Jace leaned back in his VR Drive Pod. The rest of the candidates that were in the room he was assigned were already inside their simulations. He had arrived late because he was busy drawing designs and ideas he had after seeing the changes that were done to Cain''s body.

    This time the tiger did not follow him as Cain distracted the tiger to bring it to another area of the station while Jace went to ''train'' in the simulations. But he was worried because the tiger seemed to still be a bit too suspicious of Cain when they wandered off.

    After Jace''s pod loaded him in he appeared in the white hexagonal space where Nina Diaz was already waiting. When she saw him she quickly began signing at him in anger.

    Jace shrugged, "sorry I lost track of time." He watched her signals for another few minutes before shaking his head while chuckling. "I can''t promise to take this more seriously. Especially since my whole method of getting through being interrogated depends on me deriving a form of enjoyment from the experience."

    The simulation began loading and they found themselves hanging from the roof of a warehouse by metal chains. Their hands were tied up with these chains. The chains themselves appeared to be part of a pulley system hanging from the roof. Which was why they were raised so far off the ground.

    Jace looked over and saw Nina was in the same position as him. He then took stock of their shared situation. There were a number of people moving around under them on the ground floor. While up in a raised office were a number of people arguing. Most of them are older with only one younger person.

    "Okay, let''s talk about how to get through being tortured first. Then we will come up with a plan for escape." Jace turned his head while he talked to Nina. She looked around with a worried expression. But when she heard his voice she looked at him and nodded after a moment to show that she understood.

    "Good, we will start with assessing your situation. Currently we have been situated in what looks like the center of an enemy stronghold. Which is good because they are usually built to keep the enemy out, not keep prisoners in. Next we can see that officers will be the ones interrogating us, mostly because no one is immediately talking with us. We can also see them arguing in that office over there." Jace narrated their surroundings getting another nod in response from Nina.

    "Now that we know all that, we can start planning our counter to their interrogation. There are multiple ways to counter an interrogator. You can give false information, which is only good if you know that doing so would give away the location of where they are holding you. If you fail to do so the interrogations and torture will just get worse. You can provoke an interrogater to kill you, that should only be done in the event of being interrogated by an expert torture specialist that you will not be able to silent against. You can talk while giving an excess of unimportant information, you should only do this if you do not think they will manage to use your excess of information against you." Jace took a moment to breathe. Then the chains began to shake while the pulley''s creaked as they were lowered.

    "But we are not doing any of those things today. Today we are going to do a reverse interrogation. We are going to provoke them into revealing what they know." Jace told her while Nina frowned and raised an eyebrow. "It will be a bit painful but useful if you do it right."

    Jace smiled as he came face-to-face with their interrogator. "Hello-"

    SMACK!

    Jace spun around in a circle while hanging from the chain after being punched in the face. It stunned him for a moment before he shook off the surprise. Seemed they would be starting off with a bit of pain first.

    "Wait until I talk, you rat! Now tell us about your group!" The interrogator followed it up with another punch that sent Jace spinning in the other direction. The metal clinking and the roof quietly creaking.

    "Well that was rude." Jace adjusted his jaw, "you should at least introduce yourself before putting your hands on me. For instance my name is Joseph, what is your name?"

    SMACK!

    "I don''t give a fuck! Now tell me about your group!" The man yelled. This time with a lot more anger.

    Jace took a second to make sure all his teeth were still in his mouth before he continued. "Nice to meet you ''I don''t give a fuck''. You are going to have to be a bit more specific with your questions if you want me to answer. Because I honestly do not know what you are asking about. For instance you could be talking about the bowling league that I am a part of for all I know."

    "Bowling league? What? No, I am talking about the Vexical based military operation." The interrogator seemed befuddled while Jace glanced at Nina and winked. A look of clarity emerged on her face when she began understanding what he was doing.

