Page 88 of Sins of Arrogance

“Sen­sors log three bod­ies.”

Not an in­va­sion level force then. A stealth mis­sion by play­ers that don’t know about the se­cu­rity up­grades to the Bunker?

Or some­one sent to blow it up?

My thoughts lock and load, fir­ing in rapid suc­ces­sion. The ex­ter­nal ap­proach tun­nels are our weak­est link. Bro­gan in­sists we keep them though.

Shaugh­nessy sol­diers are trained to seek refuge in them when nec­es­sary. But we no longer rely on them be­ing hid­den as the pri­mary de­ter­rent to in­cur­sion.

The ac­cess tun­nels got a se­cu­rity up­grade with the rest of the fa­cil­ity be­fore we moved the whis­per gun project in.

It’s con­ceiv­able a ri­val dis­cov­ered the ac­cess point to 3G watch­ing one of our sol­diers.

It’s a best case sce­nario. 3G used to house the dor­mi­to­ries and stash rooms.

Sleep­ing quar­ters have been moved to a more se­cure sec­tion in the MNOPs and the old ones now look like they’re a for­got­ten bomb shel­ter.

The stash rooms are used to store in­nocu­ous things cov­ered in lay­ers of dust and grime that would lead in­fil­tra­tors to be­lieve they’ve stum­bled on a base­ment that hasn’t been used in years.

We’re at too crit­i­cal a stage of de­vel­op­ment for the whis­per guns to rely on mis­di­rec­tion though. “Lock down 3G through 3L. Feed non­lethal into the vents. I want them cough­ing up their own in­sides be­fore they get a look at any­thing use­ful.”

I don’t wait for ac­knowl­edg­ment. I’m al­ready mov­ing.

Foot­steps silent against the resin-re­in­forced con­crete, I make my way down a par­al­lel ac­cess cor­ri­dor. The walls here are re­in­forced with smart steel pan­el­ing, and bio­met­ric sen­sors scan me, re­set­ting alerts as I pass.

This part of the fa­cil­ity was built two gen­er­a­tions ago when Bro­gan’s grand­fa­ther needed some­where to stash bod­ies and se­crets. Be­fore the up­grades it was a bleedin’ war­ren of for­got­ten rooms, tim­ber re­in­forced tun­nels, and old bones.

The feckin’ smell of de­com­pos­ing bod­ies had soaked into the dirt walls.

Fresh, clean con­crete is a huge im­prove­ment. The grave­yard is filled in and has been sealed off, the re­main­ing bones dis­solved in a chem­i­cal bath.

Ap­proach­ing the ac­cess point to a con­nect­ing tun­nel be­tween me and our in­trud­ers, I pull up the se­cu­rity feed on my smart­watch.

Three masked in­trud­ers. Tac­ti­cal gear. Amer­i­can boots. Mil­i­tary pos­ture. Who­ever they are, they by­passed the se­cu­rity code on the en­trance and didn’t trig­ger a warn­ing un­til their body weights were de­tected on the new pres­sure sen­si­tive floor­ing in the tun­nel.

With a tap on my smart­watch, I trig­ger the over­head flash-dis­ori­en­ta­tion lights and ear-pierc­ing alarm.

Hands go­ing up re­flex­ively to cover their ears, they stag­ger.

I smile and cut all the lights and then the sound.

Un­wor­ried they’ll re­cover quickly enough to ac­cess their own por­ta­ble il­lu­mi­na­tion, I slide on night vi­sion glasses. Their pupils will be in re­ac­tive mode for at least an­other forty-five sec­onds.

Wher­ever they thought they were, they walked into hell. And I am an di­a­b­hal, it’s king.

And if I’m the king of this hell, the in­ter­ro­ga­tion fa­cil­ity is my throne room.

We didn’t get rid of the old in­ter­ro­ga­tion rooms. We just re­placed the rusted hooks and blood-soaked drains with sur­gi­cal-grade steel and re­in­forced sound­proof­ing.

Clin­i­cal. Ef­fi­cient. Easy to clean.

Each one is rigged with re­mote mon­i­tor­ing and bio­met­ric locks – ac­ces­si­ble only to me or the peo­ple I trust to break some­one with­out killing them too soon.

The last man I worked over pissed him­self when I whis­pered my name in his ear. Rep­u­ta­tion is ev­ery­thing.

Es­pe­cially when it’s true.

The one be­fore that bit through his tongue to avoid an­swer­ing a sec­ond ques­tion. It didn’t save him, but it did save his fin­gers for a while.