…
The CIA teamed up with Army, Air Force and Naval Intelligence to run one of the most nefarious, classified, enhanced interrogation programs of the Cold War. The work took place inside a clandestine facility in the American zone of occupied Germany, called Camp King.
(Annie Jacobsen)
…
MFV Harc, May 1st, 4:11 PM, 2183
…
I sat patiently in the room next to Lynda's holding cell, watching her stare straight ahead as she waited to see what would happen. She was secured tightly to a restraint chair, wearing nothing but a gray t-shirt and black pants. She occasionally looked over at the two-way mirror that separated us, and I wasn't sure if she could see us or not with those new eyes of hers. If she did, she wasn't making any indications.
I had to admit, I was already ashamed of myself. I had never been an overly violent person, I was always the kind who "ended up" in fights or tried to talk their way out of things. Seeing her here, though… I wanted to walk in and put a bullet right between her eyes. I was brought up better than that…
"What is going through your head, my friend?" Dimitri asked, standing just to my left without looking at me. I turned to him to see his chiseled face sporting a large scowl.
"I'm trying to think of a way of doing this without killing her… at least not yet." I replied, hands folded firmly behind my back as I looked back at ice queen.
"I know how you feel, do not worry." Dimitri eased, taking in a big breath and releasing it a second later. "I want her dead just as much as you, but we will need to keep each other in check if we want information Admirals are asking for."
The Admirals… after everyone had been debriefed yesterday, Rael and Gerrel sent us a personal communication congratulating our success in both finding a suitable system to begin operations in, and capturing a high-ranking Cerberus operative. It had actually been the Marines that captured her, but I suppose it was all the same in the end. Their message also came with a specific set of orders for the Admiralty's eyes only.
We'd get our questions from Zadie, who would watch me and Dimitri to make sure the interrogation didn't get out of hand. They wanted to squeeze Lynda like a lemon, and we were the press.
Zadie walked into the room a few minutes later, nodding to us without a word as we filed out of the observation room. The two exo-equipped marines stepped off to the side, allowing us into the room. She looked up at us with zero surprise, cocking her head and looking back up at the ceiling.
As soon as the hiss of the door sealing could be heard, we started.
"So… how are the accommodations, Director Embry?" I asked, keeping my expression neutral as I began walking around her. Dimitri flanked me, walking along the opposite side with what I could only describe as barely contained anger.
"Lovely." She replied calmly, still staring directly into the space in front of her as she spoke. She then turned to me, shooting daggers at me in the process. "How's your little ship, doctor? Word was you were a little beat up after that incident over Eden Prime last year."
"Tell me, Lynda… do you remember U.S. President George W. Bush's presidential administration?" I asked, ignoring her question as looked harder into her glowing eyes.
"I think I remember a thing or two." She scoffed, rolling her eyes as if this was just some sort of joke. "Can we get on with this, Michaels? I'm quite a busy woman."
"Oh, I think you'll have to miss a few meetings,so get comfortable." I disregarded, plucking a dirty rag out of my back pocket and handing it to Dimitri. "You see, after the 9/11 attacks back in 2001, the CIA made great used of enhanced interrogation techniques between 2002-2003 to find the perpetrators. They worked pretty well, I've heard."
"Enhanced interrogation techniques? Phf." She repeated back, scoffing once again. "Yeah, you're real scary, doctor."
"I'll start us off with a simple one." I continued after reading my omni-tool, picking up a can of water as I walked around her again. "Where is the installation you and those ships came from?"
"What, you think threatening me with torture will get me to sing like a bird?" She shot back, anger starting to form in her voice. "Go back to counting with your fingers, doctor. You're better at it."
"Very well." I finished with pursed lips as Dimitri pulled her back in the chair, holding the rag over her face. I poured the water over the rag, triggering her gag reflex as she began struggling. We held the rag on as we constantly applied the water. She swung her shoulders back and forth violently as she began feeling a drowning sensation.
I felt sick to the stomach as I did this, even though I swore to myself every second that she deserved every bit of it. This was clearly inhumane, but every fiber of my being demanded retribution for all the lives taken on Aldrin Station.
"Mphf! Mfh!" She struggled to breathe before we pulled the rag off of her face. Water dripped off her head as she struggled for air.
"Where's the facility!?" I yelled at her, her face flushed red and nose dripping with mucus.
"Go…to hell." She exclaimed, getting me to look back up at Dimitri. He pulled the rag back over her face and we began the process all over again. I dropped the empty water can, picking up another one as she desperately tried to get air to her lungs.
