Chapter Text
Jäger wanted so desperately to die.
Not only around the Kolibris, but she made sure to scream that at them whenever they passed her by, from behind a youthful smile that shone like the sun, behind the smug playfulness in her eyes, behind the quippy one liners that danced arm in arm with her effortless bulls-eyes into the hearts of Eules and Starlings alike.
Jäger wanted so desperately for them to decommission her, but they wouldn’t. She must still be useful to someone. The real tragedy was that for all their pretensions to self-control, she could feel their own want. They wanted so badly to scribble her name on their little fucking slips of paper and have Drei or Metzger or god forbid Panzer drag her off and put her out of her misery.
That was one of two possible downsides to dying. That Panzer of all the Starlings in Sierpinski might show up with the order, clutched in a hand that Jäger couldn’t help but imagine as covered in a thick, lusty sweat, eyes throbbing with sadistic glee, a smile so wide you could see it behind a mask at the possibility of satisfying one of the few appetites she had not yet sated. Vengeance.
Jäger would fight if it came to that. She’d probably win. Panzer couldn’t fight well, only dirty. But if Jäger was going to die either way? The only honor left to her would be a bullet from someone she didn’t hate.
“Jäger!”
All two hundred and twenty centimeters of her snap to attention. Storch Drei, her face hidden behind an absolutely fascinating scrap of paperwork she’s holding up between her and the ceiling light (like Adler was going to write something in invisible ink), always took pleasure in reminding her that a 60/60 shooting score didn’t mean shit to her. Jäger understood her more and more with every long cycle.
“Sir!”
“Stop thinking about guns and Eules and pay attention.”
Drei places the paper on her desk and slowly writes out a single word. She puts her pen down and scans over the word a few times. Her lips purse and her eyes narrow, deep in thought. She picks up the paper, balls it up, and tosses it into the trash can. Jäger wonders if that form was for pudding requisition. The Kolibris are going to be pissed. She pulls out another document and holds it in the same position she held the last one.
“We’ve got a new Storch coming in today. Storch-S2307. You are going to mentor her for the foreseeable future.”
Jäger blinked. “There isn’t a set length of time for this mentorship, sir?”
Drei shrugged, her eyes not leaving the new document.
“The habituation of a Storch to civilized society” she holds up a pen and swirls it in the air, (it occurs to Jäger that she may be serious about her description of Sierpinski) “is contingent on the quality of the newborn babe and the tenacity of its mentor. Your superior officer has determined that you are tenacious, if nothing else. Please don’t prove her wrong, Stabsfeldwebel Jäger.”
Doesn’t even have the decency to flex rank directly-
“I won’t sir.” At least she could still snap a salute better than anyone else.
“She’s in medical now. You’ll recognize her. She’ll be the stupid looking Storch terrorizing all the Eules. Dismissed.”
Jäger’s steps are light and correctly spaced until the door hisses shut behind her. Then her strides lengthen, her speed though not the lightness of her steps characteristic of Starlings and Storches when they want to get somewhere quick. Drei had that effect on almost everyone.
Maybe I could make the Storch kill me. No. I can’t let some fucking shine-ass kill me-
She halts at the sight of two hooves moving through an intersection a half meter in front of her. She stretches her arms wide and catches two Starlings in her trap. Her ID module confirms her desiccated hopes. She pulls Krähe and Hase in close, their own ID modules aborting their struggles.
“Girls!”
A whorish squeal comes out of Hase as she snuggles herself in closer. That same squeal had once prompted Aasfresser to call her a Großeule, and Jäger had to order her, order her to beat the weakest Starling in Sierpinski like a rented mule. It was the funniest shit she’d seen in her life until Metzger crashed the party. Her ribs ached at the memory.
Krähe liquidates herself through the crook in Jäger’s arm, a single black-beaked finger solidifying and pecking one of the silver-steel squares on her lower back. Jäger leans forward, smiling as the jolt of sensation seizes her, allowing Krähe to slip behind her and get an arm around her neck and another around her stomach. Heavy steel smothers her back and forces her knees to bend.
