Quistis opened her eyes, preparing her mind for the first day of interrogating Llyriance.  She'd studied his dossier in obsessive detail, and now the time had come to put that knowledge to use.

She dressed with precision, pulling on a fresh uniform, and taking extra care with her appearance, in order to emphasize her liberty over Llyriance's extended captivity.  When she'd finished, she rode the elevator down to the floor of the Dark and flooded the room with light.

Llyriance had the same gaunt and haggard appearance that plagued McMurdo, but seemed in much better spirits.  The fact of his imprisonment did not seem to trouble him at all – rather, he didn't seem aware of the fact.  After his eyes adjusted to the light, he sized up Quistis.

"Ah, good morning, my dear," he said.  "So what's it to be?  Electroshock torture?  A steady course of beatings?  Or am I lucky, and you'll, shall we say, 'put the screws' to me?"

She took slow, careful steps, moving to a calculated distance, just close enough to maximize her superiority over the captive Galbadian.  A small lectern rose out of the floor in front of her, and she set Llyriance's file down where she could access it.

 With deliberate intent, she reached for the handlink clipped to her belt.  A single button press and the interrogation chair's impressive array of needles, blades, saws, torches, and yet darker devices sprang into view.   Still, Llyriance kept his smiling gaze on Quistis.

Raising an eyebrow, she pressed a quick sequence of buttons.  The chair's restraints clamped down hard on Llyriance's arm, preventing it from wriggling.  A bladed attachment drew a long, slow line, extending the entire length from his wrist to his elbow.  The blade moved with precision to rival even the greatest human surgeon, and as it did, Llyriance's smile just widened.  Rich, thick blood welled up as the blade withdrew, the arm automatically dropping into a vat of sterilizing liquid before it locked back into its initial position.  Galbadia's Director of National Defense looked ecstatic.

Quistis finally spoke, emotion absent, every inch the ice princess.  "I have just split open your anterior ulnar vein.  That's a sample of what we're capable of here."

"By all means," Llyriance answered, eyes gazing with desire at his bleeding arm.

*          *

Fujin waited as the elevator whisked her to the interrogation floor.  She'd had her fill of waiting for McMurdo's mind to snap.  Quistis had left Fujin with carte blanche, and the silver-haired woman intended to bring the interrogation to a swift resolution.  McMurdo needed to see just how far Fujin would go to obtain a confession.

She learned the lesson from Quistis – they all had, in their Psychology of Battle class.  She'd taught them about the will to power, how you had to prove to your enemy that you'd do anything to win.  She'd said that you had to use every weapon at your disposal, or else you'd already lost.

She stepped off the elevator and walked at a brisk pace to the chair.  After entering a command to swivel it to face the command deck, she grabbed McMurdo by the hair.

"EMPTY," she said, pointing to the row of darkened windows.  Then, turning back to McMurdo, "ALONE."

"What... what's going on?" he asked, disorientation from his continuous interrogation preventing him from following the implications.

"TALK."  Fujin commanded.

"I can't," he whimpered.  "I just can't."

One of Fujin's eyebrows traveled upward at an agonizing crawl.

"PITY."

Fujin smiled, and it terrified the boy.

*          *

He walked into the empty infirmary, adapting to the low light, in the Headmaster's private room.  Crossing over to Cid Kramer's bed, he pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable without waiting for an invitation.  He set a folder on an adjacent table as Cid shifted to look at the visitor, moving slowly to avoid putting extra strain on his wounds.

"Hello, Headmaster Kramer," said the visitor.  "It's been quite a while since we last spoke, and I thought it important to touch base."

Cid nodded, trying to conserve his energy for necessary conversation.

"Do you remember the chain of events that led you here, Cid?  Those events immediately prior to the shooting?"

Cid thought for a long moment, a process that seemed to pain him.  He seemed medicated beyond all reason and content to stay that way.

"Well," said the guest, rising from his chair and moving about the room, "allow me to remind you.  Like everyone else, you had a part to play in my plans.  You have fulfilled that objective.  This makes you expendable."

