Harsh white light shone inside the interrogation room. Jackson slumped in a metal rolling chair, his hands handcuffed to the bolted desk in front of him. The shackles were loose enough for him to have a full range of motion, but there was no question that he was a prisoner. The labor overseer now found himself trapped in the cage.

  Luo Xixi observed safely behind a wall fitted with a camera and audio feed. A pot of tea sat next to her. Auditor Rosales had insisted on conducting the interrogation himself. It would be a teaching moment, he said. A black mask covered his face and neck, blending seamlessly into the obsidian uniform covering the rest of his body. His sorrowful brown eyes poked through the spectral visage.

  “Welcome, my friend,” Rosales said with a sinister calm in his voice as he walked into the room. There was a quiet inevitability in his step. “I am Auditor Rosales. I am here to ask you a few questions.”

  “What the hell is this? I’m a law abiding citizen! I have rights!” Jackson shouted with an angry bravado.

  Rosales emitted a weak chuckle as his eyes narrowed. Luo Xixi could almost imagine a genuinely sadistic smile rising behind the mask.

  “What are rights?” Rosales mused as he paced back and forth leisurely. “Rights are a function of law. Law is quite malleable here.”

  He looked at Jackson and gently offered him a solution. “Malleable laws are a useful tool, my friend. There are just a few questions that we need your answers to. Help me bend the law to help you.”

  Hardened eyes glared back at him obstinately in defiant silence. Rosales sighed in frustration at the lack of cooperation.

  “You can contribute to reducing social entropy. Help us understand the situation from your point of view,” he said calmly.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Rosales resumed the interrogation with a newfound disrespect in his tone.

  “Your heavy handed management practices of the Hyoron laborers have been noted. Is it a coincidence that civil unrest occurred near your workplace?” he mused, hardly even glancing at Jackson.

  “I don’t know anything about the riots! I just oversee those Hyoron beasts!” Jackson yelled.

  “I am not interested solely in the riot,” Rosales replied dismissively. “I just needed to know you can answer questions.”

  Rosales slowly walked up to the table and set down a tablet. With a wordless command, it began displaying the imbalance of his travel records. His exits exceeded entries, the discrepancy highlighted in cool blue. Luo Xixi zoomed in on the screen with a neural command. It was in the same granular detail that she had filed in her report. Jackson looked at it with dull disinterest, as if he couldn’t comprehend the totality of control that he was under.

  “Let’s start with something simple. Your travel records are public record. I see an incoming and outgoing imbalance. Can you talk about this situation?” Rosales continued questioning.

  Further silence. Jackson spat on the ground and turned his head away from Rosales’ gaze. Rosales’s voice took on a slight tone of frustration.

  “It seems you enjoy long walks after traveling multiple stops by metro,” he continued as he looked at Jackson’s rotund belly. “Seems to have done nothing for your health.”

  “I took private transport back,” Jackson retorted arrogantly.

  Rosales audibly laughed before casually slapping the back of Jackson’s head with violent force. A hollow crack rang out. The portly man yelped and nearly lost his balance. The blow was carefully calibrated to humiliate and cause pain, but nowhere near enough to cause real damage. Luo Xixi almost gasped at the sudden outburst of violence.

  Furious at his humiliation, Jackson stood up and lunged at Rosales in a blind rage. Just as he was about to reach Rosales with a closed fist, the shackles caught his hands. Surprised by the forgotten restraint, Jackson tripped over himself and attempted to sit down to regain his composure.

  Right as Jackson was about to make contact with the seat cushion, Rosales casually kicked the rolling chair away from under him. Jackson lost his balance and fell to the floor, screaming in pain as his heavy frame hit the concrete tiles. His cuffed hands were stopped in midair by their chains, the cold metal biting into his wrists.

  “Let’s try again,” Rosales said with a chill in his voice. The time for games was over. “Why do your exits exceed your entries to this station?”

