23: The Effective Interrogation

Whoever these people were, it was in Lyssa's estimation a very professional and organized operation. This was some kind of Alliance Intelligence op, or so she surmised; they could not have been with anyone else, not with the kind of tech she had seen in her so far limited exposure to the inner workings of the place. It seemed typical of her rotten luck these past few days to become embroiled with some black ops outfit.

She was alone in a sparse room, in which she was seated at a cheap fold-up table with her hands cuffed in front of her. This was no cell, or interrogation room from the look of it; this was something more akin to a waiting room, likely a spot for the people here to place anyone they were not treating as outright dangerous suspects, or anyone they simply did not know what to do with at the time. Lyssa found some small amusement in this notion, and there was perhaps some relief to be found in it as it suggested they were not going to torture her or send her to prison. They were certainly going to question her, and she honestly had a good feeling about that. They could question her all they wanted; she did not have much in the way of answers to give.

Right now, her mind was on Salak Vok. He was down the hall somewhere, likely getting interrogated. Given his reputation, they were not likely to treat him well. Even so, Lyssa could not simply sit by and let these strangers do the things she wanted to do to him. No, she had to get out of here and find the bastard. Make him pay for what he had done to her, as well as pay for all the human lives he had destroyed over the years. If she had to break out of here and start trouble, then that is exactly what she would do. The consequences she could deal with later, after Vok had a bullet or two stuck in him. Or three, or four, maybe five…

They had left her alone. It was not her turn to be questioned, at least not yet. Lyssa looked about the room and the few furnishings it had, among them the table, her chair and one other identical chair. A camera was up in one corner. She looked towards it, wondering if the feed was consistently monitored, or if the security technician on the other end was as bored as she was.

Her first order of business was to get out of here. How she might do that, she could not be sure. As she was not a high security prisoner, she suspected the odds were good that the guards would be willing to tend to her basic needs. Nonetheless, her hands were cuffed in front of her, which limited her options somewhat. Still, she had to try, and so she rose from her seat and strode over to the door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked, so she knocked against it with both hands.

'Hey, anyone out there?' She knocked a few times, before she heard a voice come through the keypad and intercom by the door itself.

'Please stay back from the door.' It was, presumably, the guard outside. He sounded bored. Lyssa could certainly relate.

'I have to use the bathroom.' She winced then, the excuse a weak one but admittedly it was the best one she could think of right here and now. 'Unless you want me to go squat in the corner, and I bet you're the guy who'll have to clean it all up…'

'All right. Please step back from the door.' She heard footsteps, and through the small, frosted window set into the door's upper section she sighted the silhouette of a uniformed security guard. Lyssa did as she was told, stepping back from the door enough so that the guard actually felt comfortable opening it. The door slid open, revealing the guard who eyed her with ample suspicion.

'Follow me,' he told her, and Lyssa fell into step behind him as he led her into the corridor outside. They were well away from the main operations centre, and instead traversed a short, quiet corridor. The toilet block was ahead, nestled in the far corner. The guard stopped by the door, eyeing her carefully.

'Make it quick, ma'am,' he told her.

'Sure, sure.' Lyssa held out her cuffed hands. 'Could I at least have my hands free? Kind of hard to wipe when they're cuffed.'

The guard met her gaze with something stern in his own. Lyssa put on her best smile, hoping it was enough to nudge the guard into her favour.

'Look, I can't go anywhere, can I?' She made a point to look about the corridor, wherein there was little other path for her to take but for the way they had just come. 'Plenty of guards around, for a start. You probably have orders to shoot me if I do anything, anyway?' She paused, trying to get a read on what the guard was thinking. He was very good at keeping an otherwise straight face. Young, probably a bit younger than her, his uniform a deep navy blue and immaculately pressed. Could have been former military; Lyssa had no idea what the hiring practices were here when it came to the resident security guards.

'I won't be long,' she told him.

'You're going to have to make do,' the guard stated. 'And you won't need to wipe. We have bidets.'

'Of course you do.' Lyssa looked down the left-hand side of the corridor, ensuring there was no one there. She glanced the other way, which ended at a set of security doors. And then she looked to the guard, noticed his small smug smirk, and decided then and there she would wipe it clean off of his face.