Cid's eyes widened with panic and he struggled to find the call button, his only hope at salvation.  Sound couldn't escape from his isolated room – he'd insisted on one of the quiet rooms in the infirmary, a petty decision that could now spell his demise.  Nevertheless, he screamed for help.

"I think not," said his assassin, waving one hand in a casual gesture.  Cid felt the air around him thicken, felt himself caught in an isolated pocket where time had no meaning.  The clock on his nightstand broke down with him, its internal machinery winding down to a complete stop.

*          *

Quistis pressed the button to activate the next phase of her sequence.  The next device swung around, a small torch that slowly ran the length of Llyriance's cut, cauterizing it.  As the fire touched his skin, Llyriance closed his eyes, face turning from ecstasy from rapture.  The torch moved up his arm like a shiver of joy, and his tongue came out, caressing his too-white teeth in pleasure.

When he opened his eyes, Quistis still watched him, her face a mask.  "More, my love?" he whispered.

"Now we understand each other," she said.  "You know we're quite well equipped for forcible interrogation.  We," here she indicated the dossier, "however, have extensive documentation on your singular... preferences."

"So, I assume, then," he said, adopting a more businesslike attitude, "that I shouldn't be expecting more of the same?  Nor seeing you well-known skill with a whip?"

"No," she answered.  "There won't be more of the same.  We don't want to damage the tissue."

"So," he countered, "why don't you tell me what it is you want."

"A sensible attitude."

"It would help to know what you want," he conceded.

"It's quite simple," she said.  "We want to know what, if anything, your government had to do with the attempt on Headmaster Kramer's life."

Gleeful shock registered on Llyriance's face.  "Nothing, to the best of my knowledge.  This is the first I've heard of it."

"How certain are you?"

"No such action could take place without my foreknowledge.  As Director of National Defense, any covert actions must have my express approval and signature.  Additionally, the Galbadian Republic requires the signatures of three directors before rendering a valid death warrant.  This includes assassinations.  I am one of those directors"

As he spoke, Quistis kept an eye on the stress monitors.  None of them wavered – Llyriance either spoke the truth, or thought he did.  Or, perhaps, he knew how to subvert their lie detectors.  She watched him, too, his blink rate, the flare of his nostrils, the dilation of his pupils, and none of them betrayed a lie.

"And the other two?" Quistis asked.

"That, I'm afraid, is confidential.  Here, we are at odds."

*          *

Fujin took a few steps away from him and stretched, long and languorous.  She reached slowly down her leg and, reached for one ankle.  Through the haze of McMurdo's confusion, it seemed almost sensuous to him.  She stood up with her back to him, arms dropping at her sides.  By the time he noticed the cylinder in her hand, he didn't have a chance to react.

She made a dexterous flick with her wrist, and her tactical baton, normally reserved as a holdout weapon, extended to its full length.  She whirled around and smashed it into McMurdo's right shin, breaking the leg.  He howled in pain.

"TALK."

He continued screaming as if she'd never spoken.  Without hesitation, she moved again, bringing the baton up at an angle and breaking the boy's left knee.

"Don't do this!" he screamed.

She feinted, twice, moving like a swordsman, striking towards each of the cadet's arms without touching them.

"LEFT?  RIGHT?  TALK."

*          *

"Here's what I want from you, Llyriance: the names of every person in the new Galbadian government and the position they hold.  I want to know their job and who works in their offices.  I want the names of their secretaries, their assistants, their interns.  I want to know who their wives are and who their kids are.  Their sisters and their sister's friends.  I want the names of every person in the Galbadian government, and when you're done with that, you can give me the name of every person these people might have come into contact with.  I want to know where they live and what they live on.  How much do they make and how much do they spend?  Where do they eat and where do they shop?  What schedule do they keep?  We're going to go over this for every person you can think of until you have the most extensive web conceivable – every person who's had even the slightest contact with your new government."

As Quistis spoke, the brilliance in her vibrant blue eyes emptied until no life shone within them.  Her voice remained neutral and she paused for a moment to let Llyriance absorb her words.

"You arrogant little bitch," he sneered after a long moment.  "Do you really think you're smarter than I am?  I went to the finest schools in Galbadia and graduated top in my class.  And what are you?  Some little slut that Cid Kramer picked up and squeezed into a fancy uniform.  He only keeps you around because that pathetic old cretin hopes he'll get a chance to screw you.  That uniform doesn't change a thing, though.  You SeeDs are gutter-slime, and everyone knows it."

Inside, Quistis soared, finding the rhythm of the interrogation and letting it wash over her.  She exulted in the challenge, thrilled at the possibilities.  The reed-like sound of his voice poured through her like music, stripping his insults of all power.   Her brain against his, pitched in single combat.  She'd seen the look flowing over Seifer and Squall's face when they sparred – the look of abandon, of joining with their weapon, of doing the one thing they loved to the exclusion of all others.  She knew that sensation, because it filled her now.

Quistis leaned in, again, her voice low.  "You have what we want, Llyriance: information.  Information.  And we will get it.  By hook or by crook, we will."

*          *

"Now, as I was about to say before you had your little episode, you have fulfilled your purpose nicely, and for that, I thank you.  Sadly, you won't be around to see me profit from your actions, but I assure you that your death will not be in vain."

Cid's eyes, the only part of him not frozen by the powerful magic, seemed to project a scream.

"You well know that you arrived in the infirmary by way of a botched attempt on your life.  We are both aware who employed the shooter McMurdo, correct?  Blink once for yes, twice for no."

Cid closed his eyes in resignation.

"Good.  No need to discuss that part.  Now, what you may not know is...  ah, yes?"

As the unwelcome guest spoke, Cid's eyes struggled up to the security camera aimed directly at the bed.  At some point, the camera picked up the intruder's face, Cid hoped.

"Wishful thinking, I'm afraid.  One of your demands, in addition to a quiet room, was that you not be monitored.  See?"

He walked to the camera, reached up, and pulled down the severed power cord.

"Not only that, Headmaster, but you insisted on one other precaution," he said, flipping on a light.  "Take a closer look at the lens of the camera."

Cid blinked back the light for a moment and then noted with dismay that someone had spray painted the lens of the camera with a bright blue paint.  He closed his eyes, as the light went out, knowing that he'd cut himself off from the world, and, in doing so, committed suicide.

*          *

"We're going to display a set of images on the screen in front of you," Quistis said, watching Llyriance.  "Please watch them."

She activated the projector and the first image flared to life: a picture of an angry woman, glowering at the camera.  The image flashed across Llyriance's field of vision and his face betrayed no affect.  Quistis could have consulted his monitors, but she knew that his heart rate and blood pressure had remained perfectly steady.

The second image: a smiling baby, wrapped in soft blankets.  Llyriance yawned.  These images meant nothing, the served to calibrate the machine, to give the interrogator a moment to observe the subject in actual conditions prior to the actual battery.

She flipped a switch and the assault commenced, a freeform trip through Llyriance's psyche, a wandering journey of all the people, places and things that had ever crossed his path.  The general with whom he organized the coup that swept away the Delings, the academy where he attended school.  His butler, followed simply by the figure 39,000,000.  First a color, then the quick flash of a face.  Llyriance sat transfixed through it all, through his disconnected biography, but he never once betrayed an interest.

Suddenly, Quistis saw it.  A tiny gesture, almost imperceptible, a miniscule tic at the corner of his mouth.  He'd seen something that made him take notice.  She punched a few buttons into the handlink, and a portion of the sequence started to repeat itself.

*          *

"So, this brings us again to the topic of your badly bungled assassination.  You probably recall a growing dissension within the ranks of SeeD, one that escalated as the date of the shooting approached.  Suddenly missions started going sour, people started defying orders, paperwork vanished.  Does all this ring a bell?"

Cid's eyelids started to flutter, driven by a pounding in his head.

"Focus, please.  Was that one blink or two?"

Cid blinked once, yes, he remembered the sudden decay of SeeD.

"Very good.  For a man in your circumstances, you're doing remarkably well, Cid.  You see, what really happened was that you lost control.  You became irrational, delusional, paranoid.  The only thing that changed about SeeD was you.  You broke down, and in your inability to see that, you projected it upon the system.  This, however, was not your fault, and I absolve you from any guilt."

