Sam was crammed aboard a bus, squeezed uncomfortably between Sebastian and a stranger as she tried to keep an eye on her crew. The whole time Andre had kept a hand on Taneesha’s shoulder, all sticking together in cluster. Unable to see outside or even breath for that matter, both she and Sebastian were equally on edge, trying their hardest to hide it. Maybe this is why I got so much flack for not studying the town maps more. I have absolutely no clue where we are going or what the fuck we are even trying to do. What did I get myself into this time? I really must have lost my damn mind, tagging along, signing up for this madness.

The bus came to a stop and Sam felt herself suddenly tugged by her bag from behind as Kerry pulled them towards the exit while waving to Andre to bring Taneesha with him.

.

The bus drove off, leaving a trail of kicked up dust as Sam waved it away from her face, turning to see the massive concrete wall behind them, casting an ominous shadow. “Kerry, remind me why are we stopping here instead of the Shewra-whatever? I think we are the only ones who did.”

“Follow me,” Kerry flatly ordered as the crew followed her into an alley across the street from the wall. The alley took them between rows of dilapidated housing structures, cables and pipes hanging from wall to wall. What they had seen up to this point was destitute as it was, but this seemed to be the epitome of the poverty gap. She kept her watch up in front, trying to identify a building she had preset in her navigation app. Spotting it, she quickly turned a corner and panned her vision across the alleyway, looking for something.

“Oh, this place. I remember now,” Andre said as he pushed Taneesha along before stepping just next to Kerry with a hand pointing up at a second-floor establishment. “There, right?”

As the group turned for a rickety stairwell, Sebastian leaned over to Sam as to whisper, not wanting to be heard not only by the oft-passing townspeople but also by Kerry and Andre who had been steadily emanating a somewhat threatening aura since the hotel scene. “Let me walk behind you. I don’t know if I can trust this is not a new trap.”

Sam nodded and gladly picked up the pace to let him fall a step behind as they approached a rusty door with Bengali written all over the sign above it, mixed in with faded, matted poster papers that had been little-seen and long-forgotten. Before passing through the door Kerry opened with a code entry, Sam got one more peek across the way at the large concrete wall, now able to see multiple higher-rising buildings with no lights on, giving off no signs of life. A cold shudder ran down her spine as she turned to enter. The room was dimly lit, and the stale air smelled of a building that had not seen activity for years. “Kerry, where are we?”

“Take a seat,” she commanded with a motion towards an old wooden table, accompanied by equally rickety metal chairs. Behind the table were two doors, both shut, no sign of the lights on behind them. She saw Sam start to move before she put a hand up: “Not you, the chick.”

Taneesha, still trembling from earlier, stiffly approached the table and took a seat, looking back up to the group, knowing what had to be done for her survival’s sake. “This… this must be a ‘safe room’. Mr. Vrey to-told me about these but never spoke of where they were.”

“Damn right,” Andre huffed as he took a seat across from her. “Kerry and I have a whole damn list of these. Don’t think we didn’t learn a thing or two from our last squad command before things fell through.”

Kerry then walked up behind him for the looming interrogation. “So, spill it, bitch. Who is this Marian Channing chick? Is she who you were about to double cross us for? And what were your plans for us? Speak fast before our two minutes are up and we ditch.”

Sam noted that Sebastian, content to stay leaning on the wall by the exit door, was listening intently on the conversation. Everything has been moving an absolute mile a minute since we set foot on solid ground but even Sebastian seems to be acting way too naturally. Maybe I need to join in on the crowd. Is this how life goes out in the field? Shit…

“Thank you… for letting me speak,” she continued in an even shakier voice, now staring down at the table. “You have to understand my work was always for keeping my party’s best interest at heart. It’s true that… I was working with the Underground to help my party win, and… that includes se-setting up Infinity. But today, today was the day I had to draw a line.”

“No beating around the bush, less than two minutes,” Kerry warned, impatiently tapping her watch.

“Mr. Vrey told me about a Marian Channing! And I realized before that this Ms. Cable I was working with had to be her!” Taneesha now spoke with more alarm, more desperation in her voice as Kerry and Andre leaned in, listening more intently. “This man, Rex, told me you were to come days from now, not today, and to bring you to a different area for ambushing. But before today, before Mr. Vrey told me the plans changed, I saw Ms. Cable- er, Ms. Channing speaking with my uncle Rakib Hossain and his son, my cousin, Sharif.”

That’s a lot of names to take down… Rex… Hossain…

“He is a threat to this country, and I knew immediately I was being used… my whole party and family was being used. But I couldn’t turn away and challenge them because they watch every move I make, so I went about business as usual. That was when I took you to the proper area at first to get you away from the ambush first so I could explain in privacy.”

“Not buying,” Kerry snubbed, once again checking her watch. “Thirty seconds.”

“The election is at risk, now, with my uncle being involved. I thought our country needed to be rid of Hexa, but now I see we need Hexa. You have less than a week to stop them!”

Andre stood up with a smirk. “Come on, Kerry, she knows how we do- that is if the CEO really talked to her.”

