The Great Game (South/Ele)

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Moments like these come but once in a career. Of that I'm pretty sure. It's rare that a peacekeeper can claim credit for collaring multiple menaces to society and so just being able to capture one is a grand feat. Sure, some would dispute that I didn't do much of anything; that is was the men under my command that actually caught him. This is true, because I've never been one for legwork. However, because I happen to be in a managerial position, one can see why credit goes where it is due. Especially when it comes to capturing criminals that are supposed to be dead. Take the young man on the other side of this two way mirror for example. The scourge of district one some called him. I always thought he'd be shorter, given that he gave the authorities the slip so often. But he's tall. Several inches taller than me in fact, though you can't really tell as much because he's strapped to a chair.

There are a lot of theories I've heard about what goes on in the detention center, and most of them aren't true. Like peacekeepers turning cells into their own personal abattoirs, or keeping people here until they've been driven insane. I honestly don't know why some people seem to think that. Insane criminals make for poor personal servants in the Capitol. No, the purpose of the detention center is to make criminals understand what they've done wrong and punish them for it. In extreme cases, they might need to be broken down psychologically before any headway can be made. And that is why I've been assigned to this case. Yes, I am a peacekeeper, but my job description goes beyond that. I have access to funds and means that most people in authority wouldn't. I am in control of the spy network that is threaded throughout the twelve districts and therefore I quite literally have eyes and ears everywhere.

Which is what this Dempsey is going to learn if it takes him a lifetime. I've got a file listing his crimes and the full list of the reports is somewhere close to a chapter book in length. I've been thinking a lot about how to approach this case, and I believe I've come to a decision. For someone like this, all the points need to be made, all the stops need to be pulled, and another half dozen tired sayings that mean the same exact thing. I stare balefully through the glass for another minute before nodding to the peacekeeper by the door. It scrapes open with a creak and I enter. There are many cards hidden up my sleeves, but the card I look forward to the most involves the mad ramblings of an inmate from district three. The one in cell block A.

I enter with a swish, flipping through the papers and keeping my eye on them instead of the young man in the chair. And it's slightly humorous that I keep referring to him as that as I'm only a few years older than him. "Trespassing in Capitol woods, destruction of Capitol property, illegal travel into districts, conspiring to rebel, inciting rebellion, suspected ties to Capitol enemies, and more than two dozen counts of murder. Quite the rap sheet." I flip another paper and look over the top of the clipboard. "Kaelen Dempsey, son of Todd and Kendra Dempsey. You've got a lot to answer for." My eyes flick down again and I ignore his presence, dropping the papers on the table with a thump. "This can go one of two ways Dempsey. We already have the evidence we need to put you away for a long time. We just need a confession to everything. So, you can save us both a lot of time and admit to everything, or you can refuse and then the tools come into play."

A minute passes and I lean on the table, looking into the monsters eyes. "I have no qualms about using everything at my disposal to inflict pain on you. It's less than you deserve. But you've complicated things by not staying dead. That's one thing I found hard to understand. Why would someone in your position risk coming back? We already declared you dead. But no, you had to start some foolhardy crusade in district one. We arrested a few of your co-conspirators, just so you know. I was surprised that Tarquin Rex was picked up. They've always been respectable. Then again, people like you are a poison to society." I've held my gaze level this long, and I see no reason to stop now.

"I should just put a bullet in your head, but I can't. The risk of you becoming some sort of martyr figure for the street rats of district one is one the Capitol is not willing to take. Besides, I doubt you take the threat of death very seriously. There is no way I can okay you to be made an avox, because then you'd be running out killing important citizens. So instead, you, me and every single one of your secrets are about to become very, very intimate. As I said, you are going to confess to the murders, to inciting rebellion and to spying for the lost district. This is a not a promise, it's a fact. I've never failed to break a prisoner. So."

"How shall we begin?"

