Flipping Through the Pages
Copyright© 2026 by Dragonpig
Chapter 32
Multiversal probe entering Gotham City scanning.
The fluorescent lights in the GCPD tech lab hummed above, casting harsh shadows across Dr. Prometheus Washington’s workbench. Rain pelted the grimy windows overlooking the East End, where sirens wailed their nightly symphony. Another beautiful evening in Gotham.
Prometheus adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and stared at the neural frequency readouts sprawled across three monitors. The polygraph machine beside him—ancient, unreliable, a relic—mocked him with its analog needles and paper strips. How many killers had walked free because their heart rates stayed steady? How many innocent people had sweated their way into Blackgate because they were nervous?
“I cannot tell a lie.”
The words echoed in his mind, as they had since childhood. His great-great-grandfather’s portrait hung in his cramped apartment—George Washington, the man who supposedly couldn’t lie about cutting down a cherry tree. Family legend, probably fabricated, but it had shaped every Washington since. His father had been a minister who preached absolute honesty. His mother, a social worker who believed truth could heal any wound.
Both had died believing lies were the enemy of justice.
Prometheus picked up a small device no larger than a television remote—sleek black metal with a single red button. Months of work. Months of studying brainwave patterns, neural pathways, the exact frequencies that fired when humans constructed deceptions. The military had wanted a better interrogation tool. The FBI had wanted a foolproof confession device. But they all wanted to extract secrets, to make people talk.
Prometheus had gone deeper. What if you didn’t force truth out of people? What if you simply made lying impossible?
The device in his hands didn’t read minds. It didn’t compel speech. It targeted the specific neural clusters responsible for deception—flooding them with a resonant frequency that disrupted their function. Subjects could remain silent. They could refuse to answer. But the moment they tried to lie, their own biology would betray them.
He’d tested it on lab rats first. Impossible to know if rats could lie, but their stress responses suggested something fundamental had changed in their brain chemistry. Then he’d tried it on himself in small doses, asking himself simple questions while monitoring his vitals.
“Did you eat lunch today, Prometheus?”
When he’d tried to say yes—knowing he’d skipped lunch for the third time this week—his throat had seized. The words wouldn’t come. Only when he admitted the truth could he speak normally again. The effect lasted approximately thirty minutes before his neural pathways reset to normal function.
Tonight was different. Tonight he had a real subject.
Detective Ray Castellanos sat in the interrogation room down the hall, sweating through his polyester shirt. Internal Affairs suspected him of skimming drug money, but they couldn’t prove it. Three witnesses had recanted. Evidence had gone missing. Castellanos had been lying to investigators for weeks, and his union rep made sure every lie stayed protected.
Prometheus slipped the Truth Ray into his lab coat pocket and walked toward Interrogation Room B. The device’s weight felt heavier than it should have, like carrying fire stolen from the gods.
Through the one-way mirror, he watched Castellanos fidget with his wedding ring—a nervous tic Prometheus had catalogued during previous sessions. The detective’s lawyer sat beside him, briefcase open, ready to object to any question that came too close to the truth.
Commissioner Gordon stood in the observation room, arms crossed, exhaustion carved into his weathered face. “We’ve got nothing, Washington. Guy’s dirty as they come, but he’s not stupid. Knows exactly how much he can get away with.”
Prometheus nodded, his hand closing around the device in his pocket. Such a small thing to change everything. “What if he couldn’t lie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” Prometheus moved toward the door connecting to the interrogation room. “Just ... let me try something different.”
Gordon’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t stop him. In Gotham, desperation made people willing to try anything.
Prometheus entered the room, carrying a standard-issue recorder and notepad. Castellanos barely glanced up—just another lab tech, nothing threatening. The lawyer didn’t even close his phone.
“Detective Castellanos,” Prometheus said, settling into the chair across from him. “I need to ask you a few routine questions for our records.”
“Sure, Doc. Ask away.”
Prometheus’s thumb found the Truth Ray’s activation button. One press. That’s all it would take.
“I cannot tell a lie.”
The weight of history pressed down on him. George Washington’s honesty had built a nation. What could absolute truth build in Gotham?
He pressed the button.
The device emitted no sound, no visible light. But Prometheus felt something change in the air—a subtle shift, like the moment before lightning strikes.
“Let’s start simple,” Prometheus said, watching Castellanos’s face. “Did you report all evidence collected during the Maroni bust last month?”
Castellanos opened his mouth to answer, the same casual lie he’d told a dozen times before. But something happened. His face twisted, confusion flickering across his features. His mouth moved, but no words came.
“I—” Castellanos tried again, his voice catching. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “I can’t—why can’t I—”
The lawyer looked up from his phone. “Ray? What’s wrong?”
“No,” Castellanos whispered, and the word came out clear, strong. “No, I didn’t report it all.”
Silence filled the room like a held breath.
Prometheus’s heart hammered against his ribs. It worked. God help him, it actually worked.
“What did you do with the missing evidence?” he asked quietly.
Castellanos tried desperately to remain silent, his jaw clenched shut. But when he finally opened his mouth, truth spilled out like blood from a wound: “Sold it. Sold three kilos of Maroni’s cocaine to my cousin in Blüdhaven. Used the money to pay off my gambling debts.”
The lawyer’s briefcase hit the floor.
Prometheus Washington sat perfectly still, watching a corrupt cop confess to crimes he’d hidden for months, and realized he’d just changed the world.
Outside, Gotham’s rain continued to fall, washing nothing clean.
The conference room on the fourth floor of GCPD headquarters buzzed with nervous energy. Prometheus stood at the head of the polished table, the Truth Ray positioned beside a stack of case files that had been cracked wide open in recent weeks. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows—a rare sight in Gotham that seemed to illuminate his moment of triumph.
“Gentlemen,” Prometheus said, gesturing to the files, “the results speak for themselves.”
Commissioner Gordon sat at the far end of the table, flanked by Deputy Commissioner Sarah Chen, Internal Affairs Chief Marcus Webb, and District Attorney Harvey Dent. Their faces showed a mix of amazement and something else—something that made Prometheus’s stomach tighten.
“Seventeen confessions in three weeks,” Prometheus continued, his voice gaining confidence. “The Bertinelli drug ring, the Falcone money laundering operation, six cases of police corruption—including Detective Castellanos. Cold cases that have been gathering dust for years, solved in minutes.”
Deputy Commissioner Chen leaned forward, her sharp eyes studying the device. “And no coercion? No physical or psychological pressure?”
“None whatsoever,” Prometheus replied, pride swelling in his chest. “The subjects can remain silent. They can refuse to speak. But they cannot lie. It’s the purest form of justice—truth without violence, without torture, without...”
“Without consent,” Chief Webb interrupted, his voice cold.
The room fell silent. Prometheus felt something shift in the atmosphere, like the moment before a storm breaks.
“I’m sorry?”
Webb stood, his bulk casting a shadow across the conference table. Twenty years in Internal Affairs had taught him to spot threats to the system, and his eyes held the look of a man who’d found one. “You’re stripping away people’s fundamental ability to protect themselves. Do you understand what that means for human dignity?”
“It means we catch the guilty,” Prometheus said, confusion creeping into his voice. “It means justice actually works.”
“It means,” Webb continued, walking around the table like a predator circling prey, “that every cop in this room would fail your test. Every prosecutor, every judge, every person who makes this system function.”
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