Tool let himself relax and studied his bonds again. The chains weren’t only embedded in concrete; they seemed to be connected to something larger below, something stronger than stone.

“They’re looped around the steel beams of the basement supports,” the Colonel explained. “It took quite a lot of work to dig up all that stone and marble, but it seems that I anticipated you adequately.”

“You planned to capture me?”

“If you recall, I already did capture you. I’d hoped to speak with you weeks and weeks ago, but then you escaped.”

“How inconvenient for you.”

The Colonel shrugged. “I suppose. But I have you now, and apparently I judged your capacity correctly.”

As they spoke, the rest of the Colonel’s staff began daring to move. The bustle of the command center slowly resumed, hushed conversations as they leaned over desks and discussed their maps and troops. But Tool noticed how they all looked to the Colonel with increased respect. He hadn’t flinched in the face of Tool’s threat, while everyone around him ducked for safety.

Colonel Glenn Stern might not have been the finest tactician, but he was a leader. It was no surprise that people followed. He had a faith in himself that appeared unshakeable. People would follow him, even when he was wrong or foolish.

Tool had met similar leaders in his time. Men and women who commanded through the force of their personality and whose words drove their followers forward in frenzied waves. In Tool’s experience, they created armies with a great deal of passion, and very little competence.

Tool settled back, accepting that he could not escape by brute force. He surveyed the command bunker, parsing it for clues that would help him survive this new challenge, seeking the cracks in Glenn Stern’s army.

The room was ancient. A chamber filled with marble columns and fading frescoes on the vaulted ceilings. Statues lined the walls, men and women cast in marble and bronze, but they had been pushed aside to accommodate the war room and its functionaries.

“Pardon the accommodations,” the Colonel said. “We’ve found it expedient to decamp from the upper chambers.” An explosion echoed above. The entire building seemed to shake, and the bare electric bulbs strung across the ceiling flickered. “The crypt is stable,” the Colonel explained. “Now that they’ve dropped so much rubble down on top, it will be difficult for them to reach us, but it’s not an ideal location.”

Tool assessed the group’s assets. A few computer screens flickered and glowed, most likely charged by the same solar systems that kept the lightbulbs glowing, and that hadn’t yet been bombed out of existence. The computers would likely be gathering information from the Colonel’s battlefields and providing connection to the outside world where he traded his scavenge for the bullets and explosives that kept him in the war.