Chapter 24

"I'm not an ordinary prisoner."

-Mikhail Khodorkovsky

April 27th , 2216

"Throw him in there." Sergeant Victus ordered his comrade, keeping his gun trained on their prisoner as he followed the three Turian men who were collectively hauling the massive, heavy Human man in to their base's interrogation chamber. To say the man was heavy would be severely understating it - he had to outweigh most adult Krogan, if not a young Elcoor, how the hell could a Human being be so spirit's damned heavy?

"Yes, Sergeant." Grunted one of the Spartecs through tightly clenched teeth, they'd needed a sky-car just to get him off of the ground, their three strongest men were there just to make sure he didn't fall back onto it, let alone their excusably sub-par attempts to drag him across the ground. The damned Human was so heavy his dragging feet were leaving small grooves in the ground.

Victus had to get ahead of the men to slap the holo-plate that would let them in to the interrogation chamber, because it was clear they couldn't do it themselves. Once they entered, they would have thrown the Human into the chair, but he was so heavy they'd just dropped it as heavily and as uncomfortably as they could. Almost immediately thereafter they had him turned around and omni-cuffs were pinning his arms and legs to the ground, immobilizing the Human entirely.

"Remove his helmet, that vest, and his pauldrons." Victus ordered, and the men obeyed without any grumbles, though he could tell through the stiff movements they weren't too happy about it. He'd seen what the SIGMA's pauldrons could do, the Human version of the omni-blade was devastating, and he didn't want to give it any chance to attack.

It took them several long, somewhat frustrating minutes to find out just how to disassemble the armor, they ended up having to find its joints and prying them open with the limited heavy machinery they possessed, Victus let their wishes that they were at their main base slide, he understood, they were stressed out and they'd lost a lot of friends thanks to this monster. He shook his head as they brought the jaw-like machine to the joints underneath the SIGMA's helmet, however they trained or made these SIGMAs, they did it right.

Case in point, the very second the jaws touched the helmet's joint, the suit's automated features let loose a massive electric shock, to the point where the electricity visibly arced from the SIGMA's neck to the Spartec with the jaws. The jaws were fried almost instantaneously and the Spartec jumped so high and shouted so loudly he practically flew across the room, his very skin was smoldering.

Worse, the damned Human woke up.

"Get that man to medical!" Victus roared over the SIGMA's struggles, his rifle trained directly upon the angry man. "Calm him down!" He ordered, fingering his communicator, "we need backup in the interrogation cell!" He yelled in to it, as one of the Spartecs tried to forcibly pacify the SIGMA by slamming the butt of his rifle into the back of the Augmented Human's head.

All it did was succeed in denting the Human's helmet and almost shattering the rifle's stock. The Human tried to call on its biotics, but given its lack of space in which to move its hands, it couldn't make any of the gestures required to try any of the more explosive attacks, all he could do was increase and decrease his own mass, and that did him very little given the nigh-indestructible chains the omni-cuffs were attached to.

The SIGMA continued to struggle as the injured Spartec was brought outside, and their reinforcements streamed inside. By the time all was said and done, there were nearly two dozen rifles aimed at the Human, who finally got the hint and calmed down. Things were tense for an entirety of sixty seconds, as twenty hooded, monocled Spartecs stared down the barrel of their rifles at the SIGMA, who similarly stared back at them from behind his lifeless golden visor. For the life of him, Victus couldn't tell who was more intimidating - his men and their guns, or the cold, ironically inhumane stare of the man behind the mask.

"You are a captive of PMC Spartec." Victus said slowly and clearly, he'd heard rumors that Humans never got Citadel translators out of some ill-placed spite, his English wasn't fluent, it was largely impossible for Turians to speak English period, but they could string to string some words together. "We follow Turian model for Captive of War." Saying 'Hierarchy' in English, literally was impossible for Turians, so he simply used his species' name as a replacement, similarly, it was incredibly difficult for them to make out the letter 'S', thus he avoided it when he could.

The prisoner didn't react in the slightest.

"You are hurt." Victus said simply, "we want to help you."

Still no reaction.

"I… implore you allow my men to remove your armor."

