Dark Original Fic

[icarus_chained]

There was a prompt on comment_fic that caught off something in my head, and this is the result. Original fic, but I think Garak from DS9 was in my head a little.

Title: The Interrogator
Rating: Hard R
Universe: The Revolution
Characters/Pairings: The Interrogator, the Prison Guard
Summary: "If I was sitting where you're sitting, would you show me mercy?"
Wordcount: 3410
Warnings/Notes: Police state, torture, interrogation, execution.
Claimer: Mine. Inspiration from a few places, but mine.

The Interrogator

... If you want a closer look, you can have one, you know. Don't be shy. You're not the first, and I doubt you'll be the last. I anticipate a full audience tomorrow. Hehe.

Oh, come now. Don't look at me like that. There's more than you who'll want a last look at me. You can't blame them for that.

But you don't, do you? I can see that. You won't blame them at all.

Well. I suppose I won't either, come to that.

Well then. What can I do for you, my friend? Nothing? Are you sure? You don't want to ask me a question, maybe? You don't want to know ... oh, I don't know. How I could do what I did? What made a monster like me? You don't want to know any of that?

But I'll tell you, I think. Since you're here. It's not often things are this way around for me. I think I'll enjoy it while I can. Which won't be much longer, will it? Hah. No. So then.

I was the best, you know. At what I did. A monstrous job, to be sure. They thought it necessary at the time. I suppose they often do. And I, well, I was good at it, so what did I care? What did it matter to me what happened in the end? Though I suppose it should now. I'll see tomorrow if it does or not.

But I was the best. The very best. I had a gift, they said. Sitting in those cold little rooms beneath proud, martial buildings. Looking into battered faces, divining the secrets there. Telling my superiors who was good and who was bad, who was dangerous and who was just a fool. Who should live, who should die, who should be made to wish for death. I had a knack. Everyone could see that. I was good.

Do you know why? Do you know what it was I could see that no-one else could? What it was I did that got me results no-one else could get?

It was a question. That's all. No beatings, no threats, no pain. None of that. Just one small, simple question.

Oh, but I see you don't believe that, do you? No, not at all. What a fine temper you have. Blasphemy, is it? Bribery? You think I'm trying to lessen my crimes? I never touched them, your honour. I never beat a man in my life. I never hurt anyone. Let me go, your honour. Mercy. Mercy for the torturer, he didn't know what he was doing.

Hah. Oh, don't be silly. Calm yourself. I'm hardly going to boast of my skills in one breath and deny my culpability in the next. I've been on the other side of this often enough, boy, do you think I'll spout excuses I wouldn't have believed myself? Take a deep breath, there's a lad. We'll get to that in a minute.

Where was I? Yes, yes, the question. One little question, to tell rebels from grocers, to tell sedition from stupidity. It does exist, you know. Here. I'll tell you. This is how it would go.

I'd let them come in. They'd be beaten already. Not badly, just roughed up. Some of them, the worst off, would still be injured from their captures. Battered, and scared, and sometimes trying not to show it. I'd let them come in, let them be chained into their seats. Let them sit for a while, in the cold, harsh lights. Let them sweat, let them worry.

Then I would enter the room. I would sit down, nice and neat, calm, self-contained. No anger, no suspicion. Just a man doing his job, a little man with his uniform and his papers. A contemptible man, in many ways. Not even a fighter, not even one of those hated men with their truncheons and their warrant cards. Just a bureaucrat, instead. A man who would kill someone with a piece of paper and never look back. A man worth hating.

I would sit there, a man like that, and I would look at them. I would wait. Sometimes for a long time, sometimes only moments. Letting them beg, letting them plead, letting them rant, letting them threaten. Letting them sit in sullen silence. Whatever happened, I would sit there, patiently. Just until I could see what was rising in their eyes. Whether it would be hate, or rage, or terror, or panic. Just until I could see what sort of person they were.

And then, I would ask them my question. I would be soft, I would be gentle. And I would ask them this:

"If I were sitting where you're sitting, would you show me mercy?"

Ha! Oh, your face. Your face, my good sir. What? Not what you expected? Such confusion. But I know. It's quite all right. You're not the first to be so surprised. My supervisors often reacted much the same. My clients too. It seems such a foolish thing to ask, doesn't it? The secret police asking a dissident if they'd show him mercy. Hah! A fine joke, no?

But you see, it worked. It worked very well. That one little question, it made me the best interrogator in the capital. I found three conspiracies with that question. I saved I think some forty innocent lives. For given values of 'innocent', at least. And perhaps for given values of 'saved', as well.

It all lies in the answer, you see. Everything you need to know about a man, he will tell you when he answers that question. He will show you all that he is.

Some of them answered: "Of course! Of course, sir, of course I would. A man like you, who wouldn't show you mercy? Please sir, I didn't do anything wrong. Please. I'd give you mercy, sir, of course I would!"

Those men, those women, I would let them go. I would advise that they be let go, or only spend some small time in a prison, perhaps a re-education center. Just enough to remind them of their priorities, to remind them of who it was wisest to serve.