"You better breath deep, this stuff is a valuable resource out here." I mocked, feeling quite disgusted with my own words as the rag was pulled off her face once again. She gasped for air, looking as if she had seen a ghost. "You wanna answer this time, or do you want to go for another swim?"
"OK…OK!" She replied, looking at me with widened eyes. "It's… in… the Titan Nebula… Haskins system… just please… sto-"
Dimitri and I suddenly jumped back as she suddenly started hyperventilating, then began screaming out at the top of her lungs, eyes bulging out of their sockets. Her already discolored veins could be seen turning black as she began having violent muscle spasms. She actually managed to pull off one of the arm braces to our surprise, as she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me closer.
"Send… my regards… to the… Illusive… M-man…" She gasped out slower and slower, smiling before her grip went limp. Her eyes turned dark as she slumped back into her chair, dead.
"What the hell just happened!?" Admiral Zadie demanded, storming into the room with the two Marines who had been posted outside.
"She gave us an answer." I answered with a blank expression, looking at her dead eyes still staring at me.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, you bosh'tet?!" She yelled, clearly infuriated that our captive was inexplicably dead.
"Cerberus must have installed kill switch somewhere in her implants." Dimitri hypothesized, sighing as he crossed his arms and looked down at her. "She speaks, she dies."
"If that's so, then why didn't she hold her tongue?" She probed further, her voice calming down slightly.
"Who's to say they told her about it?" I replied, picking up Lynda's hand and looking at her wrists. They had been bloodied by all the force exerted on them, and it was clear that they were broken on top of that.
I shook my head, another weight feeling as if it had just drifted off of my body. Lynda was now completely dead, but I felt neither happy nor sad about it. I just stared back into her cloudy eyes, wondering what I was becoming.
I didn't like it.
…
MFV Explorer, May 8th, 6:11 PM, 2183
…
I sat alone in the bridge, staring up at the stars and the ships as I was immersed in thought.
A week had passed since Lynda's death, and I was still reeling from the implications of it all. What the Admirals eventually planned to do with the tiny bit of information we got out of her, I had no idea, though Zadie told me she would let us know.
Personally, I was still deeply disappointed in myself for what I took part in. It didn't matter what she had done in the past, what I did was inhumane and I was better than that. Allowing myself to sink down to that level, her level… my parents raised me better than that. It was a degradation of my own soul.
I dwelled on it, taking another swig of the Guinness that we had been slowly stockpiling over the last year. Sure, it came in a can, but beer was still beer at the end of the day.
The door behind me opened, revealing Mara. I honestly hadn't talked too much to her since that day on the Harc.
"What's going on, Sean?" She asked with genuine curiosity, walking over and standing above me. "Everyone else is downstairs having dinner and you're up here drinking all our beer."
"I don't really know myself, to be honest." I replied, looking up at her as I took another sip. "I just… can't wrap my head around last week."
Mara looked down on me with a frown, taking a seat to my left in the communications chair.
"Has all this moping been over that vile bitch?" She asked, looking into my eyes with concern.
I sighed, nodding before taking a large swig of the Guinness.
"Look, Dimitri told me what happened in that room, you can talk to me about it." She explained, poking my elbow with the tip of her finger.
"What is there to talk about?" I replied, voice raising slightly as my emotions started to express themselves. "Talk about how I committed an act of cold-blooded tourture? About how I violated someone's basic human rights? And for what? Nothing."
I covered my eyes with my hand, taking a deep breath as I felt an immense amount of shame.
"Sean, please don't beat yourself up over her." She tried to reason, putting her hand on my shoulder. "After what she did to our friends and colleagues, even I would had jumped at an opportunity to make her feel even a bit of pain."
"That's the thing, Mara." I countered, looking her straight in the eyes. "I never would have done something like this two years ago… dear God, my parents would never forgive me for this."
There was another moment of silence, where Mara just looked at me with pity. She then picked up the other can of Guinness next to my chair, leaning back into the seat and looking up.
"You never have told me anything about your parents." She mused, cracking open the can and taking a sip. "Were they nice people?"
I sighed, nodding my head as I swallowed a lump in my throat.
"Yeah, they were the nicest parents a young boy could ask for." I replied with a smile, looking back out the window at the shimmering stars. "My mother was a tough but kind woman, had this glowing smile and long blond hair that always made my day a little bit better. My father was a tall, imposing man with gunmetal gray hair and a crude sense of humor. Both of them balanced the other out, and I looked up to them like a kid looks up to a superhero."
