I was woken by the sound of footsteps approaching my cell. I sat up and stood. I was still naked from the previous day, but didn’t particularly care. There were five men, heavily armed, taking no chances now that I was unrestrained. They didn’t hesitate as they approached and two of them took several steps ahead of the others, raising heavy rifles in my direction. One of them came a bit too close to the bars, and I lunged, freezing him and trying to grab the rifle. The other one opened fire, throwing me to the ground in a hail of bullets.

While I was recovering, they opened the gate and quickly threw on restraints before I had full control of my limbs back, then they started to drag me back to the torture room. I could’ve just waited until I was back on the cold table to implement my plan, but I figured that might be suspicious. I’d taken every chance up to this point to fight, and strike out at them, I needed to keep it up for appearance sake. Not to mention I did want to hurt them. It was possible some of the deadmen spread further out in Eden weren’t the worst people, but I was certain the ones here were fully under the First’s control, and that made them worth getting rid of.

I counted the steps, and further developed the mental map I had been developing of the cathedral. The cells and torture chamber were close, a fair distance from the main area of the church, and on the opposite side of the guest rooms I’d been in. Based on the smells and sights of my first entry, that’s also where the kitchens were, and I knew the First and his chambers were on the far corner, central, but against a wall. I’d need to avoid him, at least until I was ready.

I was dragged into the room, and thrown onto the metal table, my limbs drawn tight and manacled. I wrapped my hands against each of the chains and started bringing in the radiation in the air, building the heat inside myself as fast as possible. I listened as the guards all left, and another set of footsteps entered, dragging a metal tray slowly toward me. I tensed and kept focusing.

“Well Donovan, welcome back! I have to say our last little session left my mind positively reeling with possibilities. Normally it only takes one of my sessions to find the threshold at which the regeneration gives out, but you… you're built differently, that’s certain.”

I heard a tool slide from the tray, and then several noises like blades being drawn close together. It was shears, or scissors of some kind I realized. Looked like her idea of what to do next hadn’t changed. I heard the sound of the shears move slowly down to my feet, and my foot twitched involuntarily as one of her hands grabbed it. I started to pour heat out of my hands and onto the chains. I felt the blades of the shears come to a rest on either end of my left pinky toe, and twitched again.

“Tsk. Try and stay still, or I’ll have to move further north, and I’m certain that’s not something you’d want me to do.”

I steadied myself, and moved my focus from my feet back to the chains in my hands, they were starting to give way. I heard a snip, and felt a sudden intense pain shoot up from my foot. Red flooded my vision and I yanked the chains holding my hands in response and they finally gave way. I reached blindly and caught an arm, yanking my blindfold off as I did so. The deadman woman I’d grabbed tried to scream, but I froze her before she could. Then, now that I was able to focus my full attention and strength on the remaining manacles on my feet, I was able to break them in much less time than the ones at my wrists. I took the blindfold and shoved it into my torturer's mouth before hauling her to a table further down and restraining her as I had been, reactivating the freeze as needed to keep her from making trouble.

She didn’t move, instead staying relatively calm, and looking me over carefully.

That reaction wasn’t what I expected. I moved my hand to the rag I’d put in her mouth and activated the Lie Detector ability. “I’m going to remove this rag. Answer my questions truthfully, and don’t scream, or things will go poorly for you.”

She gave a slight nod, and I removed the rag.

“You know, I’ve always kind of wanted something like this to happen. It’s…exciting.”

TRUE rang a system notification, further adding to the confusion of her statement. I pushed past it, I didn’t have time to waste. “How long until the guards come back here?”

“A few hours. I requested some extra time with you today.”

TRUE

“Where are my things?”

“In the southeast area of the building.”

LIE

I shook my head, and dragged the tray over to where we were, seeing the key on it, I unshackled myself completely, and came back over to her.

“Please don’t lie, or I’ll have to start working to find your threshold.”

She smiled. “Go ahead. In my own experience issues start to crop up after severe limb damage or high levels of damage to my internals, like a stabbing or long term beating with a heavy object. I do recover remarkably well from burns and acids though. Almost as well as you did yesterday.”

TRUE

I shook my head. Why was everyone in Eden insane? Was it an effect of the mutations they were going through? Was some of the mist drifting down further than they thought?

“Just tell me where to find my things.”

“You’re no fun.” She sighed. “They’re in the room a few doors down. They wanted to look at the tech we didn’t recognize.”

TRUE

“Where would Mary be right now?”

The torturer raised an eyebrow. “What, did you tie me up just to run after another woman?”

I sighed, pulled the longest, sharpest implement from the tray and held it over her forehead. “So you aren’t afraid of pain, that’s fine. Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll kill you.”

She blinked. “We’re between sermons. She’ll probably be resting in her quarters in the west wing if she’s not out on a mission for the First.

TRUE.

“Thank you,” I said, before plunging the pointed cylinder directly into her skull, killing her. I looked around, and covered the body with a sheet, then grabbed a scalpel and threw on a stained white long coat hanging off a chair.. I made my way to the door and pressed my ear to it, inhaling deeply as I did so. I didn’t detect anyone, so I shuffled out and moved down a narrow hallway to the next door. I could tell there were at least two people inside. I opened the door quickly and closed it behind myself. There were two deadmen standing over a small table on which my things were laid out. I ran toward them as they began to turn, freezing one of them, and driving the scalpel through the eye and into the brain of the other. I took my sword from the table and ran the frozen one through the heart.

I looked everything over. Sword was accounted for, as were the rest of my weapons. That made sense, The First had wanted me to join him, no sense in getting rid of all of my weapons. The higher tech gear was in a separate sorted pile, as were my notebooks. I'd kept a few with me after burying the rest to keep taking notes if I could. They’d started copying them, and the Cerberus and emptied las pistol had been taken apart partially. I slid all of the pieces back into my pack. I didn’t want to risk having that kind of tech just laying around in Eden. Once that was done, I disrobed the two deadmen who’d been going through my things. Between them was a decent pair of boots that nearly fit me, a shirt, some jeans, and a dark brown robe that was large enough to fully cover me, which I was grateful for. I looked down as I put on the boots. My toe was back.

I slid my jump pack on first, then my regular pack over that. I wasn’t sure if I’d get any use out of it, but you never knew, then I slid my energy shield back onto my wrist. I kicked the bodies into a hidden corner, then made my way to the door and pulled the hood of the brown robe over my head. I didn’t think it would be enough to fully disguise me, but maybe at a distance it could buy me some time.

I took a breath and left the room, all that was left was to play a short visit to Mary’s room, and from there my plan could continue.