Somewhere in New York City, deep inside a massive subway station, a group of terrorists had rounded up everyone they could find and forced them into the center of the main concourse. They herded the people like cattle, made them sit down, and took them hostage.
To make sure no one tried anything stupid, they installed a motion sensor device on the ceiling. A black dome with blinking red lights. It watched everything with its infrared eyes, ticking slowly, steadily, like a heartbeat. It wasn't a bomb on its own, but it was wired into the real danger: C4.
They had placed the explosives not on the ceiling, but on the ground and hidden around objects just outside the red circle, bricks of C4 taped under benches, inside trash cans, and strapped to support beams near the perimeter. The thin red ring sprayed on the floor marked the blast radius. No one was allowed to cross that line.
Or else.
"Waah! Waah!"
A baby's cries echoed across the chamber. Among the huddled group, a mother held her child close, trying to soothe it. The infant's skin looked pale. It had been crying non-stop from hunger. They'd been trapped here for over a day. No food. No water.
"Don't cry, baby. There's nothing to be scared of. Mommy's right here," she whispered, gently rocking her arms.
The terrorists looked at ease. Five of them. One reclined in a folding chair, boots on the shattered remains of a vending machine. Another lay stretched out on the floor, one hand behind his head, phone in the other. They were scrolling through news articles about the attack. Watching videos. Reading comments. Laughing. One of them even had Netflix open.
But what they didn't know was that among the hostages, someone was watching them just as closely.
A man, early thirties, sharp eyes. Quiet. Calm. He had been studying them for hours. Watching how they moved. Noting when they turned their backs. He knew they'd all die here unless someone did something.
So he waited. And when he saw one of them step away for a piss, and the others caught up in some video, he moved.
He bolted. Jumped to his feet and sprinted across the red line. For a second, nobody reacted.
Then—
"Hey!"
One of them shouted. Another turned sharply and pointed.
[Shoot him!]
Gunfire filled the air. Loud. Sudden. Violent. The man didn't make it far. Maybe ten meters. A spray of bullets caught him across the chest. He twisted mid-run and crashed to the floor, skidding to a stop with blood pouring out of him fast.
Screams erupted. Someone shouted. A woman started crying.
"The ceiling! It's ticking!"
"Shit! It's about to explode!"
Everyone looked up. The dome overhead blinked faster now. Red and blue lights flashing. The ticking was rapid. Urgent. It sounded like a bomb about to go off, even though it hadn't yet.
People panicked.
"We have to get out of here!"
BANG!
A man broke. He stepped outside the red line in the chaos. One of the terrorists shot him instantly. A clean shot. The man dropped like dead weight, body twitching once before going still.
"It's okay, baby. Mommy's here..." The mother whispered again, rocking the child through the madness.
"Waah! Waah!"
"It's gonna blow!"
"Please let us out!"
The terrorists said nothing. Didn't move. Didn't flinch. Some of them were backing up now. Stepping away from the red circle, putting space between themselves and the hostages.
"They're leaving us to die!"
"Look at me, baby. Everything will be alright..."
"I'm not dying like this!"
BANG!
Another hostage made a break for it. A woman, mid-thirties, screaming as she ran. Another shot. Right between the eyes. She collapsed face-first across the red line.
"WAAH! WAAH!!" The baby screamed louder now, shrill and terrified.
"Fuck this!"
"Let's kill them!"
A group of men snapped. Charged the terrorists in desperation. It was over in seconds.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bodies dropped. Blood splattered the floor. One man made it close enough to tackle a terrorist, but a second one shot him point-blank in the side of the head. He went limp before he hit the ground.
The rest froze. Trapped in place. Screaming. Sobbing. Begging. No one dared move now. The ticking was louder. Faster.
"WAAAHHHH!!" The baby kept crying.
"Everything's gonna be alright. Everything's gonna be alri—"
BOOM!!
The explosion erupted from the ground and objects just beyond the red circle. The C4 blasts tore through benches, trash cans, and steel supports, sending a storm of shrapnel into the crowd. Fragmented metal, splinters of concrete, and twisted steel bars ripped through flesh like paper.
Bodies were thrown into the air. Limbs torn off. Faces shredded. Organs spilled onto the tiles. The blast wave slammed into the hostages, breaking bones, collapsing lungs, tearing open skin. Blood sprayed in long arcs across the concourse.
The mother and her baby were hit directly. A sharp chunk of a bench, hurled like a blade, pierced the woman's chest. Her arms went limp. The child never stopped crying. Not until a second piece of debris, jagged and red-hot, crushed its skull. Silence followed.