  He defiantly stared at the floor despite wincing in pain on the ground.

  Rosales knelt down in front of him, holding the tablet to Jackson’s face.

  “If you can’t answer that, then maybe you can answer this for me.”

  The tablet instantly showed a plump, human shaped figure standing in front of a vehicle in thermal vision. The figure matched Jackson’s, but the face was obscured by the low resolution of the thermal camera.

  “I don’t recognize that person,” he said, slowly recovering from his pain.

  “How about now?” Rosales asked, flipping to a zoomed in picture of Jackson’s boot with mud on it that then zoomed out to show his entire figure.

  “All it shows is me wearing dirty boots.”

  Rosales stood up and pretended to walk away before raising his leg. A kick from his boot struck Jackson on the soft side of his belly. He cried out with an animal yelp.

  “I need you to think harder,” Rosales said dismissively. “I am not going to let you leave without understanding these discrepancies.”

  Jackson panted in pain as he sat on the floor, clutching his sides. “I… I’m just a driver,” he said haltingly. “I take the metro to the edge of the human zone near the border fence. There’s a freight transporter. They meet me there on demand. I don’t know the manifest. Everything is sealed. I don’t-”

  Rosales shook his head before speaking up. “Who are ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know! They aren’t physically there! They leave a key code and a tablet with instructions! What the hell do you want from me?!”

  “Where do you drive to?” he pressed on.

  Jackson fell silent again.

  “Get up,” Auditor Rosales commanded. Jackson haltingly stood up. Deep indents from the handcuffs were imprinted on his wrist. Rosales uprighted the rolling chair and kicked it back to the front of the table. “Sit down.” Jackson meekly obeyed.

  Rosales leaned forward, black gloved hands pressing on the table. They would leave no fingerprint or DNA. This interrogation would be as untraceable as if it was conducted by a ghost, except for the fact that Luo Xixi was recording it.

  “I can help you. But you have to want to help yourself.”

  Jackson shuddered. A mix of tears, sweat, mucous and piss imparted moisture and a faint scent of fear to his clothes.

  “I don’t know. I can’t help you. You can kill me,” he cried, choking on his own fear.

  “Why would I want to kill you? I am trying to help you,” Rosales said gently, shaking his head.

  His spirit finally broke. Fresh tears began rolling down Jackson’s round cheeks. They were red with rage, embarrassment and terror.

  “I don’t know, OK? I don’t know!”

  Rosales stood back up and walked away from the table.

  “Really? You know nothing? You don’t know where you went to pick up the trucks? You don’t even know where you were? You don’t even know where you drive to?” Rosales asked casually.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Tears slowly dried from Jackson’s face, replaced by a faint look of hope.

  “Is that all you want? I’ll tell you now,” he said eagerly.

  Rosales stayed silent. Jackson fidgeted before fully breaking.

  “I was at the northwestern border fence. It was in the forest region near hab block 7. There’s a dirt road there. I just drive the truck to the freight entrance, 7A I think. There’s no checkpoint there. I was given a key to the freight entrance. I just walk through the freight entrance and go home directly.”

  Rosales shook his head, almost as if Jackson’s pathetic confession was too little, too late. He leaned against the wall with an air of boredom. A Neuronet notification appeared in Luo Xixi’s mind.

  >Corroborate his statement with surveillance at the hab block 7 entrance and freight entrance 7A manifests, Rosales thought in a private message to Luo Xixi.

  >Understood, Luo Xixi replied.

  “What more do you want from me?!” Jackson screamed. “I just want to go home, man. I told you everything I know.”

  Rosales turned around, his eyes visibly narrowing. It was almost as if he was smiling behind the mask.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Can I at least get some water?” Jackson begged.

  A faint chuckle emanated from behind Rosales’s mask.

  “Sure.”

  With a wordless command, a synth entered through the interrogation room door. Its delivery compartment opened with a bottle of water inside. Auditor Rosales casually picked up the bottle and walked towards Jackson.