"No." The prisoner finally responded, his voice deeply augmented and masked by his helmet; what surprised Victus was that the prisoner spoke in what he instantly recognized as Palsdan - much like Turians, Humans were largely unable to replicate their language, but they could pronounce the simple words.

The Turian shook his head exasperatedly, "do you have a translator?" He asked, the Prisoner nodded, Victus felt relieved. "Listen, we may be a Mercenary group but we follow the Hierarchy's standards when it comes to Prisoners of War." He said, "you're hurt, bleeding, bruised, have a great deal of bullet wounds, and you're radioactive." He listed off, "we are required by our chain of command to give you medical assistance."

"I refuse foreign aid." The SIGMA responded succinctly.

The Spartec sighed, though his - and everyone else's - rifle was still glued to the SIGMA. "At least let us remove your helmet, we want nothing to do with the Alliance's war, we would barter your life with them." In truth, such a thing was illegal in the Hierarchy - prisoners couldn't be traded for monetary or resource value, only other prisoners - but he had to play his mercenary role.

"They will not deal with foreign mercenary powers." The SIGMA informed them, the Spartec could tell what the man meant: Whatever mission he'd been on must have been deniable, so if the Spartecs went to the Alliance with this, all they would get would be confused glares and stubborn denials.

"Then we'll execute you and be done with it." The Spartec bluffed.

"You abide by Hierarchy standards. It is illegal for the Turian Hierarchy to execute enemy Prisoners of War without valid reason. I am unarmed and injured, you have no reason." He listed off startlingly quickly, "and to do so would not only ostracize you from the Hierarchy, but would earn you the ire of Sparta, the Alliance, and the Salarian Special Tasks Group."

The Spartec blinked, wondering what the Salarians could possibly have to do with this, but he tossed aside those thoughts. The damnable man had him cornered, and they both knew it.

Victus decided to try a different approach, Human biotics were largely underdeveloped, to the point where, if they used their abilities too much, they would burn through whatever food they had in their stomach and then start burning their own muscle mass for energy. This Human had been fighting his men for two days straight, and they had evidence of extensive biotic use throughout, that meant he had to be starving by now, and luckily for it, they kept levo rations with them, for situations almost exactly like the one he found himself in right now.

"We have food for you." Victus said, "I know you've burned yourself out on your biotics, you're no good to yourself or your Alliance dead."

"I'll live." The man stubbornly refused.

"No, you won't." The Turian pressed, "please, we don't want to hurt you, we -"

"If you didn't want to hurt me, you wouldn't have tried to kill me before, and knock me out just now." The Human countered, "I will accept your help if you give me my pistol."

The Spartec blinked, What? The Human didn't ask for a shuttle off-world, or an FTL Comm to his people, he wanted a gun?

"We cannot do that."

"A SIGMA must never be without his sidearm." The Human repeated, the way he said it made it sound like some kind of mantra, like something that had been said to him so many times that it resonated from within his very bones.

Victus sighed deeply, praying to the spirits this wouldn't explode in his face. "We will give you your pistol with the magazine and the firing mechanism removed." Human guns had a lot more moving and interconnected parts than Citadel weaponry, but were deceptively simple to take apart and effectively neuter.

"I can accept that."

The Turian blinked again, the Human seemed religiously dedicated to the possession of his gun, and yet he was willing to get a bastardized, gun-shaped dataweight instead? He shook his head, screw it, he'd never understand Humans. "Lower your weapons."

Things went somewhat quickly after the Spartecs and the SIGMA reached an ultimatum, after he'd been given his pistol, the Human seemed pacified, which allowed the Spartecs to finish cleaning up and making livable their base. It had been close to a half of a decade since any Turian had lived here, and it was obvious in the dust that had settled and the lack of use many of the tools present showed. It took them a day to do, but it was made liveable eventually and soon it was running like a well-oiled Turian machine. The SIGMA always, invariably, had two guards on twelve-standard-hour shifts guarding him, and the only time his cuffs were removed were when he was given his nutrient paste. The SIGMA had proven his stubbornness when he'd simply hooked the tube of paste to the front of his mask and turned it, before proceeding to eat the paste through the helmet, no doubt an innovation afforded to him by the Quarians.

