"Not so rough, s'il-vouz-plaît," Pierre called out as the guards pulled him out of the airlock. "This suit was expensive."
The three prison watchmen glanced at each other uncertainly, then one shrugged, snorted derisively, and muttered "Gaijin." The other two laughed and continued tugging the slightly offended Gaul into a dimly lit corridor.
"Where are the pilots that brought me here?" Pierre asked as he sadly assessed the damage that was being dealt to his suit's sleeves. The leader of the three Kusarians looked at him as though he must be dealing with a madman. Then he barked an order at the other two and they doubled the pace at which Pierre was shoved down the hallway.
"Merde," the Gaul growled as a long tear appeared on his right sleeve. "This is absolutely unnecessary, messieurs." His complaints were ignored.
"Moshi-moshi!", a man wearing a naval pilot suit was standing further down the dim hall way. He was speaking to an PDA as the prisoner and his entourage stepped closer and closer to him. "Oh, hey, N-Nakamura-san... I-uh... will be late... something came up... had to escort a prisoner... I-... I am sorry..."
He then glanced at this entourage, lowering the PDA from his ear for a second to address them, "Oi oi! Where are you takin' that guy? Hold it right there!". He raised his PDA to his ear once again, continuing his apologetic speech, "I-I'll call you later... Sorry again..." he let out a loud sigh as he put his PDA away, didn't look happy at all.
The guards came to an immediate halt, gave a salute and waited for the pilot to finish his phone call obediently. "We are taking the prisoner to his temporary cell, Lieutenant," said the one who was the highest rank among the trio once the pilot was looking at them with an eyebrow raised inquisitively.
"An' what have you done to this poor guy, already? Looky his outfit... Sheesh..." His accent reminded the hogosha thugs more than a proper naval officer.
"It... it must have happened... probably... because of your fighting earlier, Lieutenant..." the guard lied, which made the pilot frown at first, but quickly shrugged it off...
"I am gonna make sure you do your jobs properly this time... The last time I brought a prisoner to you, it didn't take a full day for the guy to jump in his bomber and shoot at my friggin' butt. Carry on..." he ordered with a lazy motion of his hand further down the corridor.
"Hai!" the guards let out loudly, and this time they made sure to behave properly under the pilot's watch.
"I didn't lie about them hard sticks... at least they don't have the budget to buy shock sticks," the pilot shook his head, "count yourself lucky..."
Pierre frowned at the naval pilots last comment. While simple bludgeoning wasn't as bad as being maltreated by several electric shocks, he was nonetheless a little worried about the near future. Especially the health aspect thereof.
"Lieutenant," Pierre began as he faced the pilot who had managed to bring him in in the first place, "I hope I didn't keep you from attending some kind of rendez-vous?" A little small talk couldn't harm, Pierre thought to himself. Getting to know his captors definitely wouldn't.
Having been released from the suddenly much better behaved guards' rough grasps, he carefully touched the silk of his damaged sleeve, as though it was a wound in his own skin. He winced as he saw that the suit was in fact ruined. At least he could get a new one once he was transferred back to Gallia, he thought. If he was transferred.
"Don't you concern yourself with that..." the Lieutenant dismissed. He wasn't the brightest guy out there for sure, but knew enough to keep loved ones out of criminal ears and eyes. "It would be great if you didn't show up, or at least allowed me to shoot you down all merry and like, though..."
They were stepping further down the hallway with enough pace. Not one door they came by for the first couple of minutes as they passed metal walls lit with neon lights. But some of that scenery the prisoner liked to gaze at would appear once in a while through tiny windows.
"Do not worry about your outfit, you'll wear something more fitting to this place, soon enough..." the Lieutenant said as he caught the sad look of the prisoner.
Every minute, they passed a heavily guarded choke point, stepped through a wall of light show, making the Lieutenant feel like a fish caught in a net every time, somehow.
Finally, they came upon a door... or more like a wide arch, resembling an entrance to a giant vault. The guards harshly pulled the prisoner to stop him in his steps. The leader of the guards saluted the ones standing by the gate, and spoke clearly, "This is the prisoner, and the Lieutenant who brought him."