Taneesha continued to grow more nervous. “Hold on, I-”

“Nah. Let’s let the Underground deal with her. I got a few good names down. Ready to seal the building?”

Seal the building?! What does that mean?!

“No! Wait!” Taneesha cried out with another stream of tears bursting as if she were pleading for her life.

“Oh, she knows the code,” Kerry said as she saw Andre return a “told you so” look. “Well, alrighty then!”

The panic, fear, confusion, and bewilderment that had dominated the morning for Sam was now turning to frustration as while nothing was going to plan, there was this seemingly well-established plan B that no one clued her in on. “Can either of you tell me what the hell is going on!?”

“Sam,” Sebastian quickly stopped her as he pulled her back firmly by the shoulder. “Watch. Let them finish. I can see they have very, very good experience.” Turning to see his stoic expression was another put-off to add to her list.

Kerry finished typing in a message on her phone when she looked back up to Taneesha and almost began to feel sympathy for the hell of a morning she had been through herself. “There was no timer for real. That was just my West Bank temper.” She then walked up with a hand out. “Now, the last thing before we part ways. Your burner, please.”

“Ooh, asking nicely,” Andre quipped.

“My burner?” Taneesha responded in confusion.

Kerry rolled her eyes. “Your burner phone. Then we let you go.”

Taneesha heard the click of a pistol’s safety being disengaged. Knowing she by now had no other choice, she reached into another one of her jacket pockets and placed a smaller mobile in her hand along with a watch. “There. That is everything I have.”

“You are officially off the list with us, and our eye in the sky now has you on full watch. You dare come near us you know your fate.”

“Eye in the sky…” Sam muttered under her breath. They pulled in another military orbital surveillance satellite already? Damn it, Director! Why weren't we briefed on this!?

“Alright, you’re free to go,” Andre said as he put away his pistol and motioned to the door.

Sebastian opened it as they watched Taneesha make her way out as he too began to return a confused expression. He closed the door and locked it instinctively, turning to ask: “Are we really OK to let her go?”

“Follow us,” Kerry said as they passed through one of the doors across the room into another smaller hallway with a trap door between the door and the wall. She opened it up, revealing a ladder that headed straight down several floors as could be visible by the available but dim lighting. “Only a few spots like this were secured for us by ‘insiders’ during our last month of stay when shit was getting heated. This will take us back to the other end of the neighborhood, giving us a clear exit to head to where we need to be headed.”

“But what about the girl?” Sam asked as she waited her turn for getting on the ladder.

“She can’t do shit before we disappear,” Andre answered as he adjusted his shouldered bag. “This place is shielded from all digital interception.”

“And last question – how is there such a crazy plan B I was never aware of? A sweeper satellite- how was that pulled off?”

“You think we planned this bullshit operation?!” Kerry sneered as she continued her descent. “A sweeper what? We just did what we could to get information!”

Sam felt somewhat back-stabbed, having believed everything she saw and heard. “Let me guess, your plan to shoot her earlier was fake as well?”

“Of course! Never pulled a trigger at someone in our lives!” Andre added with a smile.

“It looked so… real…” Sam found herself mumbling out loud, climbing onto the ladder.

“I grew up amongst some crazy ass shit on the daily,” Kerry explained in a more serious tone. “You grow up New West Bank like me, you get to learn how some people get what they want, and in our case, we had to act. I personally couldn’t kill anyone unless absolutely necessary for self-defense- and never had to so far, but that bitch really got me mad back there, not gonna lie.”

“You remind me of my brother,” Sebastian suddenly joined in as he climbed in after Sam. “And that is a good thing.”

I don’t know, Sebastian, Sam thought as she heard Andre close the trap door. I don’t even know these two people anymore. It’s like we are talking to two completely different crew members.

.

It was a good, awkward descent until the whole crew reached the bottom, looking down a short, dark, damp hallway to a single door with a series of metal bolts locking it shut. “Before we go out, which I assume is out, Kerry can I ask one last question?” Because this one has really been bugging the shit out of me since earlier.

She sighed initially, but let out a relaxed chuckle as there was evidently no longer a reason to stay tensed up. “I get it, and we will run the whole thing down once we reach our next secure spot. But you’re about to ask about me and Andre’s GB9’s. You know we can’t tell you about these while on Hexa property. We’d lose our jobs and so would Ms. Norris.”

“But how?! Just having one on you has you tracked and everything!”

“These are old school,” she said as she reached for hers, tossing it to her as Sam caught it.

She immediately felt the incredible weight of it, almost like she was catching a pair of channel locks. She immediately noticed it had an ejection port, clueing her in on what Kerry meant. “These… are cased rounds?!” she asked in shock, quickly handing it back to her as she felt afraid to handle it. “I had my training but only with the standard issue ones.” All weapons, both large and small, were designed to use caseless ammunition since the dawn of the century. She had only heard of old world, cased ammunition weapons floating around Earth, escaping the tracking system that was mandatorily put on all weapons since the move to caseless ammunition.

