The White Feather- A story of infinite worlds

Deception- The Key To Winning Wars

“Welcome, this room is completely free of any electronic equipment. I double checked it myself.” Thomas greeted Amanda and Veda in the morning.

They were in the store room which was surprisingly large for its purpose.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” Veda asked.

“Of course I did, I’m not doing this for the first time.” Thomas said.

The sentence was followed by a long stare down between the three members.

“Okay, so what? I had to find a secure place and think of a foolproof plan. We can’t afford mistakes this time.” Thomas said at last.

“Then I assume that you have a great plan in mind by now.” Amanda said. She had to be cold to Thomas in front of other people so that they didn’t suspect what was going on between them.

“Of course, I always have a plan. You know the key to winning wars?” Thomas said, sitting down on the ground.

“Spies? Tactical superiority?” Veda guessed.

“Close enough, but not exactly. The key to winning wars is not strength or tactical superiority. You don’t have to be strong to win, you just have to seem strong. Deception is the key to winning. Play with your enemy's mind.  If they are weak, pretend to be strong. If they are overconfident, let them think that they're in control and take them by surprise.” Thomas said with his ever-mysterious smile.

Veda’s eyes gleamed as he sat down to listen closely, followed by Amanda.

“Now, they think that they’re watching our every move. The weakest opponent is the one who thinks he has complete power over the situation. Their overconfidence will be their downfall.

As you might already know, I have a plan. This plan has the potential to shatter the web in one go. But high rewards demand high risks. We need patience, absolute will power and above all, good cover. Are you with me?” Thomas asked.

“Of course, go on…” Veda said, agitating to hear the proposition.

“We have to put operation Tiger's Claw on hold for now. We will recruit several soldiers and break them into teams. Now, Veda will have to hand pick them because they are our best shot. But, as we’ve seen in the past, they can outsmart us and plant a mole between our soldiers. So we’ll make no mistakes this time and launch a decoy operation.

We will select strategically important targets to hit and spend weeks training our soldiers to take them down. We will make sure that The Chakra already knows about it from our little metal friend. But we will tell them a slightly different story.

This is the important part. So here's the twist- we will make them believe that we know about some double agents among our soldiers. And we have found a way to outsmart them. We will make them believe that instead of taking out the primary targets, we will change our plan at the last moment and hit other selected important areas.

As a result, The Chakra will move all the security at the secondary targets, leaving the primary ones vulnerable. Then, we will put the weeks of training to good use and take over the primary objectives with ease. Sound good?” Thomas explained.

Veda was dumbfounded for a moment.

“So let me get this straight. We train soldiers to attack X, then we make the Chakra believe that we are secretly planning to attack Y. As a result, The Chakra will move the security to Y and wait for the attack to happen. But we will carry out the original plan and attack X. The security will be very low and our soldiers have proper training to attack X. This will result in an undeniable victory. Right?” Amanda asked.

“Right.” Thomas said, vigorously nodding his head.

“You’re a f*****g god, man. God of War!” Veda exclaimed and took off his mask.

“God! s**t looks better than your face. Do me a favor, put that back on.” Thomas said, acting disgusted.

Veda frowned and clenched his fists.

“Jokes, bro, jokes. Damn, I can’t believe I suggested you as the leader. You can’t even keep your temper in control, let alone your people.” Thomas said, putting his hands up in defense position.

“f**k it, I’ll assemble the men. Amanda will mark the targets X and Y. You will find and fill loopholes in this plan.” Veda said, snapping out of anger.

Thomas and Amanda nodded. Veda got up and left in a breeze.

“Unpredictable. That’s a leader’s trait right there.” Thomas said, looking proudly at the closed door.

“Come on, let’s get to work.” Amanda said.

Thomas nodded in affirmation and got up to leave. But Amanda pulled him down and climbed over him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Amanda said with a mischievous smile.

“Uh…work?” Thomas said reluctantly.

“It can wait, but I can’t…..” Amanda said and kissed him.

“He was listening to us all along. He ran as soon as I opened the door.” Veda said, storming in from the door.

Thomas and Amanda quickly separated, just in time. Veda was literally dragging a man with him, whose face was swollen and one eye was shut. The man had a nice piece of beating before entering the room.

“Close the door.” Thomas said.

Veda complied. When he turned around, Thomas had a knife in his hand and was eyeballing the already terrified traitor.

“Tell me something worth your shitty life.” Thomas used his iconic conversation starter while he greased the knife on the victim’s swollen cheek. Amanda ran out of the room. And it was understandable because Thomas said these words with such a demonic cold tone that was enough to send a chill into any mortal’s hot blood.

“He can’t speak. I think he’s like the guards at the hotel with no tongues. They can’t read or write either. The only way they communicate is by a special sign language created by The Chakra. And only the highest officials know it.” Veda whispered.

“f**k! Then what’s the point of bringing him here?” Thomas said the pushed the knife against the man’s throat.

The guard was terrified but was ready to accept his immediate death. He closed his eyes and moved his lips in silence. Thomas laughed like a maniac.

“Did you…did you really think that I was going to kill you so fast? Oh no my friend, this game is a lot longer than you expected.” Thomas said, barely controlling his laughter.

