“This is the part I hate the most.”


    Geon Karsk is putting on sterilized clothes as if he’s a surgeon preparing for brain surgery. That isn’t far from the reality of the activity he’s about to participate in. Gloves, coat, mask, white hat… this is not the outfit of only a medical surgeon, but also an Ultra operative preparing to extract the “truth” from whoever is unfortunate enough to have themselves questioned.


    Oliander Schultz is already in the “Operation Room” and the subject, ?rk Zaroj is still unconscious. A gangbanger and requisitioner of goods for the underbelly of Papülonis, he’s always thought he’s safe – out of reach. Who’d put their hands on someone working for such menacing forces, people like him all likely think. Even IF a government operative, everybody has something to lose. ?rk, however, is in for a rude awakening.


    Oliander says in his nasal voice: “You wanna take the lead on this one?”


    Without saying anything, Geon Karsk takes a remote from the silver equipment table and presses a button on it. Tubes connecting to ?rk fill up with fluid and he slowly comes to. When he gets to his senses and realizes where he is, his vitals’ monitor lights up. As mentioned, this is not a room anyone ever wants to be in.


    Slowly, ?rk wakes up, feeling groggy from the mix of drugs used to sedate him. As he doesn’t have any idea … well … he has SOME idea… where he is, he panics. His first instinct is to try to show that HE, the guy strapped to the operating table, is in power.


    “Yoooo, what the fuck! Do you have ANY idea who I am? You and your friend are dead! YOU HEAR ME???” he yells.


    Geon remains quiet. He is green enough to believe what he’s doing but he doesn’t yet have the stomach to do it himself. He knows protocol, he knows what’s expected of him, but it’s better if Oliander had the lead.


    “Mister Zaroj, do you realize you’re strapped onto an operating table… And I’m the surgeon,” asks Oliander.


    ?rk falls quiet.


    “I think you are well-aware. For your own sake, do choose to be informative,” says Oliander.


    “What are you going to do? You gonna fuckin torture me? You just a fuckin bolts and nuts in the big fucking machine! YOU THINK YOU MAKING A DIFFERENCE? YOU THINK I GOING TO TALK??? YOU GOT NO IDEA WHAT I BEEN THROUGH! YOUR MOTHERS ARE WHORES!!”


    “Mr. Zaroj… Everybody thinks they don’t have to talk. Right until the interrogation actually begins. I’m giving you a gift as an opportunity surrender the information you have. You can walk out of here a free man with nothing to fear from Ultra.”


    “A free man? You gotta be shitting me you fuckin retard! You think Mirra or anyone other will let me walk?”


    As he keeps talking, Geon Karsk hands a device to Oliander, similar to a monkey wrench but the claw has a bigger surface area.


    “Walk, you say. How appropriate…” says Oliander as he puts his knee between the monkey wrench and presses a button. It begins to clamp down around it and soon Zaroj is screaming at the top of his lungs.


    “OHHHH GAWWWD! OOOOUUUYIIEEEEEEEAAAAA” he screams.


    “This device is designed to stress-fracture your knee. This will splinter the bone and the cap completely unpredictably, making it extremely hard to mend even for the top surgeons. They’d need to amputate and regrow it - a process most difficult and very dangerous… I can’t imagine the pain…” says Oliander with an elevated voice.


    CRKKKK… Zaroj’s knee pops and breaks into splinters.


    Geon speaks for the first time during the entire procedure: “He’s going into shock,” he speaks with a strong, young voice. His American family heritage is showing in his accent. Even as he does as the procedure is supposed to go, internally he winces at the pain ?rk must be feeling. No wonder he’ll break like a lawn chair soon.


    Geon takes a syringe filled with epinephrine and injects ?rk with it.


    “Please let me die! PLEASE LET ME DIE! OH MY GOD,” ?rk screams.


