I entered the new room. It was a private office, furnished with a couple of shelves on the left and a desk in the right corner located at the end of the room, next to a large window that illuminated the entire place from the background.

I moved to the left of the desk, considering the space between the desk and the back wall to be a suitable hiding spot.

As I expected, there was a nurse kneeling on the floor, sitting on her legs. In front of her knees was a laptop displaying the building's security cameras.

Sensing my presence, the nurse turned her head in my direction, lightly shaking the ponytail that tied her hair at the back of her head, along with a lock of hair that fell to her neck and framed the right side of her face. When our eyes met, I prepared my rifle.

“…!” But seeing her eyes, my body stiffened and my rifle stopped before being pointed in her direction.

However, it wasn't the alien nature of her eyes, the impossible light emitted by her pupils, that stopped my movements. It was my Internal System.

[Insubordination directed at the Supreme Commander detected.]

The moment my brain gave my body the order to end the life of the nurse in front of me, I was able to hear words that were not spoken by any voice. To feel the birth of a thought devoid of metaphysical progenitors. To receive an order that wasn’t carried out by my subconscious or by an external force. It was a pre-established knowledge, stored in a place that was beyond the psychic limits of my brain and my perception of time. For some reason, I was able to understand that the person in front of me exuded an authority superior to that of a Centurion.

[The requirements to activate the Extinction Protocol have been met.]

[Waiting for the order of the Supreme Commander...]

My actions were deemed momentous enough by my Internal System to activate the Extinction Protocol. All it would take was an order from the girl to be erased from existence.

“Get out of here,” the girl said, her anger barely restrained. A shiver tried in vain to calm the fear provoked by the sharp look that accompanied her next words. “My presence in this place must not be revealed.”

Her last words raised a disturbing question in my mind.

Do I have to lie to Centurion Sullivan?

However, that question was quickly answered.

I have no choice. The words of a monarch must not come before the words of a God.

Even in the face of the bitter certainty of a betrayal aimed at Centurion Sullivan, my Internal System released the restraint on my body and allowed me to regain control over myself. With that, I nodded to the girl and headed toward the entrance of the room, but I didn’t open the door. First, I had to get rid of the remnants of her existence.

All of us Skulls Paladins wore body cameras to keep our Centurion informed of our movements in real time. Centurion Sullivan could only access these cameras through the equipment stored in the Control Room. However, Centurion Sullivan is not in that location at this moment. For that reason, this is the perfect time to stab his trust with an invisible knife, one unable to register the evidence of betrayal.

I first stopped the recording of my body camera, which was attached to my tactical helmet via the NVG adapter, which is normally used to attach night vision devices, a feature that was already integrated into the military goggles I was using.

I manipulated my EX-MU-DE, which was strapped to my left forearm and connected to my body camera, and edited the last video file stored on my camera, deleting the last 30 seconds of the video that recorded the girl's presence and leaving the moment I entered the room as the last frame of the video.

Extracting the last recorded frame from the newly edited video file, I activated the 3D spatial tracking function on my EX-MU-DE and set that frame as the sample image. This function allowed me to determine the exact location from which a digital image had been captured, providing definitive accuracy on the positioning and angle of the image capture medium.

First, I had to correct the spatial positioning. To do this, I set the body camera attached to my tactical helmet, which was turned on but not recording, as the capture medium. Then, following the guidance given to me by my EX-MU-DE, I took a step back and then another step to the left. A slight sound informed me of the successful spatial match between the sample image and the capture medium. Once this was done, I next had to correct the angle of the capture medium. However, I had to do one more thing before starting this last step of the process. If I started recording after correcting the capture angle, but didn’t correct the recording time before that, there would be a time gap of more than 30 seconds between one frame and the next.

That's why I needed to modify the time recording method used by the body camera's embedded software. To do this, I used my EX-MU-DE to edit the code lines in the camera's software, which was connected to my EX-MU-DE.

When a recording was started, the software displayed the system time, i.e. the current time, as the start time of the recording.

For that reason, using my EX-MU-DE, I modified the code lines that specified the method used to obtain the time when starting a recording and, instead of using the system time, I used the time stamped on the final frame of the last file stored in the camera as the start time of a new recording.

Another valid option would have been to obtain the time from the metadata of the last file stored on the camera and set it as the start time for a new recording. When a recording is stopped, the generated video file uses the time when the recording was stopped as the time when the file was generated, storing that information in the file's metadata. In that case, the time recorded in the file's metadata would be the same time recorded in the last frame of the video. However, using that method in this case would not be possible. I had edited the original video file, and in doing so, the time recorded in the metadata had been updated, moving forward in time and thus leaving a large time gap between the time recorded in the last frame of the video and the time stored in the file's metadata. Even so, I still had to modify the time recorded in the file's metadata in order to synchronize it with the time displayed in the final frame of the edited video.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The modification to the software code was done at the speed of thought. This was only possible thanks to the EX-MU-DE that allowed us Skulls Paladins to modify the physical and quantum universe at will. However, this software modification was only possible thanks to the existing connection between my body camera and my EX-MU-DE. Under normal circumstances, we aren’t able to modify an external software using this method.

Once I had completed the time-synchronization process, all that was left was to correct the angle of the capture medium.

