Ockham's Razor
Darkness. That's all I could see though I knew where I was. It's not like they'd be able to change the nondescript room with its stained granite walls and bolted down metal chair and table without me noticing, nor would they need to. An interrogation room they called it. A prison more like it. The rough black fabric tied around my eyes itched. Maybe that's why they left it on. It didn't seem to serve any other purpose, there was nothing to see here anyway. It was hot, even though it was winter outside. It was even snowing when they brought me in here. Seems that the humans didn't compensate their temperature controls for my heavy fur coat. My wrists were tied behind my back with some sort of thick plastic cord, strong enough to where my claws wouldn't harm it. It chafed. The fur on my wrists got worked off if I moved around too much. That didn't stop me of course. They hadn't done a terribly good job tying it, the restraints were a little loose. I figured if I kept working at it I might be able to get them free, and then...well hell. Who knows what then. I was never too good at looking ahead. Maybe that's why I took that blasted spy plane mission in the first place. Of course who could have guessed that the engine would fail right as I was over the target, forcing a crash landing into an enemy patrol? Heh. Funny when you look at it, how screwed I was.
How long had it been since they took me here anyway? A week? Two? A month? Time was difficult to keep track of when you're tied up and blindfolded all day long, and I hadn't thought to count my meals. Sometimes I don't even know if I'm asleep or awake. I wondered if anyone had been sent to rescue me. Unlikely. Probably colonel Raffer or someone higher than him was even now denying that I was affiliated with the Alliance. That's standard procedure anyways. I doubt I'd be deemed important enough to break standard procedure. I'd just have to hope that the location I was brought to would be a target for a future attack...and wouldn't be blown sky high from a distance with missiles or artillery shells.
My ears perked up as I heard distant footsteps. Soon after there was activity at the thick metal door to my room. It must be twelve noon. That's when they brought my meals and tried to get information out of me. Best time of the day. I at least had someone to talk to, even if he was a bastard. I heard the shriek of the door as it was pushed open, heard one set of footsteps enter, then something was set down and the door closed again. There was a click, and I could see the tiniest bit of light through my blindfold, like the last fading rays of the sun as it dipped below the horizon, but without all the pretty colors. My blindfold was undone and pulled off, leaving me to blink in the dim radiance. The light may have been faint, but it was more than I had seen all day. The chain that had been pulled to illuminate the room was still swinging, and my gaze followed it up to its source. If there was one thing out of place in the whole room, it was that. A single bulb shaded by a Chinese paper lantern hung from a cord attached to the stone ceiling. Why they decided to put that small decoration in an otherwise bland room was beyond me. Maybe it was the effect the light took when it was filtered through the paper.
"Feeding time, eat up" said the man who entered, placing a metal dog dish filled with a sloppy looking meaty substance on the table in front of me. It had a rather exquisitely bad scent, like something spiced too much. The man grinned at me in a superior way, as most humans seem to do to us. He was lucky he didn't have our sense of smell or he wouldn't have been able to stand carrying that food to me from wherever he had picked it up in the complex. And humans wonder why so many of our dishes taste bland to them.
The man's name was Piers, I knew from overheard conversations he had with guards, and though I considered his visits to be the best part of my day it was only because the rest was so horrible. Piers was a gaunt individual, a little paler than your average human, with a face that wrinkled exponentially when he gave one of his wide grins. Which, near as I can tell, was his favorite expression. Perhaps that was just when he was in my company though. He wore the standard uniform of the Russo-Asiatic Coalition (or RAC for short) which consisted of a thick trench coat and an officer's hat, which he had removed and was holding in one hand. There were also a series of colorful bars and symbols shimmering from a metal tag on his right breast. Most likely they dictated his rank, but I didn't know how to read them. I was just a spy plane pilot after all, no need for me to know that stuff. More interesting to me was the pistol that he kept belted to his hip. A standard sidearm, something he carried with him to make him show his power over me I supposed. He had it with him every time he spoke with me, and I had had my eye on it ever since his first visit. Belted opposite the weapon was a radio, which he always turned off before entering.
I leaned cautiously over the table and began to snap up the chunks of meat from the bowl, half because I was ravenous and half because I knew from experience that the scent would soon become overpowering if I left it alone for too long. They never untied me for my meals. I guess they just assumed that because I was a wolf I would eat like one. Typical humans. Even those that are members of the Alliance seem to hold their noses up to us to varying degrees. The food would have been nearly tasteless if not for the spices. It consisted of small chunks of what might have been meat covered in a thick and heavily spiced gravy. I think that it was canned dog food. I would have been more insulted if I didn't actually find it palatable. Then again, one who is starving is not the best food critic.
