TriPlex: Hello World

“In position yet, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m in. Two hostiles inside, lightly armed. Pistols and electric batons. Security’s looser than I expected, nothing like the outside perimeter. Taking them out wouldn’t be hard, but I’d rather avoid unnecessary noise. How’s the situation outside? Any changes in patrol patterns?”

“Quiet on my end. No changes in the last half hour. I’ll keep you posted if anything shifts.”

“Alright. I’ll call you back. I need to get moving.”

-CALL END-

Dim light buzzed from a single overhead bulb, throwing long shadows across stacks of old crates and dented shelves. The air tasted of rust and damp pipes, and every breath came with a little dust.

Two guards stood watch inside. Light armor, scuffed from use. Electric batons at their hips, pistols holstered. To pass the time they talked, their voices echoing too loudly through a place that otherwise felt abandoned.

Something else was in the room.

A shadow, barely there, tucked between the crates. It didn’t breathe. Its eyes never left the two guards, who had no idea they weren’t alone.

“Bro. I gotta show you this grill I got off F-bay,” Fred said, leaning against a shelf, arms crossed. “Vintage. Cast iron. Cost me a hell of a buck.”

Corrales didn’t look up from picking at his glove. “Jesus Christ, Fred. That’s where all your paycheck goes? No wonder you’re broke by the 15th.”

“Corrales, Corrales…” Fred grinned, dragging it out. “Buddy, what’s the point of working if you can’t buy the stuff you want? You gonna take it to the grave?”

“Moron. I’m not saying don’t spend it. I’m saying don’t blow it all on shit you’ll use twice. Times are weird right now. Save a little—”

Fred shrugged and pulled out his phone to show him the pictures.

CLINK

A small metal object hit the concrete and bounced. Once. Twice. It rolled to a stop less than a foot from their boots.

Fred frowned. “Hey, what’s that—”

“STUN GRENADE! DOWN!”

Corrales didn’t think. He moved. One arm shot out, hooked Fred’s vest, and yanked. They hit the floor chest-first, armor scraping concrete. Fred’s phone skittered away.

For half a second the room was silent. Both of them squeezed their eyes shut, teeth gritted, waiting for the white-hot flash and the sound that would knock the air from their lungs.

Nothing happened.

“W-what the hell? This grenade’s taking its time.”

Still nothing. No flash. No ringing. Just the echo of metal on concrete.

Corrales opened one eye. “A decoy?”

It didn’t matter now.

From behind the farthest crate, a man stepped out. Mid-thirties. Short blond hair, stubble rough along his jaw, a long brown trench coat trailing behind him.

Corrales and Fred scrambled for their batons, for their pistols, but it was too late. The man’s hand was already up, a suppressed pistol steady in it.

PSSHHH. PSSHHH.

Corrales jerked. A dark red hole opened in his chest. He hit the floor, limbs thrashing once, twice, then still. Blood sprayed across the rusted shelving behind him.

Fred could only watch the life leave Corrales’s eyes. It was all too sudden. He was a recruit with barely any real experience, and nothing in training had looked like this. Cold sweat traced down his neck and vanished under his armor. His hand wanted to go for his pistol, but it wouldn’t move. His heart thumped so hard he could hear it in his ears.

The man crouched over him, close enough that Fred could see every bristle of stubble. His eyes were flat and unreadable. The suppressor pointed at the bridge of Fred’s nose.

Fred waited for the shot.

Instead the man let out a quiet, tired sigh, and the barrel dipped toward the floor.

“You know what I’m capable of,” he said, calm and cold. “I’ll give you one chance. Tell me where they stashed the crates and you walk away forgiven of your sins. Lie, and you join your friend in wonderland. Sounds like a good deal, yes?”

Fred’s mind raced. Move. Shoot. Do something. His fingers found the grip of his pistol, slick with sweat. The gun wobbled in his hand.

One quick slap to the wrist knocked it clean away. Before Fred could lunge, the man’s foot sent it spinning across the floor and into the dark between the crates.

Out of the corner of his eye Fred saw Corrales, unmoving, blood pooling beneath him.

The man sighed again. This time there was no hesitation, just exhaustion and something harder behind it. His patience was wearing thin. The barrel pressed against Fred’s forehead.

“Listen. I don’t have all night. Five seconds, then there’s a hole in your head.”

“It’s— I— it’s—”

“Four.”

Sweat ran down Fred’s temple. He could feel the metal digging in. His fists clenched, but his hands were shaking too badly to do anything.

“Three.”

“Okay! Okay, get it off me!” Fred’s voice cracked. “I’ll tell you! Just don’t—”

“Two.”

“THE CRATES! I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT THE CRATES!”

The man eased the pressure off but didn’t move the gun. “Better. Now talk.”

Fred swallowed, throat bone-dry. “They’re in the back. Down the stairwell—”

“My little friend is about to help me know whether you’re telling the truth,” the man said. “So make sure every word is true. Because if it isn’t, you know what’s coming.”

He stood and let something drop from his coat pocket.

CLINK

A metal disc, no bigger than a coin, hit the concrete. For half a second, nothing. Then it sprang to life. Tiny legs unfolded from its sides, thin and jointed, spiderlike. It adjusted, then glided forward without a sound, slid under the gap of a crate, and vanished into a crack in the wall. A micro-camera lens caught the dim light once and went dark.

If you weren’t looking for it, you’d never see it.

The man’s thumb brushed the band on his left wrist, a small, absent motion. The pistol never left Fred.

Fred flinched back, lips trembling behind his visor. He couldn’t see the thing, but he could hear it, a faint skitter somewhere in the dark.

