The impact and consequences of certain actions are said to be largely dependent upon the situational context of said action. In an everyday situation, it would be considered foolhardy to think that leaving a glove on the ground would be cause for any significant trouble long term (unless that glove happened to be crafted from the fragments of the Turin Shroud).

So, what if the situational context of said action was shifted to something much less everyday?

What if you were a child spy in a war-torn country under service to the British government through an organisation that very few knew existed?

In late 2010, the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire had its first democratic elections in over 10 years. The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, was announced the winner of the election amidst a sea of controversy that the opposition candidate, Alassane Ouattara , was the rightful victor. This sentiment was shared by a number of countries, organisations and leaders worldwide, all who claimed Gbagbo had rigged the outcome.

After months of attempted negotiation, the sporadic violence that had accompanied the hoped transition of power erupted into full scale civil war; with the pro-Gbagbo military going up against the UN-backed RFCI.

Though not officially involved in the fighting, a series of intercepted communications gave British intelligence cause to believe that elements within the Ivorian military were involved in illegal mercenary work with Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

In March 2011, CHERUB agent Huey Newton and his controller Derek Cutherly had been sent into the capital of Côte d'Ivoire to verify this claim. It was a routine mission, requiring only a few days to find a gap in the security of one of the military bases. The soldiers were spread very thinly as they concentrated their efforts on the fighting further south.

Posing as the son of one of the British Embassy staff, Huey had been able to slip around the streets of Abidjan to scope out the targeted base. It was thought that the general of the pro-Gbagbo army had his offices there.

Slipping in under cover of darkness, Huey successfully infiltrated the main building of the military compound. Having made his way through the building, he found the offices of the general and had attempted to pick the lock, pausing once only to hide from the guard patrolling that section of the building. Removing one of his gloves to speed up the lock picking process, the spy managed to get the door open within moments. It was a short lived victory, however, as he would later find that the glove had slipped out of his pocket and dropped in the doorway, preventing the door from shutting fully.

It was here that sod's law had been observed, with the guard doubling back upon himself to make use of the little soldier's room. It had been he who had found Huey rifling through the office of the general and efficiently incapacitated the boy with a powerful blow from the stock of his rifle.

Yes. It's quite clear how something as seemingly inconsequential as a glove on the ground could have much greater impact on someone's life.

"Who are you?"

The question cut through the treacle that his brain was seemingly swimming in. He took in the environment that he found himself currently occupying. It was a seemingly disused part of the military base resembling a hangar. Under the primary layer of dust, the floor was polka dotted with grime and filth that could only be of biological origin. The old furniture that housed the various odd looking tools seemed to support Huey's initial theory.

It was an interrogation room.

As much as CHERUB prepares agents for the worst possible outcomes, interrogation is something which is touched upon very briefly. Torture – not so much. How did he know it would be torture? Perhaps it was the fact that he was in his boxers, tied to a chair in the middle of the room with a knife-holding man a few feet away. It was the target – the general.

"Keep to your cover story. Just keep to your cover story."

"My father. He works for the embassy-"

The 15 year old screamed in pain as the knife sliced across his bare chest in a long, shallow stroke. The general, quick as a snake, shot his hand into the boy's mouth.

"Lie to me again" He said, gripping Huey's tongue firmly betwixt his calloused finger and thumb. "I will slice this off."

The general had not gotten to his position of power by being a stupid man. He could tell when someone had something hidden. The very fact that this child had not begun to cry out in vain desperation when he found himself tied to a chair wearing only his underwear proved that there was more to him that he was saying.

It was not unheard of for children to be used to gather information about shady dealings in this corner of the world. He himself had once paid a pair of children to follow a higher ranking officer in order to find out what the man did when he said he was taking personal time off base. The resulting controversy over the story that he had been soliciting the services of young men in a well-known undesirable part of the capital had resulted in his dismissal from the post of general and that role being taken over by the current general, the man who had uncovered it all.

Unfortunately, there was much more at stake here for the general than some power. The soldier who had found the prisoner stated that he had been in his office, looking through documents that were in his drawers. The information would spell disaster if leaked to members of the Republican Forces.

That was who the child had to be working for: the RFCI. If they had information of his arms trafficking to Libya, it could mean that they could intercept the weapons and use them against the military.

Killing this child would serve no purpose. He had to know what the boy knew and who he was working with. Snapping his fingers, he barked a command at the only soldier present and the man hopped to attention before leaving the room.

Huey resisted the involuntary urge to urinate upon himself as he tried to regain a modicum of composure. Well, as much composure as was possible to regain when wearing Batman boxers.