The Human also never slept, throughout the three days he'd been a captive, plus the two he had fought, he hadn't been shown sleeping once. It was very clear he was exhausted, but he hadn't been shown succumbing to temptation to sleep. He likely had correctly predicted what the Spartecs would do if he fell out - take the damned helmet off and try to catalogue his injuries. They did have standards, and even if the Human didn't want help, they would at least put themselves in a position where they could help if it came to be that he couldn't refuse it any longer, lest he risk his life doing so.

A week passed from his capture before he finally slipped up and fell out. It took them a half hour to realize that he was actually sleeping and not simply that still. As quickly as they could, the Spartecs had started acting on their plans to remove the helmet. Fortunately for them, during that week they had gotten intel from Command, who had in turn gotten it from the black-sites on Palaven. Back during the Turian-Human war, the Hierarchy had gotten temporary possession of a SIGMA's corpse, and before the base that held it had been burned to the ground, they had figured out how to disassemble some parts of their armor, even if the Operative was still wearing it. This Human was wearing a different model, but it still held that their methods could work, especially since the armor had no power - they'd removed its power source before they'd imprisoned him, they knew well and good how powerful the Humans' 'power armor' was.

The Human had nearly bit off the mandible of the man who successfully removed the helmet; from what Victus was aware of, the Spartec was still in medical, and would likely have teeth-mark scars for the rest of his life. Regardless of the resulting injury, they had gotten his helmet off, and what they'd discovered has astounded everyone.

It was a child.

They'd had to confirm it on the extranet, but it was, indeed, a Human child's face that stared back at them, loathingly, and covered in wet Turian blood and dried Human blood. It seemed impossible, but the child had the body of a fully-grown - perhaps even overgrown - Human adult male, but his face was barely pubescent.

Ignoring - and again stating - how impossible that should be, Victus found himself wondering with horror what they had stumbled across. What was this thing they had captured? Was it a machine? Was it an adult who simply looked like a child? Or was it truly a child? Each solution held questions of its own - if it were a machine, why did it look like a kid? If it were an adult, how could it look like a kid? And if it were a child, how in the land of the Spirits could it have such a grown body, and an ill-grown face? - but they all revolved around the simple fact that, despite its obvious strength and skill, what they were dealing with wasn't a simple SIGMA operative.

Right?

Victus shook these thoughts away after his Commander ended up voicing the same shock he had voiced when the mask had been removed. Coinciding with the mask's removal had been the SIGMA's resortment to saying only his name and serial number, they got absolutely nothing else from it afterwards.

"This can't be physically possible… I've seen Human children, I've killed one, and that is what they look like." The Commander said, dumbfoundedly, "but to have such a developed body…" He shook his head. "Impossible."

"Commander, had he not slaughtered my men I would think this is a joke being played." Adrien Victus said bluntly, pointing from the image on his omni-tool to the Human Prisoner of War in the other room. "That is not the face of a Human Man, far from it that is the face of a Human boy. Had he not slaughtered my men, I would not believe it, even if I saw it with my own eyes!"

"You said that already." The Company Commander's own voice was slightly disturbed.

The two Turian Spartecs had expected most anything to come out of disrobing and disarming the Human. Victus had actually been ready to swear by the spirits of his very ancestors that they had been dealing with one of the 'Sapiens Mechs' he'd heard so many rumors about, whereas another Spartec not a part of his squad had expected some sort of bio-engineered super Human in the same vein as a SIGMA. The Company Commander had been expecting a veteran like they hadn't yet met, one that had fought through the Human-Turian war, the Mercenary Wars, and their Rebellion.

Everyone present had been completely unable to resist the double-take, and a few went so far as to widen their eyes or slacken their mandibles, when the removal of the Human's helmet had revealed a face so full of youth that Victus had been inspired to look onto the Extranet pictures of adolescent Human males and compare them with veteran adult Humans. The resemblances between the Human, who only referred to himself as 'John-S2-15', and a Human teenager of the age of fifteen were almost exact, save for the height and build: The 'kid' was seven and a half feet tall and looked like he was built like a Krogan.

