Page 52 of Operation: Defiance

Then he’s gone.

Good. In my line of work, you learn early on that acting like you have authority will fool more people than not.

I don’t rush. Rushing would stand out. I make a show of opening a few more files for the camera in the corner, angling my body so it can’t see me sliding the thumb drive back into my pocket.

Then I stand and stride down the corridor.

The room I’m looking for won’t be marked. Not in the traditional sense. I’ll know it by what isn’t there. Traffic. Chatter. Casual glances drifting toward it. When something needs to be hidden, people overcorrect. They avoid eye contact. Go out of their way to walk around the problem, or pretend it doesn’t exist.

When I find it, it’s so obvious, I’d laugh if I didn’t know what they were hiding. Unlike all the other doors, this one at the very end of the hall, tucked away like an afterthought, has no number. No cameras pointed at it.

I turn back toward a group of contractors chatting by the break room, narrow my eyes, and raise my voice enough to carry. “This audit is about to fail because none of you have a goddamn idea what you’re doing. If my bosses get wind of how sloppy your work is, you’re looking at a site-wide review.”

That does it. Panic takes over. The group scatters in a heartbeat, and I swipe the access card I pilfered on my way in over the scanner.

Fuck me.

In the center of the tiny room, a woman is strapped to a tall metal chair. Hooded. Restrained—hands, feet, torso. Her position is wrong. Pitched forward. Probably because she can’t hold herself up any longer.

The tremor in her hands tells me exactly how far past her limits she’s been pushed—and exactly how little time she has left.

Her breathing catches once, then flattens into something deliberate and controlled. She’s conscious, but barely.

As I step inside the room, her head lifts a fraction under the hood. The movement costs her. The rise and fall of her chest stutters, then slows. I scan the space. No camera. What happens in this room doesn’t get recorded.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I say quietly.

There’s a pause. Long enough I wonder if I misjudged her awareness.

“Oh?” she says.

Her voice is wrecked, scraped raw by disuse, yet the word is clear. But nothing follows.

“I was sent for someone else. He’s dead.”

“They escalated…too quickly,” she replies. The words come a shade stronger now, as if the act of conversation flipped something back on. “You might have ninety seconds before someone notices you’re somewhere no one’s supposed to be.”

I glance back at the corridor. Listen for foot traffic. The cadence of panic.

“Eighty-seven,” I say. “I walk fast.”

The sound she makes might be amusement. Or pain. Either way, her next breath is slower. Then she lifts her head a little more.

“They won’t…release me. They can’t. They went too far.”

Her voice cracks on the last word. Even without seeing her face, I understand the effort it’s taking her to simply speak.

“I know. I read the logs. Then copied all of them.”

I take a single step closer.

Her shoulders tense immediately. Fear? Or pain?

“Wait,” she says. The word comes out thick. Frayed at the edges. “Don’t touch me⁠—”

“I’ve stopped. Three feet away.” If I could sugarcoat the truth, I would, but that would get us both killed. “You’ve been marked for disposal. If you don’t want to find out what that means, we need to move.”

She shifts in millimeters, testing the restraints without making a sound. Every movement costs her. After only a few seconds, the tremor in her body deepens. Spreads rather than settles.