ORIGIN 2: World Enders

No Solace II

Days after Solace Asylum space station was repaired, Oasis, Zenith, Blake Austere, and Ratch gathered all of the cooperating biozoids for individual questioning.

Origin Project now had agents from all over two star systems, which greatly diversified its ranks. Many agents were former outlaw band members. Many of them who handled internal affairs, interplanetary investigations, and reform, would have a hand in this mass interrogation. Naturally, flipped agents already had lots of intel on many of the biozoids anyway.

Before being interrogated, each biozoid was to be stripped down, analyzed, and psychologically evaluated.

A young agent named Osuma Raw was in a dark room with another biozoid named "Contra". Osuma Raw had flipped and joined Origin Project 11 years ago. He belonged to the same Veccan outlaw band Contra was the leader of. The band was called "Contraband".

Contra was strapped into a seat by two guards. After that, Osuma started to question him, saying: "Tell me everything you know about that attack. And don't give me a bunch of theoretical bull, Contra! I wanna know everything!"

The biozoid had the same gang tattoos Osuma had, which were in the Veccan script. His eyes had been replaced by two digital sight lenses that extended in and out like binoculars as he focused his enhanced vision on Osuma, sensing a bit of angst. As Osuma stood there in front of him with his arms folded, Contra recognized him from the days he used to send him, among many others, on space station heists and smuggling runs back and forth from Vecca's skyports to the planet's moon, Orris.

With his enhanced vision, Contra noticed that two armed guards were standing behind Osuma in the darkness.

Contra cleared his throat and began to speak. "Uhh...Can I get a lawyer??" he said, jokingly. Osuma said: "You must think this is a game. As if the fate of Plumorita doesn't rest on us right now like it doesn't matter!" Contra then took on a more serious look and then replied: "And you think it should?? I lost all but whatever life you think I have! This galaxy, this solar system, this space station, along with all others can rot away tomorrow as far as I'm concerned!" Osuma replied: "Really? Sounds like you have a victim complex! You have no idea what Origin Project sacrificed and is still risking to grant you amnesty." Contra looked Osuma square in the eyes and said: "What you say to me? Look in the mirror buddy! And before you cast your stones this way, you should know, and please believe that amnesty is a joke to me!! Yeah, we were gang bangers on Vecca, but do you think I wanted to lose my humanity?!" Contra said, pointing toward his disfigured arm. His arm was disfigured by doctors on Solace Asylum. He underwent extensive surgery to get his robotic enhancements removed.

Contra continued, saying: "I never asked to be repurposed, just like we never asked to be forced into a life of crime in the first place!" Osuma and Contra knew each other before they joined their outlaw band on Vecca. They grew up in the same city. As troubled and misguided teenagers, they both dreamed of one day going straight and living a better life. But they later succumbed to the pressure of the streets.

"Come correct before you judge what you see in the mirror Raw! And you of all people should know that you can't just expect me to snitch and give up info at the risk of my life, bro!"

Zenith and some others were watching and listening in the next room. Zenith felt Contra 100 percent. Long ago, Zenith realized that he had to understand that many biozoids were forcefully repurposed. Many of them lost their families and often ultimately their sanity. Not many biozoids were like Black Horse, who, since childhood, aspired to become the repurposed leader of an outlaw band, although being the privileged son of an arch commander raised on a tranquil planet.

Interrupting Contra and Osuma's tense exchange, Zenith entered the room and apologized to Contra. Then he asked Osuma, who was a bit stirred up, to take a break and dismissed him from the interrogation. When Osuma left, Zenith told Contra that Osuma, as he probably realized, was a passionate Origin Project operative who had been through a lot to be where he was.

Zenith also asked the armed guards to leave but to send someone in with a hot meal for Contra. While the biozoid was gorging on the Chronesian delicacy, Zenith asked him: "What do you mean by at the risk of your life?'" Still eating, Contra told Zenith about a rumor that started among the biozoids with chips in Solace Asylum. He said that he heard Alpha Maximus still existed, but took on a human host body - the body of a female child. The child was rumored to be a Helix. Zenith ascertained that it was Lotus, but instead of getting emotional, he couldn't. Certain emotions he once had were gone after he was partially repurposed. Though he still had compassion and sensitivity in his heart, sometimes he was unable to fully feel them like a normal human. He was partly machine, yet more human than machine, but not to a desired degree.

Still eating with his mouth full of food, Contra figured he had nothing left to lose besides his so-called post-biozoid life, which wasn't anything to fight for. He told Helix that the attack on Solace Asylum was devised by Lotus Maximus. He said that the Omega War was only the beginning. "You should be getting ready for Omega War 2, and possibly 3! And you should start now, I mean like yesterday! I don't know what their next move is, but yours better be your best move," Contra said, as he finished off his meal with a long belch.

Oasis, Blake, and Ratch were in the next room listening to the interrogation through a hologram. It could detect if Contra was deceptive or not. Everything he said was true.