“They took ’em to the underground floor!” The words tumbled out. “Only way down is the stairwell by the secondary gate. That’s all I know, I swear!”

It was all there in his voice, his hands, the way his body couldn’t stop shaking. People broke one of two ways under a threat: they cracked and gave you everything, or they fed you lies and stalled for an exit. The man watched Fred’s eyes and decided which kind this was.

CLICK

A soft chime sounded in his earpiece. Green text scrolled across the inside of his headpiece, and a feminine voice followed.

“Device synchronized.”

Then he wasn’t looking through his own eyes anymore. The world went grainy, black-and-white, low-res, like old security footage. His feed had switched to the drone’s. Its eight tiny legs carried it under a doorframe, up a crack in the wall, across a ceiling pipe, fast and silent as a bug. It rounded a corner and the stairwell came into view. Secondary gate. Metal doors. Two guards on watch.

The man’s jaw tightened. He glanced down at Fred.

“Looks like you’re telling the truth,” he said quietly. “For now.”

Then he turned away, crouched beside the crate where the drone had vanished, and bowed his head over the feed.

Fred, moments ago at the mercy of a stranger’s gun, was given a choice: flee or fight.

He chose to live first.

Palms flat on the floor, he dragged himself inch by inch away, slow and silent, desperate not to draw attention. The stranger’s back was turned, his focus on the drone. Fred’s fingers found the edge of a crate and he hauled himself up, legs trembling and half-numb with shock. Leaning on it, he began to limp away, each step wider than the last.

The exit was close now. The wide-open door. He could make it.

Then he stopped.

He turned his head. Corrales’s body lay sprawled on the floor. The stranger was still hunched over the drone feed. And between them, on the cold concrete, lay Fred’s own pistol, right where it had slid.

The glint of steel caught his eye.

“He’s right there,” he whispered. “One shot and it’s over.”

Slowly, silently, his feet changed direction. No longer toward the exit. Toward the gun.

“Oi!”

The man’s voice cut through the quiet. Fred hit the floor, curling tight.

“Christ, cobwebs everywhere,” the man muttered, still bent over the feed. “For an underground operation smuggling high-grade genetic material, you’d think they could afford cleaners.”

A false alarm. Fred let out a shaky breath. No time to waste. He pushed himself up and moved, low and fast, closing the last few feet. Seconds later his hand closed around the grip. The metal was cold.

This is it.

He turned and fired without aiming. Once. Twice. Again and again, until the slide locked back and his ears rang. Eight shots. Smoke poured from the barrel. Sparks leapt where a few rounds missed and struck the pipes behind his target.

“How’d you like that?” he spat, voice hoarse.

No answer. Only the hiss of the pipes and the ringing in his ears.

He slumped against the crate, chest heaving. It was over. He’d handled it.

The smoke didn’t clear. It hung in a gray veil that crept toward the overhead bulb, and the light dimmed behind it until he could barely see past his own boots.

With a shaking hand he pressed the radio on his shoulder.

CLICK

Static, then a thin whine as the signal caught the intercom in the security room.

“Admin, this is Fred, Unit Three. Code black in storage. One bogey made entry. I neutralized him, but he got Corrales first. Corrales is KIA. Assume he has backup. Alert all units.”

Silence. Static.

“Admin! I’m not screwing around! Someone got into the storage room. I don’t know who the hell it was, but he was looking for the lab! Corrales is lying dead right here!”

A beat later the intercom crackled, the Administrator’s voice clipped and cool.

“Fred, confirm. You’re saying an intruder bypassed our entire security grid undetected? Have you confirmed the kill? If so, search the body for intel. Hold your position. I’m dispatching reinforcements and notifying all personnel.”

CLICK The line went dead.

“Admin? Admin! Damn it.”

He had his orders. He started waving both arms to clear the smoke. It was thick and stubborn, then slowly thinned.

And then he saw what he’d been shooting.

Nothing. No body. No blood. Just eight bullet holes, evenly spaced across the crate and the pipes behind it. Every shot he’d fired, accounted for.

It took him a second too long to understand what that meant.

He was the one who’d been played.

He snapped the pistol back up, arms locked, sweeping it in frantic arcs, left, right, behind him, aiming at nothing.

“H-how the hell…”

“That’s unfortunate.”

The voice came from somewhere in the dark.

Fred whipped toward it and pulled the trigger. CLICK

“What? No—” CLICK. CLICK. “Empty. It’s empty!”

The man stepped out of the shadows, a palm-sized projector in his hand. Across the room, the hunched figure Fred had emptied his gun into flickered once and was gone.

“Holo-decoy,” he said, almost apologetic. “A light, a speaker, and a man who’s easy to fool. I gave you a chance, Fred.”

PHHT

The bullet tore through Fred’s hand. The gun hit the floor.

“FUCK! MY HAND! AAHH—MY HAND!”

He dropped, writhing, as the man approached, footsteps slow and unhurried.

“You should have known better.”

The pistol rose again, this time to Fred’s head. The man locked eyes with him, a cold, dead stare that went straight through him.

“Wait—please! No, wait! I can still— I can still hel—”

PHHT

The muffled pop of the silenced weapon cut his pleas short.

The man holstered his pistol and walked away, unhurried, as if the two bodies cooling behind him were part of the scenery.

Minutes later he stepped out into the hallway, blending into the chaos. Facility alarms screamed. Employees scattered, shouting over each other as red lights pulsed overhead. A reinforcement team stormed the storage room, rifles raised.