Her hands were cuffed in front of her, which gave her enough leeway for what she planned to do next. The guard lost his smirk when the first kick caught him in the groin, doubling him over. He grunted, clutching at his crotch, and as he stumbled forwards Lyssa delivered a potent uppercut with her cuffed hands, now clenched into one larger fist that struck the guard under the chin. His head snapped back, spittle flew and he fell backwards against the wall behind him. Dazed, Lyssa kicked him again, this time hard enough to snap his head to the side and send a mix of blood within the spray of spittle that escaped his mouth.

Unconscious, the guard slumped listlessly against the wall. Lyssa knelt down, searching the guard's pockets and vest and belt for anything useful. She found the key fob that unlocked her cuffs, freeing herself of them. She grabbed the man's ID card, as well as the pistol he wore, a Carnifex model.

There were cameras about the place, and so far her scuffle with this guard had been out of sight of the nearest one. She figured she had a short window to get to where she needed before someone watching those feeds realised that she was not supposed to be out and about and armed for that matter.

Salak Vok had been taken down another corridor. To get there, Lyssa went back the way the guard had taken her, before she took a right instead of a left. She moved at a brisk pace, hoping that if she looked like she belonged here, then those working in the operations centre now close by did not give her a second glance. Nonetheless, she was out of their line of sight after a moment, and she followed the corridor to a right-hand bend that took her to another length of it lined with more rooms. The interrogation one was down near the end, if the signage was to be believed. This also included a neighbouring observation room.

Lyssa had the guard's keycard, which made entering the interrogation room easy enough. She strode inside with a confidence she did not entirely feel, and as soon as the door closed behind her she made sure to use the keycard on the controls from this end. She locked it, and she saw the adjacent door to her right that opened into the observation room. She hurried for that one as well, the keycard locking it on her end. Sure, the higher-ups here likely had an override, but it would take them a few minutes to sort that out. She had time, and it was all the time she needed to deal with Salak Vok.

'You!' The batarian sounded more surprised than anything else. His hands were cuffed in front of him, and his ankles were chained to his chair. Lyssa started towards him, a newfound fury working its way through her. It was clear in her eyes then, a fire that had not been present before, one she intended to direct at the batarian criminal who had had her tortured.

Booker and Alvarez were quick to react to Rachel's call. Both stormed into the observation room from the corridor entrance, and they would have gone straight into the interrogation room were it not for the lock that had been engaged on the other side. One look through the window revealed to Booker that yes, that Cerberus operative had somehow got herself in to see the batarian.

'She's overridden the locks on her end,' Alvarez stated, as soon as he tried the door in here that led into the interrogation room. He stepped back, his gaze going to the woman in the neighbouring room who now moved with severe intent towards the vulnerable batarian. 'Jesus Christ, Booker, she's going to kill him.'

Booker frowned but did not answer straight away. Lyssa Raine certainly struck him as the kind of woman one did not trifle with, and part of him watched on with some small measure of admiration for the sheer gall she was displaying here.

'Send for a technician. I need these doors open.'

Alvarez started making the call straight away. Rachel looked to Booker, and then back to the scene inside. Booker knew what she was thinking, that maybe he wanted to let Lyssa have free reign over the batarian. It would certainly lessen the paperwork on his end.

'Who's your benefactor?' Lyssa barked, anger flaring, heart pounding. She raised the gun and pointed it straight at Vok. The batarian, to his credit, betrayed no fear. He simply sat stalwart in his chair, his four eyes scowling up at her.

'For Christ's sakes, I'm not playing around!' With one hand, she grabbed the underside of the table and pulled, lifting it off of its legs and throwing it over its side. It crashed loudly upon the concrete floor, yet even then the batarian barely moved.

'Someone set you up to hit that convoy. Who was it?' Vok was just a pawn in a much larger game. She needed to know who was at the top of this whole thing, whether it was Director Rickard or someone else. If she was ever to have a future, be it with or without Cerberus, then she needed to get to the bottom of what had really happened at the facility.

'Who's behind this?' Lyssa practically screamed the words. Vok said nothing, he simply met her gaze with a look in his four dark eyes that suggested little more than complete contempt for the human woman. Seeing this, Lyssa shifted her aim lower and fired. The shot was loud within the confines of the interrogation room, as were the batarian's subsequent screams when his left kneecap exploded in a shower of blood and fragments of bone.

