2023-09-16: Pain (Arrogance) and Pleasure (Pride)
- Log: 2023-09-16: Pain (Arrogance) and Pleasure (Pride)
- Cast: Teletha Testarossa, Vincent Bruno, Andrei Sergeivich Kalinin
- Where: A Room, New Zealand
- Date: U.C. 0097 09 16
- Summary: (CW: Torture) After capturing the man who machinated the hijack of the Tuatha de Danaan, Tessa watches his interrogation.
This was not the first time I've stepped into an interrogation room, so thought Tessa. The memories of visiting Martha Vist Carbine kept bubbling in her mind, the minute pricks of remembering the teenage boy who piloted the Behemoth. Enough of that. Worry about it later. Focus on the person across the one-way glass. They can't see you, or Major Kalilin.
This was a regular interrogation room and an observation side segmented by one-way glass. The prisoner: Vincent Bruno, freshly 'retrieved from hostile circumstances' from Azadistan. Political coup (and Mithril's own involvement) aside, this was for the two who had died because of this man.
After he had been secured and Tessa notified, there was no hesitation in arranging a trip over to Mithril Headquarters. A flyover in a cargo plane with Shuffle supplies, and a limo with the prerequisite protections of a VIP, Kalilin in tow. This was on Uncl- Admiral Borda's request was hard to deny. She wasn't here by deliberate choice, but asked by a dear foster relative higher up the chain of command.
"The admiral is occupied at the moment. Would you like to watch Bruno's interrogation?" Such a statement from the NCO that greeted them when the two first walked in, into this. It was easy to ascertain what Borda wanted her to see: The darker side of being a soldier. ...At least, that was the assumption. What was the lesson here?
The first moments she heard the news of success, the back of her neck prickled in glee. Interrogation or not, there were only two ways to ensure Mithril's structure didn't leak further than it should.
Capital punishment, or in more colloquial terms: Execution. Simple. Or... Confinement until they are sure that his information out of date. The minimum was five years. The fact that he was so high up the chain put him closer to fifteen years. Perhaps twenty. The idea that Mithril could exist that long...Tessa didn't dare to think that far ahead. Not now.
But those were thoughts she ruminated on during the trip to this very room. For now, the only prevailing thought that pierced through the mental fugue of work was not of rage, but of a slightly elevated scorn for this bastard.
"How could someone so worthless come so close to sinking my vessel?" A whisper under her breath. Scum. Trash. Those ashen eyes shimmering with the complicated threads of hatred and derision. How?
"The display of worthlessness may have been what allowed him to do what he did," replied Kalilin. "It's also easy to imagine someone like him vulnerable to being a turncoat."
On the other side of the one-way glass sat three people: A lieutenant, a corporal, and Bruno himself. Kalilin informed her that the lieutenant's origins was from the REA; He could handle the interrogation single-handedly, but requested another person for mental pressure.
"Let's begin, Mr. Bruno." The lieutenant scoffed, gazing down at him, the man in question seated in front of a table. The fact that he wasn't handcuffed spoke mountains about Mithril's confidence. "You were formerly a secretary of human resources. Around early June, you arranged to have John Howard Dunnigan and Nguyen Bien Bo transferred into the SRT of Mithril's West Pacific battle group, the Tuatha de Danaan. You enforced this transfer to the understaffed vessel by deliberately obfuscating or deleting data for multiple other NCOs and promising personnel from Mithril's training camps. Is that correct?"
Bruno barely flinched, keeping his chest puffed out with a smug shin. "I don't know what you're talking about."
The lieutenant smiled. "Do it."
"Yes, sir," and the heavyset corporal socked a textbook haymaker to Bruno's face.
Bruno's reaction was of pain, nearly falling out of his chair if not for being caught by the corporal. Back up, grabbing at Bruno's wrist and smacking his hand down palm-flat on the table. The pinky was seized in a singular motion, and a sudden wrench upwards. "P-Please, no-" The room echoed out with a loud CRACK, followed soon by a shrill scream of genuine pain.
