Eiling's hand moved toward his holster before he'd consciously decided to.
He stopped it. Barely.
US Military General Shoots Unarmed Civilian on Public Street — that headline would not be good for anyone, least of all him. He knew that. And yet this man — this food vendor — had just spent thirty seconds delivering a quiet, methodical dismantling of the United States Armed Forces in front of two full squads of subordinates, without raising his voice once. The composure of it was infuriating in a way that outranked most things Eiling had been infuriated by, and he had a long list.
The woman was still out there. Every minute she stayed ahead of him made the next catch harder. His patience had reached its structural limit.
"I'll say this once." He kept his voice flat and hard. "Where did she go."
Jude sighed. He scratched Yomogi behind the ears once, set her down inside the cart, and looked up at Eiling with the specific expression a person uses when they're deciding how much of someone's time is worth wasting.
"Eiling," he said, almost gently. "Eiling. What do I get for this?"
The gun came out.
It happened in about one second — the snap of a holster, the press of a barrel against Jude's temple, the click of the safety coming off. Eiling leaned in slightly.
"Tell me where she is. Now. Or you'll be charged as an accomplice to military desertion and arrested on the spot."
Jude looked at him.
Not with fear. Not with defiance. With the particular calm of someone performing a quiet assessment and finding the results about what they expected.
"Do you know who I am?"
Eiling's eyes narrowed. He'd dealt with a lot of people who went stiff or soft when a weapon came out. This man had done neither. That was information.
"Since you don't know who I am," Jude continued, at the same unhurried pace, "I'm guessing you also don't know where I live."
"I don't care if you live in the White House—"
The music hit like a wall.
"Life — can you please spare me just this once—"
It came from the street corner to the left, loud enough to interrupt everything. Both squads turned. Eiling turned. The ground was vibrating.
"Sometimes you're so tired, but you don't know why you keep going—"
The sound grew. The vibration grew with it. And then the source came around the corner: an enormous semi-trailer, unmanned as far as anyone could tell, engine screaming, barreling directly down the center of the road toward the assembled military cordon.
"Cruel reality is shattering the fortress of my inner strength—"
The soldiers broke first — both squads peeling to the walls on either side with the practiced speed of people who've been trained to survive and are currently applying that training. Eiling went with them, holstering his weapon on instinct as he put his back to the brickwork.
"Wipe away your tears and face the mundane, trivial days — a spoonful of sauce~"
The semi-trailer roared through the gap it had created, fishtailed slightly at the far intersection, and was gone.
The street was quiet for about two seconds.
"Where did that come from?!"
"Stop asking — chase it!" Eiling pushed off the wall, already pointing. "That was not an accident. Someone drove that thing at us deliberately. Team A, pursuit — now! Move!"
Team A moved. Eiling turned back toward the food cart.
Empty.
The space where Jude had been standing was unoccupied. So was the surrounding twenty feet of pavement. The cart itself was still there, fragrant and silent.
"Where did he go?!"
"Sir — we didn't see—"
"Find him."
It was only then, standing in the street with two fewer teams than he'd started with, that Eiling replayed the last sixty seconds and heard the two questions again.
Do you know who I am?
Since you don't know who I am, you don't know where I live either.
He'd been moved. Out of position, off the interrogation, away from his ground — and he'd done it himself, answering a question that hadn't needed answering, chasing a truck that had already disappeared.
"That son of a—"
He made a decision, quietly, in the part of his mind where decisions like this lived. He was going to find that man. And when he did, legality was going to be a secondary concern. It generally was, for someone of his department and his clearance level. That was rather the point of having both.
Two alleys over, Jude had the tricycle parked in the shadow of a loading dock and was watching Eiling's mounting fury on the surveillance feed with something close to professional satisfaction.
I hate it when people point guns at my head.
"This isn't the moment for posturing," Satsuki said, not unkindly. "The projection sold it, but once they confirm there's no driver in that truck, Team A comes back. You should be moving."
"Ten minutes of running. I'm resting." Jude was already pulling up the footage. "Give me the clip — from the moment Eiling approached to the moment he put the gun to my head. Cut the semi-trailer. Cut the woman getting into the storage shelf."
"Understood. This is compelling footage, from a journalistic standpoint."
"Stop browsing the internet." Jude scrolled through the timestamp. "And it's not journalism. If I ran 'military human experiment subjects escape government facility,' that story would be buried before the ink dried. I know my lane."
"What's the approach?"
"Clip the audio and video. Scrub the woman's image from the street record entirely — replace the frames, don't just blur." He leaned back. "The semi-trailer takes care of itself, that footage is already gone. Package the remaining clip, send it to the press contact list — every major paper with an actual news desk. Schedule the online post for tomorrow morning."
"Headline?"
Jude thought for a moment.
"'US Military Colonel Draws Weapon on Unarmed Citizen in Broad Daylight: What Has This Country Become?'" He paused. "Add a question mark. Question marks feel more journalistic."
"Noted."
Inside the cart, the sound of boots on asphalt had faded to nothing. A moment later, the storage panel slid aside and a pair of cautious eyes looked out.
"You're clear," Jude said. "Come on out. And don't let the spicy strips smell up the lower shelf."
The woman unfolded herself from the compartment and straightened up, scanning the alley in a full sweep before she let herself breathe. She gave Jude a single sharp nod — professional, efficient, the thank-you of someone who's spent too long in contexts where extended gratitude is a liability — and turned to go.
"Hold on."
She stopped.
"You hid in my cart, I ran a diversion on a military general, and I'm about to commit at least three counts of video tampering on your behalf." Jude folded his arms. "The least you can do is say thank you out loud."
A pause. "…Thank you."
"Good. Now your name."
"I can't tell you that." Her jaw set. "What I'm involved in is dangerous. Classified. You don't want that information."
"You don't trust me. I just saved you." He shook his head slowly. "I'm not asking for your file. I just want to know I didn't risk a gun to my head for someone I'm going to regret."
She held out for another few seconds. Then something in her posture shifted — the calculation of someone weighing risk against debt and finding the math unfavorable.
"Bette Sans Souci."