Most of them seemed to be headed toward the big concert that was now working itself up into some kind of tribal thunder of rage and indignation crying out at all the wrongs that had ever been done to anyone. Both real and imagined. Promising vengeance on everyone who didn’t think the way they did. Some singer was shouting these things more than singing. Running through a list of atrocities that had nothing to do with the House of Reason, Senate, or the Legion, but would nevertheless serve for present needs.
Rechs returned to the dark supply room. Phase two of the interrogation was next.
He kept the interrogation mini-kit in one glove as he waited for the powerful narcotic to take its full effect. After two minutes had elapsed, he hit the kid with the next hypo. There were three in the full kit.
This second hypo contained an off-market drug called NX34. It broke down the mind quickly, giving the interrogator full access to everything they wanted from the subject. It also destroyed short-term memory for up to forty-eight hours before and after usage.
And there were other side effects.
This was also a banned substance.
Rechs got answers fast. So fast it was like the guy wanted to tell him everything all at once. Had to get it off his chest. Like he was dying if he didn’t.
“I work for Zij. Zij is the main man for the ground team,” he babbled nigh incoherently. “Zij works with Franko and Dumali. They run with the crew that’s come in from headquarters.”
The kid was sweating now. His eyes rolling and wildly seeking things not there as he talked faster and faster. Answering Rechs’s questions with little difficulty and few breaths between.
“Yeah-yeah-yeah… this whole thing is being financed by big off-world credits. I’m from here, but I met some of the show runners. They ain’t from Detron.”
“When’s their move?” Rechs asked, not bothering to give his voice an edge or intimidating growl. The kid would answer regardless.
“I was just settin’ up for what’s comin’ next. They’re gonna make a statement in two hours… only, that might have been two hours ago—what is it now? Could be anytime, I guess. Big statement. Yeah. Real big. Like mammoth. Set this whole thing on fire. You’ll see! You’ll all see… gonna burn the galaxy down to the ground and the Legion with it.”
“Where’re they being kept?”
He watched the kid’s eyes as they rolled and fought hard not to tell him. But in the end the kid collapsed and had to give up what little he did know.
“D-d-don’t know. N-not for sure. They were at Basement Six. Saw ’em there once.”
“How many?”
“Two. Two Legion kelhorned Legion boys and th-the… the… the… girl. The marine. Yeah I saw ’em there down in Basement Six but I know they got moved. Wasn’t safe. Soshies started talkin’ too much. Bragging. Had to have ’em there, though. Rah-rah for the kids to make ’em think they’re in the underground resistance. Freedom fighters.”
The kid started laughing, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging. “They don’t know anything about anything. Posers. Losers. Rich kids. Screw ’em. They’re not switched on to the big scene.”
Again he laughed like a madman.
“So where are they now?” asked Rechs patiently.
“Don’t know. Told ya.”
“Who does know?”
“Rat-t-t-clopp. Rattclopp knows.”
A device in Rechs’s kit, monitoring his subject’s vitals, beeped to indicate a dangerously high heart rate. Rechs would need to wean him off the drug soon. Or maybe he should just let the bastard’s heart explode.
“Rattclopp knows everything. Yeah. He knows where they went after that. He’s your man. You should… should… shouldgogetem!”
Rechs stood. His legs were stiff.
The kid wanted to twitch and writhe. His skin was crawling but his muscles wouldn’t move. He was frozen and yet all his senses were on overdrive. The ground would feel, to him, like it was made of molten lava. The intel was good. Pain clarified things for people and made cowards of those who’d vowed to stand up to what little the Republic could officially do. The Truth and Safety Councils had hamstrung most intel operations along with law enforcement, until in the end the lawbreakers had more rights than the average citizen. If you were in their hands, officially, you had nothing to fear.
But this kid wasn’t in their hands. He was in Rechs’s.
And right now, lying on the floor and wanting to fling himself about in utter agony despite his total immobility save his speaking functions, his only respite came from answering questions. Doing so released pain-killing endorphins that created the illusion he wasn’t suffering as much as when he failed to comply. Screaming made the pain worse. His mind was being trained, quickly, to give up everything he knew.
Rechs got a detailed description of Rattclopp and a breakdown of Basement Six. Only then did the bounty hunter pull the third hypo and give the kid’s neck a quick jab.
Instant lights out.
The kid would wake up in two days as weak as a lamb and with no memory of anything that had transpired between them.
Rechs stowed the used interrogation kit and hit the streets again, closing in on his target inch by inch.
32
The politician came back onto the stage. She came reluctantly. Or at least, that had been her intended effect. To look as though she didn’t want to be there, in the limelight, but that fate and the galaxy had brought her unwillingly to this moment. To this sacred duty. She was a better actor than she’d ever be a politician. But maybe both are really one and the same.
Maybe.
The singer of the jam band who’d played every riot or rally on every world for twenty years and yet lived on a private estate somewhere on beautiful Pthalo when he wasn’t performing as the everyman