Some were thrown hard against the tiled floor, spines snapped. Others were buried beneath chunks of collapsed columns. There were screams, but they were weak, fading, swallowed by choking blood and broken jaws.
One man's legs were gone, blown off below the knee. He twitched in shock, arms clawing at the floor. A woman dragged herself across shattered glass, leaving a wide trail of red behind her. Another simply lay there, staring at nothing, eyes wide open and coated in dust.
Somehow, some were still alive. Barely. Groaning, moaning, gasping under rubble. Their voices sounded far away, like echoes in a tomb.
One of the terrorists stepped back from the wreckage. Calm. Composed. He raised a walkie talkie to his mouth and pressed the button.
[Report. Our job here is done. Proceeding back to base.]
...
...
...
"Huh... Huh?!"
A few hours after getting knocked out by Saiko, Chad finally wakes up. It's morning now. The operation began last night at midnight. Sunlight streams through a window, hitting him straight in the eyes.
"Looks like your sidekick's finally awake. Let me introduce myself again. My name is Gabriel."
"What the...?! Where am I?"
As Chad becomes fully alert, he realizes he's tied to a chair in a dark room. The only light comes from the morning sun, but the room itself looks expensive, even luxurious. Sitting in front of him is a man with a beard, wearing a white shirt.
"You're Chad, right? We're glad to have you here in one of the finest places in New York City," the man says with a smirk.
"Don't talk to him!" another voice snaps.
Chad turns to his right.
"Mister Neil?!"
"I'm sorry, Chad. I couldn't get us out."
"Sorry, always sorry," Gabriel says in a mocking tone. "You act like every problem in the world is your fault. But guess what? The three of you ended up here because of me."
"Three?"
Chad shifts in his chair to look further toward Neil, then sees another man wearing a vest, also tied up.
"Hi, kid," the man says.
"President Mikeal?!"
It's him. The man kidnapped by terrorists in the news. The President of the United States.
"Yeah, it's me. You're Neil's student, right?"
"Oh, so you two know each other?" Gabriel asks.
"I'm not talking to you," the President replies sharply.
"Mister President, I think you should know what position you're in right now. Your life is completely under our control, and it will be decided in..."
Gabriel checks his watch.
"Twenty-eight hours. Unless the White House agrees to my conditions."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, at about ten in the morning yesterday, I contacted the White House and gave them my demands. In return for the safety of the President here, and about two million innocent civilians we are holding, directly or indirectly. I gave them exactly forty-eight hours. It's currently six in the morning now."
He pauses for a second to calculate.
"That means twenty hours have passed. Twenty-eight more to go."
"What did you ask for?"
"Hmm?"
"The demands. What did you tell them?"
Gabriel turns to the President.
"I think you can answer that for me, Mister President."
All three of them look at Mikeal, who hesitates for a moment before speaking.
"He asked for a withdrawal of all our troops in Afghanistan, and a transfer of the entire country of West Germany. Land, civilians, property, everything. Handed over to the government of East Germany."
"And you accepted that?!" Neil exclaims.
"Of course I didn't. But right now, I'm not the one making the decisions."
A heavy silence falls over the room. Neil stares at the ground, then looks up slowly, something clearly clicking in his mind.
"Those are just distractions, aren't they? A cover for what this is really about."
"What do you mean?" the President asks.
"All of the terrorists I've encountered so far, I noticed they all speak English. Maybe not fluently, but they all understand it. Most of them also speak another language, either Russian or Pashto—the language used in Afghanistan. And it's not a coincidence. There are too many of them speaking those two. I recognize the sounds from my time serving in Afghanistan."
Gabriel keeps nodding as if he's been waiting for Neil to say exactly that, while the President sits there confused, trying to piece together what Neil is getting at.
"What are you implying?" the President finally asks.
"I was thinking... what if this is a joint operation. The Taliban wants revenge on American soil. The Wagner Group only wants to ignite war between NATO and the Soviet Union. I can't tell if they're being backed by the Soviets directly, but if they are... war is coming, Mister President."
Hearing that, the President's eyes go wide. His mouth hangs open. He looks stunned.
"So that's what you meant," he says, looking at Gabriel now.
Clap. Clap. Gabriel applauds, amused.
"Congratulations. You're absolutely right. Our real goal is to push the United States and the Soviet Union into a full-blown war. But tell me, how did you figure it out?"
"I didn't. We didn't," Neil replies with a smug look. "It was one of your own people who gave it away."
