It really just was not Chris's day.

Once the Prometheus's surrender was confirmed, it was then boarded by Mobile Workers that had been hiding in the shoals, from which emerged ranks of black-armored soldiers. Their gear appeared to be the kind issued to Colony riot-police... albeit, of an older model, each wearing a green sash of sorts tied about their upper left arm.

They were informed that they were now prisoners of the "Colonial Liberation Front", and that they were an activist group of sorts looking to bring "Peace and equality" to the Colonies. Those who cooperated would be spared. Those who resisted... Would die.
The whole while, the woman that had orchestrated the attack failed to materialize, the same being said for her black machine.

The crew were rounded up and separated - some were confined to the brig, others to their quarters, but all kept under armed guard, around the clock. It was undoubtedly a professional organization - they kept them fed at least, but the lights were kept bright and day and night began to blur together.

An indeterminate amount of time passed. Crew members were taken, in ones and twos, to be spoken with. All returned, at length - some in better shape than others - intact. Those who had been questioned spoke seldom of what had occurred.

At the very least, there was a sense that they had at last stopped moving, and had arrived wherever it was their captors had sought to direct them. In the windowless brig, it was impossible to tell where, however.

There had been no sign of Isaac whatsoever, and none of the crew themselves could say they had laid eyes on him. Perhaps he had fled, and abandoned Chris to his fate? Who could blame him for doing so? He was, after all, only a child.

After what might have felt like an eternity, the door to the brig opened, and a masked soldier entered.

"Chris." He stated bluntly, pointing his weapon in the pilot's direction as he spoke; "Boss wants to have a little chat."

He found himself rudely manhandled through the halls of the Prometheus to its interrogation room.

And there... She was.
"So you're the pilot of the Gundam."

It wasn't much of a greeting.

The interrogation room was surprisingly roomy, yet plain and hardly built for comfort. Chris' hands had been tied with a pair of electromagnetic cuffs - and he was seated across a long table from his captor, who was currently browsing something on a thin tablet, not even bothering to look up as they did.

"Chris... What a boring name."

Her legs were propped up on the table in front of him, and clad in some odd fashion of turquiose leather boots that looked reasonably weathered. A long, aquamarine green coat decorated her frame, and her hands were covered in gloves of the same material as well, exposing little skin above the neck. It was crafted in such a way that making out the actual contours of her body was difficult to discern... though whether on purpose or not was questionable.

Her hair hung about her in long, dirty-blonde lengths. Her sharp face and features were fair and flawless in such a way that suggested manufacture, giving the impression of a woman of her early thirties - but it was hard to tell these days, as vanity was the Coordinator's craft and Christening.

"In fact, everything about you is boring, really." Said his captor, holding the tablet overhead against the light in what must have been the most uncomfortable reading position ever conceived, "Average life. Average test scores. Average number of sexual partners..." - At this she threw him a skeptical glance, before adding - "...Maybe."

She waved the tablet in his direction, irritably.

"Your file reads like the backstory of a self-insert protagonist from some second-rate eroge." - She flicked it back, placing it under her chin, bringing her other hand up to her head theatrically, as she trilled (in falsetto) "Just an average guy whose life was dull and grey-" - She batted her eyelashes at him, voice dropping several octaves dramatically, " - Until he met her!"

She bounded forward at that, almost lunging across the table at him, coming close... But didn't strike him, instead bringing the tablet up beside her mouth, giving him a wink as she spoke in a conspirational whisper, as if sharing a secret.

"That's me, by the way." She said with a wink; "The exciting part."

...At that, at last, she sank back into her seat, letting her head fall into a hand, propped up by an elbow, as eyes like dark opals sized him up.

"Well? Aren't you glad to finally have a little excitement in your life?" She asked;

"How does it feel?"

Fucking hell.

In the end, the Prometheus' attempts at resistance had been rather pitiful to say the least. Once the onyx-clad machine had latched hold of the vessel and delivered its initial strike, the crew had not dared at retaliation - and few of them still possessed the capability to even mount a counterattack, in any case. Not that Chris could lay any blame on them after hearing a recounting of her announcement and seeing the injuries she had inflicted. It seemed as though this Colonial Liberation Front had no qualms against utilizing indiscriminate torture devices to spread their message of 'peace'. It was a small comfort, at least, that they weren't being left to starve and the crew had been roughed up at worst in the course of interrogations. Chris himself had been largely unmolested, but he was far more concerned by the fact that he hadn't seen Isaac come or go, and nor had anyone else. The kid had the spinal fortitude of a wet noodle, so there was really no risk of his being injured due to resisting, but his total absence was unsettling.

Finding himself summoned, the Gundam's pilot was herded through the vessel's corridors which were now full to the brim of unfamiliar armored figures. He was a decent shot and hand-to-hand combatant - he was a trained soldier, even if he didn't look it - but there was no chance of escape here, not without help or at least a weapon. He was unsurprised when, having been finally maneuvered roughly into a room, he found himself face-to-face with the woman who had piloted the black suit.

