Truths and lies

"Anri, are you ready to begin?"

"Yes," the sorcerer replied. He had been under stressful situations before and this was similar to the time he had been shackled and fed a truth serum. The teenager counted his breaths and sunk himself into an ocean of calmness where nothing could touch him.

"Who taught you to engineer a gun?"

"I learnt as I read. Self-taught."

Toya was impressed. He had looked at Anri's files and was surprised by what he found about the boy's rescue from the Ash colonies. To think that he had started out illiterate not seven months ago, and here he was now building weapons out of garbage. His potential and future seemed limitless.

"At what point in time did you start planning to engineer the rail gun?"

"The moment I saw the remnants of the rail canon."

"And when did you see it?"

"After we entered the boneyard."

"Was it during or before the battle?"

"During."

Toya looked to the specialist who nodded her head. Anri was speaking the truth.

"Tell me, what were you hoping to achieve when you decided to build the rail gun? Did you even think about the dangers it could pose to your friends? To the other competitors?"

"I did."

"And what?" Toya prodded. "You didn't care, did you?"

"Mister Laffarn, please refrain from asking any leading questions," Cole sternly told the old man. He was recording the conversation since they'd refused to let him make a video.

"I care," Anri's reply was soft. He frowned as if he found the man's words offensive. "I would have been very upset if anyone got hurt." Because that would have eliminated his team without question. The sorcerer wasn't averse to killing off people like Loda and Jason.

"Then why did you go ahead with the risky plan? Do you even know how much preparation and calculations are done by a team of qualified engineers before they build and fire off a rail canon?"

"I knew it would work as it did."

"And who told you that?!" Fosen interjected with a sneer. "Your pride?"

"No. It was the math that told me. I did the calculations before I built the gun."

Toya had hoped to crack the teenager's calm facade before they moved on to the meaty parts of the interrogation. Anri was proving to be a titanium coconut.

"Those are some very confident words for a teenager who hasn't taken a single course on advanced applied mathematics." Toya let the statement hang over them for a few seconds so Anri could think that over.

"You risked the lives of many just so you could prove that you were smarter than everyone else. You were callous with their lives, selfish, and ignorant of the dangers you posed to everyone. You shouldn't be allowed any more knowledge of the dangerous. You shouldn't even be allowed into Starfield."

Anri couldn't care less. Toya's attempt to ruffle his feathers was failing spectacularly.

"Cole," he called out to his lawyer. "Is this an interrogation or a lecture?"

The lawyer's mouth lifted in an amused arc. "Toya, you heard my client. Another outburst like that and we're done here."

Toya appeared calm but he was frustrated. He had assumed it would be an easy job baiting a teenager with no worldly experience to speak of.

"I tried being nice to your client but you don't appreciate it. It's a pity. I won't go easy on him anymore. Tell us, Anri, how did you power the gun?"

"You know how I did it, a fusion reactor."

A minor change of his heartbeat on the monitor. It wasn't significant enough for the specialist to determine anything from. Still, she made a note of it.

"A confession," Fosen gleefully announced. "If you come clean with the story then we won't have to haul you off to rehabilitation."

Rehabilitation - The program was far from what its name suggested. Troubled teenagers and young criminals were all entered into the program only to come out completely docile and missing a spark of life in their eyes.

"I found the reactor inside the boneyard, hidden within a ship. If you watch the video of the battle, you'll see me hiding something inside under my vest as I emerge from a purple raptor."

Toya glanced at a pale, balding man who was already moving to play the video on his data pad.

"At approximately what time?" He asked Anri.

"Eleven fifteen hours," Anri answered. "No later than eleven-thirty."

The group of five watched the video and had to adjust the settings for more brightness because Anri was mostly in the shadows while he moved around near the ship.

"Pause there," Toya instructed the bald man.

It was undeniable. Anri was hiding something under his vest. Anticipating the questions that would come up about the power supply to his gun, the sorcerer had deliberately made a show of hiding something under his vest and then using a lean-to for concealing his construction.

"It doesn't prove anything!" Fosen argued. Toya was deep in thoughts.

"Finders keepers," Anri responded. "I left the reactor attached to the cables. You'll find it if you fools care to look for it. But then again, its already been a few days since... you probably have taken apart my gun. Cole, while under the assumption that they've found and taken away the reactor so I won't have proof of my innocence, what course of action can I take against the SIT cell?"

Cole liked smart clients who made his life easier. "We'll have to escalate to a higher authority. Give me your word and I'll start making the calls."

Toya didn't like where this was going. He was impartial to the outcome of the investigation but his promotion was riding on Anri's fate.

"There's no need for that," he told the duo. "If Anri is an innocent man as he claims to be, then he will be free after answering a few more questions."

"Toya Laffarn," Anri coolly spoke. He was done playing nice with the buffoons. "There's a certain irony in your investigation of corruption when it's well known how you got to where you are today."

"What are you insinuating?!" Toya stared daggers at Anri.

"I was just testing the waters, Laffarn. Your heated reaction makes me think you have something to hide. It's almost as if I've touched a sensitive nerve."

Cole cleared his throat. "Anri, just answer their questions so we won't have to spend another minute longer in this place."

Toya's jaw had clenched. Because of his high position, no one had in a long time dared to question him like that.

"Ask me anything you like, Laffarn. I told you didn't I? I wasn't lying when I said I didn't cheat."

To the continued frustration of the SIT members, the machine was proving Anri's side of the story. Even a psychopath couldn't fool the machine so how was the teen doing it? They had no idea that Anri's methods had been otherworldly and unspecified in the rules of the battle. This meant that the sorcerer's conscience was free of guilt. He could continue to lead them around till one of them figured out the right questions to ask him.

Did you use magic? Did you use something other than a battery? Did you employ the use of technology that we are unaware of? Was it really a reactor that you were hiding under your vest? Many such questions would have tripped him up. Luckily, the SIT cell was made up of mostly useless men who had gotten to their positions, not through their abilities but money and favours. No wonder they were so stupid.

"This is what happens when you aren't qualified for the position you're occupying," Anri told Toya, causing him further anger. "You're surrounded by idiots like that Fosen man. Birds of a feather, aren't you?"

"You imbecile!" Toya stood up and pointed at Anri. "Do you think you can get away with insulting me just because you have a lawyer on your side?!"

"Yeah," Anri replied. "And also because it's mentioned in the contract that anything I say which doesn't have a connection to the investigation cannot be used against me in any legal capacity. Did you even read the contract, Laffarn? Or did you skip that too like how you skipped ranks by bootlicking your superiors?" Anri had Nova to thank for the information. She had sent him a file with incriminating details about all five members of the SIT.

The veins on Laffarn's forehead were popping. He stared at Anri like he wanted to throttle him. The damned contract had come back to bite them in the asses. Toya hadn't expected the teenager to attack them so brazenly.

"You will pay for your words, Anri," he told the teenager whose dark eyes were heavy on him. "It won't be me because you've made it damned sure that I can't retaliate. But don't you forget that there are others who can."

"Do not threaten my client, mister Laffarn!" Cole cut in with professional calm.

"It's fine, Cole. Everything is being recorded so he's only digging a grave for himself."

Toya felt as if he had been drenched in icy cold water. His momentary lapse of control was going to cost him more than his reputation if he continued to act like a fool.

"We're done here," he told Cole. "Get out. The both of you. Out."