The bed was a simple alloy frame. Isaac Carter had never figured out the purpose of that blanket. It was so thin that it was unsuitable for either laying on or covering oneself. Perhaps it was added deliberately to make the furnishings of this cramped cell appear a bit more abundant—a thing meant to deceive the eye, but in reality, serving no purpose at all.

There was nothing else to be found. As for light and ventilation, they depended on a window more than three meters above the ground. Standing in the room felt like being trapped at the bottom of a narrow, deep well. One could only rely on the faint, slanting light overhead to roughly judge morning, evening, day, or night. Even the air seemed completely stagnant, as if suffocation could come at any moment.

This place was not much different from where he had been just over a dozen hours ago.

The only difference was that he had been raised from 560 meters underground to the surface.

Isaac Carter had not lied—he truly was the only survivor of the reorganized 81st Division.

Of course, that was referring to now. If time were turned back eighteen years, those who were still alive underground... there would have been more of them.

“Uncle Victor Bailey was right. And Raymond Clark and Charles Thompson... the people outside, they really do think we’re all dead.”

Staring at the ceiling that would never change, a faint, melancholy smile appeared on Isaac Carter’s lips as he murmured to himself, “No one thinks we’re still alive. Yet... reality, in the end, is not as imagined.”

……

Captain Maurice Baker’s office had always been the darkest room in the base.

It was no different from the offices of other intelligence officers: locked alloy cabinets lined the walls, thick file folders were stacked on both sides of the desk. Hundreds of sheets of paper with various contents were scattered messily on the shelves. On a few pages near the center of the desk, one could clearly see light brown stains left by dried ketchup and coffee.

Maurice Baker was forty-eight this year, and his weight had already surpassed 197 kilograms. This was the result of long hours spent with words and paper. He had no regular eating habits and drank heavily. His battered body, however, had a particular fondness for foods rich in nitrites, like smoked meat and grilled sausages. This made him look much older than his actual age, and his gray-white hair was growing ever thinner. The tall, handsome figure in his photo at age twenty had become completely bloated and misshapen, but his stubbornly persistent character had not changed in the slightest.

He sat in a swivel chair that creaked under his solid bulk, his thick, stubby fingers slowly stirring a strong coffee with double sugar cubes and creamer. His eyes, squeezed into a narrow slit by wrinkles and fat, remained fixed on the file on his desk.

On the upper right corner of the open folder, the photo of Isaac Carter that the military police had just submitted a few hours ago was prominently attached.

“What an interesting little fellow.”

Maurice Baker muttered, shaking his head and taking a large sip of the thick coffee.

As the division’s chief intelligence officer, this was the first time he had encountered such a situation.

The whole incident was actually not that complicated—a young man who had saved several Earth Federation soldiers on the battlefield returned to the base with those he had rescued. In a normal story, he should have received rewards and praise. The problem was... this young man in an old military uniform claimed to be the only survivor of the reorganized 81st Division.

In the raid eighteen years ago, not a single member of the unit defending the S12 mining area survived.

This was an open secret in the Earth Federation.

Maurice Baker did not believe Isaac Carter was a spy.

Identity verification was an extremely complex matter—every citizen of the Republic, from birth, had to have their information entered into the Census Bureau’s database. The records included fingerprints, genes, iris identification codes, as well as the probability and compatibility ratios of their parents producing offspring... A personal identity file contained as many as fifteen thousand characters. Even if the Pan-Union military intelligence really wanted to use the old battlefield rescue trick to secretly plant an infiltrator in the Earth Federation, they would never just randomly pick some inexplicable person.

A spy could sneak into the Federation under any identity. But they would never use the special designation of the reorganized 81st Division.

But then, how could he explain what had just happened right under his nose?

All members of William Grant’s squad testified that this young man named Isaac Carter came from the north. His shooting position during the battle was also deep within the S12 mining area.

Other than mutated creatures and ghosts infected by radiation, there should be no living humans in that place.

How did he manage to shoot from a distance of over 4,500 meters?