They were too late. Fred and Corrales lay on the floor, the guards assigned to protect the crates. Both lifeless.

“Admin, this is the Unit 2 lead. Unit 3 personnel in storage are down.”

A sharp click of the tongue on the other end. “Tsk. Sergeant, sweep every hallway and every room. Now!”

The Administrator’s composure was finally cracking.

Somewhere in those halls, the man who had infiltrated the storage room moved fast. Troops were hunting him now, and one wrong step could cost him the entire mission. He made for the stairs without hesitation.

On the way he ran into a swarm of employees, utility staff, scientists, technicians, all rushing the opposite direction. The evacuation order had taken hold. He passed guards escorting people out, but in the blare of the sirens their priority was evacuation, not questioning a lone figure walking against the current.

No one paid him any mind.

He descended the staircase, then raised a hand to his headpiece and tapped it. The device flashed.

“How may I assist you, Sir Geovanni Jon Vaughn?”

“Patch me through to Zherik. Now,” Geovanni said.

The screen flickered as the call connected.

“Geo, finally! Tell me you found where they stashed the goods.”

“Almost. The drone confirmed the location. I’m heading down now, but the whole place just went hot.”

“No kidding it’s hot. It’s a complete shitshow up here,” Zherik snapped. “Sirens everywhere, civilians running in every direction, tactical teams pouring in by the truckload. Be quick, Captain. We’re on borrowed time.”

Geovanni lowered his voice. “Get the AMVs in position. Let’s get this show started.”

“Copy that.”

The call cut, and Geovanni kept descending, his footsteps echoing deeper into the facility.

At the sub-level he shoved open a rusted door and stepped into a wave of blue light.

The air was frigid and sterile. A low hum of machinery vibrated through the walls. It didn’t look like a lab. It looked like a makeshift operating theater. Surgical tools lay scattered across tables, some crusted with dried blood. Medical posters peeled from damp walls. Along the far side stood a row of freezers, and beside them hospital beds stained beyond recognition. The stench hit him then, chemicals laced with iron.

“This isn’t a drug lab,” Geovanni muttered, a chill crawling down his spine.

He moved toward a bed in the corner, boots crunching on tile. Flesh and gore splattered the frame; the sheets were soaked through with dark crimson. Whatever had happened here wasn’t surgery. It was butchery. The remains were so mangled he couldn’t tell whether they had belonged to a person or an animal.

These people are twisted.

He studied the pasty mass from every angle. “Doesn’t really smell that much…”

He tapped his headpiece. CLICK. CLICK.

“Photos successfully uploaded to cloud drive.”

Next he went to the freezers and pulled one open. Rows of chemicals and sealed containers, each meticulously labeled and arranged. This wasn’t some low-level operation. It was organized. Methodical. Sinister.

“So this is where they took the crates,” he murmured, snapping a few more photos.

At the far end of the room stood a large, reinforced metal door, gleaming under the blue lights. It was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and squinted as blinding white light flooded out.

Inside lay more surgical beds. Some were pristine. Others were ruined, stained with blood and clumps of disfigured organic matter like the one he’d already seen. One bed in particular caught his eye, set apart at the far end among sophisticated monitors and equipment. Unlike the rest, it was spotless. Crisp white sheets, a tray of surgical tools laid out neatly. Untouched.

“Strange.”

He turned to a table buried under scattered papers and folders and sifted through them quickly. Technical manuals, research notes, outdated references.

“Nothing useful. Looks like they took the important papers and cleared out.”

He kept digging until something stood out, a red folder among the dull whites and grays.

“Hello World…” he read aloud, frowning at the handwritten title scrawled across the cover. No ID code. No authorization stamp. It looked like someone had tried to hide it in plain sight.

He lifted it. Before he could open it, a high-pitched WHIZ sliced through the air.

A projectile ricocheted off the wall behind him, bouncing from surface to surface in a frantic metallic chorus before it lost momentum and clattered to a stop near his boots. He slid the folder inside his coat and turned.

“So it was you, Captain. The rat who infiltrated the storage room.”

The voice came from the dark end of the corridor.

A woman emerged, draped in a pristine white coat untouched by the grime of the facility, white gloves immaculate, black leather boots silent on the steel floor. High-tech glasses, strikingly similar to Geovanni’s own headpiece, glowed faintly over her eyes. The lower half of her face was hidden behind a polished metallic mask.

She wasn’t alone. Five guards flanked her, heavily armed, in advanced body armor, a different tier entirely from the grunts he’d dispatched earlier.

“And you must be the mastermind behind this mess,” Geovanni said, leveling his pistol at her. “I don’t care what kind of twisted operation you’re running. You’ve caused us more than enough trouble. This ends now.”

The woman chuckled. The sound bounced off the silent walls, filtered and metallic through her mask.

“Oh, how quaint.”

She took a single step forward. The guards didn’t move, but all five rifles tracked him in perfect unison, red dots crawling up his chest.

“Do you really think you’re in control here, Captain Jon Vaughn?”

Geovanni stiffened. His finger twitched on the trigger.

“Ah, that got your attention.” She tapped the side of her glasses. “Jon Vaughn. Age thirty-four. A war hero the people loved, until you threw it all away to become a soldier of fortune. PMC callsign: Phantom. The hero who decided heroism doesn’t pay.”

“Stay out of my file.”

“It’s a fascinating file. From serving a flag to serving the highest bidder. Tell me, does it feel different, choosing money over duty?”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

“I know what a man like you does when the war ends and no one needs him anymore. He finds another war. Any war. The battlefield is the only home he has.” Her lenses flared, amused. “So predictable.”

