//------------------------------// // 18. Falsities Of A Factual Nature // Story: Banishment Decree // by Neon Czolgosz //------------------------------// I don’t know when the fever broke. I’m back in the interrogation room, and my most recent clear memory is being dragged in here. I might have memories of being back in the cell, but all of those memories bleed into each other and I’ve no idea if they were from during the fever or before the fever or if I just imagined them wholesale. The interrogation room is a lot bigger than my cell, which isn’t saying much. I’m sat on a stool in the middle, paws shackled to each other, claws behind my back with a zip tie. Cutting through the tie would be the easiest thing in the world, if they weren’t still filing down my talons every chance they got. No muzzle, no blindfold. They make things very bad for me if I speak out of turn, and they want me to see everything in this room. Behind me, the door. In front, a wall-length mirror for my viewing pleasure. To the left, a sink, and Doctor Kurtz, washing his hooves and humming something off-key. To the right, the tool table. The tool table. Doctor Kurtz has such wonderful tools. Sharp tools, blunt tools, serrated tools, tools that could slice a falling feather in half, tools that couldn’t slice a tomato without spilling half the seeds out. Shiny tools, dull tools, tools scratched and worn from years of sharpening and stropping, pointy tools, tools with tubes and cranks and gears popping out at every which angle. Doctor tools, vet tools, chef tools, mortician tools. All tools sorted in neat, fussy rows, with thin chalk outlines marking exactly which tools go where, and where they should be returned to—after a thorough cleaning, of course. Doctor Kurtz keeps humming tunelessly as he strolls across the room, stopping behind me. I feel a snout on the back of my neck, a little damp, a little cold. A hot, moist breath flows through my coat. I wait until he moves away before I shudder. I watch him as he pores over his table of tools. He gets pissy if I close my eyes or stare ahead, and well, I just don’t have the stamina or willpower for that kind of open resistance any more. I watch as he picks up tools with dextrous hooves and places them ever-so-carefully into a shallow cardboard box. With a clunk, he sets the box down in front of me. I see what he’s chosen for today. A ball-peen hammer. A box of four-inch nails. Needlenose pliers. Smelling salts. Rock salt. Two sets of forceps. Speculum. Soldering iron. “So. Gilda!” He always sounds so fucking peppy. Most ponies with Stalliongrad accents are right miserable bastards. This guy sounds like he’s had a few nitrous oxide whippets and a prostate massage every time he opens his mouth. “You’ve been here a while now, settling in nicely and getting used to your new life. You’ve done very well so far, so I think it’s time to move on. Don’t you agree?” “Yes, sir,” I reply. “Very good. You have given my colleagues in the Kurierzy some interesting information, mostly incidental, and you’ve whetted our appetites for more. From now on, my colleagues will be more specific and more goal-oriented. Your current colleagues, former colleagues, your contacts, passwords, caches, things of that nature.” He pauses to push his half-moon spectacles up his face. In the light of the room I can’t see his eyes behind them. Just a slicked-back silver mane, a droopy mustache, and a damned creepy smile. “As I am sure you are already aware, I will torture you if you lie to me, conceal anything from me, or attempt in any way to mislead me,” he continues. “No difference from our previous sessions there. However, if you claim not to know the answer to a question—even if you are genuinely in the dark—I will also torture you, and I will torture you more severely still if I think you are making anything up to please me. I hope this will give you sufficient motivation to behave.” He picks up the hammer in his hoof, the strap wrapped around his fetlock, testing its weight. “Our next few sessions will proceed in a predictable manner to balance my needs for information with your ability to learn and adapt. The first tortures I apply to you will be painful but reversible procedures. Your body will restore drained blood. Secondary feathers will regrow. Cuts will heal with only minimal scarring. Bones will mend, properly splinted of course. “The more procedures you require, the less reversible they will be. There are many things you do not need to be a useful prisoner. I will snip tendons. I will pull out your primary feathers, and sear the scars shut. He places the flat of the hammer between my eyes, the cold metal resting on my brow. “You might be surprised to know I have quite the sadistic streak when frustrated, and a colorful imagination. I can break your bones and set them at ninety-degree angles. I can pull you apart, joint by joint, never giving you a chance to bleed out. I can show you my personal definition of ‘non-essential organ.’ His voice softens. “I want you to know that I’m telling you this for your benefit. My superiors feel you will be more useful to us whole and hearty, and at this point in time I am inclined to agree. However, you must know where persistent misbehaviour will lead. It will lead to a Gilda with both wings removed at the sockets, fores and hinds removed above the knee, tail removed, a colostomy bag wrapped around your waist, permanent dialysis in place of your kidneys, a full hysterectomy, one ear seared shut, and one eye removed. A tongue, an eye, and an ear will be all you need to provide us with information, should we require it. Do you understand, Gilda?” I should feel more scared than I am. Mostly I just feel cold, and sick. “Yes, sir.” “Excellent! Very well, we will start with—Wait!” There’s a gleeful note in his voice that I really don’t like. He walks back over to the table, and picks something up off the far end. He returns, and dangles it an inch from my face. My knife. Leroy. “We found this on you when you were brought in, I had been meaning to ask you about it,” he says animatedly. “It is a peculiar knife, with the rather severe curve and a handle certainly designed for non-equine use. Is this your knife?” “Yes, sir.” “Your personal knife? I have heard rumors that griffons have a rather close relationships with their tools, to the point of ritually naming them. Does your knife have a name?” “Yes, sir. Leroy, sir.” “Leroy? Leroy! Oh, I love it, so very griffic, even in the construction. Thick, crude steel but wickedly sharp.” He leans in so close to me that I feel his breath in my nostrils. “I’ve changed my plan for today. I’m going to take Leroy, and cut one of your eyelids off with it. If you answer my questions to my satisfaction, I’ll sew it back on.” Doctor Kurtz steps back, grinning horribly. “I’ll be back in a moment, Gilda, I need to acquire some eyedrops. It would hardly do to let your eyes shrivel up before you have a chance to save them, after all.” He steps past me, and out of the room. I don’t struggle, or even move. I just feel sick. “Gilda.” It’s a whisper. I don’t dare look. Not at a fantasy like that. “Gilda!” I turn my head. A grate above the sink, for a vent barely big enough for a foal. Two yellow eyes peer out at me. All I can do is stare. “Gilda, can you hear me?” Fucking Trevor?! “Yes, it’s me,” he says. Huh. Didn’t realise I’d said that out loud. “Try not to shout. You need to escape.” I look down at my bonds, and back at him. “Yeah, thanks, genius. I couldn’t have figured that out on my own or anything. Mind getting in here and helping me out, asshole?” “I can’t. The metal grate is bolted on securely, and I have no room for leverage.” “Fucking what? A decade in the most elite special forces of the most elite military in the world, tours from jungles to tundra, certification with forty-six classes of weapon and you can’t get past a Zephyr-damned grate?” “I don’t need to,” he says. “I have given you the necessary tools to escape.” “...Trevor dude if that’s a joke then fuck you.” He makes a noise between a laugh and a grunt. “When we tussled in the gallery, did you really think you overpowered me? I could have neutralized you in nine different ways before your first blow landed. I can predict your every move, Gilda, you only won because I wished to plant equipment on you.” “What?” “Left wing, deep in your coverts. Flex your lower landing muscles, and you’ll feel it.” I tense, and flex, and barely feel it. It feels like a mosquito bump, deeper than any mosquito could go. “Go on then, get it. You’re flexible enough, even in those so-called ‘restraints’ your captors are trusting you with.” It’s not quite that easy, and before I slip a pair of blunt talons around the tiny object I almost feel my shoulder joint slipping out. I can’t stop the grin that blooms on my face when I have it in my grip. Even wrapped in a thin film of wax paper, I know what it is. Claws still bound behind me, I unwrap it, and set to work. “I owe you, Trevor,” I whisper. He’s already gone. Doctor Kurtz returns a few minutes later, looking chipper as ever. He sits on his haunches in front of me, passing Leroy between his front hooves. “Now, as I am not an unkind pony, I will tell you that properly performed this operation carries little risk of permanent blindness, so you don’t need to worry about that—” “Actually doc, I don’t need to worry about that at all.” I’m surprised my speech comes that smoothly. My throat still stings something crazy, but I’m not a stuttering mess yet. He seems surprised at my interruption but he smiles like he’s humoring a cub. “Oh? Why do you say that?” “You’re not going to do the procedure. I’m going to escape.” An eyebrow shoots up, but the smile doesn’t waver. “You’re going to escape?” “Yeah. I’m gonna take your leg out, and when you’re on the floor I’m gonna beat you to death. I’ll cut myself loose—with Leroy, of course—then I’ll take the key from your body, unlock the door, kill the two guards with your hammer, beat the crap out of anypony else in this building, ask them a few long, hard questions about what they were doing, and then set them on fire if I don’t like then answers. Then I’ll walk straight out. Bam, done.” He laughs. It’s almost a nice laugh. It’d be nice if he wasn’t the one laughing it. “And what makes you think you can do all of that?” I move my arms from behind my back, out to the sides. In my left, a broken zip-tie. In my right, the snapped-in-half razorblade that Trevor planted on me. Doctor Kurtz’s smile doesn’t fall away, but it freezes in place. “That’s very impressive.” “Yeah.” Leroy is in my claw before he can blink and carves a helix through the flesh of his left fore, stripping through meat and tendon and leaving muscle to hang from the bone. He falls to the ground, bleeding and screaming. I grab his white mane with both claws, lift his head a few inches off the concrete floor, and slam it back down with all the weight I can bear. I lift his head and smash it down again, and again, and again and again and a dozen times and two dozen times until my whole upper body is painted with the good Doctor Kurtz and I can’t tell where his head ends and the floor begins. Bonds cut, key stolen, Leroy tucked away, hammer grabbed, all in seconds. I walk to the door. I press my eye to the peephole. Two guards, standing at each side of the door. Door opens outwards. Whole body aches, feel like I’m going to throw up, claws throbbing with pain, can still taste blood and vomit, don’t care. Burning with energy. The doctor wasn’t enough. I need more. I take a breath, and click the lock open. Kicks door outwards, knocks pony on right off balance. Hammer comes down on left pony just