InterrogationA Story by Troy AdamsonThis is a short story in the Cyber/Spacepunk/Noir vein I wrote some time ago. I'm considering expanding upon it, perhaps to full novel size, depending on the interest it generates. Critique is welcomeNo one knew the woman that accompanied Finn Dralor through
the dimly lit corridors of the trader’s deck, but everyone knew enough about
Dralor to realize that whatever business she was conducting with him, it was
sure to be bad. Dralor was well known to be a slaver, smuggler, pimp ...and
worse. If this were anywhere but the pirate-run Salvation Station, he’d have a
dozen or more Inter-Sol bounty hunters already taking aim on him. His rakish
good looks and unusually tall frame, in addition to his penchant for rich,
colorful clothing, made him quite recognizable for those looking to cash in on
the sizable reward offered for his capture. Fortunately for him, it was
Salvation, the only space station in the entire solar system where the laws of
the Inter-Solar Union didn’t hold sway. Those who came here knew that while
they might look and listen, they had better keep their mouths firmly shut and
mind to their own affairs. The woman herself was anything but attractive. She looked to
be in her mid-twenties, but her scowling face and the fierce glances she cast
about made her seem older than her years. One cheek was badly scarred, perhaps
from a serious burn, and her left arm, from the elbow down, was a cybernetic
replacement, steel and plexicon grafted to living flesh. Her dark hair was
cropped short and her clothing, in contrast to Dralor’s rich finery, was made
of a course black fabric, sleeveless and unadorned. Usually, no one would have taken notice of her, save for one
glaring detail; she wore no weapon. On Salvation, a lawless bastion of
murderers and thieves, everyone was expected to provide their own protection.
The fact that the woman in Dralor’s company didn’t feel the need to carry any
form of protection led to one of only two possible assumptions. Either she
believed that Finn Dralor would keep her safe (which would make her a fool) or,
there was much more to this young woman than her appearance suggested. All eyes watched as the pair made their way to Garl Varo’s
shop, The Wicked Way. A run-down, rusted corner of the deck where illicit
drugs, synth-w****s, and other forms of debased entertainment could be easily
purchased. As the sliding steel door of the store closed behind them, the
onlookers turned back to their own business, secure in the knowledge that
whatever happened inside Varo’s store, the less they knew about it, the better. Inside, the shop was a cacophony of lights, music, and
perversion. The walls were covered with monitrons displaying images of nude
synthetic prostitutes, both male and female, dancing and offering their
customizable bodies to those that had the currency to buy them. One simply had
to select the features and attributes they desired from the touch menu on the
screen, pay the required fee, and the synth-w***e would be ready and willing in
seconds in one of several rooms below the shop. Directly across from the entrance sat several counters, each
with a selection of holographic images showing various wares the store had to
offer. Pharmaceuticals, pornographic holovids, and the latest in recreational
bio-mods were on sale. The dancing colors coming from the multitude of strobing
light emitters, coupled with the sound of Martian jazz, was enough to make a
customer brain-dead within minutes from sensory overload, which was probably
the intent. The worst salesman in the galaxy could make easy money off a
zombie. At the back of the building sitting on a hover chair was the
proprietor, Garl Varo himself. A bloated, greasy lump of pale, pasty flesh,
Garl was not someone most people enjoyed being around. A stinking miasma hung
in the air around him at all times, a result of his addiction to muru, an
extract from the root of the Venusian Orchid that put the user into a state of
relaxed euphoria. His bald head and pig-like face were covered in wart-like
growths, a side effect of the drug, and his wide mouth resembled nothing so
much as two slabs of raw liver, gone bad. His hairless torso was bare, and
sweat ran down in rivulets over his sickly-looking skin, even though the room
was quite cool. He was the picture of over-indulgence and gluttony. However,
anyone who drew their conclusions about Garl from his appearance alone would
soon be dismayed by any business dealings they might have with him. His mind
was as sharp as a razor, and his greed knew no bounds. Those two traits, along
with the selection of wares he chose to sell, made him one of the most ruthless
and under-handed traders on the station. He glanced up as the two entered the shop and his face broke
into a wide, stained-tooth grin. Removing his muru pipe from his lips, he
beckoned to them. “Finn, my boy!” He exclaimed throwing his gelatinous arms
