We’re all supposed to be going back to our home, Hjuzet, but the Head of the Security Forces has other plans since we’re returning after almost two years. Thus, after we decided that We’re going home we got stuck with another one of those “assignments”. So, this is another week delayed. Crap.
***
She rushed through the rooftops as fast as she possibly could. Running on her tiptoes, swiftly, the darkness really doesn’t affect her. It was a half moon but still the light showed her the path.
Which turning was it? Where’s that opening?
She sees a hand wave slightly in her direction and in a split second, jumps.
‘You’ve finally arrived,’ he says, ushering her inside. The street lights on the main street almost completely hide this opening. Walking down, there’s a little trapdoor behind a dumpster.
He pulls the hatch and she goes in, down the stairs, into a room with a single yellow bulb in the center. Right under the bulb is a man in his mid-twenties, face colored black and blue, tied deftly to a chair.
Behind her, the door lightly shuts and polar bear walks in, standing next to the stairs.
‘You finally made it,’ whispers another voice from further inside.
‘I couldn’t miss this, shadow,’ she replies.
Shadow kicks the legs of the chair and the man groggily moves his head side to side, mumbling incoherently. Shadow’s face comes close as he whispers something menacing and the man shivers, but stops.
‘Who are you people?’ he pleads.
She walks up to the man, her footsteps, clip clopping purposefully on the wooden flooring. He has bloodstains on his tattered clothes, a black eye and profusely bleeding knuckles. His right elbow and knees looks bruised.
She lands her boots right above his knee and he screams a little, his breathing getting faster.
‘Hush, now,’ she whispers, ‘I have very simple questions.’
He gulps and looks petrified.
‘You know who I am,’ she starts and he gives a nod.
‘You also know where the man who I’m looking for is,’ she continues. He’s still scared but he doesn’t say anything. She grits her teeth, her eyes as cold as ice as she grills her boot into his bruised knee.
He screams.
‘Now, again,’ she breathes, her voice gone back to being calm, ‘You do know the whereabouts of the man I’m looking for?’
He’s shivering but unrelenting to her stoney gaze. He’s going to break.
She puts both her hands on his shoulders, giving him a little “massage” and he screams again.
Bringing her face close to his ears, she repeats her question.
This time, he nods, ever so slightly, ‘I confess. I confess.’
He begins to cry.
‘Great,’ she claps her hands and rises, ‘this man behind me is the lazy polar bear. He will gladly listen to your story.’
The man who had opened the door for her steps forward from the shadows and smiles down. She walks ahead but stops two steps from the chair.
‘And I’d rather not test his patience, minister,’ she warns slyly.
***
Walking into the adjacent room, she throws her mask on the table and crashes on the chair, ‘what’s the status, Oryza?’
‘That poor man has been here for three days,’ she says, still clicking on the screen in front of her, ‘and it took you three minutes to make him confess.’
‘Thank you,’ she replies dryly, ‘but I’d rather not be known for such things. Coming back…’
‘OK,’ Oryza replies, finally dropping the screen and looking at her, ‘you need to put this pen drive into the main system once you enter the building. If you succeed, we’ll have gained access to all the servers.’
She takes the pen drive from Oryza and looks quizzically at it, ‘so if I put this in the right computer-’
‘-and run the program which I’ll tell you about once you get there-’
‘-we’ll be done here?’ I finish.
Oryza nods. Behind her, the doors open and shadow walks in, ‘hey guys.’
‘What’s the status?’ she repeats her question.
‘Reina has gone back,’ he replies, ‘that leaves the four of us.’
She glances at the minister in the other room through the one way glass, ‘what would you consider we do with him?’
Shadow glances at him and shrugs, ‘you know. Actually, he’ll do it. You and I can run up and get this pen drive business done so we can go home already.’
She rises, ‘you’re right. It took us a day to find him and then three days to get him to confess. We might as well not extend this more than a week. The Head anyways thinks we’re slacking off.’
Oryza and shadow return a swift.
***
The assignment that the Head gave them wasn’t something easy. They needed to gain access to servers all across the seven continents. On top of that, he had a hunch over the whole “Suri (fire) tribe Reina’s coronation” thing due to which he suggested Reina to go home and continue the preparations.
For them, it was a method to earn their previous status as a part of the Elite Squad.
The minister told them all we needed to know, in the end.
The previous leader of the Suri Tribe was murdered.
***
‘What do you want me to do with him,’ Trek, or the lazy polar bear, asks her before she leaves with Daimon or shadow.
She stops in her steps, looking back, ‘give him a clean ending, he served us well.’
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