The Gen

Chapter 11

Angreius, 7th day of the Summer Cros, 3367

Dalek Madrew lay on his bed, bored to death, hovering somewhere on the verge of madness he supposed, since he had nothing to do. Nothing. He longed for something to happen, no matter what it would be, just something to keep his mind occupied, anything. Hope? Nah. He didn't believe in that hope shit anymore.

There, relief came, of whatever sort. His door opened and Lariv Jinla placed herself into his line of sight for a moment.

"Dalek, my friend."

"Hi, Doc."

Lariv vanished from his line of sight, propped up a foldable chair, and sat down.

"How are you feeling?"

"Do you want an honest answer to that?"

Lariv chuckled. "That's the spirit. You know, I have a few new questions."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. How did your FTS contacts communicate with you?"

"I told you a hundred times already. Encoded Virtual messages."

"Not with something like this by any chance?"

Lariv held a device into his line of sight: a black, flat, oblong device that fitted into a palm.

"Never seen it before. What is it?" Dalek asked.

"It's a hand-held communicator. People used it before the Virtual. They've come out of fashion more than a hundred years ago. This is a museum piece I borrowed."

"Wow, how do you use it?"

She flipped it open. It had a number keypad on one half and a small, currently black screen on the other.

"Never seen a thing like that in my life."

"Interesting," Lariv said.

"How exactly do they work?" Dalek asked.

"It sends signals on a certain frequency, and you need antennae, receivers and signal amplifiers to make it work."

"Sounds complicated."

"I suppose so."

"And you're saying that some FTS members are using devices like this to talk?"

"Yes. We have reason to believe that."

"Well, not the FTS members I ever dealt with."

Lariv removed the device from his line of sight, and rattled with a pillbox. "Let's verify that with a little truth drug, Dalek."

Dalek felt queasier by the second. Yes, he had wanted a distraction, but he feared searing pain at the end of it. The way she asked, she'd want to verify what he said with electroshocks, not only with a truth drug.

Lariv asked for a guard and water. Moments later, a guard entered and forced the pill down his throat.

✜✜✜

Lariv left him alone for an hour. Soon, Dalek felt the truth drug working on him. It made him feel dizzy, funny in the head, and he couldn't focus. His eyes darted from one edge of the ceiling to the other. He seemed to be floating on a cushion of air. Overall, he didn't feel bad, just weird, but the nagging fear of electroshocks intensified.

Lariv returned, put up her foldable chair, and held the device into his line of sight again.

"Have you ever seen a device like that, before, Dalek?"