Chapter 15
Sophia and Duo escorted the still sunglassed doctor out of the elevator and down the hall to the assigned meeting room. Duo knocked twice before opening the door, and when they entered, Lady Une ushered them over next to her. Une reached up and removed Ara’s blindfold while Duo and Sophia went to sit with their fellow Preventers.
Lady Une waved her hand over an empty chair and smiled tightly at the woman. “Won’t you please make yourself comfortable?”
Ara sat in the chair next to her as Lady Une sat as well. Sitting on the table in front of the doctor was a metal box with paper and pins on the top portion of it. It made a humming noise as the needles passed back and forth over the paper, ink drawing out wavy lines. Lady Une noticed where her vision was focused and smiled again.
“This is a late 22nd century polygraph machine. We decided this was the easiest way to determine if what you say is truthful or not.”
Ara still stared at it. “How does it work?”
“A clip is placed on your finger, basically acting as a heart rate monitor. When your heart rate increases, we know you’re lying because the needles will begin to madly fluxuate,” Sophia answered. “Simple, really.”
“Wufei,” Lady Une stated, causing the young man to turn and face her suddenly. “Would you come over her for a moment?”
Wufei stood and went over next to Une. She began to fasten the monitor on his finger. “This is just so the doctor knows the machine works properly.”
Wufei nodded and cleared his throat. “My name is Chang Wufei.”
The needles on the machine continued at their normal pace. Wufei tried again. “I work for Lady Une as a Preventer.”
Again, the needles stayed the same.
“Duo is the quietest, most unobtrusive person I have ever met.”
Duo stood up angrily. “Hey! That’s not nice, Wu!”
The needles oscillated wildly. Wufei took off the finger monitor and handed it to Lady Une. “Everything seems to be working, Lady.”
Nodding her agreement, Lady Une snapped the device onto Dr. Malloy.
“Now, I’m just going to ask you a few questions about your involvement with Mariemaia.”
The doctor nodded her head once before looking up at the Lady.
“Dr. Malloy, do you know why Mariemaia is away from the foster family where I placed her?”
“Yes. When the pains in her spine from the bullet wound began so severe, se began to suspect that her family was poisoning her in some way. She put a virus into their automobile and it crashed, looking like an accident.”
The whole room watched as the needles didn’t so much as move a millimeter. Lady Une spoke again. “Why did you become involved with Mariemaia.”
Dr. Malloy sighed. “I didn’t have much of a choice. I had been the doctor she was going to with her foster family. She threatened to do the same t me if I didn’t become her personal doctor and continued to prescribe medication at a rapid rate. Later I discovered that Mariemaia is in so much pain due to the slow hemorrhaging of her internal organs and swelling of her spinal column.”
The needles remained in their normal motion as Une looked up again. “This is the last question. Do you know what she’s planning to do?”
Ara looked straight at the Lady when she answered, “She’s bitter from the last war, when her father died and she was injured. She was to rule the world. In her eyes, that goal never changed. She plans to destroy the new international governmental system, the United Federation Organization, across the world by viruses in all the main computers. With technology out and the general population in an uproar, she will then use her mobile suits and her army to take over the world.”