'Tell me now, you four-eyed fuck!' She leaned forwards and pressed the barrel against Vok's other kneecap. The batarian was shaking in his chair, and his screams had given way to pained gasping. Blood gushed down his leg, trickling onto the floor. There was no denying the rush of adrenaline Lyssa felt then, bringing with it a mounting sense of satisfaction upon seeing the batarian in so much pain. Did that make her a bad person? Maybe, but she could not care less.

'Three seconds, Vok.' Lyssa leaned in closer, looking the gasping alien in his eyes. 'After that, you won't walk again.'

'Marelix!' The name escaped his throat as a yell, and Lyssa frowned. That was no one she knew.

'Who?'

'Lassius Marelix!' Vok gritted his teeth, trying to speak through the pain that wracked his leg. Lyssa stepped back, allowing the batarian a little space as to better encourage him to keep talking. 'Turian Captain, he told us who to hit and when. He paid us to do it.' Vok was practically screaming the words now, his previous smug confidence having dissipated altogether. Lyssa was not entirely sure what to do with this information, but it was a start. And it certainly coincided with the turian squad that had tried to kill her and Sevarn back at that hotel. Just how many parties were involved in this mess, anyway?

'Why?' Lyssa barked.

'I don't know why, you bitch!' Vok's shouts gave way to a more pleading tone. 'He told us there would be valuable resources in the convoy, weapons and the like.'

'And there wasn't, was there?'

Vok shook his head. At that moment, the door between the interrogation room and the neighbouring observation room clicked open. Two security guards barged in; weapons raised. Lyssa turned to them, holding up her hands in that universal sign of surrender. She made sure to drop the gun as she did so, leaving it to clunk upon the floor at her feet.

That operative, Booker, walked in after them. He did not appear angered, or even remotely annoyed. His features were more stoic than anything else, and he regarded the wounded and panting batarian with slightly narrowed eyes. Lyssa allowed the security guards to cuff her again, although this time she set a firm gaze to Booker.

'I'm not your enemy,' she told him. 'I can help you. I was at the Cerberus facility that got hit. I've been pursued ever since. I was even at that insurgent compound, the same one your people attacked.'

'I suspected as much.' Booker looked to the security guards, one of whom had just pulled Lyssa's arms behind her back. He seemed to be mulling things over, before he gave the guard a small nod. The guard removed the cuffs then, allowing Lyssa to bring her arms back around. A medical technician hurried inside then, moving to where Vok was seated as to tend to his wound.

'Do you normally shoot everyone you question?' Booker asked her, sounding almost wry.

'Only the batarians.'

He nodded his head in understanding, as if this was the most perfectly acceptable answer to the question.

'Get him stable and lock him up,' Booker ordered the two guards, and he motioned for the batarian. 'I'm sure he has more to tell.'

When Vok had cried out Marelix's name, Rachel had frozen. The look of mingled horror and realisation that had come upon her then had caught Alvarez's attention, and he turned to her, face set into a frown that carried with it a mix of worry and suspicion.

'Rachel, is something wrong?' He asked her.

Rachel's heart was pounding in her chest. She had a hand to her mouth, trying to smother the way in which it had fallen agape. She suddenly felt ill, and as if to confirm this her stomach rumbled. Granted, it had been a while since she had had a decent meal. Compounded with this latest surprise, it was no wonder she was feeling a little queasy.

'I'm fine,' she lied. She turned to Alvarez, seeing then and there that the man was unlikely to take that answer as final. Could she tell him and the others? Could she truly come clean with her treachery?

'If you know something, doctor, you need to tell us,' Alvarez stated, and there was something more in his tone now, a vague hint of a threat. Nothing outright, simply the suggestion that she better come clean here and now, or there may be more serious consequences.

'That name.' She swallowed, the implications of what she was about to do nearly too much for her to continue speaking. 'That name, I know it.'

'Marelix?'

'Yes.' She looked Alvarez in the eyes, and it was at that point she realised her own had begun to well with tears. 'I know him, Carlos. I know him because he's laying low in my apartment.' Now she began to weep, and a sob suddenly spilled forth that caught the man before her off-guard. 'Oh god, Carlos, it's bad. I let him use me. I let him…'

Alvarez, clearly unsure of what to do, stepped forwards and put a hand to her shoulder. Although they were not close, little more than colleagues, the man knew when to offer a consoling hand. In this case, he still remained uncertain as to what this woman cried over, but he knew then that it was serious.

