, matching his stern gaze.
 
“Let me talk to him.
 
It’s been a long time since anyone has used the psychological methods of interrogation, but I believe he is worn down enough from the Crown that he would be responsive to a more sympathetic face.
 
I can get the answers from him without wasting any more of our time.”

Horace frowned and crossed his massive arms across his chest.
 
He was clearly not receptive to the more primitive form of interrogation.

“Let me try,” Yen said.
 
“The worst that can happen is I don’t get an answer and you reapply the Crown.”
 
Reaching out, Yen patted the enormous Oterian arm.
 
“Take an hour’s break; get something to eat and drink.
 
Most importantly, let the Captain know that her former Communications Officer is guilty; she’ll be eager for that information.
 
By the time you get done, we’ll know whether or not my technique was effective.”

“Maybe I could use a break,” Horace replied.
 
As he pulled away from Yen’s hand, Yen retracted the blue energy that had pierced the Security Officer’s arm.
 
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said as he walked out the door.

“More than enough time,” Yen called to him as the psychic walked into the hallway and stopped in front of the interrogation room door.
 
Waiting until the Oterian was around the corner, Yen entered the sterile, metal room.
 
He closed the door behind him, leaning heavily on the thick door.
 
Vangore didn’t raise his head as Yen entered, instead continuing to cry softly, his tears rolling down onto his chest.

“Hello, Vangore,” Yen said, reaching up and throwing a switch on the room’s video camera.
 
The camera stopped recording as Yen moved toward the table and pulled out the metal chair across from Vangore.

“Please,” Vangore mumbled through hitched sobs.
 
“Please, no more.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Yen replied.
 
“I really do.”
 

Yen paused as the air around him began to waver.
 
The hairs on Vangore’s neck stood on end, as the room built an electrical charge.
 
Blue sparks arced between the table legs, reaching out probingly toward the metal cuffs on Vangore’s wrist.
 
As the charge built, small puffs of smoke rose throughout the room.
 
The more apparent microphones as well as the concealed recording devices simultaneously shorted out, casting the room into digital silence.
 
There was nothing left to record the next conversation between Yen and the prisoner.

“I wish I could leave you be,” Yen continued.
 
“You’ve certainly suffered enough.
 
But the guilty story I gave you last time has too many holes in it to be plausible.”
 

Blue tendrils began to spread from Yen’s body, wrapping themselves around the chair, the table legs, and reaching toward Vangore.
 
The blue psychic energy continued to spread until the wavering tendrils had filled the room, their tips hovering precariously around Vangore’s head and torso.

“I can’t be implicated, you have to understand.
 
I’m too important to the success of the Alliance to get in trouble over something as simple as murder.”
 
Yen leaned closer, though he knew no one was listening to their conversation.
 
“Horace wants a conspiracy, and I have every intention of giving him one.
 
And he is going to be stunned when this one is revealed!”

“I can’t,” Vangore begged, his chocked words thick with emotion.
 
“Please, I can’t take any more.”

“It’s much too late for that now,” Yen replied as the tendrils crashed down on Vangore, slipping seamlessly through his scalp and skull; they reached out like hungry leeches, yearning to feed on the memories and emotions stored within Vangore’s mind.

Yen closed his eyes, letting his mind pass through the tendrils.
 
Within his mind’s eye, Yen saw Vangore’s thoughts played out before him.
 
With surgical precision, Yen began trimming away the memories he wished to modify, letting them fall forgotten into Vangore’s void of subconscious.
 
In their place, he began creating fragments of memory: first a face, then a background, then dialogue.
 
Piecing the fragments together like a puzzle, they began to take form.
 
First one scene, then another, the entire time building an intricate conspiracy that would implicate numerous other Officers and Crewmen on board the
Revolution
.
 
Like a movie, Yen told a story, one with an innocuous enough beginning, but one which snowballed wildly out of control until Vangore became wrapped up in a creation of his own making that he was no longer able to control.
 
Yen was proud of his work, surprising himself with its complexities and far reaching implications should this story ever be told.
 
His work, however, was far from done.

Next, Yen changed his tendrils from scalpels to the hands of laborers.
 
Around the filmstrip of memories, Yen crafted an intricate puzzle box, the entrance to which was unknown even to Vangore.
 