The guards by the door looked at them for a second, spoke into something that looked like a radio transmitter before the gate slid open wide. There, they came upon an immense hall behind a thick glass, cells over cells, decorating everywhere they could see around the wide opening.
Once they stepped in, the Lieutenant looked up and down through the glass... The eye couldn't see the end of cells either ways, and the elevators in the middle of the hall elongated like towers and sped up and down rhythmically. "Well... at least you won't feel lonely here, as long as you are our guest... I guess..."
They were immediately led along the glass after a left turn in the vault; walked deeper until they came upon a line of metal bars. The doors opened for the prisoner, and he was shoved in before they were closed up on him. These line of cells looked empty besides himself, and were not connected to the ones behind the earlier glass. Looked like a place where the prisoners be kept temporarily, while the questioning process would be taken care of.
The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow on the other side of the metal bars. His hands closed together at his chest, he scanned the prisoner from head to toe. Then with a tilt of his head, he yawned.
Brushing some dust off of his already somewhat ruined suit, Pierre looked around his new, temporary "home." It wasn't that bad, at least when compared with what the Gallic police provided for their prisoners. There was a bunk bed put up against one wall and a small basin for washing oneself attached to the opposite side. A tiny window allowed a small speck of space to be seen.
Pierre walked to the window and peered through it. What he saw outside made him smile - he had a limited, yet beautiful, view of planet Seto in the distance, a huge, orange ball floating through the blue space of the Shikoku system. Additionally, he could see part of the prison station he was on stretch out to one side of his view, and, more importantly, he could make out the distinct shape of his ship, moored to one of many struts coming out of the installations.
Though the gunboat was still smoking, and several sparks danced around its hull, it seemed to be more or less intact, despite the beating it had taken in the fight with the two Kusarian fighters. The fact that he had lost to those two small ships still stung Pierre, though he excused his defeat with the fact that it had been his first firefight in the Rapiere.
Hearing a yawn from the other side of the metal bars that made up the inwards wall of his cell, Pierre turned around. The Lieutenant was standing there, eying him.
"Monsieur," Pierre said with something that might have passed as a smile playing across his face, "considering that we have spent such a... wonderful time together," Pierre winked jokingly, "may I know your name before we part?"
The Lieutenant was tapping his foot on the floor impatiently, his eyebrow quirked even higher with the prisoner's question. He let out dully after a second of consideration, "Jiro Taiyouji, Itto Kaii... but I like how everyone calls me 'the Lieutenant' here... might just go with that," he added afterwards, "sorry for not being able to remember your name..."
Jiro turned his sight at a guard, standing by the wall opposite of the prisoner's cell, right next to a metal door. The guard looked as bored as Jiro, he nearly hopped where he stood with surprise once Jiro addressed him, "Where's the one who's supposed to deal with this?"
The guard straightened himself then saluted before speaking up with a high pitched stutter, "I-I don't know, but he's informed, sir!"
This act felt always strange to Jiro; their pilots would never be as disciplined as these guards standing watch by the doors all day long. "It ain't polite to be letting your guests wait, ya know..."
Just as he was finishing his sentence, the metal door opened to let a very short, plump bellied man step in. If it was not for his bushy eyebrows and a thin strip of a moustache right above his lips, you'd think he's a child with his smooth skin and his small eyes behind his oval glasses. In his arms, he was carrying dossiers and papers, piled up all the way up to his small chin.
The guards let out a salute as the newcomer dragged his feet across the corridor to leave the dossiers on a table which was conveniently placed a step further to the prisoner's cell.
Short man's eyes went between the prisoner and Jiro once, slowly, he stood by them and the silence elongated. He finally said, taking his time between the words, "This is... Unit Gaikotsu... of the Tokubetsukeisatsutai... You must be..." he cleared his throat, "Taiyouji-san..." It was as if he was thinking to find the proper words after each one, with a small and annoying pause every once in a while.
Jiro let out a surprised frown, trying to make sense of this character. Gaikotsu allowed the silence to elongate further, until Jiro gave up and started with a stutter, "U-uh... Yeah... Are you the one who'll take care of this case, Tokkeitai-san?"
Gaikotsu turned his sight to the prisoner. He pushed his glasses further up his nose as he locked his eyes on the prisoner with an unwavering indifference, "That... I am..."