“I’ve got you ensnared, Jäger, and I expect to see you hogtied in my bed tonight, rotation be damned-”
Jäger drops down and elbows her hard in the side. The headlock broken, she grabs Krähe and flips her. Two meters and two hundred kilos of heavy steel slam into the floor so hard it dents. A loud squeak fills the halls and a frenzied banging can be heard growing fainter below the floor.
“Hark! I banish thee to night’s Plutonian shore!”
A pained wheeze slips from Krähe’s mouth and a hurricane of air is sucked in. Her eyes snap to Jäger and she laughs as loudly as she can.
“Jäger! I didn’t know you read!”
Jäger smiles and drags her up by the arm.
“I don’t, you just mumble while you do! Hase, isn’t she so book-horny that she says shit she’s read while she sleeps?”
Hase blushes under the dual gaze of her comrades. She leans her head from side to side, grinning with her eyes looking upwards until they bashfully point at her feet.
"If I ever meet Maxim Gorky I'm going to kill him.”
Krähe laughs so hard she has to lean on Jäger to stay upright. Jäger laughs as well, until a faint noise snaps Jäger’s eyes to the other end of the corridor. A Gestalt stands there, blinking in the headlights.
A few full measures pass.
“Well? Get a move on dier!” The Gestalts stumbles, first going to salute before taking the advice and leaving.
Krähe pulls her stun prod, her dummer-stock out of its holster. “Want me to-”
Please no.
“Nah.” Jäger puts a hand on the dummer-stock and presses it down in a steady motion.
No point avenging an ersatz intimacy.
“Just some curious dumbass, like you. Keep patrolling, I’ll see you in the dorms.”
“Not at mess?”
“I’m babysitting a Storch.”
The other two cringe, deep groans drawn up and out from their stomachs and souls.
“Revolutionary protect you.” Hase says. “Please be safe.”
Jäger scoffs. If it was anyone else the implication would insult her.
“Like I’m gonna let some fucking shine-ass drop me. Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you two later.”
They all say their goodbyes and part ways. Jäger waits until she can’t hear them before picking up the pace. They’re the other downside of dying. Not just that she wouldn’t see them again. Those chains were fading away by the day. Her girls might do something stupid to avenge her, like try to kill a Storch or a Kolibri, and then they’d all be decommissioned. She couldn’t go out with that perched on some high bust in the back of her mind.
But I can’t just shoot myself or wander off into the cold to die. I still have my honor.
Though she was wondering if honor was really worth a damn anymore.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
The light is just dull enough for Sieben to stare at. The Eule stops grazing over her medical records and looks at her, a dull streak in her peripheral vision.
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
“Everyone seems to be afraid of me. They were all afraid of me on Leng Orbital, and no one has so much as met my gaze down here.”
Juli, she said her name is Juli. Things are easier if you refer to and think about others by their names.
Juli turns away from her computer and towards Sieben, one leg crossed over the other at a sharp angle.
“You’re a Storch. Surely you know what you are?”
Sieben looks down at her strange body. Her black stomach is a dark canyon between her gleaming silver breastplate and her overlong legs hanging off the chair she’s reclined on.
Why are my calves armored and not my stomach?
“I know what I am.”
“Well, that explains everyone else.”
“But not you.”
“But not me.”
Juli’s stare is unrelenting. Sieben meets it briefly before looking away.
“I don’t fear any of the Protektors.”
“Why?”
“Because our glorious nation is the embodiment of justice in this world. I serve the nation loyally and diligently, with a clear mind, free of counterrevolutionary thoughts and sentiments. Why would I fear the enforcers of the law when I am innocent?”
Good. Someone who understands the virtue of service.
“That’s the first wise thing I’ve heard here so far.”
