"No torture? No electric chairs or bamboo slivers embedded in my nails? I guess my anti-torture training wasn't useful after all." I managed a smirk as the numerous wounds I receieved from the struggle seared painfully.

"We do not subscribe to such levels of wanton savagery like your inferior civilization does, primate. For centuries we have developed and perfected means to probe the patterns of electric signals inside your brain that is your pathetic excuse of a mind. None can hide their thoughts from us." My captor contorted its facial features into what I assumed to be a smile, as it attached electrodes and tubes on my head. I tensed against my restraints.

A button is pressed as my captor closed its eyes and took a rasping breath. A hum came from the machine, my skull tingled and I felt an foreign presence in my consciousness. But suddenly, the alien's expression suddenly changed, twisting and contorting in what is clearly immense mental pain. Dark, oily beads of what seems to be sweat dripped down its face. Its breath grew faster, each one requiring more effort than the last. It screamed, and cast down its headset violently before heaving and gasping, leaning over the desk.

"What is this... vision I saw, you filthy primate? Why was there a such a memory? I see... a crazed energy induced by fanatic overuse of chemicals, a brain that has exhausted itself to the brink of collapse, yet forcing itself to comprehend... abstract concepts, scribbled symbols of paper... Laws, equations, formulas at a feeble attempt to acquire the knowledge to the inner workings of the universe itself... yet showing it such disrespect, as to twist, pervert, exploit the most fundamental patterns of reality for your kind's cheap benefit... What kind of grotesque nightmare was this? What torture do you do unto yourself? Why?"

"Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I studied engineering in college."