Cassandra wondered about the younger man sitting opposite her. He looked young and rugged, his time in the wild putting a toll on his body. Perhaps they could’ve been the same age and she wouldn’t know it. There was too large a difference in their lives.

Even now, she couldn’t see his face. There were some lessening effects from the jammers, wherever they were, but they could still stop the auto-detection. No matter how much they pressed the systems, it couldn’t give a conclusive answer. The parameters were always changing, making it impossible to know what was real and what was fake. The only real way to make it would be to find a civilian with no ocular implants and have them draw it out near-perfectly. Yet… such a person with that kind of skill was near-impossible to find in the current age. Artists weren’t in popular demand anymore.

“State your name, age, and place of birth,” Cassandra said mechanically as she looked down on her notes. Scribbling a bit of nonsense on top, she awaited the results from the initial order. Interrogations were meant to be one-sided yet she felt that it would likely be quite the opposite soon enough. The person in front of her wasn’t going to let it out too easily.

“Bruno Mars, thirty-nine, and the dark side of the moon,” the man answered. There was no real surprise there, though the woman had to ponder the strange naming schemes of the man. Were the astrological topics more interesting for them? It was something to note down as a possible background at least.

“We already know your first name is Troy,” Cassandra commented as she wrote down a few more nonsense words. “The analysis told us as much.”

“I think you want to call it ‘listening in,’” Troy corrected. Even with the blurring filter, there was no hiding the coy smile. Not that it was all-natural. The man was trying to agitate. It wasn’t working, sadly.

“I will be calling it however I please,” Cassandra answered with little emotion. Looking up at the prisoner again, she let them stew in silence for a moment.

They weren’t sitting still, leaning more to the right than a regular person would. It took no real thinking to figure out it was due to a certain needle close to their throat. Cassandra was happy the tool was working as intended. It was normally meant as an emergency injection of sedatives for more restrained prisoners but it could be activated on standby. Not that the prisoner could even hope to get close to it. The moment the man would sway closer, it would automatically retract. They were cops, after all. Some decency in safety was expected.

“You said that you were getting medical supplies,” Cassandra commented, removing all pretence of not listening in during their conversation in the cell. It wasn’t something all cells had, that one just being special. It was meant for the more… violent types. Making sure that nothing fishy was going on in there through the power of monitoring was for the best. “Do elaborate on that.”

“I don’t think there’s any point to that,” Troy answered calmly. “I was getting medical supplies. Some of them could even be used, believe it or not. Most were taken away from us before we could get our hands on them, however. Thank you very much for that.”

“If the city is evacuated, there are no laws which permit you to steal from unattended buildings. The police force has to make sure that this does not happen,” Cassandra replied with no real surprise in her voice. “If that requires us to transport larger amounts of medical supplies over to a secure area, it will not impede anything in the process.”

“It certainly stopped us from getting our hands on it for a while,” the man said before leaning back, a smile appearing yet again. “But, even your best attempt at stopping us failed. Isn’t the police force meant to be a bit more… advanced in their methods? I can’t say it was as hard as advertised.”

“Yet you still failed to escape during it,” was the reply that came to Cassandra’s tongue. “If you thought it so easy, why was the last step so hard for you?”

“...Fair enough. That one’s on me,” Troy accepted. It looked like he had wanted to put his hands up in surrender but the cuffs stopped the movement before it even began. “Is there any chance you could untighten these? I am losing touch with my fingers at this point.”

“No,” Cassandra rejected bluntly. The man’s vitals were still in the green and plenty of blood was circulating. It would take much longer before there were any issues to think about. “How large is your group?”

“I think the current count is eighty-seven,” the man answered.

“Be serious.”

“I am.”

“I doubt it,” Cassandra said, noting down possible clues heard before. “You’ve previously shown signs of it being quite small, not possibly have more than five people in total. Stolen equipment suggests as such. Which reminds me of something. What exactly were you trying to achieve by stealing so much diving equipment? I don’t believe many would buy them on the black market at the moment.”

“Everything has worth to the right person,” the man answered with the smallest of shrugs. “It all depends on the situation they’re in.”

… Cassandra noted that one down. They already had a deal somewhere close by. Nothing more than fifty kilometres. It was a possible destination point later on.

“Why did you arrive in this city?” Cassandra questioned.

“It’s merely a means to an end. We needed to pass through and saw the chance to gather more supplies for the journey,” Troy answered. The indifference in answering the question led Cassandra to think it might’ve been true. But…

“How severely wounded is the person in your group?”

Ah, the twitch of muscle at the question was all Cassandra wanted to see. It was no real surprise that such was the case. But she still needed to wonder if the person could be saved. They’d survived long enough for the man to scavenge around in shops but how much more time could be possible…

“They are doing pretty well if I have to guess. Nothing serious at least,” Troy answered noncommittally.

“You needed extremely expensive self-healing equipment. I don’t think it’s something a civilian could ever hope to mend without extreme damage and handicaps in the future,” Cassandra reminded him. “It would be best if this person had been flown to a hospital immediately. Yet you didn’t think that was an option because…?”