The visitor reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced Cid's cigarette holder, holding it up clearly, within Cid's field of vision.

"Yes.  In the end, it was your vice that proved to be your undoing.  You're intimately familiar with the ingredients, aren't you?"

A slow blink.

"Well, once I convinced your tobacconist in Dollet to make an alteration to the recipe – an easy feat, given the man's overwhelming greed – you were already lost."

*          *

Daises.  He'd reacted to a picture of daises.  Llyriance found the daisies significant, and now Quistis had to ferret out their significance.  He didn't know, of course, that he'd reacted, but she'd seen his implacable demeanor suffer from the same nervous tic every time the picture came around.  She didn't need any more proof than that.

She sat opposite the enormous metal chair restraining Llyriance, head tilted back, eyes closed.

"Shall we listen to some music?" she asked.

"Mightn't that be considered fraternizing with the enemy?" he replied, one eyebrow raised. 

"Until you decide to be more forthcoming with your knowledge, you and I are, shall we say, in for the duration.  I'm not allowed to leave the Dark until I have completed my interrogation.  So we can either make our mutual captivity pleasant, or we can suffer in silence.  I vote for music."

"In that case," he said, sounding as if her words had changed her mind, "you're the one with the..." he gestured with one shackled hand, "magic wand.  Music it is."

She turned on the room's sound system, and the delicate sounds of a piano filtered through, slow and sad.

"Julia Heartilly," Llyriance nodded deeply, "Nocturne Two, I believe."

"My favorite," Quistis answered.

"Her nocturnes are lovely, but I hold a special place in my heart for Piano Sonata Eight.  I was there the night it premiered."

Quistis smiled, imagining the event.  She'd always had a fondness for the music of Julia Heartilly, even before knowing Rinoa.  Julia seemed to make the piano sing in a way no other artist had ever done.  Quistis closed her eyes and leaned her head back again, half- losing herself in the music, half-focusing on Llyriance.

"I have to apologize for what I said earlier," Llyriance said.  "It was... unkind of me to speak to a lady in that fashion."

Quistis felt everything slide into place.  She understood the daisies, understood Llyriance's schizoid reactions, understood how to crack him.  Without opening her eyes, she reached for the handlink.

The metal restraints clamped down on Llyriance, forcing his arm in place again.

"What?  What's going on?"  She could hear the shock in his voice, and she drank of it.

The surgical unit slid down from above, three hypodermic needles extended towards Llyriance's arm.  As they slid into his vein, he felt himself losing consciousness.  He saw Quistis, head still tilted back, smiling to herself, one hand gently conducting the nocturne.

*          *

The man opened up a small parcel of paper containing a fine, dark green powder.  He brought it close to Cid.

"Powdered malboro root.   Are you familiar with its use, Headmaster?"

Two blinks.

"Interesting," here the visitor smiled.  "Escalause Almasy first discovered its virtue as a slow-acting poison.  Oddly enough, the roots are very addictive, helping to eliminate suspicion in the victim.  In your case, it just made you crave the cigarettes with increasing frequency.  This intensified the standard effects: hallucinations, paranoia, impaired judgment – in short, all the behaviors you've been exhibiting.  It also attacks the immune system, slowly breaking it down, accounting for your long stay in the infirmary.  Now do you begin to see?"

Cid's eyes closed, as if he would never open them again.  The intruder leaned forward to whisper to the headmaster.

"And now you're thinking to yourself, 'why me?  Why is all this happening?  Where did I go wrong?'  I'll tell you, Cid.  You picked the wrong side.  You were stupid enough to side with a Sorceress from the future.  You should have focused your attention on the present – you could have been unstoppable."  He grabbed Cid's head in a vice-like grip, voice dropping for the first time into genuine contempt.  "Now look at me closely and recognize the truth of what I'm saying.  You're disgusting.  You took six innocent children and manipulated them in the hopes of serving Ultimecia.  On top of that, you used your wife's orphanage as a recruiting ground for your mercenary organization – lining your pockets with the blood money you earned from the death of children.  You are certainly the most contemptible creature that has ever crawled this planet.  Do you agree?"

