Transcendents - The Pursuit of Time

Chapter 14 – Carrot and Stick

Ambie ushers the trio into the wagon as he brims with the hope of reuniting with his brother.

As the trio sits down, Julianna reverts back to her original question.

Julianna :

"So, as I was saying, why didn't we just use brute force to achieve the same results?"

Skylah :

"And as I was saying, the thing about extracting information from a person with conviction isn't through brute force. You saw how he was willing to sacrifice his life instead of giving us any information.

With hindsight, we now know it was because of his love for his wife.

However, at the very outset, we should always go for the carrot and stick approach, just in case.

It's a basic interrogation technique. We dangle 'hope' as the 'carrot' to Leo, then threaten him to a corner with our 'stick', so that the 'carrot' becomes a more enticing alternative. Again, with hindsight, that's why it was much easier for him, psychologically, to impart all the information we needed and to entrust us with the hope of saving his wife."

Julianna :

"I never knew you were so empathetic."

Skylah :

"I'm not, and I don't care about his wife. It is merely incidental to tracking down Johannes.

It became clear that Johannes was related to the casino when the quote by Einstein was mentioned. 'God does not play dice with the universe'.

See, Albert Einstein is an atheist. Yet, in his metaphor to describe how there was no such thing as randomness in quantum theory, the word "God" was used as the perfect description of how everything in the world has a formula.

The irony is beautiful, isn't it?

So, again, we're on our mission to stop Johannes. I don't care if Leo's wife is dead or alive."

Julianna :

"You promised Leo...…."

Skylah :

"Anyway, I'm still in pain right now. John, could you...….?"

Skylah raises his wounded left hand, gesturing for John to perform his healing. Without further ado, John unwraps the blood-soaked cloth that acted as a bandage and places his palm on Skylah's shoulder.

The severed part of Skylah's left hand slowly sprouts new tissues that form into a full pinky.

Skylah :

"I may have seen how you do it, but this still feels plenty fascinating."

Julianna turns her head away in protest of Skylah's previous heartless comment and remains silent throughout the journey.