What should have been a picture-perfect day—a sky painted in the soft hues of spring, sunlight gilding the edges of towering monuments—was instead a vision of ruin. Thick columns of smoke twisted upward, swallowing patches of blue in a suffocating shroud. The air, once crisp with the scent of cherry blossoms, was now a vile concoction of burnt flesh and acrid decay.
Shattered remnants of history lay strewn across the city: statues toppled, monoliths fractured, their proud inscriptions erased by soot and flame. Washington’s courtyards, once pristine, had become graveyards of smoldering wreckage, strewn with bodies that crumbled like ash in the gentle breeze. Every gust carried sorrow—a whisper of despair etched onto blackened walls, where drifting embers painted somber murals of devastation.
What once stood as the heart of a nation pulsed now with the silent screams of its downfall. For months, the streets of America swelled with unrest—a relentless tide of voices clamoring against the United States’ indifferent stance on the escalating chaos beyond its borders. The cries of protest echoed through avenues and plazas, banners snapping in the wind like battle standards, anger seeping into the asphalt itself. Cities pulsed with frustration, their skylines painted in the flickering red and blue of sirens as demonstrations grew fiercer, threatening to boil over into anarchy.
Meanwhile, the nation’s military, stretched thin across distant battlegrounds, fought to maintain their grip on three volatile theaters—Israel, Ukraine, and the Ivory Coast. Soldiers pushed forward with waning strength, outnumbered and exhausted, their boots caked with the dust of conflict in lands far from home. And back in the U.S., as the protests evolved from fury to outright violence—glass shattering, fires licking the edges of government buildings—it became painfully clear that the fragile balance was collapsing.
With no choice but to reinforce their crumbling defenses, the government sent out an urgent call: Caliber Security Services. Private forces. Hired guns. Within days, armored personnel swept into American streets, a force summoned not to restore order, but to impose it.
In the weeks that followed, the line between protestor and insurgent blurred into shadow. What had started as cries for justice twisted into chaos—storefronts shattered under iron fists, banners of defiance swallowed by roaring flames. Vandals became looters. Rioters became rebels. The law branded them all as enemies.
Then came the decree—martial law, sweeping across the nation like the tide of an inevitable reckoning. The streets became war zones, every figure in the open marked as a threat, a dissenter, a target. But among them lurked the true predators—mercenaries and guerrilla fighters prowling the avenues, their weapons speaking in bursts of fire and death. Civilians dropped where they stood. Police crumpled against broken barricades. Service members, trained for foreign battlefields, found themselves swallowed by a war they had never prepared for.
America’s foundations trembled. Schools, once sanctuaries of knowledge, lay gutted, their halls stripped bare, desks overturned like corpses in the aftermath of a slaughter. Government buildings—symbols of order—became husks of ruin, their walls cracked, their contents pillaged. And the politicians, the architects of governance, met their fate not in gilded chambers but in the unforgiving streets they had once presided over, dragged from their limousines, their bodies reduced to grim echoes of the fallen leaders they once observed from a distance. The war was no longer fought beyond borders. The enemy was within. And the nation had become its own battlefield.
Among the last bastions to crumble were the Capitol, the White House, and the Pentagon—monuments to governance, once unshakable, now trembling at the edge of annihilation. Soldiers lined the gates, their fatigues stained with dust and blood, their rifles raised in defiance against the relentless tide of insurgents clawing for entry. For months, since the first cries of protest had morphed into the echoes of war, the Guardsmen and soldiers had stood steadfast, their duty binding them to the defense of liberty and democracy’s final embers. But today, duty was no shield against destruction.
Then came the sky’s reckoning—ballistic missiles shrieking as they carved fiery trails, rockets howling like celestial war drums, raining devastation in merciless waves. The earth trembled beneath the shockwaves, glass and steel disintegrating into airborne daggers. Flames licked at the ruins of history, consuming marble and memory alike. The gates, once symbols of protection, crumbled alongside the city itself, their iron bones twisted, their guardians lost to the maelstrom.
And like vultures descending upon the remains, the guerrillas surged forward, their weapons barking, their blades gleaming as they tore through the last survivors. Raiding, slaughtering, seizing victory in the hollowed corpse of a nation.