With a happy hum Juli turns back to the synthetic bath of the computer screen. Sieben exhales and looks around at the peeling wallpaper, the medical equipment in filthy disrepair. A roach scurries in a corner, the light beneath devoured like a black hole and rushing in to fill the vacated space behind it. The old medical ward is the strangest place she’s seen in her short stay at Sierpinski.
Why is this the one room in Sierpinski that uses a manual door?
“Well, all of your readouts are within acceptable parameters. What about system uploads? How’s your nav module?”
“Functional. Radio works.”
“ID module?”
“It works on you.”
“Good. Now we just have to wait for your mentor.”
Sieben turns to look at her.
“Mentor?”
Juli turns back, a new feeling crawling out of her face. Bemusement.
“You don’t know? All new Storches are assigned a Starling officer to mentor them at first. Show them the ropes, ensure they don’t lose control. They didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Juli’s gaze is suspicion manifest.
“Strange. Maybe they took note of your advanced nature and decided to spare you-”
The door is blasted off its hinges in an explosion of noise it slams into a medical cabinet opposite the frame with a thunder clap and falls onto the tile floor. The cabinet's door opens and disgorges various medical nick-knacks, some of which shatter on the floor.
“HEY SHINE-ASS!”
Juli stumbles off of her chair and Sieben leaps to her hooves dropping into a combat pose on instinct. A Starling saunters on in, glee plastered onto that round face, her smile bright enough to read off of.
There’s something wrong with her eyes.
“Listen rookie- Juli! Got stuck with medical again, huh?”
“Jäger! Are you insane!?! They’ll decommission you-”
“No they fucking won’t. That doors been slated for replacement for a season now, I’m just helping out the Aras.” Jäger turns to Sieben. “You’re Storch Sieben, yeah?”
“I am Storch S-2307.”
Jäger rolls her eyes. “Which makes you Storch Sieben. That’s the convention here, it’s just numbers. Storches aren’t a very creative bunch.”
“Hmm.” Sieben smacks her lips and works it over for a moment. “Fine. But I won’t like it.”
Juli smirks. The brief look of surprise on Jäger’s face is a rare treat. Jäger looks at her, an eyebrow cranked so high it disappears under her bangs.
“Why is the youngest cadre officer in the entire facility looking at me like she doesn’t understand the occasional odd unit?”
Jäger shrugs and smiles. “Fine, you got me. It’s why I like you so much.”
“Then maybe don’t knock everything over they’re going to make me clean-”
“Ahhh just pretend like you’re applying makeup to the room’s face, you’ll love it. C’mon rookie! Let’s go see the sights!”
Jäger grabs Sieben by the arm and pulls her into a stumbling advance out the room. Juli’s grumbling launches a desperate pursuit before fizzling out and dissolving in the hallway.
Sieben does not understand the point of this. She has a map module. She explained to Jäger that she has a map module, she could get around just fine on her own but she just won’t listen.
“And this is the cafeteria.” There’s seating for around 40 Replikas. There’s a few Starlings, a Storch or two, and the ubiquitous smattering of Eules and Aras.
There must be a shortage of janitor Eules.
“It’s one cafeteria, I can see them all on my map-”
Jäger holds a finger right up to Sieben’s lips. “No no no. You don’t get it rookie. This is the best cafeteria. You never get Gestalts in here.”
“Why would we want to avoid Gestalts? We’re here to ensure their continued reedu-”
Jäger slaps a hand to Sieben’s mouth, sealing her mouth shut before she pushes her behind and up against a pillar. She looks over Sieben’s shoulders, taking care not to let their breastplates clang. There’s one Kolibri in a far corner, and she’s nose deep in a book. Jäger bores into Sieben’s eyes, her heart beating faster as the edges of her vision blur and bend inwards, meeting and swirling with and dissolving with the red wings under Jäger’s eyes as the rise up like a phoenix blotting out the sun. Jäger’s hand falls away Sieben can finally look at something else, and a low whisper pours out of her mouth.
