'My name's Tilo Mladic,' I say confidently, but my eyes are fixed on the same model of pressure gun that blew out David's brains in orbit. This time, a sentry droid aims the weapon as I try to avoid looking down its long, light muzzle.
A tall female kapo with boosted muscles and blackened armour sits behind the desk. She's checking my answers against scans from the MEMREX, which she also has pointed at my head.
Clearly, Control is keen to keep probing. Correlating our neural landscape with what was mapped earlier in orbit. Then, cross-examining us for a second time to see if any new memories have been shaken loose.
Needless to say, I hope Janine's fake memories will suffice.
The female guard may have a new status message on her overlay, or maybe she's just got a new message from Control. Either way, she's frowning as if something about my presence is causing deep concern.
'You look old,' she says, squinting as she manipulates unseen data between her fingers.
'I'm forty-five,' I say in response, as though such jibes don't bother me. And they don't. Not really. After all, this isn't my real face, and according to my legend, Tilo has over twenty years of experience working back on Earth.
This is not the time to be intimidated.
She looks at me properly for the first time since I walked in. Then softens her demeanour, and for a brief moment, I glimpse the human beneath the horns and armour.
My interrogator and possible executioner is no more than a girl. Despite her height and broad frame, she has dimples on her cheeks and dark, feline eyes that she's chosen to shroud with modded lashes.
'What's your trade,' she asks, stifling a yawn as she raises a boot on the desk. Like she's done this a thousand times before.
'Mole-rat,' I say, which, in Ironforge-speak, means a programming technician, not an actual rodent. But then I overplay it and hold my hands up. Like I must explain why they look so white and delicate. 'Seventeen years programming panel arrays on the polar rigs back on Earth,' I say with pride. 'Three learning my trade. Makes me an ideal for the hydropods you have running in the grow-domes.'
'Heh,' she says, unconvinced as her dark eyes look me up and down. And then, she shifts her weight so that she's sitting forward. Speaking conversationally and at extremely close quarters.
'Are you sure you're not a welder?'
My heart skips a beat. Still, I make sure my eyebrows stay level the entire time. 'What?'
'Because your biotag says that you're a welder.' She makes a sad face and lets the sentence hang.
'Welder?' I try to mask my internal chaos and check I've remembered the right fiction.
'So, what is it?' she asks, impatient now. 'Welder or mole-rat?' She glances over at the pressure gun, then down at the MEMREX display. Monitoring my responses.
Great care is being taken to keep my breath level and my thoughts straight. I have nothing else to go on, and there's no way to create a new legend now.
'Come on!' she shouts, 'we haven't got all day.'
'Mole-rat,' I say calmly, as though this interrogation is just procedure and nothing to worry about. 'If your scanner's saying otherwise, could it be some mistake?'
The girl looks aggrieved. How dare I question the integrity of her precious machine? Then, as if she's reached her decision, she stares into my eyes under the low light of the metal cabin.
I imagine feeling the cold metal of the gun's muzzle against my temple. Then, that burst of sharp, lethal pressure.
But then she says it. 'Mole-rat you are.' Like it was never in doubt.
Relief washes through me like I've never known before, yet this girl watches on. And she seems to find the sight amusing.
'Do you know what?' she asks when she's finished laughing, and she's friendlier now. Still, it's false and masking something unpleasant, like perfume sprayed on a day-old corpse. She holds up the MEMREX and turns it around so I can read my status on its display interface. 'See. It said mole-rat all along.' She smiles and gives me a wink. 'Just wanted to be sure.' Then she pats the scanner like an owner would a dog and gestures for me to leave. 'Now, please. Get out of my sight.'
The clamps that bind my arms to the chair release, and I rise, then stagger on unsteady feet towards the exit. A tired and outdated-looking droid hands me a fresh, blood-free coverall.
At last! Clean clothes.
It's a small win. Still, given who's watching behind me, it's too early to stop and celebrate.
Wow! That was intense. well done!