THE PRICE OF MERCY

Maya watched the two men. She was only eight years old, but in the dry zones of the forgotten periphery, children grew old before their teeth were fully set. She understood what Jonas was saying: the water wasn't gone. It was being hoarded to drive poor people away from their homes, turning their desperation into an entertaining spectacle for the affluent sectors.

""What do we have to do?"" Maya asked, wiping her nose with her dirty sleeve.

""The file on Derrick’s server is encrypted with a localized physical key,"" Jonas explained. ""A USB ledger he keeps locked inside the store’s cash terminal. When I hacked his feed, I only got the telemetry, not the underlying balance sheets. Without that physical drive, the Gray Market won't release the medical supplies.""

""You want to go back there?"" Arthur coughed, struggling against his weakness. ""It's crawling with security by now. It’s suicide.""

""I’m not going back alone,"" Jonas said, looking squarely at Maya. ""The system recognized Derrick’s terminal as being accessed during an active transaction. The system will only reopen that terminal drawer without a complete system lockdown if the original biometric session is completed.""

Maya felt her stomach drop into an icy void. ""You need my thumbprint.""

""The transaction was interrupted when you ran,"" Jonas said. ""The machine has you flagged as 'Transaction Pending.' If I walk in there, the security turrets fire automatically. But if you walk in with an escort pretending to turn yourself in, the automated terminal unlocks for sixty seconds to finalize the fine payment. In that window, I can pull the encrypted drive.""

""You're using her as bait,"" Arthur snarled, his voice rising in sudden fury as he tried to lift himself from the seat, only to collapse back down, gasping for air. ""She’s a baby, Jonas! Find another way!""

""There is no other way, old man!"" Jonas snapped, his voice echoing off the rusted tin walls of the warehouse. ""Look at yourself! You have maybe six hours before your organs shut down! If we do nothing, you die here, and she gets rounded up by the municipal sweeps tomorrow morning anyway!""

Maya stood between them, looking at her grandfather’s sunken cheeks and the purple hollows beneath his eyes. She remembered the clerk’s mocking smile, the way he held that cold bottle of water just out of her reach, treating her grandfather’s life like a novelty on a screen.

""I’ll do it,"" Maya said firmly.