Carefully sneaking down the stairs, I tried to take in everything around me, looking for anything that might hint at the events down here. Once I reached the bottom, there was another massive door and after opening it, I entered a long hallway, longer than the house above. The door I had entered through was roughly in the middle of the hallway, with it continuing on right and left. As I looked around, I felt a chill going down my spine. It was as if I had stepped into a movie-set, only updated for the current technology, a film-set made for a film about the Staatsssicherheit and their so-called reeducation-centers.

The small hallway, stark in its utility, was lined with heavy doors, all equipped with peepholes and at the end of it was another, open door. Not wanting to attract any attention, I ignored what I assumed were cells and made my way towards the open door, peeking inside.

The chill running down my spine had never left me and now I felt bile rising in my throat, accompanied by a desire to be somewhere, anywhere else. The room I looked into seemed to be a mix between a porn-studio and a medieval torture-chamber, equipped with various tools to immobilise someone and inflict pain on them. A few things were obvious in their usage, for example a set of stocks, others I could easily imagine, like the gynecological chair with leather-straps to bind someone sitting in it and again others I did not want to think about, like a strange device consisting of heavy metal piping or a hanging, wooden triangular device.

One wall held a collection of whips, paddles, and other implements, with a table containing a variety of personal female massagers, all of the normally private variety. I somehow doubted that the use of them was consensual down here. The video-cameras rounded the whole thing out, the cables all leading towards another open door.

Forcing the bile down, I did not want to throw up in my mask or be forced to take it off, I continued my way, heading towards the room the cables led to when I realised that there was a large cupboard, similar to a normal medicine cabinet and a morbid curiosity overcame me. The cabinet was not locked, but I somehow wished it had been.

The cabinet contained a variety of glass-bottles, all meticulously labeled and a few small bags of powder, also labeled. I did not know all the names on the labels, but those that I knew scared me. Sodium thiopental, amobarbital, MDMA and heroin were just a few of the names I saw, but the purpose was obvious. Induce chemical states to either make someone compliant or addict them to gain leverage on them. I had read thrillers from a bygone era, describing the usage of heroin as a interrogation-drug, using addiction and subsequent withdrawal to torture and, at the same time, forge a connection between the interrogator and the subject. Out of interest, I had researched it a little, learning that it was not only possible, it was something regarded as a certainty. With enough time and ruthlessness, anyone and everyone could be broken and slowly reshaped.

Just thinking about those people approaching an already depressed Sophia with a basement like this almost made me sick and ignited a fire in me, not a hot, burning fire of revenge, but a cold, calculating need for vengeance.

Closing the drug-cabinet, I moved on, towards the cable-room, peeking around the corner and seeing it empty, before entering it. There was little inside, but what little there was, almost made me smile. Two computers, one a desktop-system connected to the various cables and a few other pieces of equipment, the other a lap-top that only seemed to be connected to an ethernet-cable. A quick check showed me that the desktop-system was not connected to such a cable. Now, I only had to hope that making dirty films was not the sole purpose of the stand-alone system, but that there was more on it.

Connecting my gauntlet to it, Galatea powered it up, using her own processing capabilities to access the memory, not involving the rest of the system at all.

“It’s encoded. But the encryption is not too strong. It will take me some time, but I’m sure I can manage.” Galatea told me, as she simply copied the physical storage over to my system.

“Good. Deal with it, once you looked at the laptop.” I asked her and, once she gave her okay, changed the connection so she could have a go at it.

Again, only the minimum necessary parts were directly powered by her and she quickly took inventory.

“There is little on it. I think only an email-program but everything is encrypted and highly so. Not just the normal, run-of-the-mill encryption used on the desktop, but heavy duty encryption, maybe even using one-time pads.” Galatea explained and I started to look around. If one-time pads were used, there was no way to decrypt the data, not without the pads themselves. But using them was a ton of work, so I hoped that they were either saved on the desktop-system or on another device lying somewhere nearby. Simply because people were lazy. There were a few memory sticks and I used their own laptop to allow Galatea to access them one by one, until we finally struck pay-dirt and found a collection of one-time pads, sadly without the user manual.

“We should get going. I have everything I need and there is nothing else for us to find here.” Galatea announced and, after carefully looking around once again, I agreed. Even without the manual, Galatea now had a chance to crack the encoding, it would just take time, possibly a lot of it. But a chance was there.

As I started to make my way out, I saw an assortment of arm- and leg-shackles and thin plastic tubing, giving me an evil idea to satisfy my craving for vengeance. I might regret it, most likely would, but the dark thoughts and restless feelings demanded satisfaction. After thinking about it, for about half a minute, I decided that I would have my vengeance. Up close and personal.

Taking three pairs of shackles with me, I walked back into the hallway, this time looking through one of the peepholes into a dark cell. My equipment allowed me to penetrate the darkness and I saw a female form, kneeling on the ground and completely naked. Her posture seemed odd to me, reminiscent of Japanese seiza but the legs spread apart and the hand, palms up, resting on her legs. head downcast. There was a bed in the room, but she knelt on the floor, in the middle of the night. Conditioning, a simple word with wide-ranging implications echoed through my head and I had no doubt that it was just that.

