thecapitol | Interrogation

Entry tags:

Interrogation

Who| Dan and Eva ; Eddie and Eva
What| Eva has earned herself an interrogation after the post she made.
Where| Undisclosed location in the Capitol
When| Right after the assassination attempt
Warnings/Notes| Dan's thread is pretty tame, but then Eddie comes in. That thread has just begun, but there is likely going to be some pretty violent stuff in that one. Will add more warnings as needed.

Eva had been escorted into a vehicle shortly after the events at the Tower had settled down. There had been no windows to help her know where she was going. When the doors were opened for her she was in an underground complex with still not discernible landmark to help her.

The uniformed men took her to the interrogation room. It was a metal room with shiny walls that had hooks attached which could easily be used to lock someone into a standing position. The space was wide open but dark around the edges. There were marks on the ground from where heavy machinery had been dragged in and out.

For now, the room only had two chairs and a table, but it was clear that could easily be changed. To someone who was observant, this room was the ghost of a torture chamber. The marks on the floors and the hooks on the walls hadn't been removed on purpose, all to hint towards something more sinister that could easily be brought out to aid with an uncooperative target.

The idea made Dan a little uncomfortable, but he didn't seem like it at all when he came into the room with a small recording device.

"Hello Eva," he said as he moved to sit in one of the chairs. Like all Capitol citizens, he didn't seem to think it odd at all to call this woman by her first name. She was a Victor after all, and Victors belonged to the Capitol.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"There isn't much else. I met Ariadne a little bit after her Crowning, at the Noir Restaurant. I found out she had anti-Capitol tendencies. I didn't want to turn her in if it was just talk because she, she reminded me of my son." She pauses for a moment and places her fingertips to her lips. "I'm sorry, am I allowed water?"

Dan nods and stands to go to the door. He keeps an eye on her as he knocks on it. It slides open and he passes on the request for water. Still, he keeps his body angled so that he never fully looks away from her.

When the water is handed over he brings it back to her and sits down. He gives her a moment to drink and then continues.

"I can't say that I understand," he admits. Peacekeepers couldn't have families so he wouldn't know what it was like to want to protect your child. "But you said in your post that you supplied her parts to make the bomb. Are you saying you would have done that for your son?"

"No, you wouldn't have been a Peacekeeper back when that all happened, would you? My son never committed any acts of violence. It was all talk. That's what I thought might be the case with Ariadne, and so I kept finding reasons not to turn her in, or to put off giving her the parts, without having her cut me out entirely. I held on hope for so long..."

She takes a drink of water and winces.

"I held on to the hope that she might know where he is, or the hope that she would chicken out on her own and I wouldn't have to report her. That's why I waited until it was so close to the attack. I wanted to give her every opportunity to repent."

"Radicals don't repent, Eva," Dan said with with some sympathy in his voice. "These new Tributes come from worlds that are very different. None of them are your son, and it's highly unlikely that any of them know where he is. Like you said, I wasn't a Peacekeeper when it happened, and none of them were even in this world."

"She told me there were others. You have to understand, when you spend twenty-five years knowing that it never gets easier, knowing that days passing by don't erode the loss at all...you'll cling to anything."

She bites the corner of her tongue now and takes a drink of water again. It doesn't keep her voice from cracking.

"It was only in our last meeting that I understood definitively that she was alone, that that was why she volunteered herself."

"Which means that you discussed with her what she was going to do? Did you help with with the plotting of the assassination attempt?"

"Yes. I had to make myself out to be a worthy ally, didn't I? In hopes she'd connect me with this fictitious network?" She takes a deep breath. "I told her I knew how to disable the cameras near the parking lot. I gave her a believable time and place. And I found the pieces she'd need to assemble an explosive. Obviously the first part was a lie that I hoped she'd never get far enough to discover."

"But the bomb worked, didn't it? Why would you give her components that would be that dangerous?" Dan manages not to sound as intimidating as he could, though there is a part of him that doesn't really see the logic behind what Eva is saying. He chalks it up to a woman being illogical when it comes to her children, but he doesn't let himself express that. His job is to be suspicious of her.

"Because Ariadne was - is- a genius, and she knows how to identify a bomb from a dud. Did she ever tell you what she did before she came here? She was a professional criminal. She would have known the instant I handed it to her." Eva shakes her head. "Besides, I wouldn't have known how to sabotage the pieces. I was using her instructions."

"So instead you gave a woman who is a genius and who you knew was potentially dangerous deadly materials in the hopes that... what? She'd back down during the last second? Have a change of heart?"

"Yes." Something in Eva's jaw twitches. "I wanted to believe the best of her. In hindsight, I was deluding myself, going along with it on a false hope, which is exactly what I condemned her for doing. But at the time I really believed she wouldn't be capable of it. I thought she knew the difference between the Arena and real life."

Dan is quiet for a moment as he lets those words sink in.

"Was there anything else that she said or did? Anything that would tell you where she got the idea?"

"Which idea? To use a bomb, to target a Gamemaker, to rebel at all?"

"To rebel, but if you have insight in the other ones..."

"Well, I imagine being kidnapped from her homeworld and forced to fight death matches for our entertainment probably inspired that particular political feeling." Eva raises an eyebrow. "I don't know where she got the idea for the specifics. She didn't tell me."

"That sounds oddly sympathetic to her," Dan pointed out. "Does what happened to her give her the right to blow up an innocent man?"

"I didn't say it did. I only said I can see why it might lead her down that path." She leans in. "Those of us who've lived in the Games, instead of watching them behind a screen, bear a lot of sympathy for each other. That doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to be a traitor when it means my Tributes may die for my folly."

"I know that you Victors are a class of your own, but I don't see any of the others passing off explosive parts to people they know have rebellious tendencies," Dan points out causally. "You're the only one who did that."

She runs her hand through her hair, pulling at strands again. "And I'd wager that it's because none of the other Victors had the opportunity to do so. I'm not the Mentor you should be looking for, in that regard."

She sighs. "Yes, I have anti-Games sentiment. I have anti-Capitol sentiment, Dreiberg. The fact that that is in any way surprising speaks to the sociopathy of this whole ordeal. But I'm also practical, and I'm tired to death of losing my Tributes year after year after year. Do you want to search my attic? I'm sure you already have the warrant. All you'll find is mementos from my Tributes going back to the 38th Hunger Games, and they're all dead. All of them except this crop. Is it shocking that I'd set my personal feelings aside to protect them? I'm not a Victor you need to worry about, because you have a suite-full of hostages to dangle over me."

Daniel stares as he listens to her. It was one thing for the Victors to share these feelings among themselves, but for one to so brazenly make a statement like that to a Peacekeeper while being questioned? For a moment, he is too stunned to fully reply. Finally, he sighs a bit and then moves to rub the bridge of his nose, pushing up his glasses just a bit as he does.

"The Games are a necessary part of our culture," he explains once his hand is lowered. "And for you to make such a strong statement because you attached yourself to the wrong young woman is a bit of a insult to the security that we've worked to create on our world. If you care so much about the life your son could have had, you should be grateful that the Tributes are coming from another world, not supporting them in their rebelliousness." He stood up then and picked up the recording device. "I have what I need, Eva. Someone else will be in to speak with you further." With that, he closes the conversation. Not wanting to give her time to reply to his face, he pulls away and walked towards the door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Interrogation

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject