The Gambler

[Stolt.]

“If we really want to get serious about helping all the people living in the street and getting people jobs, we could just hire half the people in the country to spy on the other half.”

– Jello Biafra

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An Undisclosed Black Site

There were all the hallmarks of a makeshift interrogation room. It was the back room of a cheap equipment sweatshop. It was entirely empty save one man, the prisoner, an LSF agent named Roland Avery Wall. He was strapped to a chair which locked his hands, legs and his neck. Engines in disrepair were in a room full of repair, cutting and construction machinery. There was a single large white light at the top which illuminated the entire room very brightly so as to provoke sleep deprivation. The room was dusty and anything made of metal was rusty. All the windows were covered with wooden boards with a few cracks in them. There was also a mirror right next to the only door to the room. The mirror was probably a window through which Roland’s interrogator was observing him. Roland was surprised he wasn’t under "Heavy Medication" Roland looked towards his hand and cracks and cuts were appearing, a sign of Eczema. That meant the environment was very dry and below humidity levels. He couldn’t move his fingers without a little pain.

A man with brown hair, grey eyes and a slight need to shave opened the door and walked in slowly carrying a document with him. A metal table was in front of them where he placed the document down. These were the fake documents the LSF had planted on Roland. There large red stencil stamp on the file read “DISAVOWED”. “Name, date of birth, serial number.” The interrogator asked in an unremarkable tone but a remarkable Bretonian accent whilst flipping through the pages of the file. “I do believe you’re looking at it right now.” Roland said in a quaint manner, in his own Bretonian accent. The interrogator made a slight gesture, suggesting he noted what Roland had mentioned and promptly closed the file. “Listen Mr. Wall, I could sit around here and waste our time. I could sit here quietly and stare at you for hours. I could sit here and contemplate you. But I’m going to tell you that I am a pragmatic man and I don’t believe in the need to intimidate you. If anything, I have an opportunity for you which I feel you will take great interesting in taking advantage of.” “You actually believe everything in that file.” The sarcasm in Roland was unmistakable while the interrogator simply went by stating facts about him in a bland tone. He was devoid of emotion but the Bretonian accent continued to confuse Roland. Was he a Bretonian spy? Were we wrong about the BDM freighter? Roland was half-Bretonian and could use both Libertonian and Bretonian accents interchangeably. “Mr. Wall, I'm asking you to pay attention. I want to know your story, or at least your side of it.” He was more interested now. “I take it you’re talking about the arms smuggling.” The interrogator leaned back on his seat, preparing to listen to his prisoner’s story.

“I was framed. The two pilots that shot me down were the real arms smugglers. They were corrupt LSF officers who so far had evaded internal affairs. They did that by fabricating evidence and pinning the blame on me.” Roland began to weaken his tone; he needed the interrogator to believe what he had said. “One of them was my old training officer…” The interrogator shared his look, but in his mind, he couldn’t care less. “I take it that instead of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, its ‘innocent until you’re under investigation’?” The interrogator asked. “That’s exactly it.” They continued to talk more about Roland’s history in the LSF and the Navy. To the interrogator, it seemed like the perfect catch. A man betrayed by his own country who displayed very little ideological commitment to his nation. He was in dire financial need as the LSF frozen his bank accounts. He had nowhere to turn to and no government to protect him. He was a Knight Errant, or more appropriately, a spy errant. This man had no cause to serve.

But it was all too good to be true. The interrogator needed to have it confirmed. With the file the LSF had planted on Roland, the interrogator had enough information to narrow his search. He left the room after speaking with Roland without giving him a hint of what his next move was. He then set up a secure line to Walter Glenn. He was an intelligence asset of the interrogator, a disgruntled employee of Agiera who passed on counterfeit software illegally to the Lane Hackers. He also had a mistress. The interrogator contacted Walter, a man so fearful he had been reduced to a little boy. “I’ve transferred the documents over to your NeuralNet account. I need you to hack into the LSF database and find his file. I’ve given you his serial number and other necessary information so you should be able to narrow your search. Send me his file in the database and I’ll extend my deadline where I reveal your connection to the hackers and the existence of your mistress.” As the interrogator finished giving orders, Glenn whimpered to himself.

An hour later, the interrogator had gone through the file and it was homogenous to the one that was planted on Roland. He concluded that it was evidence that the file wasn’t a fake. Meanwhile at the LSF Headquarters the files now showed Roland as a disavowed agent, officially at least. It was done to give his story credibility despite the fact that when he returns, if he returned to Liberty, he would be treated as a criminal and possibly tried for treason. Few people in the LSF knew what Roland had volunteered for.

“Well, we’ve confirmed most of the details in your file but there’s one more thing that’s bugging me. They’ve listed you as an illegal arms smuggler, but your file doesn’t indicate who your buyers were nor the source of your weapons – excuse me, the weapons of the people who framed you Roland.”

“They didn’t want to disclose that information, their business would’ve been destroyed and it would’ve linked back to them. They only did it so far as to protect them and get rid of the evidence. Me.” This didn’t help. The interrogator became accusatory. “Very well, but then how did the LSF get enough evidence to blame you for the crime?”

“You said it yourself. In the LSF, you’re innocent until you’re investigated.”

Roland couldn’t have said it better. The interrogator now had full confidence in Roland’s story. He was expecting the prisoner to say that one of the corrupt LSF officers was an internal affairs agent, at which point the interrogator would’ve simply sent Roland over to Schatten for further interrogation. He would’ve mentioned the internal affairs officer when he claimed that one of the pilots trying to kill him was his training officer. But the response Roland gave was not the response he expected. It all added up.

“I want you to work with us, become an asset of mine. I have the full backing of the BDM. You will have to earn that right, but I can provide you with the necessary resources you’ll need to carry out your operations. Once you have done enough for us, we will extract you and give you a new identity and a new life in Rheinland . You’ll also be paid for your troubles. And we’ll assist you with finding your arms smuggling framers.” The interrogator said. “You won’t get a better opportunity anywhere else.”

Roland paused. “I’ll take it.” The interrogator relaxed once again. It was the first intelligence asset he had recruited who was already a fully trained agent. Although he couldn’t recruit him with the prized method – ideological conversion – he atleast managed to recruit him on his desire for revenge. Meanwhile, Roland had successfully played off the gamble. He was now the LSF’s double agent inside the BDM, and the Buro still had no idea.

His real file – the one which contained the details of Operation Barrister, a long term plan to insert a double agent inside the BDM, was sitting on the desk of the Station Chief at the Liberty Embassy in New Tokyo. Once the Station Chief concluded that Roland had provided enough information, Roland would be eligible for extraction by the LSF. This still allowed Roland to restart his life in Liberty, but it would come as a great risk. He was asked to volunteer for this operation on the basis that his personality profile showed that he was very likely to refuse surrender at all costs.

The interrogator got up from his seat to head back to the control room. Here he would unlock his new assets chair so that he could move freely again. Once the chair was unlocked and Roland was no longer in his prison, he asked an important question to the interrogator, a detail he had omitted. “How long has it been since I was here?” The interrogator realized he was referring to the ceiling light, bright enough to deprive his former prisoner of sleep. “You haven’t slept in two days.” He answered. “I see, and one more thing. Who’s my contact inside the BDM?” The interrogator realized this was the real omission.

“Erich Stoltenberg.”

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- Dossier on Adrienne Perry