Chapter?5: What Can You Possibly Do to Me?

  February?3,?2170. At the Capital Security Station headquarters, morning sunlight—filtered through ultraviolet?proof glass—splashed onto a floor cold and metallic, then bounced up onto the unmoving face of the man escorted into Interrogation Room?3.

  Victor.

  Just one word. No surname, no middle name, nothing hinting at a clan or a country. In the Citizen Data Bureau’s records, the “next of kin” field held only two entries: “Wife” and “Two children.” No address, no contact numbers, no photos. As though the man had stepped straight out of the shadows—an entity swaddled in a thick fog of mystery.

  For four hours, three security officers had taken turns questioning him. They tried everything: legal citations, emotional appeals, and the latest AI?assisted psychological probes. All they got back was a string of cool, clipped replies:

  “Ah, is that so.”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Sorry, I can’t disclose that.”

  “Stop asking—I won’t tell you anything.”

  Each passing minute became a form of mental torture for the interrogators themselves. Victor sat there, unfazed, as if sipping afternoon tea in a tranquil garden. His gaze was distant yet alert, as though behind those harmless eyes lurked a beast tracking every micro?movement of its prey.

  His “file”—if one could call it that—was a sheet of blank silk. No fingerprints in the system. No credit history. No school or employment data. It was as if he had never existed—until that incident.

  Twenty high?school students had suddenly fallen into a state of extreme panic during a session at a private educational research center. They screamed uncontrollably, convulsed, and some fainted. Doctors later declared permanent psychological trauma. No drugs, no physical violence, not a shred of material evidence.

  The sole lead pointed, somehow, to Victor’s family—but even that offered nothing admissible in court.

  When the last lieutenant lost patience, slamming a palm on the table and asking whether Victor wanted his wife to bail him out, Victor merely shrugged, exhaling as though weary of dealing with people who simply didn’t get it:

  “We contact each other only when it’s absolutely necessary. They’re busy, and they’re not about to waste time on this nonsense.”

  The air in the room nearly shattered under the weight of anger and frustration. A young officer almost drew his sidearm at that answer, stopped only by the captain’s quick hand. Even in 2170—an era when technology and algorithms could strip bare almost any truth—Victor remained a phantom.

  At last, simmering fury and confusion left them with a single option: dispatch a team to his home, hoping that at least the elusive wife might bring the answers Victor refused to give.

  Chapter 5: What Can You Possibly Do to Me? (continued)

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  The interrogation of Victor had hit a dead end. Every effort to analyze, provoke, or pressure him dissolved like mist before the impenetrable wall of his perfect non-cooperation. When the final update from the investigative unit arrived—that the only available person to post his bail was… his daughter—the entire security station froze.

  “Helen, age sixteen.”

  A minor posting bail for a grown man under criminal investigation—it went against every intuitive sense of reason. But there was no law against it. And in the year 2170, legislation had long since fallen behind the breakneck pace of reality. With no other options, the officers had no choice but to wait.

  Ten minutes later, the automatic doors of the security headquarters hissed open, and Helen walked in.

  She wore a long, silver-gray coat. Her hair was neatly tied back, and her eyes held a calm, sharp focus that far outstripped her age. No panic. No tears. No teenage defiance. Helen entered as if she had foreseen everything down to the moment. Cold, precise, and… unnervingly inhuman.

  The attending officer faltered for just a moment under the weight of her presence, but then nodded and guided her into a small side room to begin the formalities.

  As per protocol, a preliminary “situational” interview was required before a bail guardian could approach the suspect. Helen sat across from the officer, fingers interlocked, eyes fixed on the small red recording light blinking steadily atop the desk recorder.

  “Please state your full name and your relationship to Mr. Victor.”

  “Helen. I’m his biological daughter.”

  “Has your father ever displayed abnormal behavior? Any psychological history we should be aware of?”

  Helen was silent for a moment, then tilted her head slightly.

  “That falls under private domain. I cannot answer. It would violate the principle of intra-household consent.”

  The officer frowned. “The what principle?”

  “Intra-household consent. It means if any member doesn’t agree to share personal or interrelated information, the rest must respect that choice. It’s how our family functions.”

  The officer exhaled. “You understand this is a serious criminal investigation, right?”

  “I do. But I also don’t see any clause that compels a citizen to violate internal privacy norms to support a baseless investigation. If you have a court order, I’ll reconsider.”

  From that point on, not a single piece of new information was extracted from Helen. She was a miniature replica of Victor—bearing the same unsettling calm, the same structured refusal, and the same unnerving sensation that you were the one being observed, not the other way around.

  Seeing no further progress, the officers permitted Helen to enter the interrogation room.

  Father and daughter sat alone in the small chamber. Behind the one-way mirror, officers watched. They turned on the audio feed, but caught nothing but a few soft greetings, followed by long stretches of silence. The two simply sat, facing each other, occasionally nodding—as if communicating in a language modern humans no longer understood.

  Ten minutes passed.

  Victor stood. Helen followed. She turned to the door and knocked lightly.

  “We’re done. May we leave now?”

  The captain stood frozen. There was no legal reason to detain them. And so, less than fifteen minutes after she had entered, both walked out of the station as if none of it had ever happened.

  Left behind was a team of officers, heavy with the weight of being utterly outmaneuvered… by a sixteen-year-old girl.

  The only thing they were sure of now was that the Victor family was unlike any family they had ever encountered.And perhaps,this was only the beginning.