wide in greeting, “What brings the dirtiest scoundrel in the nine quadrants to
my humble little corner of space?” Finn grinned back at the fat blob as he strolled towards
him. “Oh, you know,” He said with a casual wave of his hand, “business as
usual.” “Oh?” Garl replied, his eyebrows arching. “Well, let’s see
if I can help you out then, alright?” Suddenly, Garl’s hover chair spun around one hundred eighty
degrees. From the back a series of panels dropped open and half a dozen tubes
extended out. Finn dove to one side as the tubes began discharging ion rounds,
all of them aimed squarely for the young woman still standing near the front of
the room. The entire store turned into a blaze of screaming energy eruptions,
the charges detonating on impact and incinerating anything they came in contact
with. After a few seconds, the firing stopped and the chair spun back around. Garl looked around at the damage to his store. The blackened
monitrons filled the air with the stench of burnt ozone, and the music that had
been playing was reduced to a quiet garble. The shelves with the built in
holographic projectors fizzed and sparked, while puddles of melted plexicon
congealed and solidified on the floor. Of the woman, there was no sign. “Well,
it looks like you owe me quite a bit of money, Finn,” He said while still
surveying the destruction, “I’d say about ten thousand cred’s worth.” He finished
smugly. He drew deeply from his pipe as he catalogued everything that would
need to be replaced. “Who was that s**t, anyway?” He asked, finally turning to
look at Finn, still lying on the floor. “She wasn’t much of a looker, if ya…”
Garl’s voice trailed off as he looked at the man on the floor. Finn Dralor wasn’t paying attention to Garl. His eyes were
turned upward, with a look in them that Garl didn’t like at all. Just as he
turned to see what had Finn’s attention, he felt a sudden burst of pain as the
woman, whom moments before he had assumed vaporized, leaped down from the
ceiling she had been clinging to and caught him in the side of his bulbous,
warty head with a hard kick that sent him flying from the hover chair and
crashing down to the floor next to Finn. He barely had time to realize he might be in real trouble before a cybernetic hand closed on his throat and yanked him to an almost standing position. Trying to focus his vision, he looked into the eyes of the woman who now held his immense weight up with what appeared to be very little effort on her part. “That was a really cute trick.” She said calmly, drawing her
face closer to his. “Tell me, was it the phrase ‘business as usual’ or the wave
of the hand that signaled you?” She asked. “Look, miss, I …” Garl began. The steel grasp around his throat closed tighter,
restricting the flow of oxygen. She held him like that for a few moments,
emotionlessly watching him to struggle to breathe. He was almost to the point
of passing out when she finally loosened her hold enough for air to pass
through to his lungs. His vision fading in and out, Garl heard the woman speak
again. “I don’t want to hear anything from you, beyond the answers
to my questions.” She stated flatly. “Do you understand?” Garl nodded weakly, his jowls quivering. Almost contemptuously, the woman tossed him back to the
floor to once again lie next to Dralor, who hadn’t moved during their brief
conversation. Looking down on both of them, the woman asked, “You deal in
the drug, Irellion-9?” It was more of a statement than a question. Propping himself up on one elbow and massaging his throat,
Garl nodded. “It’s an inhibitor class stimulant, used mostly by rift pilots
traveling beyond the Plutonian quadrant.” He responded. “It alleviates the
symptoms of void sickness while allowing the pilots to stay conscious for
months at a time.” The woman nodded, then asked, “Do you know of anyone other
than a freighter pilot who has purchased it from you in the last six months?” Garl glanced over at Finn, his eyes questioning. Finn slowly
nodded his head, not saying a word. The woman kneeled down in front of Garl, her fierce eyes
boring into his. “I’m not given to asking questions a second time, Garl.” She
intoned. Garl swallowed hard, his whole body now soaked in a cold
sweat. “This is Salvation, miss.“ He explained, “Someone who goes around
talking too much about other people’s business don’t last very long here.” “Oh, is that so?” The woman asked. Reaching down with the prosthetic appendage, the woman
gripped a handful of the fat man’s belly and clenched her fist. Garl began to
scream, but the sound was cut short by the woman’s other hand forcing its way
into his mouth, and down his throat. “I know ways to make you suffer for days without dying,
Garl.” The woman calmly assured him. Suddenly a burning, ripping pain exploded in Garl’s chest,
crawling through his abdomen and worming through his extremities. The pain grew
and expanded until his entire body felt as if it were imploding in on itself.