To do this, I simply had to move my head, where the capture medium was located, until I heard the sound my EX-MU-DE made when a successful angular match was achieved between the sample image and the capture medium. In this way, when I started the next recording, the time displayed on the screen at the start of the recording would be the same time recorded in the final frame of the last video file stored in the camera, thus cancelling out the time gap between one video file and another. Furthermore, thanks to the spatial and angular correction of the capture medium, there would be no spatial or angular difference between one frame and the next.

Carrying out this entire process had taken me less than 10 seconds. But, despite that, there would be no evidence of my betrayal. If Centurion Sullivan check the audiovisual records of the raids carried out during this mission in the Control Room and questions the reason why there are two video files, I can simply inform him that I decided to verify that the camera was recording correctly when I found an empty room. In fact, nullify the time gap between one file and another was imperative, since the recording commands are activated with the mind and their executions are carried out at the speed of thought. That's why it wouldn't be logical to find a gap of more than 30 seconds between one video file and another. And if I had chose to delete the video file instead of deleting the moment where the girl appears, that act would be considered as a suspicious delete of evidence. Thanks to all the processes that had been carried out, the existence of the girl identified as Supreme Commander would be safely hidden.

When I left the room and reached the hallway, I carefully monitored my heartbeat, the tone of my voice, and the frequency of my breathing to convince my brain that the lie I was about to tell was not an illusion but reality. When I was sure, I spoke.

“Room Clear. (Haargh)”

The last rooms were empty, both the two rooms on my side of the hall and the ones on R-09's side.

When we reached the end of the hallway and turned right, we saw an elevator and emergency stairs that connected to the second floor. An exit to one of the hospital parking lots was located as we turned left in the hallway, just in front of the stairs and elevator. The occupants of the last rooms had escaped. At this point, there would be no need to continue searching for them. This detail generated a new hypothesis in my mind.

The waiting room was definitely the scene of an incident. The fact that it’s empty and considering that the rooms closest to the waiting room were occupied but the rooms further away were empty, there is no doubt about it. The incident was clearly a shooting. It’s the only thing that could alert the occupants of the last rooms about the danger. But that hypothesis is nullified by the lack of evidence. There are no bullet casings on the floor or holes in the walls. In that case…

Deciding on a plan of action, I gave an order to R-09, who was standing next to me.

“Hold this position. (Gaaargh)”

R-09 nodded and maintained his position a couple of meters away from the emergency stairs and the elevator. Any possible person from the upper floor who decided to escape would be intercepted by him.

I headed to the waiting room.

I considered the fact that when we arrived at the building we only scanned the surroundings superficially.

For that reason, I decided to scan the place in detail and, in doing so, I managed to find what I was looking for. On the ceiling of the waiting room, almost in the middle of it, there were three bullet holes.

I understand. The goal of the perpetrator was to empty this place of people. The presence of unconscious security guards in the bathroom is clear evidence that he was trying to avoid bloodshed. But why?

I had a number of assumptions based on this hypothesis, but stopped when I identified a possibility that jeopardized our mission.

It's a crazy theory, but not impossible: whoever was responsible for this could have gained information about our mission. If they knew we were coming to slaughter these people, they could have acted during the short time they had before our arrival, just to prevent our objective. The Skulls Paladins were the only ones who received the details of the mission. Although Centurion Sullivan specified the mission parameters to us minutes before we arrived, that's enough time to clear this section of the building.

Following this line of thought, everything pointed to one person.

Centurion Sullivan was certain that Skull Paladin Zero was in this place. He is the most likely responsible. In that case, he may have become our enemy. I must report it immediately.

The grip of my right hand around the handgrip of my rifle loosened slightly before tightening a fraction of a second later.

No… I thought. The flicker of a recent memory nullified my intention to activate the communicator and contact Centurion Sullivan.

The presence of the girl identified as Supreme Commander by my Internal System represented a very delicate variable. I remembered her watching the building’s security cameras and considered the possibility that she was waiting for our arrival.

It’s possible that she is behind all of this. If that is the case, then it doesn’t matter who was actually responsible for those shots. It also doesn’t matter if she is an ally or an enemy. The moment I received her order, the mission parameters changed. The success or failure of the original mission has become irrelevant. Any existing vestige of her presence must be eliminated. Even if there is a probability so low, that it’s only possible to express it by an infinitesimal calculation, that she is responsible for this incident, I cannot report this to Centurion Sullivan.

If she fired those shots.

If she gained information about our mission.

If her intentions are to stop Centurion Sullivan from the shadows.

If she is our enemy.

I must suppress any possible future that would lead us to consider any of those assumptions.

Who obtained information about our mission, who fired those shots, who intends to stop Centurion Sullivan, who is the enemy. If I inform Centurion Sullivan about the possible existence of all these assumptions, a subsequent investigation could dangerously lead us to identify that Supreme Commander. And the only order I received under her authority was to prevent precisely that.

Under the illusory veil of an invisible potential danger, I became certain that I had become a double agent, whose loyalty was directed towards two people, but whose balance of priorities was tilted towards only one of them. Understanding this, I knew that my situation was not special, but rather a random selection of fate. She had authority superior to that of Centurion Sullivan… and she could exert it over any Skull Paladin. No matter which member of our squad entered her room and found her hiding inside, she would give him the same order she gave me. And the Skull Paladin who received it would have to do even the impossible to obey her, the same as I am doing right now.