Night draped the city in a veil of ruin, its walls burning with an eerie, flickering glow—orange tongues licking at skeletal remains of shattered buildings. The usual symphony of battle had faded; no cries of agony, no gunfire splitting the air. Only destruction spoke now, in whispers of crackling flames, in the distant groan of collapsing structures folding into dust, in the relentless grind of advancing machinery.
The streets trembled beneath the weight of war’s inevitability. Massive trucks lumbered through the wreckage, shadowed by armored personnel carriers spilling soldiers into the fractured terrain. Tanks took up positions along the scenic overlooks, their turrets sweeping the horizon, silent sentinels awaiting the next command. Overhead, helicopter rotors carved through the darkness, their hum a herald of the precision death soon to follow.
This wasn’t occupation. It was execution. Caliber had arrived, not to reclaim, but to cleanse—merciless in their purpose, unwavering in their resolve. The guerrillas and lingering rebels had outlived their defiance. The city, once their battleground, would become their grave.
Major Belle strode through the gutted remains of the Pentagon’s lobby, his polished Italian loafers clicking against scorched marble—an anomaly of elegance in a place reduced to ruin. Fractured beams stretched toward the sky like broken ribs, the skeletal remains of a once-impenetrable fortress. The air smelled of charred metal and lingering death, but none of it touched him.
He moved with an unnatural lightness, his pace just shy of a saunter, carrying an effortless arrogance—like a man stepping over the wreckage of a conquered world. A phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and amused, though the words were lost in the echoes of destruction. His smirk was sharper than usual, a deliberate show of satisfaction etched into his features, as if the world’s downfall had been preordained—and he, its chosen witness.
His suit, a masterwork of tailored precision, was unmistakably UN-approved. Not standard Caliber Security Services gear—no combat fatigues, no body armor, just sleek, diplomatic power. A uniform not for war, but for the men who directed it. And here, among the shattered halls of America’s former command, Major Belle was no mere soldier. He was something else entirely.
Belle’s smirk widened as Joy’s check-in confirmed the operation’s progress. His excitement barely contained, he moved deliberately to a quieter corner of the ruined Pentagon, settling near a row of shattered windows overlooking what had once been a garden—or perhaps a courtyard, now buried under layers of ash and twisted wreckage. Faint moonlight stretched across the scene, painting skeletal remains of trees in ghostly silver, their burned branches clawing at the sky.
“Yes,” Belle murmured, eyes glinting with a predatory gleam. “It’s almost time to move on with the next phase.” Outside, two soldiers stood stiff-backed beneath the stars, gazes tilted skyward, exchanging hurried gestures—perhaps marveling at the night, perhaps searching for meaning in the void above. Belle observed them in silence, his expression unreadable.
“Good,” he continued, voice low, measured, but edged with anticipation. “Once you have Michaels’s body and his unit secured, we’ll airlift you from the roof. Eliminate anyone who stands in your way. Or don’t—ultimately, it won’t matter. We’re going to scuttle the city…” His words lingered like smoke, curling through the air, deliberate and cruel.
Static crackled on the line, followed by a knowing reply. Belle chuckled, tapping a finger idly against the frame of the broken window.
“Yes, the rebels will make fitting scapegoats. Very perceptive of you, Captain.” A pause—then a grin, sharp as a blade. “Once the world sees the United States has fallen…” A brief laugh, quiet, indulgent. “…Bingo, Captain. That’s when the real fun begins. All it took were a few hired henchmen, eh?”
His satisfaction thickened in the air, his voice warming with genuine praise. “Splendid work. You may have saved this mission. Keep up the good work and watch your six. I’ll prepare your extraction—once you secure the area, radio in, pop smoke, and standby.” The line went dead.
Belle savoring the night. The ruins beneath him were nothing more than echoes now—mere remnants of what had once been a nation’s heart. Soon, they too would be erased. The smirk dissolved from Belle’s face, his features hardening, eyes narrowing as he studied the star gazers. He watched, long and searching, dissecting details until certainty settled—neither of them Caliber. His gaze lingered, cold and analytical, stripping them down to insignificance.
