Chương 43: 19.Sweet Poison in a Smile 19-2

The corridor was dimmer than the room. Master Tam walked without hurrying, cloth shoes barely audible against the metal floor—soft enough to be unnerving. The cigarette still burned, ash grown to unreasonable length and still not falling. I followed for about ten seconds before I couldn't hold it.

"Master Tam."

"Mm?"

"This new setup you mentioned," I said.

"It's not another thing where you sit down and come out with your personality in pieces, is it?" Master Tam didn't look back. He gave two slow, satisfied sounds.

"Hey, kid, that's a pretty good line." He exhaled smoke.

"Relax. Nothing physical. Just hard on that temper of yours." I was quiet for two seconds. …That answer was worse than no answer. He added: "One more thing. Heads up."

"What?" Master Tam finally turned half his face. Those squinting eyes showed that faint smile again.

"Those moves you use on the officers—save them when you're with me." I looked at him.

"Why?" He made a short sound, like hearing a very innocent question.

"Because when I was young, I was a worse bastard than you." He held the cigarette loosely between fingers.

"That little street energy of yours—with me, it's about as useful as a kid trying to collect protection money with a stick." … Shit. Done. This old fox in the faded undershirt and cloth shoes, talking like the neighborhood uncle, genuinely wasn't going to fall for anything I usually deployed. At the corridor's end, a heavy pressure door I'd never seen glowed quietly with its indicator light.

Master Tam reached it, pressed the cigarette into a metal disposal slot—a soft hiss—and laid his hand on the ID panel without looking back. The door placard emerged slowly in white light. REVERSIBLE FULL-SENSORY PRESSURE SIMULATION CHAMBER / AUTHORIZATION: SPECIAL APPLICATIONS DIVISION — TIER TWO He waved me forward without turning.

"Come."

"Let's find out how many rounds that mouth, those bones, and that refusal to quit can last once you're inside." The lock gave a clean clunk. I stood behind him and watched the door slide open. What came out wasn't wind or cold. It was silence. The kind of silence that was too clean, too orderly, too much like a room that had no intention of letting anyone walk out intact. The pressure door closing behind me was very quiet. Too quiet to be a door closing.

More like the outside world being politely collected and put away. The anteroom of the Reversible Full-Sensory Pressure Simulation Chamber was cleaner than expected. Aggressively clean. None of Karl's iron smell, none of Mira's residual heat, none of Renard's bone-deep damp. Just white. White walls, white lights. White like a hospital, courtroom, morgue, and upscale hotel had their worst qualities stirred together. In the center: a chamber chair. Not menacing. Almost gentle.

No jagged metal clamps, no exposed needles, nothing that made you want to draft a will immediately. The seat was padded in light grey, armrests smoothly curved, headrest ergonomically shaped. It looked exactly like the kind of chair that, the moment you sat down, would stop being ergonomic in any sense. Master Tam walked in and ignored the chair completely. He shuffled to the wall, unfolded a metal chair, and sat down. Cloth shoes scraped softly.

From his undershirt pocket he produced another crumpled cigarette, clamped it between his teeth without lighting it. I stood in place, looked at him, then the chair. … Right. This I'm going to make you think it's starting, but not start yet approach was a completely different flavor of infuriating from J. J.' s grinning centrifuge method. Master Tam lifted his chin.

"Sit." I didn't move.

"After you." He laughed.

"Oh, look at that. Polite." He squinted at me, shifted the cigarette to the other corner.

"Kid, that's not politeness. That's stalling." …Shit. I kept my face still.

"I call it caution, Master Tam."

"Don't bother." He waved a hand.

"Cautious people check exits when they enter. You looked at the chair first. You're not afraid of the room. You're afraid of what you'll become once you're sitting in it." I went quiet for a second. Then had to admit, privately and without dignity: Right. He got it again. I walked over and sat in the chair that looked harmless and almost certainly wasn't. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It was very stable.