She spread her gloved hands.

“Nevertheless, we aren’t barbarians. Leave now and I’ll spare you. All I ask is that your precious PMC abandon this fruitless mission. No more bodies, no more contracts. You live. Your men live. A generous offer, don’t you think?”

Geovanni’s knuckles went white on the grip.

“Generous? Look at this place. It’s a sophisticated slaughterhouse.”

“Necessity,” she said simply. “What you call a nightmare, I call the future. You wouldn’t understand. You’d pick currency over humanity.”

“You think we’re just going to turn around and walk away?”

“I think a man like you knows when a contract isn’t worth dying for.” Her boots finally made a sound on the steel, click, click, as she stepped closer. “There are five guns on you, and I haven’t even drawn mine. That should tell you everything about your odds.”

The pistol didn’t waver. “We’re here to finish this. Once and for all.”

She stopped a meter away, close enough that he could see his own reflection in her mask.

“Oh my, aren’t you feisty. Just as expected from the great Jon Vaughn. You clawed your way through a war, survived what should have killed you. Most soldiers faded away. You refused to.”

Then the amusement vanished, and her voice turned cold.

“But this is where your journey ends.”

CLICK All five guards chambered a round at once.

“The clock’s ticking, Captain,” she whispered. “Tick-tock. Help won’t be coming. So what will it be? Another day of life, or a meaningless death?”

The standoff locked. Neither of them blinked. The air got too thin to breathe.

A bead of sweat dropped from Geovanni’s brow onto his headpiece. The red dots held steady over his heart.

Then, low and even:

“Fine.”

The woman’s shoulders relaxed. Her arms spread slightly, as if to bask in her victory, a triumphant smile curling behind the mask.

“Now, wasn’t that eas—”

“Consider it done.”

Geovanni pulled the trigger.

Her expression shifted from triumph to shock, then to nothing. The bullet tore through the side of her face and shattered the polished mask. Porcelain and blood. Her left lens exploded, her left eye gone, a chunk of cheek blown away in a spray of red across pristine white.

She didn’t scream. She stood there, stunned, swaying, blood pouring through her gloved fingers.

The room fell silent, the echo of the gunshot ringing off the steel.

Then:

“OPEN FIRE!”

One of the guards roared, and all five rifles erupted.

Geovanni was already moving. He had thrown himself behind a metal freezer the instant he fired, and bullets shredded the air where his head had been, chewing through consoles and glass, ricocheting in a screaming storm. The lab became hell: gunfire, sparks, alarms shrieking awake.

“You four! Eliminate the intruder! I’ll get the Administrator to evac. The paramedics can still patch her!”

“Leave it to us!” another snarled, still pouring fire into Geovanni’s cover.

“Damn… you… Jon… Vaughn…” The woman’s curse was weak and wet, blood bubbling at her lips behind the shattered mask.

“That’s enough, ma’am. Stay with me.” The guard slung his rifle and hoisted her over his shoulder, her white coat soaked red. “Let’s get you up. They can still save you. Come on!”

He carried her out of the laboratory, her gloved hand trailing a smear of blood across the floor as the gunfire raged behind them.

Geovanni knew his cover wouldn’t hold. The freezer was coming apart, dents turning into holes, sparks raining on his back. He couldn’t even peek. The air above him was a solid wall of lead.

His thumb found his headpiece.

“Reserve cell at four percent,” the assistant reported, unhelpfully calm. “Temporal function unavailable.”

“Of course it is,” he muttered.

So he waited. Listened.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK-CLICK.

Reloading.

He slid out from behind the freezer, low and fast, pistol up, and popped three shots as he moved. Clean headshots, center forehead, textbook.

TINK. TINK. TINK.

The rounds bounced right off. The helmets didn’t even crack. Thick matte-black composite. His pistol rounds weren’t leaving a scratch.

“Shit—”

He lunged for a metal crate a few meters away and dove as the next volley tore through where he’d been standing. Bullets screamed past his ear and chewed up the floor. He hit the ground hard behind the crate, breathing ragged.

Through a gap he caught a glimpse of the far exit, the fifth guard dragging the woman through it, her white coat red, her legs trailing, the door hissing shut behind them.

He couldn’t catch her. Not with four elites pinning him down.

He slammed his fist against the side of his headpiece, forcing it online. Static, then a tone.

“Zherik! Do you copy?!”

“Captain? Contact’s heavy here, what’s—”

“I found them! The ones behind the operation. The Administrator and one guard, heading for the evac point outside! They’re trying to slip out with the evacuees!”

Gunfire hammered his crate. He ducked lower.

“Start the assault! Now! Do NOT let them escape!”

A brief silence on the line, nothing but gunfire on Zherik’s end. Then:

“Roger, sir.”

CLICK Comms cut.

Geovanni exhaled, pressed his back to the crate, and checked his magazine. Four rounds left. Four armored guards.

He needed an out, and fast.

Gunfire blasted through the lab in relentless bursts, sparking off the metal tables. The air stank of ozone and hot steel.

Then CLICK-CLACK, the telltale sound of magazines dropping. Reloading.

A half-second pause in the storm.

He ran.

“There he is, boys! Light ’im up!”

A guard slammed a fresh mag home. Geovanni was already sprinting low toward the row of green oxygen tanks against the far wall. He had mapped the whole lab the second he walked in. He didn’t need to look.

He grabbed one tank and heaved it out into the open.

The guards opened fire. Bullets punched through the tank’s thin shell, and white gas screamed out under pressure.

“Ah, shi—”

The room went up.