“What are you two whispering about?” he murmured, his voice barely more than a breath, yet weighted with quiet menace. He shifted, shoulders squaring, his stance broadening as he took full possession of the space before the fractured window. Charred glass glinted in the dim glow of burning wreckage, casting jagged reflections against his polished suit. The ruined city stretched beyond, its skeletal remains framing the men below, bathed in eerie twilight. Belle placed his hands on his hips, tilting his head as if indulging a fleeting amusement. His words, when they came, were deliberate—low, clipped, seething with condescension.
“I bet you’re trading some mythological tale,” he mused, eyes sharpening, dissecting them anew. “Some inherited fable passed down from whatever ape you call an ancestor.” His lip curled, barely perceptible, a ghost of satisfaction as he exhaled.
“But then again,” he continued, tone shifting to something almost indulgent, almost mocking, “I suppose you deserve this brief respite. You played your parts well today. You performed admirably.” His smile returned—not warm, not reassuring, but knowing. “You were paid well to do so.”
Belle’s vision faltered. A flicker. Then a void. His right eye collapsed into darkness, a sudden chasm where sight had once been. An amber warning icon pulsed against the void—an unnerving triangle, its black exclamation mark flashing like the heartbeat of impending disaster. Within the depths of his onboard audio drive, a synthetic voice carved through the silence—calm, clinical, yet dripping with imminent dread.
“Warning message from HIVE: WARNING! Threat Detected! Malicious Code Detected! Breach Detected! Network Compromised! Chain Continuity Compromised! Would you like to repeat this message?”
Belle’s jaw tightened. His stare never wavered from the soldiers outside, his focus ironclad despite the unraveling system inside him.
“No. Isolate the threat.”
Silence. Then a mechanical response, layered with sterile efficiency.
“Indexing… …Indexing… …Indexing…”
A pause.
Then a cold, final declaration.
“…Error. Unable to complete task. Access Restricted. Only the administrator group has access to this sector. Would you like to request access?”
A system crumbling from within. A sight stolen. And somewhere in the depths of corrupted code, an enemy unseen. Belle’s jaw clenched, impatience slicing through his usually composed demeanor. There were no restricted sectors—no doors he lacked the key to. He was HIVE’s authority, embedded within its highest clearance. So who, or what, was denying him access? “Yes. Request access to the sectors. Carry out indexing.” A moment of static. Then, the system’s sterile reply.
“Requesting… Awaiting response… Request denied.”
Denied?
His fingers curled into fists, breath shallow with irritation. His gaze drifted—past the flickering screens, past the shattered window’s eerie glow—to the soldiers below, still fixed on the stars. They seemed oblivious, lost in some celestial contemplation.
“Denied?! By who?” His voice cut sharper now, demanding, charged with an edge of unease masked by fury. “HIVE, who controls that sector of your mainframe? What security group? Who’s the owner?” Silence. Then the same monotonous cadence.
“Requesting access… Request submitted… Request denied.” Belle stiffened. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
Caliber’s operations were precise, methodical, engineered to anticipate chaos before it ever had the chance to spiral out of control. And yet, today, control was slipping through Belle’s fingers like grains of sand. He couldn’t pinpoint the failure, couldn't trace the fault line beneath the cracks forming in their system.
It had started early—Nolan deviating from script, pulling his unit toward the north side of the city without explanation, abandoning his assigned route like instinct had overridden programming. That wasn’t possible. Not for Nolan. Not today, of all days.
Every pre-mission diagnostic had returned flawless results—his unit fully operational, the aircraft cleared for flight, gear accounted for, weather patterns unremarkable. Nothing had hinted at disruption. Nothing had warned them that the day's rhythm would suddenly turn discordant. And yet, piece by piece, reality had begun to fray. Why? Why now?
Belle stared through the fractured logic, mind racing in quiet calculation. Something was happening—something beneath the surface, tangled in the unseen spaces of command and control. And with every passing moment, with every deviation, his certainty eroded further.
The moment for deliberation had passed. Belle’s expression hardened, his focus unshaken as he murmured to no one in particular, “If HIVE is compromised, we’re out of time for stargazing.” He moved with quiet precision, reaching for the radio clipped to his left shoulder, the motion fluid, instinctual. With a practiced flick of the switch, his voice cut through the static, calm but edged with unmistakable command.