    Oliander puts his other knee into the device and Geon says:


    “There’s only one way to end this. There’s something you acquired for Mirra Leone and we’d like it here. Where is it?”


    “I-I-I’m s-s-sorrry, I don’t k-know where it is,” ?rk weeps, “y-you’ve gotta believe me. I don’t even know what you’re talking about… please… don’t kill me.”


    “Try again,” says Geon.


    CRRRRAAACKKK!!!! ?rk’s other knee pops.


    ?rk shrieks and passes out. Geon injects him with another dose of epinephrine and when he wakes up, his heart rate monitor goes ballistic. ?rk is feeling dizzy, immense pain in his torso, legs and completely disorientated by his suffering and the chemicals he’s under. He’s somewhere they won’t even allow him to die of shock – not until Ultra gets what it came for.


    “?rk,” Geon says, ”we need you to help us find that girl. We’re forced to use drastic measures on your friends and family to find it, if you don’t tell us everything you know.”


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    “I have no idea where she is or what you’re talking about,” says ?rk, his eyes rolling and head physically spinning on the table, “But… if anyone knows where she is, just talk to Mirra… She’ll know…  ”


    “Mirra?” Oliander says, “What do you make of that, kid?”


    “I think Mirra might be looking for her, too,” says Karsk.


    “I think we’re done here, tell the cleanup boys to finish up here, let’s go visit family.”


    Karsk and Oliander leave the interrogation room and mark it for cleanup on the computer. Karsk takes off his mask and he is of the Aryan complexity. He’s got high cheekbones, square jaw, blue eyes and golden hair.


    The hallway, through which they start walking towards the elevator, is sterile and filled with dozens of interrogation chambers just like it - red light above the door means it’s occupied, green is vacant and yellow means cleanup. There are no green lights on their way to the elevators.


    As they step inside Karsk says: “Vehicle bay,” he says and the lift starts moving, “You think he knows what the fuck he’s talkin about, though?”


    “I can’t be sure. But I think we should go ahead and see Mirra. Just remember, we’re not there to stir up trouble. Simply get some facts.”


    ----


    They arrive at a bar that Mirra and other families visit once a month. It’s a cigar lounge type place and Mirra is the first female leader to be allowed in the back room.


    The neon lights glow through the cigar smoke and a droid is serving the drinks. These things have been designed to listen to people’s life stories and offer statistically sound albeit somewhat arbitrary advice to cheer them up. The mere act of talking to someone who listens - even mechanically and with no emotion - gives people some sort of therapeutic experience in a society that divides its attention between the problems of dozens of billions of people.


    The leather stools and seats in the style of 50s nostalgia offer gluteal support for gangsters, dealers, pimps and hookers of all kinds. Similar to the scene back at the police station, the cybernetic and bioengineered enhancements have a wide variety from useful to terrifying. The music could only be described as magnetic jazz suited for dabbling in psychedelics.


    Karsk and Oliander are immediately spotted as Ultra operatives, but aside from a strange eye or a gestual spit on the floor, no physical or even verbal animosity is demonstrated. For sure, though, the air gets tense immediately and the static is waiting to snap. Ultra operatives are the most hated people in the Imperium and especially so among the criminal underbelly. Though somewhat shady, there is nothing a gangster can do to threaten an operative. So the tension is very obvious.


    They walk through the locale up to the entrance of the back room where Mirra is, but a Dynamo stands in their way. Dynamos are known as Cells on a budget.


    This woman is as tall as the operatives, very athletically built, instantly recognizable and also dangerous. She’s sporting a red leather jacket and a black mohawk. She clearly doesn’t want the operatives to pass and isn’t afraid to have the situation devolve into something bloody.


    “Invitation only,” she says.


    Karsk whips out his badge says: “Got mine right here.”


    “Invitation only,” she says, as she turns slightly red and slowly approaches them. She presses a button on a small device she’s carrying.


    In the back room, Mirra takes her communication device that only has the message “Get out of here. NOW!”


