Halo: Rorschach

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=Halo: Rorschach=

Chapter One: Interrogations
Chromatic silver walls reflected the harsh white light, flowing from a flickering, humming fluorescent bulb. A headache pulsed behind Spartan Kennedy's forehead, beating in time to the rhythm of her heart. She put two fingers on each side of her head, and rubbed her temples to block out the infernal noise, and stave off the pain.

Thirteen hours after two MPs locked her in the room with nothing but a table and chair—made of the same chromatic silver material as the walls—to keep her company. A reflective mirror sat to her left, no doubt containing some form of observer to her suffering. She spared the glass a withering glare, wishing that the glass would shatter under her domineering gaze.

No such luck, as no cracks presented themselves, and she couldn’t even be sure anyone sat on the other side, or if the observation process instead rested in the unfeeling gaze of an AI, or perhaps even a network of cameras. Maybe even just the one camera.

Kennedy huffed a breath of insult at the thought of them only sparing a single camera, as silly as it was. She warranted at least a monitoring program hooked up to their fancy computer systems.

The door wasn’t locked, nor secured by anything other than a flimsy console off to the side and two MPs outside. She could leave, but somehow doubted the MPs would let her. A flicker of shadow moved across the glass door, and Kennedy lifted her eyes up to focus on it.

The only source of movement came from the shadow turning left and right, and muffled noises coming from beyond the door. Camilla furrowed her brow, ears straining; the men outside were whispering to one another to make sure she couldn’t hear them.

Before she could discern anything from the muted conversation, the door beeped, and opened with a hiss. Light flooded through the opening and illuminated a pale man in a neat trimmed suit, with slicked back olive hair and a contemptuous grin on his face.

In one hand he carried a manilla folder with thirteen pages in its folds, and Kennedy watched him take the first laborious step into the room, flashing her eyes over every detail of his person before he could so much as blink and introduce himself.

In his lapel was a handkerchief emblazoned with his initials, two chains ran from the pocket of a waistcoat under his jacket, clipped onto the lapel. The telltale signs of suspenders hoisted his trousers up and kept them in place, running over his shoulders and lifting the thin material of the jacket in slight raised bumps.

His teeth were white, his eyebrows trimmed, his facial hair cut into a neat square around his chin. Not a hair nor thread askew in his entire ensemble; a flawless presentation if Kennedy had ever seen one.

He stopped at the other side of the table, lifted his hand with the folder, and placed it down on the chrome surface. With no words, he slid his jacket off of his toned frame and threw it over the second chair in the room—thus confirming Camilla’s suspicions of thin material. Likely polyester, or some form of synthetic fiber. Cheap, yet giving off the impression of luxury from a distance.

Indeed, his white shirt appeared to be made not of cotton, but some other fabric made to give the illusion of it. Two faux-leather holsters hung from his shoulders, noticeably absent their weaponry, buttons and straps hanging loose.

An ID badge hung from his shirt pocket—strange that it didn’t have a home on his jacket. With a quick fiddle with the buttons on his grey waistcoat, the Agent took a seat in the chair and sighed, locking his fingers together over the table.

“Good morning.” His lips thinned, and the smile spread his cheeks further apart, revealing the tips of hsi pearly white teeth to the Spartan.

Kennedy echoed his posture almost identically, and gave him an unimpressed stare. “Oh, is it?” she asked. “I wouldn’t know. They haven’t given me a clock.”

“My name is Agent Byrner, or Major, if you prefer.” He reached his hand over the table, extending it outward for her to shake.

She looked at the offered hand and smiled up at him, folding her arms over her chest.

“I can assure you, I don’t.” she said, blinking. “Agent.”

His outstretched arm withered back like a vine exposed to the blistering cold, and the Agent’s smile disappeared from his face. He returned to his ‘neutral’ position much like a flower would when the sun set—or perhaps a snake, slinking back into the tall grass to wait for the next opening to strike.

He levelled his eyes at the Spartan across from him, who gave him nothing. No facial cues, nor visual tics, her breathing remained level, and her posture closed. She gave him no expression changes, fidgets, flicks of movement in her vibrant green eyes. All remained still across the table, and so the Agent moved first.

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he lifted out a small rectangular device, hit the button on the side, and placed it face down on the table. The LED screen winked on, casting a pale blue glue on the chromatic shine of the table’s surface before being snuffed out as the datapad’s screen was obscured.

