Welcome to the 13th installment to The Nothing’s Child. The world is nothing like we know anymore. Or something…

If you are new to how the links work, each section shows all the links for the specific section. Otherwise there is a link for the start of each section. It is easy to catch up to where we are now.

Section 1
The Nothing’s Child
Section 2
Life is a Dumpster Dive
Section 3
Bleuthor Encryption
Section 4
Behind the Bookcase
Section 5
Interrogation with no Egg to Stand On
Eggsistential Confusion
Relatively Painless
Section 6
Mental Warfare
Section 7
Cracked Eggs

Interrogation with no Egg to Stand On

Ya know, when you end up strapped to an uncomfortable chair, hands cuffed to the table in front of you, it’s never a good start to your day. But seems a normal day for me. I always wake up with the world against me. The trick is turning it all around. This one wasn’t going to be easy.

They hadn’t bothered to check on me in hours. So I sat there, in the dull, unimpressive room, no windows, one door, hell they didn’t even bother with the pretense of a two way mirror. I had the table I was cuffed to, the chair my legs were strapped to, and a couple chairs on the other side of the table. You would think I am dangerous if you didn’t know any better.

Flickr Creative Commons via Krystian Olszanski
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When the door finally opened I was blinded by the brighter light of the hall. I saw the vague shapes of a couple people coming into the room but couldn’t make anything else out about them.

“I’ve never heard of you.” The voice was male. It came at me from the left set of legs. My eyes adjusted enough to see the two people in the room with me. An older man stood to the left. A man about my age on the right. “I said I have never heard of you.”

“Ok?”

“You broke into my system. Runners don’t break into my system.”

“Wasn’t that hard. Notice I didn’t make it out as easy.”

He sat in the chair. I couldn’t read his face or tone. The statements seemed accusatory but he didn’t look upset or even annoyed with me. If I were to call it anything, I would say he sounded curious.

“How is it, someone I have never heard of, comes into my system without batting an eye?”

He jumped right into the hard questions. “What? You want me to say I am some super genius from out of the blue or something?” I ran low on snappy come backs. Soon I would be fighting on the level of ‘I know you are but what am I?’

I knew the commentary was lame but he refused to play along. “I saw your designs. Your decks were … interesting to put it mildly.”

“I put time into those. When you’re done stealing my work, would you be a dear and drop ‘em off at my place?” The other guy reached across the table and slammed his fist into my temple.

“Shut it,” he said. His voice was rough, gravely. It added a weight to his command I didn’t expect.

“We aren’t here to abuse him, Bruno.” He was on his feet, stepping between me and the bruiser. “Step outside. I can handle this.”

He returned to his seat. “Sorry about that. He can be a bit… overzealous.”

“I can see that.” My head still rang from the thrashing.

“I suppose you know why you’re here, don’t you?”

“You’re looking for the item.”

“Among other things,” he said. “When was the last time you spoke with Drake?”

“The night his team hit UC,” I said. “He’s been missing since then.”

“Did you know someone broke into his apartment recently?” He was toying with me, I was sure of it. I could play that game too.

“Did they take anything of value?”

“That’s where it gets a little fuzzy,” he said. “We didn’t notice anything out of place except for a bookcase that looked askew. Looked like someone left in such a hurry they didn’t close it properly. You know anyone who gets in trouble on the way out of a secure place?”

“Sounds crazy,” I said. “I can’t think of anyone who would do something like that.”

“What do you know about a fixer by the name of Greybunny35?”

“I’ve gotten a job or two from her in the past. She set up the run on UC.” Easy to find info, it wasn’t worth hiding that from him.

“Where is the item?”

“I don’t even know what the item is. Drake never gave out that information. He forms a team based on what he knows and keeps everything tight to his chest. I was recruited by Greybunny, she mediated the deal between me and Drake. Hell, I didn’t even know the names of his team.”

He stood up. “You aren’t going anywhere anytime soon,” he said. “Get used to the look of these walls. Until we have more answers you’re stuck here.” He locked the door behind him.

Bastard didn’t even bother to remove the cuffs. It sucked for sleeping, as I am sure you expect. I think the worse part of this was being cut off. I had no way to contact anyone outside of the room, couldn’t do anything if I had the means anyway. I was stuck and there was nothing I could do about it. At least they left the lights on.

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