  Just as the bottle was about to be within Jackson’s grasp, Rosales stepped away, moving the desperately needed water just beyond the prisoner’s reach. Instead, he turned around to obscure his face from the prisoner, unscrewed the bottle, pulled down his mask and poured it into his own mouth, careful to never touch the rim with his lips.

  Jackson looked on with a tired dismay. Sensing an opening, Rosales closed the water bottle and slowly rolled it to Jackson over the metal table.

  “Thank you sir,” Jackson said tearfully, gulping down the entirety of the water with desperate thirst. Rosales watched wordlessly, looking at the filthy, broken man with a deep disgust.

  “You are almost there. We just need a little bit more help,” Rosales remarked. “Do you know anything about the so-called real food?”

  “No. I have no idea,” Jackson denied instantly. He set the empty water bottle aside.

  “That’s OK. I don’t need you to know,” Rosales said, continuing on. “You will be given a location. You will talk to a chef at the restaurant there. Buy some real food. To go. Leave it with a designated synth delivery unit,” Rosales commanded.

  “I don’t have the money for that!” Jackson exclaimed.

  “I thought you said you have no idea what real food was,” Rosales noted.

  “I only know it is expensive, OK? Rumors. That’s it.”

  Rosales casually tossed a small stack of credit cards towards the shackled, cowering figure. The stack fluttered apart in midair before chaotically splitting upon impact.

  “Don’t worry about the expense. The state is generous. Keep the change.”

  Jackson’s terror filled eyes looked at the small fortune that sprawled across the table before he tentatively touched one of the cards with his shackled hands. Rosales looked on with contemptuous disdain but did not interfere or say anything. Jackson carefully assembled the cards in a pile and moved the stack directly in front of his chest.

  “So we have a deal?” Rosales queried. Jackson nodded his head in terror.

  “Good. An officer will be here to escort you out shortly. I will leave you to think about how to carry out your mission. A designated Neuronet channel has been reserved for you to inform us of your progress. You have 1 week.”

  The door of the interrogation room swung open as Rosales walked out. A few moments later, a member of the colonial police arrived to escort Jackson out, still in chains. The camera feed stopped recording, returning to a view of the now empty room. Luo Xixi's door clicked open as Rosales joined her in the observation annex. She looked at him with a mix of reverence and terror.

  "Tea?" he offered calmly as he took off his mask. Without waiting for a response, he poured steaming hot liquid from the tea pot into Luo Xixi’s cup. He arrogantly took a sip from it before setting it down in front of her.

  “Take note,” Rosales muttered, his face weary in the annex’s low light. “Fear is the foundation. Greed builds the cage. He is now an asset.”

  Luo Xixi nodded hesitantly. There’s no big deal here, she justified to herself. Jackson wasn’t hurt permanently. He has been given a new purpose and turned away from the path of criminality. We have saved him at the cost of some temporary pain and discomfort.

  “I will manage his case from this point,” she stated flatly. “It is a simple matter of securing a sample.”

  “Good,” Rosales replied. “Has there been progress on Kho’rax?”

  “No news yet,” Luo Xixi said with a faint air of disappointment. “The Hyoron are distrustful of us.”

  “That is to be expected, but in the end, they are the greatest beneficiaries of solving this case,” Rosales said with an air of disappointment in his voice.

  Luo Xixi spoke up with a hint of questioning in her voice.

  “Do we have any proof that their concerns are true or that their claims of missing children are even over the baseline?”

  Rosales shook his head.

  “That is not the point. It is not a criminal matter anymore. When there are riots over it, it is now a political matter. The Ministry is not a mere law enforcement agency. We are a political enforcement agency.”

  “We also had a situation with our drone recon. It seems that there is a border breach in the forest in the northwest of the human zone,” Luo Xixi noted.

  She tapped her tablet. A map instantly appeared, circling the area.