Layer after layer of walls were built, hiding and obscuring the implanted memories.
 
Yen knew that the chemicals of the Crown would slowly chip away at the box, making all the complexities of its lock unnecessary.
 
But the puzzle box would serve its purpose, resulting in days if not weeks of hard interrogation on Horace’s part before any “evidence” would begin to reveal itself to Vangore’s shattered mind.

As he began to remove the tendrils, one at a time, Yen was confident that Vangore now remembered nothing beyond the story he had now been told.
 
Though his true memories were buried deep within his own mind, the psychic blades had left them so fractured that they would slip through his mind like sand; images would arise that were unattached to any context that would help him remember.
 
Strange senses of déjà vu would permeate Vangore’s mind, always with the real memory just out of reach.
 
Yes, Yen was proud of his work.

Smiling as the last of the tendrils retracted into his body, Yen leaned back in the chair and Vangore slumped against his restraints.
 
He watched as the prisoner slipped into unconsciousness, the psychic tendrils doing what the chemicals wouldn’t allow.
 
It was a small consolation on Yen’s part; a minor gift after such a brutal intrusion.

“Good talk,” Yen said as he stood, walking toward the door to the interrogation room.
 
He paused long enough to turn the camera back on, though he knew there was no hope in repairing the microphones.

Exiting the room, Yen saw Horace lumber down the hall.
 
He raised his hand in a half-hearted salute.

“Did you get anything?” Horace asked as he neared.

“No, he didn’t talk at all.”

“Did you really expect any results from your touchy-feely approach to interrogation?” Horace asked, mockingly.

Yen frowned.
 
“You’d be surprised how powerful the mind can be.
 
Being able to shape it to your will is an art form that everyone would do well to learn.”

Horace glowered at the psychic as Yen walked by, turning the corner at the far end, no longer interested in any results from impending interrogation.
 
Though Horace had no proof, he couldn’t help but feel that there was some devious message hidden behind Yen’s last comment.

CHAPTER 23:

Their preparations passed in a blur and, by the time all was said and done, Keryn and Adam were thoroughly exhausted.
 
During the day, the were forced to keep up the pretense of slaving in the fields, though they were approached more and more often by strangers, probing them for answers about the upcoming revolt.
 
At night, they snuck out of House 12 and gathered with the rest of their forces in the squat stone building which warehoused their munitions.
 
With nearly four dozen heavily armed Terrans, Uligarts, Oterians, Wyndgaarts, Avalons, and other assorted races sitting and leaning on crates, Keryn split their forces into three main groups: the assault team, the ambush team, and the saboteurs, each with clearly defined roles in the upcoming battle.
 
She pulled out the same tattered map that had served them well since the invasion and explained at great length their strategy.
 
They spent hours each night discussing the plan and tactics, getting little sleep before having to return to the fields to work the next day.
 
Though many of the revolutionaries, as they came to think of themselves, were not soldiers originally, they complained little and spent significant amounts of time conducting marksmanship training with the weapons in the soundproofed building.
 
On the second night, when Keryn and Alcent were confident that their forces were ready, she broached a difficult subject that had, thus far, been avoided.

“What are we going to do about the Lithids?” she asked as the rest of the revolutionaries split into their groups to discuss individual responsibilities.

“What choices do we really have?” Alcent replied.
 
“They’re tracked everywhere they go.
 
I never thought I’d say this, but right now the Lithids are more of a liability than a help.”

Keryn lowered her voice to a soft hush.
 
“Is there no way to remove the bracelets?
 
You all can reprogram computer operated turret guns, but you can’t take off a band of explosives from their wrists?”

Alcent flushed, clearly irritated with his own answer.
 
“No, we cannot.
 
Believe me, we tried, but with terrible results.
 
The bracelets are coded to each individual Lithid’s DNA.
 
It constantly scans for specific DNA patterns via the small metal probes that slice into the Lithid’s skin.
 
If the scan does not find that specific DNA strand during one of its searches, the bracelet is programmed to detonate.”
 
Alcent sighed heavily.
 
“The Terrans are light years ahead of us when it comes to genetic research.
 
I wouldn’t even know where to begin in order to bypass their technology.
 
I’m sorry, but I don’t know what we can do with them.”