Stable like it didn't care whether you sat or not—you'd end up there eventually. Master Tam didn't touch any systems. Didn't approach the console. Didn't press a single button. He just sat on the folding chair, stretched those too-thin legs out, cloth shoe edges brushing the floor, and looked at me.

"Let me ask you something first." I looked at him.

"Ask."

"You think you're pretty good at holding out, don't you." …Here it was. This kind of question was never literal. It was a pit. The kind where no matter which direction you stepped, you'd probably fall in. I thought and decided to play it conservative.

"Depends on the comparison." Master Tam nodded slowly.

"Alright. Slippery." He evaluated it like picking produce at market.

"Let me rephrase. You think you've at least got a mouth—that at the critical moment, you can push back a little, not let people handle you completely?" I didn't answer immediately. Because this was too accurate. Karl hit me, I talked back. Mira cut me, I cut back. J. J. spun me until my inner ear wanted to file complaints, and I still found breath to call him a high-velocity comet with personality disorders. Not because I was brave. Because that was how I'd always survived. As long as I could still talk.

As long as I could still land a line. As long as I could throw something difficult out first—even something useless—I had the illusion the situation wasn't entirely someone else's to control. I looked at him.

"A mouth is better than nothing." Master Tam made a short sound.

"Right. A mouth is a good thing." He pointed the unlit cigarette at me.

"Question is, kid—are you using it as a blade, or as a door?" I frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"A blade cuts outward. A door locks you in." He squinted, smile faint.

"That mouth of yours looks like a blade. It's actually more of a door." I said nothing. The room was very quiet—quiet enough that even the ventilation seemed deliberately muted. Master Tam kept going, voice unchanged—low, unhurried, like a neighborhood elder discussing which stall had the worst soy milk.

"You like to get the first insult in, the first sarcastic line, make things ugly before anyone else can."

"Why?"

"Not because you're actually that tough. Because you're scared someone else will speak first and define you." My fingertips moved slightly. He looked like he hadn't seen it. He'd seen all of it.

"You make yourself sound worse, rougher, more disposable—so when someone else does it, it doesn't hit as hard."

"You grab the conversational ground first, so all the assessments and categorizations that come after feel like they can't quite penetrate." He smiled slightly.

"That move works fine on the street, in barracks, in front of officers who care about appearances." Then he leaned forward a fraction. Not much. Enough.

"But with me, it's worthless." …Brutal. Not the kind that bludgeons with words. The kind that opens you methodically while explaining the mechanism. I drew a breath, working on keeping my expression neutral.

"Master Tam, the way you put it, it sounds like I've been living very unhealthily." He heard that and laughed outright.

"See, there it is again." He pointed the cigarette at me.

"I just peeled one layer back, and you immediately plastered a clever line over it. That's not quick wit—that's habit. Wherever it hurts, cover it with words first." This time I actually went quiet. Because I wanted to argue, and for a moment, I couldn't find a clean angle. Master Tam seemed to enjoy the silence. He wasn't in any hurry at all.

"Let me ask you something else," he said.

"Do you really think your best quality is that stubborn mouth?" I looked at him for a long moment before answering.

"It's at least useful."

"Wrong," he said. Very clean. Not even leaving me a token step to climb down from.

"Your best quality isn't the stubborn mouth."

"It's that you've taken that many hits and you're still calculating while you're afraid."

"Karl hits you, you calculate rhythm. Mira pushes you, you calculate wind. Renard teaches you, you calculate when systems fail. J. J. spins you, you calculate who's going to get greedy for half a second more." Those squinting eyes looked at me steadily.

"That brain of yours is the valuable thing. The stubborn mouth is just packaging." Something tightened in my chest. That was harder than everything before it. Because it wasn't exposing me. It was calling the layer I'd always used to protect myself packaging. The implication was simple. You can peel it. What's inside after you do—that's what anyone actually wants to see. I leaned back, throat slightly dry.

