100TWC - Day 59: Challenged

The chiascuro of whirling bright lights dissipated. Jann Arden's eyes adapted to the relative gloom of his surroundings. He had no idea where he was. A room. Dilapidated. Faded. Old. There was no light in the room but a strange blue glow filtered in through the worn blinds. He could make out shapes. A bed. A nightstand beside it. A bureau, and a bentwood chair. A door to another room. And one to a hallway, hanging open with its lock broken. A hotel room then? Or a small apartment.

A peculiar smell hung in the air. Thick and sweet. Jann couldn't tell where it was coming from. He moved across the room slowly, his eyes still not fully accustomed to the murk. On the other side of the bed, in front of an incongruous ornate marble fireplace, a body lay on the floor. A man, blood oozing from an open gash in his throat. A few feet from the body a large knife lay on the carpet. It had spattered the white marble of the hearth as it fell. He knelt beside the body, felt briefly and hopelessly for a pulse, picked up the knife. He turned it over in the pale light washing from the window. Blood stained the blade black in the electric blue light.

Three beams of incandescent white light tore through the room from the hallway.

"Drop the weapon!"

Jann stood up, turned to the light.

"Drop the weapon and kneel on the floor! Now!"

Jann was bewildered. Where was this place? Why did he have to kneel down? He opened his arms, trying to appear harmless.

"But... I..." he began.

"DOWN! NOW!" cried the voice. The three beams resolved themselves into torches, carried by three men in dark red uniforms. Each carried a gun in their other hand. The man doing all the shouting also carried a gun, only this one was pointed at Jann's chest and held in both hands. Jann dropped to the floor, letting the knife fall from his fingers to the carpet once more.

The shouting man stepped swiftly up to Jann and pulled his hands roughly together behind his back. "You are obliged to answer any question put to you by a member of the MIF." he barked. "You have the right to a Protector. If you do not have access to a Protector one will be appointed for you. You must provide a DNA sample on request. These are the rights and obligations as determined by the Council of Mars. Do you understand?"

Jann had no idea what a Protector was, but it sounded like he might need one. He nodded.

"Do you understand? Answer the question!"
"Yes," he replied. But he didn't. For one thing, where the hell was 'Mars'?

The man pulled him to his feet.

"Clear, sir!" he called.

A fifth man stepped into the room. Dressed differently from the other four, in a cream suit, he carried no weapon, only an air of superiority and calm indifference. He looked quickly and efficiently around the small room, poked his head through the second door and walked over to the body.

"Do we know who he is?"
"Prefect Montague of District Seven," replied the shouting man, whose lapel badge Jann could now see read HAYNES.
The man turned to him, staring at him for several seconds before asking: "Did you know this man? Prefect Montague."
"No," said Jann.
"Why did you kill him?"
"I didn't. I..."
"He was still holding the knife when we got here, sir!" declared Haynes.
"I only just got here myself," Jann said, "he was already dead."
"The medical examiner will tell us whether that is true or not," the suited man replied, "but if you didn't kill him and you didn't know him, what were you doing here?"