He looked at Veda and signaled him to leave the room. Veda took a brief look at the man about to be mutilated and left in a rush. He probably regretted bringing the guard to Thomas.

“You and me now, pal. Just you and me……” Thomas said, smiling at the terrified creature lying on the ground.

Thomas took a seat on the man’s chest and rested his knees on the guard’s hands, blocking any movement. He whispered something to his watch and a little dose of medication spawned on his palm.

“Now my job is to kill you, right? But guess what, I’ll torture you for free. You see this? This is not a pain reliever. No my friend, this here is the exact opposite of a pain reliever. In a medium dose, this will increase the amount of the pain you feel by five times. But you’re in for a treat today, so I’ll give you the maximum dose. This means that if I were to punch you, it would feel like falling from a skyscraper and hitting a rock.

Oh, I almost forgot the fun fact- this medicine won’t let you pass out or die from pain. So…..enjoy.” Thomas said and grinned wildly.

The man opened his mouth but could not speak. Instead, the tears rolling down his eyes and the wet pants told the story of the terror. Thomas injected the man with a large dose and waited for the effect to kick in.

As soon as the man started moaning softly, Thomas stuffed a rag in his mouth and sealed it with duct tape.

“Funny, I see a tongue in your mouth. That means you're clearly not a guard.” Thomas said, looking at his knife.

“You know, I worked with terrorists once. They had a magnificent way of torturing people. You know what they did?” Thomas said and looked the intruder in the eyes.

“They started with the most useless parts and slowly moved to the more important ones. Now which part do you not need?” Thomas spoke, strafing the knife on his companion’s body. All of a sudden, he pointed the blade at his ear.

“You’re a listener, aren’t you? Let me get rid of those ears for you.” Thomas said and started cutting one of the stranger’s ear.

The man tried to yell but choked on the cloth in his mouth. Thomas continued as slowly as he could, letting every movement of the knife soak into the victim’s soul. After a minute, blood covered the ground and a separated ear was lying on the ground beside Thomas.

Thomas looked at the devastated man (let’s call him Dumbo for simplicity’s sake) for a second and decided to smoke. He lifted the knife high in the air and stuck it inside Dumbo’s right hand. The blade went clean through the wrist and part of it landed inside the floor.

Dumbo’s eyes almost jumped out of the sockets on this sudden impact. Thomas got up and took out a pack of cigar. Dumbo’s body was vigorously shaking from the extreme pain.

“Just a security measure, so you don’t go anywhere.” Thomas said, attempting to weirdly explain his act.

While Thomas sucked the smoke out from the cigar for the fourth time, the man mumbled something. Thomas didn’t pay attention to it. But then, he mumbled again. It was like he was trying to say something. This time, he caught Thomas’ attention.

Thomas kneeled down and pressed the burning cigar on the man’s chest. The response was in the form of violent and suppressed screams.

“Well well well, looks like the mute has grown the ability to speak. You know, sometimes I think that my torture has magic. It makes people grow magical abilities. Sometimes cripples run, and sometimes quadriplegics try to kill me with their fists.” Thomas said and grabbed Dumbo’s hair.

“Now, do you have something to tell me?” Thomas asked, looking in Dumbo’s red eyes.

Dumbo continued his screams in agony. After five seconds, Thomas was pissed.

“I asked you a f*****g question. You wouldn’t want me to light another cigar to ask the same question now, would you?” Thomas said, grabbing Dumbo’s throat.

On hearing this threat, Dumbo controlled his actions and shook his head slowly in affirmation. Thomas nodded and took off the duct tape.

“I….I can help you reach my boss. Please just don’t hurt me. I beg you….” Dumbo pleaded while sobbing.

“If you would have said this earlier, you could save both of us a lot of trouble.” Thomas said and took the knife out of Dumbo’s hand.

“Okay, so you will ask your boss to meet up, and we will follow you. Got it?” Veda said to Dumbo.

They were standing at the mansion entrance. Thomas was in the balcony on the first floor, observing the two of them.

Dumbo looked at Thomas for a second, and started walking out of the entrance. As soon as he stepped out of the main gate, he felt like something was blocking his wind-pipe. He was having troube breathing, so he lifted his hand to check. It was a knife stuck in his throat from behind.

“Precise as ever.” Thomas said from the balcony in a sense of victory.

“What the f**k was that?!” Veda screamed. He was convinced that Thomas had gone crazy.

“Lesson number one in leadership- if you catch an enemy and he decides to give up his superiors, kill him. If they were smart enough to plant him here, they obviously had a plan in case he was caught. He would have walked you right into an ambush and you would have gladly followed him, like the fool you are.” Thomas said smartly.

“You don’t know that.” Veda said in anger.

“Are you f*****g stupid? Tell me, if he had taken you to his boss, would you have let him go after killing the boss? No, he knew too much to be left alive. You may be a fool, but he is not. He knew he was dead anyway, so he was gonna take him down with you.” Thomas said, mocking Veda.

Veda instantly cooled off after he realized the harsh truth. He looked at the bleeding body at the mansion gate and then at Thomas, who was signaling him to bring back his knife stuck in the cold body.

“Deceptions….” Veda whispered and walked towards the bleeding body of the spy.