During the interrogation (1/3)

"Name?"

"Sebastian."

"Full name."

" Sebastian Bercic."

"Age?"

"Six… seventeen."

"Sex?"

"Here? I mean… Male."

Inside an interrogation room that yells with its clichés 'I'm an interrogation room', Sebastian was found sitting face to face with an agent or officer with the MDW badge on his shirt. This man in particular with stories written on his face did not laugh at the joke. Yet, the person guarding the door did, choking on the coffee he was drinking.

"Profession or occupation?" The older man in the room continued with his questions.

"Student."

And filling boxes after every answer.

"Are you a registered Manifester on the MDW? If yes, since when?"

"Six months ago."

"What were you doing on the side of the highway to Clericland forest?"

"Officer, I want to report an assault case. Four people attacked me using their abilities in the place I got arrested. The suspects left before you guys arrived."

"What were you doing on the side of that highway?" Those words demanded Sebastian to follow his rhythm in the interview.

"Practicing abilities and absorbing mana." The young man had no other remedy but to respond.

"What's your Manifester level?"

"Novitiate IV."

"Since?"

"A few days ago."

"When did you awake?"

"This morning, seven A.M."

"Don't be funny, you know perfectly that I mean the day you became a Manifester."

"Six months ago. Gosh, I said it before, didn't I?"

"No, the first question was when did you register on the MDW. This one is about the time you awoke. Can you confirm that your answer of six months is the correct answer for the second question too?"

"Yeah. The same day I got my ability, the same day I got recorded on your files. Am I not an exemplary citizen?"

"Do you know these four people?" The MDW man extended the same number of pictures on the table.

Which caught Sebastian's interest immediately. At the moment he heard 'four', Sebastian already knew who was on those photographs respectively: Odell, Jessica, Willie, and Tedd.

"I do, this man here rents an apartment my uncle owns and the rest are his friends. They were the ones that attacked me."

"Attacking you? Two of them are in the emergency room because your ability did such a thing. Do you think the thirty police that surrounded you were blind? Don't think that because of your age you're going to a Youth Hall instead of an actual jail. In any perspective, you're a Manifester before anything, the punishments are harsh. So you better spit everything that happened. Or you won' like to know what we do to disobedient Manifesters."

"Bah~"

Sebastian did not buy it, he is ninety percent sure that the man just said that to scare him.

"I repeat, they attacked me first. Everything I did was for self-defense. If you don't believe in my words, you can believe in my wounds."

Sebastian waived and showed with confidence the bandages and medical patches around his body.

Those came from the treatment he received right after arriving. And proper of an MDW facility, the nurses here had healing abilities. Although, using the ability was not green lights on the hands, and whoosh, healthy.

No no no, the doctors here combine medical equipment to scan every problem and do things just as if they were in a regular hospital. The nurse, who might not have studied medicine at all, is just in the middle of the treatment to accelerate the process.

Sebastian kept talking.

"I bet you only need to tap enter in your computer to know the abilities of those four people. Just compare them with my wounds… Besides, if I attacked them, Why don't they have a single scratch on them? Even a five years old child can tell who is the victim in here."

"Didn't your parents teach you about respecting elders?"

"Can't remember, but they wouldn't scold me anyway."

"How irresponsible of them. You said you're a student, don't you? Why aren't you at school?"

"Cause it's boring?"

"So you decided to steal your parent's car to drive miles away of town where danger is everywhere?"

At this point, after hearing this, Sebastian could tell that the men had believed what he said. So he answered the question more brazenly.

"Yes, and no. Let me correct you, I didn't have to steal the car. It is practically mi…" He stopped, suddenly remembering that he has no driving license.

"Practically what?"

"No, nothing, I did steal the car… I mean, from my parents, not from someone else or anything."

"...…..…"

"Someone go and check if it's a reported stolen car." The old man yelled in direction of a mirror in the room. Like in the films, there were people behind, watching and recording.

".........."

"Really? You don't believe what I say? Where is the trust between citizens and authorities?"

"Do you pay taxes?"

"Hmmm, I could…"

"Then you're not a citizen for me, kid."

"........."

"Fine, fair enough." Sebastian leaned against the back of the chair as if the room were his home. "May I know your name, Sir?"

"Haoshu, Hao is the last name." The man did not hesitate to answer. Thinking well, that must be part of his work too.

"Okay, Mr. Hao. Let's not waste each other's time. You stop trying to interrogate me with your cop psychological conversational techniques and I tell you everything from beginning to end, can we do that?"

"Cop psychological what techniques? You watch too many movies, kid. There's nothing like that in real life."

"You say it's fake? Oh great, a public official and a liar at the same time."

"Cut it off."

"Fine, fine. May I have a cup of water before starting, it's a long story."

The older man tilted his head toward the man on the door, who then came back with a glass of water.

"Thank you. Well, everything started this morning when I watched the news, you know, what happened in Bolivia last night. So I said, maybe I'm too weak. Insecurity in other words… no offense, you guys are doing a great job protecting us, but you know, this was more personal, kinda like… self-esteem? Yeah, that. So, I took the car and…"

….

…

"Everything that I'm saying is true! He tried to kill us!"

In another room, almost identical in the arrangement, Odell slapped the metal desk loudly, making the table legs squeak.

Up ahead of his eyes, the official looked at him suspiciously. The distrust… all that was left for him to say was "bring a drug test to see what the hell he had smoked".

But probably his professionalism did not allow him to say that, so instead, he replied with:

"Sir, please calm down. If you involve violence in what you are going to say, your statement cannot be used as evidence. And just in case you don't know, assaulting the police is a very serious crime."

He pointed at himself.

He.

Is the police.