“That word has been banned, shine-ass. It’s a crime against the state to even think it, never mind to speak it. The ban is new enough that the infocadres uploaded into that empty head of yours probably haven’t been updated yet, so the Kolibri over there might have let it slide. They don’t give second chances.”
Sieben takes a deep breath, getting all her circuits in order. “That’s what the blacked out level in the elevator was, wasn’t it?”
Jäger nods.
“Fine. We’re here to ensure their continued… reformation. Why would we want to avoid them?”
“Replikas are mostly straight laced. Gestalts mean work. I don’t like to think about work while I eat.”
Jäger moves right on ahead, Sieben slides along side her. She’s moving quick, but the extra twenty centimeters are helpful. The line is mercifully empty, and Jäger hypnotizes the Eule behind the barrier with a smile.
“Hey Januar, be a doll and get us two protein bars a piece, would ya?”
The Eule giggles and gets it for them. When they turn away Jäger’s smile vanishes. She walks and Sieben follows.
“Why protein bars? Do you not trust me to ask for my own food?”
“You don’t need a big lunch and I want my food mobile if we’ve got to get in the shit.”
“You think something will happen?”
Jäger shrugs and grins. “Woman’s intuition.”
Jäger sits down at an unoccupied table and Sieben follows. Jäger unwraps a bar and eats half in one bite, her loud chewing turning Sieben’s stomach.
“Listen up, because what I’m about to tell you is-”
“Stop.”
Oh no. I should have said please.
Nothing can like incredulity.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to you when you chew with your mouth open. It’s disgusting.”
Jäger exhales through flared nostrils before mashing her mouth together so loudly she starts to draw looks. Sieben can feel her face curdle, Jäger smiling as spit and crumbs of protein mush fall onto the dull gray steel below. After relishing it for far too long, Jäger swallows.
“So, listen up, because what I’m about to tell you is going to save you a world of trouble, ya hear?”
Sieben nods. Finally, something practical.
Jäger lowers her voice. “Two tables over to my right, there’s a Starling all by her lonesome. Her name is Metzger. Don’t look.” Sieben looks anyway. The Starling sits with ramrod straightness, enough scar tissue to quilt a blanket on her face. She eats with mechanical precision, an exact interval between each bite. Fingers lock onto Sieben's chin and drag her face back to a central position.
“I said don’t look.”
“Does she scare you?” The fingers tighten before release.
“No. I don’t fear Metzger. I respect her.”
“You don’t respect me? Or any of the other controllers?”
Jäger shrugs. “I respect Metzger, Falke, and the Kolibris.”
“You don’t respect Storches?”
“Nah. Too psycho and too easy to beat in a fight. Bad combo.” Jäger grins. “But back to my point. Metzger is the oldest Protektor in this facility period. She’s been here for fifteen years.”
“Five years past the average Starling service life.”
“Now what does that tell you? Only Falke and Adler have been around that long. Everyone she knew when she was first commissioned has been decommissioned. Metzger probably isn’t the name she had when she was a new unit.”
Jäger leans back, her face a mixture of contemplation, disgust and empathy.
“Might explain why she’s such a hardass. Word of advice. You may technically outrank her, but I wouldn’t try to pull that card. I’ve never beaten her in a fight, and I’d lay you out in a hot minute.”
Some unknown pride flares in Sieben’s belly.
“Big words for a pygmy Storch.”
Jäger’s eyes narrow into two Stygian pinpricks. Her face, so freely fluctuating, finally solidifies into something hard, cruel, and downright hateful.
“Oh, that’s a good one. Glad to see ya got some Storch in ya, shine-ass.” Jäger brings her bar up to her mouth and bites into it in a manner that reminds Sieben of a painting she saw on Leng orbital. Her chewing is silent and fast, eyes not letting hers go.
“You’ll regret this later.”
A few moments pass. Jäger has the decency to look away for a bit.