I took the time to look into each of the cells, some empty, some containing a female form. Some of them knelt on the floor, others lying on the bed, one of them apparently awake, quietly sobbing into her pillow. Part of me wanted to call out, but I was not able to help a single female over her depression, how on earth could I help a group of them, all victimised worse than the single one I could not deal with?

Forcing my gaze away, I started back towards the stairs, climbing into the house proper.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Coming from the basement, I made my way towards the rooms containing the infrared signatures of the three inhabitants, careful not to make any noise. Entering the first room, I realised that my care had been pointless. The room was very well soundproofed, probably so that they could entertain, or rather abuse, up here, without disturbing the other two. But tonight, karma was knocking and she was not amused.

After using a taser to stun the sleeping man for a moment, I shackled his arms behind his back and forced a ball-gag between his teeth. I might have knocked a few teeth loose, as I was not gentle, not at all. But dental damage would soon be the least of his problems. To make sure that he did not try to walk off, I shackled his legs together before leaving the room, back into the hallway. He had not fully come around and managed to do more than moan before I closed the door behind me.

I dealt with the other two in the same way, before dragging them into the living room, by the leg-shackles. There were a few satisfying thumps, when their head hit the floor and a few moans of pain as their arms were stressed in a position they really should not be in but I ignored them. Vengeance would be mine.

Finally, all three of them were lying in the living room and seemed to be pretty scared. And they had every right to be.

“Good evening, dear children. You may call me Lorena, and I am to be your karma tonight.” I announced, using a fake-friendly voice, modeled after an old Mary Poppins-film.

“Now, all of you have been naughty, and you know what we do with naughty children. We punish them.” I said, while cutting away the sleep-wear one of them was wearing, leaving him completely naked.

“But we do not only want to punish, we also want to prevent. So, tonight, I will cast a spell on you.” I continued, while taking hold of the floppy appendage, dangling between his legs. He tried his best to get away from me, but two hard punches to his legs stopped him, allowing me to insert a thin piece of plastic into an opening that normally was exit only.

“Speak with me, children. Bibbity, bobbitty, bo, no more rape for you!” I singsonged, while affixing the tubing to the pepper-spray nozzle and triggering a long spray, funneled into one of the mucous membranes that were not even near the face. The result was quite impressive, he went fully rigid before letting out a strange noise, somewhere between a muffled scream a moan and a wail which suddenly cut off and he seemed to have fallen asleep. Sniffing, I realised that there was a sharp smell in the air, the smell of fear. It seemed as if one of the naughty children did have an accident. Or maybe both of them.

Not quite satisfied with my work, I took hold of the small, grape-like structures dangling below the appendage, and, after smacking the guy back to wakefulness, I closed my fist, using the servos in the gauntlets to make sure that it was fully closed. Somehow, the guy decided that he wanted to go back to sleep and I was quite alright with that, so I left him alone.

The other two tried to wiggle away like the worms they were, but I was having none of that. A quick kick into number two’s stomach sent him onto his back and brutal punches to his legs made sure that he was steady enough for me to work.

I repeated the procedure, including my friendly-singsong chant and again, he fainted twice before I went after number three. That one tried to hide the floppy appendage from me, so I motivated him with a small squirt of pepper-spray into his face, just a small one, as I was almost out. It was enough to motivate him to cease struggling, or maybe he was just running out of air. It did not matter to me.

Again, I chanted my sing-song and again my target fainted, twice.

I wanted to whistle, as I dragged the three back to their bedrooms, I did not want the police to be distracted by them after all.

There was some blood on my gauntlet, so, in the spirit of waste not, want not, I used it to make a track towards the basement-door, leaving an obvious bloody smear on it, before washing my hands in the kitchen.

It might not be justice, but it certainly was vengeance.

A short while after leaving the basement, I left the house and was just about to make an emergency-call when Galatea piped up. “I have broken the encoding on the data from the desktop-system.” she reported. “It had the user-manual for the one-time encryption and I think we got lucky. There are reports sent to someone else, someone higher up, reporting people being transported away for further training. I think using the information, I can even find out where they were sent to.”

“That is good. Something else?” I asked.

“Yes. There are monthly lists of names, for further training. On the list from May, one of the names is Felix Collins.”

The name almost made me stumble. Sophia mostly referred to her brother as just that, brother, but I had researched his name, carefully checking if he turned up anywhere. Just now he had. Someone transported off for further training. It could mean anything. And I would find out what, if only for Sophia.

And it meant that we had a time-limit. My vengeance would probably delay the information-spread but if someone was keeping an eye on the three guys, they might know that they were compromised. So, every second counted.

Leaving the house, I finally made the emergency-call.

“What is your emergency?” A calm voice asked.

“When I walked by, I have heard screaming in the house, no. 23 Dale Road. It sounded as if someone was being murdered.” I reported, using a fake but natural voice.

The operator asked a few more questions, which I lied about, before hanging up.

Making my way to the shadows hiding Sophia, I greeted her, telling her that I found something and we should head back. Fast.