SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery

We had forty-eight hours to work with.

Now only forty-six remained.

Simply getting back to the precinct took more time than I had wanted and it was time that I couldn’t afford to waste.

I could feel every second scraping against the inside of my skull as we worked.

Sector 47’s precinct was a squat, brutalist building that smelled like rust and coffee. Grant was already there when I arrived, the circles under his eyes deeper, his coat heavy with dust and rain. He was holding a clipboard, pretending to go over reports, but the second I stepped in, he nodded.

"They’re ready," he said.

I looked past him. The captains of sectors 45 through 50 were there, scattered across the bullpen, talking in low voices, some of them shaking their heads, others staring at their boots. It was chaos, but it was quiet chaos. The way it needed to be.

I was more impressed on how fast they had gotten a hold of every captain.

I let my mind sweep across the room, calculating angles of conversation, who would object, who would comply, who would crack under the pressure. One by one, I approached them, speaking low, laying it out flat:

Hyena’s demands.

The hostages.