“I read your file, you know,” he said, placing his hand in an arced manner atop the manilla folder, so that only the tips of his fingers made contact. When he opened his mouth to continue his diatribe, Kennedy cut him off with a sardonic whistle.

“Wow,” she dragged the word out, exaggerating her mouth movements as her lips grew and shrunk around the uttered syllable. “You and about thirty-two-hundred other mid-level administration personnel over the course of the past five months, alone.” She huffed out a mirthful chuckle and leaned a bit closer to the Agent over the chair. “You’re not special for reading a data file.”

“Alright, fine,” the Agent nodded at her. “I pulled a favour and got the uncensored version.” He tapped the folder beneath his hands twice, drumming his fingers upon its surface. Gent;e sounds of fingertips hitting paper filled the room, as loud to Camilla’s ears as gunshots.

“Physical paperwork,” he said. “Secured in military cabinets, unhackable, uncompromisable.”

“Yeah?” Camilla leaned forward in her chair, a surreptitious crossing of her arms and angling of her body presenting a faux-air of playfulness to the Agent across from her. “See anything you like?” she asked. “Any sordid details for those bedtime fantasies of yours?” She flashed him a wink from the corner of her eye.

He took a breath, folded his arms over the manilla folder he placed on the table, and smiled. “This will go faster if you cooperate.”

“It’ll go a lot faster if I wasn’t here at all,” Kennedy replied, unfolding herself and returning to her original position. A measure of silence passed between them, punctuated only by the Agent tapping out a tempoless beat on the table with his thumb.

“What do you have to hide?” He eventually broke the silence, leaning forward as he spoke.

Camilla arched an eyebrow atop her head and shifted her jaw sideways. “What do you have to find out that a skim over my record didn’t already tell you?” she asked, pressing the tip of her tongue to her molars.

The Agent hummed, grinned, and sat back in his chair. “I’m asking the questions, here.”

“Are you?” Camilla’s eyes turned incredulous. “Because from where I’m sitting,” she looked to the left and the right, before casting her surreptitious eyes back at the Agent across from her, “you aren’t in control of this interrogation.”

The Agent cleared his throat and brushed the tips of his fingers along his forehead. “It’s not an interrogation, Spartan.”

“No?” Kennedy’s next reply came just as snappy as her last. “One way glass,” she motioned to her left, “chairs, table, single light,” a finger pointed up, then wandered to the face-down datapad between them, “recording everything I say. It’s not looking good for that claim, Agent.”

“It’s simply a routine evaluation.” Agent Byrner shifted in place and smoothed the creases from his shirt, producing a crinkling of his fingers on cheap imitation cotton.

“Of?” Kennedy asked.

The Agent grinned, displaying his teeth much like a shark when sensing blood in the water. “We’ll get to that.”

“I hope so,” Kennedy sighed, crossing her legs under the table and huffing. “Because right now I am so bored I’ve resorted to antagonising the only human interaction I’ve had in the past six hours.”

“We’re getting off the subject,” the Agent pressed, eager to press his return of control.

“You never specified a subject, Agent,” Kennedy said. “You’ve allowed me to dictate the direction of the conversation. I hope this isn’t your first interrogation, because it sets a piss-poor standard.”

Flexing his hands, the Agent’s knuckles produced popping sounds before he relaxed them once more.“You’re angry because of the delay. I can understand. Being taken away from your unit can be stressful.”

“Yes, I know,” Kennedy said, licking the back of her teeth and smiling at him. “And you were in that room over there watching me, hoping I would get more and more nervous. More and more agitated as time dragged on. I expect that was why it took you so long to get yourself in here; you kept waiting for me to show signs of cracking.”

There was more silence between them, and to a normal human perhaps it would’ve been quick enough to dismiss as routine. Not to a Spartan, and certainly not to Camilla.

“What makes you say that?” the Agent asked.

Kennedy pressed herself forward and squinted her eyes. “I know your type, Mr slick suit and greasy hair.” She tilted her head to one side, her thousand-yard stare piercing the Agent thoroughly. “You come in here, quiet as you possibly can be, and slide something onto the desk. You offer a hollow smile, take off your three-button ‘28 suit you got from an ONI petty cash fund you hope they won’t notice gone, and the first thing you say, ‘I read your file’.”

He sat up straight, his hands now palm-down on the table on either side of the file, watching her with expressionless eyes.

