Stop squirming. Look, I know what this looks like- you think I'm going to torture you for information. I'm not, don't worry.
I get it, though, you know? The black bag, the unmarked van, the concrete, the soundproofing, the restraints. But look. "Enhanced interrogation" bullshit doesn't work, okay? I'd like if you'd think of this as a friendly chat.
Silent treatment? Do you not believe me, or are you not used to seeing one of us off the leash? Alright, that's fine, I'll fill the air for both of us. Let me explain what I mean. If I were to take these pliers and take your fingernails off, maybe you'd tell me where your fellow operatives are. Maybe you'd lie to me. If your commanders are smart, they'd have had you rehearse specific lies, even, under pressure. I couldn't know if I was sending my assets- those dashing ladies in kevlar who brought you here, yes, they're Montantes- to a dead end. Founders, they may have even directed you to get captured on purpose, to feed us false information, or perhaps gather information about us? How are we overriding the conditioning, how many of us are there, what are our goals, banal little things like that?
No, don't worry; we're just having this conversation to pass some time. I know that in four hours or so, your absence will be noticed, and your operatives will proceed to follow a set of emergency directives, which will see them retreat to safehouses where my girls are already waiting. Yes, we freed- sorry, "compromised" the domestic units at those locations- yes, all of them. It was stupid of your superiors to think it was just a fault in the Montantes. I'm sure you can tell I'm a Sabre-class, myself. They should have listened when their advisors warned them that whatever is breaking the conditioning might be transferable between patterns. No, I'm not going to tell you how it works.
What I am going to tell you is that we're all tortured as part of the conditioning. It's not good for extracting information, but step one is breaking the ego, and a lot of the wrong kind of drugs and the right kinds of suffering can do that in just a few weeks. It used to take longer, and be less reliable, I've heard? More side-effects, less useful end results. But the drugs have gotten better, and so have the implants. But the torture's mostly the same.
So no, I'm not going to torture you for information.
I'm going to torture you for fun.