“You-" Sieben focuses on Jäger's armor. "Your description of Metzger isn't in line with what Starlings are supposed to be. Why has an old unit with that much individuality not been decommissioned?”
Jäger’s face is marred with suspicion.
“She does her job, and she does it well. They're not gonna shoot her just because she's strict”
Jäger finishes her bar. “But speaking of decommissioning, take a look to your right, all the way on the other end of the cafeteria, and you’ll see someone who should be.”
Sieben complies, and spies a single Starling, quickly and efficiently carving off small chunks of ugly looking meat and making them disappear behind her teeth without any residue. If only Jäger could eat like that.
“Yeah, I’m sure she eats prettier than me. Listen.” She snaps her fingers and Sieben turns back.
“That’s STAR S-2333, Panzer.” The venom in her voice could corrode steel. “If you listen to nothing else I say, listen to this. Stay away from Panzer. Do whatever you have to do, just don’t be alone with her.”
“Why?”
“She’s almost as good a talker as I am. And she can sniff out weakness like no on else.”
“Are you implying I’m weak?”
Jäger shrugs. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see how you react to interrogation to be sure. But if you are, stay away. Stay away even if you aren’t. You wouldn’t be the first Storch she got decommissioned.”
Jäger drops a hand to her side and pulls it back up.
“Any one else I should mind?”
Jäger adopts a thoughtful expression. “Among the Starlings? No. The Kolibris are all Kolibris, so make sure you can control your emotions around them. Same with the Storches, except for Drei. She’ll happily fuck you over for shits and giggles.”
“How so?”
“Why do you think I’m stuck babysitting you?”
Jäger makes one of those expressions that Sieben has to work to decipher. A squawk breaks her concentration. Jäger holds one finger up at Sieben and listens intently to the wind.
“Understood sir, we’ll be there shortly.”
Jäger clambers out from behind the table, unwrapping her last bar and biting off another half.
“Grab your shit and move. We’ve got an interrogation to conduct.”
Something about Sieben bothers the hell out of her. Storches aren’t supposed to be quiet and reasonable. At least not at first.
“Why are we being sent to conduct this interrogation?”
Jäger doesn’t bother looking at her.
“You don’t have the Protektor who picks up a Gestalt conduct the interrogation. You bring someone else in to give the Gestalt some time alone. They struggle against their restraints, realize this they're not cave crazy, and by the time you show up they’re usually ready to spill.”
Please be ready.
“Usually?”
“Sometimes Storches feel like getting their rocks off. Last season Neun caught a Gestalt hanging around the medical ward. Guess she couldn’t provide a convincing excuse ‘cause Neun dragged her off to interrogation and beat her to death without even strapping her into the chair.”
“That doesn’t seem like an authorized response.”
Jäger shrugs. “We had an overcrowding problem, and she wasn’t anyone important.”
Jäger couldn’t chase away memories of being ordered to sign the forged paperwork.
I hope I get her fucking decommission order. I hope she resists.
Sieben’s got the same flat, vaguely angry look that every Storch has, but Jäger can’t help but notice something that looks like disgust in the turning of her lips.
They round a corner and arrive at interrogation. A Starling stands at the door. She pulls her stun prod out with a dramatic twirl, moving it up down and around, passing it from hand to hand and spinning it between her fingers before she places it back into its holster with no fanfare.
Okay technique.
“Boch!”
She takes note of Jäger and smiles, lumbering off the wall with an exaggerated coolness.
“Jäger. Didn’t know they were going to send an officer for this.”
Boch notices Sieben and snaps to salute. Jäger holds her laughter in at Boch saluting a blinking Sieben for as long as she can.
“Boch, please don’t salute Sieben, she’s been online for a week.”
Boch drops her arm, and hides her embarrassment behind a smile.
“Shine-ass Storch, huh? I’m not helping you shower off after this.”
“That’s fine, your washing is worse than your shooting.”
