CHAPTER 136: Insurrection-5

CHAPTER 136: Insurrection-5

The night in Munich had a cold edge; the moon hid behind slow clouds and the recent rain made puddles shine like broken mirrors. Fénix pulled his hood lower over his forehead, leaving only his eyes exposed. All black: sneakers, jeans, hoodie, thin gloves—a disguise of shadow. He walked silently through the industrial park to the warehouse Hercules had pointed out, and the silence welcomed him like an accomplice.

The fences were rusty, the perimeter watched by a couple of cameras that now blinked uselessly under a severed cable. Fénix moved as if part of the scenery: check, circumvent, advance. He didn't force doors; hinges and rust did him favors. He found a side access half-hidden by pallets. With two precise movements, he slipped inside.

The smell hit him as soon as he entered: old chemicals, damp wood, something metallic that smelled like blood. The interior darkness was thick, but he had a flashlight on his wrist: a short beam that dissected the space. Narrow corridors, doors with crossed-out names. On one wall, someone had written with a marker: "DO NOT DISPOSE OF SAMPLES." Further on, a metal gate with a disconnected reader: he forced it with a crowbar and a dull snap yielded the lock. He descended through a hatch that smelled of cold and a poorly ventilated lab.

Below, the place was alive in its abandonment. Tables with half-covered instruments, broken vials, notebooks with blurred notes, petrified plates showing failed cultures. Precision instruments now resting under dust. On a whiteboard, formulas crossed out with strike-throughs; the trace of a project that fell apart before birth. Labels: "Protocol U-L," "sample B-14 — not viable," "tests rev. 3 — BIOSEC." Everything spoke of haste, of experiments that were pushed and abandoned.

As he made his way through boxes, Fénix collected papers: sample records, names that smelled of Antigen, acronyms and dates. But what he sought wasn't on paper; he sought it in the flesh and in the mouth of someone who knew. And that mouth, it seemed, was close.

A noise behind a metal door put him on alert. He pushed it open without warning. There, in an improvised cubicle between icy incubators, a man was huddled: thin, with a wrinkled shirt and brown stains on the sleeves. Deep dark circles carved his face; his eyes, large and wide, distilled pure panic. He startled upright upon seeing the hooded figure in the doorway.

"No!" he stammered, voice broken. "No… please, no…"

Fénix lowered the flashlight until the beam was on his face. The guy swallowed and stammered a name: "E-Edward Johnson… scientist… Antigen… please, don't hurt me."

He didn't look like a soldier; he looked like a man who had been scared for too long. His hands trembled and sought something that didn't exist. Fénix gently pushed his hood back, not announcing confidence but intention. He advanced a few steps with measured calm, so the movement wasn't a threat, but a bridge.

"Easy," Fénix said quietly, without melodramatic promises. "I won't hurt you if you help me. I need answers about Antigen. Did you work for them?"

Edward sank against a bench, as if the weight of the world had finally found him a seat. His eyes kept moving, looking for cameras, exits, shadows. "Yes," he murmured. "I did. But if… if she finds out, if she finds out I'm talking, they'll kill me. I swear, they'll kill me. They have me under control... they brought me here, the government is watching me... I can't..."

Fénix looked at him with hardness and fatigue. The insistence in his voice told him Edward wasn't going to leave on his own. He pushed him gently, as if testing a line of defense.

"Come out with me. We'll talk outside, where you can breathe." The proposal was simple, direct.

Edward recoiled backwards, panic closing his throat. "I can't… if I say anything, if I open my mouth, she'll know. She has eyes everywhere. She is… no," he corrected, his breath becoming a thread, "she'll kill me for betraying… I can't."

Fénix observed the man, weighing things. The only way to guarantee the conversation was to ensure Edward couldn't run or be paralyzed by fear. Without drawing attention or explaining, he reached into his coat, pulled out a syringe with a cloudy liquid inside—he didn't name compounds and didn't dwell on technique. He held it up for a second, a silent reminder of what was about to happen: calm, not violence. He didn't want executioners; he wanted a voice.

Edward followed the movements with a gaze of foreboding. "No," he tried to protest, mouth dry, but the protest was only a thread cut by the wind. Fénix brought the syringe close to the man's neck and, with a precise and unostentatious gesture, administered the sedative. There was no drama of instructions; there was a breath and then Edward's eyelids began to fall like slow curtains. His body relaxed, his jaw went slack, and a small sigh escaped, surrendered.

Fénix waited a few seconds until the breathing became slow and regular. He put the syringe in his pocket without looking at the contents, and with firm hands, took Edward by the shoulders. It wasn't elegant; it was necessary. He dragged him to the hatch, with measured effort to leave no trace of a struggle. The warehouse seemed larger with the body in his charge: corridors he now knew as escape routes, doors he had tested on arrival.

Outside, the cold hit him like a whip. Carefully, he left Edward in a covered corner, out of the field of view of the cameras he knew still functioned. He covered him with an old blanket he found on a nearby pallet, checked his breathing, and leaned in to listen to his chest—the slow, deep breaths confirmed the sedative's effect.

Before leaving, Fénix searched Edward's jacket for a possible notebook, a card with names. He reached in, felt among papers, and found a crumpled envelope with a few notes: dates, codes, and a name: "Sektor 17 — warehouse 4." He took it, read it quickly. It wasn't the complete puzzle, but it was a thread he could pull.