The soldier looked at him for two seconds. He did not blink. He was not angry. He was evaluating a breach of protocol. Then he made a signal.

Two other soldiers approached from the checkpoint.

"I haven't done anything," the boy said. His voice was flat. He knew the rules. "I just lost the card."

"We know," the soldier replied. "Loss of identification creates an administrative gap. It must be closed."

They removed him from the line. There was no resistance. There was no blood. The boy went with them, his head down. The people in the line watched, but they did not speak. They did not step out of formation. To step out was to join him.

The camera recorded everything. The incident was logged in the central database as "Preventive Displacement."

The line continued to move. The gap closed.

This was peace.

SCENE IV – THE MACHINE WAKES

Back in Base Theta, Jakal stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the main assembly yard. Below him, five thousand soldiers stood in perfect grids.

They were the survivors of the apocalyptic wars, or the children of survivors. They knew nothing but the grey sky and the orders given by Pragna. They were a sea of grey uniforms, a single organism made of five thousand cells.

"SOLDIERS!" Jakal's voice was amplified by the speakers, echoing off the concrete walls.

Five thousand heads snapped up. Five thousand heels clicked together. The sound was like a single gunshot, sharp and deafening.

"JAKAL! JAKAL! JAKAL!"

They roared his name. It wasn't love. It was the desperate need for a father figure in a world of orphans. They needed to believe that someone was in control of the chaos.

"The peace is threatened," Jakal said. "Not by an army. But by a single point of failure. A glitch in our perfect system. He seeks to undo the order we have bled to build."

He paused. The wind whipped his grey coat.

"We do not hide!" Jakal shouted. "We do not run! We are the wall!"

"YES!" the army roared back.

"Prepare for deployment," Jakal ordered. "Full mobilization. Heavy infantry. Mechanized support. We do not just kill this anomaly. We erase it."

The drums began to play.

It was a recording, played through the massive speakers of the base—a deep, rhythmic thrumming that vibrated in the chest. Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

The soldiers moved. They ran to the armories. They climbed into trucks. They checked their weapons. It was not a mob. It was a machine waking up. Gears grinding, pistons firing. The individual ceased to exist; only the Army remained.

Jakal watched them from above. He did not smile. He did not feel pride. He felt the burden of maintenance.

SCENE V – THE NECESSITY

Jakal turned back into the shadowed office. The roar of the mobilizing army was muffled by the thick glass.

A man was waiting for him in the shadows. He wore a white lab coat, stark against the dark walls. He was not a soldier. He was something else. He held a metal case.

"You saw the report," Jakal said to the man.

"I did," the Doctor replied. His voice was clinical. "Voi Dione. The Alpha Subject. The rumors were true."

"My soldiers are afraid of him," Jakal said. "Even the best of them. Biology is the flaw. The survival instinct overrides the mission."

"Fear is natural," the Doctor said.

"Fear is inefficient," Jakal corrected. "I cannot maintain order with broken tools."

He walked to his desk and picked up a file. It was stamped with a black seal. He looked at the red dot on the screen, moving relentlessly across the map.

"The conventional forces will fail," Jakal said. He said it as a statement of fact. "They will slow him down. They will bleed him. But they will not stop him. He is... absolute."

"Then what is the order?" the Doctor asked.

Jakal looked at the file.

"If the sword cannot be stopped by a wall," Jakal said, "you build something that does not need a wall. If the flesh is weak, we remove the weakness."

He handed the file to the Doctor.

"Authorize the project," Jakal said. "Project P-Unit."

The Doctor took the file. He opened it, glancing at the data. "We are not ready. The subjects... the mortality rate in the Forests was... disturbing. Most test subjects expire or degrade into non-functional states."

"I don't need them to live long," Jakal said. "I need them to kill without hesitation. I need them to be like him. Empty."

"It will be done," the Doctor said.

Jakal turned back to the window. Outside, the army was rolling out of the gates, a river of steel flowing into the wasteland. They were going to die. He knew it. They were simply buying time for the real weapon to be forged.

"Violence must be controlled," Jakal whispered to his reflection in the glass. "If we cannot stop the sword... we must build a better hand to hold it."

SCENE VI – THE DEPARTURE

Far away, on the road leading away from Draka, a different vehicle moved.

It was not military. It was a stolen civilian transport, its paint peeling, its engine knocking.

Rahs drove. His hands were steady now. He had left his unit. He had left the order of Pragna. He had become a variable in the equation.

Beside him, Jeila sat in silence. She held the half of the red ball in her lap, pressing it against her chest as if it contained a heartbeat.

"Where are we going?" Jeila asked. Her voice was small, but it did not shake.

Rahs looked at the horizon. The road ahead was empty, leading into the dense, dark outlines of the uncontrolled zones.

"To find the truth," Rahs said. "To the Forests."

"Why?"

"Because armies can't kill him," Rahs said. "We need to find out what made him."

Jeila looked out the window at the grey world passing by.

"I will kill him," she whispered.

"I know," Rahs said.

They drove on, two small dots moving against the weight of the order, heading into the dark.

END OF CHAPTER III