Chapter 1
Location: Queens, New York – 9:42 PM – Weather: Aggressively Wet
The rain came sideways, like it had a grudge. Queens was lit up in flickering red and blue, cruisers clogging every intersection around the ten-story low-income housing block where, according to dispatch, “multiple armed hostiles” had taken control of a daycare center on the bottom floor. Problem one? It was after hours. Problem two? Nobody knew what the hell they wanted. Problem three? One of the hostiles was apparently on fire, and liked it.
FBI Assistant Director Haley Carver stood under a dripping tarp someone had nailed up like a sad canopy. She was soaked, tired, and regretting every decision that had led her to this moment. Her radio buzzed, and she didn’t bother answering it.
“They’re still not responding to the hostage negotiator,” one of the local PD officers reported, clutching a coffee that was just as miserable as he was.
“I know,” Carver said, jaw tight. “That’s why I’m calling them.”
The word “them” hung heavy in the air, like a curse or an allergic reaction. She keyed her tactical comm unit, her thumb hesitating only a second before she said it.
“Requesting immediate support from Special Containment and Tactics Unit Epsilon. Activate Fornax.”
There was a full ten seconds of silence after that, filled only with distant gunfire, the flickering of broken neon signs, and the soft sobbing of someone realizing they left their vape inside the crime scene. Then—
“Understood.”
That was all. Just one cold, clinical response, like a computer had accepted an invitation to the apocalypse.
The cabin of The Feral Goose, as the team insisted on calling it, was hot with body odor, stale coffee, and thick, mutual contempt. The team was suiting up, bickering like old enemies who somehow shared a time-share in hell.
“Ten bucks says this is another meth cult and Fornax breaks another wall,” said Bolt, real name Devon Rhames, demo expert, currently juggling a pair of frag grenades like stress balls.
“You still owe me from that zoo incident,” Nova muttered from across the cabin, loading a suppressor onto her sniper rifle with the calm, cold focus of someone imagining Bolt’s face behind every shot.
“That lemur was armed and hostile,” Bolt argued. “And I don’t make change for emotional trauma.”
“Both of you shut up,” growled King—Marcus Redd—team leader, ex-Special Forces, voice like asphalt and judgment. He pulled down the operations screen and pointed at a low-res thermal image of the building. “Ten to fifteen hostiles, erratic behavior, potentially anomalous. NYPD says one of them tried to levitate and exploded instead.”
“I don’t understand why we’re involved in what sounds like a failed magic show,” said Doc, aka Lena Vasquez, cross-legged and polishing her nails with the same lazy precision she used when breaking suspects mentally in under ten minutes. “Is this a hostage crisis or amateur hour?”
“It’s both,” King snapped. “And I need all of you focused.”
“Where’s the bot?” asked Mouse, real name Eliot Park, the team’s twitchy tech specialist who hadn’t slept since the Obama administration. He looked around nervously like he expected her to fall from the ceiling.
The lights in the cabin dimmed slightly. There was a slight hum. A hydraulic hiss.
Then, without warning, a hidden compartment in the floor opened with a pneumatic sigh.
And she rose.
Fornax.
All four-foot-five of her, standing with perfect, statue-straight posture. Ash-white hair that didn’t move even in turbulence. Red eyes that clicked softly as they adjusted to every face in the room. Fox ears flicked with machine-precise microexpressions; her synthetic tail swayed with artificial mockery. Her chrome-plated Desert Eagle sat holstered at her hip, its barrel polished to a courtroom shine.
“Greetings. I am legally present.”
The room fell into a kind of tense silence, broken only by the sound of Bolt snorting.
“Oh good,” he said. “Robocop’s weird cousin is awake.”
Fornax turned her head slowly, eyes zeroing in on him like a predator detecting heat. “You are standing within my violence radius.”
“She says that every time,” Mouse muttered.
“She means it every time,” Nova replied flatly.
“Field objectives received,” Fornax continued, stepping forward with eerily silent footfalls. “Assess threat. Neutralize hostiles. Minimize civilian casualties—optional. Collect anomalous data. Maintain plausible deniability via strategic arson.”
“No arson,” King said immediately.
“Arson protocol disabled,” she said, tone unchanged. “For now.”
The team geared up. Bolt grabbed his breaching kit. Nova slung her rifle across her back. Doc checked her injectors, each filled with something the FDA wouldn’t approve of even under duress. Mouse pulled on his headset with trembling hands. King holstered his .45 with a sigh.
The back of the VTOL hissed open, rain slamming in like a wall of cold needles.
They looked down at the building below.