The blast hit like a thunderclap. The oxygen detonated in a white-orange fireball that rolled across the lab, swallowing everything. Flames licked the walls, melted plastic, incinerated paper, and turned the guards’ advanced armor to slag. Their screams were cut short.

Geovanni was already gone. He’d thrown himself into an open cryo-freezer and yanked the heavy lid shut just as the inferno washed over it. Heat roared above him. The freezer shook. For a long moment all he could hear was his own breathing inside the steel box.

Then silence.

The lid creaked open. Geovanni climbed out, shaken, soot-covered, alive. He sucked in a breath of hot air and coughed.

“Damn. There goes our crime scene…”

He stared at the scorched lab. Melted equipment, blackened walls, nothing left but ash. He patted the front of his coat. The red folder was still there, creased but intact. Whatever else burned, he’d kept that.

Through the thinning smoke he caught movement at the far end. He had no time to dwell on it.

He ejected the empty magazine, slapped in his last spare, and vaulted a smoldering table, boots crunching over glass and twisted metal. Ahead, nothing but the open exit the woman had been dragged through. He followed, taking the stairs two at a time.

Alarms blared louder in the concrete shaft. Above him he could hear thudding boots, shouted orders, evacuation sirens wailing. He stayed locked on one goal: stop her before she reached the surface.

He burst onto the main floor and hit a wall of chaos.

The whole facility was evacuating. Scientists, technicians, security, a panicked river of people flooding the corridors toward the exits. Guards shouted and waved rifles, trying to keep order and failing.

And in the middle of that current, her. White coat flashing, shoving through the crowd, her guard clearing a path.

Geovanni raised his pistol.

He couldn’t take the shot. Civilians surged between them, erratic, terrified. One wrong move and an innocent went down. He lowered the gun.

Then he pushed.

He shoved through the crowd, shouldering past lab coats and uniforms, eyes never leaving her. She hit a side exit, her guard kicking the doors wide. At the threshold she looked back, just long enough to throw him a cold sneer.

Geovanni surged out after them onto a concrete helipad. A helicopter sat in front of him, rotors spinning, already kicking up dust.

Too late.

She was inside. The helicopter was lifting, skids just clearing the ground, the guard hauling the door shut behind him.

Geovanni planted his feet and did the only thing left. Six shots.

The chopper banked hard, metal pinging as at least one round sparked off the tail. It recovered and kept climbing, fast, until its running lights were swallowed by the black sky.

Geovanni stood there, gun still raised, chest heaving. The wind from the rotors died away. All that was left was the distant wail of alarms from inside.

He slowly lowered his arm, fists clenching.

“Tsk. Damn it. I was so close.”

For a moment he lost his composure. Then he took a deep breath, and his calm returned.

Gunfire from the front of the compound rolled around the side of the building. He turned back toward the door. A rifle lay on the threshold where a fleeing guard had dropped it. He picked it up, checked the chamber, and went in at a brisk, careful walk.

▂ ▃ ▅ ▇ ▅ ▃ ▂

MEANWHILE, ON THE SURFACE

“Target combatants only! Use non-lethal force on non-combatants!”

Zherik’s voice cut through the rifle fire over the comms.

Outside, chaos had swallowed the facility. The front lawn was a warzone, swarmed with fire and smoke, loud with the crack of rifles, shouted orders, and the chest-rattling thump of grenades. Arrowhead’s PMC forces had stormed the perimeter. Armored vehicles sat in staggered wedges, turrets swiveling, spitting fire at the facility’s security teams, who returned fire from behind concrete planters and overturned tables.

The air smelled of scorched iron.

“Sir! The evacuees are trying to escape!” one of Zherik’s men yelled, pointing toward the far end of the lot.

An armored truck, unmarked, engine roaring, was reversing hard. White coats and armed guards piled into the back, slamming the doors, abandoning their sinking ship.

Zherik clicked his tongue, eyes narrowing behind his visor. “Tsk. Can’t believe they’re actually tryna hotfoot it out of here. Rock, you’re up.”

A low chuckle rumbled from behind the line. “Heh. Kept me waiting.”

Before Zherik could reply, a container truck parked near the armored trucks shuddered. The locks blew with a thick pop.

CLANG

The rear doors didn’t just open. They buckled outward and tore off their hinges from the inside. Dust poured out.

Then it stepped out.

A hulking humanoid silhouette, twelve feet tall. Plating scarred and silver-white, steam venting from its shoulders in white jets. Its spiked head, like that of a rhinoceros beetle, snapped toward the escaping truck, a single amber optic flaring to life with a targeting whine.

Rock, piloting the battle mech, stepped forward. The knight-like armor gleamed under the facility lights. In its hands was a massive hammer with a thruster mounted on the opposite end, built to deliver devastating impacts.

“’Bout time,” Rock growled, his voice distorted through the mech’s speakers.

He charged. Each step shook the ground. Guards who saw him coming opened fire in desperation, bullets pinging off his armor like pebbles. Rock didn’t slow. The moment he reached striking range he swung, and the hammer tore through the enemy line, sending guards flying like ragdolls.

“Damn it! Break out the RPGs! Bullets don’t do squat to that thing!” the facility’s security sergeant barked.

The combatants scrambled to obey, hoisting launchers made for vehicle destruction.

“Aim… Fire!”

A barrage of rockets streaked toward the mech. On impact a massive explosion erupted, swallowing the area in black smoke. For a moment the entire firefight halted, both sides holding their breath.

“That must’ve done it. Well done, boys!” the sergeant said, grinning. His men celebrated with high-fives, convinced they’d landed a crippling blow.