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[bg=0a161e][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,500,true][atrb=style,width: 500px; -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 10px; border-radius-bottomleft: 10px; -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 10px; border-radius-bottomright: 10px; opacity: 1;] i'm pleading please, oh please, on my knees repeatedly asking why’s it got to be like this, is this living free? i don't want to be the one, be the one who has the sun's blood on my hands i'll tell the moon, take this weapon forged in darkness some see a pen, i see a harpoon For someone marching to his death, there's an odd sort of peace settled heavily in my bones. It's closer to numbness than I thought it would be, the only thing I can feel a sense of hollowing loss that grows with every step I take away from Colt. They tore me out of his arms. The last time I ever saw his face, he was confused and frightened. The recent memory makes something burn slowly through my chest. He'll be fine without me. Hell, if I'm being honest with myself here at the end of all things, he'll probably be better off. I always liked to blame the world for the loss of everything I ever loved, but I'd never really stopped until now to consider the fact that maybe it wasn't the world's fault. Colt has this one last chance to walk away from all this terror I've put him through, to go home, wherever that is for him. To be happy and loved in a way that I could never give to him. If me dying is what it takes for him to accomplish that, I'll put a gun in my mouth and eat a bullet of my own volition. But I suppose I won't have to do that. The Capitol's probably all too eager to take care of that task for me, after all. A sardonic smirk works its way onto my face as I'm hauled down flights of stairs and into a dark, windowless room. Shame. I wonder if my last request could be to see the sun once more before I die. After months of living underground in Thirteen and a year of a nocturnal lifestyle in One, I miss the warmth on my skin. One of the two muscle heads in uniform that dragged me out of my cell practically throws me into a horrifying-looking chair contraption, the impact slamming into the fresh bullet wound in my shoulder. What might have been a scream turns into a peal of maniacal laughter, my eyes flashing with a spark of that old madness. At least in the end, the monster at my core hasn't abandoned me yet. It's the only thing that never has. And if I'm to die, it won't be as a coward. "How do you boys always seem to know that I like it rough? Do it again." "You're sick," Tweedle-Dumb hisses, strapping my wrists and ankles to the chair while Tweedle-Dumber nods his assent in the background. I laugh again, winking at the two of them as they retreat from the room. "You have no idea." It doesn't take long for the star of the show to enter the room, a man with startlingly blue eyes and ramrod-straight posture that immediately launches into a long and boring read-through of the file in his hands. The psychological tricks he's trying to pull are practically laughable. From the way he carries himself to the conversation I overheard when they shot me down in the woods, it doesn't take me too long to deduce his identity. "Agent Micro, I presume?" I ask, an amiable tone to my voice that doesn't match the insane grin stretching across my face, a cold, predatory flash of teeth in the guttering fluorescence overhead. "I'm disappointed. I would have thought that you'd step up your game a bit more than this. You've got so many holes in your logic that I scarcely know which ones to point out first. It's ill-advised to try to have a legitimate battle of wits when you're so obviously used to dealing with unarmed opponents." The impassive look I get in response only makes me laugh again, head thrown back against the top of the chair. Still, all pretenses aside, I can't help the violent twinge in my guts. They got Tarquin. He's in here somewhere, which might well mean that the rest of the Angels are too. Perhaps I waited too long before getting out of their lives to save them from my poison touch. If there's any vulnerability that might cross my features, I make a solid effort to stamp it down, letting the cold indifference of my old self take over. There's a benefit to the monster I was before all of this still clinging stubbornly to the darkened corners of my mind. He deals with things like this far better than the sad, lovelorn wreck I've become ever could. "First of all, spare me all this drivel about martyrdom. My life doesn't mean too much on any scope, and I'm not so stupid as to believe that there's anything stopping you from killing me and throwing me in an unmarked grave. The delusion that telling you anything might save my hide is laughable. I won't be the first person to walk through these doors and never walk back out," I sigh boredly, examining my ragged nails even though the restraints on my wrists restrict my movement before looking up at him with a razor-edged smirk. "Secondly, I'll tell you nothing. Any evidence you supposedly have is purely circumstantial, otherwise you wouldn't need a confession. And as for pain as a motivator… well, you might want to take a look at my face and then ask one Pyrite Shore how well her attempts with that strategy worked." I feel like I'm sitting down in front of a chessboard. The opponent has come out full force, and I've taken my queen into play, knocking aside every foolish pawn thrown in my direction. The only thing left to ponder now is what other strategies might pan out. What else does he have to throw at me? There's always the fact that I'm certain someone on some camera somewhere saw what happened between Colt and I in our cell, but I've made contingencies for that. I can use it to my advantage if they try to make it their tool. My confession for his freedom. I'm going to die anyway. The least I can do with that irrefutable fact is use it to get him out of this concrete hell and back where he belongs. He belongs with me, the anguished part of my heart that the monster hasn't consumed yet screams, empty and aching. The monster snarls and tells it to shut up. Its sentiment is no longer welcome here. Not when it makes me weak. It feels good, dismantling all the bullshit and smoke and mirrors, laying things out the way they really are for once. I know that I can't stop the endgame, can't prevent the inevitable. But if I'm going to go, the last bit of satisfaction that I can offer myself is to go on my own terms, salt their wounds a little more even with my last breath. "You'll never close the book on those murders, Agent. You might as well just shoot me now." i'll stay awake, 'cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight why am i not scared in the morning, i don't hear those voices calling i must have kicked them out, i must have kicked them out i swear i heard demons yelling, those crazy words they were spelling they told me i was gone, they told me i was gone