Pierre looked at the newcomer in awe. The short, plump man very much reminded him of a turtle that had been pulled out of its shell. His mode of speaking only contributed to the image. Remembering his manners a second later, he politely nodded towards the "turtle," but didn't care to verbally greet him. After all, he was his prisoner.
Judging by the Lieutenant's - Jiro's - response to the uncomfortable silence that had hung in the air for a moment, the young pilot wasn't particularly fond of the older man either. Pierre stepped towards the pilot, as close as the metal bars would allow him.
"Is there anything I should watch out for around here?" the Gaul whispered in a way that let the plump man and the guard at the other side of the hall know exactly what he was saying. Whether the guard had actually heard him, he couldn't tell, since the young man was already sunk back into the daydreams that the Turtle's entrance had interrupted. The old man himself though ever so slightly raised one of his eyebrows, either in an attempt to understand Pierre's accent, or because he was surprised by the question.
Waiting for the Lieutenant's reply, if he was to give one, Pierre looked at the small desk that was halfway in between his cell and the small metal door through which the Turtle had entered. The large pile of files made him gulp. This would probably take a while, he thought.
Jiro replied to Pierre's question, looking sideways wearily towards Gaikotsu still, "Ah... no... nothing you should be troubled about..." he said with a lower tone, "It will be alright... eh... ahaha..." he ended it with a forced, and weird laugh, keeping his eyes still on the tokkeitai. Jiro would pat Pierre on the back if there were not metal bars between them, kind of feeling sorry for the poor man, as he imagined what Pierre has to deal with.
Gaikotsu, of course, heard it all, but there was not a motion from the man except for his eyes that travelled between the two every once in a while. He fixed his glasses again.
"Well!" Jiro started, trying to take the initiative to finish this as early as possible for himself, "Do you want to hear about how we captured this person?"
Gaikotsu raised his index finger to Jiro, turned about, dragged his feet closer to the chair next to the desk, then hopped his bottom on it. His feet left a few centimetres higher than the floor level as he sat. "Please tell... how it happened to us... Taiyouji-san..." the man said, rather unconcerned about the time it took for him to say it. Surprisingly, however, he could find his way around all those dossiers skilfully, rapidly lining them around upon the table, easily finding the right papers he has to work with. He took out a pen with a pace of hand, nearly as masterfully as an illusionist, and already started to move it about the papers to leave exquisite marks where it travelled.
"Alright... about 2000 SMT, Cho Okamura-san of the secondary forces informed me about the suspect gunboat close to New Tokyo gate in Kyushu. I was patrolling close to the scene in New Tokyo, so I appeared in a few minutes, to see them already fighting. Through a brief banter, Okamura-san told me that this gunboat pilot tried to pirate a trader that was passing through, and this suspect confirmed it... so we started to fight..." he took out a data-pad, and put it on the table next to the dossiers, "here are the voice logs and gun-cam feed of today's patrol if you need more details about it..."
Gaikotsu continued to take notes through Jiro's speech, his hand was moving with a skilful pace and precision. He asked, "What's the pilot's... name? Belongs to an... organization?... Did you... learn?"
Jiro raised his hand and made it a fist, his face crinkled with concentration as he tried to remember it, "Ah... damn... what was it...", but he gave up soon enough, took the datapad and pressed a few buttons on it, until it played, with Pierre's voice "Pierre Duvier,".
"Yeah that's it..." Jiro nodded, playing it again, he tried to say the same, "Piyer Duverr... his gunboat is an Asco, known to be flown usually by gallic criminals, those that are called brigands... It's unknown whether he's a part of an organization or if he's acting on his own..."
Gaikotsu took some more notes, until he stopped abruptly. He fixed his eyes silently on Pierre for a few seconds before asking, "Is what... Taiyouji-san... says true?"
Pierre cringed as he had to listen to the two Kusarians absolutely abusing his name in their attempts of pronouncing it. Though he did have to admit to himself that their names were not much more easy for him to say than his was for them.