"I think you mentioned something about your father being a police officer a while back?" Mara continued, looking back over to me.
"Yeah, he worked for the Baltimore City Police Department for a decade. Loved helping people, serving the public trust, keeping the peace…" I said, the mental image of his scarred knee entering my mind once more. "He had to be medically retired after his kneecap was busted during a call one night. Suffered with it for the rest of his life."
Mara nodded in sympathy, her lips forming a frown.
"What about your mother? What did she do for a living?" She asked, taking another sip of the cold beer.
"My mom was a homemaker, though she did hold a job while my father was going through surgery and recovery." I answered, smiling as I pictured her face. "She was so smart, helped me learn so many things. Loved books, had her own big collection of them."
Mara smiled, swishing her can as my face changed.
"The last time I saw her, she yelled at me for refusing to go to church with them." I recalled, looking ahead once more. "I told her that what I was doing was more important, and that praying to a non-existent God wasn't going to help anything."
Tears started rolling out of my eyes as I realized what I had left her with for all those years. All that time she was alone… she must have been so disappointed.
My thoughts were thrown off as I felt Mara put her arms around me, giving me a tight hug as she rocked back and forth slightly.
"We all make mistakes, Sean." She said in a, bumping her head gently into mine as I wiped away the tears.
"I know." I replied, looking up at her. "There are so many things I wanna take back, but I can't. They're both gone."
Mara let out a small sigh, letting go. She picked up her can and opened the door, looking back at me.
"You know everyone misses you, right? To them, you're the patriarch of a big new family, and you don't even realize it." She lightly chastised, nodding towards the hallway before smiling once again. "Come on, let's go have dinner with the others."
"Heh, yes ma'am." I smiled, picking up my can of Guinness and following her out of the cockpit.
…
Serenity Valley, June 14th, 7:37 AM, 2183
…
Over the last month, things had been surprisingly quiet. With my personal project "Haven Plan" accepted and accomplished, more of the system was being harvested for resources. Slowly but surely, ships back in the heart of the Migrant Fleet were being equipped with our Reach System, and even though Reach itself wasn't a dextro-amino world, that didn't stop the Quarians from setting up shop.
The valley we initially landed in was now called Serenity Valley, much to giddiness of Dan and his sister. We had all watched Firefly in high school, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to show my downright nerdy side again. About eight miles west further down the valley, there was now Pacem Fields, where the Migrant Fleet Marines had established Camp Dolor.
Camp Dolor was already beginning to gain a reputation in the Fleet, being dubbed "Camp Pain" by many of the Marines that had gone through its training regimen. It had two purposes, flat and simple. The first, and most evident was to supply the Migrant Fleet Marines with proper ground combat training in preparation for retaking Rannoch. The second, and more hidden one, was to provide a better testing site for the experimental tech we were developing. About a week ago, Rael's research team finally finished refining the plasma cells I had been trying so long to perfect. He sent the new rifles to us, and we were currently running it through testing to make sure it could withstand rigorous field use.
That didn't matter right now, though. I right now I was more worried about the recent news coming out of Alliance and Citadel space. The Geth had been mostly "a non-issue" since the attack on Eden Prime, but reports were stacking up. Apparently, the Geth had decided to follow some nutjob called Saren, who had previously worked for some "peace-keeping" Council group called the SPECTREs. While that indeed was odd, there was also a lot of press on some Alliance character called Commander Shepard.
Apparently the reason why he's such hot shit with the press is because he's the first Human to ever be accepted into the SPECTREs. I didn't get why it was so important, I thought the Alliance would have been well-equipped enough to deal with the likes of the Geth. In all likelihood, suspected this Shepard character to be some kind of poster boy, like Audie Murphy from the Second World War.
I shrugged it off, looking back to Mara who was still sleeping soundly in our bed. We had all been given our own colony prefabs by the Admiralty for our services. Deep down, I knew the Admirals saw us as important assets and were just pampering us. I may have enjoyed being pampered back on Aldrin, but I had honestly gotten used to the Quarian lifestyle. It didn't feel right to sleep in a prefab when there were Quarians in the ships above us still bumping shoulders with each other.
Despite my insistence that it was too much, Mara made me stick with it. She was quite the persuasive woman when she wanted to be, and I found it hard to say no to her. It actually scared me a little bit because she reminded me a lot of my mother in certain moments.