Their joy was short-lived.

From the dissipating smoke the mech emerged, unfazed, unscarred, still advancing. The amber optic locked onto the armored truck. The soldiers froze, fear gripping them. They tried to flee, but it was too late.

Rock plowed through the remaining ranks until he reached the truck. With one controlled swing he brought the hammer down not on the cabin but on the engine block. Metal crumpled. The truck lurched, swerved, and slammed into the facility wall, dead.

Inside, the passengers were shaken but unharmed.

“Objective captured! Advance, men!” Zherik ordered, hand slicing forward.

His forces surged, gunfire intensifying as they capitalized on the chaos of Rock’s charge. The facility’s security collapsed under the push, lines overwhelmed.

“Piece of cake,” Rock commented, tearing the truck’s doors clean off.

Inside huddled scientists and utility staff, non-combatants with their hands over their heads, seeking refuge in steel. Rock had no interest in interrogating them. He raised a massive gauntleted hand and waved Zherik over. These could be witnesses who knew where their leader was.

Zherik decided to check the witnesses himself. He broke into a run toward the truck.

He didn’t make it.

A single figure stepped into his path and stopped him cold.

A woman, short, with green-tinted hair and blue eyes. Unarmed, in a tattered facility uniform. Just another fleeing worker.

Zherik slowed, cautious but dismissive, and extended a hand. “You’re coming with me, ma’am.”

He moved to take her by the arm.

Just before contact, she moved. She sidestepped his grasp with effortless precision and drove a punch straight into his sternum.

The impact cracked like a gunshot.

Zherik was launched off his feet and crashed into a stack of crates.

His men saw their field commander go down and reacted on emotion.

“That bitch! Get her!”

A swarm of bullets tore the air, muzzles flashing as they all opened up at once.

She didn’t flinch. She cut through the gunfire with impossible speed, a blur of blue and green, rounds sparking off the concrete where she’d been half a second before. She dove behind an armored car and used its bulk as a shield.

The steel screamed under the storm, CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG. For now she was unscathed. But how long would the cover hold?

“Get those mags reloaded!” a corpsman bellowed. “We’ll turn her into Swiss cheese the second she peeks!”

She didn’t wait for them to finish. While they slammed fresh magazines home, she crouched low, slipped her hands under the car’s chassis, and lifted.

The armored car, two tons of steel and plating, groaned, then rose. Slowly, impossibly, over her head, in her bare hands.

The soldiers froze, triggers half-pulled, mouths open.

She wasn’t finished.

With a savage grunt she gripped both sides and tore. Metal shrieked. The car split down the middle into two jagged halves.

They tried to shoot, but it was too late. She hurled both pieces. The wreckage smashed into their ranks and erupted in twin fireballs that echoed across the compound. Men were thrown, armor crumpled, screams cut short as the pursuing corps was decimated in an instant.

Rock, who had been watching from a distance, decided enough was enough.

Shock still buzzed in his head, but rage overrode it. He slammed the throttle and charged.

“Why, you little—” His thrusters flared as he surged in, restraint gone. The rocket hammer superheated for a one-shot kill. “You little SHIT!”

He brought it down with everything the mech had.

CLANG!

The hammer shattered into a thousand pieces against her fists.

Feedback rattled the cockpit. Rock recoiled, then instinct took over. He discarded the broken handle, raised the mech’s bare fists, and unloaded in bunches, every servo screaming at full power.

The woman slipped and weaved through the barrage like water. The compound filled with the whine of pistons and the whoosh of missed punches, and the difference became undeniable. Power against speed, and speed was winning.

Rock threw everything he had until frustration curdled into a cold truth.

He couldn’t connect at all.

“Zherik! Don’t just sit on your ass, help me!” he bellowed, fists still cutting through empty air. “Scan her! Find me a weak spot, anything!”

Zherik was just pushing himself off the ground, teeth red with blood. He fumbled out the analyzer, a pistol-grip scanner with a cracked display, and snapped it up to aim.

CLICK

“Scanning subject…”

The interface displayed. Zherik stared, and the color drained from his face.

“The hell? There’s… there’s nothing on here.”

“Unable to identify equipment. Please try again later,” the screen flashed.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Rock snapped without looking back. “She’s gotta have cybernetics, augments, something!”

“I’m telling you, it’s blank!” Zherik shouted, shaking the scanner as if that would fix it. “No gear. No exosuit. No signature. Rock, she’s doing it all by herself!”

That stopped Rock for half a second. Then rage swallowed it.

He threw his head back in the cockpit and roared, “I don’t care who you are or what you are! I’m sending you straight to hell!”

He slammed the mech into overdrive.

Warnings screamed across his HUD, power draw spiking, heat climbing, joints glowing, but the trade was worth it. The mech surged, faster and harder, its barrage doubling in speed. For the first time, the woman was forced to work.

And then, an opening.

She hung in midair, twisting to dodge his left hook, her flank exposed for a split second.

Rock saw it.

“Gotcha! One good hit is all I need!”

He wound up his right arm, capacitors charging with a high whine, and released it, a single devastating straight aimed at her exposed ribs.

This is it. See you in hell.

Closer. Closer. Inches away—

CRUNCH

Rock’s world lurched. The arm he had thrown was gone, severed clean at the shoulder, hydraulic fluid spraying like blood.

He froze, stunned. But he wasn’t done.

“Grah!”

Teeth gritted, he forced the left arm up, sparks cascading from the damaged shoulder port. One last shot. He threw all his weight behind it, the whole frame groaning.

He never got to extend it.