Kerry locked the slide back, catching the ejected round and passed it to Sam.

“I feel like I am holding some kind of old-world relic,” she spoke under her breath, feeling the cold steel of the brass case. As she handed it back to her, watching her remove the magazine before replacing the round, she continued to ask: “Where did you get- er, should I ask, who gave you these?!”

“Now that I will have to say sorry, won’t go there until we can truly trust each other,” she curtly answered as she reset the slide position and re-holstered. “Stick close. We have a few blocks to walk before reaching the Amin Bazar safe house.” She then raised a brow before turning to the door. “And you’d know where that safe house was if you properly studied your damn maps.”

Sebastian held up the rear of the pack as he had been, following the rest to the door leading outside, but no one noticed he had been preoccupied by what he had just seen marked on the pistol passed around. [That was a Deimar model. Same mark we have been seeing on the foreign protestors. I got a lot of questions, too, Sam, but when is a good time to speak up?]

.

.

●　● Akkadia One, Eden Space Territories

Al had stepped outside of the board meeting room as he pressed a button on his earpiece. “You can talk, now,” he spoke to the other end. He leaned against the wall, seemingly exhausted from the non-stop activity that came along with this most recent operation and shift in resources.

“Sorry to disturb you during… whatever it is you’re busy with,” he heard Danielle speak over the line. “But I want to ask one major thing if that’s OK.”

“Shoot.”

“Bring in a sweeper satellite for us, will you?”

“And why would I do that?” he laughed in disbelief. “Last time we did that we got our heads nearly taken off by every politician aimed at us.

“Our contact has been compromised.”

He felt his heart drop immediately. “Explain.”

“That Sur lady got busted. Something went down and my kids got a lot of info extracted from her. Now- I know that doesn’t answer your question so hold on.”

“Shit,” he grumbled as he casually walked back into the meeting room with his headset now attached to the room’s headset system. “Keep going.”

“The name Kerry gave me was a Hossain, two of them, actually. Rakib and Sharif Hossain.”

The rest of the men in the room instantly stopped what they were doing at the mention of those names.

“Said that even though her original intent was to work with the Underground, hearing those names involved had her run back to us,” she continued. “And not only did she confirm that Channing is in fact involved, she was the one tracking her. She goes by the code name Cable. Another code name she gave us was Rex. Any idea who the hell that is?”

Vincent immediately walked up and gave a signal to the group to record the conversation.

“No, Danielle, you will have to give us time on that one, but we got that name down… both of them,” Al answered as he quickly took his seat back, pen in hand. “Keep going.”

“Anyway, they had to let her go. They got a tracker planted on her back collar, not sure how the ever-living hell they got that planted there without getting caught, but we are going to need the big eyes on this whole region today and tomorrow I guarantee.”

“Is she demanding a sweeper satellite? Who gave her the idea we would have clearance to do that?!” Lucian quietly spoke in a mix of surprise and frustration to the table.

“Look, we can’t do that yet, either. Unless of course that is we have some extenuating circumstances,” Al continued as he saw Vincent shake his head in declination.

“Um,” she stumbled for a moment. “Not that we do, the kids are all on their way to the next safe house on the list which no one knows but them as things are. But Channing being there is basically guaranteeing every damn Cloak is out there somewhere and who knows what all was listened in on. Is there no other way to guarantee their surroundings are monitored 24/7? That’s my only fear. Someone sneaking in on their slumber kind of thing, you know? Shit they aren’t all trained for…”

“What’s it looking like for you?”

“Me? I have my 6am air drop scheduled for them. Why?”

“No. Let’s bump that up to tonight 9pm. We will get that drop convoy in the air ASAP.” Al then looked up to see his surrounding’s reaction, seeing a number of heads nodding in agreement. “So far the moving up of everything way ahead of schedule seems to have them thrown off enough to give us more hope. Are you sure they are ready, though?”

“What, to pilot?”

“Talking about the project, so yes. That was a lot in less than two weeks.”

He heard Danielle let out a worried sigh. “They are as ready as they could be. I don’t know what else to say other than they have my trust.”

Al then saw a hand sign from Vincent as he continued: “Are the pilots contacting you by phone?”

“No, this is over encrypted code by text. Why?”

“You know we can never be sure who is listening in. You don’t know what we’ve been dealing with. Stick to that unless you are in person.” He then leaned back as he let out a long breath. “The rest is up to you all. We will see about that sweeper satellite but only once we go jump through some more hoops. But until then, I assume someone has an eye on Sur?”

“Well, you see…”

“The kid bluffed, didn’t she,” he said with another disappointed sigh, now massaging the bridge of his nose. “No choice but to continue with it. Shit. We will get back in touch before you drop.”

As the call disconnected the room quickly returned to its level of activity, all except for Al who had remained stationary in thought for a moment. Gabe, take care of them. If you haven’t bailed out already, that is.

“Get that report on the Hossain’s!” he heard Lucian next to him shout to staff members behind him. “And someone get the ball rolling on figuring out who the hell Rex is!”