“There w-were other Clan Techies before me. We all had the same name, but we gave each other n-n-nicknames. MaMa didn’t like keeping them, uh, around for long, s-said they were a liability. Towards the end, I was th-the… The only one left.”
Techie gave a shudder and furrowed his brows in thought. Who else did he know of? “MaMa’s right hand, Caleb, would h-have a lot of info to, uh, give but some J-Judges killed him.” He picked mercilessly at the skin around his fingers and rolled the leather interrogation room chair back and forth.
“ That’s bad for you to do, you know.”
though She wrote down what he mentioned, the names, some which rang a bell, upon catching the nervous habit, she dropped the pen and peered up to the nervous techie with a casual smile. In her attempt to comfort him.
“ Picking at the skin like that.. what are you worried about? Is this woman, ‘MaMa’, after you?”
Techie jumped at the observation and gave her a lopsided smile, slipping his hands under the desk and sitting on them. Embarrassed by his own stupid, destructive habits, he flushed bright red. “I know it is.” He swallowed hard and shook his head slowly. “I…I don’t even know if sh-she’s still alive,” he admits. “I ran out b-before I could know for sure.”
He watched the detective from under his orange eyelashes. She didn’t seem to be threatening. But working with MaMa had made him distrust people, women especially. His skin broke out in goosebumps just thinking about them. It was worse with her in the room.
“You might f-find it helpful to go check out Peach Trees, even though it’s und-der Judge control now. There could b-be some, um, evidence or something still th-there.” He twitches like he wants to get up and pace, or curl up into the chair.
At the forefront of his mind is a single thought: If he isn’t useful, they’ll throw him back out on the street, no matter what the detective says. So useful he’ll be, even if it kills him.
TechieHux 