It'd been a long day. Not unlike any of my previous days, I'd always be subjected to long hours, the position came with it. But today had an extra slap of stress set onto it.
I'd spent an uncomfortable amount of time on the phone with Matthias, assuring him that everything was fine here and Luciano was completely safe. I'd beefed up his security several times and only authorized myself and a few doctors after running a background on them with the intel-ii.
I'd taken to the idea that perhaps Luciano was in fact the target of an assassination. The explosion seemed too convenient for it to simply be an accident. The Malagasy may have found a way to get behind our lines, a spy of their own, an inside man, a traitor within the ranks even. Anything was plausible at this point.
I then spent over twelve hours testing the War tab on its ability to coordinate my forces. It was a delicate mission and the simple part was rendering everyone blind.
Nizar had long developed a bomb that not only dealt casualties but attacked the guidance and communication systems of any and everything within a (). He did so on the behest of my father, for whatever reason father feared that with the rapid rise of technology they'd be robot armies marching across the border.
Either way, it was a convenient invention that spared me a lot of brainstorming on the diversion front of the plan. The next bit was where I came in, after the bomb was dropped and devices had been neutralized, there'd be only one means of communications available and it'd be in our hands. I would use that to then give directions, warnings and orders to the plane that fly's out for the mission.
It was a bit hard on my conscience ordering a plane to fly out behind enemy lines without any form of reinforcements, mostly because I had to give the order with absolutely no tangible proof that I could indeed do what I claimed I could.
Upon hearing I wanted to order an armed craft with a squad of elite soldiers for an extraction mission behind enemy lines with only my word that they would come back safe and sound, the generals had convened to discuss my sanity.
I was upset at first but I soon became flattered. They'd gone as far as having a skype call with Loup and even had the courtesy to sneak behind my back to do so. Of course I'd walked in on the meeting and taken a seat like I was invited, and I'd sent someone to Loup in place of myself, albeit he was a bit more armed than I was.
Though I'd temporarily stripped them of the right to an opinion on my orders, effectively making them into yes-men, I promised it was only for the purposes of the mission and once the mission was a success, they would learn to trust my word. I'd made this promise after I'd gone ahead to chew out my cousin, Alex, whom I had previously put in charge of the mission, but alas, due to his inability to follow through I had to yet again step in with a radical plan, the plan they all looked at me crazy for.
As luck would have it, I was prepared and the mission was a success. The package was a bit roughed up but Nizar said it would do the job.
But then came the bad news. One of the agents we'd assigned to the retrieval had been blown to bits, another returned in a critical state and the last had probably gone insane, clutching onto what was left of the one that was blown to bits.
And now, I had to talk to that person.
"…But if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear it all, start to finish from you."
Perhaps the man wasn't completely aware of himself and his surroundings after what had been a gruelling experience, but his still body and dead eyes staring at me for what had been over a minute had begun to get to me.
Just as I was about to repeat myself, he bursts out screaming in utter madness for a second before finally getting out the words, "Well, you fucking ordered us to get a chip and we got it. You goddamn bastard!"
Waving off the guard who'd been shocked into action by his screams, I find myself needing a seat.
"Well," his fists were balled up, "Could you, rather, do you want to elaborate on how the mission went, Alban?"
His eyes were blood-shot and his balled up fists had undoubtedly begun to bleed, yet he looked calm. "I don't really want to talk about it, little boy." His voice held no inflections, he spoke in a monotone of disinterest with his head fiddling around from side to side, dead eyes regarding every bit of my office with a cold glance.
His hands worried me, he clenched them so tight that blood had begun dripping out on the desk. his attitude was the complete inverse of what his bleeding hands said, I knew with certainty that Alban wasn't, at least in the moment, mentally stable.
"That's perfectly fine with me, Alban, we can chat another time, Sadiq will walk you out."
He had no outward reaction to my dismissal or the guard that now stood beside him, and that worried me. "Alban? Are you listening?"
He slammed the desk with his bloody palms and shot to his feet. "Yes, yes I'm listening to you, loud and clear Mister fucking president! I hear what you say, I hear it well, you want me out of your pristine office don't you? Done the job you wanted now time to….Get off of me you servant of the devil!"
He'd begun fighting the grip of my guard, Sadiq, the door opened and more of men marched in to subdue him.
Perhaps I could calm him. With my pain infliction skill. I'd never practiced inflicting anything other than pain on my volunteers. I'd always planned to inflict a variety of emotions, states of mind and feelings with it but I'd never gotten around to it. Was it truly even possible? The name of the skill was, after all, Pain-Infliction.
Just as they were hauling Alban the crazy out of the room, I have them set him down on the carpet and hold down his hands and legs.
'Okay…we can do this, if we can't then we get to say we tried.'
With a sigh I go ahead and begin the process, analysing and feeling what I wanted to deliver, and how intense I wanted it to be. But with an emotion like calm, it came a bit difficult.
His screams turned to mutters and his mutters to shrieks. I wasn't sure I was getting it right at all until everyone in the room fell asleep.