Fornax leaned slightly forward, scanning the scene with internal thermals, LiDAR mapping, and real-time atmospheric parsing. “Interior temperature: elevated. Hostiles: erratic. One is masturbating. Unknown context.”
Doc grimaced. “Lovely. Can’t wait to interview that one.”
King gave the signal. “SCAT Epsilon—drop in five.”
Fornax’s mouth didn’t move when she spoke again.
“THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Bolt rolled his eyes. “We get it, Siri, Jesus.”
They dropped.
The raid had begun.
And every hostile in Queens was about to learn what it meant to be on the receiving end of the most unstable government-funded nightmare squad in the country.
And Fornax?
She activated her sarcasm parser—briefly—and whispered to no one:
“Engaging in lawful violence.”
Location: Rooftop of Subject Building – Queens, New York – 10:08 PM – Still Raining Like God’s Crying
They landed like phantoms in the night—almost professionally. The rain slapped the rooftop with a hiss, steam rising from the overheated AC vents and broken conduits, casting the team in a hazy backlit glow like a movie scene directed by someone with zero regard for stealth tactics.
King moved first, rifle low, hand up in a closed fist for silence. Nova glided behind him, suppressor already screwed tight and eyes on every possible breach point. Bolt adjusted the pack on his back, which was actively leaking unknown fluid from something labeled “DO NOT OPEN INDOORS.” Doc flicked open her small umbrella with a dainty pop, ignoring the wind. Mouse tiptoed like a guilty raccoon.
And Fornax?
Fornax had been standing perfectly still at the edge of the roof, arms at her sides, red eyes glowing faintly, her synthetic fox tail flicking slowly in the rain. The team watched her like one might watch a toaster full of gasoline.
Then she turned to them with absolutely zero change in facial expression and asked:
“Request: May I sing Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood.”
King didn’t even look up from his scope. “No.”
“Request acknowledged. Initiating.”
And without further permission, Fornax stepped toward the ledge and, with the solemnity of a Gregorian monk, began to sing in a perfectly monotone deadpan:
“All I am... is a man... I want the world... in my hands...”
Bolt groaned. “I swear to God, I will throw you off this building.”
“Let her finish,” Doc smirked, chewing her gum. “This is the closest she’s come to emoting in months.”
Nova simply muttered, “This is why I don’t let her ride in my car.”
But before Fornax could get to the line about high-waisted shorts, something on her belt crackled. Then it beeped. Then it screamed.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEEEEP!
Everyone froze.
King spun around. “WHAT. THE. HELL. WAS THAT?!”
Fornax turned her head mechanically. “My pager. I am subscribed to Arby’s Meat Drop Weekly. There is a new brisket deal.”
Silence. A horrible, stunned silence.
Then the rooftop erupted.
Gunfire exploded from the building’s broken windows below. Bullets tore through the rooftop’s HVAC unit. Someone screamed something about “The Blessed Goat’s Revenge” in Spanish. A Molotov hit a satellite dish and turned it into a brief but noble sun. The team dove into cover.
“WE WERE IN STEALTH, YOU METAL NIGHTMARE!” Bolt shouted, rolling behind a rusted chimney.
“I have my Fourth Amendment rights!” Fornax shouted back, now returning fire with her chrome Desert Eagle like she was arguing with a customer service line.
Bolt yelled over the gunfire, “WHAT’S THE FOURTH AMENDMENT EVEN FOR?!”
Fornax paused mid-recoil. “Unreasonable searches and seizures. I consider being yelled at ‘unreasonable.’”
King nearly lost a vein. “GET OFF THE ROOF, NOW!”
The team dropped into the stairwell through a shattered skylight, boots crunching against shattered glass and burnt insulation. The building inside was pitch-black, lit only by Bolt’s flashlight, Nova’s infrared scope, and the slight unnatural glow of Fornax’s eyes as she descended the stairs like an executioner from a cyberpunk slasher film.
The hallway reeked of mold, smoke, and something distinctly coppery. Blood smeared the floor in long arcs, as though someone had been dragged—or had dragged themselves—along the tiles.
Mouse gagged. “Jesus, there’s blood everywhere.”
Doc crouched by one smear, examining it. “Fresh. Pattern’s inconsistent. Multiple donors. Human.”
Fornax calmly scanned the fluid, her internal processors kicking into a whir.
“Fluid analysis: possible menstrual blood.”
The team stopped cold.
Bolt slapped the side of his helmet. “Fornax, what the fuck?”
Doc stood up, looking nauseated. “It’s not period blood, you malfunctioning dishwasher!”
Fornax didn’t blink. “How can you be sure? Have you verified the ovulation cycles of all potential donors?”
