Man of Stone: Sarah and Emma

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Sarah and Emma interrogate Professor Phobos about his work with 'Krasnoe Dinamo'. The poor Professor doesn't know what hit him.




"This guy's name is seriously Phobos?"  Sarah closed the car door behind her, amusement shining in her eyes.  "Phobos.  That's just fantastic.  So is Mister Boogieman going to just let us in the front door?"

"Who would dare to keep us out?" replied Emma, her smile winter-cold. "Even the Boogieman has to fear something and I think we do nicely. Besides," she added, as one slim white finger touched the intercom button, "I made an appointment."

Sarah snorted in response.  "Of course you did."  A tinny voice came in through the speaker, confirming their identities politely and efficiently. The door lock clicked open, and Sarah moved to open the door in front of them.  "Here we come, Mr. Phobos."

"There seems little point in being incognito when two world-renowned experts in cybernetics decide to meet. I have followed Professor Phobos' work for some time. His methodology was flawed and his work practices were the definition of sloppy but he did make some excellent advances in a number of fields." The door they had been heading towards slid open silently to reveal a greying, middle-aged and heavy-set Baltic man seated behind an impressive desk. "Isn't that right, Piotr?"

The man chuckled. "I see you are aware of my little tinkerings, Miss Frost." He gestured them to the seats in front of the desk and smiled at Sarah.

"That's Ms Frost," replied Emma, icily. "Your work on enhanced hearing was always one of your more impressive efforts."

Enhanced hearing?  Sarah arched an eyebrow, wondering what else about this man she probably should have known before walking into a room in the hopes of intimidating information out of him.  Taking her seat, Sarah folded her hands in her lap.  "Professor Phobos, we would like to ask you a few questions about some of your work, if you wouldn't mind."  There.  Try the easy way first.  Polite.

"You need to ask me questions about my work?" Phobos smiled, projecting an air of avuncular bonhomie. "When Ms Frost has made so many advances, what questions should such a beautiful young lady as yourself need to ask of a broken-down retiree such as myself?"

#He is a physical coward, an occasional drunk and will do almost anything for money,# Emma inserted the words carefully into Sarah's mind even as Phobos beamed at the younger woman. #He tried a few enhancements on himself, but he's removed everything but the ears. He does not,# Emma's mental voice flickered with something that might have been amusement, #like it when people shout at him.#

The last few years of training with telepaths meant that as much as it made her skin crawl, Sarah did not flinch when Emma's words entered her mind.  She smiled brightly back at the older man.  "Yes sir, but Ms. Frost was not involved in the program I'm interested in. What can you tell me about 'Krasnoe Dinamo'? It sounds fascinating."

Phobos' smile did not alter, but his air of easy affability evaporated, replaced by something tinged with fear. "Krasnoe Dinamo is no longer my concern. Nor should it be yours, young lady."

"Oh, but I've never been very good at just sticking to the things that concerned me." Sarah's smile remained cheerful, but something in her eyes expressed otherwise. "In fact, I've often gone to very great lengths to get information that didn't concern me. That tends to get..." she glanced down at her knuckles, now rubbed raw and red from the bone sprouting just underneath. "...Well, messy."

Phobos rubbed at his nose, a sudden convulsive movement that seemed driven by the need to do something, anything. His glance down at her knuckles was swift but it was clear he understand what she intended to convey.  "I used to be threatened by the KGB on a regular basis," he said finally. "I doubt anything you can do could be messier."