Not because they would show me mercy. They wouldn't. People like that, had they for a moment had me chained, they would have killed me. They would have beaten me to death, or simply chained me and left me to starve. I did not spare them because they claimed they would do the same for me.

I spared them because they were weak. The foolish and the weak-minded, who would crumple at the barest threat, and offer whatever answer they thought their captor wanted to hear. I let them go because there was no threat in people such as those. If need be, they could be bought, or threatened into line. You could never be weak in front of them, could never let down your guard, but they were not, intrinsically, dangerous. They were not rebels, in any meaningful definition of the word.

And then there were others, who would say: "Fuck you! Polit-bastard! If there was a chain on your wrist, I would kill you. I'd kill you right now."

Those ones, I would advise be sent to prison, immediately. But I would not waste my time questioning them further. Nor would I advise my superiors to waste theirs. Those people, you see, were also stupid. Defiant, yes. Violent, yes. They might be dissidents. At the very least, they were probably criminals. But they were stupid. They would know nothing. No canny rebel would associate strongly with the likes of that. Too risky. Too dangerous. No. They weren't worth the time, either the rebels' or mine. So. I would send them away, and I would be done with them.

And then, there would be those who did not answer at all. Men and women who would sit in front of me, with my uniform and my papers, asking them if they would spare me should it come to it, and they would say ... nothing. Some of them, they would weep. Some of them, only sit mutely, and stare at their hands. They would say nothing, because they had nothing to say. The question, it was meaningless to them. And mercy ... that was meaningless too. They knew, those ones, those silent people, that such a thing as mercy did not exist. Already, before ever I betrayed them, they knew that.

Those people ... Those people I advised be let go. They were innocent, I said. They were harmless. To be a rebel, you see, a dissident, you need fire. You need passion. You need some form of belief, some idea of justice, however tainted. You need something and they ... they had nothing. No spark remaining. They were no threat to anyone. Oh, I was wrong a time or two. Once or twice, there would be someone who could hide from me their fire, mask it behind mute acceptance. No-one is infallible, after all. But even still. For the most part, those ones who did not answer my question, they were innocent. They were safe.

And that was the bulk of the people I interviewed. Those three results, they were the most common to come from my office. It was a sad fact, you see. They were very paranoid at that time. They saw rebels and dissidents everywhere. Any little action might be enough to bring you in, battered and beaten, to be chained to my chair. It was ... distasteful to me, but there was nothing I could do.

Except my job. Except to see them, and divine their purpose, and send them on their way. I was good at that. I was allowed to do that.

And the reason that was so? The reason I was allowed that latitude? That reason was the other two answers. The other two results that my little question, one gentle question in a cold bright room, brought forth.

Some people, you see, did not give any of those answers. Some people, the smart ones, the dangerous ones, they would ... see through the question a little. They would look at me, quiet and hateful across the table, and they would understand what I was doing to them. What I was asking them, and why. They would see.

And they would look at me, and perhaps they would smile, or perhaps they would glare, stare at me with hate in their eyes, and they would give me a different answer.

"Why would someone like you ever be sitting where I'm sitting?" one asked me. Fire in his eyes, because this was the injustice he perceived, this was the reason he had to fight.

"Which answer would you prefer?" another said, with some humour, calm in his choices. "You won't be able to believe any of them. So which one would you prefer?"

"Of course I would," said a third, her smile hard and cruel, and all her hate in her eyes. "I would show you all the mercy in the world, good sir."

They were the clever ones, you see. They were the ones with the fire and the cunning to be dangerous, the ones who could look and see and think. The ones that could be a threat, or the ones that already were. The moment I looked in their eyes as they answered, I knew that.

Those ones, there were maybe four or five, in the three years I spent at the capital. Not much, you might think. Not many at all. But of those four or five, two of them were linked to active rebel cells. Two of them, when I sent them away to be brutalised, when I sent them away to be broken and all their information wrung from them, enabled me to bring down two separate dissident organisations, linked me to a third, and allowed me to save the life of a very important personage who had been targeted for assassination. The others were private dissidents, rebels only in their own thoughts, not dangerous yet. But they would have been. Sooner or later. I saw that. I knew that. And with the evidence from the other two to back up my claims ... well.

I was the best. I am still, perhaps. Then or now, I was the best interviewer in the capital, and my supervisors knew it. Because with one little question, innocently asked, I had discovered not one but three plots, unearthed three great conspiracies that threatened our capital and our leaders. I had a fine career. I had respect, I had fear, I had money and the good will of my superiors. All these things I had.

But I had one other thing, too. Can you guess what it was? Hehe. Given where we sit, right now. Given what I face tomorrow. Can you guess ... what that other thing might have been?

No. No, perhaps you can't. But then, how could you? You don't know the last part. You don't know the last answer to my question. The one that told me ... how it all would end. Hmm. Yes. All right. At ease, at ease. I'll tell you. Listen now.

