That smile wasn't just strange to see, anybody would be unsettled by it, or at least feel something about it. But from Sirina's point of view, she knew exactly what that full smile meant, César knew something, he had something… he was something.
And just the absurdity of it.
That is one of the big weaknesses of the System, it reads your mind your thoughts. You can have a conversation with it in your mind, but your reactions and expressions still send a message to those right in front of you. That out-of-nowhere, absurd, almost crazy smile, hard to describe, really, kind of sends the message that you are… bit on the spectrum.
And yeah, maybe César really is on the spectrum, a collection of mental scars carried over from his other lives and who could blame him for it… he had seen and endured the worst of the worst.
But the smile itself came from the excitement, and nothing else. He also knew he needed to recover quickly.
"Well, how good it is to talk with a beautiful woman like you. I'm César, by the way." He said, leaning back and trying to seem nonchalant, as if that smile had never happened.
"What a unique name you have, I like you even more." Sirina replied with the same cute giggle, keeping her composure intact. "So, what brings you here today?"
What the fuck is this dumb-ass question… César thought, and indeed, it was a dumb-ass question, though she had an intent with it.
For an ordinary person in this position, it would be just a question meant to start the story, like what he had witnessed and why he came in today. But from the very beginning, César noticed the signs.
First, she came in saying she never thought a "witness" would flirt with her, which meant that somebody had told her he was a witness. The only person who could have done that, in César's mind, was Peter of Hoffa. That also meant they had done it with the purpose of creating a fake story about him, just saying whatever would get him out of the situation.
In short, César knew Hoffa was shitting himself right now, probably praying to the gods that he wouldn't say anything fucking dumb. But the thing was, César was actually preparing to do exactly that.
"I am in trouble?"
"Uh, no, you came as a witness, so why would you be in trouble?" Sirina asked, still maintaining her composure and holding an upper hand in the situation, as he just went along with the lie, but at the same time, she asked the question to bait César in.
She asked why he would be in trouble, something that, to anyone else, would have provoked some reaction, even if they were innocent. Shaking hands, tension in their posture, a hesitant voice, avoidance of eye contact, little tells in their movements and facial expressions, all giving them away. A skilled agent, a good cop, or a detective could read those signs and tell what was true or false, whether the person was guilty, hiding something, or had done something they shouldn't have.
Though César was the complete opposite. He just stared at her, not a single readable emotion on his face or in his body. He didn't move in his chair, his hands stayed perfectly still. He was like a brick wall, and that only told Sirina more that he was truly something else.
"I just noticed some interesting things about you." César finally spoke after the long silence, avoiding her question… not just avoiding it, but pushing and shifting the focus onto his own sentence, taking control of the conversation.
"Really? Well, I notice things about you too, but you can start it." Sirina replied as he started tapping the table with her hands and it wasn't a stress reaction.
It was more like a technique, a way to control the rhythm of the room. It might not seem like much, but the slow, deliberate tapping gave anyone in the room a sense of unease, something César knew all too well, from his first life. Just that dull tapping could mess with your focus and your thoughts, and if the agent or whoever noticed you were reacting to it, they would speed up the tapping or slow it down to fuck with your mind even more.
"No, it's always the women who go first and make the first move." César said, grinning just a little, not too much, just enough to show Sirina that she could tap that bullshit table all she wanted, and he still wasn't going to react.
"Well…" She stopped tapping and leaned forward. "Peter, the city's best detective, is fearing for his life, his eyes looking like he'd been threatened with the worst thing possible. He was hesitant, disoriented. And then, when we saw you getting water, it became clear to me that you are not a witness, because both Peter and the Chief started making up lies and stressing even more when I asked about you." Her voice shifted from the cute, light tone it had before into something deeper, more cautious, and serious as she fixed her gaze on César. "I want to know why a person called César is sitting in an interrogation room, dressed in what is very clearly cartel clothing, calm, almost bored, like he has the upper hand over everyone else in here." She leaned in a little closer. "You look like a man who knows exactly where he is, why he's here… a man who came with a purpose, to do something."
Those eyes of hers… the eyes of Sirina were… lame. Her whole aura was… nothing compared to what he had experienced, or even more, what he expected to see, to feel.
There was no pressure, no darkness in her.
What the fuck… she isn't even remotely close to Hechman or Juerno… it's laughable
[System: Both Hechman and Juerno were psychopaths, just like you. Their only goal was to kill as many criminals as they could. This really is much different, but do not underestimate her.]
Yeah, she wasn't even remotely close to Hechman or Juerno, the Directors, more like serial killers, psychopaths, sociopaths, and everything in between. People who wiped out entire blocks without a second thought. One time, they even lit gangsters on a bonfire, tossing them into the flames like they were witches.
The kind of people who didn't just kill, they orchestrated fear, chaos, and death as if it were art… and they were agency Directors, not criminals.
But her… nothing. Her eyes didn't hold that kind of darkness, that emptiness, that hollowness.