“Caliber, this is The Major. Advance to the next phase of the operation. Over.” Through the skeletal remains of the office, distant gunfire flared to life—sharp, brief, decisive. Belle pivoted toward the courtyard, where the confrontation unfolded with ruthless efficiency. COA operatives moved like phantoms in the wreckage, pushing forward, closing the gap. The two guerrillas barely had time to react before the air erupted with the sharp crack of rounds finding their mark.
Belle watched as the star gazers crumpled, their bodies collapsing against the scorched pavement, motionless beneath the indifferent glow of burning walls. His voice remained steady, untouched by the brutality. “Caliber, once that’s complete, prepare the trucks. We’re moving to Captain Joy’s position.” As the last body stilled, Belle’s gaze lifted skyward.
Smoke coiled into the stars, twisting into the quiet vastness above. A war was ending here. But another—something larger, something beyond—was already beginning. Before his eyes, the sky ignited in a silent spectacle—a mesmerizing ballet of colors and patterns twisting through the dark. Ominous flashes stuttered like cosmic Morse code, bursts flaring and vanishing in hypnotic succession, reminiscent of celestial embers scattered across the void. Streaks, radiant as meteors, carved luminous trails through the atmosphere, threading brilliance into the night.
Major Belle stood transfixed—not in awe, but in calculation. The lights were beautiful, yes, but beauty had no place here. It was a pattern, a message, a signal embedded within the chaos. Nolan’s deviation. The breach in HIVE. The unnatural restrictions tightening around his command. And now, this—an unknown force threading through the heavens, whispering its presence through silent illumination.
It was all connected. Somehow. His fingers tightened around the radio at his shoulder, grip firm, movements deliberate. “Command, this is Belle, over.” The device crackled, a distorted hiss riding the frequency. “Belle, Command, over.” He didn’t hesitate. “Scramble air support. Prepare to retrieve Joy and Nolan’s units. And standby for launch codes.”
“Yes, Major. Standing by.”
As the reply settled into static, Belle’s gaze remained locked on the sky, watching the silent dance unfold. It wasn’t just an anomaly—it was the prelude to something far greater. And whatever it was, it had already begun. The moment had arrived—Major Belle’s final preparations lay ahead, though the path to success had twisted into something far more precarious than he had anticipated. The chaos that unfolded today hadn’t been written into any strategy, hadn’t been accounted for in any contingency plan. And now, the unknown loomed before him, demanding answers no Earth-bound intelligence could provide.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Slowly, deliberately, Belle reached into his pocket, fingers brushing against cold metal as he retrieved a communicator unlike his phone, unlike his radio—something else entirely. A device meant for inquiries that stretched beyond terrestrial boundaries, for conversations meant to pierce through the ordinary and into the vast unknown. Beyond the shattered skyline, the lights still burned—streaking, pulsing, weaving strange patterns through the heavens. Unnatural. Intentional. Belle narrowed his gaze, jaw tightening. He had questions. And whoever—or whatever—was responsible for those celestial anomalies was about to provide answers.
#
Joy’s unit thrived in the cloak of darkness, their movements seamless, their presence a whisper against the abandoned corridors of the shattered neighborhood. Like specters slipping through the ruins, they squeezed through narrow alleyways, their silhouettes flickering beneath fractured beams of moonlight. Each soldier advanced with surgical precision—silent, deliberate—predators stalking unseen prey.
Elite warriors mapped the desolation in calculated, interwoven paths, their formations threading through the labyrinth of destruction like a web tightening around their target. At the block’s end, the objective loomed—an apartment complex, dark, still, yet brimming with unseen threats beneath its ruined fa?ade.
Fire teams worked in tandem, infiltrating adjacent structures with seasoned efficiency. Doors groaned in protest as they were jimmied open, boots sweeping across dust-laden floors as buddy pairs cleared each room in swift succession. Shadows swallowed them whole as they climbed toward the upper levels, rifles poised, breathing steady, their focus razor-sharp.
From their perches, snipers settled into position—silent overseers with fingers curled against triggers, scopes trained on the streets below. Through layers of reinforced glass and broken shutters, their binoculars tracked Joy’s squads, watching as the strike team coiled for the imminent raid.