in front of the ear, glances and staggers him, second blow hits his shoulder with a crunch and drops him. Right pony scrambles around door, tries to grab his weapon, gets an uppercut from the ball of the hammer, second blow from the side scatters his teeth across the corridor, he clutches his mouth and falls back. Hind paw kicks back at guard on left trying to stand on three legs, sends him rolling away, I ignore him and advance on tooth-lacking guard on right. He puts a hoof out, begging me to stop. I grab the outstretched hoof, pull him forward, open up space under him to sink the hammer into his liver. He drops onto his back, howling and spitting blood, hooves down to protect his midsection. I push his head back with a hoof and bring the hammer down on his exposed throat until he shuts up for good. The left guard isn’t even back on his hooves yet. A few blows to the spine drop him, and one swing to the back of the head stops him. I pull the hammer free from his skull, then take a look around. I thought I was in a corridor. Creepy-ass interrogation room owned by a bunch of ex-pat ex-soldiers, gotta be in some deep dark installation behind a million corridors, right? Nope. I’m in a storefront. Sure, the big windows are papered over and there’s a blind on the door, but there’s a counter, fixtures in the floor where the shelves used to be, a little ringer above the front door, everything. I didn’t realize the Kurierzy were branching out into retail. I turn past the dead guards and look at the interrogation room behind me. Dollars to donuts says that behind that gigantic mirror at the far end of the room is the back door. Why? Because that’s the stock room. There’s three doors on the shop floor. One leading outside, I think, one to the ‘interrogation room,’ and one I haven’t been through yet. Keeping a tight grip on the hammer, I ease the door open. To the left, a narrow set of stairs. Directly in front of me, another door. Halfway down the door frame there are metal bands, as if something is bolted onto the bottom of the other side of the door. I know what this room is before I even turn the handle. My cell was a fucking broom closet. They’d installed a fake ceiling with a lighting system, a water drip, and yup, a fake day-night crack in the vent. The metal door was just a piece of sheet metal on a 40-bit hollow wooden door I could have probably kicked in half if I’d tried. The walls weren’t even concrete! They’d just slapped a render of it over the wooden walls. Something doesn’t add up. I go back into the hallway and look at the bodies of the two russ guards. There’s one problem. Neither of them are russ ponies. One is a very tall, very yellow, very Equestrian earth pony. The other is a fucking zebra. This is all completely wrong. They were russ ponies, both of my guards, I could smell it on them. Trotsky barely employs Equestrian citizens, and even if she’d let a zebra do anything in her organization but shine hooves and pour drinks, there’s not a zebra in Fillydelphia who would work for her. I lean down and sniff them. Through the stink of blood and fear and death, it’s still there. That russ smell. They’d been masking their scents the whole time. Upstairs I will find answers. Or blood. I’d like both. There’s an office door at the top of the stairs, its glass window covered with a roller blind. I push the door open and step inside. It’s a messy office. On one side, boxes overflowing with paperwork. On the other, shelves and cabinets filled with equipment. I catch a glimpse of my feeding device, and a dozen packets of ‘food’ scattered around it. There are microphones and tape recorders and stenography runes, a small reading engine, a half-assembled telegramophone. There are windows at the far end of the room, and I realise that it’s actually morning and I know it’s morning for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long. There is also a desk at the far end of the room, about six yards from the door, with equipment spread out all over it. It’s my equipment, everything from my barding to my lockpicks to my spare smoke grenades, everything packed in my bag no. 4 for the job at Van Hay’s. In the center stands the take-down crossbow in that bag, fully assembled. Behind the desk is another zebra, wearing a green eyeshade. He’s reading a set of papers, and starts speaking without looking up. “Hey, Chips. I hope you’re keeping a short leash on Doctor Feelgood. I know he’s a professional and all, but the bosses portside are gonna go nuts if anything happens to the bird before she’s, uh, ‘rescued’ from us.” I grip the hammer tight. “Yeah.” The zebra stops what he’s doing and very slowly looks upwards. He sees me, dripping blood on his carpet. He looks down at the crossbow inches from his hooves. Then he looks back up at me. “Oh how about fuck to the no—” Wrong answer. I throw the hammer. It hits him above the eye. The hammer sticks. Everything I need is in this room. Not my equipment, though it’s nice to have Leroy and company back in my possession, but information. The bodies, the recordings, the paperwork will tell me everything I want to know. I will find what they wanted from me, who ordered this, who profited from this, and I will make them pay for this insult. I will see everyone who had a hoof in this in flames. I will carve a bloody swathe through Fillydelphia, Weams, Trotsky, the Macaronis, the Wharfies, anypony who so much as looks at me wrong. They will all suffer for this. I take a step forward, and it’s like swimming through treacle. The rush of pure adrenaline falls away, leaving only cold fury and exhaustion behind. I have to be quick. I have to, before... Before... “Gilda?” Yesterday I thought I’d never hear that voice again. The ground rushes up to meet me, and the last thing I remember is Rainbow Dash’s embrace, a second before I hit the ground.