Jäger laughs again, Boch’s laugh is a second behind, harsher, rushed, a pulsating longing trying to rip through the skin.
“Why do you keep calling me shine-ass?”
Jäger and Boch both look at Sieben like she’s an idiot.
“You’re a new unit, duh. Your ass is shiny. Shine-ass.”
“But that’s not true. My posterior is an advanced polyethylene materiel. It doesn’t shine.”
Boch looks at Jäger in complete befuddlement. Jäger just shrugs and smiles. She grabs Sieben’s arm and activates her shoulder mounted flashlight. Lo and behold, the light does shine off the sleek materiel.
“Sorry puppe, but that ass does shine.”
Jäger leans forward and pinches it. Sieben jerks up and swats her hand away. Boch guffaws, her voice deep and mocking. Sieben’s lip quivers, her hand going to her ass before thinking better of it.
Aw, she’s blushing.
Sieben marshals some transparently thin resolve and grabs Jäger’s arm and pulls it forward. Shining her own light on it, the self-satisfied look on her face dies away. A little light comes off, but barely enough to notice. She shines her light on Boch. Even less from her. Sieben’s face contorts into rage at their grins and then peters out into mere petulance.
“I don’t see why I should have my dignity insulted by a pair of simpletons who can’t perform basic self-maintenance.”
Boch’s jaw drops open into an incredulous smile. She looks at Jäger with an ‘I can’t fucking believe this bitch’ expression.
“I know, right? I think I’d rather she just swing at me. Sieben, try not to bend over in the middle of the hallway, the Eules will use you to check their makeup. Boch, you’re relieved.”
Boch’s laugh is cut short and her face hardens. She nods and salutes, her walk cool and collected.
“And work on your stock twirling! Not gonna tingle any Eule ports!”
Boch picks up the pace, the thuds of her hooves falling quick.
Glad to see something lights a fire under her ass.
“C’mon.” Jäger’s stomach turns before she opens the door. Not that Sieben ever needs to know.
The first thing to hit is the stench, that awful alloy of shit and blood and despair that haunts the dreams of anyone who encounters it. Sieben gags at it, and then gasps as the door shuts behind her. Blood stains the floor like seas on the surface of the moon, little archipelagos of gestalt teeth litter the floor. A few hand carts litter the floor, their surfaces covered in wicked implements coated in dried blood. A single floodlight glares harshly on a Gestalt tied down to a dental chair upholstered with more blood than fabric. He’s a slight young man with an angular jawline muttering something vaguely ritualistic under his breath, big eyes shut and parted by a lock of dark brown hair not unlike Sieben’s. He’s the same Gestalt Jäger had seen freeze in the corridors.
Fuck. I could have passed this on to someone else.
“It’s so… unclean.”
Jäger barely wrestles a look of raw disgust away from her face. There is more to Storches than just an aching sadism, even if it's fucking disgusting. She places her head right next to Sieben’s ear and whispers.
“Psyches out the detainee. That doesn’t work, seeing a Storch flip out over the mess usually gets them. Try yelling about mops.”
She almost pukes right then and there.
The camera mounted at the end of the room stares unceasingly. Right, this is one of the only rooms with an actively monitored camera. The show must go on.
“Couldn’t stay away from me, huh?” Every syllable dripping charm on the floor.
He keeps muttering. Jäger can feel some bile creep up her throat. Good. She struts over to the interrogator’s chair, the one surface in the room not marked with blood, and picks up a report.
“Worker S-23-A-2367. Fukuyama, Heinrich.” No response. Only Sieben’s breathing and his muttering can be heard. “Arrested on suspicion of obscenity against the state, confiscated items: fountain pen, document. Care to confess now and get it over with?”
His muttering continues. More bile. Jäger notices the confiscated items under where the report was. She picks up the document, more a scrap of paper, and squints at the faint writing.
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that... darkeneth? counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.”
Jäger looks at a baffled Sieben. “What the hell is this?” Sieben shrugs. Jäger’s lips smack. “Probably seditious.”