She looked to be about his age, perhaps a mite older, and Chris would likely have found her quite attractive under circumstances that did not include initiating a hostile takeover of his ship and threatening the crew with death. Plus the additional fact that, as the man listened, stony-faced, to her dramatic spiel he got the increasingly justified impression that she was a goddamn lunatic.

"How does it feel?"

Chris' fingers twitched, itching to make a fist; Take these cuffs off and I'll show you, you crazy bat. But he kept the thought to himself, realizing that nothing would come of it. His voice was low and neutral, clearly not sharing her enthusiasm from the way he returned her gaze with eyes half-lidded. His dark hair hung partially in front of his eyes, still disheveled and matted from when he'd been extracted from the AGE-1, not having been given a chance to clean away the sweat and grime of piloting.

"Where's Isaac?"

The woman raised an eyebrow at Chris’s query, and gave a slight pout at his disregarding if her question. Still, her response was immediate, as she innocently asked:

“Who?”

Chris simply stared back at the woman for a moment, trying to judge her sincerity. Pointless. Either she was being deliberately obtuse...or they had somehow managed to miss picking up the Extreme Gundam. Considering that Daneel had managed to down two of their number, he found the chance of that incredibly unlikely. There was a bit more bite to his tone this time, brow slightly furrowed.

"You know who. The pilot of the other Gundam. He's not involved in this." Chris didn't fancy his chances of getting her to drop the feigned innocence, but maybe at least one thing would go his way through this whole mess.

At the word 'pilot', the woman's expression suddenly changed, going completely neutral, as if it were trained response. She leaned back slowly, all traces of her playful demeanor gone, and pressed something on the tablet, bringing it up in front of her. As she did, a holographic projection of one of the soldiers appeared in front of her on its surface, giving a salute.

"Attention all security teams..." She said, her tone... professional. "Be on high alert. We missed one. Answers to Isaac."

Her fingers swiped across its green surface, causing another set of helmets to appear between her and Chris as she continued, highlighting sections on what appeared to be an interactive map of the ship with her fingertips.

"Hangar team, inspect the red EXA-One. It's not an exact duplicate, like we thought. This one is a manned unit."

"Roger."

With that, she swiped her palm down, and its surface returned to black. She turned her gaze back to Chris, and the coy smile returned, as she gave him another wink, and a wag of the finger.

"Thanks!" She said brightly, "Close call, that one."

She folded her legs, and leaned over the table, propping her head up again as she gazed at him. Those blue eyes betrayed little malevolence now, only... a playful curiosity.

"It sounds like you care quite a bit about him." She said, giving him what would normally have amounted to a warm smile, "You seem like a real good guy. Like, the responsible big brother type." - She propped her head up with her hand as she cocked it, quizzically, continuing: "I bet they always made you the designated driver, huh?"

Blinking incredulously at the woman's reaction, Chris found himself a bit flabbergasted. For all of their prim and proper military-like routine, these...dissidents, if that was even a good term for their organization, had somehow managed to lose track of a skinny 18-year-old civilian. By her words they'd even captured the suit, for god's sake! He would have initially assumed that Isaac couldn't sneak his way out of a paper bag, but apparently that notion was wildly incorrect. And he likely had Dan with him, to boot.

Of course, Chris could have kicked himself for revealing the fact that there had been a pilot at all. Apparently more machines like the Extreme existed elsewhere but were unmanned, which might explain a great deal about Daneel's impressive capabilities. AI technology available to the wider market wasn't even adequate for construction work, much less combat piloting, or he'd have been out of a job long before being recruited by the Union. But the regret over revealing Isaac's existence was edged out by something else - pride. It was true that he'd barely gotten a chance to know the younger man, but already there was something about him that made Chris feel like an older brother. You go get 'em, kid.

There was an urge to smirk at his captor in light of their apparent incompetence, but he repressed it - mostly. That wasn't to say that his tone didn't intentionally carry just a hint of that smugness; he knew that Isaac was just a kid, but they didn't. Better to let them think they were dealing with something serious. If they hadn't caught him yet, he could probably take care of himself.

"Yeah, good luck finding him." He shrugged before continuing, once more pointedly ignoring her quip. "So what now? You must be keeping us around for a reason."

She beamed at him, a ray of sparkling light in the darkness, eyes aglitter.

"I'm glad you asked!" She said, sunnily.

"See, a little bird told us about this really great toy you had. This... AGE System." - At this she produced the AGE Device that had been confiscated from him, flicking it up into the air beside her, where she began tossing it up and down, as she continued to talk:

"So, we came to take it off your hands... For our cause, of course. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Etcetera, etcetera."

She hurried through these words, as though they were a mere formality on the way to what she really wanted... and then paused, her voice dropping into the same serious tones as before, as she placed the device on the table in front of her.

" But I had some questions, first." She said, steepling her fingers as she did.

"I know it can react to combat situations, but... What about other applications?"

She let the question hang in the air briefly before adding an additional clarification, tapping the surface of the device as she did with her index finger.

"Say... Entering - and surviving in - a particularly harsh environment. Could it develop equipment for that, if exposed to the proper stimuli?"

