“Get up! Rest time is over!”
Ashley was dragged out of her dream by a hand, a strange female voice ringing in her ears.
She dazedly opened her eyes, her vision swaying before a pretty little face came into view.
Ashley jolted in surprise, thinking for a moment that Little Cousin had stepped out of her dream.
But upon closer inspection, the intruder had neat black bobbed hair with straight bangs like they were cut from paper—clearly not her.
“Nice to meet you. I’m the interrogation assistant, Amber Abbey, in charge of the lie detection. Let’s have a talk.”
The black-haired loli stood straight with her hands clasped behind her back, putting on quite the professional air.
She wore small square-toed leather shoes with thin white socks hugging her slender ankles, her calves slim and straight with beautifully shaped legs.
“Mm…”
Ashley rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“Get up already, you’re filthy. What kind of lady sleeps on the floor…”
Amber looked down at her from above, furrowing her pretty brows in disdain.
“Didn’t your family teach you any better? Oh right, this is Jenkins Family education for you—stealing, lying, violent crimes, sleeping on the ground…”
“But I’m a good girl.”
Ashley lazily rolled over, stretching her arms out as if she’d turned the police station into her own bedroom, utterly carefree.
Amber was left speechless, a flush rising to her cheeks as she puffed out them in anger, her eyes darting around. Suddenly, she sneakily nudged Ashley with her toe.
“Ahh! You bitch, blocking the camera with your back and kicking me on the sly? You’re such an asshole! What’s your badge number? I’m filing a complaint!” Ashley cried out dramatically.
“W-What did you just call me?”
Amber’s face turned beet red as she froze in place, her eyes bulging cutely like a little hen caught by the neck.
The word ‘bitch’ was a devastating blow to her refined upbringing.
“I didn’t call you anything. I was cursing the… bitch who kicked me with her foot.”
Ashley taunted while her mind raced.
Whatever the reason for switching interrogators, inexperience was an obvious weakness for an intern— no reason not to exploit it.
In just a few exchanges, she’d seized control of the situation, and the loli apprentice interrogator was clearly rattled.
However, Amber was Letisia’s student after all, one in a million selected from countless candidates. She naturally possessed exceptional mental fortitude.
Her nearly runaway emotions screeched to a halt as she forcibly calmed herself.
She schooled her small face, stared straight into Ashley’s eyes, entering a standoff, and said word by word:
“I’ll catch you myself, Ashley Jenkins. You’re done for because you’ve pissed me off.”
Ashley didn’t rush to get up. She leaned against the wall, tilting her little head and propping one cheek in her palm as she asked:
“Am I pretty?”
“Huh?!” The black-haired loli was thrown off, this girl completely ignoring the script. She couldn’t help blurting, “Are you some kind of narcissist?!”
“I need to confirm if you’re jealous of me. I’ve heard girls get jealous over looks. If your hostility toward me isn’t from that, then where does it come from?” Ashley spouted nonsense.
“Ha? Me? Jealous of you?” Amber was on the verge of exploding, craning her neck forward. Though she didn’t usually obsess over it, she had unshakable confidence in her own beauty.
“Isn’t that obvious? If you were a peacock right now, you’d be fanning your tail feathers with your butt stuck out.” Ashley teased.
“Grrr…” Amber clenched her little fists, a cat-like growl rumbling in her throat.
But the next moment, she calmed again, sneaking a glance at the camera. Her teacher was watching.
Losing was one thing, but disappointing her teacher was far worse.
Amber took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. She brushed back her bangs to let the heat on her forehead dissipate, and said coolly:
“No matter what you say, I won’t get tangled up with you anymore. Next, please proceed with the lie detection.”
Ashley raised a brow noncommittally.
Then, the black-haired loli laboriously dragged a briefcase onto the table, positioned it squarely, and opened it toward her.
Hiss—
Air vents on both sides suddenly released pressure, venting gas.
Slender silver brackets propped up the lid.
Amid the dissipating white mist, a block of frozen flesh gradually thawed, revealing its pinkish true color.
Ashley glanced at it and frowned.
It looked alive, yet like a dissected organ from some creature.
It lacked the spine and torso divisions of vertebrates, or the longitudinal and circular muscles of mollusks for extension and contraction.
Crimson fleshy petals stacked and squeezed together, fibrous connective tissue dividing it into neat compartments that restrained bulging blood vessels and mushy soft tissue. They converged squarely around a central turtle-shell-like bone plate protecting the core.
The bone plate was finely textured, bone-white with blood threads, as if freshly extracted from a living animal—somewhat creepy to look at. Its edges were oxidized into jagged black-brown chips, like weathered decay.
Neat rows of small holes on either side of the bone plate extended clearly man-made tubes. Transparent tubes carried pale red life-sustaining fluid bubbling through, filtering and recirculating via a compressor at the back of the case.
“An ancient relic from the Apocalypse Era?” Ashley asked casually.
“You’ve got some insight. Last Apocalypse, the sun went dark, the sky fell. Our ancestors braved immense danger chasing the light, climbing to the dome via the great rift. But their advanced tech and most of the population were lost in the deep underground. Through deep dives and salvage, we’ve recovered fragments that still greatly aid our lives—like dealing with bad guys like you!” Amber rattled on, trying to regain control.
“Are you a class monitor or something? Always showing off in front of the teacher the first chance you get… That woman earlier wasn’t your teacher, was she?” Ashley rolled her eyes.
“What class monitor?! I’m not!”
As Amber fumed, time ticked away second by second.
Ashley sneaked a peek at the wall clock. Perfect—another half hour wasted. A wave of relief washed over her.
To avoid tipping her off about the deliberate stalling, Ashley crossed her fingertips and tapped the table lightly, feigning impatience:
“Hurry up with the lie detection already. I can’t wait.”
Amber gripped the case’s side handle, her slender fingers tightening as she yanked hard. With a pop—like a galoshes pulling free from mud—a multi-holed bone resembling a wind instrument was extracted, trailing stretched threads of pale pink tissue. Inside seemed packed with silicone-like soft matter.
“Eww, so gross.” Ashley’s little face scrunched up in disgust.
“There’s even grosser—stick your finger in the holes!” Amber said with schadenfreude.
Ashley eyed the biotech lie detector, thinking that though this world’s tech tree skewed heavily biological, the principle was similar. Lie detection still relied on monitoring galvanic skin response, just using nerve cells to sense bioelectricity on damp skin instead. Her plan wouldn’t be affected.