"But look at him, sir!" Victus gestured to his omni-tool again, then at the Human, who was separated from them by three and a half inches of one-sided glass, and the thick stone walls of their fortress. "This cannot be a Human adult, there is no possible way he is of legal military age, even by our standards!"

"But he will not reveal his age to us." The Commander mentioned off-handedly. "He already knows that by simply removing the helmet he's unwittingly divulged blacklisted secrets to us, he won't reveal anything else if he can help it." He reasoned, before he shook his head and ran a hand across his weary face. "Do we even know if he is a child? He has the body of an adult Human, I would venture to guess he may even be more physically developed than their SIGMAs..."

"That is the confusing part... Unless we get some blood to work with, we cannot know for sure." Victus continued speaking before the Commander could question his statement, "and whenever we try to go for blood or tissue samples he... Well... Bites."

The Commander stared at Victus, eyes wide and blinking, a bemused expression on his face, he hadn't expected that answer. "Bites?"

"Bites." The sergeant confirmed, "Three of our men are still in the medical ward with the scars to prove it."

The Commander was dumbfounded, "he has strength enough to pierce our hides?!"

"He's a Human, sir. A SIGMA at that. His savagery seemed to be augmented along with his muscular strength."

The Commander looked back into the interrogation room, his eyes now squinted shut as he thought hard.

"What are you thinking, sir?"

Several minutes passed by as the Company Commander was silently mulling over his thoughts. "We were made as a counter-terrorism unit." He said, "our first 'company' numbered in at only five. We were only ever used once before the Humans came. Then the Hierarchy knew it needed warriors of a different caliber... Warriors willing to do what was necessary in order to protect the Hierarchy."

Victus caught on, a revolted look growing in his eyes. "But... Torturing children?" He asked. "That is illegal in every civilized society… Even the Terminus systems frown upon it."

The Commander grinned listlessly. "Apparently, it isn't as illegal as we thought in the Systems Alliance." He said, "if he doesn't give us the information willingly, some ventures with Doctor Seldad should loosen his tongue."

Ignoring his own morals in this, Victus pressed on a different, more clear-cut method of reasoning. "Sir, consider for a moment that he is a child; if the Alliance caught even the slightest wind of this, it could start a war."

"Something tells me, Lieutenant, that the Alliance won't even acknowledge this child's existence." The Commander emphasized, though he too had the weary look on his face that said he didn't at all like what he was about to sign off on doing.

For the Hierarchy and his citizens, right?

"I will say nothing to you." The Human said slowly, automatically, as his head lolled about.

Days had begun blurring together for John-S2-15, ever since his helmet had been removed, the passage of time had only really been marked by the time between beatings, during which he was given light medical treatment and pills that kept his body as it was, no nutrient malnutrition.

"We've been at this for days, Human. You will give out before I do, I can guarantee that." Said the Interrogator, as he stretched his talons. "What is your age?!" He slammed his fist into John's chin.

"John-S2-15." John said on auto-pilot, as his head whipped back and forth.

"Age!" For all the patience the Interrogator had, it was wearing thin. "You Humans –" he slammed his fist onto John's knee, blood was drawn - "record your age as increments of a single solar rotation! Standardized by your Earth and its orbit around Sol I want your age!" He roared, slamming his fist onto John's nose.

The man seemed to be an expert at Human biology, every blow he blew was aimed directly at a place where it caused John exorbitant amounts of pain. The worst part for John was how his augmentations were working against him in this fact. They were designed to enhance his strengths and cover his weaknesses, but simple Human biology wouldn't be ignored, and therefore his enhanced genetics translated into enhanced pressure points. This is what the mechanical augmentations were supposed to cover, but John – unbeknownst to the Turian – had yet to receive those. Meaning that, until he worked out a way to escape, he was stuck feeling two to three times the pain a normal Human would feel when beaten in such a way, the worst part being that the Interrogator was asking him questions he didn't truly have the answer to, his last name, for instance, having been a fact he'd forgotten long ago, and his age, being a fact that he hadn't thought about in years.