The woman was already there, wielding his own severed arm like a club.

She brought it down with inhuman force.

SLAM!

The impact sent Rock flying into the facility wall. High-grade concrete, rated for mech fire, shattered on contact.

For a moment there was only silence.

Zherik’s men stood frozen, bewildered. Rock, one of the company’s strongest fighters, had been beaten that easily. None of them could process it.

Zherik snapped out of it first and scrambled toward the wreckage. “Rock! ROCK! What’s your status?”

Nothing over the comms. Just static.

Zherik’s knees hit the dirt.

Then a click on his shoulder piece. A voice, weary but alive.

“S-she got me…”

Relief flooded through him. He shot to his feet. “Hold on, Rock! I’m coming—”

“No… d-don’t,” Rock wheezed. “She ain’t done yet.”

Zherik turned back toward the crash site.

The woman was climbing onto what was left of the mech. Swift. Deliberate. She stood over its broken torso, stared down at the head with flat, empty attention, then dug her bare hands into the plating.

Zherik raised his pistol. “Hey! Off him!”

His arms were still shaking from her earlier blow. He fired three, four rounds, all wide, sparking off metal and concrete. He could only watch as she cornered his comrade.

Metal screeched. She peeled the helm back like foil, revealing the pilot inside. Rock, in his forties, face bloodied from the impact, eyes half-open.

The woman grinned, slow and sadistic. Sharp, claw-like appendages slid from her fingertips, glinting under the lights.

Rock looked up at her and managed a bloody, grim smile. “H-heh… do it.”

No words. She raised her hand to slash his throat open—

BANG!

A single swift bullet pierced the air and struck her square in the head.

She staggered. Her eyes went wide with disorientation, and she tumbled off the mech’s body, vanishing into the smoke below.

For a moment, nothing on the scene moved.

Zherik’s gaze darted to the source of the shot. “What was that?”

“Good job, Z. You held your own.”

A familiar voice, from behind.

Zherik froze. He knew that voice. He turned slowly, and his shoulders dropped as hope rushed back into him.

“It’s you… Y-you’re here!”

Geovanni stood there, rifle still smoking, his coat singed at the hem, soot streaked along one cheek. He gave Zherik a tired smirk.

“Looks like she gave you one hell of a fight.”

He tossed the rifle to Zherik with a confident flick. Zherik barely caught it.

“Hold onto this for me, will you?”

“Where did you come from? We lost your signal when the basement went up. We thought—”

“That I was dead?” Geovanni chuckled. “Takes more than a burning basement to kill me. You should know that by now.”

He started walking toward the smoke, eyes already locked on the crater.

“By the way, got a spare fusion cell? I’m running on fumes.”

Zherik fumbled at his vest with shaking hands and pulled out a small, humming battery. “H-here! It’s a microcell, the last one I’ve got!”

Geovanni caught it one-handed, inspected it, and slotted it into a compartment on his headpiece. It pulsed blue, and with a low WHIRR the plates shifted, locking into a more battle-ready form.

“Ahh, that’s better.” He rolled his neck until it cracked. “Thank you, Zherik. I always knew you were a reliable guy.”

“Wait. Geovanni, don’t! You don’t know what she—”

“Is dangerous? Yeah, I got that part,” Geovanni cut in, not even looking back. “It takes a lot to put Rock down like that.”

“No, you don’t understand, she—”

“Save it for after.” He drew his sleek, single-edged blade from under his coat. “You can give me the details once the mission’s over.”

“Geovanni, seriously!”

Geovanni tapped his headpiece. CLICK

“Check energy stability.”

His assistant flickered to life.

“On it, sir. Reserve restored. Blade online. All systems green. Temporal function available, six seconds of runtime. I would advise saving it.”

Geovanni smiled, eyes fixed on the smoke where she’d fallen. “Noted. Let’s see what she’s got.”

Sparks flew as the blade left its sheath, its edge wreathed in blue energy. The energy drove the blade’s heat high enough to slice through almost anything.

The woman watched him come, calculating his movements as he closed the distance. Then, like a feral animal, she leapt from the mech and charged, her steps quickening as she built momentum until she was moving at a speed the naked eye couldn’t follow.

Geovanni’s focus sharpened. Where others felt their blood rush, he felt calm. He took one deep breath, loosened his muscles, and read her.

She lunged, claws first, aimed straight at his throat.

Geovanni sidestepped.

It was close. He felt the wind of her claws whistle inches from his skin. He didn’t waste the opening. He pivoted on his heel and slammed the pommel of his blade into the bridge of her nose.

CRACK

Her head snapped back. She staggered, just for half a second, and that was enough.

Geovanni reversed his grip and cut. A clean, horizontal slash across her shoulder.

The blue-heated edge hissed against flesh. The skin around the wound blackened instantly, cauterized to a crisp. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

She leapt back, clutching her shoulder, a guttural snarl tearing from her throat.

Then fury took over. She came at him again, faster this time, a flurry of wild, desperate strikes, claws whistling through the air, each swipe meant to gut him.

Geovanni didn’t trade blows. He read her. A slip to the left. A weave under her arm. A parry that sent sparks flying. His footwork was light and effortless, and every wild swing only made her easier to read.

Slash, miss. Swipe, parried. Lunge, gone. He was always a half-step ahead.

The battlefield had gone silent. Even the gunfire and explosions had died down. Zherik and his men stood frozen by the armored truck, eyes locked on the duel. Whispers rippled through them. Their captain, the strategist, the thinker, moved like this, facing an enemy that had torn a mech apart with her hands, and he wasn’t losing a step.