"And where is this... my subordinate?"
"Why would I tell you—"
"Let me guess. Somewhere in a basement beneath a bar labeled 'Safe.' There are three people besides the one you mentioned."
"What?!" Neil and Chad both freeze, panic showing clearly on their faces.
"Oh, and there's another one. Someone we found in the underground level of this very building. What was his name again? Yeah... Roy."
"Don't you dare lay a finger on them!" Neil shouts and tries to lunge forward, even though he's still tied to the chair.
"Aha! That's the Neil Phildom I love to see," Gabriel says, more excited than ever.
"But don't worry, Neil. We'll bring them all here soon. And we'll keep them in one nice, cozy room. I promise. We won't do anything to them. Unless, of course... you force my hand."
"Why are you doing all of this?" Chad finally asks, unable to hold it in any longer.
"Why?" Gabriel walks closer to him. "Haven't you been listening? We want to start a war between the US and the—"
"I know that. I mean you. Why are you personally doing this? You don't come all the way here, put yourself on the most wanted list, and risk everything just for money. What's your motive?"
"My motive? Let me think..." Gabriel pauses. Then smiles darkly. "I've seen what both sides do. The cruelty. The lies. The broken promises. I've watched both America and the Soviets commit horrors in the name of freedom or order or whatever they like to call it. So honestly, I would enjoy nothing more than sitting down, eating popcorn, and watching the two biggest monsters in the world burn each other to the ground."
"How about the innocent people? What have they done to deserve this?"
Gabriel pauses for a moment, then gives Chad a twisted smile.
"Yeah, you're right. They don't deserve any of this. But neither did the two million people who died in Vietnam. Or the seventy thousand in Afghanistan."
"Innocent people die because of the selfishness and greed of powerful individuals. They die in the name of so-called ideological differences. The people at the top drag each other into the grave—and take everyone else down with them. We're just doing what's inevitable."
His words hang heavy in the air. All three of them fall silent, their faces blank in the face of such a cold truth. Gabriel stands up, steps away from Chad, and leans against the wall casually.
"Oh, and personally, I really despise the 'innocent people' you're talking about," he adds.
"What do you mean?"
"Because while 'you people' wake up in comfy beds and sip your Starbucks on the way to school or work, there are people out there who don't even know if they'll get enough food to survive the day. While you complain about breakups, job stress, or rent, others are crawling through battlefields, wondering if the next second will be their last."
"You act like you're the most miserable people in the world when in reality, you don't even have to worry about being alive tomorrow. So don't ask me who deserves what," he says, slamming his hand on the table.
"This world is already unfair. My subordinates know that. And they feel the same way."
He sits back down calmly. But Chad isn't satisfied. His eyes are filled with fury as he stares at Gabriel.
"But that still doesn't give you the right to kill my friend."
Gabriel looks confused for a moment.
"Just because you've suffered doesn't mean others should suffer too. Just because innocent people in your country have died doesn't mean it's okay to kill people from another country. That makes you no different from the powerful murderers you say you hate. You're all the same—just murderers, hiding behind your pain and calling it justice."
Gabriel only smirks at that.
"You know what, Chad? You're right. I am a murderer. I've killed plenty of innocent people."
He leans in closer to Chad.
"But so what? You're acting like I'm the only one here who's killed innocent people. Right, Neil? Mister President, you two know each other. I bet you know what he's done."
Chad turns to Neil, confused.
"Mr. Neil, what's he talking about?"
"Don't listen to him, Chad!"
"Oh... so he didn't know?" Gabriel bursts out laughing.
"You shut up!"
"Do you want to know what he did, Chad?"
"What are you saying?"
"Don't listen to him!" Neil begged.
"He..."
"Whatever he's saying, he's lying!" Neil pleaded desperately.
"Killed..."
"Please don't tell him! I beg you!"
"My wife and son."
...
After that, everything went quiet. Neil stopped begging Gabriel to keep it from Chad, since the words had already been spoken. Chad, however, looked skeptical.
"You're lying! Mr. Neil is not that kind of person! Sure, he was a soldier, but he only killed the bad guys, like you! Right, Mr. Neil?"
Neil stayed silent, avoiding Chad's eyes, neither denying nor confirming.
"Wait... are you serious?"
"Jesus," the President whispered.
"And do you want to know the details?"
Chad's eyes locked onto Gabriel, a mix of curiosity and confusion. He leaned back, crossed his legs, and waited as Gabriel began to tell the story of a dark past.