Emma's telepathic laugh inside Sarah's head sounded like ice crystals falling from a high place to shatter on stone. #He can't decide if he's scared of you or wants to marry you. I am quite willing to bribe him for the information but I am more than happy to let you beat the price down if you can.#

"No?  You've got a good imagination Mr. Phobos, I'm sure you can think up all sorts of things I might do that would be worse.  You just don't think I'll do them." She leaned forward in her chair, clicking now bone-covered fingertips against the warm wood of the desk.  "Such a pretty girl can't possibly be dangerous, can she?"  #You're the best, Emma.#

#Oh yes, I am,# responded Emma, almost warmly. She leaned forward in her chair, drawing Phobos' attention away from Sarah's tapping fingers. "It is not just my young colleague who is dangerous, Piotr," she purred. Phobos' shields were rudimentary Soviet-era clunkers, but they were thick enough to make fishing out the information she needed more bother than it was worth. Other parts of his mind were less well protected, though, and with the gentlest of mental touches, Emma tweaked at Phobos' pain centres. "Together we can make you hurt in ways they don't have names for," she said and, reaching out, drew her finger lightly down the back of his hand. Phobos snatched his hand away from her touch as if he'd been burned, cradling it to his chest.

"What did you do to me?" he gasped. "Witch! Witches! The pair of you!" He swore in Russian, a string of vehement syllables as he patted gently at his hand, then reached out to the intercom switch in front of him.

"Oh, fuck this."  Pulling a bone from her shoulder, Sarah slammed it down into the intercom speaker.  It sparked and crackled, and she looked up at Phobos with an unamused stare.  "We want names, Phobos. You were stupid enough to give us an appointment, and now you're going to give us what we want."

The look Phobos gave to Sarah as he looked up from his destroyed speaker was pure terror. "Names? Names?" he half-shouted. "Everyone in Krasnoe Dinamo is dead. Or in ....," his arm waved around wildly for a moment as he grasped for the correct English word, "pieces. Half-people. There are no names!"

"Not those names," Emma's icy calm was a counterpoint to Phobos' sudden terror. "The Russians don't have money to pay for squat. Not," she leaned forward, her finger tapping the desk lightly, "this apartment, the servants, the car, the truly extraordinary amounts of vodka you have imported. The only thing in your head that was worth that much money was Krasnoe Dinamo. You mutilated a lot of little Russian boys playing your games, Piotr. Which oligarch did you sell them out to?"

Phobos' face went even paler. "No," he gasped. "No. There was no one."

#Oh my# Emma's telepathic tone in Sarah's head was mild. #You should feel how afraid he is. Whoever he sold his work to, right now, he actually thinks they're more terrifying than we are. Perhaps you might wish to rectify that?#

"Tell us who you sold it to!"  Sarah lashed out over the desk, her hand making contact with the professor's cheek.  Slaps across the face aren't usually something to write home about, but getting hit with a bone covered hand is far closer to getting slapped across the face with a brick than a fleshy appendage.  Her voice softened.  "We can leave you alone right now.  We just want a name."

Phobos' hand had flown to his cheek after the slap and the look in his eyes above it was haunted. "You - you can hurt me. Hurt me as much as you want. He will always make it hurt more." Surprisingly, he turned his head to Emma. "Ms Frost. Emma. I do not want to die. Not his way. Do not make me die. Do not ask this question."

Emma stared at Phobos and then, for the first time she had arrived in the city, her expression softened slightly. "You sold Krasnoe Dinamo to a monster, Piotr. Didn't you?"

The Professor stared at her for a moment and then dropped his head into his hands. "I didn't... I just wanted to get away... away from all of it. Somewhere safe. He gave me enough money to get out of the shithole that Mother Russia has become."

"But not enough to make you forget what he'll be doing to those boys,' said Emma, as Phobos' thoughts lapped against her mind, a confused babble of regret and shame and terror. "Your ethics were always malleable, but at least you had some. He," no name she could grasp but the images were enough to make it clear the kind of man Phobos had sold his technology to, "he had none. He has nothing inside of him. People are things to him. And you don't want him to break you." Emma leaned forward and her touch on Phobos' wrist this time was soothing. "I will protect you. I have enough money. I have ways of ensuring he can never track you back as the source. And if he does, I have ways of making sure you can get away. Give me his name, Piotr."

The Professor lifted his head again and finally whispered hoarsely, "Nikolai Zakharov."

"Thank you, Piotr," said Emma warmly. "That will do nicely."