Chapter 96: Interrogation
The figure that stepped into the light was dressed well — dark suit, white shirt, a tie that matched without trying to. The kind of clothing that communicated a specific relationship to money and order.
The balaclava destroyed the effect entirely. Black, full-face, leaving only the eyes and the mouth visible. And the voice, when the figure spoke again, had the processed quality of something run through a hardware modifier — flattened, stripped of its natural resonance, untraceable.
Professional. Which meant Simon was dealing with someone who had done this before and understood what mistakes looked like.
"Since you'd prefer not to cooperate," the figure said, "let's find out how long your preference holds."
"I want to flag," Simon said, working to keep his voice at a register that suggested he was managing the situation rather than hanging from a chain, "that this kind of coercive information-gathering has a documented reliability problem. People in my position tend to say whatever ends the discomfort rather than whatever is true."
"I'll keep that in mind," the figure said, and clapped twice.
From behind the light, a second person emerged — large, wearing the same balaclava format, carrying a baseball bat wrapped in cloth.
The cloth reduced the structural damage. Not the pain.
"Wait—" Simon started.
The bat hit him in the stomach.
It was not, as these things went, the worst pain he'd ever experienced. It was, however, considerably worse than anything he'd experienced voluntarily. He made a sound he hadn't intended to make and pulled against the chain with the instinct of a body trying to create distance from the source of the input.
It didn't matter. There were several more after the first.
He stopped tracking individual impacts at some point.
The damage was distributed — ribs, lower back, upper legs — in the specific pattern of someone who was experienced at causing pain without causing injury that would end the conversation prematurely. Efficient, calibrated work.
By the time it stopped, Simon was hanging from the hook with his full weight and breathing through his mouth.
Every part of his body was communicating its displeasure through the available channels simultaneously. He understood, in a new and concrete way, what Casey had meant when he'd said that Fulcrum didn't give people the benefit of the doubt.
The voice came from behind the light.
"That was introductory. If you'd like to continue declining, I can offer considerably more."
Simon lifted his head. "I already told you," he said, and his voice was rougher than he intended. "I don't know those people." He took a breath. "And even if I did — you're going to kill me regardless of what I tell you. So."
"You've thought this through," the voice said.
"I've had a few minutes," Simon said.
"At least you'll die with your principles. That's something."
"Bring him down," the voice said to the second man.
The chain was unlocked. Simon's arms came down, which introduced a different category of pain as the blood returned to the full circulation.
The second man took his arm to walk him somewhere.
Simon drove his forehead into the man's face.
He'd had to do it in a specific way — dropping his body weight into the motion to compensate for his bound wrists and the fact that his arms were effectively non-functional from the suspension. The impact was sufficient. The man staggered.
Simon came off the floor with his shoulder and hit him in the center mass.
The man went down.
Simon turned to face the figure with the gun.
"I'd like to walk out under my own power," Simon said, breathing carefully. "Tell me where you want me."
The figure pointed a weapon toward a chair.
Simon sat.
The second man got up, crossed to Simon, and hit him once in the stomach — slower and harder than the bat work, more personal. Simon coughed.
"Even," the man said, without inflection.
He wrapped chain around Simon and the chair, ran it through the chair's frame, and locked it at both ends. Then he connected two wires to the chain — one end to the chain, the other end to a device on a rolling cart — and put a cloth in Simon's mouth.
Simon had been expecting the cloth. He bit down on it carefully.
He had been electric-shocked once before, in a context that was considerably more voluntary, and the memory of it was specific and unpleasant. The taser earlier had been a version of this. What was coming was a different version.
"Last chance," the figure said, hand on a switch. "Tell me what you know."
Simon looked at him.
The figure pressed the switch.
The current ran through the chain and through Simon and it was nothing like what he'd remembered and worse than what he'd been prepared for. He was aware, distantly, of his body reacting without his permission — every muscle group engaging simultaneously, a full-body convulsion that had no relationship to voluntary movement.
It ended.
The cloth was removed.
"I told you," Simon said, and his voice was ragged. "I don't know anything."
"Wrong answer."
The cloth went back in.
The second cycle was longer.
When it ended, Simon was red from his face down to his collar — the specific flush of someone whose cardiovascular system had just received an extraordinary input and was managing the aftermath.
"Most people reach their threshold after three cycles," the figure said. "You seem to have some additional capacity. I'm curious how much." A pause. "Tell me what I want to know and this stops. You have a future you could be choosing instead of this."
Simon looked at the floor.
"I'll be direct," the figure said. "You're eighteen years old. Whatever you know or don't know — you didn't choose this life from a position of full understanding. You can still walk away from it."
Simon said nothing.
"If you don't cooperate," the figure said, "I want you to know clearly what happens. You don't simply die. Everyone connected to you — parents, friends, the girl." A pause that was specifically placed to land. "We'll take our time with all of them."
Simon raised his head.
The specific quality of the rage that ran through him at that moment was different from anything he'd experienced in operational situations before — cleaner, more absolute, and more dangerous because it wanted to do something rather than just exist.
"You touch any of them," Simon said, and his voice was very quiet, "and I will personally end every person in this room and whoever sent you here. I'm not making a threat. I'm telling you a fact about what happens next."
The figure was quiet for a moment.
"Bring him in," the figure said.
The second man went into the darkness and came back pushing a wheelchair.
Casey was in the wheelchair. His face had been worked on in the time since Simon had last seen him — not fatally, but thoroughly, in the specific way of people who understood the difference. He was breathing, conscious in the way of someone running on reserves, looking at Simon with the expression of a man who understood exactly what this scene was designed to accomplish and hated it.
"Casey," Simon said.
"Don't," Casey said. His voice was compressed. "Don't say anything."
"What did you do to him," Simon said to the figure.
"What was necessary." The figure produced a weapon and pointed it at Casey with the practiced ease of someone for whom this gesture was administrative rather than emotional. "Final opportunity. Tell me who they're protecting. Or I resolve this conversation."
Simon looked at Casey.
Casey looked at Simon.
"I don't know," Simon said. "I genuinely don't know what you're asking."
"That's unfortunate," the figure said.
The weapon discharged.
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