A little bird, huh? No doubt the same little bird who had mucked about disabling their Jinxes prior to the attack. They'd have to sort that matter out after this was over - if they survived that long.

But what an oddly specific question. The mundaneness of it caught Chris off guard, and he found himself legitimately pondering the concept rather than delivering a smart retort as he might have planned. He gazed into the distance for a moment, fingers drumming absentmindedly againat the table despite his manacles.

"I...don't see why not." Another shrug, but this time genuine rather smarmy. "It's never been tried. We're not even sure how the system works."

"What do you mean, you're not even sure how it works?"

The woman scowled at him, evidently unhappy with his answer. She gestured to the AGE Device again, irritably. She seemed to be full of a kind of nervous energy, the kind that didn't lend itself well to sitting still.

"The Union built it, didn't you?"

Oh, now that was a new emotion from the mystery woman. Displeasure. And even if he'd been willing to give her a thorough answer, Chris didn't have one.

"Well, yeah. But it's a black box. They just told it to grow and sealed everything up tight. The guys who programmed it probably wouldn't even recognize their own project now."

"What comes out of that thing and when it happens is totally out of our hands."

"I find that hard to believe." Said the woman quickly, leaning forward as she did, giving Chris a skeptical look as she did.

"Maybe I'm just asking the wrong person."

She pressed down on the tablet again, and the hologram of the guard reappeared. Her gaze shifting to their form as they gave a salute.

"It's me." She said, "Bring me that engineering bitch from the hangar. The frumpy looking one that gave us some trouble."

A silent salute was given, and she sat back once more, arms folded, staring at Chris closely... as if waiting to see if he had anything more to add before the other prisoner was brought forth.

Oh no. Surely she didn't mean who Chris thought she meant. There were a decent number of women working among the hangar crew, but he could only think of one who would be referred to as 'that engineering bitch': the foul-mouthed chief mechanic. And if any one person had the right attitude to oppose even an overwhelming boarding party, that woman was it. 'Frumpy', however, was not a word he would have chosen. A few minutes of intense scrutiny from his captor passed in silence, but Chris volunteered no further information - or perhaps simply had none to offer.

The stillness was broken by a brief rap at the door followed by its opening, and surely enough as he twisted to look over his shoulder Chris was met with the sight of the crew chief being maneuvered into the room by a particularly burly guard. The woman had stripped down to the simple short-cut tanktop normally worn under her jumpsuit, revealing a pair of thickly muscled arms and a chiseled core that would have made a Gundam Fighter proud. Sam, they called her; she'd threatened to snap him in half when he'd made the mistake of calling her by her full name of Samantha, taken from the crew roster, upon their first meeting. With that physique, it seemed wise not to disregard it as an idle threat. While the soldier's expression was hidden by dark headgear, one got the impression he was glaring at her as he retreated from the room once more, leaving her standing at the end of the table opposite the mystery woman. Like he, she was manacled - but they'd dug up some heavy steel bands rather than his electromagnetic cuffs. Not taking any chances, then.

Sam didn't seem too worse for wear despite what had been said, though the off-color splotches of half-healed bruises marked numerous spots across her torso and limbs. She'd clearly put up a fight, and though Chris wasn't about to complain he found the fact that they'd gone to such effort to take her down non-lethally a bit odd. She glanced down at him out of the corner of her eye, seemingly assessing his condition for a half-second before speaking.

Though she addressed their mutual 'friend' directly and bluntly, Sam was analyzing every scrap of information about the other woman and the environment she could get her eyes on without being overt. The mind of a Coordinator still lay at the core of her musclebound exterior, and she hadn't become the head mechanic of a ship boasting tech as advanced and experimental as the stuff on the Prometheus by being an intellectual slouch.

"Whaddaya want, cunt?"

As the other captive was brought in, the mystery woman rose slowly and deliberately from her seat, much in the fashion of an unfolding paper crane. She gave a nod to the guard, who parted, leaving her with the two of them. Unusual, that she did not permit even one more interloper into their conversation - most would have appreciated the mere presence of at least one other co-conspirator.

"And you would be... Sam." She said evenly, tucking her pad under her arm.

She looked the Chief Engineer up and down slowly, eyes traveling almost... admiringly... over her musculature, causing her to cock her head slightly, lips curling slightly upward as she did so before she spoke again.

"I was hoping you would... assist me with my inquiries." - She gestured to the man sitting at the table in dumb silence - "Chris here doesn't seem to know the first thing about the machine he's supposed to test, so I was thinking you might be a little more helpful... despite your apish appearance."

She spoke as sunnily as ever, delivering the barb without even dropping a beat, as though she were casually slipping a knife between the woman's ribs, beaming all the while. She walked until she was right up beside her, looking straight up at her. She stood around 5'10 - tall for a woman, but not quite at her.

"I realize some of those words were quite long - more than five letters! - and may not have registered, but I'm really starting to get bored." She said, giving a slight pout as she did, batting her eyelashes at Sam, as though she were cuddling up close to her chest, as she trilled:

"So I'll cut to the chase: How does the AGE System work? ...In as much detail as you can provide."