As the two men exchanged information and questions, Pierre slowly dozed off, thinking of what might be following this little interview of theirs. He hoped that they may transfer him to a Gallic installation yet that day, from where he ought to be able to escape somewhat easily. If his contacts were still around, of course. On the other hand, he would hate to leave his ship behind. While he had only had it for a little over two weeks, he had already gotten to like it a lot. It had a certain personality to it - sluggish, rather weak, fragile - that just him relate to it. Getting a chance to escape with it would of course be the ultimate treat for him, but something made him doubt that he would manage to do so. Though the Lieutenant had mentioned something about seized ships being "returned" to their criminal owners...
Pierre was torn out of his imagination by the Turtle. Surprised, he turned to face the plump, little man who stared at him with an absolutely passive expression, which unnerved the Gaul to an extent.
"Excuzez-moi?" he said.
The interviewer took a slow, deep breath before, in his trademark excruciating speech, repeating the question that Pierre had failed to understand the first time.
"Is what... Taiyouji-san... says true?"
Pierre glanced at the Lieutenant who was looking back at him with an annoyed face. Pierre shrugged, muttering, "Oui." He had not paid attention to what Jiro had actually told the Turtle, but he assumed that it was true enough. Turning around again to look out of the small window that decorated his rather bland cell, Pierre could here the Lieutenant sigh.
While Pierre was of course rather unhappy about Jiro having captured him, he didn't specifically dislike the young man - in fact, the pilot had been rather kind to him, at least compared to most law enforcement officers he had run into in his time. He could only imagine how frustrated the Lieutenant must have been to be standing there, waiting for Pierre's paperwork to be completed so that he could return to base and go about what ever business it was that wanted to go about - Pierre assumed it was something to do with a woman.
Jiro indeed started to check his watch every once in a while through their interview. He'd have a rather worried look on his face sometimes, which could be guessed that it's not related to the scenery in Fuchu at all. He asked to the tokkeitai impatiently, "Do you wanna learn anything else from me, Gaikotsu?"
Gaikotsu of course knew what made Taiyouji this impatient, he knew most everything about the Kusari personnel, usually more than they themselves know about their own lives... Knowing so much about so many people's lives made him feel like he's beyond the living people's concerns. Time did not matter, neither feelings. You'd never guess these thoughts behind that plain indifference; no matter what would happen, Gaikotsu kept his calm.
"No, Taiyouji-san... you may... leave, if you wish..." Gaikotsu remained in thoughts for a second, "We do not... need you... further," he plainly added, and was not worried about the lack of respect Jiro was showing by calling his name without an honorific. He guessed he could get everything Jiro knows from the data-pad Jiro provided.
"Well, then... I've got one more thing to say, so listen to me carefully..." Jiro apparently could not keep his anger in check any more with the impatience building up, "The last time I brought a prisoner here, he could escape within a day... or was let out somehow... We knew that he was a pirate, we caught him on the act... we know he's not innocent, and him shooting at us a second time the very next day was more than enough proof for it... The people here frakked up majorly... and there were no further investigations about that case..." he frowned, closing his arms together on his chest as he spoke, showing his dissatisfaction. "Do not let that happen again, or I swear, I'll make sure someone gets punished dearly for it..."
Gaikotsu let that threat slip by as well, but he was challenged to do his work properly. Gaikotsu would always do his work properly. "Wakatta... Do not worry... there will be... great care..." He looked back at Jiro silently afterwards, pushed his glasses further upon his nose as he does regularly, the glasses shined under the neon lights. That indifferent and creepy look hid an amazing determination, concentration and strength, that would somehow seep out from his calm appearance, and comfort everyone who would have any doubts about his work he cares so much about.
No. Jiro narrowed his eyes as he looked back. He'd surely not be able to take Gaikotsu's word for it... but he was out of time. "Alright. Take care, brigand...", he immediately opened the door closest to them, and was already trying to find his PDA among his pockets, "Mo-moshi mosh-... c-can't hear me? Cheh..." he let out a curse, "friggin' scrambl-..." the door closed behind himself and his voice could no longer be heard. Pierre and Gaikotsu would be left alone with a couple of guards who looked like they were trained to not be attentive at all, according to their empty looks on their faces, in dream worlds already.
"So then... will you tell me... what happened... with your own words... Piero Duweru-san... include... the reasons why you were in.... Kusari... what were you planning... to do... who you are... actually... everything you can... think of..." he hopped off his chair, his feet now could touch the floor. He dragged a step towards the prisoner, with his hands locked behind his back.