Story Notes

This is a standalone story taking place in my Class of 2096 series, but it can also be read on its own. However, having read Freezing Heat beforehand will provide a bit more insight into the world.

Don’t be intimidated by the intro! This is a romance story, not a collection of military documents. The part separators are simply there for readers who are unfamiliar with the rest of the 2096 books. ❤️🖤

Summary

Berlin, 2076. The war has been running for twelve years and the city shows it. Selena is fifteen and runs intelligence drops for Coalition military intelligence. Valerian is seventeen, newly conscripted into the Axiom mech platoon holding the eastern city. They meet by chance. They choose each other anyway. The months that follow are stolen, secret meetings, hidden messages, the specific trust of two people who could destroy each other and keep choosing not to. Then the Flux hits. The world ends. They survive it together and are torn apart by the sides that made them. Twenty years later, the world has rebuilt itself into something new and they have rebuilt themselves along with it. She works for the Board, cold, controlled, the most feared evaluator at the Prism Institute, a woman who can read anyone's emotional architecture in thirty seconds and hasn't let anyone close in two decades. He works for the UN government as a shadow operative, morally clear-eyed, carrying a power that makes him the one person she has never been able to read. When his assignment brings him back to her door, neither of them is the person the other remembers. But the thing between them doesn't care about that. Some wars never end. Some people you never stop losing.

Genre: Romance/Scifi

Author: Mila Dusk

Status: Complete

Chapters: 46

Rating: 5.0 3 reviews

Age Rating: 18+

Part 1 - Berlin 2067

COALITION MILITARY INTELLIGENCE FIELD OPERATIONS DIVISION — CENTRAL EUROPE COMMAND

DOCUMENT CLASS: RESTRICTED

REFERENCE: CMI-EUR-067-1144

DATE: 03 MAY 2067

SUBJECT: OPERATIVE INSERTION — BERLIN CONTESTED ZONE

HANDLER: [REDACTED]

OPERATIVE DESIGNATION: HARTMANN E.

STATUS REPORT — WEEK ONE

Operative HARTMANN E. has successfully established civilian cover within the western administrative sector of the Berlin contested zone. Cover identity — logistics coordinator, Coalition civil administration — is holding. Residence secured. Local contacts activated.

Operative is accompanied by one dependent, female, age fifteen, travelling under the identity HARTMANN S. Dependent has been assessed as operationally useful for cover purposes and has received appropriate field preparation. Dependent carries Axiom-compatible secondary documentation for cross-sector movement.

Dependent's Language profile: German [native], Greek [native], Russian [near-native], Mandarin [adept], French [adept], Spanish [adept], Turkish [satisfactory].

Dependent's Skills profile: Subterfuge [adept], dead drop retrieval and placement [adept], cover maintenance [adept], surveillance detection [expert], signal recognition [expert], analysis [expert], information memorisation [exceptional]. Subject demonstrates signs of eidetic or near-eidetic memory — formal assessment pending. Handler notes this capability has been operationally leveraged without formal documentation. Recommend assessment be conducted and findings added to permanent file.

Primary mission objective remains the identification and assessment of PROJECT FLUX — a weapons programme believed to be in advanced development stages under Axiom Central Command. Central Intelligence assesses with high confidence that Axiom intends to field-test PROJECT FLUX against Coalition forces currently deployed in the Berlin theatre. Nature of the weapon remains unconfirmed. Intelligence fragments suggest a biological or chemical delivery mechanism capable of mass effect. Casualty projections, if current assessments are accurate, are [REDACTED].

HARTMANN E. is to establish contact with existing asset network within the eastern sector and begin systematic intelligence gathering on Axiom research and logistics activity that may indicate PROJECT FLUX deployment timeline.

Secondary objective: identification of Axiom command personnel with direct knowledge of PROJECT FLUX. Any such personnel are to be flagged for [REDACTED].

Operative is authorised to use all available means within standing CMI field protocols.

ADDITIONAL NOTE — HANDLER ASSESSMENT:

HARTMANN E. is among our most capable field operatives in the European theatre. Her insertion into Berlin represents a significant investment of resources and political capital.

Central Command is advised that the dependent’s presence, while operationally useful, introduces a variable that standard protocol does not fully account for. This handler has raised this concern previously and notes it again for the record.

Central Command’s position remains unchanged.

END DOCUMENT CMI-EUR-067-1144 DISTRIBUTION: HANDLER [REDACTED] — CENTRAL COMMAND ONLY