❝𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄, 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓?❞
❝𝐈 𝐖𝐎𝐍'𝐓.❞
Lies.
▔▔▔▔▔★▔▔▔▔▔
"I love you..." You whispered and leaned close, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. It caught him by surprise, but he quickly kissed back. It was supposed to be a sweet...
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▍south africa, base 𝐎 𝐒 𝐇 𝐔 𝐍 𝐢. 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚 79. ✿ ↬
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second person
"𝑨𝑳𝑶𝑵𝑬 𝑾𝑬 𝑴𝑨𝒀 do much together we may do more."
𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐄 — 𝐌𝐀𝐏𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍
Rufaro didn't sleep after that meeting. When Kimora and Viraj finally left his office, the warehouse fell into that particular kind of silence you only get in the middle of nowhere—deep forest humming outside, the faint tick of cooling metal, the low, constant thrum of generators beneath the concrete.
The "base" might've looked like a rotting carcass from the outside—rust-streaked corrugated steel, cracked loading doors, weeds growing through broken asphalt—but inside, Nakanti's money and paranoia showed.
Concrete floors were polished smooth, threaded with glowing cable channels. Thick pillars held up a second level of open walkways and glass-walled rooms. Screens lined the walls in the central tech hub, stacked in a mosaic of live feeds, maps, diagnostics. In the living wing, couches, bunk beds, soft lamps and thick blankets softened the edges; it was utilitarian, but comfortable. A place built to survive, and to keep people alive.
Rufaro stood in the middle of his office, a large rectangular room off the main tech hall. One wall was all glass, giving him a view of the central floor below, where dim blue light washed over the consoles. His desk was a slab of black metal with built-in touch panels, cables braided cleanly into the floor. Two more screens floated, suspended from the ceiling by adjustable arms.
He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it over the back of his chair, then unhooked the rifle strap from his chest and leaned the weapon in a slot by the door. His boots scuffed lightly over the floor as he paced to the desk.
Hard-light schematics flickered to life as he brushed his fingers over the desk surface. His technopathy almost never stayed quiet; it was like the computers leaned toward him, eager. He lifted his hand, and lines of data followed, dissolving and reforming into:
1. A satellite map of South Africa and its outskirts. 2. A layered blueprint of the Hero Commission's Security Tower. 3. A spreadsheet labeled: PHASE ONE – 13 DAYS.
"Two weeks," he muttered under his breath, rolling his shoulders as if trying to settle a weight there. "Not for them. For us."
He dragged his fingers through the holographic map, zooming in on different districts—burned-out residential blocks, looted malls, half-collapsed municipal buildings. He marked locations with small orange indicators: shelter potential, water source, structural risk, high population density.
