Interrogation
The travel back with the prisoners was no hassle. They didn't even scream or yell much, despite not having anything to gag their mouths. Anyway once we got back to base, we put the prisoners into a holding cell in our base. Me, Bubba, and Hoppy were about to go in there and get information out of them but we were stopped by Catnap before we were gonna go in.
"Let me handle these guys on my own. I've got more experience in this area." Catnap said to me with a deadpan expression. "What? Why?" I said to him, confused. "Well I've got my own methods for this kinda thing. And I don't really want any of you to see the process." He added. I didn't know what to think. With Catnap being older than me I had assumed that he just had more combat experience than me, but I didn't think he would have this much of a difference between us. What kind of method did he have? A form of torture? Psychological and or mental torment that would break someone so bad they would just tell them the truth? I had many questions, but I could only answer his.
"Sure Catnap. I trust that you will do whatever you can to get information that will get us a few steps ahead of FIN." I said to him. He nodded and gave me his assault rifle, checking if his pistol and his knife were in their respective places. And then he went inside. I did make a deal with Catnap, to have him with me on this mission and then he would get info from the target. I held my ear to the door and heard faint murmurs behind it...
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The murmurs turned to shouting...
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The shouting turned to screams of pain...
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The screams of pain morphed into screams of mercy...
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"PLEASE JUST KILL ME!!!" I heard...
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"JUST END IT... PLEASE!!!" I heard...
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Then it turned back to faint murmurs...
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Then it all turned silent. All of that happened in the span of 30 minutes.
Catnap opened the door and left the room with the same deadpan expression from earlier, wiping his hands which were covered in blood with a rag. I was able to see inside the room for just a moment, it looked like a scene from a horror movie. Blood was everywhere, and the prisoners which were now untied from their binds and slumped down, no longer moving. "W-What did you do to those people?" I said shakily. Catnap then looked at me with a face of surprise, and disappointment.
In that moment, I knew that behind the exterior of the hardened and cold mercenary, was a soft interior, and that interior is what I've fallen for. "Im sorry. I knew you wouldn't like what I would do to them, but now we just have to move on. I got loads of info that everyone should hear, so lets get everyone in the war room." He said while looking away with a sad face. "Hey its okay, Im not mad or even afraid of you. Its just something that you were taught to do." I said with a soft smile. Catnap seemed taken aback by this, but then he copied my smile.
After communicating with the others to meet in the war room, after a short while they all showed up outside the war room. "Catnap was already inside." I told all of them. When we went inside he was sitting down at the table with a map of the base scrolled out on the table. "Dogday is everyone here?" He asked as we all went inside. "Yup, everyone is accounted for." I replied. "Good, everyone should sit down for this." He said as we all sat down. "A lot of words were said in that room, and some really heavy shit was spilled when they were willing to talk..." He said. What continued was so unbelievable that I almost didn't believe it.
Apparently the leader of FIN who was just called 'The Prototype' had been creating and experimenting with a new chemical weapon called 'The Poppy Gas'. It was red in color and apparently had different versions, one was a mind controlling effect but apparently had no effective results. And another version had an elevated aggression effect which had results that were measured as ten times more aggressive than normal. The punchline of all this was the gas was gonna be field-tested on our base in a couple days.
"Before any of you say anything, Dogday. I know our deal was just for these targets, but im not gonna leave just yet, I'm gonna stick around with you till' all of this is over." He said to me with a small smile. Him saying all of this made me blush heavily, everyone else seems to notice and smirk and stare at me knowingly. "Thank you Catnap, that means a lot to me, to all of us." I said to him, as he looked to the side smiling shyly.
"And with you being here, I think our odds of survival had heavily increased, So if everyone and Catnap pitches in on planning our defense, I think our odd on us counter-attacking afterwards are practically guaranteed! So let's do our best and get through this all together!" The speech seemed to have roused everyone, as now everyone including Catnap had started clapping and we started our plans and preparations.