The part where she was bound was also of concern to her. As discreetly as she could, she flexed against the binds. They felt soft, slick and supple rather than hard and unyielding, which told her that they were of some sort of woven substance rather than straight-up metal cuffs. She strained against the left arm restraint to see if there was any give to it, but there was none. The other restraints were the same. She had all the genetically-engineered superstrength of a CDF soldier, but no leverage to apply it with. If the binds had even the slightest tear in them, she could work against that, but as far as she could tell, the binds were in excellent condition.

Finally, Lee took stock of her assets, which at the moment consisted of her brain and not much else: She had no eyes, no physical strength and no way to communicate to anyone except possibly to Two, which did her no good, and Six, which likewise did not give her much to go on. And as much as Lee thought she had a reasonably good brain, all things concerned, there was only so much it could do, trapped as it was in her head.

“Well, shit,” she said aloud, listening to the sound of her voice travel around the room. The room was large enough and had walls made of a substance that made it acoustically bouncy, probably bare rock or concrete.

Hello, her brain said.

She spent the next half hour alone in her head, occasionally humming to herself. If Two was watching, it might confuse him a bit.

Eventually, the door to the room opened and Six (Lee presumed) came back in.

“Lieutenant Lee,” said the voice of Two, “are you ready to begin?”

“I am ready to talk your ears off,” Lee said.

*   *   *

For the next two hours, Lee spoke at length about any subject that Two wished to know about, which included current CDF troop strength and disposition, CDF and Colonial Union messaging about the break from Earth, what the two organizations were doing to compensate for the loss of human resources from Earth, the state of rebellions of various colonies, both in Lee’s direct experience and from hearsay from other soldiers and Colonial Union staff and the details of Lee’s particular mission on Zhong Guo.

Lee answered with facts when she could, informed guesses and estimates when she couldn’t and wild supposition when she had to, making sure Two understood which was which and why, so there would be no margin for misunderstanding between the two of them.

“You are certainly being forthcoming,” Two said at one point.

“I don’t want a shotgun to the face,” Lee said.

“I mean that you are offering rather more than your surviving compatriot,” Two said.