BLOODCAPE
Chapter 91 – The Lion’s Errand

Chapter 91: Chapter 91 – The Lion’s Errand

The elevator didn’t chime.

It just opened — unceremonious, sterile — into a corridor of matte concrete and pressure-sealed doors. No windows. No signage. The walls hummed with embedded shielding, like the floor was preparing for a war no one had authorized.

Briefing Room 9 sat six doors down, tucked into a blind corner.

No guards. No scanners. Just a slab of alloy and a retinal reader mounted too high for any ordinary cadet.

Hernan didn’t knock.

He stepped through.

The room was cold. Not from temperature — from design. Every light in the ceiling was recessed, dull, deliberate. War maps lined the walls, their colors faded to ghosts. Dormant holoprojectors loomed from ceiling tracks like cameras that had already made their judgment.

A long, narrow table stood at the center.

No chairs.Just a single black case.

Commander Ryl stood beside it.

She didn’t look up.

"Close the door."

He obeyed.A magnetic seal clicked shut behind him.

"You’re two minutes early," she said.

"I thought Leo would be here."

"He is." She still didn’t look up. "You’re early enough to show initiative. But not arrogance."

Then she looked at him. That black optic lens on the left side of her face glinted faintly. Her right eye — all human — studied him like she was diagnosing a malfunction.

She tapped the case. It hissed open.

Inside: a sealed field packet, bound in magnetic thread. Hardcopy. No digital access.

She slid it across.

Hernan opened it in silence.

Outer-Zone District 3.Supply Escort. Four-person team. Civilian tension: minimal. Threat level: non-lethal.Squad designation: Temporary. Commander authorization granted.

No names. No contingencies.

Just coordinates. A time window.And too many blanks in between.

He closed the packet two minutes later and pushed it back.

"You didn’t sign it," Ryl said.

"I don’t sign things I haven’t survived."

Then the door behind him opened.

No warning.

Just presence.

Leo.

He entered like a shadow that didn’t need to announce itself. The air shifted with him. The ceiling lights dimmed as if the room obeyed something in his skin.

Hernan didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. That bootstep cadence had lived in his memory for a decade.

Leo came to stand a pace behind him. "Do you understand the mission?"

"Yes," Hernan replied. "And what it’s not."

Leo stepped into view. Circled. Stopped across the table from him.

"Speak."

"It’s not about cargo. Or route safety. It’s about control. You want to see if I can command strangers under pressure — and make them obey, even when they’re unsure if I should."

Leo said nothing.

He glanced at Ryl.

"Body language?"

"Stable. Breath low. Spine relaxed. No tells."

"Pupil drift?"

"Held steady. Micro-reactive at ’watched.’ Nothing more."

Leo nodded once, turned to the table, and tapped a slate.

A pale light scanned Hernan’s hand. Imprint accepted.

"Your squad is waiting in Departure Bay Nine. Three cadets. Not friends. Not enemies. Mirrors."

Hernan’s eyes narrowed. "Understood."

Leo stepped closer.

"Then show me," he said.

Voice low.

"You weren’t a mistake."

Then he turned and walked out.

The door closed.

Ryl didn’t move. She just watched Hernan.

Expressionless.

Like someone who’d seen too many prototypes fail to be impressed by one that hadn’t yet.

District 3 was the graveyard of a city trying to forget itself.

False sunset glinted off rusted rooftops and broken scaffold. The light was too clean — a dome projection trying to pass for dusk. Hernan stood by the lead vehicle, a sealed transport wrapped in dull armor plating. Three cadets flanked him in patrol suits, faces unreadable behind polarized visors.

He hadn’t asked their names.

They hadn’t offered.

They weren’t a squad.

They were witnesses.

Cadet #1 kept checking his rifle’s charge. Nervous hands. Jittery cadence.

Cadet #2 was motionless. Not calm — inert. Either battle-hardened or broken.

Cadet #3, tall, with shaved sides and hybrid lenses, kept glancing at Hernan sideways. Assessing. Measuring.

He gave the signal. The transport rumbled forward.

No drones. No flanks. No sweep.

Just them.

A street of shadows.

A test already begun.

The deeper they went, the quieter it got.

No birds. No distant engines. Just wind slinking between crumbling towers.

Sector D4 came fast — a narrow cut between two half-collapsed parking structures. Hernan slowed the team. Hand signals only. Formation tight.

That’s when he saw the child.

Standing alone in the center of the road. Small. Still. Unarmed.

A boy in dirty clothes. No expression. No fear.

Wrong.

Cadet #1 hissed, "What the hell is that?"

Hernan raised a fist. Stop.

"Should we divert?" Cadet #2 whispered.

"No," Hernan replied.

Cadet #3’s voice wavered. "They said this zone was cleared."

"No one said it was clean."

Hernan stepped forward.

One pace.

Then another.

The boy didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

"Step aside," Hernan said softly.

The child said nothing.

Then — one step. Not toward Hernan.

Toward Cadet #1.

The cadet flinched. Raised his weapon.

Hernan moved.

Too fast.

He disarmed the cadet with a pivot-turn — wrenching the rifle sideways and slamming the butt against his armored chest. Cadet #1 hit the transport with a dull thunk.

Then Hernan caught the child’s wrist.

Twisted.

Crack.

The boy dropped with a hollow gasp — mechanical, not biological.

No scream.

Just silence.

The cadets stared.

"What did you—?" Cadet #3 began.

"Look at his eyes," Hernan said.

They did.

A faint red pulse. Left iris.

A tracker.

A Zodiac plant.

"He was watching us," Hernan said. "Not pleading."

"Why—why send that?" Cadet #1 whispered.

"To see if you’d fail."

He dusted his hands against his uniform sleeve.

"You disarmed me," the cadet said again, shaken.

"I neutralized a liability."

The transport door hissed open.

Hernan walked in without another word.

Inside the cabin, silence.

He keyed the terminal. Logged the coordinates. Tapped in the report.

Zone D4. Escort complete. Civilian decoy neutralized. No breach. Squad cohesion: fractured.Recommend re-evaluation of Cadet 1. No further discipline required.

He paused.

Typed one more line:

Outcome as expected.

He looked up. Saw his reflection in the transport’s steel wall.

Behind him, through the cam feed — the boy’s crumpled form, still motionless.

In the child’s reflection — faint, barely visible — a soft red flicker blinked once.

Acknowledged.

He’d been watched.And he knew it.