**CURRENTLY A FEATURED STORY**
highest ranking: #11 in Science fiction
❝true happiness is only achieved without freedom.
There is a girl who wakes to a world that she was supposed to protect. Instead, she fights it.
There is a man who is cursed wit...
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evanna
From the instant I see him, I know he'll give in- he's one of them, one of our supposed superiors, someone who can't take care of themselves. "Oh, can't we just kill him?" I ask Julian, looking up with scorn at our now terrified, not to mention blanched, prisoner.
"No, of course not," Julian deadpans, giving me an annoyed look. The man's shoulders sag a little, and I grit my teeth. Julian seems to notice, too. "But," they continue, "if he doesn't turn around and open the fucking door, I might just have to kill him." Julian's wrist flexes, pushing the barrel of the pistol further against the man's forehead.
We both know that'll work on him, and he doesn't disappoint us.
With slow, careful shuffles, he turns and without delay, the pistol's against his head again, a constant reminder that we're the inexistent god, here, that we're the ones playing with his life. I can see his hand quivering as he presses it against the fingerprint scanner. Every movement of his is sluggish, and it's getting on my nerves. "Come on, come on, we haven't got all day either," I say sharply.
It doesn't take more than a few seconds for the scanner to pick up his body measurements, and as soon as a female voice says: retinal scan: complete, the steel doors to the archives slide open.
Julian grabs the man's upper arm and guides him inside with the pistol among his black strands of hair. He hardly needs any more encouraging to move forwards.
The moment we step into the hollow room the doors close, engulfing us in darkness.
***
"What do you want?" He's the first to speak as the blue lights flicker on. If only Francis hadn't gone off back to Bernard, I think, he could answer all the stupid questions for us. My eyes wander down the aisle we stand in front of - and what lies in neat rows are files, all ordered, presumably, by section and in alphabetical order.
Julian mutters a French obscenity underneath their breath. "This'll take forever," they state uncertainly.
Our prisoner still looks like a confused, helpless human. "I said, what do you want?"
"We want everything you know on the Government's genetic modification plans. Before Tetrahmon, that is. "
His response is too immediate, and probably gives more away than he intends for it to. "I could call some guards, you know," he says defensively. "I know what you've done."
"Oh, look at me, I'm so terrified of your... well. Dead guards." I grin at Julian, then look back at him. "If you ask me, they were more like children trying to imitate their toy soldiers than anything else. They're amateurs, all of them... Must be quite disappointing, hm? For a government official such as yourself, I mean."
