Chapter Four

"Interrogation begins oh-three-fifty hours. Present are Agents Peter and Barbara, interrogatee. . . interro. . . subject brought in for questioning is one Janet Wattingford, female, late teens-"

"-I'm seventeen-and-a-bit, actually-"

"-roughly one hundred seventy centimetres tall, brought in after attempting to interfere with the apprehension of the Mary Sue Syrhénna Starflower-"

"She's a what?"

"-at approximately seventeen thirty last night."

"Oh, god. . ."

"Subject shows no typical signs of generic Sueness, and during observation appeared to be completely overpowered by the Sue Syrhénna, to such an extent that the subject appeared to forget her own personal injuries and scour the holding cell for an escape route."

"Aargh. . ."

"Said injuries being, as far as I can tell without being dreadfully indecent, various cuts and grazes to her head and arms, what looks to be a nasty bruise coming up on her left fore-arm and a limp. Said injuries also being acquired through no fault of any Division Eight Agent as George was the one who found her and he doesn't even hurt tiger worms, for God's sake, and besides she fell out of a tree-"

"Ouch, yes."

"-and that's probably where she got her injuries. Agent Barbara will now conduct the interview."

Janet looked up. Normally she would have looked up before this point, but her neck had argued passionately for the modus operandi of flopping forward and letting Janet's head rest against her chest. Her muddy chest. But now, dazedly wiping mud off her chin, Janet looked up.

There was a light.

Bulb.

It was pointed at her but, in the same way the corridor on the way to this room had seemed dull and unimpressive, the same way the table she had been staring at for the last five minutes was some sort of tinny plastic thing, it was oddly underwhelming. For one thing, it wasn't really all that bright. In fact, it was so dim that when it flickered- and it was doing so quite often- you could hardly tell.

Or was it flickering?

After careful consideration, Janet decided that it wasn't flickering. It appeared to have died.

Were they asking her questions? They had said this was an interror, an interrogashe- a question-thing.

"Miss Wattingford, are you listening?"

Oh. They were asking her questions, then. Dammit.

Question. . . answer. She should answer.

"Erm, no, sorry. I wasn't. What?"

A sigh. "Miss Wattingford, could you please tell us what you were doing in the introductory chapter of 'Syrhénna Starflower: Roses, tears and moonlite Vows'?"

"I- what? I don't know! Wait. . . how do you know my name? Who are you people?"

"I am Agent Peter of Division Eight of the True Continuum Police. This is my colleague, Agent Barbara. Please answer the question."

"I already answered the question, I said I don't know! And-" Janet could feel her voice wobbling and this made her even more upset- "that doesn't help, you know. You're police? You can't be, you're my age, you, um, shit. I was in that godawful story? Is that what you're saying? That's mad, that isn't possible, it's, it's inconceivable only I guess it isn't really 'cos you always get it in stories and stuff but it isn't real. . ."

Barbara and Peter waited patiently while Janet rambled on. Some minutes later, Barbara leant forward to put a fresh tape in the recorder.

"I mean, this is probably all just a bad dream brought on by having to look after Ashleigh or a hallucination caused by bad cheese or the light from Venus bouncing of marsh fog right?" Janet looked around hopefully. "Right?"

"No." Barbara's accent had now righted itself. This was made obvious by the fact that her negative response had not been "Nyeiarn."

"Oh."

"Indeed," Barbara barked. "Next question, try to answer this one properly. What are the three cardinal rules for. . . Peter, this is useless," she cried as Janet's eyes lost focus. "She's not registered with any branch of the Agency or listed as deceased, presumed deceased, unwritten or gone rogue."

"I know, Barbara."

"Then I have to ask why we're going through with this. I know it's procedure, but-"

"But we should be using our time to ensure the Sue doesn't escape and wreak havoc upon George?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of it escaping and destroying our only remaining cell room in the process, sir." Barbara managed not to make the last word sound like an afterthought. Now was not an opportune time for snapping at her captain- not with his retirement so imminent.

"That's true." Peter's brows furrowed in grim contemplation, an expression he had perfected during his many years of contemplating the grim reality that is the Mary Sue. "Very well- yes, Miss Wattingford?"

Janet stared, her eyes refocusing on the uniformed man on the other side of the table. This was not a good start, she realised. Ever since- well, she couldn't remember exactly, but uniforms and handsome young men calling her "Miss" in a rather glorious English accent after noticing that she'd been trying to say something tended to stuff around rather with Janet's hormones.

"Um, um. . ." Brilliant, now she was blushing at what would probably turn out to be a hallucination caused by housework-induced exhaustion. "Er, she- Syrhénna- didn't look like she was really up to, um, breaking out of anywhere, um, when we left her. . ."

Janet gulped as the dashing young captain- no, dammit, weird figment of your imagination who locked you up and then made the even weirder German girl ask strange questions at you- anyway, as Peter fixed her with a piercing stare (ah, those years of directing piercing stares at new recruits!).

"The stasis only works for a very short period of time, Miss Wattingford," he informed her gravely as several hundred of Janet's brain-cells collectively died of crush overload, "just long enough to get you out of the holding room, in fact."

Just as Janet opened her mouth to say something sparkling and witty (probably along the lines of "Oh. . .flaaarg!") a terrified scream split the air.

"Ah." Peter rose and turned to Barbara. "Put her through the Tester, will you? Full capacity, I think, it'll save time later on. I'll go rescue George."

Somewhat scared by the manic grin Peter was wearing (no need to practice this one!) and rather more scared by his casual mention of "full capacity" with this Tester thing, Janet slid under the table. Actually, this was not so much a tactical manoeuvre as it was a result of her muscles all simultaneously failing and causing her to fall off her chair.

"Get up." The girl- Barbara- obviously had no patience for people whose legs had abandoned them. Janet felt rather miffed. "Oh, look- grab my hand, I'll pull you up. Good. Just step this way, through this door."

Barbara helped Janet through the door in question with a well-timed shove in the small of the back, and she stumbled forward. Into darkness.

Well, not quite. There was a small, bright light somewhere ahead of her. It looked like it was getting closer.

Oh, now everything was light. Ouch. Not good for the eyes, that-

Back in the interview room, Barbara leant against the table and waited for the Tester to print off its results. From what she could see on the screen things looked good for the girl, but it was hard to tell. Data flickered past almost too fast to read, height-weight-age-origin-build-measurements-litmus-contents of stomach-teeth- too much. Colin could deal with it later. In the meanwhile, coffee beckoned.

Or it would have, had coffee not been made a restricted substance by the Ministry of Edibles the day before. Remembering this, Barbara gritted her teeth and grabbed a can of Generic Carbonated Beverage (Lemon). She would have to ask Jack if he could get any.

A light flicked on above the door Janet had been so unceremoniously pushed through. Green. Good, though Barbara, we need some fresh blood around here. . .

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Many hundreds of thanks to my beta, b2wm (maysheliveforever)

in order to continue beta-ing my fic :P