I walked over and took a seat on her bedside, holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee. She slowly stirred, squinting her shut eyes before fully opening them.
"Mornin', sleepyhead." I said with a smile, offering her the cup. She pushed herself into an upright position before accepting it, taking a deep gulp. She sighed as the drink entered her system, clearly having a positive effect on her.
"Thanks, it has just the right amount of sugar." She critiqued, leaning over and giving me a kiss on the cheek.
"Ooh, in a good mood this morning, I see." I remarked, smiling as I jumped back onto the bed and crossed my legs.
"Any morning is a good one when I wake up from a night of uninterrupted sleep." She replied, looking seductively at me. "How 'bout you?"
"I slept like a baby." I said, leaning back and picking up my coffee mug from my bedside.
"Glad to hear it." She finished, setting down her mug and opening her omni-tool.
I stared out the large window at the sunrise for a bit, going over our itinerary for the day. I gulped down the bittersweet mixture as I remembered a deal I had made.
"You know, Rael wants us to give him the verdict on the Plasma Rifle soon." I reminded, staring into my coffee cup. "What's your opinion?"
"Well, I'd like to put it through at least one more field test, maybe try some more controlled environment trials." She suggested, looking over at me with a more focused expression. "Why?"
"He's really riding my ass on the prototype." I answered, rubbing the back of my neck. "He and Gerrel are eager to begin production soon, most likely for arming the Marines."
"He's such a blowhard, I swear." Mara remarked, shaking her head.
"To be fair, he's just trying to protect his people." I defended, knowing just how much the homeworld meant to him. He often mentioned making a promise to his daughter, Tali'Zorah, to build her a home there one. His heart was in the right place, but like most things I questioned the means to his end.
"I guess these Geth incursions into the Traverse aren't helping." Mara correctly guessed, as I thought back to the news stories I had read.
"Yeah, pretty much nailed the problem on the head.." I agreed, sitting back and opening up my inbox.
We had a long day ahead of us.
…
Pacem Fields, June 14th, 8:45 AM, 2183
…
"Come on, you worthless bos'tets! I know you can all move faster than that!" I heard a drill sergeant jeer in the distance as I looked out over the camp.
Camp Dolor had a layout similar to Camp Toccoa from World War II, where Easy Company was trained before being shipped off to participate in D-Day. Barracks were tightly packed next to each other, which were basically larger, stripped down prefabs packed with as many Quarian marines as possible. There were larger buildings off to the sides where weapons, armor, and other equipment were stored. All the way on the opposite end of the camp was our R&D lab, tightly locked away from prying eyes behind several trees and a foot of titanium plating.
The most prominent feature of the camp had to be the large communications array at the top of the nearby hill, which was clearly visible above the tree line. It had a bright red light on the top of it that would pulse in the night sky, visible for miles.
Mara, Dimitri, Dan and I all walked up to the guards, flashing them our IDs even though they knew full-and-well it was us. Inside the large, reinforced building, several of the Migrant Fleet's best minds teetered away with our tech, old and new. Dan and Dimitri's "Terahertz Locator", their wave-based detection device, was the current focus of a lot of them at the moment. They were trying to miniaturize it as much as they could so it could be mounted on suits or carried more easily. There was also the small issue of it causing mild nausea due to the sound waves it produced, which messed with the water inside a Quarian's ear quite badly.
It was a temporary health issue, non-life threatening and all that jazz, but Quarians didn't like throwing up into their helmets. It tended to be… messy.
Mara and I were going to try and finish up the trials on the Plasma Gun so we could finally start working on something else for a change. Today was going to be a fairly easy trial, all we would be doing is testing the weapon system in conjunction with an exo suit. The suits were great platforms for testing the rifles, mostly due to their built-in shield systems and whatnot. If hooked up properly, the suit's power could boost plasma efficiency up to 4%. A small margin, but worth looking into.
I was more curious to see if using the gun while it was hooked to the exo would cause any malfunctions, such as seizing or otherwise. If it did, we'd have to wipe the option off the list, no matter how much the power boost was a benefit.
Inside the indoor testing range, Private Cinta'Harra was already there waiting for us, hooked firmly into his standard-issue exo. He had painted the exo blue and black to match his envirosuit.
"Well Cinta, today should be our last test with the Plasma Gun if all goes according to expectations." I reassured, quickly tapping him with my closed fist. "We're going to hook your suit's power supply into the gun this time around and have you run both the standard and advanced courses."