"Tell me. Who is your contact on the base?"

Huey blinked for a few moments in an attempt to block the main from the shallow wound on his chest. He didn't have a contact on the base. He hadn't been trained for something like this. If he told him the cover story, the general would think that he was lying and would probably make good on his promise to cut Huey's tongue out. If he lied, then the general would kill him after verifying.

He had to stay quiet.

Huey kept his eyes shut and his mouth clenched, not wanting either of those organs to be easily accessible by the man. He could hear the sound of a second person entering the room. There was an odd noise, a sort of sloshing sound.

He dared not open his eyes to peek at what it could be but he listened keenly as the sloshing became a gurgling noise. It became higher and higher in pitch until it stopped, with the sound of metal hitting the ground signifying the completion of the unknown action.

No matter how much he hated to admit it, he there was a small amount of fear bubbling in him. He didn't think he was still on the military base and his mission controller would have no way to find him. The fatal flaw with not spilling the beans straight away was that the general would become more and more suspicious the longer he lasted through whatever he had planned. It was a Catch -22 scenario.

Eyes still shut; he was pushed backward and could feel his stomach lurch as if he were on a rollercoaster. His dark world span for an instant before his head and shoulders were plunged into cold, icy water. He couldn't breathe and the surprise of the act had knocked most of the air from his lungs, the rest of it quickly escaping as he struggled under the water. He strained against the bonds strapping his hands and ankles to the wooden chair but they did not give.

Internally, panic and rage and a twisting vortex of helplessness bubbled off from the depth of his core. A lightheaded blackness began to envelope his mindscape as the lack of air got to him. On some level, he knew this blackness was dangerous and yet, he felt the need to go straight to it. He needed to touch it. To end this torture before it could begin.

Externally, the cold was real and not just a jumble of now foreign emotions. From his restrained position, he could feel his skin begin to freeze up. His lungs had long since reached the burning point that signified increased oxygen deprivation but he wouldn't let himself break.

Not now.

He was pulled out of the water after the ten seconds that had felt like eternity. Huey sputtered out the dregs of water that had invaded his cavities and panted heavily, sucking in air like it was essential for his survival. Out of reflex, his eyes had opened once his head was removed from the water and he was greeted with an image of the general in his beret, inches away from his face.

"Who are you working for?"

Time passed in the interrogation room.

It could have been hours.

It could have been days.

The concept of time was one of the first things lost to the boy after he had been blindfolded.

The next had been his self-association. After the eighth or so repetition of the waterboarding torture, he had begun to feel as though he were in a dreamlike world of colour, viewing the activity from a third person perspective. Sometimes, Huey was glad for the slightly damaging effects of prolonged oxygen deprivation and malnutrition.

A battle seemed to rage on between the bubbles of colour that populated his mind and a blackness that seemed to stick to him like molasses. It came from a place he didn't know he had and in a flicker of lucidity, wasn't sure actually existed. It was so strong and so immediate; it defied all sense and logic, all reason and rhyme.

He wanted to laugh.

There was yelling. He, himself, was yelling. The words coming from his own mouth were incomprehensible due to the water but the raw and scratchy feel to his throat said he had begun screaming long before and would continue long after. It was nothing but noise, drowning, and a useless struggle to go nowhere, once again.

Finally, the myriad of colours that seemed to have been dancing in his mind was gone, completely covered by the darkness. His body ached as he came back to the land of consciousness and he could feel a chuckle trying to escape his throat as he was pulled from the water once more.

The whole point of CHERUB sending in a child to do the task was that children were supposed to be less suspect to a criminal. The whole reason he was going through this process was because he was a child and that made him more suspect.

It was all one big joke.

It was hardly the proper situation for laughter but the desire was so strong that he had a hard time stifling it. It wasn't that he found the pain enjoyable – far from it. It was the sheer comic irony that the universe had thrown at him.

Light streamed into his consciousness in a wholly blinding manner. The blindfold had been removed but his vision was still too hazy to make out the person in front of him. He was snapped out of his light headedness by the feeling of blood rushing back into his extremities. His hands were being untied by someone – the general's soldier. As he was released, he slumped forward in the chair like a puppet whose strings had been severed.

For Huey, it took nearly five minutes before his muscles started to function. In that time, his sensory perceptions came back to him with such force that he was left dazed. It was an adrenaline rush, seemingly from nowhere. For the first time, he could truly appreciate just how bleak his situation was.