  “Before electronic warfare took down my FPV we were able to take this image of the site.”

  The screen transitioned to the thermal image of human hunters casually carrying their prey across the border zone.

  Rosales nodded with satisfaction.

  “Additional surveillance can be deployed there. Let Jackson draw more rats out of the hole.”

  He stepped away and cleared his throat.

  “You have demonstrated remarkable progress so far. We now have both a promising lead and an actionable item.”

  “Thank you sir. I have some more ideas on how to deploy our judicial resources. Currently, we still need to follow up on our other promising lead. I will have the proposal to you by tomorrow.”

  “Good work. I have a small gift for you. Dismissed,” Rosales said calmly.

  The police station was materially no different from the time that Luo Xixi had come in for her questioning. It still had the same beige walls, the same uncomfortably bright lighting, the same resignation of the prisoners. As she walked out, Jackson’s gaze met hers. He was visibly shaken, but in the moment their eyes met, the terror in his eyes was apparent. Luo Xixi gave him a dismissive glance and continued walking.

  Returning to her residence was the same walk as it had been before, but filtered through an entirely new lens. The previous disorienting noise of the crowd had given way to a purified calm. The noise no longer troubled her. The dizzying array of advertisements and propaganda had become background noise, with her eyes never lingering long enough to ever open any details in Neuronet. People in her path were instinctively avoided, but that became less and less necessary as they began to actively avoid her. There was a new air of mastery and power in her steps.

  A Neuronet message was waiting for her as she pressed her hand against the DNA keypad.

  >Delivery available.

  The door clicked open to the entryway. Two small, nondescript boxes of recyclable packaging were lying on the floor. Luo Xixi picked it up. Both felt light and airy, almost as if they were empty. A code was imprinted on the top box. Luo Xixi focused on it to open the embedded Neuronet message.

  >Try these on in private. Wear them for designated functions. Avoid wearing it in unofficial capacities. We will keep you informed. You earned them.

  She slipped into her private room and ripped open the boxes. Packaged neatly in transparent polymer were two sets of clothes. One was a black pair of trousers with a suspiciously deep set of pockets. The other was a collarless black blouse, identical in color and fitted exactly to her size. A separate Directorate flag pin was packaged with it. It was indistinguishable from the uniform that Auditor Rosales wore. It was the uniform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

  Gray work clothes fell aside to the floor as Luo Xixi stripped down to her underwear. As she removed her undershirt, her glasses rim caught on its tight neck. Cursing, she carefully stretched the shirt out to take it off without ripping it. She lifted her eyes to look at the mirror. A reflection of a sad, half naked woman glanced back at her. Her loose black hair was thrown into disarray by her haphazard undressing. Slightly sagging breasts suggested a weariness born of age and cynicism. A small soft spot had accumulated on her abdomen, the result of a lifetime of eating junk food and stress. She felt ashamed and naked, despite still having clothes on.

  Luo Xixi quickly thrust her legs into the new trousers to hide from her own judgment. She immediately felt the cool fibers slide gently over her skin. It felt like a form of completion. The blouse followed, smoothly fitting over her body without catching in her glasses.

  She glared back at the reflection in the mirror. The clothes became a seamless obsidian shell around her, in stark contrast to the ill fitting and uncomfortable engineering jumpsuit. All of her flaws were obscured by the darkness. The pockets were deep enough to hide tools of interest. Most of all, she no longer felt awkward. The black suit gave her a new sense of confidence. It didn’t matter that this suit didn’t have her name on it. She did not need a name with this suit.

  She turned around in the mirror. The uniform was desolately beautiful, as black as empty interstellar space. But there was one step remaining before the costume was complete.

  Luo Xixi picked up the small Directorate flag pin and affixed it to her chest. She smiled at her reflection. The transformation was flawless.

  Do you want the Peacekeeper and Frontier POVs to be separated into 2 volumes of the book?