A Gentle Questioning... To Start (Part 1)

Posted on Sun Mar 24th, 2024 @ 8:13pm by Captain Maho Takahashi & Lieutenant Alisha Reno

1,373 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Junichi Koyama
Location: Gamma Zednor holding facility

The hood was taken off of Alexis Silverstar after what seemed to be almost days, though it had only been several
hours. She shook her head to get the hair out of her face, then tried to get a look around the darkened room. During the trip, she'd not been handled gently, shoved wherever they needed her to go, tripped intentionally she was sure of and then 'helped' up into a wall at least one time. Shoved into the back of a vehicle where she was sandwiched between two men that were none too subtle in their conversations about what they'd do to her if they had the chance. Repeated 'searches' to make sure that she hadn't picked up anything 'dangerous'. These precautions were done despite the fact that she'd been handcuffed with her hands behind her back and the cuffs were far tighter than they needed to be, making her shoulders, arms and wrists ache.

She could make out the door only from the single shaft of dim light that was coming through the narrow window. "Ah want my lawyer." Alexis called out, "Ah was promised that Ah'd get a phone call once Ah was brought here!"

Footsteps and voices could be heard approaching the cell. The conversation seemed to be of a female voice advising a male one, with the male voice accepting a perceived risk.

Several loud clicks sounded as the cell was unlocked and the door creaked open. Into the cell stepped a man with short brown hair wearing business casual attire: A polo shirt and more informal slacks.

"Alexis Silverstar." He said as he approached her. "Or, would you prefer if I used your birth name; Alisha Starr Reno?"

“What in the blazes are you talking about?” Alisha recognized the man instantly as the Governor himself and something inside her sank. She had to play the game, it would be expected of her even if she had been compromised already. “Ah am an actress here to play a part in a film, Ah don’t know who you are talk in’ about, suh.”

"Well then, Miss Silverstar: Since that's the name you prefer to go by..." Governor Hartley paused for a moment. "Allow me to extend my sincerest apologies for your treatment during transport."

Hartley turned towards the open slit in the cell door.

"Gentlemen; would you mind coming in here and removing Miss Silverstar's restraints?" He called out.

Immediately, the eyes of a guard filled the slot.

"But, Mr. Governor-!" The guard began to object.

"Do it:" Hartley said in a serious tone before reverting back to his friendly tone. "Let's show our guest here that we ain't animals..."

The cell door clicked open once again and two guards entered the cell, untying Alisha from the chair. They gave Hartley a concerned look as the restraints came off, but Hartley returned a reassuring glance that he knew what he was doing.

"There we go." Hartley said. "That a bit more comfortable? Perhaps you'd be interested in some tea?"

“Ah think Ah’ll pass on the tea, thank you very much.” Alisha brought her hands around and rubbed her wrists to try to get the ache out of them. God only knew what he’d put into any drink and she wasn’t so desperate as yet to need anything. Another several hours and she may have to rethink that part. She rolled her shoulders for good measure, “Governor, suh, Ah do believe that y’all have picked up the wrong girl, but if Ah am being held for some trumped up crime, Ah must insist on calling’ an attorney.” She put some exasperation in her voice.

"Oh, of course, Miss Reno." Hartley surprisingly obliged. "I'm sure that this is all just one big misunderstanding."

"Silverstar, suh." Alisha 'corrected' him, "Now where can Ah find a comm?" This was too good to be true and she knew it.

"Right, sorry; Silverstar." Harley then corrected himself. "There's one just down the hall where the arrests are processed. Mind if I accompany you there? No offense, but I was called in on short notice due to an alleged threat to our system's security, blah blah blah."

"Of course, suh, Ah'm not averse to answerin' any questions you might have, but Ah believe that Ah'm just a victim of mistaken' identity in this particular case," She led them out of the room at his gesture to precede him, "Ah assume Ah'm still under arrest? Ah am not aware of disruptin' any sort of law enforcement action, so Ah am flabbergasted at the charges leveled at me."

"I am as well, Miss Silverstar." Hartley agreed. "It seems mighty out of character for such a well-known starlet making her return to acting to harbor sympathies for the enemies of our people. That's why I'm just as interested in sorting this all out as you are."

"With all due respect, Governor, for a series so beloved and well known as 'Voltron', Ah would have had to have refused any director who wasn't Japanese. The entire series was created back at the end of the Twentieth Century by a Japanese artist and writer, so no movie based off it would be taken seriously if it were directed by someone of another descent." Alisha gave a bit of a pained smile, "Ah'm afraid Ah don't have the luxury of gettin' my comeback debut wrong in any sense. Ah consider it nearly a miracle that anyone was willin' to give me another chance, no matter what libels and slander was thrown on me those several years ago. Ah wasn't even able to properly defend myself because no one would let me."

"Well, I suppose Voltron is one of the lucky ones." Hartley said. "Unfortunately, with gems like Voltron, you also get a mountain of pedophilic crap. It got really bad in the early 21st century, and sadly, still influences the Japanese to this day."

Hartley turned his head to face Alisha as they walked.

"You know, these laws may seem harsh to an outsider looking in, but the results they have produced are undeniable:" He said. "Before I took office, sex crimes against our children were at an all time high. However, with the passage of these laws, the rate of child sex crimes went down. The correlation is clear: The less rights those pedophiles have, the safer our communities will be. The end goal, of course, is to afford them the same rights as common livestock. Maybe by then, our children will be able to grow up without the fear of being molested by these weirdos..."

“While Ah can agree that there are those individuals in Japanese culture who do fall to pedophilia as a result of over-sexualization of age-inappropriate characters, it isn’t limited to them. Ah could tell you about experiences Ah had as a young actress that would chill your blood.” And it was absolutely true, some had gotten handsy with her and she’d been lucky, she knew, “You would have my blessin’ to do with duly convicted pedophiles as you wish, but attaintin’ an entire culture over a few individuals isn’t the way. Ah have known more Caucasian sexual predators than Ah have Japanese, but Ah ain’t gonna condemn them as a whole for the actions of those few. Why, it would be like the same era’s condemnation of African descended people as criminals purely for the color of their skin! Or the mid-Twentieth Century war fought where millions were massacred for bein’ Jewish!”

"The German chancellor of that time period was certainly onto something:" Hartley responded. "The Jews were the enemies of his people, and he took steps to eradicate their threat. Likewise with the [redacted]s. The negro was a disease on the face of contemporary society, and steps were taken to prevent that disease from spreading. And look what happened when the left wing vermin prohibited those measures and allowed the disease to spread. Look how much it's rotted us! They even managed to corrupt a personal hero of mine from that time period; George Wallace, and forced him to confess that he had been wrong."

To be continued..."

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