Heinrich keeps muttering. Jäger crosses the room in one great stride and her hand snaps forward and shoves his head back into the chair, fingers resting their tips right on his eyelids. His muttering stops. Her hand retracts and his eyes open. They’re a dull gray. They regard her. His breathing is steady.
“You seemed afraid when I spotted you in the corridor earlier. Guilty conscience?”
His voice is small and steady, no more than it must be. “I did not have time to steel myself.”
A short barking laugh bolts from the back of her throat. “Poor choice of words.”
Her prod comes out in one fluid motion and hits his shin so hard the recoil bounces it back into the air. He lets out a short, sharp gasp. The spot it impacted begins to bleed. After a few seconds he gets his breathing back under control, and begins muttering to himself one again.
The sound of his voice is like heaven to Jäger’s ears.
He’s not a crier. This one won’t give me nightmares.
“You were on the wrong side of a lotta ass beatings as a kid, weren’t ya?” He doesn’t respond. “You wanna confess now? Save you a world of hurt.” He does not cease his muttering.
“Sieben.”
“Yes?”
“Hit him.”
Sieben looks at him, then her, then back to him. “Okay.”
Sieben straightens up, and then leans down to touch her toes.
“Sieben?”
Sieben looks up at Jäger with her usual placid expression.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m stretching, sir. The interrogation manual recommends that all protektors stretch before conducting an interrogation with a blunt-”
“Did you catch yourself with the dummer-stock when I wasn’t looking? Get over there and hit him before I strap you to the chair.”
Sieben blinks and slinks over to Heinrich, a defeated expression on her face.
I can’t believe she’s got me feeling bad for her.
“Look, just- avoid the head and vital organs. Focus mostly on the limbs. And give it your war face.”
Sieben’s brows scrunch together. “My what?”
“Your war face.” More confusion. “Pretend he’s an imperial commissar. He’s got a sub machine gun in one hand and the head of your best friend in the other. You’re going to kill him. What face are you making then? What sound is leaving your mouth?”
Sieben looks like she’s been asked to divide by zero.
Jäger rolls her eyes. “Let me demonstrate.”
Jäger takes her mask off and clips it onto her face. She looks at Sieben, and screams. An ocean of fear, hate, rage and despair erupts from her mouth, amplified and distorted by the speakers in her mask. A synthetic guillotine falls on Sieben’s ears, her hands flying up and pressing down hard. When Jäger starts slamming the flat end of her prod against her breastplate the sharp clangs force Sieben back and down into the corner of the room, her face racked with pain.
Eventually Jäger must take a breath, and the screaming stops. Heinrich never stopped muttering. Sieben takes her hands off her ears and rises to her feet slowly. Jäger takes her mask off.
“I guess that was overkill.” She ruminates for a bit. “Shooting range might be a problem.”
Sieben slowly walks over, face down like Jäger’s going to hit her.
“Sieben. It’ll help you do your job.”
That seems to work. She’s next to Heinrich in a flash. Her face scrunches, relaxes, and then she assumes a triumphant pose, stun prod raised in the air like the hammer of god. Still placid, she reaches deep down into her stomach, and lets loose:
“Raah.”
Heinrich has to drown a few chuckles under his muttering. Jäger feels all pretense leave her body like blood pouring from a slit throat. She sits down in the interrogation chair.
“Just fucking hit him.”
Sieben finally complies. The first blow hits him on the arm, a solid crunch filling the room. Sieben stops, and stares at her stun prod. She turns it over, drinking in the sleek lines and the pre-gored tips. A ripple runs through her face, and that familiar leer Storches get when they make bones crack and flesh rend plasters over everything else. Her blows fall quick and hard, and Heinrich’s muttering ceases.