    The whole establishment turns quiet, as the patrons brace for pending conflict.


    “Eaaaasy there girl, take it easy, we just wanna talk,” says Karsk.


    “IS that SO? I just wanna eat soft ice cream and get high with my brother but oh wait!!! He was shot dead by porker fags such as yourselves,” she said, clearly getting angrier by the syllable. “So, unless you really wanna go commando on this fine and reputable establishment I suggest you tango the fuck outta here.”


    Meanwhile, in the smoky back room, the poker table which Mirra sat around with her henchmen has been vacated. It’s green and filted, with drinks still perspiring and whisky still  melting the ice cubes into it. The cigars smoked by the backroom bunch are still lit, acting as nicotine filled incense. She’s moving through tunnels and passages hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling painting of a forest only accessible by Mirra’s handprint. Time is of the essence as even for someone as well-connected as her, getting caught between the cogs of Ultra would’ve beeen a death sentence.


    “Look,” Oliander says, “We can either do this with your cooperation, or without your cooperation.”


    “All clear,” beeps a message in the Dynamo’s communication instrument.


    She lets the two operatives pass. It’s obvious to them that their target has narrowly avoided them. The vices still degrading in the room are clear evidence of that. Oliander turns back to the Dynamo and says: “Give me your comm device.”


    She grips it harder.


    “Give me your comm device, or I’m giving you a room in Ultra with your name on the straps.”


    She reluctantly hands him the communication device. Oliander hands it over to Geon, who then takes a small computer from one of the compartments in his outfit and connects it to a jack in the gadget. It beeps up, chirping for a password. Geon clacks on his hacking instrument and the gadget stops beeping, allowing them access. He pings the location of the last message from it and asks the device to track its sender.


    “Got it,” Geon says.


    Oliander and Geon then leave the establishment and high-tail it back to their Ultra-spec cruiser. They fire up the sirens and quickly barrel towards the pinged location. To their surprise, the signal is coming from a section of the megastructure which is completely walled off. Oliander looks at Geon and says: “When they say knock first…”


    He flicks a switch on the armature of the cruiser and two large guns shift out of the machine. He then presses two buttons on the steering yoke and they blast a hole into the wall from where the signal is pinging. As soon as it’s wide enough, he carefully guides the cruiser into it, letting them into a garage with a now damaged few luxury cars, with one spot empty. Oliander sets the cruiser down.


    When they exit the car and pinpoint the location of the communication gadget, it’s faintly beeping away on the ground. Geon says:


    “You wanna follow her to Leone Tower?”


    “No,” Oliander says.


    “Why not?”


    “Did you read her dossier carefully?” Oliander asks.


    “…”


    “If you had, rookie, you’d know that she’s known to hang around a Cell named Eurus. She’s either hiding with a few of her more legitimate wealthy pals where we’d come off as tyrannical morons or with him, meaning we’d have no way to get to her anyway.”


    “You’re scared of a Cell? We can take him, the academy…,” Geon says before Oliander interrupts him.


    “Are you stupid? The academy or nobody really hasn’t fought a Cell for decades if not centuries,” Oliander says, “There are too many variables to predict.”


    “Don’t put too much stock in the spooky bonfire stories about Cells, man,” Geon says, “I could lay down sniper fire.”


    “So you could watch me die from afar before Eurus flicks you dead like a bug as well? Don’t believe everything they say in the academy, Karsk. You’d benefit from using your own brain occasionally.”


    “So what do you expect us to do? We can’t follow Eurus, we can’t follow Mirra. Her henchmen are dead ends if her lieutenants don’t even know what’s what!”


    “We’ll see where the cops take us. We’ve so far eliminated most of the possibilities. It’s not unfathomable that our own government is responsible for Kalopsia. If that is the case, we’d be wise to allow Paskal and Anderson spring all the traps potentially meant for us,” Oliander says.