"So right now you're unwrapping the packaging?" Master Tam laughed.

"What else?" He turned the cigarette slowly between fingers.

"You think I'm in any rush to put you in that chamber on the first day?" He swept a look around the white walls.

"That thing simulates pressure."

"But kids like you—you don't leak under pressure first."

"You leak before it starts, when you're rushing to wrap yourself up tight with your mouth." I opened mine and was genuinely stopped for a moment. He saw it. The smile in his eyes went deeper.

"See. Already half unwrapped." … Shit. I'd been about to fire something back—anything to hold ground. But the more I tried, the more I realized how accurate he was. From the moment I'd walked in today, I'd been doing exactly this. Read the placard, make a crack. See the undershirt, register skepticism. Hesitate before sitting. Every time he moved forward, I put a joke, a sarcastic line, a performed indifference between us first. Not because I was good at it. Because I was defending.

And he'd taken the whole thing apart without touching a single button. Genuinely disgusting. Also genuinely sophisticated. Seeing me quiet, Master Tam gave a satisfied nod.

"There. Now it looks like something."

"When a person goes quiet, things actually surface." I held it for a few seconds, then couldn't manage.

"What if I just stopped talking entirely?" He answered immediately.

"Even better." I frowned.

"How is that better?" Master Tam set the cigarette aside and smiled slowly.

"If you genuinely don't say a word, it means you're starting to worry I'll use whatever you say to dig deeper."

"That's not silence. That's defense."

"And if you're defending, you have a center of gravity. Once I know where your center is, I know where to push." … This old bastard. I genuinely wanted to curse out loud. But the moment the impulse surfaced, I realized— Right. That's exactly what he wants. Because the second I lashed out, he'd know which direction I flinch, which direction I flare, which line makes me instinctively reach to save face. He wasn't having a conversation with me at all. He was chatting while running a small blade along my surface.

No blood. No bone showing. Just gradually shaving away the layer I normally used to keep people out. I stayed quiet for a long time, then finally said, low:"… You're genuinely unpleasant." Master Tam laughed. This time the amusement was clearly visible—like he'd finally gotten a human response from his student.

"Yes. That's much better than all the earlier lines." He lifted his chin slightly.

"Unpleasant is unpleasant. Scared is scared. Annoyed is annoyed. If you'd just start there honestly every time, you'd save me considerable work." I looked at him and suddenly wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny. Because it was absurd. Karl could slam me into walls and I'd still manage sarcasm between mouthfuls of blood. Mira could blast me with storm winds and I'd still find gaps to argue back. J. J.

could spin me until I was practically negotiating with my ancestors, and I'd still use my last breath on comms to question his mental stability. And now this old operator in a yellowed undershirt and cloth shoes, cigarette that looked like it had crossed three black markets, just by sitting across from me talking slowly—had already dismantled the entire scaffolding I used to hold myself together. … Genuinely unsettling.

Master Tam seemed satisfied with my expression—the one trying to be annoyed while having to admit he was right—and finally stood slowly. He was slightly shorter than me, lean, with a slight hunch even standing straight. But as he walked toward the control console, I felt something worse than watching Karl raise a fist. Because a fist at least tells you where it's coming from. This kind of person doesn't. He reached the console, hand moving toward the activation panel, then looked back at me.

"Kid."

"…What?" He squinted, voice still slow, still conversational.

"First lesson—we're not testing how much you can endure."

"We're testing one thing first." I watched him. Master Tam's mouth curved, and for the first time the smile showed something genuinely mean.

"How much you love lying to yourself before anything even starts." Click. His hand came down. The console lit. Deep in the white chamber, indicator lights woke in layers—like a mechanical beast that had been resting with its eyes closed, finally lifting one eyelid. And I sat in that aggressively clean chair, feeling cold creep up my spine as I understood: He was right. The machine hadn't moved yet. And I'd already leaked half of what mattered.