CHAPTER 84: COLOSSAL CACHE

"What did you do to convince them to work for you?"

Darius’s question was pointed and sharp, his voice full of accusation and hatred. Phillip lazily held his hands up, still restrained to the table, and suppressed a smirk, clearly happy to have shared some of his grief.

"Don’t shoot me, I just did my job. Most of them were easy enough. Promise them a couple of credits or a shiny new relic, and they were almost too happy to join us. The tricky ones were the idealists, the political types who had issues with the way things were run here."

His face puckered up as if he were sucking on something sour.

"I had to make all sorts of promises to them. Most want some kind of voice in how the Senate would run the Fort once we won. Others wanted vengeance against the High Elders. You have no idea the kind of hoops I had to jump through to get approval for those kinds of things."

Darius scoffed.

"I do not give a damn what you did! All I care about is that we have compromised assets within the city. Now I need to know what they have sworn to do!"

Over the next five minutes, they ran through the list of names. With every single one, Phillip explained what he recruited them for and why. The causes varied widely, but the purpose they served was almost always the same:

Prepare for revolution.

The Clayton plan was ingenious. According to the spy, they knew that any direct assault on the Fort was little more than suicide, and so they sought another method of infiltration.

If Phillip was entirely accurate with what he knew, which was a long shot given he was a spy, then they were anticipating a victory at key battles over the next month. If that happened, they would then order all of the converted men in the Fort to cause diversions, distracting the High Elders until the Claytons were already upon them.

Red verified his story the entire time, her eyes never leaving the spy’s. It seemed to unnerve the man, who grew increasingly tense under her gaze, until he snapped.

"Does she have to do that? It’s pissing me off!"

Liam backhanded him, blood shooting from his mouth as his bottom lip burst. A welt began to form on his cheek while he coughed and sputtered.

"What the gods was that for?"

The brute towered over him, the edges of his waraxe gleaming in the light as it peeked over his shoulder.

"It’s impolite to refer to a lady like that, little shit! Back in your barbarian land you can talk however you want, but here you are gonna learn some respect!"

Throughout the entire interaction, Charon had been watching everyone closely. He had agreed with most of the questions Darius asked, but he had been waiting for one that had yet to be asked.

Taking matters into his own hands, he stepped forward and addressed the spy.

"Why would the Claytons bet so much on the next few battles? As far as I’m aware, you have been losing the war up until now."

The spy’s eyes shot open as he lurched forward to attack, the attempt useless as he bounced harmlessly in his chair.

Liam eagerly punished him for the action with another slam.

"Answer the question, shit."

With blood dripping from the corner of his lips, he closed his eyes and sobbed silently, the words coming out in a whisper.

"They’ll kill me if I tell you."

Darius drew his sword slowly, allowing the man to witness every inch of the sharpened steel leave his sheath. He held it in the air, turning it so the edge was hanging above the captive’s forehead.

"If your own people will kill you, then I would truly be curious about what your enemies would do?"

With a gulp, he shook his head and relented, a lonesome tear streaming down his bruised cheek.

"We managed to find a secret stash from one of the older civilizations. It was buried deep beneath a ruin, full of machines. Inside, there were tons of advanced weapons."

Charon knew he was leaving out the important bit, even without Red moving forward.

"It had Colossus Machines in it, right?"

A nod was the only response he needed.

"How many?"

Sighing, the spy collapsed in on himself, hunching up as if he were a turtle. Hope drained from his eyes as the last of his willpower left him.

"Dozens. I never heard the official count. A mix of old and new models, it is enough to rival the ones the Fort deploys. On top of the collection we already had, it’ll tip the balance of the war in our favor."

A silence hung in the air as the bombshell the spy dropped sank in.

’Dozens? I was dumbstruck by one! If they can field so many, then what hope do we have?’

His gaze momentarily snapped to Emerius as he debated leaving.

’We still have the option of fleeing. We owe the Fort no fealty. If the odds of us winning are now low, then we won’t get the Fortress of Souls, meaning we are stuck here. It might be safer to try and make the journey without an army behind us.’

Darius was the first to speak, his tone apathetic as he sought to use the few minutes they had left.

"I want you to go over everything again."

For five minutes, they combed the conversation once more. From the list of names to the kinds of data he collected, Darius left nothing out as he tried to glean any more secrets.

A few popped out, such as his tendency to use the Stadia as a recruiting ground.

According to Phillip, many of the fighters had personal grudges with the powers at be, and were more than willing to turn themselves into Clayton puppets to get even. It was to the point that he was curious if the organizers of the venue were sympathizers themselves.

Darius, however, dismissed it outright.

"The overlords of the Stadia are greedy and self-serving, not disloyal. They know the High Elders are the ones paving their way. They would never willingly work towards Clayton rule, it would destroy their monopoly on blood-based entertainment."

The spy grinned with red teeth, his face covered in fresh wounds.

"You trust these people so much despite learning how many are willing to stab you in the back. Do you know how easy it was? Most just needed a few empty words. Hell, a possible candidate could be in this room right now, just waiting for me-"

His words cut out as Liam slammed him into the table once more. His eyes rolled back as he slumped onto the metal. His robes had multiple stains on them now, evidence of all the punishment he had taken.

"That’s enough out of him. We got everything we wanted. The military can have him now."

Darius nodded while rising out of his chair.

"This is not good. I had been hoping those notes were forgeries, yet it goes deeper. The second list he made is enough to rattle the upper echelons of society, and that is without the implications of a Clayton Colossus horde."

For the first time since the interrogation began, Emerius spoke. He was studying the unconscious form of the spy, his eyes staring off at something only he could see.

"A cache of Colossus Machines is indeed worrying, but the models will matter more than the numbers. A hundred Alpha Colossus’s would pale in comparison to just three Kappa Colossus’s. They could all be early variants."

Annie piped up, her head bobbing up and down vigorously.

"That is a good point. He might have been trying to scare us with something he knew he had a lack of information about. For all we know, it could be a minimal threat at best."

Darius sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"No Colossus is a minimal threat, even an Alpha. This could change how we fight the war. The High Elders will feel pressured to begin fielding our own in greater quantities to address the inequality. We can expect increased casualties at the very least."

Liam snorted and shook his head. At some point, he had picked up the spy’s notes and begun to read through them.

"Can you believe some of this shit? One of his contacts was listed as that new fighter in the Stadia. What good is a Novice Stadia fighter?"

Charon smirked, still enjoying the feeling of being recognized.

"I saw that too. He was planning to reach out. It’s a good thing we caught him first, I wouldn’t want to be implicated."

Liam frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. Right here, it says he made contact with Jester near the edge of the city. It says that the guy creeped him out, but was worth the risk for what he could provide."