There was one last answer, you see. An answer I only ever received once, an answer only one man ever gave me. In the end, I think, the most important answer, for in it I saw my future. In it, I knew exactly where I would end.

There was a man brought before me. Calm. Serene. His face was battered, black and blue along one side. His eye was swollen shut, so that I couldn't see it. But his other eyes was visible. And his other eye ... was calm.

I asked him my question. "If I were sitting where you're sitting," I asked, calm and polite, "would you show me mercy?"

And he looked at me. Not a glare, not just casting his eyes hatefully towards me. He looked at me, he met my eyes, and then, very quietly, he said:

"I will."

Not: "I would." Not: "Fuck you." Not: "As if that could happen." None of that. He answered me, so simply, and his answer was: "I will."

In that moment, as in no other moment before, I knew fear. In that moment, I saw as I was seen, and for the first time in many years, I was afraid.

I left the room. Immediately. I went to my superiors and I told them: "This man must be shot. Right now. He must be taken away, quietly, so that no-one will ever know, and he must be killed. At once, he must be killed."

And they turned on me, and they accused me of hysteria, and they asked me why, why must he be killed, what kind of threat could he pose? Surely it would be better to find out its nature, to find out what he ...

"No," I said. Quietly. I had calmed myself. "He has to die," I said. "You cannot let another man meet him. You can let no-one see him, no-one talk to him. They will follow him if you do. A dead man would follow him. I tell you now. Kill him. Quickly and quietly. As long as he lives, he will be a threat. You must kill him. And you must kill him now."

When I went back into the interview room after that, he looked at me again. That man. And he knew. Without a word from me, he knew. And he smiled. With pity, I think. He smiled at me, because he knew that I understood as well.

The next day, he was taken out behind the barracks and shot. They put his body in a ditch, his face destroyed. No-one ever knew who he was. No-one ever rose in his name. He was just a body. As far as the world and anyone else knew, he was nothing more than another victim.

But I ... Ah, but I knew differently. And perhaps you will too, now. Perhaps you will understand what he showed me in that moment. Perhaps ... you will understand why the one other thing I had, in those years, beyond the respect and the fear of my peers, was ... a knowledge. A presentiment, an understanding. Of how it would end. Of where I would die. It was ... very clear, in that moment. I had known, even as I stood up to damn myself. I knew, even as I moved to decry him. I knew, and he did too, that one day it would end like this.

How? Hah. You ask that? You don't see, then. Ah well. Perhaps I should have known. Perhaps I should have expected. How would sending that man to die tell me that I would one day end here, in this little cell of my own, awaiting tomorrow's execution? How could I have known in that moment what would happen?

Ah-ah. You see. You see. "If I were sitting where you're sitting," I asked, "would you show me mercy." And here I am, right this moment. I am sitting where that man was sitting. I am in need of mercy. Isn't it so?

But who is standing over me, hmm? You are. My poor, confused boy, who thinks me a monster, and is so angry with me. You are what stands above me. Not that man. Not that calm, gentle man, who heard that question and answered with: "I will."

Do you see, now? Do you understand? I knew in that moment how I would die, because I knew in that moment that I would kill him. He was too dangerous to let live. I knew the moment he said those two words that he would be dead within a day. And I knew, in the same second, that I would be dead too. Within a year, perhaps, or only a day myself, but I would be dead. I knew it, the second I stood up.

I had lived for so long by that question. I had built everything I had by asking only that and nothing else. It had been all I needed. Everything I was, everything I owned, had been built upon it. I had asked them, one and all, for mercy. I had asked them, one and all, if they would spare me when it was done.

And that day, in that moment ... I killed the only man who had ever answered yes. In that cell, I killed mercy where he sat, and knew my action for what it was. The death of mercy, the death of hope. By my hand and my order. In that moment, I knew.

And now, here I am. Here we are. There will be no mercy tomorrow, I think. How could there be? And they will come to look at me, to get one last glimpse of a monster, and how can I blame them, hmm? How could I not understand? Mercy is dead, and soon enough, fear will be too. Can I blame them for wanting to be sure. No. No, I think not.

The question is, though, will it matter? Tomorrow, when I die, will that matter. How it ended, what it all came to. Will they care? Will I? Will he?

How long does it take, do you think, for mercy to grow again once it's been killed?

Ah, never mind. Don't worry about it. Tch, listen to me. I am enamoured of my own importance, am I not? It wasn't mercy I killed. I'm only one man, a little man with a uniform and some papers. As though I could kill something like that. As though mercy was mine to kill. I am just one man, and so was he. And tomorrow, I will be just one corpse, buried in a ditch alongside him. So it goes. So it ends. I have no right to complain, do I? I knew before it ever came to this. I've known for years, and I did what I did regardless. I knew what I killed, and killed them anyway.

Ah, boy. Will you do me a favour? Just one. Only a little one. Will you ask me a question, just the once, before I die? Ask me my question, please. Just once. Ask me if I would show you mercy, will you?

I want ... to answer that I will.