POV: Cynthia / LOCATION: -CLASSIFIED-
After watching me twirl my hair between my fingers for the last ten minutes, Looker finally gathers enough courage to break the silence.
"Do not worry, Cynthia. Cyrus will be restrained."
If he hurts me, I will return the favor in kind, multiplied by a factor greater than ten. What concerns me more was my careless slip of the tongue. Cyrus was not supposed to know about Charon. Looker was not supposed to know that I had revealed potentially damning information that could have given us the upper hand.
"The Elite Four specialist is not coming?"
"Lucian is busy," I lie. What he doesn't know will not hurt him. Besides, he'll just make everything more complicated.
When Cyrus appears, I condense my demands into one simple, clean glare:
"Talk and you're done for."
Clearing his throat, Looker dons an air of inexperienced professionalism and produces a stack of documents that strikes the table like rain pelting a window.
"You may call me Looker. Detective Looker. Today I come with the Champion of Sinnoh to obtain your confession, Cyrus of the Team Galactic!"
The only sign of acknowledgement is the faintest of sighs leaking from the very back of Cyrus's throat.
"First!" Looker says with duty-driven bravado. "I have looked over your hospital discharge summaries. Due to the extent of your injuries…"
"You are too loud," Cyrus mumbles.
"Who said you can speak?" I say.
His gaze meets mine, cold and dark like the sea. I double down on my unspoken threat. He is the first to break eye contact.
"Is everything okay?" asks the innocent detective.
I forego the introductory airs. "You are facing a long time behind bars. Stealing Pokemon. Making and possessing explosives. Organizing a cult with the intent of inciting domestic terrorism…"
Cyrus scoffs as if I had just discovered that two plus two equals four. He displays not even the slightest worry at the certainty of life imprisonment. Or so he pretends to be.
"My Crobat?" he says.
"Once the Crobat fully recovered, your Pokemon were rehabilitated and released into the wild," Looker says triumphantly.
I almost want to take him outside so I can smack some sense into his skull. Looker is the type to, once told a very controversial secret, will announce it to the world out of the goodness in his heart. There goes our first advantage in this interrogation.
For a while, Cyrus is silent. He searches the detective's eyes as if digging for a deeper answer, another one that actually makes sense.
"What is the Team Galactic's true goal?" Looker says.
"To destroy the world," I huff.
"To change the world," Cyrus says sharply. "We live in an imperfect world, plagued by strife and suffering. Because the human spirit is weak, we maim, we fight, and we store those tragedies in our memory only to cause ourselves pain for the remainder of our lives—"
To preserve the sanctity of our sanity, I interrupt his misanthropic whining.
"You and your minions wanted to blow everyone up."
"You cannot be more incorrect. Regardless, my minions of Team Galactic know nothing. They excel at being incompetent."
"They truly didn't know," Looker says. "When we questioned them, they expressed confusion at the cult's true goal."
"Exactly. You are wasting your resources by keeping them in custody."
Cyrus ends up answering all of Looker's burning questions. Ultimately, he reveals that he was the sole mastermind of this scheme, that he purposefully kept everyone in the dark to prevent anyone from questioning his true motives.
Admittedly, I am pleasantly surprised by how easily he complied to authority. Needless to say, this motherfucker is crazy. Like a lot of radicalized people, he believed he was doing the right thing for a higher purpose (see: fixing this broken world). So much so that he could excuse all the wrong things committed for the cause (see: experimenting on Pokemon, building bombs, kidnapping the icon of a region).
Once Looker obtains everything he needs, he smothers his documents to his bosom and announces, "I shall now present these to my superiors!" and runs out.
I am alone with a criminal.
"You didn't tell him about Charon?" I say with a voice spiked with spite.
"I know you still have questions for me," is his flat response. "I'd like to offer a proposal."
"You are in no position to ask for anything."
And yet I remain, glaring at him from the other side of the plastic table that separates us.
"Infiltrate my former company," Cyrus says without missing a beat. "Find out what Charon has done with my team and report back to me. If your mission is successful, I will tell you what you want to know."
This bastard is set to rot in prison, but he has the nerve to boss me around?
"You really think I can trust you? After everything you've done?" I snap.
"I have nothing but my word to give you, Champion Cynthia."
"And if you fail to fulfill it?"
"Then punish me as you see fit."
His word is as meaningful as a burning candle in a wildfire. Let's see how well it can hold up against a monsoon.