Beyond the crosshairs, beyond the static of hushed radio commands, the air thickened with anticipation. And as the final preparations fell into place, the night held its breath.
Joy’s COA squads moved like phantoms—silent, seamless, an extension of something far greater than any individual soldier. As a hive-mind, they operated in perfect synchrony, their thoughts threading into the collective intelligence of HIVE, processing environmental data in real time, mapping every fluctuation in terrain, every shift in shadow, every potential threat before it could materialize.
Not a single hand motion passed between them. No whispered commands. No nods of confirmation. Their coordination was absolute, directed through the invisible pulse of their shared consciousness—an assault orchestrated with unerring precision.
It would have been impossible had Joy not dismantled most of the harmonic jammers suffocating the system. Whoever had placed them had known exactly who would come—had anticipated their approach, had attempted to sever their connectivity, to strip them of their greatest advantage. But they had failed.
Now, as Joy’s forces advanced, they did so with a heightened awareness, threading through the ruins with calculated precision, knowing that every corner, every untouched corridor, could conceal a trap. This battlefield wasn’t theirs—it was a crucible, designed to fracture their cohesion. The front door groaned as it shifted open, the hinges protesting softly against years of decay. It didn’t swing—it crept, deliberate, yielding just enough space for a man to slip through.
Joy and his operative slid inside, silent as shadows, pressing their backs against opposing walls, their movements measured, calculated, disciplined. The air was dense with dust and tension, the quiet thick enough to suffocate.
With practiced ease, they placed small square devices along the walls—three each—hands steady, motions swift, precise. The metallic surfaces glinted under fractured moonlight leaking through the half-broken windowpanes. The scent of old brick and stale air clung to the space, a lingering specter of abandonment. Joy’s gaze flicked across the room, locking onto his teammate. Their eyes met, unreadable but understood. In the silent void between them, HIVE spoke. Initiating countdown.
#
Noel’s gaze locked onto Jax, her eyes narrowing as unease coiled in her chest. His face—drawn, stiff—wore an expression that teetered on the edge of dread, his posture tight, his breath barely perceptible. Was he weighing the same questions she was? Just how long had he been listening? They had spoken freely, tossing theories and secrets into the open like cards on a table. Now, retrospect gnawed at her—how much had he absorbed? How much did he know? And more troubling still—why was he suddenly friendly? Her voice came quiet, edged with suspicion, threaded with something just shy of accusation. “Jax… what do you make of this?” The words lingered in the thick silence between them, the weight of unanswered questions pressing down like an unseen force.
Jax wheeled toward his terminal, fingers hovering over the interface as the virus spun to life beneath his command. Lines of code streamed across the screen, a cascade of digital entropy unraveling before his eyes. “I don’t know,” he muttered, his voice edged with uncertainty. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” Then, something tugged at his attention—an instinct, a whisper of unease threading through the dim glow of the monitors. His gaze drifted, abandoning the screen, locking onto Nolan’s motionless frame. Still restrained. Still silent. Still an unknown.
Jax’s breath labored. The hospital bed—its straps taut, its presence looming—served as a quiet, undeniable reminder. Nolan wasn’t free yet. But the moment he was, the question remained: Would they regret it? “Nolan…” Jax hesitated, grip tightening against the console. “I don’t think this is a good idea. How do we know you won’t kill us the moment we set you loose?”
Nolan considered the question, his expression unreadable, the weight of his predicament settling into the hollow silence between them. His gaze flickered with quiet calculation, his thoughts threading through possibilities he had no means of proving.
That’s a fair point,
he admitted, voice even, measured.
And while I can’t offer proof of my loyalty, I’d point out something far more pressing—Captain Joy is already on his way. Two COA squads with him, maybe more.
“Whether you free me or not, the odds of surviving what comes next are slim.”
Nolan groaned through his operating system, shifting against his restraints, flexing his arms against the bonds that held him firm. The synthetic straps groaned slightly under the pressure but did not yield.
“I gain nothing by helping you,”
he continued, his voice quieter now, yet edged with something undeniable.
If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have to lift a finger. All I’d need to do is stay right here, wait for them to find me, and let the inevitable happen. We both know I can’t go back with them.
