The room was not small, but a multiple furniture including a desk, a mysterious machine, and three fully grown men occupied majority of the room—making the room feel small.
"Greetings," the bald middle aged man sitting behind the desk said. He had an amiable smile on his face. "I am inspector Erwin Nadela, and I will be in charge of the procedure today." He pointed to the young man wearing a white lab-coat and a pair of glasses sitting to his right. "Equipment specialist Jared will be supporting me."
Jared have a slight bow.
Inspector Nadela did not bother to introduce the last member and gestured the newcomers to sit down.
Xavier and Eulene took the seats opposite the inspector. As for Inspector Clark, he sat beside the third member of the room. That member was silent—his face expressionless. His hanging arms were dangerously close to the handguns stored in the holsters.
Inspector Nadela asked Xavier, with the smile on his face, "you are already a citizen. Do you need any of our services today?"
Xavier shook his head. "I just came to accompany her. You can ignore my presence."
The inspector nodded before taking a small vial filled with light blue liquid from the desk. He turned to Eulene. "Please drink this. This is required for the process."
Eulene raised a brow.
"Please don't take it to heart. Kinetics have superior control over their bodies—be it the voluntary systems, or the involuntary ones. Hence, our heartbeat measuring device would be rendered useless against an expert kinetic. However, those who ingest this potion would lose control over their involuntary systems for an hour."
Eulene nodded and took the vial, before gulping it down.
[Quick] Xavier transmitted. [Destroy the serum. If it metabolises, even you will not remain unaffected?]
[How so you know?] Eulene took it as a challenge. Who did he think she was?
[I formulated the potion]
Fuck! Eulene used her Qi to disseminate ingoing liquid.
The smile on the bald inspector's face became even more apparent as he turned to the young man beside him and nodded.
Equipment specialist Jared turned to the heavy machine beside him. It was like a grand piano, but with round keys. There was a long paper displayed along the the place where the music rack would have been. But it was devoid of notes or anything of that matter; it was completely empty. There was a scale at one side, above the paper, with a pencil attached to it.
Moreover, two cords bore out of the machine. Specialist Jared passed one to Eulene. The cord had a funnel attached to its end. "Please press it against your Solar Plex- I mean chest—where your heart is."
Eulene complied, placing the funnel on her heart. It automatically stuck to her dress. She turned to Jared and raised a brow, asking wordlessly whether it was okay.
"Perfect!" Jared could not hide his blush as he picked the other cord, which ended with a head set and covered his ears. He gave a thumbs up to the interrogating inspector.
"Okay then," Inspector Nadela spoke, "if you are ready, we will proceed with the interrogation. Please keep in mind that whatever you say will be recorded, along with your heartbeat."
Eulene took in a deep breath and nodded. That foreboding hit again.
What's wrong? She asked in her mind. She was sure that even if something went wrong, with a slash of a sword, she could split the whole city into two—let alone a mere 'Thirteenth'. But why was she nervous? Did that bastard mix anything with her breakfast?
"Seeing that you are here," the inspector began with the same smile on his face, "we can assume that you are a supernatural—a Kinetic to be precise. Am I right?"
Eulene nodded.
"Please voice out your answers from now on."
"Yes," Eulene replied. She turned to the machine.
The white paper was moving left to right while the pencil was automatically moving up and down, drawing spikes on the paper. There was a certain pattern to the spikes.
Eulene hypothesised that it was the illustration of her heartbeat. And she was right.
"How many elements you have control over? Please demonstrate."
"Two." Eulene answered. Xavier had already taught him the answers. She waved her hand, a not-so-gentle breeze blew away the papers on the desk and messed everyone's hair—except for the interrogating inspector of course.
After that, Eulene moved her arms at superhuman speed, avoiding everyone but Xavier's perception. She rubbed her hands against each other, creating threads of lighting.
Everyone widened their eyes. Electromancy was a rare case.
"Thank you." The inspector patiently picked up the blown papers and arranged them on the desk. "You are an islander, if we are not wrong. Can you specify which Island you are from?"
As Xavier devised, Eulene stated an 'undiscovered' Island. For the follow up questions on the position of the Island, how she arrived and why, Eulene answered with the lore Xavier created, devoid of any flaws or loophole.
The undiscovered island would forever remain undiscovered and as for the 'why' questions, her answers were 'politically correct'. Moreover, the heartbeat graph faced only a small amount of discrepancies—which were orchestrated by Eulene to sound more real.
The interrogator sighed, but the smile had yet to leave his face. "Thank you for your time, and I apologise for the pressing questions." He heaved yet another long sigh. "Though you are 'cleared' and you can live an 'ordinary' life from now on, we regret to inform you that we can issue you citizenship. And thus, after a few weeks, the authority has no choice but to deport you?"
Eulene raised a brow and turned to Xavier. "What's 'deport'?" She did not bother to transmit.
Xavier stared at her silently for a couple of seconds, before taking a deep breath. Without replying to Eulene, he turned to the bald inspector. "There has to be a way."
The man thought for a second and looked at Eulene. "There is one, actually. A very simple and easy one, but it's difficult for her… despite her ravishing beauty. You know the social conditions of Islanders, of how they are looked down upon and ostracised. Hence, I doubt anyone will want to accompany her."
Xavier fell deep in thought.
"What do you mean?" Eulene frowned.
"Marriage." The man answered nonchalantly.
For the first time, the machine recorded a completely irregular spike, but Eulene calmed down in a moment. "Heh. Who needs marriage?" She turned to Xavier. "We will think of some way to-"
She spotted Xavier looking her dead in the eyes. The foreboding appeared again and pressed against her heart.
Xavier opened his mouth.
"Let's get married."