Her hair is caked with dirt and freezing rain, making her milky skin nearly glow in the moonlight. Bony fingers are twisted onto the handlebars of a child’s bicycle sloppily. Her clothes are dark with heaven’s water, but she trembles under them still, refusing to break in to the cold. Huge eyes with a frightened innocence stare up at the female soldier standing in the doorway of a seemingly-normal house.

She opens her cracked lips in an attempt to speak to the expressionless woman, but only a hoarse whisper escapes to stale the air. The soldier has no choice but to take pity on the girl, and she is whisked from the blackness of the city street into a cramped office.

The soldier looks at her hostage with cold eyes, matching the same expression the child has. “How and why are you here?” the soldier asks in a professional manner, but her eyes show her true feelings.

The girl has little clue of what to say. She knows that if she dares so much as to utter a single word, both her mental and emotional states will be questioned by the soldiers now starting to gather around her. Her mouth opens and air escapes, but no distinguishable language is gathered.

The soldier asks the same question again in a harsher tone. The girl’s eyes start to water. She strains herself to croak, “Cabinet. I know where they all are.”

The adult studies her for a second, trying to figure her motives in cause of such a disgraceful lie, as a subordinate drapes a gray blanket around the runaway’s shoulders. The child stares back, peering straight into the woman’s mind with the coldest of stares an innocent child can make. “I see.” The woman says finally. “Let me talk to my superiors about speaking with you. Wait here.”

As the female soldier leaves, her collegues who had gathered begin to scatter, seemingly out of fear of their comrade's wrath. The young student can tell the difference between whispers and silence, despite the soldiers’ best efforts. She also can make out conversation in the next room, and it has little reason to be on another subject at this point than her. The girl breathes heavily, trembling still out of fear and cold, with nothing else but hopes to comfort her.

The woman returns, and this time the light from the back of the office is enough to distinguish features. The woman has golden blond hair pinned up in a bun, but chocolate brown eyes and a sharp nose counterbalance her professionalism. “My superior will see you now.” She says, motioning the girl out of the shadows and into the office.

Before the girl has a chance to protest, she is pushed in, securing the door with a single click. She looks at the man facing her, studying him for answers. “So what’s a pretty young girl like you doing bothering the military in a time of crisis?” She takes in a deep breath as the rain continues to crash down around the room without a moment of relaxation. Her mouth is paralyzed for someone she does not trust. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me what you know?” She reflects his mischievous emotion with a defiant glare, and he raises his hand to his face, presumably to hide his laughter. “Hahaha. HAHAHA! She must be kidding me. Okay, kid, what do you want? Some money? Your friend’s fifty dollar bail?”

Even with the dark surrounding the superior, the girl can still make out a smirk and a playful glare. She questions his intentions in her own mind, but then decides that he is the only one with a chance of believing her. She has to act like a soldier to be one. “I want to stop seeing people die.”

“Those are heavy words for such a little girl.” The superior’s smirk grows wider. “Y’know, I think my friend’s daughter would have some play makeup you would like.”

Every word of her story is doubted simply because of her own appearance. Every thing she says may as well be void, and every idea that begins to cross to her lips is simply child’s play. That was how the old man saw it. The girl clenches her fist in her own frustration. “It’s people like you that make 

incidents like the Cabinet case happen, you know. People who think they can rule everything in the world just because of a few pins on their shirt.”

He attempts to speak in a collected tone, but the deception is shattered by his own laughter. “People like me? Hahaha! I might as well be the one that is ruling, kid.”

The girl eyes his badges once more. There had to be a reason behind that much training. “But you’re not. And you wanna be, right?”

It is him this time that is taken aback. Apparently she had gotten his intentions exactly right, barriers and all. The superior officer had underestimated her. Her mother’s words replay in her mind. “Never underestimate anyone, ever, not even yourself…” She said once between cigarette puffs. “They’ll come back harder than you expected.”

The miniature rebel cocks her head in a semi-truce. “Send one of your best teams with me and I’ll take you straight to the mastermind of Cabinet.” The superior eyes her now, the roles suddenly reversed as the sound of the rain is drowned out by thunder. “Then you can forget this entire conversation ever happened.” She feels the camera boring into her shoulder; someone else is keeping tabs on them.

His glare never wavers for a moment, calculating military strategy and risk with every word. “Why should I send a team with you?” The officer emphasizes the last word, reminding the girl of just what she is.

She plants a hand on her hip in defiance. “I can either make sure this case is bulletproof or have you crack it wide open.”

He leans back in his seat, still playing numbers in his brain. “I’ll humor you and say you get this team. What do you want in exchange for the information, the bounty?”

The last thing she needs is proof that she is the traitor. A huge financial increase in a little girl’s piggy bank is more than enough reason to slaughter her without another thought. “No, don’t even think of giving me the bounty. Save it for yourself.”

“I’m required to give you a portion.”

“I SAID NO!” She yells, her face tensing up to hide her fear, and her voice raises to emphasize both her façade and her true feelings as lightning cracks behind the superior, lighting up his silhouette. The superior blinks for a few moments, staring at her and trying to read why she had turned down such an offer. She wonders why he was so persistent on the worst matters. But she is just as determined to see stupid assassinations come to an end. “I thought military geniuses were supposed to have an I.Q. above forty, but I guess eleven-year-olds aren’t supposed to be in here, right?” She knows she is being bold by tearing him down, but he deserves to be. “Whatever you do, just make sure you never heard of me. Just let me lead you to the people behind Cabinet, and I’ll disappear.”

The militaristic view studies her defiant eyes for a bit longer than a stare from a regular stranger would have lasted. Any adult is hesitant to trust her, but this ‘superior’ knows something that she cannot… and whatever it is drives his decisions. He presses a button on his phone and begins to speak with a commanding air. “Lieutenant, I need you to make sure P.S. Section 15 is ready for duty. This is a Code Reisin. I repeat, Code Reisin.”

The rain stops, if only for a second, as the lightning pretends to be the sun for a moment. The thunder comes shortly after.