章 20: Three Interrogations Part 1

Zeph was just glad that Senior Instructor Westnight, and Commissioner Vaughn decided that it would cause too many issues for so many people to use the telapod one at a time to teleport to control and monitor room the way he did when he went to conduct the interrogation of Tarom Sareonel. Even one less trip through the iced lighting blue light of a telapod was a welcome blessing to Zeph, regardless of how many stairs were involved. So when he found out that his could have just used the elevator as they did now, one squad at a time, Zeph was half tempted to use his authority to make the Xo go through the pain of being teleported a few dozen times for forcing him to use it to be tested in that made up training exercise, that ended up being a little too real for Tarom. When Commissioner Vaughn stepped out of the elevator with the last group, he turned towards Zeph that was leaning up against the wall across from the elevator sipping on a bottle of iced coffee while chatting with Sergeant Simmons.

"I am guessing that everything is in order since you have time to butter up Mr. Black Badge, Sergeant Simmons."

"Yes sir. Junter Fiden is in interrogation room one, Zorodo the nose is in room three, and ol six fingers is in Zeph's play room."

"What was that last bit Sergeant?"

"I said that Six fingered Joe is in the Nephilim Interrogation Room. We are not taking any chances with him, and he should be modded just enough to count as one of the so called failed NE's, or Nephilim experiments for our recruits that may not know the abbreviations yet."

"Why skip room two?"

"CCO Si, and Captain Halt came up with the idea to use room two, and its observation room as a place for some of the cadets to role play what they learn by watching Cadet Demonbane, and as a remote monitoring room, as it would be difficult to squeeze all of them into a single observation room. Even splitting them all up into three groups would still make for a tight fit. this way they everyone can have have a seat, and a good view of the three interrogations, Commissioner."

"Good. Okay, recruits follow Sergeant Simmons to the observation rooms, and try to keep quite, or the officers of the night shift trying to do their reports, or conduct their own interrogations are going to play wack the rookie while the Xo and I watch. Squad one go to O room N, everyone else fan out."

The recruits did not even breath heavy as they walked from the bank of elevators to the four observation rooms, and interrogation room two. Even making use of the extra observation rooms still caused there to be a bit of a squeeze thanks to a few on duty officers with no pressing matters wanting to watch the good show. Each of the for observation rooms would have a few officers to keep the cadets from goofing off that way too, so Commissioner Vaughn allowed it. He wanted to be in the observation room connected to the interrogation room Zeph was actively conducting an interrogation in, so he and Captain Halt were going to be moving about, while Sergeant Simmons stayed in observation room two, CCO Si took charge of O room one, Officer Jack Dean who was on break while his patrol vehicle was being scrubbed clean by a service drone, because a suspect he brought in while Zeph was eating lost control of her bladder when being stun for the third time, took care of observation room one. This left Senior Instructor Westnight to stay with Squad one in observation room N. Before Commissioner Vaughn disappeared into observation room one he told Zeph to start with the collage kid, and work his way towards room N, and to remember that Junter Fiden was not some harden criminal but a collage kid that was around the same age as himself.

*Bam*

Zeph slammed the door of interrogation room one with as much force as he could muster as he walked into the interrogation room. If Junter Fiden did not have his hands cuffed to the steel table he was seated at, he was sure that he would have just smacked his head on the celling after being startled awake by the slamming door. On the other side of the one-way glass Captain Halt gave Commissioner Vaughn a slight nod, as if she knew that the Xo's words had fallen of deaf ears. Zeph was going to play it hard, and fast with the overworked burned out collage student that just wanted to take what he thought was the best chance he had at passing the mid-terms. While Zeph had a blank expression on his face while he walked over to his side of the steel table, Junter Fiden looked like he a awoken to find himself in a real nightmare. His eyes ere glued to the holstered Mk. Six LSP on Zeph's side until he could no longer see it because of the table being in the way.

