The desert winds howled outside the outer walls of Sector Twelve. Dust storms had been raging for hours, but inside the Forward Intelligence Compound, the air was still. Still—and stifling.
The trap had been set.
A fake strike mission on Forun's southern outpost had been leaked through a tightly controlled channel, a carefully fabricated operation designed to provoke response from the Freedom Fighters. And as expected, Gad had tried to act.
They'd been watching him for days—his coded glances, the suspicious timing of his cleaning duties, and especially the way he kept visiting the outer trash systems where the scavengers came and went.
A single message. Folded into a strip of synth-plastic, hidden inside a half-rotted glove, passed off to one of the dust scavengers.
But this time, Commander Helda was waiting.
The scavenger—a gaunt young man with trembling hands and a defiant stare—was dragged into the compound under heavy guard. Helda didn't waste time. No interrogation chamber. No questions in the open. She ordered him straight to Room Nine.
The torture room.
She was already there when Captain Tade Odo arrived, gloves in hand, face unreadable. Commander Otunba followed in silence, leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, his expression hard to read.
"This is the one?" Tade asked.
"Yes," Helda said simply. "We intercepted him an hour ago. Nothing on his person now. Message is gone."
"He swallowed it," Tade muttered.
"He's not talking," she replied. "Not even a name."
Tade nodded. "He will."
The room dimmed as the interrogation lights came on—blinding white in a world of shadow. The scavenger was strapped to the chair, arms bound, breathing shallow.
Tade moved with unsettling calm. No theatrics. No yelling. Just slow, calculated work. He started with sensory deprivation, then stimulation. Heat. Sound. Pain.
Helda watched in silence, jaw tight.
Otunba—silent for days—finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "How many of these have you done?"
Tade didn't answer.
It wasn't rage. It wasn't cruelty. It was methodical, focused, terrifying in its precision. He asked questions in the same tone he might recite a weather report.
Still, the scavenger said nothing. Not one word. He endured it all, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the room, lips trembling but shut.
After almost two hours, his body went limp. Blood stained his tunic, and the room reeked of iron and sweat.
"He's dying," Helda said flatly.
Tade leaned close. "Last chance. You speak now… you live."
The scavenger managed a faint, painful smile.
Then he died.
Silence swept the room like a blade.
Tade stepped back, fury building behind his controlled expression. He yanked off his gloves, hurling them against the floor.
"Useless," he growled. "He was just a runner. He didn't even know what he was carrying."
Otunba's gaze lingered on Tade. There was something cold in his eyes. Something almost fearful.
"That boy," Otunba said quietly, "wasn't a fighter. He was a shadow. A mule. And you broke him like he was a traitor."
"He was a traitor," Tade snapped. "And now he's a dead one. Just like the next."
Commander Helda said nothing, but her silence was heavy. She'd seen death. Torture. War. But this—this had something different in it. Something colder than hate.
"Dispose of the body," Tade ordered. "Burn it. No records. If Asa gets the message, we've failed. If not… we're getting closer."
As he turned and left the room, Otunba and Helda stood in silence. The air felt heavier than it had before. Not because of the death—but because of the living.
Otunba spoke again, soft and grim.
"His father leads the army. But the son? The son might be something far more dangerous."