    "A Vexical based military operation?" Jace clicked his tongue several times as he faked thinking long and hard about the subject. "Are you sure you do not have anything more specific because that is a very broad description." Jace shrugged.

    SMACK! POW! SMACK!

    The interrogator punched him several times in succession, switching between Jace''s face and his body. Essentially using him as a punching bag. It continued for several minutes as Jace took the time to assess these senior officers that were standing back watching the interrogation.

    They did not look like much. They looked nothing like how he would imagine a dogooder rebel would look. With how disorganized they were he imagined they were captured by some small rebel groups that had decided to work together.

    Eventually the interrogator stopped and frowned then he walked over to Nina. "How about you? Do you want to tell us about your group?"

    Jace suppressed his laughter as Nina raised an eyebrow almost as if saying, ''really''. Nina took a moment before making a silent sigh and shaking her head.

    "I suppose that is a no." The interrogator began hitting her while Jace shook his head.

    "I mean… you are not even a decent interrogator. I guess that is what you and your… bosses were talking about up in that office? A bit of a spat about what you should be asking us." Jace asked as he nodded at the line of old men.

    "What?" The interrogator turned his attention away from Nina focusing on Jace again. "Those old codgers are not my bosses. I am their boss. I run this Union branch. They are just suppliers and businessmen who have allied with us. They are none of your business. Now shut up if you are not going to be giving us anything useful."

    "Useful? Do you mean like the location of an enemy hideout? Or do you mean like the identity of a spy within your numbers?" Jace asked while trying to wiggle his fingers to emphasize his point.

    "Oh please, you idiots did not even know that I am the boss of this cell. What could you know?" The man grunted in annoyance.

    "You are right. I suppose we should be done with this." Jace nodded then swayed his body so he was looking at Nina. "Okay, for escaping there can be multiple different ways. For instance you could trick them into bringing you away from their fortress. You can wait until they are distracted before sneaking out. Or you can do my favorite, the no-hold-barred breakout."

    Nina nodded in understanding.

    "Today I am going to demonstrate the breakout-"

    SMACK!

    The interrogator punched him in the side as Jace was talking, "shut the hell up, you will not be escaping today. We have you two chained up!"

    Jace shook his head, "can you wait until I am finished. I am kinda busy." Jace turned back to Nina. "First off, you always want to spend any moment finding different ways to escape when you are not busy. For instance, before the interrogation began I found two different ways to escape these bonds." He waved his hands to emphasize his point.

    "The first which would have been easier if we were raised up was to climb the metal chains and to loosen them and remove them once we had enough slack and moved through the rafters to escape. Unfortunately we can not do that method. But it would have been good if we wanted to sneak out." Jace explained. The interrogator went to punch him again but Jace kicked the punch away and then put the man in headlock but using his leg instead of his arm.

    Nina blinked and started nodding her head in understanding when she realized Jace was waiting for her.

    "What we are going to do is exploit these old and deteriorated chains and pulleys. In order to do that you want to bounce and increase the weight exerted on them. Do not gently increase the weight because it would not work as well then. Do you want to try it first? Or do you want me to demonstrate?" Jace asked as he ignored the rebels grabbing weapons and panicking around them.

    Nina struggled but still motioned with her hands indicating she wanted to try it first. Then she pointed at the interrogator.

    Jace nodded in understanding. With a spin and a kick the interrogator was stumbling over to Nina. Nina grabbed the man with her legs and quickly raised her body up lifting the interrogator with them. There was a creak then a crack followed by a snap as her chains came loose and the entire pulley system came down crashing into the ground. S~ea??h the N?vel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    "Splendid job. Give me a moment." Jace praised before he began pulling himself up the chain. Then he dropped and fell to the ground with a grunt of pain while the pulley system holding him up began falling to the ground.

    A moment later the room began changing back to the white hexagonal room.

    "Good job you two. We have a dozen more simulations for you to go through before the end of the day." A voice told them. It was the same tech guy that was watching over them last time.