Writer's Wednesday || Part 5 - The Interrogation

Sorry for postponing last week's installment. I wasn't feeling so great and didn't have the energy to post, plus there were some plot points I hadn't quite decided on and might have needed to change. Thanks y'all SO much for your suggestions for the badguy's evil lair. Seriously, I'm super excited about it now. :D
Anyways, here it is: 

- Part 5 -

The Interrogation

John led them down a long hallway to a metal door at the end.

A sausagey hand on either of their shoulders, he pushed them through the door and into a small room not much bigger than their cell. There was a table and four chairs placed in the middle. John sat them down on the two chairs facing the door, and handcuffed them to a steel ring in the center of the table. The walls were pale-yellow cinderblock. Clarity felt her headache intensify under the bright florescent lights.

Only a few minutes had passed after John left them before the door opened and Dr. Stallings entered. Clarity gave him a glare that would have put fear into a charging rhinoceros, but the Doctor was occupied with his clipboard, where several sheets of paper were covered in both handwritten and printed text. There was plenty of red ink.

Stallings pulled a chair out across from them and sat. He folded his hands, looking back and forth between Sean and Clarity. When he smiled, his face wrinkled in an unpleasant way. "May I just begin by saying I really am truly excited to meet the two of you."

Clarity jangled her handcuffs, "Yeah. Feelin' the love…"

"I must apologize for those," he said quickly. "But we must take every precaution. You see, you two are both quite valuable to our efforts."

"What efforts would those be?" asked Sean.

"I'll be asking the questions." Stallings was still smiling, but his voice was tight, "Sean, I have here your records from the orphanage. They don't have a last name. Why is that?"

Clarity found the question strange. She was the one who had been flown through a ley line. Why was this man so interested in Sean?

"I can't remember it."

"That's right. I see here they found you under a park bench, with a blow to the head which caused extensive amnesia. You can't remember anything from the first nine years of your life?"

"Why do you want to know?" demanded Sean, "You drugged and chained us. What's so important about me?"

Stallings continued as if Sean hadn't said anything, "Your psych evaluation is also here, Sean. They say that you stated you had both a Moment and a Name when you woke up. They thought the name was most likely of someone you knew before your injury. But do you think it is?"

Sean lowered his gaze from the Doctor to the table, "No. It was like a part of me. Not a memory."

Nodding, Stalling flickered his gaze to Clarity. She stared steadily back.

"Miss Shaw, I hear you're from Aerethyst."

How would he know…? Clarity sighed, the answer dawning on her, "You bugged the cell."

Stallings smiled again, "Smart girl."

"Yeah. I'm from Aerethyst. What's it to you?"

"Do you know how you came to be here on Dyterra?"

Clarity wished she could fold her arms. But the cuffs wouldn't let her. Her hands were getting sweaty. "Ley lines."

"Do you know why you came to be here?"

"I… stepped over one by accident," Clarity answered uncertainly.

"But don't you find it strange that you are the third member of your family to have disappeared due to ley lines?"

Clarity's hands were shaking. She could feel Sean's surprised, questioning eyes on her. But she didn't break her eye contact with Stallings. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, Miss Shaw," the Doctor leaned forward, "that you have quite the concentration of evectolites in your blood. You're at least a third or fourth generation Evect."

"Yeah, well you're a third or fourth generation jerk," she muttered.

"What are evectolites?" asked Sean.

Stallings sat back in his chair, "Evectolites are like miniature electro-magnetic fields. It was discovered some time ago by the scientists in Aerethysts that ley lines were opened when large concentrations of evectolites gathered. Soon after, it was discovered humans and some animals have evectolites in their blood. Some humans have higher levels than others. We call those with large amounts Evects. With such high concentrations in their bodies, Evects are drawn to ley lines inadvertently."

Clarity bit her lip, the memories flooding back as Dr. Stallings talked. The forest. Her mother. The lights. Her chest began to ache. Her heart felt ready to burn.

"What do you want?" she asked hoarsely. "What's this all about?"

"Only those humans with high enough levels of evectolites are able to actually pass through ley lines. To humans without high enough levels the lines simply become void. No different from any other patch of air. Clarity, Sean, you both have off the chart amounts of evectolites in your blood. You would be invaluable assets to our research program."

"You drug us, spy on us, handcuff us, then ask for our help?" Clarity scoffed.

Sean silenced her with a glance. "What exactly is this 'program' you keep talking about? Research into ley lines? Clarity said Aerethyst was experimenting with them, but I haven't heard anything about Dyterra doing so. I thought all the leading research was into the time lines."

Clarity didn't know what he meant by "time lines" but could guess it was something similar to ley lines. She kept quiet and continued listening.

"The time lines are an ongoing program," replied Dr. Stallings. "Not many people--even some of our foremost scientists--know this, but the time lines were actually completed and stabilized almost four years ago. We continued research into them, but have expanded our horizons to other ideas. Ley lines."

Clarity had voiced the question before she could stop herself, "Can you get me home?"

Stallings let out a breath. He answered right away, but Clarity could hear the undertone of reluctance in his voice, "That's where it gets complicated, I'm afraid. We here at I.T.A. haven't made it much farther that the scientists in Aerethyst, and they have been working on the Ley Project for over thirty years. We only know how to create a ley line, but not how to track it. We would have no way to know where it will form in the surrounding area, much less direct it to Aerethyst. As you may have wondered, there are hundreds of other dimensions, or worlds as you would, besides Dyterra and Aerethyst. You only have a one in a thousand chance of making it to Aerethyst."

He was lying, that much was obvious. But, Clarity pretended to believe him. She nodded. "Can you give us a minute to think about it? Helping you, I mean."

Stallings picked up his clipboard and stood quickly, "Of course, of course. I'll just step out for a few minutes."

"Hang on," Clarity stopped him. "If you want us to trust you, you better start trusting us." She jingled her cuffs.

Stallings complied, unlocking their restraints and even leaving the key in their possession. He smiled plastically, face wrinkling, and left.

Sean started to ask something, "Wha--"

Clarity had immediately pulled out her phone. She was typing on it. She held a finger up to silence him. After a moment, she handed Sean the phone. On she had typed a message:

They probs have cams/bugs here 2. Type 2 talk. I don't trust them.

The black phone's buttons clicked quietly as Sean wrote a reply:

Don't trust either. Stalls say nothing bout Ragnarok or Freyja. What do now?

Clarity's answer was short:

Escape.

Tell me what y'all think!
Sincerely, 
~The Scribbler in the Attic