[REDACTED], Eastern Ostalia / 2 months before the start of Operation Strix
20,000 feet below the ground, dozens of men and women are trapped.
An ocean of pencil pushers and scientists are forced into a metal hallway, crushing them from all sides as if they were inside the gullet of some great beast. Panicked voices in a mix of languages are drowned by the scream of the alarm; underscored by the distant treble of a sudden earthquake.
Armed men line the walls of the corridor, faces hidden behind a visor of indifference and tinted glass. Their heavy-set fingers grip tautly on the trigger of their assault rifles. Other masked soldiers are shredding documents, or retrieving whatever they can from the abandoned computers. Harsh commands are shouted and computer screens are shattered with the blunt of their automatic weapons. Their orders were simple.
No stone left unbroken.
Another tremor shakes the entire facility. The lights pulse once, then twice; before cutting off completely with a dying gasp. The assembled crowd descends into a panic, and while the guards attempt to maintain order, they fail.
No one notices a man splitting off from the group.
His face is a wall of ice: not a bead of sweat on his forehead. The man looks plain - wearing rounded glasses and an outfit worthy of a generic scientist. He pushes past a woman holding a box full of personal trinkets, causing her to slip and fall. As she mumbles an apology to the nearby guards, one instead berates her for her incompetency. Someone comes to her defense. An argument breaks out.
No one notices him pocket one of the dropped files.
"Please! Let me go!"
The crowd parts with him in it, revealing a sweating man of Eastern descent. His face is covered in bruises and scars - a keycard dangling from his neck like a leash. The Ostanian guards show no quarter as they drag the man from one room. The shadow peeks over their broad shoulders, noticing another futuristic door sealing itself shut.
"She needs me!" He shouts in broken, desperate Ostanian. "My daughter needs me!"
"She's almost ready! Just let me make sure she's contained!"
One guard grunts as the doctor elbows him in the face, pushing the security officer back. The other panics - letting the madman slip from their grasp and barrel towards the metal wall. The spy feels a hint of pity at the doctor, but remembers his mission. One of the men raises their weapons, but another appears to stop him.
The shadow uses this chance, reaching for one of the many smoke bombs within their belts. With a single finger, he loosens the pin- just enough for the canister to begin shaking and fizzing.
"SHIT!" The guards curse as the hallway is suddenly filled with a dense fog, and the crowd's bubbling anxiety finally erupts into an all out brawl. Arguments devolve into brawls as fists and elbows are thrown around. All while the shadow bobs and weaves through them like fish in water, making for his extraction point.
An attentive guard eyes him for a split second, perhaps noticing the man out of place, but the fire of automatic weapons pulls their attention elsewhere. The mad doctor continues to beg and plead, voice drowned out by the shouting and hollering of the crowd.
No one notices a vent grate locking itself back in place.
POP!
A vent grate clatters onto the ground, and the shadow remerges. Instead of a lab coat and glasses, he now wears a dirty ragtag outfit: namely a thick sweater and hat that covers most of his face. With the torn fabric of his clothes and his new scruffy beard, most would assume that he was just another vagrant. The man should be proud of his success, but Twilight cannot help but feel a hint of unease.
The Ostanian government was robotic in efficiency, they would likely work half their population to death if it meant ensuring even the slightest of victories.
But the safehouse was heavily fortified and constantly being expanded, despite being so remote and of little importance to the Cold War against Westalis. It was too deep to be a missile launch platform or anything of the sort, and any vehicles moving from here to the border would go through countless cities.
It was clear, from that alone, that this was not the work of the government. Pulling out a pocket flashlight, the spy inspects the coveted files within his coat lining. It was exactly as he suspected.
A third party. One that was jeopardizing the fragile balance between Ostania and Westalis
Barely visible in the corner of the photograph was their insignia: made up of a pair of hollow horizontal triangles meeting together at their peaks. And a single word, sticking out from the sea of scientific jargon.
MONARCH SCIENCES.