"John-S2- -"

The Turian slammed his open hand into John's throat, killing his sentence as he was speaking it. John coughed violently as his windpipe was collapsed, after several seconds he could breathe again, but blood was rapidly traveling up his throat.

The Turian stood there for several moments, before he shook his head. "Commander, this is getting us nowhere. Physical pain does nothing to him." To prove his point, the Turian – talons ready – slashed at John's recently exposed chest, leaving two deep, long gashes that would no-doubt turn to scars when they healed. John, in response, scowled deeply in pain but said nothing, silently fuming that he hadn't been able to resist them tearing off his armor, and even his skin-suit. Though he would never admit it in his life, he was surprising himself at how well he was holding up to torture, before he'd been deployed on Siler, he'd actually estimated he'd hold up to three days before he cracked in some way, shape, or form.

The entrance to John's room opened up, inviting the Turian to leave, and leaving John to his thoughts and his injuries. He knew for a fact the Alliance wasn't coming for him, not of their own volition, he had specifically told them to wait for his call. He knew he needed more information on this place, but the hazy state in which his mind was through the constant torture sessions was hindering these goals, and the fifteen minutes of exercise outside each day was proving difficult for him to get what he needed.

However, difficult didn't, in this equation, equal impossible, he was building a mental encyclopedia of this place, which he was tentatively calling 'Location Alpha'. He knew, from the snippets of conversation he'd heard, that he was the only prisoner of the mercenaries he was trapped by. Though, he was beginning to wonder if 'mercenaries' was the right word for what these 'Spartecs' were, as they seemed to operate on a military level, with the supplies and weapons to match. The only thing John couldn't find with these people was armor, all of them wore the kevlar-like clothing, with what John recognized as energy shield generators hooked into their belts. This suggested to John that they were some sort of new outfit, given the experimental technology not yet proven or ready for standard infantry.

Better yet was their foolish Lieutenant's actions the day John had woken up: He'd given John his gun. While the man had indeed removed his gauntlets, pauldrons and helmet, he hadn't removed his breastplate. Inside the breastplate was a standard set by John Doe S1: Spare parts for his pistol. It didn't at all matter what he needed - a spare slide, firing pin, trigger, whathaveyou, he had it, and a magazine to boot. All he needed was one single opportunity to make it to wherever they were holding his armor, and forty seconds to take apart the hidden compartment, retrieve the parts and the magazine, and then twenty five more seconds to take the gun apart and he'd have it up to standard in no time flat. Well, he'd also need the new cuffs to get taken off - they'd done away with the chains and had simply resolved for tried and true handcuffs, but that still meant his hands were completely immobilized.

I just need... More information. Was John's mantra, were the words that kept him going each day. He knew he had the supplies to escape, he just needed to gather them, the thing he was lacking was the information the Alliance needed on these people, because they were working with the Batarians, who were using Warp Tech, which meant the two had some sort of mutual partnership, meaning that they too could have the travel technology that could bring the Citadel to the Alliance's level, technologically.

Just... How do I get it? His head still lolling back and forth, John scanned his room for the umpteenth time. The room was made of stone, so there was the possibility of tunneling out, which could work, given the lack of cameras in the room, and the lights-out-after X policy the base operated on. The problem with that was the guard they posted outside, they checked in like clockwork every hour, which meant that any escape plan or attempt to sneak out on John's end would be discovered quickly.

After a few minutes, John's eyes locked in on the toiletries in the room. It was a simple mirror, sink, and toilet combination. John knew something was relevant here, otherwise his instinct-prone, detail-oriented mind wouldn't have locked on to it.

Wait... John got to his feet and stumbled over to the toilet. While his feet weren't bound together by omni-cuffs, his hands were, so his options for self-sanitation were limited. He peered into the toilet, then at the sink, and noticed two things.

One: The toilet had a removable top.

Two: The sink had exposed pipes running into the wall.

The gears started turning in John's head as he went back to his chair. This room may be unfit for nightly escapades, but a different room would provide different opportunities.

I just need my hands... John felt within him, looking for that familiar warmth that came with his biotics. And more food. He had certainly used his biotics during his battle against the Spartecs, but when he knew capture was inevitable, he limited his use so they would limit their suppression, his tactics worked, and they had no clue he was as powerful a biotic as he was. They knew indeed he had eezo-sensitive nodes, but they had no idea how powerful he was with his biotics.