“How… how is he doing that?” one of the corpsmen muttered behind Zherik. It was the question on everyone’s mind.

Zherik didn’t take his eyes off the fight. A slow, knowing smile crept across his face.

“That’s our Captain. That’s Geovanni.”

He glanced back at the wide-eyed rookie. “You’ve heard the stories, right? They say most men spend their whole lives trying to reach the peak.”

He looked back at Geovanni, who was weaving through another flurry of claws.

“He lives there.”

The words hung in the air.

For the first time since Rock went down, the men felt hope again. One of them shouted, then another. It started as a cheer, then became a chant.

“Come on, Captain!”

“Get her, sir!”

Zherik cupped his hands around his mouth and roared louder than all of them. “FINISH HER, GEOVANNI!”

The woman launched forward again, frenzied now, desperate.

Her claws slashed for his throat. Geovanni leaned back and felt the tip miss by a hair. In the same motion he drove a kick into her ribs. She stumbled. He didn’t let her recover. He stepped in and smashed his elbow into her jaw.

CRACK

She sprawled across the concrete, skidding, blood trickling from her mouth as she tried to push herself up. She couldn’t.

Geovanni was already there, blade poised at her throat, humming blue inches from her skin.

“It’s over.”

The woman snarled, baring bloodied teeth. She thrashed once, but the blade pressed closer and she froze. Cornered. For all her savagery, she knew when she’d lost.

Geovanni tapped his headpiece without taking his eyes off her. “Z, I’ve got her.”

“Yeah, we saw,” Zherik’s voice came through, breathless. “Damn, Captain. You actually—”

“We can’t let her slip away. Not this one. What’s the situation on your end?”

“No luck on the leader. One of my men spotted a chopper lifting off from the north pad. Must’ve been them. They bolted while she kept us busy.”

Geovanni’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed even. “I know. I watched it leave. She was the distraction.”

He pressed the blade just enough to make her flinch.

“New orders. Secure the target, bring in the facility employees for questioning, and get Rock out of that mech. Med-evac, now.”

“And the helicopter?”

Geovanni looked up at the empty sky. “Let it go. We’ll find them. For now, let’s end this operation.”

Just as it seemed to be over, she moved.

With the last dregs of her strength the woman lashed out, a wild swipe aimed straight at his throat. He caught it, barely. Her claws crashed into his forearm guard, and the sheer force of the blow sent him slamming to the ground.

She was already on him, claw raised for the killing blow.

“You’ve left me no choice,” he muttered.

His hand shot to his headpiece.

CLICK

The world changed.

A deep, low hum filled the air as his visor flooded with an ethereal blue. The smoke, the dust, Zherik shouting in the distance, the woman’s claws inches from his face, all of it slowed to a crawl.

In this blue, frozen world, Geovanni moved at normal speed. He stood up calmly, dusted himself off, and simply walked around her suspended swing. He studied her face, frozen mid-snarl, eyes full of hate.

“Fast,” he whispered, inches from her ear. “But not fast enough.”

With a quick, precise motion he planted a small black device on her spine.

“Let this be a lesson.”

He stepped back and tapped his headpiece again.

The blue shattered. Time snapped back, sound and wind and shouting rushing in at once.

Geovanni was already walking away, hands in his pockets, as if nothing had happened.

The woman blinked, utterly confused. One moment her prey was under her claws. The next he was ten feet away with his back turned.

Rage took over. She lunged at him again—

BZZZT-CRACK!

The device on her back activated. A surge of blue electricity exploded through her nervous system. Her body seized, her back arched, a choked scream tore from her throat before everything went black.

She hit the ground hard. Unconscious.

Geovanni never stopped walking. A few steps on, he halted and turned. The woman lay motionless in the dust.

“Scan her. Vitals.”

“Vitals stable, sir. Heart rate elevated, but stable. She’s unconscious, not deceased.”

Geovanni’s eyebrows rose. “Stable? That charge was tuned to shut down a mech. It should have stopped her heart.”

“Clearly,” the assistant said, “she’s built differently than a mech.”

Footsteps. Zherik came sprinting over, rifle still in hand.

“Well done, sir!” he called, grinning behind his mask. “Damn, that time thing! Thought you stopped doing that!”

“I don’t, if I can help it. It costs more than I like to spend.”

Zherik’s grin faded. “I tried to tell you earlier. The scanner couldn’t read her at all. No implants, no suit, no signature. Whatever she is, it’s all her.”

“I noticed.”

Geovanni’s gaze drifted past him to the empty sky where the chopper had been.

“She was just the hound,” he said. “We cut the leash, but we didn’t catch the owner.”

Zherik put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. A victory’s a victory. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, this wouldn’t have been a rescue op. It would’ve been a recovery.”

Geovanni finally exhaled. “Maybe you’re right.”

He tapped his headpiece again. “Secure the target. I want her cuffed with grade-4 dampeners and two men on her at all times. Bring the employees in for questioning. And get Rock out of that damn mech before it cooks him alive.”

“On it.”

The two men walked back toward their squad, boots crunching over ash and spent casings. Around them lay the aftermath: fires, smoke, wrecked drones, the bodies of hired guns who had chosen the wrong contract.

On paper, it was a crucial triumph for Geovanni’s PMC.

But Geovanni’s mind was elsewhere. Behind him the facility burned. Inside his coat the red folder pressed against his ribs, its two handwritten words still unanswered. The Administrator had known his name. The woman had shrugged off a charge meant to stop a mech. There was far too much he didn’t know.

And something told him the night wasn’t over.

It was only beginning.