Squirming on the floor, he began wishing he would die, that he would give in to
the pain and horror and simply cease to be. It felt like hours passed, all the
while Garl could do nothing but suffer and hope for oblivion. Then, when he was beginning to feel what may have been the
first stirrings of death, the pain ceased, and the hand was drawn out of his
mouth. Gasping and vomiting, he rolled to one side, fear and dread washing over
him. To hell with the code of Salvation, he thought. He had never felt such
pain! He would tell this woman whatever she wanted to hear, so long as it would
get her out of his shop. “Now, I hope we have a new understanding of one another,
Garl. You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’ll begin to get
creative. Understand?” The woman said, in that eerie calm voice. Rolling back over to face her, Garl nodded his head
vigorously in answer. After a moment or two of silence, Garl remembered that she
was awaiting an answer to her earlier question. As the woman’s eyebrow raised,
a possible sign of impatience, Garl sputtered forth a response. “There was a woman that came here about four or five weeks
ago.” He said, “She purchased a large quantity of I-9.” “How much is a ‘large quantity’?” The woman asked. “Three liters.” Garl replied quickly. “She cleared out my
entire stock.” “How do you know she wasn’t a pilot?” The woman asked
intently. “I’ve been in business a long time, miss, and I know the
look of a long trek pilot.” He assured her. “They get a real spacy and distant
look in their eyes.” He said, partly smiling, as if it were an inside joke
between them. When the woman didn’t smile in return, he hastily continued,
“Oh, and she wasn’t armed, just like you.” He added. “Nobody comes to Salvation
unarmed.” He looked nervously at her for a moment. “Well, at least, not
usually.” “Describe her.” The woman ordered. “What did she look like?” Garl licked his quivering lips. He tried to call up the
image of the woman in his mind, but he couldn’t remember what she looked like,
and that bothered him. He had an unusually good memory. Years of being in the
business of selling to people who might come back with buyer’s remorse had
sharpened his powers of observation considerably. For him to not be able to
remember a customer, especially one as unique as the one in question …it just
didn’t add up. After a few moments, he saw the woman’s eyebrow rise again. “I’m sorry, miss!” He wailed, terrified at what new torment
might be forthcoming. “I can’t remember what she looked like!” He began to blubber, “I know it was a woman, but I can’t
remember anything about her beyond that.” The woman seemed to ponder this for a moment, her eyes
studying his for any sign of deception. Then she asked, “Do you know where she
went, after making her purchase?” Garl was on the verge of telling the woman ‘No’ out of force
of habit, when he remembered the pain from only moments ago. It went against
the grain to tell someone about someone else’s affairs, but this was no
ordinary someone. He had no doubts this woman was being nothing less than
truthful when she said she could put him through the most excruciating torture
for days before allowing him the luxury of dying. He also had no doubts she
would follow through on her word without hesitation if he gave her an
unfavorable response. “Yeah,” He nodded, “Word got back to me that she made
straight for the docking ports.” He said. “She got on a transport bound for
Xanadu.” Xanadu was the largest colony on the moon Titan, orbiting
Saturn. It would only take a few hours to get there by ship. “You’re sure it was Xanadu?” The woman pressed him. “Absolutely, miss.” Garl answered. The woman stood up slowly and looked over at Finn Dralor.
“We’ll be leaving now.” She said. Suddenly, the fabric of reality seemed to shift in front of
Garl Varo’s eyes. One moment he was lying on the floor of his ruined shop,
looking up at the woman who had caused him so much pain and misery. The next,
he was seated in his hover chair, looking across the unmarred shop at the woman
and Finn Dralor standing just inside the door. He stared in dumbfounded
amazement at the displays and monitrons, all undamaged and just as they were
before the two had entered his store. Finally his gaze settled back on the woman, who was looking
at him with a hint of veiled amusement. Dralor was standing at her side, a
somewhat regretful look on his face. Then, it suddenly came clear. “Bloody
shite,” He swore. “You’re a Dah’shia!” The Dah’shia was a sect of assassins known throughout the entire
solar system as powerful psionicists, beings able to manipulate the thoughts of
others with their minds. Many considered them to be a legend or myth, due to
the rarity of survived encounters. It was said a Dah’shia assassin could turn a
person’s own mind into a weapon against them. Based upon his recent experience,
Garl could personally vouch for it. “You’ve been very helpful, Garl.” The woman told him in a
matter-of-fact manner. “But I’m afraid I can’t leave you alive to tell others
about this meeting.” “Wait …please …I won’t …” Garl stammered, before his
consciousness abruptly shut off forever. Turning to her companion, who was still staring at the
twitching corpse floating in the hover chair, the woman spoke. “We will return
to your ship now.” She said. “I want to depart for Xanadu as soon as possible.”
With that, she moved towards the door. Finn turned to leave, following the woman, and then glanced
back at the body of Garl Varo. They had only stepped inside the store for a few
moments, and though Finn had no way of knowing what had passed between the
mind-assassin and the smut-peddler, he knew it had to have been horrifying.
Exiting the shop, he and the woman, whose name he didn’t even know, made their
way back to his ship. © 2016 Troy AdamsonAuthor's Note
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3 Reviews Added on November 23, 2016 Last Updated on November 23, 2016 Tags: Cyberpunk, Science Fiction, Space, Noir AuthorTroy AdamsonMt. Holly, NCAboutI'm a 40 year old husband and father with a love of science fiction and fantasy. I've recently been toying with the idea of writing something in a novel length, but I'm undecided on which direction to.. more..Writing
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