"That's the end of it." Tessa had been looking away since the punch, wincing at the sound of the obvious bone snap. Proximal Phalanx, from a whisper in her head. Single fracture. Three to four weeks of healing if treated properly. But Kalilin was right.
Bruno was already a sobbing wreck, and as the corporal snagged on the ring finger... "No...No, please, no! I'll tell you anything you want! Just please don't hurt me!"
Don't listen to him. Hurt him more.
"Answer me. Did you plant Dunnigan and Nguyen's placement with the TDD-1?" repeated the lieutenant icily.
"Yes! Yes, it was me!"
"Who asked you to do it?"
"I don't know!"
"Don't lie." The corporal tightened his grip.
"Really! Really, I don't know! They said they worked for Amalgam!" "Like the alloy?" The lieutenant's eyebrow crooked upwards.
"I don't know! I don't know, that's what I was told! I asked them who they were working for, the REA, Federation, maybe another of Britannia's insane cults, some spacenoid offshoot, and they didn't say anything!" Bruno yelled between the sobs of pain. "They...they offered me 200,000 upfront! Could you imagine...? 200,000! How could I say no!?"
i want you to demolish his pride.
"...What do you think?" Tessa asked.
"He doesn't appear to be lying. He may simply have not known much to begin with." Kalilin's response made sense, backed up by a mic-routed polygraph reinforcing the assumption. No, Bruno wasn't lying.
"Amalgam...There's the name again." Martha had said it first, connecting it with Leonard. So that's where he was...
"I don't know who they are! I mean it!" His voice had descended into wailing, tears streaming down his face while his eyes darted frantically. "Are you all happy now!?" Glancing left and right, wondering which pane had the panel. He watched the cop shows, there's one in every room of these! "Are you!? Stop hiding and show yourself!" Spittle spat from his maw. "You call yourselves Mithril, the 'silver that slays evil', but you're all FUCKING COWARDS! YOU HEAR ME!? THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT PEOPLE!? YOU CAN GO TO HELL, YOU WANNA-BE HERO WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING!"
"Mr. Bruno, calm down." The lieutenant's voice was as icy before.
"I've done NOTHING wrong! You're bastards! YOU'RE ALL SHITSTAIN MURDERIN' BASTARDS!"
Tessa kept herself still, trying to let those words of slander slide off her back. Watching the lieutenant and corporal keep Bruno held down, lips pursing at the sight. "How dare you..." This man, this worthless pile of excrement and bile, yelling at her, yelling at the place who gave her a home, yelling as the man who played the largest hand in the death of two of her crew. A primal urge. To turn the lights off, to walk in there, shine a flashlight on him, and verbally destroy him. She knows his history, his failures, his regrets, his every action. There's so much to pick apart, so much to question.
You're the murderer here. You killed my men. You're the one who should burn in hell. What do you know? You're just a man being interrogated because of your own greed and cowardice. How could you have the gall to speak to me in this way? Learn your place before I order that corporal to break your fingers. Your toes. There's a janitor's closet nearby. How would you take a hammer to the kneecaps? Tweezers to fingernails? I should etch your place in this world directly onto your scalp. Tessa's face imperceptibly twitched. Hatred. Scorn. Deep-seated arrogance.
"Colonel." Kalilin's sharp voice snapped her out of the fugue, lightly jolting in place. Her eyes refocused, taking stock of herself.
Soaked palms. Head, a state of mild fugue. The previous thoughts marinating in her mind, trying to keep herself composed. 'I...was happy to see him suffer, and I wanted to push it further.' It's a quick realization.
"Colonel, let the lieutenant finish his work. Admiral Borda is waiting for us.
"I see. It's not a pleasant way of doing things." Not for him, not for us.
"I won't disagree, but it is effective. A single finger will heal in time."
"I know that, but..."
Tessa finally turned away from the ongoing interrogation, Bruno having long capitulated and explaining his process. There's a glance at Kalilin's expressionless face. He's not shaken at all. People died because of Bruno's actions, so why...?
"If I was the one in there, I would have cut his finger off."
Tessa still couldn't understand why Admiral Borda wanted her to see the interrogation, the man himself saying that she'll find out eventually.