"Yes sir." He agreed with a slight nod, walking over to Mara who was getting ready to connect both pieces of equipment with a power cord. The cell in the back of the Plasma Gun glowed, illuminating part of the workbench with a blue tinge.
Even with my favorite color being green, I loved that shade of blue.
"Alright, take this." Mara ordered, handing the gun to Cinta. He practiced proper trigger discipline as Mara attached the gun to his suit's primary power supply. "Alright, that should do it. Go to the start of the course and wait for the buzzer."
"Yes ma'am." He agreed with another nod, walking down the stairs as we made our way to the observation platform. From here, we had a good view of the whole course and cameras for our blind spots. The Admiralty didn't spare any expense for this project.
I rang the buzzer, sending the door at the beginning of the course slamming into the floor. Cinta was out the gate in less than a second, gunning down the holographic targets in his path with relative ease. He cleared out the main building before hitting a watchtower, sending the targets "falling to their deaths". He crossed the finish line at three minutes and forty-seven seconds to the clock, a new record.
"Good job, Cinta." Mara congratulated as he walked back up. "Now, tell us. Did you experience any problems with the suit while firing the gun?"
"No, everything seemed to check out." He answered bluntly, staring between the both of us. "Oh, except the barriers. They drained slightly while firing the gun."
"Interesting, likely a brownout issue." I hypothesized, rubbing my goatee. "If we set up a little program that regulates the power supply accordingly, it might mitigate or outright eliminate the draw on barriers."
"Or the drain could be associated with the difference between battery models." Mara suggested "There are significant differences between the ones we use for the suits and the ones we use for the rifles."
"I guess we'll find out after reviewing you suit's technical log." I finished while looking back to Cinta. He gave me a singular nod.
Just before Mara spoke, one of our techs came through the door with a datapad tightly clutched in her hand.
"Doctor, you have a priority message from Admiral Rael'Zorah!" She said out loud, running over and handing me the pad. "He said it's urgent."
"Thank you." I nodded, Mara waving away both her and Cinta. Once they were gone, we both stood shoulder to shoulder to see what was going on. A blurry image of Rael appeared as the connection was established, flickering a bit before clearing up.
"Captain, we've had a development back here in the Fleet." Rael started, sounding slightly nervous.
"What is it, Admiral?" I questioned, looking harder at him. "It must be pretty big if you're contacting us this close to the Plasma Rifle deadline."
He looked off to the side and inhaled deeply before focusing on me again.
"We were running a mining op on a rouge asteroid near Sigurd's Cradle when we ran across what appears to be a derelict Geth ship." He said, causing me and Mara to give each other worried looks before returning our attention to Rael. "I'm sure you can understand what this could mean. It is for this reason I want you to gather two of your team members and bring them back to the Flotilla for a research mission."
"You don't seem particularly excited about this." I pointed out, causing the Admiral's shoulders to slump slightly.
"Right now, I'm more worried about my people." Rael admitted as Mara and I listened intently. "We instituted a blackout among the ships that discovered it for now. I don't know if this is some sort of ploy to infiltrate the Flotilla, a disabled ship filled with active Geth, or if it's something left over from Saren's activities. At this point, I'm not willing to take any chances."
"I understand." I nodded, mind racing with possibilities and theories. "When do you want us there?"
"I would like to have you here as soon as possible. The sooner this situation is resolved, the sooner the other Admirals and I can call the all-clear and being salvage operations." Rael said with finality, leaning back in his seat. "See you when you arrive."
The transmission abruptly cut off, leaving the room with an uncomfortable silence as Mara and I stared into each other's eyes.
I needed to get a team together. And fast.
…
A/N: I am so sorry to everyone for not posting anything the last few months. I've been victim to a large series of… bad events. Half of the time I've been in the hospital recovering from a semi-threatening sickness I'm not willing to name, and the other half I've been struggling to keep a handle on the most stressful college semester I've ever had.
I think most people can agree that the will to write is greatly diminished when you have four or five essays to write at any given time. Imagine doing that three times over the course of one semester. That, coupled with my illness, has made my life particularly difficult as of late.
Anyways, from this point on I'm going to try and work on the story again. Hopefully, chapters will begin to come out on a semi-regular basis again, and if anything else happens to me again I will make sure to let you guys know. I can't apologize enough for leaving you guys hanging all these months.
I'd love to read any reviews, I'm always up for suggestions or constructive criticism. Stay tuned!