Chapter 18: The Truth Seeker
The Cleaner was alive, but he wished he wasn't. Max had him tied to a chair in the basement of Velvet, under a single flickering bulb.
Max wasn't torturing him physically. He was just staring at him.
"You said Kaelen is at the shipyards," Max said softly.
"Yes! Sector 4! He's meeting a supplier tonight!" the Cleaner blurted out, sweating profusely.
Max narrowed his eyes. A strange sensation tickled the back of his skull. A low, discordant hum. It was like hearing a sour note in a symphony.
Status: Deception Detected.
Skill Unlocked: Lie Perception.
The Cleaner's aura, invisible to normal eyes, flickered with a sickly green light. Max knew, with absolute certainty, that the man was lying.
"You're lying," Max said. He didn't ask. He stated it.
The Cleaner's eyes widened. "No! I swear! Sector 4!"
The green light flared brighter.
Max sighed. He stood up and walked to the table where a glass of water sat. He picked it up and took a sip.
"The Devil tells me things," Max said conversationally. "He tells me when a man's heart skips a beat. He tells me when the synapses in your brain fire the wrong way to construct a fabrication."
Max leaned close. His eyes went black. "Kaelen isn't at the shipyards. That's a trap. You want me to walk into a kill box."
The Cleaner began to weep. "Please... he'll kill my family if I talk."
"He won't have the chance," Max said. "But I am here. Right now. And I am much worse than Kaelen."
Max placed a hand on the Cleaner's forehead. He didn't hurt him. He just let a fraction of the cold, infinite void inside him leak out. He let the man see what Max saw.
The Cleaner screamed. It wasn't a scream of pain; it was a scream of existential horror. He saw the darkness waiting between the stars.
"Stop! Stop!" the Cleaner shrieked. "The Penthouse! The Skyview Towers! He's at the Penthouse!"
The green light vanished, replaced by a steady, white pulse. Truth.
Max pulled his hand back. The Cleaner slumped, drooling, his mind fractured but the truth extracted.
"Skyview Towers," Max muttered. "Top of the world."
Graves walked in, wiping blood from his hands. "We secured the perimeter. Twelve bodies. No casualties on our side. You fight like a demon, boss."
"Get the car," Max said. "We aren't going to the shipyards."
"Where are we going?"
"Uptown," Max said. "But not for Kaelen. Not yet."
"Why not?" Graves asked, confused. "We have the location."
"Because," Max said, checking his reflection in the mirror, seeing the Entity nodding in approval behind him. "If I kill him now, I just kill a man. I need to kill his power first. I need to starve him."
Max turned to the map on the wall. He pointed to three locations circled in red.
"Tonight, we hit his wallet. We hit his armory. And we hit his pride. We are going to burn his stash houses. All of them. Tonight."
"That's across three different districts," Graves said. "Impossible in one night."
Max smiled, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"I don't get tired, Graves. Try to keep up."