*Sip, sip*

"Good you are awake collage boy. I was concerned that you might be dead, and I would be stuck having to fill out form after form because you kicked the bucket before being questioned. It is getting early so how about you, and I have a nice quick chat about those pills, and why you chose to run after I told you not to."

"I will talk, please can I have one of those bottles sitting on the table? I have been up since yesterday morning stuck at my father's stupid store because his workers can't ever seem so show up on time, or even come into work half the time."

"I guess. according to VGPIINN you are a student at LDU, and not much younger that me, so I can cut you a little slack, but in return you are going to have to convince your father to give NEO's a discount on drinks, and snacks at your store. Drink up, it is not like I was expecting there to be extra iced coffee in all three interrogation rooms, as I was only told about it being placed in the room with the guy you got the pills from."

*Gulp, Gulp, Gulp*

"Ahhh, Thanks officer."

"Don't waste time thanking me, just tell me why you bought the Mod White kid."

"I did not know what else to do. If I fail my mid-terms for Chemistry, and Bio-tech dad will cut me off and force me to drop out of LDU to work at the store full time. I want to be a doctor not a guy that is forced to sell bad raw fish and rice seaweed wraps to overworked drunks at 02:00. I know it is not legal to take Mod pills that are not prescribed by a Genetec Repair Doctor to fix flaws in ones DNA that have known diseases linked to them, but what else could I do?"

"Study while at the shop, as I can not imagine that you get too many customers at this time of night, or tell your father that you can not come in to cover because you need time to study for a big test so that you do not end up wasting his hard earned credits. Hell if he needs to he could buy a drone to watch the store, and let the customers scan their own items at checkout. It is not impossible to run a always open store using nothing but AI capable of automatically charging people for items that they pick up."

"But, but..."

"But nothing. You choose to break the law, and so now you will be punished. Your chances of ever becoming a doctor a basically zero at this point Junter Fiden. The only chance you have now is to agreed to testify against the two you bought the mod from, and beg the court for mercy. I can put in a good word for you as a member of Black Badge if you help us take down the entire Mod operation in this city kid. This it the only chance you will be given to save your bacon, and sill the beans on the pill pushers."

"All I can tell you is that I bought the Mod White off the two guys brought in with me. Beyond that I know nothing. I only found out were I could find them because of a classmate telling me about White after he aced programing essentials two days ago. I can give you the name, and dorm room number of her as well."

*Blip*

"Good work cadet that should be all we need out of him. I will get a statement with the information in his classmate from him after we let him get some shut eye in hotel Si. Move on to the other two. if you want to ruff them up a bit it is not like Central will punish you for it when it is your first day at the academy. This is already far beyond what could ever be expected out of a recruit, even a Black Badge one."

"Well looks like the nice Captain says you can go get some sleep Fiden. Just to let you know We were woken up at midnight to start training. Think how much harder collage could be if your professor woke you up for a little light exercise then immediately gave you a surprise test on something you just received the reading material for a few hours before. Because that is what I got to go through before being sent out to patrol for guys like you, and it is my first day."

Zeph then got up taking his half finished bottle of iced coffee with him. He may have said the words to Junter Fiden, but they were clearly meant for the other recruits on the other side of the glass, and hidden cameras. He wanted to let them know how hard his training was compared to theirs from the get-go. They got to sit in a class room after doing some basic PT to have the information he was immediately tested on spoon feed to them slowly. They also got to watch three real interrogations that would be a big boost to their training even if it was a bit early, while he had to conduct three interrogations while close to sixty people watched on like it was all just a good show. He was about to put on a good show with the next two suspects, but if they blinked they would miss it. If any of them including Commissioner Vaughn tried to use the methods he was about to an internal affairs agent from Central Command would make their life a living hell. If the Xo was able to see the down right demonic grin in Zeph's face as he unlocked interrogation room three's door, he might have told the others observing to look away and cover their ears.