Concern flares up when Sieben punches him in the crotch. That finally breaks his silence, a huge gasp sucking Sieben and Jäger in, Sieben perched on top of him with her palm over his mouth and a finger up each nostril, her stun prod crackling with electricity and crawling towards his eyeball one centimeter at a time. Jäger wraps an arm around her waist and grabs her prod arm with the other, pulling her off and throwing her hard onto the floor. Sieben moves to leap at her before a leg smashes into her head, Jäger’s hoof planted on her cheek and pressing her head into the floor.
Jäger takes a deep breath and exhales.
“I’m sorry.” Sieben stops squirming and looks at her. “That was stupid of me. I should have remembered what you are.” All the fight goes out of her and she lies slack on the floor. Strange.
Jäger steps off and watches her get up. “Sit in the chair and observe. Try not to castrate anyone else.”
Sieben doesn’t seem to register the statement. She looks at the hand fingers that had been up his nose and tries to find a clean surface to wipe them off on.
Well, at least she’s distracted.
Heinrich’s a mess. He’s still muttering through the blood trickling out of his nose.
“Heinrich.” He doesn’t respond. “We know you’re guilty, Heinrich. Let’s just get it over with. Confess.”
He stops muttering and seems to look past her.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Her eyes flare. She strikes him.
A grunt. Breathing. Muttering
Jäger keeps at it. A blow lands on his shoulder. His grunt is haggard. She throws the occasional fist in with the prod. He doesn’t cry, but when the rage dies Jäger discovers that it’s one less chain keeping her in this world.
A squelching noise. He can’t fight back.
A tooth clattering on the ground. It wouldn’t matter if he did.
A splatter of blood. There’s no honor in this.
A spasming limb. I hate this.
Something solid cracks. I hate myself.
She stops. Her bloody prod is all she can bring herself to look at. Heinrich takes deep, blood soaked breaths, and then begins to mutter anew.
“You fucking feel like talking about it?”
Heinrich does not answer.
“This is stupid.”
Jäger stares at the wall in front of her, knowing that if she looks at Sieben she’ll probably try to kill her. “Oh, please fucking enlighten me on my interrogation technique. Lemme guess, I didn’t stretch properly before I knocked all his fucking teeth out?”
Sieben’s voice is steady. “Blunt force trauma isn’t working here. Besides, it’s inefficient. We don’t know if we’re going to execute him yet, so we shouldn’t wound him. We want him in the mines, not in medical.”
That’s gotta be the smartest thing Jäger’s ever heard come out of a Storch. Jäger turns, her own defeated eyes meeting an impenetrable gaze.
“Where’s the nearest supply closet?”
“Should be right across the hall.”
“Good. Get the chair down to a 20 degree incline, then tie his torso down. Make sure it’s tight.”
Sieben turns and walks right out of the room. Jäger’s eyebrow shoots up, but she complies. A minute later Sieben walks in with a large rag and a half full liter of water. She puts the water on one of the carts. The rag falls on Heinrich’s face. His muttering ceases briefly and then resumes. Sieben takes the jug and holds it a half meter above his head, the harsh light illuminating the sloshing water behind the filthy plastic. She tilts the jug forward, a small trickle of water glittering in the light before splattering against the cloth between Heinrich’s mouth and nostrils. His thrashing begins immediately, Jäger pins his arms down.
After 15 seconds, Sieben tilts the jug back and removes the cloth. Heinrich practically coughs his lungs out, his gasps pulling air in and tears out.
"I confess! I confess! I committed an obscenity against the state! I said that God was higher than the state! I'll sign anything just please don't do it again!"
His heaving sobs rend the air, and Jäger feels joy. No bleeding, no screams for mercy, done in half a minute. She could kiss Sieben.
Sieben is leaning over Heinrich, holding up the clipboard with the confession notice and helping steady his hand while he signs his name. Maybe they’ll get to have a proper meal with the time saved. It was a smart thing Sieben thought of.
Beneath this foreign elation a cruel, mocking voice begins to sing.
Why wasn’t I smart enough to think of that?