The hostile low hum of this station that is used to intimidate those that have woken up onboard, loud enough to keep you awake, but quiet enough not to disturb the questions asked within these interrogation walls. Camera lenses recessed into the walls gave no blind spots to those watching from within the wire, the room washed with a bright white light that hardly left any shadows. The prisoner, dressed in a dirtied and muddied black jumpsuit and marked with an upside down cross on his chest and back in white paint. His hands were cuffed and mag-sealed to the metal bars on the floor-welded steel table. His fingers numbed from the lack of movement as his hands laid flat out with fingers spread wide open. His hands freshly cleaned but time would have to hide those beaten and bloodied marks built up over months. His eyes were looking down at said hands as he spread out his fingers and was carefully inspecting between them while he had spare time between each interrogation to be without a blindfold.
"Recording begin... This is Kommissaar Helen Oberhauser conducting quarantine review interview of detainee [REDACTED] for potential release. As per guidance of procedure, we will be asking you a series of questions, you are ordered to answer these questions and not deviate from necessary details, you will be allowed to speak vocally through the length of this interview, do you understand?" The Kommissaar was the only officer within the room sat across from the prisoner, her side of the steel table was adorned by data-padd and a handheld scanning device on the table. Her looks contrasted the prisoner, she was dressed in a full suit black suit, everything from the blazer, undershirt, trousers and even her utility belt. Her blonde shoulder length hair neatly parted from the centre... His tired and empty eyes struggled to lift it's gaze, his cut and dehydrated lips quiverd trying to respond before the next shock was sent through the mag sealed cuffs. It was already hard enough to breathe with the ships recycled air being so dry.
"I understand." He muttered out of the gravel lined depths of his throat. The Kommissaar picked up one of her data-pads and reached for a remote in the other...
"Please designate your name rank and serial number."
"[REDACTED], Kommissaar, [REDACTED]"
"Why did you not self-terminate?"
"I was not compromised."
"You have been missing in the Salzungenebel for 6 months, why did you not self-terminate?"
"My objective wasn't complete. The assigned mission was still achievable."
"The MND had already pulled out 5 months ago, why did you not self-terminate?"
"I had advanced deeper into the complex within the first week and was still operational, I lost communications within the wrecks."
"How can you confirm you were not compromised? You had prolonged exposure to psionic threats, why did you not self-terminate?"
"Augmentation systems proved that I had not been compromised. They would have confirmed a physical compromise."
"But you had prolonged exposure to psionic threats...?"
The prisoner hesitated in his response... A few silent seconds drifted by until a single click was heard. A sudden deafening scream from the prisoner was heard as he bellowed the pain from the bottom of his lungs, his hands spread in shock as the handcuffs were passing thousands of volts through his body. The electrical current being sent through those cuffs finally stopped with the lights flickering in the interrogation room alone ceasing soon after... The Kommissaar staring plainly as if she wasn't phased by the sight of the prisoner gasping for air and staring into the ceiling light with both eyes wide open... Yet even through the entire struggle, he did not stand up, nor did he collapse as expected with such a shock.
"Please answer the question."
"Ye... Yes. I was exposed."
"And you had not been subjected to thrall syndrome? Why did you not self-terminate?"
"The voices were still angry, I was aware of my actions."
"How can you tell...?"
"I would have self-terminated if not."
"Your failure to self-terminate may have been subject to psionic manipulation. Why did you not self-terminate?"
"I have 127 confirmed terminations during those 6 months. I was fulfilling my objective, I... I fulfilled my objective."
"Yes. But records account you were the last survivor to emerge, anyone else who had been rescued was last reported 4 months before you. So why did you not self-terminate...?"
"... I don't know."
"Hmm."
She instead put down the remote and used the now free hand to type on the data-pad. Yet her glare kept dead center with his own fatigued and empty eyes.
"What happened in those 6 months?"
"Advanced into enemy territory during assault operations, first wave, investigated energy signatures coming from the Salzungenebel, located and destroyed a psionic node"
"Four months in, an explosion was detected within the Salzungenebel, a wrecked battleship had undergone a catastrophic explosion within it's reactor--"
"That was me."
The Kommissaar paused her interrogation for a moment to let her disbelief shine though her face, an eyebrow perching higher and a lean inwards to the table.
"That was you?"
"Yes."
"Just you...?"
"..."
He nodded his head with shallow repetitiveness.
"And you somehow extracted yourself to the rim of the graveyard during a heightened infectees presence in the area as they responded to your sabotage?"
"Yes."
"I find it hard to believe that you lasted merely with an EVA combat suit in that place, statistics show..."
"It happened."
"How...?"
"I don't know."
Suddenly he recoiled forward into the table, the chair knocked and kicked back behind him and collapsing as far under the table as much as he could while his wrists stayed restrained and tortured in the centre. The light again flicking as he was electrocuted for a 'reasonable' answer, the conviction of the Kommissaar who held that remote out right at him with a disgusted look on her face as her thumb almost pressed that button beyond return.
"Please! Answer tru--"
"F-f-for f-fuck sakes Helen, I d-don't know!"
He muttered while collecting his staggering and wheezing breaths between his gritting teeth as he was held limp by his wrists to the floor from the cuffs restraining any further movement from the table. Drool, or what little of seeped between his gritting teeth... The Kommissaar let go of that button with a disappointed and disengaging turn away.
"All I remember was the screaming while ripping them out of their necks, whipping the combined blood off my hands with the next strike, the smell of gunpowder punching through my filter. All of it just... Constant."
"The first thing you remember before your gap in memory?"
"Detonating the charge, destroying the node... Lots of swarming angry voices... A chorus of hate."
The prisoner stood up as he gave his remark, all while using his foot to reach for the chair and kick it back upright. Huffing in exhaustion with each attempt... But finally that chair found itself back up and in position. Clearly taking some time to the annoyance of the Kommissaar.
"And the first thing you remember clearly after that?"
"The anger and shouting getting quieter and more confuseed, lighting my distress beacon, floating in space."
"You jumped out of the nebula and hoped for a rescue after we pulled out? How could you expect an Buro rescu-"
"I didn't expect a rescue. Just hopeful."
"Then you likely wouldn't have..."
"If I was left there, it would have been deemed a self-termination. But I wasn't, the Buro did rescue me."
"And you expected to be welcomed back?"
"No, I just expected to go through this. I don't know the result, I can just look at possibilities and make a--"
"Gamble?"
The prisoner nodded to the Kommissaars addition to his sentence, hands opening in confirmation along with those fatigued nods. Her response was nothing short of a long detached stare away and an excessive exhale as she buried her stack of data-pads back into their briefcase all while maintaining hold on that remote.
"A team will arrive to sedate, blind, deafen and nullify perceptions. You'll be shortly returned to your quarantine cell, the eva--
"...Evaluation board will review your outcome in a few weeks, this concluded the interview and the allowance for verbal communication has ceased."
Those words flowed fluently and naturally than anything else he's said so far as he stared blankly into the distance of the room. She wasn't impressed at all, the temptation to slam that button out of frustration... All these acute odds we're going to be difficult to weigh and judge, she packed up what she had brought, standing up from the table and quickly pacing herself out the room. The door humming open as she approached swiftly and closed with barely a inch to spare as she stepped out.
As soon as that door sealed with a hiss, the lights dimmed and left him in the near dark... It was the only chance he'd get to breathe without obstruction and to let out his voice. So with a gasp, shudder and single tear all in half a second. His mind had enough relief to finally process a decision while without any words to speak. No pain was greater than the bladed grip found on the seven swords of manipulation, distrust and deception.
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