Jax shot Noel a brief glance, nodding as he raised a thumbs-up—a signal of readiness, of quiet resolve. But Noel didn’t respond in kind. Instead, her head shook, slow, deliberate, the motion weighted with unease. Her voice wavered when she finally spoke, trembling with hesitation, with the kind of doubt that sank deep into the marrow of uncertainty.
“I don’t think you’ve been released from HIVE’s control.” The words hung between them, fragile. Noel swallowed, searching Jax’s expression, searching Nolan’s unreadable gaze, searching the wreckage of decisions spiraling toward them faster than they could prepare.
“It’s not wise. We can’t do this.” Her breath came uneven, but she forced the thought forward, willing conviction into her tone. “We’ll think of something before COA gets here. We have to. But we can’t set you free.”
What about the new operating system?
Nolan’s voice cut through the tension, urgent, insistent. “It’ll grant me administrative access, right? And if my connection to HIVE is severed, then I— or you— should be able to override it. That’s all we need, right?”
The words hung in the air, calculated, precise. Too precise. Noel felt the weight of his urgency settle over her like a tightening vice. There was no hesitation in his voice—only unwavering determination. And that, more than anything, disturbed her. Nolan wanted out. Badly. More than survival. More than necessity. He was adamant—borderline desperate. And desperation, especially now, reeked of manipulation. This was a trick. HIVE wasn’t finished with him. Not yet.
Noel pushed herself to her feet, slow but firm, her movements brimming with quiet defiance. Her expression hardened, unimpressed by the unfolding spectacle—by whatever this was. She wasn’t about to play along. Her eyes locked onto Nolan, searching his face, dissecting his words, feeling the unraveling tension coil tighter around her throat. “Wait a minute…” The disbelief laced her voice, low at first, but swelling with unease. “You remember—just like that? A moment ago, you were calling me Tiny.” She exhaled, shaking her head, frustration curdling into something colder, something akin to fear. “And now—you know your name?”
Her voice trembled, quivering beneath the doubt that had begun to crush her certainty. If this was a deception, if this was HIVE’s doing, it was working. She swallowed, forcing herself to speak, though the words came quieter now, hesitant, edged with something dangerously close to dread. “What else do you remember…?”
Nolan hesitated, his breath catching, his gaze unreadable in the dim glow of overhead fluorescents. The silence stretched—long enough for doubt to creep in, long enough for Noel to brace herself for something she wasn’t sure she could handle.
I know that you’re my mother…
The words barely had time to settle before the world shattered beneath them.
A violent eruption tore through the lower floors—deep, concussive, a wave of fire and force that rocked the building’s very foundation. The walls trembled, metal groaned, dust spilled from the ceiling in lazy spirals. Then came the staccato bursts—rapid pops slicing through the chaos, the unmistakable chatter of gunfire crackling through the stairwells, carried upward on currents of destruction.
Noel’s hands flew to her mouth, choking back a scream she wasn’t sure was born from terror or revelation. Fear or exhilaration? Dread or joy? The flood of emotions twisted inside her, tangled beyond recognition. She was closer now—closer than she had been in two decades. Closer to both of her sons. Was Tyler lost in this web of realization, too? Did he know? Had the truth already reached him? The floor beneath her hummed with the echoes of war, but in this moment, the only battle raging was within her.
The machine’s voice slithered through the space, laced with venomous amusement. “What a bittersweet reunion this will be.” A pause—enough to let the weight of his words settle. “When they get up here, both of you are going to die without my help.”
Noel stiffened. The delivery wasn’t pleading—it was calculated, edged with something almost mocking, something dangerously close to certainty. She wanted to believe him. Desperately. But the change in Nolan—the shift from confusion to ruthless clarity—was too sudden, too complete. It unsettled her in ways she couldn't fully name. Her pulse rocked in her throat as she glanced at Jax, searching his face for some kind of reassurance, some flicker of certainty that matched the dread clawing at her insides. Instead, she found only doubt staring back at her—mirrored, undeniable. Nolan was right. He was absolutely right.
Time was splintering, slipping through their grasp. The escalating violence below—the distant echoes of gunfire, the concussive tremors from the explosions—it was all too close now. Too real. And yet… Noel inhaled sharply, forcing herself to look Nolan in the eye. Her voice came low, measured, shaking despite the control she fought to maintain.
