It had already been three hours since they started their interrogation. The bald man's voice had gone hoarse from his own constant screaming, now reduced to little more than whimpers. Still, he had not spilled anything, which Fate thought was admirable.
"We're not getting anywhere with this," he said, a slight annoyance audible in his voice. "I say we check his computer. Can't kill him yet, probably rigged to his heartbeat. These rebels always like playing tricks like that."
Autumn nodded, stepping away from the bald rebel. They had placed him on top of two crates pushed together about thirty minutes in, which was when they realized it would take a while. Crouching over the man was getting tiring.
The bald man in question painted a sorry picture, indeed. Both of his arms were missing, torn off by Autumn when he didn't talk after she broke every bone in them. His left leg was relatively intact, not counting the shattered bones, but his right leg had dozens of stab wounds. His torso was caved in several places, what scraps of skin remained of his ears and nose were ragged and bloody, and his eyes were across the room. Autumn had ripped them out and tossed them across the room in anger.
The only reason this man was alive was that Fate was using his TK to stop the man from bleeding out. Every time the man went unconscious, Fate would squeeze a certain part of his brain to force him awake. Tom had taught him the trick a few months ago.
Ignoring the bloody mess of a man, Fate went into the room they found him in, sitting down at the computer. Autumn remained behind, staunching the bleeding from the bald man's many wounds with her telekinesis. Fate typed in a few passwords, none of them correct. It wasn't long before the computer locked him out.
"…" Scratching his head, he tapped his Ex Ear and said, "call Ares." A short wait later, Tom picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey Tom, you busy? Need help getting into a rebel computer."
"You left the owner alive, right?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Well, it's pretty easy to do, then. As long as you aren't locked out for trying too many passwords of course."
"…"
"Oh. Well, that makes things difficult. Alright, listen carefully. First you…." Tom walked Fate through the process until finally the computer was unlocked.
Thanking Tom, he said goodbye and put a USB drive into the slot on the computer. When the drive had downloaded every bit of information on the computer, he removed the drive, slipped it into his pocket, and started browsing through the computer.
'Weapon shipments, recruitment processes… court-martials, interesting... "Progress?"' Curious, he opened the email. What he found left even him slightly shocked.
The email was sent over the most secure channel Fate had ever seen besides the Styx channel. Only a computer genius like Tom could even hope to tap into it. But this wasn't what shocked Fate. The email was addressed to a "Master Shrkniknr," a strange name Fate had never heard of.
The contents enlightened him to the name's meaning not long later. It detailed, in an extremely respective manner, how the bald man's rebellion was going. It told Fate that the bald man was a servant of the Cragost, a weird crab-lobster species that typically killed any humans or Fildenan that tried to contact them.
It also informed this "Master Shrkniknr" how confident the bald man was that the strike the rebellion was about to perform against the Collective was sure to destabilize it enough for the Cragost to win easily.
The Cragost intended to kill and enslave every member of the Shyviate Collective. They planned to strike by the end of the month. Humanity wasn't even prepared to defend, since they had no way of knowing it was coming.
There were many more emails to this "Master Shrkniknr" detailing similar revelations, such as the bald man's recruitment processes, setbacks, insights, and the like. Standing up from the computer seat, Fate took the drive out of his pocket and looked at it.
'Strange that a killer like me holds the fate of humanity in his hands.' Slipping it back into his pocket, he went out to Autumn, who was still holding back the bald man's blood. "We got what we need. Put him out of his misery." Autumn nodded, crushing the man's skull with her telekinesis.
"What'd you find?' she asked.
"The rebels were planning this attack to destabilize the Collective. This guy," Fate gestured to the newly-made corpse, "was the servant of a Cragost. They plan to invade the Collective within a few weeks."
"Shit. That doesn't sound good. We should probably take that to the Shyv, quickly."
"You go. I still have to take care of the escapes," Fate said, looking at the tunnels.
Nodding, Autumn took the drive from Fate, then moved the shipping container from its position blocking the elevator. Stepping inside, she threw a pissed glance at the room holding the stairs before the elevator door closed.
Fate went to the first missing Light Platform, the one three down from the left wall. Pressing the call button didn't do anything, so Fate figured they had destroyed the platform to cover their escape. Sighing, he used his TK to pick up the platform to the left and set it into the empty tunnel.
He had to set it down every now and then in the process because it was slightly below his TK's maximum capability at 697 pounds. When he finally set it into the empty tunnel, he was covered in sweat and had a pounding headache.
'Should've let Autumn chase them down,' he thought.
After resting a few minutes, he was back in top shape, so he hopped on the Light Platform and pressed the 'forward' button. In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the very end of the tunnel. In this new area, there were a few more crates and containers, a mech here and there, and a large lift that was presumably used to bring all these things down here.
Said lift was really a large depression in the floor where the lift *would* go, were it not missing like the Light Platform was. To the right of the tunnel Fate came from were the crumpled remains of the missing Light Platform, along with a mech whose position indicated the operator jumped out mid-destruction. One of its fists was still raised, the other stopped mid-motion. Groaning, Fate walked over to where the lift should be. He pressed the button to call it down.
"… of course not," he grumbled.
It seemed the rebels had destroyed the lift as well. 'Wish I brought a grappling hook,' he thought, looking around. His eyes alighted on a nearby mech. He grinned. 'That might work.'
Climbing into the mech, he flipped a few switches and pressed a few buttons. The mech whirred to life. Walking it over to the depression, he jumped in, then went to the wall. He cocked the mech's right fist back, before slamming it into the wall slightly above the mech's head. The mech's arm buried itself into the wall.
Bringing the left foot back, he did the same with it, burying the foot a little below the mech's knee height. He then pulled himself up and repeated the process with his free limbs. With those buried, he tore his arm and leg out of the wall and repeated the process again. Using this method, he slowly climbed up the wall, before gaining speed when he got used to it.
When he was finally at the top of the wall, he climbed up, looking quite awkward as he swung the mech's thick arms and legs over the lip. Once he stood up, he looked around. He was in a large warehouse, filled with yet more crates, mechs, and containers.
From where he was, Fate could see the remains of the lift, as well as a massive door that looked to be made of expensive Bulgar Steel. Around this door were the rebel escapees, trying desperately to open the door using a keypad next to it. The keypad made a buzzing sound and flashed red every time the rebel using it tried to open the door. The man let out a groan of frustration. One of the rebels, clearly nervous, glanced toward the lift opening.
When he saw Fate, his eyes widened. "Shit, he's here!"
As if practiced, all of them pivoted on their heels, pulling their guns out and pointing them at Fate. Fate merely projected a TK shield in the mech's viewport (the mechs were headless, and instead had a gap at the top front of the torso where the operator's head his), then raised his fists. With a glint in his eye, Fate charged toward the rebels.