'Lassius Marelix? You know where he is?'

'You have to protect my daughter,' Rachel said, and she wiped the first set of tears away with one hand. 'He has her. You can't let anything happen to her.'

Booker emerged from the interrogation room, and surprisingly he was followed the Cerberus woman, Lyssa. She wore no handcuffs, nor was she escorted by the guards. If anything, it appeared as if Booker had decided to bring her on board. Rachel found that she was not all that surprised by this, as Booker was known to have unconventional methods as director of this particular SOTIG office.

'James, we might have a lead,' Alvarez told him, and he turned Booker's way. He nodded to Rachel, whose face had become streaked with further tears. 'Rachel may know where this Marelix is.'

This caught her a scrutinising eye from Booker, with eyebrow quirked as he regarded her with some partial disbelief. Nonetheless, a seasoned agent such as James Booker knew not to rule anything out, so what surprise he felt quickly gave way to a simple acceptance.

'All right, then. Rachel, come with me. Same goes for you, Raine.' He turned to Alvarez again. 'And Carlos, find Kanen and Natasha. I want everyone in the briefing room in ten minutes.'

'Sure thing.' Alvarez activated the comms piece in his ear and began making the appropriate calls. Booker motioned for Lyssa to follow him, and both she and Rachel fell into step after the operative.

The tunnels underneath much of New Thebes offered a labyrinth of intersecting sewers and wartime bunkers and storage areas, some of which were full of munitions leftover from the Rebellions that had wracked the planet several years before. Sevarn passed by one room with a partially open door, within which containers marked with the Eclipse mercenary logo were stacked against the walls, full of heat sinks and heavy ammunition. Some of these things were glaringly close to ground level, with gratings in the ceiling above that went straight up onto the streets and allowed sunlight to filter into the grimy tunnels at intervals. Others went deeper, and Sevarn took note of more than one sign that indicated a danger of sudden flooding if certain automated floodgates decided to open in response to heavy rainfall. Thankfully, the weather outside was calm, although with the winter months closing in the rains would become more frequent and much heavier. This area of Anhur had a middling climate at best, humid in the summer, and dreadfully cold during the winter.

Sevarn followed the drell's direction, courtesy of his comms and the visor he wore that offered a heads-up display over his left eye. He kept his rifle at the ready as he moved through the tunnels, at times ending up knee deep in murky, foul-smelling water. The entrance he was after was at the end of a lower tunnel, a more traditional sewerage tunnel with small ledges to either side that offered a means to pass through without having to wade through the waste.

Rounding the corner that would take him onto this last stretch of tunnel, Sevarn paused. He cast his eyes down the darkened length, with no ceiling grates to bring in natural light. There were a few simple light globes set into the walls at either side, and what little illumination they provided brought the turian a curious sight. The thick bulkhead at the far end of the tunnel was wide open, and as he watched he thought he saw movement in the gloom beyond it. They were little more than shadows against the flicker of flashlight beams, but as he watched for a few seconds more the images ended almost as soon as he had seen them.

'You get that, Chas?' Sevarn kept his voice low, unwilling to risk being heard by anyone else who might be down here.

'I see what you see, so yeah, I got it.' A brief pause followed as the drell considered their options. 'That door ahead should be closed. I believe it's a security measure the people in that building put into place.'

'Well, it's a good thing it's open, then.'

'Not really. Someone else would have opened it, and I doubt it was anyone from the SOTIG office.' Chas sounded dubious. 'I was about ready to try and open it from my end. Someone else beat me to it, barely ten minutes ago.'

'You're sure?'

'I'm sure. When it comes to this kind of thing, Sev, I'm damn sure. Someone else is in the system.'

The implications were clear then: if someone else was intruding on the local computer systems as Chas was, then that meant there were others intent on breaking into the SOTIG building. And, from what Sevarn could tell, they had elected to use this sewer entrance as their means of ingress.

'Do you know who?' Sevarn asked.

'I could try and do some probing on my end, but if I do I risk exposing myself.'

'Aren't you supposed to be the best hacker on Anhur?'

