The warehouses on the banks of the Nile both looked and smelled like they hadn't been maintained in years. Corrugated steel buildings were caked with dirt and rust. It was the perfect ruse: well lit, innocuous, close enough to Thebes but far enough out of town to have the sweet privacy they wanted, plus the roar of the river drowned out any loud noises made by man or machines. It was a central hub, research facility, storage unit and living quarters all rolled into one.
Balthazar Nimr spotted two figures through the glass of his fishbowl office in the center of the warehouse's first floor. One was his tech genius: a pretty Filipino girl, Maple Figaroa, completing her stereotype with coke bottle framed glasses and an open laptop in her arms. The other was the thorn in his side: Brian Harker. While he had no official job title, he essentially was tasked with gathering information from highly specific sources and thus far, he hadn't been worth his pay. A pity: the Irish mob in New York had recommended him so highly.
He opened the door looking to them, hoping they had already decided between themselves who would go first. By the apprehensive looks on their faces, they hadn't.
"Ladies first," Harker volunteered. Maple and Nimr both shot him a disapproving look; Maple for being voluntold and Nimr because he knew of Harker wanted to go second, he couldn't have good news.
"Miss Figaroa, then," he stood back to let her in and closed the door as she set the laptop on his conference table.
"You're busy so I'll make this short," she said, pulling up a long string of indecipherable coding, "You asked me to hack into Industrial Illusion's mainframe to get the sealed files on the Valley of Kings research Pegasus did back in the 80's. The firewall is easy enough to hack, but there's a honeypot program hard wired into their router. If I break in, they will know the firewall has been breached and there's a chance it could come back on us." She pointed to a string of the coding that her boss could only assume was relevant to the situation. "I know you value our anonymity, so I figured I'd ask before jeopardizing it."
Balthazar looked at the laptop as he thought. "See if you can find any other research teams or archeological digs from the Valley of Kings that went unpublished." He said finally, "There had to be some lucky amateur or college student that found something and we just need to sniff it out."
"I'll get to it sir," she straightened and picked the laptop up. She knew better than to waste her boss's time.
"Thank you and good luck," he said as he opened the door to let her out and Harker in. "More bad news?" he scowled at Harker, shutting the door behind him.
"That kid you gave me isn't exactly easy to work with," Brian put his hands in his pockets and leaned on the table, "He hasn't said anything useful since you brought him here over a month ago."
"He's the best clue we have," Nmir objected.
"He's impossible!" Harker retorted, "He has no valuable information under the truth serums. He claims he has no memory of his last trip to Egypt. He has no family, nothing we can threaten him with or use to intimidate him. He has nothing to lose by holding information and nothing to gain by saying anything."
"Maybe you should escalate to more physical means of persuasion," Balthazar suggested irritably.
"And risk unleashing his ka?" Harker frowned, "You specifically instructed me not to do him bodily harm."
"Listen, we have to get him to talk," Balthazar insisted, "We know he has a link to the shadow games in the past and a connection to Egypt in the present. Seamus recommended you to me because he said you could get information out with as little blood as possible. Isn't there something else you can do?"
"The only option left is trying to 'medicate' him into submission with hallucinogens, but if that fries his brain, we're left with nothing."
Balthazar frowned. He hated having to figure out solutions for everything; isn't that why he hired experts in the first place. Why couldn't they make the hard decisions, that way if it was a mistake, he could blame them. "Ok, try the hallucinogens. If they don't make him talk, you'll have to figure something out."
"I am fortunate to have some on hand," Harker replied with a smug nod, almost smiling. "I can start right away if you'd like."
"I see no point in wasting time," Balthazar sneered.
"Very well," he nodded again and showed himself out.
Toward the back of the warehouse, in a room that had no windows was an interrogation style room: divided in two, separated by a two-way mirror, one with only a chair, the other with recording equipment. The subject was brought in and strapped to the chair at the wrists and ankles. He was exhausted and malnourished enough, the restraints were hardly necessary. Bone white skin sagged on his emaciated frame as sunken brown eyes pled for mercy he was certain no one nearby was apt to show. His shoulder length white hair hung in front of his face in unkempt locks. He could barely resist as Harker entered the room with a syringe, plunging the needle into his forearm, now riddled with so many needle marks they might have been mistaken for freckles.
"Please no more," he begged weakly as he felt the fluid enter his veins, "Please, I don't remember anything."
"Perhaps you don't remember, but your brain still may have information I plan to extract," Harker replied, placing a hand on his shoulder, "and trust me, the nightmares you get from the trip aren't half as bad as the nightmares you get from the withdrawals."
He couldn't cry, he was too dehydrated to produce tears, but he sobbed nonetheless.
"Now, perhaps you can tell me, Ryo Bakura," Harker knelt down to his eye level, keeping the hand on his shoulder, "What happened to your Millennium Ring?"