The room had no windows.
Concrete walls pressed inward, sweating with dampness that smelled of rust and old disinfectant. A single light hung above the wooden board, swaying slightly, casting shadows that crawled instead of moved.
He was laid flat on the plank.
Strapped.
Wrists pulled wide and tied to iron rings hammered into the wood. Ankles bound tight enough that his toes barely touched the edge. The plank itself was raised on metal stands, positioned so that nothing pooled beneath him. Everything here was designed for efficiency.
Pain included.
He stared at the ceiling without blinking.
Blinking was a habit they had beaten out of him years ago.
The man in the black coat circled slowly, boots echoing softly against the concrete. No rush. There was never a rush in this place. Time belonged to them.
"You know the procedure," the man said. His voice was calm, almost bored. "Answer clearly. Don't resist. Don't lie."
The metal peeler caught the light.
The first pull tore a sound from his chest—not a scream, just air forced out violently. His jaw clenched. Muscles went rigid. The straps creaked.
He did not beg.
He never begged.
Pain was familiar. Pain was expected. Pain meant he was still useful.
"Name," the man said.
He answered immediately. Not because he feared pain, but because hesitation was interpreted as rebellion.
"Age."
"Twenty-one."
"Affiliation."
The peeler paused.
"The Authority," he said. "Special Operations Division."
Good answer.
The blade resumed its work.
Training Facility — Fifteen Years Earlier
He did not remember his parents.
He remembered fluorescent lights.
Rows of metal beds. Identical blankets. Children lined up barefoot on cold floors before dawn, their breath fogging the air. If one child moved too slowly, all of them were punished.
Collective discipline created individual obedience.
That was lesson one.
At six, he learned to disassemble a firearm blindfolded. At eight, he learned how to hold someone underwater without leaving marks. At ten, he learned that crying wasted oxygen.
They fed them just enough.
Affection was replaced with evaluation scores.
Names were replaced with numbers.
The instructors never shouted. They didn't need to. Silence carried more weight.
"You exist because we allow it," they told them."You survive because you obey.""You will be loyal, or you will be erased."
He believed them.
Belief was easier than hope.
Interrogation Room — Present
Blood ran in thin lines along the grooves of the plank, dripping steadily onto the concrete below. The smell was thick now, metallic and warm.
The interrogator stopped again.
"Who contacted you?"
"No one."
The peeler dug deeper.
His body shook involuntarily, but his voice stayed level. Controlled. He focused on the techniques drilled into him since childhood—counting breaths, isolating sensation, imagining pain as data instead of experience.
Pain was just information.
"You were seen near the eastern safehouse," the man continued. "An unregistered movement. Explain."
"I followed orders."
"Whose?"
"The Authority's."
A lie.
But a sanctioned one.
The interrogator leaned closer. "There is no eastern safehouse anymore."
Silence.
The light flickered.
For the first time, his heartbeat stuttered—not from fear, but from calculation.
They knew.
Which meant this was not an interrogation.
It was a loyalty confirmation.
Training Facility — Later Years
By fourteen, he stopped thinking of himself as a child.
Children questioned. Weapons executed.
They taught him how to kill cleanly, efficiently, impersonally. Faces were targets. Lives were objectives. Failure meant repetition—sometimes of the mission, sometimes of the punishment.
He was good.
Too good.
Instructors stopped correcting him. They watched instead. Took notes. Adjusted his assignments.
They taught him obedience first, morality later.
Morality, they said, was flexible.
The Authority was absolute.
When he killed his first target, he felt nothing.
That earned him his codename.
A thing without emotion was reliable.
Interrogation Room — Present
The peeler was set aside.
The man wiped his hands carefully, as if finishing a routine inspection.
"You understand why we're here," he said. "A compromised asset is a liability."
"Yes."
"You know what happens if you speak."
"Yes."
"And yet you're still alive."
That was the problem.
He swallowed slowly. Each movement sent fresh agony through his body, but he ignored it. Pain was irrelevant now. The real test had begun.
"I have not betrayed the Authority," he said.
The man studied him for a long moment. "Then prove it."
A small metal tray was placed near his head.
On it: a single capsule. Clear. Colorless.
He recognized it immediately.
Standard issue.
Untraceable. Fast-acting. Absolute.
The man's voice softened. "The hideout location is compromised only if you are."
So this was the final lesson.
Not obedience.
Ownership.
Memory — The Only Crack
Once, during a mission cleanup, he saw a stray dog hiding beneath a collapsed stairwell. Mangy. Starving. It growled when approached but didn't run.
He remembered kneeling.
Offering food.
The dog ate, then stayed.
He reported the incident.
The instructor looked at him for a long time and said, "Attachment is a defect."
The next day, the dog was gone.
He never asked where it went.
Interrogation Room — Final Moments
They loosened the restraints just enough for him to move his head.
A mercy.
Or a test.
"Any last statement?" the interrogator asked.
He considered it.
All his life, he had followed orders. Believed loyalty gave meaning to existence. That being useful was the same as being alive.
He realized—quietly, without panic—that he had never chosen anything.
Except this.
"I remained honest," he said. "As instructed."
The man nodded.
He leaned forward and took the capsule between his teeth.
For the first time, his hands shook—not from fear, but from exhaustion.
He bit down.
The chemical burned like ice.
As his vision darkened, the concrete ceiling blurred into something else—paper-white, inked with words that didn't belong to this world.
A story.
A novel.
And somewhere, far beyond the Authority's reach, something else waited.
Death was not the end of his obedience.
It was the first decision he ever made.