The list goes on. If what they are saying is true, I wouldn’t need to scramble for supplies for a year or more. And the drugs would be army-grade; I could water them down and still they’d be more effective than anything I could buy on the black market. I walk faster, keeping up with the lead soldier.

‘The General sent these herself?’

‘We were ordered to deliver them without delay.’

‘By the General?’

‘By our commanding officer.’

‘And that is who?’

The soldier stops. I think she’s going to reprimand me, but instead, she points.

We’ve reached the edge of Tiger Town, where the ramshackle houses made from shipping crates and old vehicles fall away into a wasteland of century-leaf fields that adjoin the base. There, guarded by an Accord soldier, sits a pristine mule with a neat stack of tarpaulin-covered crates upon its back. Hardly able to believe it, I take a step forwards.

Before my foot touches the dirt they are with me, showing me my own back as I am shot a dozen times, showing me Falco’s face as she watches my body being dumped into the municipal boneyard, showing me the General, a corpse in a cellulose coffin…

The instant my foot lands I drop, rip the weapon from beneath my shirt and fire.

* * *

The mule might be real, army-issue and clean, but the crates upon its back are fake. Every one of them is empty. I swear.

If not for them I would have fallen for it.

My blood is hot with liquor and adrenalin, head filled with their presence. The stun pistol is still in my hand, buzzing as it charges up. On the ground, one of the soldiers groans and rolls onto their side, blood dripping from their nose. When they reach for their weapon, I kick it away.

‘Talk,’ I order.

The soldier’s grey eyes are wide, roaming over their downed comrades.

‘I don’t… I don’t know anything, I swear. Garnet was in charge.’

I swing the medkit from my shoulder. For a second, the soldier looks relieved, until they see the syringe in my hand.

‘Talk,’ I tell them again.

‘We were given orders to terminate a medic known as Ten Low.’

‘Who gave the orders?’ For the first time in what feels like years, my head is clear. There’s no doubt, no hesitation. ‘Was it General Ortiz?’

‘General Ortiz is dead.’

‘Then who did I escort here? Who did I leave at your base not two hours ago?’

‘Commander said— Commander said she’s a decoy. The General’s decoy.’

I grip the syringe.

‘Please,’ the soldier’s voice trembles, ‘please, don’t kill me, you already have three deaths on your hands.’

‘You are out by thousands,’ I say, and plunge the needle into their neck.