Chas let out a huff, partly of annoyance and partly of amusement.

'Yeah, but if whoever these people are do happen to find out I'm on the system, then they figure they've got someone following them. That would put you at greater risk.'

A valid enough excuse, even if Sevarn did not entirely buy it. Chas was simply looking out for himself, Sevarn doubted he cared much for him or anyone else. He might have made out he cared about Lyssa, but even there Sevarn had his doubts.

'All right then.' Sevarn resumed his pace, starting for the open bulkhead and the darkened tunnel beyond it. 'I'm going in. Let me know if you find out anything new.'

He moved cautiously, traversing the grimy sewer tunnel before coming upon the open door. There, he shone the flashlight upon his rifle down its length, noticing that the waters below did not continue into this next stretch. This was more of a traditional tunnel, with slightly curved concrete walls at either side and a puddle-strewn concrete floor underfoot. The signage on the open doors made it very clear that no unauthorised personnel were permitted into this next tunnel. Sevarn figured that the warning hardly mattered now. Someone else had broken in ahead of him.

He stepped into the tunnel, searching the gloom ahead for any sign of movement. None stood out to him, and as he followed the tunnel he sighted a bend ahead, one made all the more apparent by the lights that were on where it started. He switched off his own flashlight then, thinking it best that he not have it announce his approach to anyone who may be lurking around that corner.

Coming upon the corner, he peered around, sighting another door at the end of a somewhat wider space. There was a set of double doors ahead that lay partially open, and he saw then a man in a navy-blue uniform lying dead before them. A wire fence of sorts separated a nearby workspace from the rest of the room, and it struck Sevarn then that he had come upon the entrance to the SOTIG building's basement level. The guard on duty had been gunned down, presumably with a suppressed weapon as Sevarn had heard no shots.

The dead guard was not the only thing present. Standing at the doors was another figure, one adorned in bulky, beige-coloured armour, a uniform that Sevarn recognized from the encounter he and Lyssa had shared days before at the old farm. Cerberus armour, on what he took to be a Cerberus trooper, one who was likely bored having been left behind to watch the rear approach.

'Cerberus,' Sevarn muttered. He waited for Chas' input then, but none came. The drell knew when to keep his mouth shut, and now was one-time Sevarn did not need any distractions.

The trooper was yet to notice him. Sevarn ducked back around the corner again, keeping to the darkness out of reach of the nearest light fitting. He considered his options, wondering if he might just shoot the trooper and be done with it. Of course, doing so would make a noise that would travel a long way down these tunnels, so he would be announcing his presence to every other hostile in the vicinity. He needed to lure the guard in closer, and he took a moment to consider how he might do so.

Sevarn slung his rifle about his shoulder and pulled his knife. He twirled it about in one hand, before he stood up and gently clinked the base of its hilt against a pipe upon the wall above him. The noise was short and sharp within the tunnel, and the acoustics were such that it retained much of its volume over a significant distance. The guard perked up when he heard it, and readying the submachine gun he carried he started forwards, slowly. It was evident in his slow, cautious pace that he was taking no chances.

Sevarn lay in wait about the corner. He made no further sounds, he simply remained concealed in the dark, back hard against the wall. Knife in hand, he waited until the guard was right upon the corner before he lunged around it, colliding with the armoured Cerberus soldier and sending the two of them tumbling to the floor. Sevarn concentrated a haze of biotic energy about his right hand as he plunged the knife forwards, adding further force behind the blow, enough so that it sank straight into that soft spot under the trooper's helmet.

The Cerberus trooper's gargles came through his helmet with a slightly muffled, electronic quality. Blood gushed out from around the blade, and the torrent hastened as soon as Sevarn pulled the knife free. He stood up, taking a look down at the writhing, jerking trooper. His opponent went to raise his gun in some feeble form of resistance, but Sevarn kicked it aside, sending it clattering across the floor. With that done, the last of the trooper's resistance appeared to escape him then, and he fell limp and unmoving in a puddle of his own blood.

Sevarn made his way for the door, rifle raised at the ready. He had a feeling he was about to walk into some serious trouble, something he seemed to be doing a lot these days. Nonetheless, he pushed on ahead, for there was little other choice put to keep pushing on and hope that however deep he might descend into the mess he was in, eventually he would be able to come up for air.