“Tell me now. Answer me honestly. Why do you want to help us? Why—now—do you suddenly remember everything?” She shook her head, suspicion curdling into something almost like fear. “It’s awfully convenient, isn’t it? That at this exact moment, it would all just come back to you.” Her voice thin, hanging in the charged air between them. “What’s changed?” She wasn’t sure what answer she expected. Or if Nolan even had one.
Nolan hesitated, his breath shallow, the pause stretching long enough to expose his uncertainty. The answer teetered at the edge of his consciousness—not defined, not precise, but undeniably there.
I don’t know why I remember.
The words came quiet, edged with something just short of regret.
When I came to, things were just… different. It’s hard to explain.
Many beats pattered.
I know that’s not good enough. But it’s all I’ve got.
The truth settled between them, unsatisfying, incomplete, but not a lie. Below, the gunfire halted—cutting off mid-volley, a silence ringing sharp in its absence. Noel inhaled, steadying herself, weighing the risk in the seconds before movement overcame hesitation. She stepped closer, fingers moving with controlled urgency as she loosened the restraints at his wrists, then his ankles. Gunfire erupted again—closer this time. Sharper. Louder. She didn’t stop. Because the truth was, there was no right answer. Only trust. Or the absence of it.
Jax twisted sharply in his seat, movements quick, urgent—a silent declaration that hesitation had no place here. He pushed off, stepping toward Noel’s terminal with a single-minded focus, his decision carved into the rigid tension in his frame.
The new operating system. It was a gamble, but one that could grant them a crucial edge against Caliber—a fleeting advantage, but an advantage nonetheless. With a controlled flick of his fingers, he activated the payload. It wouldn't take effect immediately. No, it would be slow, deliberate—a silent, creeping decay spreading through the system like a fracture in tempered glass. But time wasn't on their side. By the time the virus truly took hold, they could all be dead.
Jax swallowed, forcing that thought aside as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. The executable. It had to be on Nolan’s drive. A simple transfer, a swift movement, nothing more. Quick. Precise. Necessary.
His fingers moved with practiced efficiency, tracing the cables and connectors that tethered Nolan to the terminal. One by one, he unseated them, severing their grasp, peeling them away in deliberate succession. Each disconnect felt like a thread being cut—an unraveling that meant something larger than the mechanics themselves.
The floor trembled—brief, violent, then settling into an eerie vibration beneath their boots. A fractured pulse, the building shuddering under the continuous onslaught of gunfire, each blast shaking dust loose from the ceiling, each impact a reminder of how quickly their time was bleeding out.
Jax’s head jerked toward the security feeds, his instinct overriding reason—forgetting, for a split second, that the monitors were dead, that the feeds were cut, that the information he was searching for was already out of reach. “There’s a chance we’re trapped.” His voice was firm, clipped, but edged with something dangerously close to realization. “We need to make sure we can get out of here.” He straightened, backing away from Noel’s terminal, movements brisk, purpose sharpening into every step. “I’m going back up to the command center—seeing if we still have an egress available to us.” Without waiting for confirmation, without hesitation, he pivoted, cutting toward the door.
Noel worked with quiet urgency, fingers moving swiftly as she loosened the binds around Nolan’s ankles first, then his wrists, the synthetic restraints peeling away one by one.
When she reached his chest, he tensed. A sharp wince flickered across his features—brief, involuntary, but unmistakable. His breath hitched, shallow and uneven, as if something deep within him was pulling, twisting, resisting.
Noel’s focus snapped to his face, eyes narrowing with concern. “You don’t look well. What’s wrong?” Her voice was laced with genuine worry, but Nolan didn’t answer. The last restraint fell away, curling against the floor like discarded chains. Noel reached for him, steadying his weight as he rose—but the moment he stood, something was off. Not unsteadiness. Not fatigue. Something deeper. Something wrong. His posture—rigid, controlled, but barely—like his body was fighting to hold itself together. His breathing—too controlled. Too measured. Something had settled.
