"I already told you everything. I found out that Sandeman was part of an ancient brotherhood. The brotherhood found out that I found out. Then they took me out. No amount of torture is going to change that."
"Come on, Deck," Max scoffed. "You trained us better than that. What did you learn about them in the span of a year as their prisoner?"
"That Sandeman probably started Manticore to make an army of ibeautiful/i superhumans as opposed to the ugly ones they breed in the brotherhood."
Max drew her arm back to hit him, then stopped when he flinched.
You have a choice," she told him. "You're sitting in the middle of Terminal City. You can waste away and die protecting the people who kidnapped you for a year, the people who fired you from Manticore, or you can tell me everything you know and receive immunity from the radiation and countless toxins in the air."
"I don't know what else to tell you," he sighed finally.
"I don't have a problem watching you die," Max said, leaning forward. "You taught us that sacrifices had to be made in war. Lose one soldier to save two more in his place. Sound familiar? Well, Deck old buddy," she smiled broadly and clapped in on the back a little harder than necessary, "Better you than me and mine for once."
Her smile faded as soon as she closed the door on Lydecker. In truth, she would hate to see him die. But she would live with that if it meant that she would get the information she wanted. It was time to step up and be the boss everyone in TC expected her to be.
One more prisoner to go.
"Max." Asha probably would have ground her teeth if her jaw hadn't been one large bruise on the left side. As it was, she settled for scowling.
"Asha, you need to swear to me on your life that every word you say is true."
"Jesus, Max! What are you going to do? Kill me if I don't answer your questions?"
"That's pretty much what I meant, yeah." Asha looked away. She was more angry than scared, and that wasn't going to give Max the leverage she needed to crack her prisoner. She needed to scare Asha more. "Right now, all my friend Joshua knows is that you're part of the same cult that framed him for an innocent girl's murder, and in his mind that makes you just as guilty as Ames White."
"Who--?"
"I'm not done talking yet!" Max cut her off. "Joshua wants revenge. And unless you start talking, he's going to start with you."
"Fine." Asha's eyes were narrowed slits. "I don't know Ames White. I've never heard of him."
"Why not?"
"We work in different areas? I only know a handful of Familiars in Seattle. There's a whole heiarchy. Some people are soldiers, others are interrogators, I don't know..."
"What's your area?"
Another glare. "Stirring up trouble."
"So the S1W..."
"It doesn't mean I don't believe in the cause, Max. It just...kills two birds with one stone. I get to make a difference in society and the authorities are spread too thin to bother with the Conclave."
"Why make a difference in a society you're going to kill off anyway?"
"What?" Asha sounded outraged again.
"Don't lie to me, Asha," Max warned.
"You want to talk about lies, Max?" Asha screamed, straining against the ropes tying her to her chair. "What about Logan and his stupid Eyes Only thing? What about Alec and his stupid lines? What about you keeping you are a secret from your friends and putting them in danger?"
Max leaned forward. "I'm not the one tied to a chair in hostile territory, so it doesn't matter if I lie."
Asha slumped down further, and tears welled up in her eyes. Max was breaking her. "I swear to God I don't' know what you're talking about," she gritted out, voice tight with the effort it was taking her not to cry.
"Tell me what you do know, then."
Actually, the Conclave had some fascinating reading material, once one learned ancient Mesopotamian. Logan was compensating a scholar friend fifteen dollars a page to translate the stolen tome. It was a captivating mixture of religion (his friend Marc made sure to note that much of the vocabulary used held a spiritual connotation), anthropology, and science. If one wanted to, one could spend an entire lifetime studying these intricacies and layered meanings.
Logan didn't have that long.
For that matter, the world didn't have that long if the prophecy written on Max's skin by Sandeman was any indication. As it was, Logan took a plethora of jumbled notes, analyzing the text from every conceivable angle. He wished desperately that he could get inside the mind of a Familiar. It would make this process go so much faster.
One thing was becoming clear, however. The Conclave believed itself to be composed of only people with superior genetics. They were at once rudimentary and sophisticated in their logic, a cross between Hitler's ideals and Manticore gene therapy. The idea of building a superior race had sprung from the very cradle of civilization and traveled to every major human empire until it could be written down and passed on in this manner.
Logan noted the common imagery used in the texts: snakes, women, stars. In fact, the entire religious aspect of the Conclave's belief system seemed to be derived from—and driven by—star charts. Out of curiosity, Logan hacked into the NASA database to see when an early passage of this book could have been written, assuming the description of a night sky was accurate. 5027 BC seemed like a long time ago. The book in his hands connected two people separated by over seven thousand years of history. Logan decided to be extra careful not to rip any pages.
"Why women?" was his next thought. In almost every major civilization, women were second-class citizens, or at least second thoughts. Everything Logan knew about the Conclave indicated that women were held in no special regard. Tradition held that the mother of a Familiar was killed after giving birth to the chosen child. Yet the image of the revered feminine was used ad nausium in this text.
"Why is that?"
"Well I was hoping you could tell me," Logan told his good friend—and the smartest person he knew—over the video phone.
Sebastian bobbed his head from side to side, activating the machine that spoke for him. Genius or no, his mind was trapped in a cripple's body. "It's so obvious," his robotic voice sounded amused, if it was possible for a computer to have a sense of humor. "Why shouldn't women be glorified?"
"Because...they're weaker? Less aggressive?" Logan was mentally exhausted at this point and wasn't up to playing academic trivia games.
"Because she is responsible for the Original Sin."
Epiphanies really are like lightning bolts, and this one surged through Logan electrifying his nerves and refreshing his mind. "Of course! Eve and the snake and the apple of Knowledge!" He began looking through his notes again. "It fits perfectly!"
"Glad to help. Now if you'll excuse me, normal people sleep at this hour."