"Commander, I have an update for you on John-S2-15's Gene Mapping." Said a voice over the intercom.

The Company Commander nodded and activated the vid-screen. "What do you have?"

"You wanted me to look for signs of genetic or mechanical augmentations. We've found the former, but no traces of the latter." Said medic, "my theory is that he is, indeed, a SIGMA operative… Just a different kind."

"If he's a SIGMA, then how is he so young?" The Commander asked, "or does he simply look it?"

"No sir, his cells are indeed as young as his face suggests, but the augmentations given to him are what is - understandably - throwing you off. The Humans, essentially, forced the child's skeletal and muscle structure to grow. I don't know how they missed his face, or if it even was missed in the first place, but the fact remains that parts of him have been… If you'll forgive my terms - selectively aged. In other words, they gave him the body comparable to a young Krogan, but he still retains the aesthetic features of a Human child." He left out the fact that a good quarter of everything he was saying was guess work - he had good tools, but he wasn't anywhere near intelligent enough to dissect systemic genetic augmentations.

The Commander sat back in his chair, "this seems entirely too convoluted." He shook his chair, muttering about how simply impossible this should be. Some kind of law had to have been broken to get this, it had to have been.

The Medic misunderstood him, "I'd need better tools and more personnel to even begin to understand how some of this works, sir." He lamented, "but the fact of it remains: No matter how old his body profile makes him, the thing we've captured is still a child."

The Commander sighed, "I can't make any promises." He said, leaning forward. "Keep doing what you're doing and learn what you can. Make sure all of the data is backed up, we'll fire it off to the Hierarchy when you've gotten everything you can." He nodded, and after the medic did the same, he cut the connection.

Human… Child… SIGMA. The pieces to the puzzle were there, but he was either missing some or the order was far too confusing to put them into place. The Alliance has far too much of an opinion of themselves to do this. Does that mean they are merely projecting an image? Is there the Alliance we see, and then the Alliance that is? How could they abduct children to train them for war? Even we don't do that, that's barbarism only matched by the Krogan. He felt tired, as he often did whenever he tried to make sense of Humans. Whoever brought this idea up to them is a morally devoid… Sick… Twisted… Perhaps even evil person.

Unfortunately, the Commander's thoughts were cut short, as just after he got finished lamenting how morally backwards the Human had to be, their own morally ambiguous torturer – the self-proclaimed Doctor, Lieutenant Seldad – entered the room. The 'Doctor' was notorious for the results he got after sessions with his 'patients' ran as long as they did with the Human. The look on his face, however, told the Commander that he was in for disappointing news.

"Nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing." Said Seldad, "I've asked him the simplest questions of all, that is how you begin." He explained, "and yet he tells me nothing... I've only seen dedication this solid in the Humans I treated during the Human-Turian war." He said, angrily, as he sat down. "I'm beginning to think I'm taking the wrong approach."

"You're beating him within an inch of his life, three times, each day." The Commander deadpanned, "that may be what he's trained to resist."

"That is why I'm considering the Forced Meld Device."

This considerably frightened the Commander, though not for the obvious reasons. "You do realize that in any possible event of an escape, he will reveal the existence of this device and the Hierarchy will suffer on two fronts." No one liked to admit it, but asides from the Humans, the Asari were indeed the only other power around that could possibly defeat them in a straight-up war. If they figured out they had something like this, war would quickly become inevitable.

Seldad leaned forward, "sir, the way I see it, one month of his mind being forcibly probed and stimulated by that device will be exactly what we need to loosen him up a little. With the FMD, it's only a matter of time."

The Commander waited for several seconds, as he mulled it over in his mind. It was true, their MD would give them the results they needed, but it was only barely out of the prototype phase, several people still questioned whether or not it was lethal. Then take into consideration the repercussions of the SIGMA Child's escape, he would bring this to the Alliance, who would let it slip for the Asari. The Turians would be destroyed, sooner or later, it would happen. The Turian shook his head, "no." He stated firmly. "The last time a Turian made a rash, horribly uninformed decision, an alien empire revealed itself and dominated us in warfare. Request denied."