“Do I need to explain that one to you?”

“Not really. I just thought it polite to ask,” Cassandra said with an actual shrug of her own. Reaching out with her mind, she connected to Jules with little hardship.

‘Has Grunwald given us any updates on the situation yet?’ she questioned, hoping for new information of some kind. When the man had been found, a message had been sent out in hopes of somebody to come and identify them with their own eyes. Yet it seemed getting ahold of the contact was quite hard.

‘He got word a few minutes ago but didn’t want to disturb you,’ Jules responded. It was a fair thing to do. The interrogation was meant to be silent zones after all. ‘We’ve gotten in contact with somebody called Dr Fidelis. He’s flying over here as we speak. Should be in the city in a few hours or so.’

Dr Fidelis… What a weird name. It sounded Latin but Cassandra hadn’t bothered to learn enough to know what it meant. A form of emotion maybe? She didn’t know or care. What she cared about was that a reaction needed to be gained.

“So… Troy,” Cassandra said, putting on a small smile of her own. The hours wasted in front of a mirror was finally put to the test at that moment as the man opposite her looked ready to keel over and die. “Do you recognize anybody by the name of Fidelis?”

The pull forward the man-made at the mention of that name was enough that the needle to the left pulled itself away to make sure no injury occurred. Yet that didn’t stop the man from suddenly moving around like a mad-mad, trying to get himself out of the restraints. It almost seemed like it would work until Cassandra made sure to tighten them all somewhat. The gasp for air was enough to make the man pause in his fighting.

“I take it that name rings a bell of some kind,” Cassandra noted down. Sending out a message to her superior, she let him know that they might’ve finally found their target. Her promotion was coming closer to reality. “And not a good kind.”

“Good? There is nothing good about that man,” Troy said with clear spite in his voice. Some hatred was obvious, at least. Cassandra couldn’t help but wonder why. “He’s the sole reason we even need that medical equipment, to begin with.”

… What?

“Mind explaining that one?” Cassandra requested, pulling up a new page on her notes so she could get it in writing. Everything was already being recorded but she felt it would be better to get it on something non-digital.

“I saw with my own eyes a crazed man ready to throw a woman to her death for the sole reason of not wanting to engage in torture of what was effectively a confused child,” Troy began in what was likely to be a rant of epic proportions. Cassandra barely had time to write it all down. “She would’ve died as well if we didn’t stop that bastard, though his efforts still made it possible for her to be left wounded. Her intestines are shutting down slowly but surely because of him.”

The torture of children, the slow, painful death of organ failure, and what seemed to be a lack of proper oversight. Cassandra had a hard time believing it to be real but at least the man in front of her believed that to be so. No real signs of delusions had been seen before that point, ignoring the bouts of arrogance. Just what was she hearing?

“This child you mentioned,” Cassandra commented hesitantly. “How old was it?”

“When I first met it?” Troy asked back. With a nod given he continued. “About a day or two old. We escaped when it had reached about a week or so.”

That wasn’t a child but a mere babe. Just… What was happening? According to Grunwald, this was meant to be a case of extremists on the run, yet this was something else entirely. But what?

“What was happening to this child?”

“They were trying to make it into a weapon of some sort. They even succeeded though it required more than a few rounds of torture. I am not sure how many there were. I just know it was too much.”

A weapon. The government was looking for somebody who’d run off with a weapon, one that they were manufacturing. So close to the border of the country, Cassandra could only guess that they were trying to cross it. The idea about them wanting to sell off equipment was slowly losing ground. Just what was happening?

“The one was injured. Do you believe they will survive with the medical supplies you stole?” Cassandra said. “While you will still go to prison no matter what, I can offer a very lucrative deal for your unanimous surrender.”

“She will survive and we will never surrender,” Troy answered with zero hesitation. The determination in the man’s eyes made Cassandra wonder if he was crazy. “We have gone too far to let Adam reach their hands again.”

Fueled with emotion, the man was letting too much go. Yet… Adam? A boy, then. A boy meant to become a weapon of some sort. Bio-engineering? Cassandra wouldn’t put it past the government to have figured out such secrets already. While the field was new, the potential had already been discovered a while back. She was an example of what could be done with just a bit of tuning. But what could’ve been done to make a mere child so lucrative? What had been-

‘We have orders to make sure the man is contained. Cassandra, please finish off your interrogation and escort the prisoner back to his cell. His continued stay is vital,’ Grunwald sent in himself.

“... We’re done here,” Cassandra said, getting up from her seat. With a small command, she made Jules start the process of getting off the restraints so the man could be put back into the holding room.

“No, we’re not. You have to help me. If they find us, we’ll all be killed. There will be no trial. They’ll just silence us in the quickest way they can,” Troy protested, trying to wriggle his way out of Jules’ grasp. It had no effect, though Cassandra and the automation locked eyes for a moment. They both had ideas of what it all meant and neither wanted to speak them out loud.