Piers reached forward and gently pulled the dish away from me. I looked up at him still chewing, my muzzle dripping gravy, not saying anything.
"You know the drill by now" he said. There was that grin again...I stayed silent, watching him. "Who was your superior officer?" I swallowed.
"I received my orders anonymously. I don't know." It was a lie, or course. But if I were to tell him the truth then colonel Raffer would be in for it one way or another, either because he was caught in a lie or because he was now implicated. I didn't much like Raffer, the boar was ruthless and cold, all about the bottom line, but I wasn't about to cause more trouble to the Alliance than my life was worth. See how heroic I am?
"What were the combat capabilities of your launch location?" Piers asked, keeping his hard brown eyes on me as he cocked his head slowly to the side.
"Nil, we launched from a remote location." I answered. That, at least, was true. I figured I'd confuse them with some genuine information once in a while.
"And what were the traits of said launch location?" Came the next question.
"It was about as dreary as this place." I said, giving a sarcastic grin. It was a game. The questions they asked me rarely varied. At first I thought that they were just trying to catch me in a lie, but eventually it became more and more clear that they were fulfilling a prescribed schedule likely given to them by the higher-ups. This was simply a routine that they had to perform, a song and dance so that they could say that they were questioning the prisoner.
Piers pushed the dish back within my reach, and I began eating again. He paced slowly as I wolfed down the meal, only stopping to watch me finish licking the gravy off the bottom of the bowl. He slid the bowl back.
"I've never asked you before, do you have a wife? Kids?" Piers asked. Small talk was common from him. Most likely he was trying to pry out obscure information, but I didn't much care. It was a break from the monotony. Of course, in the usual manner of humans he had used human terms rather than ours.
"You mean to ask if I have a mate. I do not, no pups either. I was seeing a female though, before I ran into you and your friends and was invited to this magnificent resort." A wry grin. If I managed to keep one thing it was my sarcasm. I may go mad here, but if I did I'd be a sarcastic madman. "Yourself?" Piers gave a thin smile and ignored the question.
"Mother? Father? Any siblings?" He asked. Hah. Any siblings. My kind are born in litters of two to four, on average. It is not common for there to be a single birth, and when there was, the parents tried for another litter about ninety percent of the time. Only children were incredibly rare.
"I have two brothers and a sister. My parents are both still alive and well." I could have lied, yes. I could have gotten a splinter of amusement from telling him that I was an only child, but I thought that I'd play his game for now. Where was the harm in it anyway? I was starved for conversation already.
"Are you close to them?" Pier's asked, sounding more bored than curious. Okay, this time I'll speak up.
"All of my kind are close to their families," I replied, giving him something of an incredulous look, "it's the way we are. So yes, I am close to my family."
"I'm sure they pray for your safe return even now." Piers said, giving his grin again and tilting his head forward, causing shadows to pool around his eyes, making him look like a wrinkled skeleton. To his remark, I smirked. Once again, he assumed that we were like them when we weren't. My kind are action oriented. We are far more likely to do something than to simply plead to someone else to do it for us. It was simply how we had learned to function as a species. I didn't correct him this time though, I had grown tired of it.
"And hopefully I'll make it back to them." I said, my voice rougher than I meant it to be. Piers nodded, still grinning.
"Play your cards right and you will." He said, starting to pace again. "The question now, though, is whether you will be returning in one piece." I watched him warily. I damn well didn't like that change in the tone of our conversation. I began working inconspicuously at my bonds.
"What do you mean?" I asked slowly, hoping to buy some time. Piers liked to hear himself talk. Maybe, just maybe, I could pull this off.
"Well," he said, pausing. He was enjoying himself, the bastard. "Do you know why I've been making chitchat with you for weeks now?"
"I have my theories."
"It's because the RAC has an interesting policy regarding prisoners of war. If that prisoner is believed to have sensitive information that would benefit the Coalition, then he can be interrogated for that information." I had managed to pull my paw up, giving it slack by working the lines on my other paw tighter. It hurt like hell and my paw was starting to go numb from lack of blood, but I kept at it anyway.
"Seems accurate so far" I said cautiously, still not sure what to expect.