Seldad looked at the Commander blankly for a moment, his mandibles slack. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Denied. I need time to think."

"Alright, then." The Turian got to his feet, and gave a crisp – if, angry – salute, before he exited the room.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

John had been slowly, methodically, and repeatedly saying that single word for an hour now. He stood only a few inches from the several inch thick, one-way window. He didn't know exactly where the guard was, but he knew he was standing in front of the door, and he could hear him. He also knew that he had the patience to do this for as long as he needed to, the only variable was whether or not the guard did too. John assumed he didn't - very few people could compare to how patient a SIGMA could be if he had to, an example came to mind that a SIGMA had broken the record for how long any known living being had lain completely still and immobile. The previous record had been an Asari Commando waiting for the perfect shot, she'd stayed completely still for six entire days, only having to move when her dehydrated body began betraying her in its desperate plea for water and even a little sustenance, the SIGMA had lasted thirteen days before he'd gotten the shot he'd needed, and made it.

Yes, John could wait, he could wait as long as he needed to.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

Still nothing.

John had spent hours formulating exactly how he would be reassigned a room, and when he'd decided his plan was solid, he'd begun it. All he needed to get it started was the guard to lose his patience. If nothing else, he would give the guard one thing: He did indeed have some modicum of patience. But he wouldn't last - John wouldn't let up. One of the both of them would eventually crack, and it wouldn't be John.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard."

Nothing.

"Guard.

Nothing.

"Gua-"

"SPIRITS, WHAT?!"

Bingo.

The Turian on the other side of the wall finally gave in under the SIGMA's relentless assault, John hadn't even needed the speakers in the room to hear his deep, enraged, and deafeningly loud roar.

"I need use of my hands."

"You called me constantly for over an hour for THAT?!" The Turian furiously, if exasperatedly, roared, "I cannot do that, Human!"

"Have you ever seen a Human's bowels explode?" John asked, his face straight and his tone blank. "There's a blockage and I need to unblock it. In order to do so I need use of my hands." John was secretly thankful they had only been 'feeding' him through food paste and nutrient pills, it helped his story, because there was no earthly way they could possibly even know he was lying to them.

There was silence for several minutes straight. John could clearly imagine a slack-mandibled Turian staring at the one-way mirror with a horrified expression on his face. "Are... You..."

"Do you want to find out?" John asked bluntly. "For the record, I problem against it, as it would solve the painful problem, but I do not know if you are willing to shove your finger up my anus -"

"You've got ten minutes!" The Turian said quickly, before John's cuffs deactivated, John silently wondered if the Turian was ruing the fact that he had no gag reflex.

John walked over to the toilet, in all honesty he had no desire to use it, he had no need either. Nutrient paste was just that - paste; it made no waste to be excreted from his bowels, and the only waste he currently possessed was from the meager meal aboard the Sol's Fury. What he had to do with alien toilet, however, was put on a show. John bent down and wrapped his arms around its base, and gave a test pull, it was fastened into the ground, but his enhanced muscles would make this easy, all that he needed to do was apply a little effort.

With a loud groan, slowly building up into what John had to put effort into sounding like a painful shout, John began wrenching the toilet from the ground. With a few seconds of effort, he got the desired effect, and it was successfully broken off of the ground. Immediately water and the bluish-white alien sewage began spewing forth from the pipes, John dropped the toilet and his ragged prisoner-standard pants just as his omni-cuffs reactivated, slammed together with a loud magnetic clang and immobilized his hands, and the door opened.

In came the Guard, his rifle raised, but almost instantly after he saw the state in which John was in, he almost stumbled over himself, eyes wide, mandibles hanging, jaw slack.

"I told you I had a blockage." John said innocently, tone still even and face still blank.

"I..." The Turian looked from John to the small geyser of water coming out from the exposed pipes, and activated his omni-tool. "Security... Maintenance..." He looked at John, "and medical to holding cell."

Now, for step two. Thought the SIGMA, barely even registering the continued look of pure horror on the Turian's hooded face.