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There is silence in the room for the space of forty-five seconds before my lips split into a grin and I begin to laugh, which in turn lasts for a another thirty-seven seconds. "Oh, you're everything they said you'd be." The amusement fades from my face as I take a seat across the table from him. "You are of course, wrong on several accounts. You can't help what people believe about you, but neither can you choose who will believe in you, sad sick waste of a human being that you are notwithstanding, we can't allow even a single spark of defiance to be fanned into flame." I begin to leaf through the file again, settling on a certain sheaf of paper. "You are quite possibly the most conniving criminal I've ever had the fortune to come across. But even the best of us can make mistakes." I scan the paper quickly and leave it face up on the table.

"Erika Talbot. Age twenty-three.

Mitch Derringer. Age nineteen.

Charles Waller. Twenty-five.

Do you know what these names have in common? Do you care?

How about Todd Dempsey? That name shares a common denominator with the other three. Care to guess?" It doesn't take much effort to unhook my baton from my belt and smack him across the face with it. It leaves a welt and a rapidly forming bruise, but no blood. I leave my face as impassive as possible, but am unable to keep the slightest hint of disgust from crossing my features. "Watch the screens."

The wall to my left parts in the middle to reveal a set of screens, even as the chair the criminal is secured to rotates to face it. "I'm well aware of your masochistic tendencies you foolish boy and thus I highly doubt that things such as mundane as thumbscrews, electric shocks and routine beatings would engender a better response than you've already given me. You're strong. Physically at least. But everyone has a weakness, make no mistake about that. Pressure just needs to be applied with the correct...leverage."

The screens click on one by one, each showing a different still life photograph of district one. The first shows a dark-haired young woman slipping inside the Moreno compound in the dead of night. The second, a young girl wandering around a warehouse. The third shows a teenager peeking out of a window in the Dempsey household. The fourth image is that of a long haired girl in the middle of the forest. Still another shows a middle aged woman closing up a shop. The one after that contains a picture of a short haired girl sitting at a receptionists desk, followed by a shot of a girl sleeping in a hospital bed. The final image is that of a man painting a sunset on top of a graveyards hill. I almost want to turn around and watch his face for any sign of emotion, but I refrain from doing so.

At least for the moment.

There are at least a dozen petty crimes that any one of the Dempsey's could have been brought in for, but we've refrained from doing so thus far in the hopes that one of them might lead us to Kaelen. But now that he is in our clutches the safety net has begun to dissolve. There is also the investigations underway that suggest at least one if not more of the daughters are following in his footsteps. Imagine that? A family of merry murderesses. Well, there is a wealth of cells just waiting for them in that case now isn't there?

"Now, even if the people I mentioned earlier meant nothing to you, I'm sure these particular ones do. I wonder; Would your cousin be able to trespass in Capitol woods if both her kneecaps were broken? Would your aunt be able to sew those frilly abominations without her hands? Perhaps I'll pay someone to stab your cousin in her other lung since the first hire failed so miserably. What about your uncle? How long do you think his sanity would last after watching his children receive the kind of physical punishment that I'm not going to waste time attempting on you? Yes, you might resist all confessing to any accounts of criminal activity, but could they? How many days in here before anyone of them would confess to having done the crimes in your stead? Have you a single shred of decency? Perhaps you care little what happens to yourself, but what about them? Would you spare them this misery? Or will you continue to be the selfish prick I'm convinced you are?"

It's his move now, and I do believe he has deluded himself into believing he still has the upper hand, even though I've made it pretty clear that without a confession, we can make the murders stick to his family members instead. That will all change soon enough, but for the moment, it's better to test the waters and see what it truly takes to break this criminal. I'm beginning to think it will take a lot indeed. If that's the case, so be it Dempsey. You have no idea what you're going to regret. For what you almost did to my brother, when I'm done here, you won't even be the memory of a memory.