The soldier was the only one in the expansive room with him. Huey watched as the man began to untie his feet from the chair, freeing him. Muttering something that sounded vaguely French, Huey felt something jab him in the nape of his neck.

Whilst Huey may not have spoken French, he knew the message a gun to the back conveyed.

Stepping up slowly, he tested out his legs to make sure they were still functional. The soldier jabbed him in the back once more, telling him to speed up. Huey knew that this was it for him. He was being taken somewhere to be killed. Scanning the path he was walking from the centre of the room to the door he was being led to like cattle to the slaughter, Huey searched for anything he could use.

His legs dropped from under him and he hit a table before plummeting to the floor. With his free hand, the solider tried to grab the boy and lift him up from his face down position. In that moment, Huey lashed out at the soldier using the broken mirror piece he had spotted on the desk moments earlier.

It had cut into his hand when he pretended to faint but it was all worth it to see the soldier bleeding from the numerous wounds that now cut across his body. He liked the way the glass cut under the skin slightly, as if it were made of the toughest diamond.

The mirror shattered as it hit the ground. Huey scavenged the dead man's pockets for anything he could use. The only items he had on his person were the gun and a dead Nokia 3310. Taking both of those items, Huey made his way to the hangar exit.

The closer he got to the outside world, the louder the noises of gunfire became. It was almost as if it was taking place outside. The figure of the general ran into the hanger from the left side of him and the boy turned quickly to face him, raising the gun. He could feel the adrenaline rush that had accompanied his return to consciousness begin to fade but he managed to fight it off.

The moment his grip tightened around the gun, his mind snapped back to Basic Training.

"Keep your eyes level with the sight. Make sure the safety is off and keep your finger on the trigger. Watch your breathing. Keep it slow and shallow. Your legs, they'll try to go from under you. You must fight that at all cost and keep your stance strong. You must not falter even for a second because a situation like that is life or death. Keep your wits about you."

Though the overwhelming light-headedness threatened to force him to his knees, Huey held the gun steadily in his hand. The blood trickled down the grip of the pistol and drip drip dripped onto the ground, adding to the already congealed mess of fluids.

"Oh, so you think you can –"

Huey would never find out what the general thought that he thought he could do. This was due to the bullet that had perforated directly through his throat. This inability to speak was then compounded by a second bullet through the skull which sent the man to the floor, his beret landing in the rapidly pooling crimson. He let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding as the gun swung to his side.

The man was dead.

He had killed two men.

He had killed two men wearing nothing but Batman boxers.

His vision was the first to go as the adrenaline rush wore off. He couldn't see straight but could make out the shapes of firearm wielding people that were pointing at him as they entered the hangar. Their voices rang loud. Thousands of voices passed through his ears. No, that was an exaggeration. It was dozens of voices, but filtered through the mind of a boy who had gone without food, reverberated within the confines of his skull, and warped by his thoughts, the dozens became innumerable.

Then, there was nothing.

From behind plexiglass, the three figures watched the slowly rising chest of the boy who lay in the hospital bed, hooked to multiple machines.

"Two days." The first figure read from a copy of the file that all three of the figures were holding. "Beaten, cut and waterboarded. From what MI6 has told us, no valuable information was let slip and the data he managed to transmit helped the push into Libya."

The second figure remained tried to remain impassive at the mention of the torture by the older man standing to her left but couldn't help but grimace slightly. She flipped the file over and began to read off information.

"Huey Newton. 15. Navy." She said. "Sir, do you really think that just because he got lucky in Côte d'Ivoire, it means that he's suitable?"

"Yes, Sam. I do."

"But sir, it's written in here that he's the reason why the Urban Warfare compound was out of action for a month." She scowled at the thought. "He's too much of a loose cannon."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less from him, to be honest." The third figure finally spoke. He had previously been focusing on the long arc which scarred the hospitalised boy's chest, deep in contemplation but snapped out it to voice his opinion. "He might not be the easiest to work with but he's incredibly talented, there's no mistaking that."

"What would have happened if he hadn't been picked up by the UN peacekeeping force? No matter what Shepard says, sir. I still think he got lucky."

"Scared of a little competition are we, Samantha?"

"Not likely, Shepard." The short haired girl responded, visibly annoyed at the use of her full name. "I just don't think he's got what it takes."

The first figure turned away from the clear glass and faced the pair that stood before him. They were two of his finest agents, yet sometimes they still bickered like the teenagers they were. Sometimes, it was hard being the chairman.

"It's my decision." Voiced the Chairman. "I think he's suitable. We'll sort the preparations out for his training. He's Unit C material."