Mr. T walked over to Roll, had a short conversation, and slipped a key fob into his hand. He needed the miniaturized EMP they had used in Russia when they had ported over to collect the bomb used on Mars. Thankfully, the device was sitting in his Command Car rather than blasted into a million pieces in his lab.
Roll smiled as though Mr. T had told him a joke. He walked over to one of the on-looking officers and asked where he might find a restroom. He entered the restroom and did a fast porting round trip. Mr. T continued to “talk” to the damaged queen. Roll reentered the room and discharged the EMP generator. The room went dark. Emergency lighting came on almost immediately. That surprised Mr. T. The officer in charge walked over to Mr. T and started asked questions. Another officer quick stepped over to Roll with a hand on his sidearm.
The next voice startled me. At some point our general had arrived, and he now intervened. “At ease. The kid uses the restroom, the lights go out for a second, and everyone gets jumpy? Continue with your interview Tee.” Mr. T would be allowed to “talk” with the second queen.
The second queen was agitated and kept lifting her leg and touching the knee joint with a feeler-hand. Her comms were down. The EMP had worked. Mr. T and Para moved in for the interview.
The thoughts of this queen were as evil and disgusting as those of that first queen Para had smashed. Yet this Queen’s mind was more orderly. Her delving skills were even more significant. Something akin to an actual conversation was possible. Mr. T decided to be cautious in the interview. He had the sense that his delving power was stronger than that of the queen. It would be prudent to work slowly and tentatively. He would make a final push for truthful answers toward the end of the interview. And try not to get sick.
The queen was nervous. She actually started the conversation, wanting to bargain information for creature comforts. Comfortable pillows would be a requirement. The hard, cold concrete floor was not suitable at all. And the food was terrible.
Mr. T was jotting some notes using his memo app. He wasn’t paying much attention to the queen’s list of demands. But he did send a note to Rock and Roll. He wanted them to find a store and buy at least 5 large doggy beds and 20 pounds of ground beef. They had a quick sidebar with the general and the officer in charge. A comfy bed and some beef would go a long way with the interview. The officers both shrugged.
Mr. T dismissed Rock and Roll to get the supplies. The officer in charge told them to be snappy about it. Mr. T continued with the interview. As the queen concentrated on her demands Mr. T carefully poked around in her mind. He stopped his secretive side-delving when she stopped with her demands and had what seemed a puzzled side-thought.
The quizzical thought showed up as a puzzled expression on her face. Bugs have those expressive patches of hair (actually the patches are made of chitin rather than keratin as is the case with real hair) above their eyes. Their eyebrow expressions are similar to those of a human. I know, it’s easy to anthropomorphize, but that does seem to be the way of it.
She ended up just giving a bug-shrug, and started up again with her demands. It was quite a list. Then she moved on to another subject, the other queen sitting next to her. That one should be killed. Her mind was broken. She was worthless and should be sent to the re-processor.
Mr. T moved on to his real topic of interest, the base on the Moon. She didn’t have much knowledge of that. He asked about the High Queen. She began a long history of bloodlines, actually egg-lines. From the telling of that history he learned quite a bit about bug royal society and culture. It was appropriately disgusting (even for a bug queen tale) with a good deal of intrigue and treachery. That short history alone was much worse than anything he could recall in all of humanity’s not-so-stellar past.
Rock and Roll were back. They had found a large cart and hauled in 5 king-size doggie beds and an aluminum roaster full of raw ground beef.
Mr. T stepped aside so the queen could get a good look and smell. Her feeler hands were in the air, feeler sensor filaments moving back and forth. There were evidently olfactory senses in those filaments. She was anxious for her goodies. She touched both of her front knees, looked around a little nervously, and decided to volunteer some information about the base on the Moon.
The bugs were erecting a portal gate system that would connect the Solar System with the Empire. Humanity would soon embrace a new life among the stars. It would be a wonderful life for humanity. She was lying of course, about the wonderful life. We found it interesting that she could outright lie. Her method was not the same process used by Mr. T in delving then. He could not outright lie in a delve. Though she was capable of lying it was still not effective. He decided to make his push.
Mr. T explained with absolute certainty; Earth will soon defeat the invasion forces. The bugs have already lost, the rest of it was just going through the motions.