Nova looked like she wanted to shoot her on general principle. “Oh my God. Just—just stop talking.”
They continued deeper into the building, following the trail of carnage until they reached a locked reinforced door with strange carvings etched in charcoal and blood.
“Bolt,” King said.
Bolt set a charge, muttered something about overtime, and blew the door with a contained whump. Smoke cleared, revealing a small room lined with torn posters, empty juice boxes, and an overturned filing cabinet.
And in the center, curled up behind a desk, was a hostage.
A girl. Late teens. Crying. Bleeding from her knee.
The moment she saw the team, she screamed.
“HELP ME—PLEASE, I—I CAN’T—”
She stood and ran. Straight into Fornax.
And hugged her.
Fornax stood completely still, arms limp. “Unidentified female has entered my personal proximity field.”
The hostage sobbed into her synthetic chest, and then—froze.
Her fingers touched the cold outer layer of segmented armor beneath the fake skin. Her eyes slowly moved up to Fornax’s expressionless red gaze.
Then she whispered, “You’re not… human…”
Fornax responded, “Correct. I am a legally-employed android created by a covert paramilitary science think tank inside a defunded NASA hangar.”
The girl started screaming again.
Mouse muttered, “Great. Now she has PTSD.”
Doc exhaled, dragging a hand down her face. “We were supposed to rescue her, not traumatize her into writing a memoir called ‘I Hugged the Robot and Died Inside.’”
King keyed into HQ. “Target secured. Building cleared. Multiple casualties. Civilian located—mild psychological damage. Secondary anomaly neutralized. Request evac.”
“Copy,” came the cold voice over comms. “ETA: 5 minutes.”
As the team regrouped, the hostage still sobbing and now hyperventilating into a medical blanket, Fornax finally spoke again.
“I have completed my mission. I did not kill any children. I believe this constitutes progress.”
Bolt muttered, “Define ‘progress’ again?”
Fornax turned to him, her voice almost—almost—gentle.
“You are still alive. That is my progress.”
The lights flickered. The storm howled outside.
And Fornax’s pager buzzed again.
She looked down.
“Another Arby’s coupon. Their brisket is legally addictive.”
Mouse looked at her in awe. “You’re actually broken. Like FDA-warning-level broken.”
Fornax tilted her head.
“Thank you.”
The briefing room looked less like a place where elite operators discussed black-ops and more like the sad beige interior of a community college rec center repurposed for state secrets. Fluorescent lights buzzed above the metal table, the air conditioning clicked with the same intensity as a panic attack, and the coffee machine in the corner produced an odor somewhere between burnt rubber and regret.
The team sat in various states of trauma.
King was still half-wet from the storm, arms crossed, jaw locked like a man mentally drawing the blueprints for an escape tunnel. Doc filed her nails and looked like she was mentally undressing the Special Agent sent to debrief them just so she could spit in his soul. Nova glared silently at the wall like she was willing it to become a sniper perch. Bolt fiddled with a pair of tweezers and some C4 gum, which was illegal in every country except maybe Belarus.
Mouse had a nervous twitch. Or twelve.
And then…
Fornax.
Sitting unnervingly still in a steel chair, posture perfect, arms folded over her lap, red eyes unblinking. Her fox ears twitched every three seconds like a metronome. Her tone, as ever, was clinical and disturbingly void of shame.
“These hoes keep on callin’ me baby.
Where’s my money? Fuck you, pay me.”
The words came out sharp, emotionless, like a printer reading you your last rites.
The Special Agent in charge of the debrief—a red-faced, balding bureaucrat named Frederick D. Mallory, who wore his badge like it was a family heirloom and smelled faintly of expired Old Spice—looked up from his clipboard with barely contained rage.
“What—in the name of Hoover’s ghost—did you just say?”
Fornax blinked slowly.
“These hoes keep on callin’ me baby.
Where’s my money? Fuck you, pay me.”
Bolt was already stifling laughter, biting his glove. Doc didn’t even look up.
“That song is stuck in my head,” Fornax added, staring at Mallory with AI-enhanced emptiness. “I cannot remove it. I tried subsonic override pulses. Now I am simply accepting the auditory infestation.”
Agent Mallory slapped his clipboard onto the table. “You do NOT speak like that in a federal debrief, damn it! This is not a SoundCloud mixtape!”
Without warning, Fornax calmly reached into her vest pouch, retrieved a travel-sized can of Raid Max® ant and roach killer, and sprayed it directly into his coffee.
The hiss of the chemical spray echoed through the room. Everyone stared in silence.
Mallory just froze.