"Do you know what today is?" Piers asked suddenly, sporting an unbearably smug smile. I shook my head. "As of today, you have been here exactly five weeks." Five weeks? Really? Huh. I guess time flies when you're blindfolded and tied to a chair. "As par RAC policy, if after five weeks no useful information has been gained from a prisoner that is being interrogated then more...extreme measures are authorized for extracting said information." With that Piers leaned down and picked something up, dropping it on the metal table in front of me. It was a bulky black briefcase that had previously been blocked from my view by the table. He must have brought it in when he entered. He flicked the two catches and opened it, spinning it around for me to see, the light highlighting each conture of his furrowed face and glinting off of the various tools that shifted into view. They were torture tools, various nasty looking hooks and blades as well as a few other instruments that I didn't want to imagine the uses for. "Beautiful, aren't they?" Piers asked, barely hiding his glee. My thumb was free now. I just needed to inconspicuously pull my other fingers through..."Which one first then?" Piers' hands hovered slowly over the well polished chrome, moving from hook to saw to barb. I took advantage of his distraction to pull my fingers slowly through. One paw was free. My heart was pounding. Attacking now was too risky, one paw was still tied to the chair, which was in turn bolted to the ground. I started to loosen the cord on my other wrist as hastily as I trusted myself to while keeping my eyes on Piers. He had selected a long curved needle and was slowly withdrawing it from the box. "Now I've been waiting some time to use these...so I can't promise that I'll leave you untouched, but if you cooperate you can minimize the pain, understand?" He asked, amused. Pull the cord slowly...I can't let him know what I was doing. It was getting looser. My paw was pounding from all the blood rushing back into it. I ignored it and kept loosening the cord. Piers cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowed in mild concern or perhaps annoyance. "Well? Do you?" Almost there....almost done...Piers gave a smooth smile "No matter...I'm sure you'll understand soon enough." He said smugly, stepping around the table to approach me. Now! I sprang forward just as the last of the cord slid off of my paw. Piers was shocked. He threw his hands up in front of him, managing to nick me with the hook in doing so. I grabbed him, digging my claws in and causing him to howl in agony. He recovered quickly though, his hand darting to his sidearm. He drew it, but my reflexes were better than his. I grabbed his wrist and forced the weapon away from me as he pulled the trigger. BLAM! the sound was especially deafening to me in this small room. My ears rang like mad, but I ignored it and held on. BLAM! he fired again. I kept his hand at arms length as he tried to twist his wrist in order to get a shot that would hit me. He squeezed off more rounds, bullets ricocheting off of the walls, floor, and metal furniture. I was stronger than he was. I managed to work his other arm away from me long enough to where I could pull my fist back and deliver a powerful blow to his jaw, causing him to drop his gun and stumble backwards into the wall, sliding down to his rump, dazed. I quickly turned the weapon around in my paws and aimed it at his head. We were both panting. It had been fast, but intense. It was only now that the scuffle was over that I realized something: where were the guards? There had been multiple shots fired and an obvious struggle. Why weren't there two armed men in here to take me down? Piers seemed to have noticed this too. He was glancing towards the iron door nervously, then back to me. "Think for a second..." He said softly, his voice wavering, "You're in the middle of a military complex...there are ranks and ranks of soldiers between you and the exit...you can't escape." I pondered his words, running them through my head as I breathed. I felt wet on the side where his torture tool had nicked me and glanced down to find that it wasn't a light wound as I had thought. The tool protruded from my side, my blood staining my army jacket a deep brownish crimson. I pulled it out with a grunt and dropped it on the ground where it chimed like silverware, scattering drops of my blood onto the rough floor. Piers' gaze flickered between that and me again. "Just put the gun down, and I'll make sure they don't punish you too severely...I mean, were you even counting shots? It's empty now anyway..." Given Piers' expression and obvious fear it was clear that he was just trying to give me pause, but it made me hesitate. How many shots had been fired? I hadn't been counting in the confusion. And, furthermore, how many shots did this weapon even hold? It was a different model than we used in the Alliance. Piers grinned. Damn I hated that expression.
Alright, so I could give up. Then I'd be in their custody again, which isn't exactly something I would welcome with open arms. Alternatively I could fire the weapon. Assuming there were even any shots left...If I tried and there weren't then I was in deep shit. If I did and there were more rounds then Piers would be dead. Certainly that would be a favor to the world, but then I might be fucked. That brings us to the mystery of the day: Where were the guards? A lot depended on that. Presumably they were there when Piers came in...were they off on a break or something? All of them? That seemed unlikely...Were they perhaps spies? Had this location been infiltrated by the Alliance? Or covertly taken? If it had been and I didn't kill Piers, he would use me as a hostage. Given his personality, it seemed likely that he would kill me if it seemed like he couldn't win. Which would most likely be the case if the Alliance had somehow taken the complex covertly. There were so many possibilities, so many unknowns! For every choice I could make there was a possibility I would die and a possibility I would live. I stared at Piers and he stared back at me. Our soft panting was the only sound in the grey room.
Fuck it.
I pulled the trigger.