The grip tightened.  Cid blinked, tears of pain starting to form in his eyes.

"Good."  The black glove released, pushing Cid back into place. 

*          *

"Kel?  Kel?"  came Quistis's voice as Llyriance started to regain consciousness.  "Wake up sweetie."

Kel Llyriance, five year-old, woke up to find himself once more in his mother's garden, back in the house where he grew up, his kind but unpredictably cold mother standing over him.

Kel Llyriance, Galbadia's Director of National Defense failed to appreciate the fact that a potent combination of hallucinogens and thiopental sodium – the so called "truth serum" -- now coursed its way through his body, turning the Dark into a memory of his childhood home.  Quistis merely projected pictures of flowers on all sides, and added a few post-hypnotic suggestions as he woke, and his own mind added the remaining details.

"Where am I, Mom?"

"Really, Kel," she snapped.  "What kind of dumb question is that?  Today's the day you were going to help me in the garden, remember?"

"Yeah.  Sure, Mom."

Quistis placed her hands on her hips.  "But only good boys can come into the garden.  Have you been a good boy?"

"Yes.  Yes."

"All right, then."  Quistis flashed him a dazzling smile, and led him by the hand around the room.  They sat on the floor for a while, pretending to plant flowers.  For fifteen minutes they pretended to plant, and Quistis continued her routine, warm and loving one moment, harsh the next.  When she felt secure, she made her move, engineering a collision with Llyriance.

"Look what you did, Kel!  You ruined all the seeds!  Now what good is the garden?"

"But, mom," he protested.

"Did your friends tell you to destroy my seeds?" she asked, pulling herself up to her full height.

"No!"

"Do you want me to get angry with you?  Which of your friends wants to destroy my seeds?"

Llyriance started to sputter, and Quistis knew she'd earned her list of names.  The only difficulty now lay in slowing down his speech so she could understand it.

*          *

"You're holding up well, Cid.  We're almost done here.  I have one last little item to show you.  This." 

With a flourish, like magic, the black glove produced an eyedropper, containing a green fluid.  In the dim light, the fluid glowed – it seemed, somehow, too green, a green not occurring in nature, something possessed of its own internal light.  It swirled from within, darker shades rippling and moving within it, nauseous tides waiting to trap the unwary viewer.

"Malboro venom.  This is it.  The most lethal, painful, deadly, poison you can find anywhere in the world."  Suddenly, the conversational demeanor returned, making things even more chilling, "Those disgusting creatures are quite useful.  Like you, in fact.  I had to pull some strings to obtain this.  Would you believe there's actually a malboro ranch?  They milk the things for venom to make antidotes for various poisons.  And, if you know how, you can always find someone with a price.  Someone, for example, who's willing to risk his or her job and send you pure venom.

"Well, Headmaster, I must say that while I've enjoyed your conversation tonight, but I think it's time we wrap things up.  You know Squall's on your trail, right?"

Cid blinked.

"And you know that he intends to bring you to justice and see you go through some sort of legal proceeding?  You might go to jail and lose all the money you made from SeeD?"

Blink.

"More than that, you know that Squall's the only reason you aren't dead already?  The rest of his hounds have been baying for your blood.  You realize that, too?"

Blink.

The guest leaned in again, once more whispering.

"Then there's one last thing you should know.  Squall?  Seifer?  The First Team?  They're the good guys.  I'm not."

One black glove lashed out and pulled Cid's eyelid open, while the other administered the drops.

The man sat back in his chair and waited for the magic to run its course, so the poison could act on Cid.  Within a minute, Cid's body started convulsing.  Muscle contractions followed, strong enough that the bones cracked, the sound shattering the tranquil hospital room.  Soon enough, Cid's organs had liquefied, and the Headmaster moved no more.

Turning to look at Cid's remains, the man stood up and brushed some lint off his jacket as he stepped for the door.  He looked at the mass on the bed, and the parts running off onto the floor, before offering a polite smile, a nod of farewell.

"Be seeing you."

