The man I met looked scared as hell when I met him at an undisclosed bar. We sat in a private booth, and the entire time he kept looking to see if anyone was watching or following him. I have omitted the begging of the conversation, as it contained information that would endanger the life of the respondent.
Man: (nervous laughter) So, that's where you're cutting it off?
N04h: Yeah, this is where we'll begin.
M: great, great. Well, I'm, I'm glad I finally have the chance to talk about this. Its... Its been hard.
N: Why don't you start at the beginning, what you told me before, with out the details?
M: Yeah, yeah. Well um, a few years ago, I started work in a group run by a man called the Heirophant. He ran a paramilitary group that was originally meant to bring Earth back to being a democratic state and remove corporate control that was mostly based from Gongen. However, when the Shi came into the solar system, he decided the good of humanity would be benefited more if he transferred all of our work to taking down the Shi. Our agents, who had been preparing various operations across Earth transitioned to a new plan, ridiculously creative, to deal a death blow to the Shi and give humanity the chance to survive. Unfortunately, it all went to hell. All of it.
N: How did you get involved?
M: Well, the Heirophant hired people who needed a cause. Orphans, loners, people who had lost everything. He gave us food, a place to stay... The trust funds of the organization still fund a lot of orphanages, though none of them would admit it. Myself, my wife had left me after my son... passed away, and she took the house, my best friend moved in with them. I'm, you know, I'm happy for them, really... I mean.... (begins crying)
N: Its alright take your time.
M: I'm sorry. I'm okay. So, this man came to me. I'd been a police officer, and he told me there was a group of people who could use my skills, and we could do a lot of good. I knew about what we'd be doing to the Shi, which I guess you could call genocide, but you know they're going to kill every single one of us or enslave us so it never seemed like it was bad. It still doesn't seem like it. Anyways, so, mostly what we did was charity work. We tracked down criminals, raided their bank accounts and turned them into the police anonymously. That money went either to the Orphanage, or to funding the Shi operation. Not that we really needed money.
Anyways, so the plan was going well, but then these Electric Mayhem people showed up. I was there one of the first times we encountered them, I was working with one of our agents, who they killed. They weren't very merciful, they shot (Name Deleted) in the legs and just left him there to die when they went to catch the ship our agent was trying to escape on. Unfortunately he was killed, they rammed him into the ground with a jetpack, smearing his body into bits along the pavement. I survived, along with some of the rest of the team that fled... I'm ashamed of that. We had orders not to kill, but Electric Mayhem was brutal. Just... Brutal. We dragged (Name Deleted) away, still screaming. He got robotic replacement legs. He came along with us later when we were assigned to the the team of another agent who, well, that was the worst part. Our commander had decided that despite them killing his brother, the previous agent, that this group of people we were working against was actually the best hope for humanity. He told us all about this on the way there, that he was going to go up to them and talk to them and give them all the information they'd need to stop our plan and stop the Shi. We really respected him. He was always so kind.
That didn't matter to Electric Mayhem though. He went to the door, holding his gun in the air with his hand not even touching the trigger to show he wasn't going to hurt them, and in the other hand he held a data disk with everything they would need on it. When he tried to talk to him though... They... They just stabbed him.
N: killed him?
M: No, if only. It took a while for him to die. We should have acted faster, but we weren't sure what to do, some of the boys got cold feet when they realized he was a traitor. They thought this had all been some sort of test or trap or something. Anyways, we fought amongst ourselves for a while, and then we found their doctor was performing surgery on him in a field, We knew interrupting him would mean our man would die. So we waited again. Then, the Purple colored girl... Well she tried to invade his mind. He had a head jack, you see? You just don't do that to a person without asking. Its too personal. Its a violation of their very being. What a sicko... We wanted to just pick them off but we weren't sure we could make the shots... I still regret our inaction that day... Finally they took him back into their house, which they proceeded to set on fire, and shoot a missile at the wall of. I still don't know why.
Well, okay, I do, because they are insane. They're barely human. They hurt other people and say its for the greater good.... but, do you want to know what I think?
N: That's why I wanted to talk to you to begin with.
M: Well, I think they are selfish attention whores.. Atrocious saints. When other people kill people, its because they are evil, when Electric Mayhem does it, its for the greater good. When other people torture people, its a war-crime punishable by death in the interplanetary court. When Electric Mayhem does it, its justified because they needed the information. And when someone is doing the exact same thing they are, trying to stop the Shi, and getting more attention for it, they kill them. Because they aren't about doing whats good. They don't open up interstellar orphanages, or help the poor, though I bet they'll start after they read this like a Yakuza trying to get some good public image to cover up his prostitution ring, they just do stuff for themselves. They say its for everyone, but its all their own revenge, their own goals. They never ask anyone else what they want, they decide what other people want. They are petty, sacrilegious dictators who cartpetbag around the solar system expecting to be crowned lord protector at every stop, and cry when they are told a single person disagrees with them, or has done better, and then they kill that person.
N: Wow.
M: Let me tell you one last story... The last time I ran into them, almost. After the Heirophant group was broken, I tried to find other work. I met a guy named Black Ike who helped people find jobs. Guy was great, gave me a shot when no one else would. I was set to meet with him at the Nest, when I got there, I was told Electric Mayhem had removed him. One of their members was still there by the way, some Korean guy. They had abandoned him there, without anything, and he was loosing his shit. I left to see if I could find Ike.... When I did... Well... He was dead. It was weeks later, and it was clear from his injuries he had been tortured heavily.... I don't want to describe it... He was in awful shape... Turns out he had hired some people for them, and over the course of months someone had been feeding him really well qualified candidates that were spies. Not all of them even got in, it was perfect. They just threw enough over qualified people at him till a small handful got hired. When the spies did their thing, Mayhem decided that they would torture Black Ike till he talked. He couldn't talk of course, he had no idea what was going on. So they just kept torturing him. That last part is all second hand news of course.... They guy who told me works for em, so I can't really say more, they'd kill him too.
N: Are you afraid they'll kill you?
M: Of course I am. Why do you think I'm so scared? Once people learn the truth about these bastards, well... God... They'll want to do things to me I can't even imagine. You're in danger too you know, you know who I am. You'll have to be careful.
N: That's part of being a journalist.
M: Just be careful. Torture is a small word. But it means a lot. And never forget these people blew the legs off a friend of mine just so he couldn't chase them... I... I think I've said what I needed to say. I need to get out of here now. Thanks for hearing me out. I'm going to get off (Deleted).
N: Thanks for meeting with me