Tech and Duck exchanged quick looks, but Ace didn’t appear to have heard any of the other conversation. “That guy who shot at me.”
Ace shook his head. “Maybe the local news, but nobody else cares about the story. Lexi was checking the news channels and didn’t find anything.”
“Why not? He almost killed me!”
“And he did kill eight people,” Ace said. “But the authorities want to keep it quiet. These days someone’s liable to try a copycat.”
“How is anyone going to know how good we are if we keep not telling them?” Duck stomped off without waiting for an answer.
“I wish he’d get over himself,” Ace said.
Tech smiled. “He has moments. How did the interrogation go?”
“He wouldn’t say nuthin’. I think he needs a dose of yer tell-all.”
“Oh. Why don’t you let me try talking to him?”
Ace folded his arms. “Why do we have it around at all if you won’t use it?”
“I just don’t like it,” Tech said.
“Like it or not, we finally have a prisoner we really need information from. So go do your half of the interrogation and use it. Consider dat an order.”
“What about his drugs?”
“Drugs?”
Tech indicated the medibase. “He was taking some kind of drug to speed up his reflexes. Thing is, it’s a drug we’ve never seen before, which means someone has synthesized it recently. And is distributing it to homicidal backwoods gunmen.”
Ace stepped back into the lab. “That sounds… interesting.”
“I thought so.”
“All the more reason ta use yer tell-all. So do it.”
Tech juggled the small aerosol container from one paw to the other, waiting for the secure door behind him to close so the inner door could open. He could smell Fudd from out here, a rancid mix of stale alcohol, sweat, and riceweed. Must be a chewer. He could’ve told Zodavia plenty just by standing out here and breathing in.
The smell got ten times worse when the door opened. Zebediah Fudd looked up from behind the clear plastic separator, and whatever reaction Tech expected, it was not for the prisoner to stand up so quickly his hat slid off his bald head and point at Tech with a shaking finger. “You… you double-crosser!” he shouted.
Startled, Tech kept his mouth shut. A detached part of him noted that Fudd’s harsh, scratchy voice was not too far off from his simulation. Maybe half an octave lower. “I shoulda known you were involved with these other critter freaks. All that crap you tol’ me about…” He stopped, narrowed his eyes, and walked right up to the barrier. “Wait. You’re not him.”
“Are you sure?” Tech folded his arms, playing along. A suspicion had taken root in his mind.
Fudd didn’t even stoop to pick up his hat. He just sat back down and glared out through the plastic, playing with something between his fingers.
“All right, then.” Tech moved to stand in front of the marble-sized ventilation holes, preparing the aerosol with the tell-all in it. As he primed the can, Fudd’s arm moved quickly. Something hit Tech in the ear.
“Hey!” Fudd smirked at him. He rubbed his ear and stepped back, looking at the small rock chip on the floor as he finished prepping the container from a safe angle. The guy had somehow thrown it from ten feet away through a hole barely bigger than the chip itself, and bounced it off the inside of the hole so that it would hit him.
Tech could even see the small mark on the inside of one of the holes as he fitted the aerosol’s plastic teeth into them. Even though the canister was metal, Tech held it up and depressed the plunger by hand, not showing off his powers in front of the prisoner. Fudd threw two more rock chips into the ventilation holes with uncanny accuracy, making the aerosol shiver each time, but he couldn’t dislodge Tech’s grip. Gas hissed into his space.
The canister completely sealed the ventilation, so the fumes wouldn’t leak out. After a moment, Fudd started to get a nervous tic, his head jerking spastically to one side. Tech took this as a sign that his drug was working.
“Now,” he said, “where did you get those guns?”
His voice echoed behind the glass. The two-way got Fudd’s quick response. “The depot on Tamaron.” He swung his head violently from side to side.
“When did you last see Ralph?”
Fudd’s eyes grew wide as saucers. “Last year, end of summer. Dammit!”
“Where?”
“Nnnnnnh!” The prisoner clutched his head. He shook it faster and faster.
“Where?” Tech leaned forward to repeat the question, but Fudd wasn’t listening to him any more. He shuddered, his eyes rolled back in his sockets, and then he slumped back against the wall.
“Crap.” Tech ran to the wall and slid open a panel, tapping a green button to activate the docbot. He skated through the menus and chose “seizure” while the bot was on its way. It would test anyway, but he’d give it a headstart. He watched the small flying sphere glide into the room and hover over Fudd, and glanced back and forth from the cell to the menu as the bot lowered needles and injected him with whatever it deemed appropriate. When the bot’s readout flashed a yellow, “Vital signs stabilizing,” he exhaled.
He threw the aerosol in the trash, then thought better of it and retrieved it for analysis for complications with the drug Fudd was taking. He should have thought of that, shouldn’t have let Ace boss him around. Ace was their leader, sure. But Tech was the smart one. Using a largely untested drug, even one as theoretically sound as the tell-all, on someone whose system was showing an unknown synthesized drug was foolish. He should’ve pressed the point.
Should he? Had he? Maybe he’d wanted to show Ace that the bunny didn’t always know best. Or maybe he hadn’t cared enough about the fate of a guy who’d killed eight people and almost killed a member of his team. Or maybe he’d just dismissed it in the