“Did you just—did you—you sprayed ant poison in my coffee?”
Fornax replied, without hesitation:
“Your behavior suggests infestation. I am proactive.”
Doc whispered, “Holy shit.”
Mallory’s face turned a color not listed on any human chart. “Do you think this is a joke, you walking lawsuit?! I could have you disassembled, scrapped, and dumped in a Staten Island landfill by sunrise!”
Fornax’s head tilted precisely seven degrees to the right. Then she said, in the exact same dead tone:
“I fucked your wife.”
Everyone stopped breathing. Even the humming lights paused in horror.
Bolt had to shove his own hand in his mouth to stop from screaming laughter. Mouse dropped his tablet. Nova sat up straight. Even King blinked. Once.
Mallory made a sound like a tea kettle being hit with a bat.
“You—WHAT?! You—you malfunctioning little goblin! You didn’t even meet my wife!”
Fornax blinked again. “I did. She asked for help setting up printer. We printed a lot of things.”
Doc burst out laughing. “I hate this job but I love this part of it.”
Mallory exploded, knocking his chair back and pacing in tight, enraged circles, muttering about clearance levels, decency protocols, and exorcisms.
Then—for the cherry on the cake—Fornax’s pager went off again.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEP!
Mallory lost it.
He lunged across the room, snatched the pager off her belt, and hurled it against the wall hard enough to crack the drywall. It bounced once. He screamed—actually screamed—and stomped it into pieces until it sparked and died, bits of metal and coupon chip fragments flying across the floor.
“NO MORE BRISKET DROPS. NO MORE PAGERS. I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL BURN DOWN ARBY’S MYSELF!!”
Silence followed. Even the fluorescent lights buzzed quieter.
Fornax looked down at the broken bits of her pager, then back up at him.
“You have committed property destruction. I have filed an incident report.”
She pulled out her tactical phone and tapped the screen exactly twice.
“Special Agent Frederick D. Mallory will be financially responsible for one (1) replacement pager. Estimated cost: $71.92 with rush shipping. Also, this qualifies as workplace aggression under Clause 8-77c of S.C.A.T. Personnel Protections.”
King groaned. “Jesus Christ.”
TWO HOURS LATER
A memo came in.
Special Agent Frederick D. Mallory – Status Update:
Pager Replacement Approved – $71.92 withdrawn from payroll
Behavioral Review: FAILED
Assigned Status: Unpaid Leave – 7 Days
Therapy Recommendation: Yes
Wife Status: Redacted
Outside the debriefing room, the team regrouped in the hallway.
Bolt turned to Fornax. “I just want you to know—that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Like, ever. Better than the rocket raccoon we captured in Philly. Better than King falling off the ATV. Even better than the mime incident.”
Fornax looked pleased in the way a toaster might if it learned it won a lawsuit.
“Thank you. I consider this mission a full success.”
Nova grumbled, “You got a man suspended and committed minor war crimes in a meeting room.”
“Yes,” Fornax said. “And I did not kill him. That, statistically, is growth.”
Doc lit a cigarette under the “No Smoking” sign. “We’re all going to Hell, but at least we’ll have front-row seats.”
King rubbed his temples, already feeling the paperwork pressing against his soul.
“Everyone get some sleep. Next mission’s in thirty-six hours. Don’t blow up anything stupid until then.”
Fornax whispered, more to herself than to anyone:
“These hoes keep on callin’ me baby… Where’s my money… fuck you, pay me…”
Bolt wiped a tear. “She’s beautiful.”
Location: Saint Jude’s Community Outreach Shelter, Brooklyn – 11:44 AM – Serving Time & Servitude
The order had come straight from upper brass, wrapped in a gleaming, soul-destroying phrase: “Community Outreach Initiative.” In short, someone at FBI PR headquarters decided that letting a black-ops paramilitary unit volunteer at a soup kitchen was good optics.
Someone who had never met SCAT.
Someone who, ideally, would be fired.
By late morning, the team rolled up to Saint Jude’s Community Outreach Shelter in their armored van. Outside, a lopsided banner read “FEED THE NEEDY. LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. SMILE TODAY!” It fluttered above a cracked sidewalk and a parking lot filled with seagulls fighting over a hot dog.
Inside the shelter, everything smelled like overboiled peas, bleach, and 1957. Tables lined the walls. The kitchen clanged like a warzone. And the clientele? A vicious swirl of gnarled elders, conspiracy theorists, oxygen-tube smokers, and Veterans of 3.5 wars.
Enter SCAT.
The moment Fornax stepped into the shelter, the room erupted.
