Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(115)
Smiling, Kuo caressed his chin, causing Smitt to jerk backward violently, either from pain or terror. She pressed her palm on his chest and he spasmed, his back snapped erect, and his face pointing toward the ceiling in a silent scream. Then he collapsed, unconscious. The lone monitor in the room with them pulled Smitt’s head back by the hair and checked his eyes. He looked over at Kuo.
“Wake him,” she said, circling the room as if a shark sensing blood.
Levin’s nostrils flared as the monitor slapped Smitt awake and the torture continued. Kuo gripped Smitt by the chin and turned his face toward her. “Let’s try this question again,” she said. “You’ve already given me the location of the fugitive chronman’s base. I appreciate that. Your fate is sealed, so why don’t you make things a little easier on yourself? Where is James? Where is the anomaly? What were you searching for in Cassini Regio?”
“I told you already. He’s dead,” Smitt mumbled, drool dribbling down his chin, “I don’t know anything about a damn scientist, and I was just doing research for a Tier-2 job.”
Kuo looked at the monitor standing next to Smitt, who stepped forward and stuck a pain rod into Smitt’s ribs. He screamed as smoke drifted up from the wound.
“You have no jobs on record in that region. Dead men don’t need miasma pills,” she said. “Yes, we know about those too.”
“He’s dead,” Smitt moaned, staring fearfully at the pain rod hovering close to his face. “Died in the past.”
Kuo signaled again, and Smitt screamed as the monitor jabbed the rod into the base of his neck, this time behind his collarbone.
She caressed his face again and snapped his chin up to make him face her. “How did he die? Where’s the body?”
A white glow shifted from her body and wrapped around Smitt’s waist. It lifted him into the air and stretched him out, slowly separating his limbs from their sockets.
“He’s hundreds of years dead already,” Smitt screamed. “I don’t know where. Please, please!”
Levin detested this sort of treatment and rarely found it effective. As an auditor, he had had to do many terrible things, but torture was where he drew the line. Sometimes, the death of an enemy was necessary. It had rarely been his experience that torture ever was.
Levin cherished his place in the chain. However, this was too much. For Kuo, a corrupt outsider, to feel that she had the authority and the right to torture one of their own, regardless of guilt, was not only barbaric, but went against the honor of all that Levin held dear. At that moment, he didn’t care that the director had ordered him to cooperate with this Valta corporate scum. The director’s orders could not be rightfully followed. Levin was going to put a stop to this right now. He slammed open the door and stormed into the holding room.
“This ends now,” he said. “Monitor Qem, take Handler Smitt to the medical ward. Place a guard at his door. No one is allowed access to him without my express permission.”
“No, he won’t,” Kuo said. “In fact, Monitor Qem will use that pain stick and jab it into the traitor’s neck until he falls unconscious.” She sauntered around the room and stopped in front of Levin. “Leave the room, Auditor. You’re not needed here.” To his credit, Qem did nothing, though for a second, he wore the same terrified look as Smitt.
“Hands off my operative,” Levin growled, stepping up to face Kuo. “This matter is not your business.”
“It became our business when someone in your agency spied on sensitive Valta intelligence.”
“Where is your evidence?”
“You are not privy to it.” She turned her back to him and hovered Smitt to her.
“James is dead…,” Smitt groaned again, and then his body stiffened as Kuo pinned him against the wall. Her hands glowed white and spread to Smitt’s chest. He began to thrash as the sickening smell of burned skin filled the room.
“This is your final warning, Securitate,” Levin said, his voice deadpan. Levin clenched his fists and cursed his indecisiveness. There was only one person here who was possibly powerful enough to stop her. However, Young’s orders rang in his head. The consequences to the agency weighed heavily on him.
Kuo, so confident of her authority, ignored Levin and kept her back to him. “This is your last chance, Handler. Why are you protecting him? I fail to see value in that misplaced allegiance.”
For a brief moment, Smitt looked resigned, and then, finally, defiant. He lifted his head close to hers and managed a smile. “You’re a f*cking monster, you know that? James is my friend, that’s why.” Then he spit in her face.
Kuo wiped the spit from her face with an incredulous look. Before Levin could power his exo and stop her, white light shot up through Kuo’s arm and into Smitt’s head. For a split second, his eyes glowed and he screamed silently, releasing a beam of light as his mouth opened. Then the skin on his face began to smoke and peel. Smitt’s body convulsed until his clothes burst into flames. The room smelled of burnt flesh.
Upon seeing Smitt’s blackened body, something in Levin snapped. He snarled, “You’ll pay for this!”
Kuo turned to face Levin as he barreled into her with the full force of his exo. “You dare,” was all she managed to say. They both lit up as the borders of their exos touched, the orange glow of his hammering against the white of hers, causing static to flare up into the room. Monitor Qem, the only other person in the room, was thrown into the opposite wall as the two opposing power sources expanded. The wall behind Kuo melted and Levin’s momentum carried them both through the entire section of the brig, leveling half a dozen walls until they exploded into the hangar, finally landing and smashing the top of a parked collie.