Interrogating the Otter

The pitch-black helicopter flew through the heavy rain, its propellers slicing through the downpour.

Inside the cabin sat three people. General Wang sat on one side, with Song He and Xiang Xiaotong across from him, all securely fastened with seatbelts.

Song He looked out the window, but saw nothing, just darkness. This area was uninhabited, without even a road, a truly godforsaken place.

"We brought back three terrorists from Europe, accidentally killed one, and have two alive," General Wang began. "These two didn't hold out long, spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube."

As he spoke, General Wang pulled out two sheets of paper from his pocket and handed them to the master and disciple.

The two huddled together to look at the documents. The terrorists, one with red hair and the other with blond hair, had pale faces and deep-set eyes. Their melancholy, gloomy gazes were reminiscent of battle-weary soldiers in movies.

Their names were interesting. The redhead was called Otter, and the blond was called Porcupine. They weren't proper names, just animal names, without even a decent surname.

"Are these their real names? They sound like code names!" Song He questioned.

"You'll find out when you ask them. There's something fishy about their names, and the truth behind it will shock you," General Wang said.

"Are we there yet?" Xiang Xiaotong pointed out the window.

Song He couldn't see anything, but General Wang raised his hand and glanced at his watch. "Dean Xiang has good night vision! Material for a naval aviator! We're landing soon!"

The helicopter flew for a while longer before Song He vaguely saw black squares embedded in the Gobi Desert. They seemed to be low buildings, completely unlit, like abandoned structures utterly submerged in the rainy night. Heaven knows how his teacher saw them from so far away.

As the buildings came into view below, the helicopter slowly descended.

The cabin door opened, and soldiers held up large umbrellas to receive them. Song He thanked them and followed them into a nearby building.

He imagined the secret interrogation site for terrorists would be a dark, bloody, and foul wasteland. But as soon as he entered, he was dumbfounded, feeling like he was back in the Brain Institute Office Building.

The corridor was brightly lit, with white tiled floors. A cleaning robot quietly swept back and forth, and there were lush green plants every so often. The environment was impeccably clean.

General Wang led the master and disciple forward, taking an elevator down to the third basement level.

"Please prepare yourselves mentally. Both Otter and Porcupine have had one eyeball removed. This wasn't a violent interrogation tactic; the removed eyeballs were electronic," General Wang said. "It might be a little creepy."

The three stepped out of the elevator. On both sides of the corridor were floor-to-ceiling glass windows, offering a view into the interrogation rooms.

The interrogation rooms were empty except for a table, behind which sat a red-haired man in a prison uniform, none other than Otter.

"You can go in and ask whatever you want. Otter is very cooperative," General Wang said.

The master and disciple exchanged glances and opened the door to enter.

The room was dimly lit, with only a small lamp on the table, its light directed at Otter, illuminating his entire face. His skin was as pale as a corpse.

As soon as Song He sat down, he understood the purpose of the lighting.

The interrogator was hidden in the darkness, while the subject's face was clearly illuminated, allowing the interrogator to observe the subject's expressions. Any unnatural facial muscle movements when lying would be clearly visible.

Otter was listless. His left eyeball had been removed, and his eye socket was filled with tangled electronic components and dark red flesh, making it look particularly eerie, as if one could see directly through his skull into his brain. His right eyelid drooped, making him appear half-asleep.

There were translation headsets on the table, which the master and disciple put on.

Otter's eyelids fluttered open slightly, and he shook his head, looking uncertainly at the opposite side.

"Who's there? Is there someone across from me? Is another round starting?"

"Put on the translation headset," Xiang Xiaotong said in English.

"Endless interrogations. I've told you everything I can tell you. I know you're trying to find loopholes in my testimony, but you won't find any, because my testimony is completely true."

Otter sighed and raised his left hand, which was chained, to reach for the translation headset on the table. He laboriously leaned over and put it on.

"What country are you from? Where were you born?" Xiang Xiaotong asked.

"I don't know," Otter shook his head. "I have no nationality or identity. Whatever documents they give me, that's who I am."

"Where did you grow up? Where are your parents from?" Song He immediately pressed.

"I have no parents. I'm a clone," Otter said something shocking. "The woman who gave birth to me through surrogacy was a Second Hairy Country woman. We called her Otter Mom. She was responsible for giving birth to all the Otters. When she gave birth to the eighth Otter, Otter Mom died from a massive postpartum hemorrhage. I was only three years old at the time, so I have no memory of it. The other Otters told me."

The master and disciple exchanged glances, both seeing shock in each other's eyes.

Decades of declarations, signatures, and conventions against cloning by countries and organizations around the world instantly turned to ashes. A living clone sat before them, and his words implied that he wasn't the only one.

Before the interrogators could ask further, Otter consciously began to recount the details:

"The place where I was born is a training camp codenamed Zoo."

"We don't know the geographical location of the training camp, nor do we know which country it belongs to. The training camp is surrounded by forests, chaotic forests, and the forests are full of minefields. It is said that there are also machine gun towers."

"Every once in a while, someone sneaks out, gets their legs blown off, and is carried back to be displayed on the training ground for us. We have to do corpse shuttle runs, sprinting from the starting line to the unlucky guy who had his legs blown off, stepping on him, and then running back. We only stop when the unlucky guy dies, so we all stomp hard, jumping up and down to stomp."

"Once, an unlucky guy who had his legs blown off was carried to the training ground. When we ran over, he kept saying that he saw a kangaroo."

"Kangaroo?" Song He asked, "So you might be in the Southern Hemisphere?"

"We discussed this matter afterward and concluded that it wasn't." Otter said, "The kangaroo is just a smokescreen. The Zoo director doesn't want us to know where we are, so he released a kangaroo to pretend this is the Southern Hemisphere. Besides, no one else saw the kangaroo except that one person. We even suspect it was a hallucination before he was blown to death."

"If there were many kangaroos nearby, the minefield would definitely be blown up every day, but it wasn't. As long as no one ran out, the nearby forest was very quiet, and no landmines were detonated."

"Later, we learned some knowledge, which further confirmed that the Zoo is not in the Southern Hemisphere."

"What knowledge?" Song He asked.