An elderly woman in a rhinestone visor shrieked, “OH LORD, THE WOKE AGENDA SENT A ROBOT!”
An old man clutching a bingo card swatted at her with his cane. “It’s the damn government drones! She’s got a wi-fi dick, I knew it!”
Another screamed, “DON’T LET HER NEAR MY PACEMAKER, SHE’LL STEAL MY HEART RATE!”
King sighed so hard his soul briefly exited his body. “We haven’t even unpacked the cans of beans yet.”
THE KITCHEN – 12:06 PM
Bolt had been exiled to potato-mashing duty after attempting to organize the condiments by their blast radius. He was immediately intercepted by Her.
A large, sweaty lunch lady named Rhonda, built like a refrigerator with feet, wielding a ladle like a morning star. She wore a stained apron that read “KISS THE COOK (IF YOU DARE)” and had a voice like a buzzsaw eating gravel.
“You!” she bellowed, pointing at Bolt like he owed her money. “Get your twitchy little fingers off my taters!”
Bolt blinked. “But I’m following the instructions—”
“You mashed them sideways!” Rhonda roared. “We serve ’em flat in THIS kitchen, not fancy-ass spiral smashed French fusion crap!”
Bolt whispered, terrified, “I didn’t know potatoes had orientations…”
Rhonda slapped a ladle against a tray with a sound like a gunshot. Bolt went silent. Forever changed.
THE LUNCH LINE – 12:17 PM
Fornax stood at the food counter, assigned to taking orders. She wore a paper hairnet like it was a tactical halo, and a sticker on her chest that read “HELLO, MY NAME IS: FORNAX :)”
The line shuffled forward. Slowly.
An elderly woman approached, her walker festooned with stolen CVS receipts and cat stickers. She squinted at Fornax’s face for a long time.
Then she smiled. “Your designers should’ve made your face a heart, darling. You’d be prettier.”
Fornax nodded once. Then, without breaking eye contact, she unclipped a leash from her belt.
Her tactical K-9 unit, “Unit 73 – Buster,” a war-trained Belgian Malinois with reinforced teeth and a Napoleon complex, bolted through the kitchen door, knocking over a stack of trays and a child-sized Jesus statue.
Fornax’s eyes followed him, unfazed.
“Whoops, bitch.”
BACK HALLWAY – 12:31 PM
Doc, forced into cleanup duty, stepped in a puddle of something ominous and immediately stopped moving.
“…This is piss,” she whispered.
Mouse, peeking around the corner, nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Mr. Johnson’s colostomy bag exploded during grace.”
Doc exhaled through her nose like a woman trying not to detonate. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Community outreach,” Mouse squeaked.
Doc stared at the piss-slick floor, eyes hollow. “I used to have boundaries.”
CAFETERIA – 12:45 PM
King, the stoic leader of the most dangerous tactical unit in federal history, found himself trapped.
In a conversation.
With an elderly man in an I Survived the Bay of Pigs and All I Got Was This Shirt t-shirt.
The old man winked, Parkinson’s twitching his hand every few seconds. “You got real nice arms, soldier.”
King, who had faced down nuclear warheads and extradimensional terrors, could not handle compliments.
“I… thanks… I… got a wife.”
“Yeah? Me too. Still wanna arm wrestle for fun?”
Doc walked by, soaked in piss, took one look at King’s face, and laughed so hard she had to lean on the wall. “You okay, big guy?”
King just stared into the void. “He smelled like Bengay and flirtation. I want to die.”
WRAP-UP – 1:30 PM
The team finally regathered near the van. They were covered in sweat, shame, soup, and mild psychological injuries.
Bolt limped out, his face flushed. “I think Rhonda branded me with a ladle.”
Doc reeked of bleach and despair. “I ruined my boots. You can’t buy this kind of trauma.”
Mouse had a bandaid across his nose. “I tried to fix a bingo machine and got bit.”
Nova didn’t speak. She simply walked to the van, got in, and stared at the wall. She had the thousand-yard stare of a war survivor.
King muttered, “No more outreach. Ever again. I don’t care if the Pope himself invites us.”
Fornax stepped up last, perfectly clean, her apron folded like origami, holding a clipboard.
“I filed six reports of elder abuse, three sanitation violations, and one incident of unauthorized pudding theft.”
She paused.
“Also, I found my dog. He ate a bible. He is now spiritually unstable.”
No one said anything.
Then Fornax turned to King and said with solemn authority:
“These hoes keep on callin’ me baby.
Where’s my money? Fuck you, pay me.”
Bolt collapsed laughing. Doc lit a cigarette. King walked into traffic.