“Like that gives you some power over me,” the Spartan dug the needle in deeper. “Like it’s meant to be intimidating. ONI’s tactics for interrogation are outdated, and I can see I’ve got you rattled like a canary in a coal mine. So why don’t you fly away, little birdie.” She leaned back in her creaky metal chair, brought her hands up, and flapped them away from her chest “Fly back to your desk, and your easy paycheque, before you try to tease details out of someone trained to psychoanalyse a person before they’ve even sat in that chair.”

She looked away from him, back to her own reflection in the glass. Requisitions would give her a copy of the tape, if she asked nicely.

The Agent stood up, picked up the manilla folder, and opened it. Reaching inside, he began to throw papers down onto the table. The flash of colour drew Kennedy’s eye back to them, and a burst of anxiety gave her heart a skip.

On the table were photos of herself and Spartan Lones, close together, hugging, and one of them that he placed atop all the rest, displayed the two with their hands interlocked.

“Do I have your attention, now?” the Agent asked.

Kennedy studied the photos for a second, before looking up at the Agent with a furrowed brow. “What’s this, then?”

“Among other things, grounds for a fraternisation charge, and possibly a dismissal,” the Agent folded his arms at her and rocked himself from side to side, confidence exuding from his expression.

Kennedy wanted to punch the teeth clean out the other side of his head. “No it isn’t,” she huffed with mirth. “It’s grounds to launch an investigation into a possible fraternisation charge,” she enunciated, then rapped her knuckles on the polaroids. “These photographs alone are not grounds enough to dismiss a soldier for it. Let alone a Spartan.” She pointed a finger at the glass. “They wouldn’t let you.”

“We already have a confession from Spartan Lones,” the Agent said.

Camilla restrained herself from bursting out laughing and held a hand to her mouth to stop the last few giggles from escaping.

The Agent’s smug aura disappeared entirely.

“No you don’t,” Camilla coughed out the words around barely-constrained laughter.

The Agent put his hands on the surface of the table and leaned towards the Spartan with furrowed, angry brows. “What makes you so sure?”

Camilla’s head rolled on her shoulders, and she flicked her head down towards the table. “Look at the photos, Agent.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “So you admit you’re close?”

“I admit nothing,” Kennedy said. “Because you’ve made no solid accusations that can’t immediately be dismissed.”

He held a finger out to her, and jutted it forward until it was nearly touching her face. “I hold the power to make your life substantially worse in the near future. Me!” He thrust the finger forward again and forced the Spartan to move her head back.

“Point at me again,” Kennedy began, “and you’re going to lose that finger.”

“We’ll start by restricting your access to certain items,” the Agent said, lowering his hand and continuing his tirade, unabated. “Then we’ll restrict your movements, restrict your privileges, restrict your schedule, restrict your interaction with the other members of this programme. You may want to cooperate.”

Kennedy put her hands on the table and lifted herself up out of the chair, towering over the Agent at her full height. “The only power you have is the power to spit, and whine, and bark. Empty threats, and lots of this,” she held up her hand, flapping the fingers up and down like a vicious mockery of mouth movements. “And not a lot of anything else.”

The Agent watched her, with a snarl twisting his face. “You’ll never hold a gun again, not after I’m done with you, Spartan.”

“You think I need a gun to fight you?” Kennedy asked. “I cracked you, already.” She grinned at him. “I made you lose that oh-so-perfect, pristine facade you put on when you came in here, Agent. You think I need a gun for that?”

The Agent huffed, reached down, and scooped up twelve pictures, stuffing them back into the folder, and grabbing the datapad from off the table. He kept the screen away from her.

Kennedy cast her eyes towards the mirror and caught a glimpse of the screen—wavy lines under a silhouette of a woman’s face. It wasn’t a recording, but a vid call. He switched the datapad off, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, before ripping the item of clothing off of the chair and knocking it onto its back. “You’ve made a mistake today, Spartan,” he hissed. “You don’t want me as your enemy, and yet you made the choice to do so.”

“What other choice was there?” Kennedy seethed right back, her eyes dangerous, and her grip on the table threatening to puncture holes through the metal. “The alternative, Agent, was to throw my teammate under the bus, as well as myself, on circumstantial evidence. What would you have done?”

He said nothing, merely turned on his heels and walked back towards the door.

When it slid open, Kennedy called after him.

“I have a feeling I know exactly what you would have done!”

He paused for a split second, cast her a withering look from over his shoulder, and stepped out of the room, leaving the door open for her to exit as well.

She sat back down in her chair, and stared down at the picture she had swiped from the pile, smiling to herself, before folding it up and slipping it into the shirt of her fatigues, and making for the open door.