Nolan’s eye glazed over, his focus fracturing, slipping into something distant and unreadable. His balance faltered—one step, then another—his movements sluggish yet unsteady, as if gravity itself had warped beneath him. A sharp breath tore from his throat as he clutched at the sides of his head, fingers digging in, searching for relief, for control, for something solid amid the chaos unraveling inside him. “Something’s not right.” His voice rumbled—low, weighted, and impossibly deep. Deeper than Noel had ever imagined it could be.
The sound of it jolted her, her body stiffening against the unnatural resonance—against the raw power laced beneath the distortion of his tone. She failed to realize—failed to connect the dots in the moment—that Jax had severed his link to her system.
Noel lunged forward, gripping his shoulders, attempting to steady him as his weight threatened to topple them both. Her stance faltered, boots sliding against the trembling floor, her own body barely keeping stable. But her fear ran deeper than the physical.
It wasn’t the weight of Nolan bearing down on her—it was her virus coursing through him. “The update,” she gasped, the urgency pressing against her ribs. “Start installing it! Maybe it will sever the link to HIVE!” Her pulse thundered. The world around them blurred under the gravity of the moment.
Nolan’s body convulsed—a violent, uncontrollable seizure ripping through his limbs. His knees buckled, slamming against the trembling floor, the weight of his collapse sending a sharp reverberation through the space. Desperation clawed through him as he sifted through his file system, searching, scrambling, his mind a fractured battlefield of corrupted data. The update—where was it? Its name? Its extension? He had no certainty, no clarity—only instinct guiding his fumbling grasp through the labyrinth of his own code. Then—a breakthrough. Root directory.
Relief never came. The process was slow, agonizing, bogged down by whatever unseen force plagued him. His limbs grew heavier, his posture deteriorated, his strength siphoned away by the failing systems within. Noel lunged forward, reaching, ready to catch him—but gravity won. He slumped forward, dead weight pressing toward the unyielding ground.
His eyelids fluttered violently, his lashes stammering as his face twisted—wracked with something between agony and disorientation. He tried to speak. Tried. But whatever he whispered was swallowed by silence, lost between convulsions and the suffocating static unraveling in his mind. Then—his eyes met hers.
Twenty years. It was only a glance. Only seconds. But in that moment, she saw what had changed. And more painfully—what hadn’t. Those hazel eyes—his father’s eyes—staring back at her, filled with something achingly familiar, something nearly forgotten until now. Noel barely had time to breathe in the weight of it before his body shuddered one last time. And then—he went limp.
#
The ascent to the third floor proved far more treacherous than Joy had anticipated—not because of traps, not because of ambushes, but because of something far more insidious.
His body dragged, leaden, muscles misfiring in erratic spasms, each step requiring deliberate effort—too much effort. His comrades fared no better, their movements sluggish, strained, as if something unseen had begun tightening around their nerves, unraveling their control thread by thread.
Joy clenched his jaw, pushing against the creeping failure in his limbs, his mind flickering through the shared perspectives of his squad. Searching. Calculating. What was happening? Where was the source? But the answer evaded him—his entire unit was experiencing the same degradation, the same inexplicable loss of control. Then—a clatter. Steel and plastic struck the trembling floor.
Joy’s attention snapped back to reality in time to see his partner buckle, knees slamming against concrete, body swaying with the weight of failing equilibrium. And then it came—the sound. A metallic hiss, curling through the air, wrapping around them like unseen coils. A drone, low, resonant, vibrating through his bones, his joints, his teeth.
Joy’s radio crackled, the transmission disjointed, fractured into incomprehensible shards.“F-f-… ack, -engage in— -sault.” The words came mangled, riddled with interference, but Joy didn’t need clarity—he understood. Major Belle was dealing with it too. A wave of disorientation slammed through him, forcing him to grip the railing, fingers curling around cold steel as he fought to steady himself. His rifle dangled freely, the weight of it pulling against the three-point sling, swaying as his body wavered. His breath came in uneven bursts, his muscles slackening beneath him. Then, the weight became too much. His knees buckled. His stance crumbled.
The captain collapsed, crashing forward onto the stairs, face striking metal, his rifle pinned beneath his body. The impact rattled through him, stealing the air from his lungs. His radio hissed again, static laced with urgency. “-oy, come in! Joy!” The voice on the other end bled through the interference, but Joy couldn’t respond. Not now. Major Belle’s concerns would have to wait.
