“I’M NOT SAFE HERE!” Kayel-En screamed as he clawed against the walls of his cell. “PLEASE! HE’LL KILL ME! LIKE HE DID WITH THE OTHERS!”
The young Rethan had been screaming for several hours now. The R-Class Ksa, better known as the Arbiters or the Ksa Astynom, had picked him up outside the High General’s headquarters for his election campaign, and they’d put him in a cell straight away, fearing that he had gone insane. It wasn’t until other members of the N-Class stepped forward that everyone realised that Kayel-En wasn’t insane.
He was scared.
“HE’LL KILL ALL OF US IF HE HAS TO!”
The R-Class weren’t really sure what to do with him. Between his high pitched screams and the fact that this Ksa was suggesting that the High General of the Retha would kill everyone for some reason, they couldn’t decide what to do. Normally, protocol would be to sedate the troubled Ksa, make sure they aren’t mentally ill, then either send them back to their team and monitor them, send them off to border patrol or some other mundane task to keep them occupied or send them to the KSA hospital for readjustments. Worst case scenario, a troubled Ksa would be put to sleep permanently.
They couldn’t do any of those right now.
“PLEASE! You have to stop him! He’ll… He’ll kill all of us… so the truth isn’t known…”
Finally, Aress, the leader of the R-Class, had come to a decision. They always had vast amounts of sedatives on hand, but right now, he only wanted a small amount. With three R-Class Ksa holding Kayel-En down, he administered just a small amount of sedative, before dismissing the other Ksa.
While Kayel-En struggled to stand up and was now leaning against the wall of his cell, Aress pulled up a stool and sat down. They needed to talk.
“Kayel-En Photeianon, do you know where you are?”
The young Rethan’s words were slurred now, but there was still panic in his eyes.
“Aress… You have to…”
“Answer the question.”
Kayel-En shook his head. The sedatives were kicking in. “I’m… I’m in the holding cells in the R-Class headquarters. You… brought me here…”
“I did. You acted incredibly strangely. You leaped out of a window, flew down to the ground and started screaming about how the High General attempted to touch you inappropriately, before claiming that he would kill us all.”
“He wanted to have… ugh…” Kayel-En lurched forward, then rushed to the back of his cell, where he threw up into a sink. “Do sedatives… ugh, that’s horrible…”
Aress knew what Kayel-En was about to say. He was going to ask if sedatives were supposed to make him throw up. The answer was no, but Kayel-En didn’t need to know that. His vomiting suggested that his fears were genuine. That or he was allergic to the sedatives, but that was incredibly unlikely.
“What did he do?”
“I can’t talk about it…” Kayel-En muttered as he wiped away spit. “Every time I try and think about it… I just want to throw up again…”
Aress realised that he was not going to be able to answer much. So he decided to change his questioning. This case was similar to that of Ayvee-En’s. Yes or no answers would be easier for the N-Class Ksa to digest and perhaps shed light on both cases.
“I will ask you about what happened. You answer yes or no. Did Photeianos ask you to meet with him privately?”
Kayel-En nodded.
“Did he take you to his private quarters?”
“Take me?” Kayel-En blurted. “He bloody showed them to me. Pushed me onto his bed and… No, just no… Can’t… think about it…”
“So you jumped out of the window in an attempt to escape?”
“That was… Later… He locked the doors… Pinned me down… Told me I had to comply. Or he’d hurt someone. I broke away and then he… I don’t know… He said he would shut us all down for good… You don’t believe me, do you?”
Kayel-En suddenly seemed more aware of his surroundings.
“You don’t believe me. Of course you don’t. How could you? It’s my damn word against his! And everyone is too fucking spineless to argue! Not even good little Elkay Theanon could argue! And Ayvee-En! What happened to him?”
Aress remained seated, but slowly moved his hand towards the tranquilizer gun he always kept on him for times like this.
“General Elkay Theanon provided us with the information to begin to form our case. Ayvee-En Photeianon was transferred to the Θ-Class Ksa and is residing with them temporarily until the case is finished.”
“So… you… believe me?”
Aress nodded. “I do. The R-Class has had its suspicions for a while, but no evidence. We are slowly building a case. Could you please reiterate on what he said? You mentioned “shutting us down for good”, what do you mean by that?”
Kayel-En coughed. The panic was starting to build again as the sedatives were wearing off. They never lasted very long, Ksa metabolisms meant they could flush a drug from their systems relatively easily.
“He said… I don’t really know. That we are all connected. And that he’d kill us all with ease. Like flipping a switch, he said.”
“Flipping a switch?”
“Yes.”
Aress sighed, then got up. “You are to stay here in your cell overnight. An Arbiter will keep an eye on you. Tomorrow, we will assign you to a new team to protect you.”
“That won’t be enough, Aress…” Kayel-En whimpered, the sedatives having completely worn off.
“There is little else I can do right now apart from keep you safe.”
“He will kill me.”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t be certain.”
With another sigh, Aress turned around to leave. “We will do our best. An Arbiter will be with you shortly to administer more sedatives. If you are really that concerned, you will remain quiet. Understood?”
Kayel-En nodded, then sat down on the floor of his cell. He hoped he was wrong, but a tiny part of him feared that he… or someone else… would be dead by morning.