*          *

Quistis had not left the Dark complex since she entered with Fujin to start McMurdo's interrogation.  Now, holding a data disc copy of the names Llyriance gave her, she stepped outside, relieved to hear the heavy metal door slam shut.  She flipped open her phone and dialed Squall's number.

"Squall," she said, feeling her spirits lighten at the prospect of leaving the place, even if only to deliver the disc, "I'm done with Llyriance.  Can I drop the disc off?"

"Yeah," he replied.  A long pause and then, "Good work, Quistis."

"Thanks.  I'll be right there."

She stepped into the elevator with no small amount of joy and watched the quality of light change.  Soon she saw daylight as Balamb Garden opened up beneath her.  It felt like coming home.

*          *

Squall sat behind his desk, staring with sorrow at a mountain of paperwork.  Quistis observed him for a moment.  He looked at the hefty pile, pulled off the top sheet of paper and read it over.  He then replaced it on the stack and sighed.  He picked up the entire heap, transferred it to the waste paper basket, and nodded, satisfied with his choice.

Quistis entered, laughing.  "So this is what you've been doing in my absence," she said, holding the disc to the light.  She set it gingerly on his desk.  "My latest trophy."

"Anything good?" he said, picking up the disc.

"You won't be disappointed," she said, smiling.

Suddenly, the door flew wide open, and General Mallis came in, with Dr. Kadowaki close behind.

"Cid's dead." Mallis proclaimed.

Squall's eyes went to the doctor.  "It had to be poison.  I'd guess malboro poison, but I don't know who could get a hold of it or how," she said.

Mallis's eye lit on the disc, then on Quistis.  "Is that the info from Llyriance?  Galbadian shadow government and all that?  Wives and children?"

Quistis and Squall nodded in unison.

"Print me out a hard copy and meet me down in the Dark."

"What are you going to do?" Squall asked.

"I'm going to show those Galbadians that we're not to be trifled with," Mallis snarled.

"Llyriance said they had nothing to do with the shooting."

"Of course he did," Mallis shot back.  "Just get me the printout and meet me down there."

*          *

Quistis clutched the papers tightly in her right hand.  Squall leaned against the wall as they waited for Mallis, who had entered Llyriance's cell moments before.

The door slid open, and Mallis stepped out, a cold storage box in hand.

"Here," he said, handing the box to Squall.  "Send this to Galbadia, along with the list of names."

"Will they know what to do with it?" Quistis asked.

Mallis gestured towards the box.  Squall opened it to reveal Llyriance's severed hand.  "The Director of National Defense's hand, accompanied with a list of names of every member of their government, their wives, their children, their grandparents, their third cousins...  They'll get the point," Mallis said, "that we can get to them anytime, anywhere.  Then they'll abandon their silly little war."  Satisfied, he stalked away.

After Mallis had left, Quistis and Squall stood standing, holding the box and list of names.  The door to Dark 1 slid open, and Fujin walked out, shaky, her pale face gone even whiter.

"Fujin, what's the matter?" Quistis asked.

"McMurdo just started talking," she said, speaking in a full sentence, meaning that whatever he'd said had shocked her out of her normally fragmented speech pattern.  "All of a sudden, he said he could tell me whatever I wanted to know.  He apologized for holding out for so long, but said he couldn't tell me any sooner."

"Well?" Squall pressed, "Who hired him to shoot Cid?"

"That's the thing," she said, turning to face Squall.  "Cid hired him."

"What?" Quistis and Squall asked together.

Fujin pointed to Squall.  "Cid would have demanded an independent investigation, to determine if you and the First Team were involved."

"So I couldn't interrogate," Quistis said.

"McMurdo would then confess to his interrogator that Squall ordered the hit."

Squall tensed.  He turned away from them, facing the wall.  For a long moment, Quistis thought he intended to put his fist through the hard metal.  He relaxed, and Quistis had to strain to hear his words.

"Bastard."

He turned back to the women.

"Someone's still out there.  Whoever killed Cid isn't done yet."

"This could be another of Cid's plans, to implicate you in his death.  At the very least, it could be suicide to avoid trial," Quistis asked.

"No," he replied.  "This isn't over."

"How do you know?" she pressed.

He shook his head.  "I just know."