The briefing room smelled of gun oil and stale coffee. It was a stark contrast to the sterile, blue-lit laboratory where Leo had seen his sister. Here, everything was analog. Maps were pinned to corkboards with actual tacks; weapons were stripped down on wooden benches, their parts laid out with surgical precision.
When Leo stepped through the door, wearing the heavy, unpowered V.N.S.O. vest, three pairs of eyes locked onto him.
"So, this is the survivor," a woman said. She was perched on a crate, sharpening a combat knife with a whetstone. Scritch. Scritch. She had short-cropped hair and a gaze that felt like a sniper’s scope. "I’m Vance. Intel and Comms. Don't touch my radio, and don't expect me to hack a door for you. I pick locks the old-fashioned way."
"I'm Brick," a massive man rumbled from the corner. He was cleaning the barrel of a belt-fed machine gun that looked like it belonged in a museum, yet it shone like new. "I provide the noise. You provide the targets."
"He’s the Rookie," Thorne said, entering from a side door. "Leo Miller. He’s seen the Revenant’s face. That makes him the most valuable man in this room—and the biggest target."
"Major," Leo said, looking at the rack of weapons. "I've been in the service for five years. I know my way around a rifle. But those things out there... the armor they wore... my bullets just bounced off."
Thorne picked up a heavy, jagged piece of metal from a table. It was a spent slug, flattened and useless. "That’s because you were aiming for the chest. You were trusting your optics to tell you where to shoot. Ouroboros tech projects a kinetic barrier. It’s a bubble. To break a bubble, you don't hit it hard—you hit it at the right frequency."
Thorne tossed a different magazine to Leo. The tips of the bullets were painted a dull, matte red.
"Tungsten-core, hand-loaded with a ceramic coating," Thorne explained. "They aren't fancy. They don't have tracking chips. But they travel at three times the speed of a standard NATO round. They don't 'bounce.' They shatter the barrier on impact."
"Now," Vance said, hopping off her crate. "Let's see if you can actually hit anything while your heart is trying to jump out of your ribs."
They led Leo to a training deck—a kill-house made of rusted shipping containers and scrap wood. There were no holographic targets here. Instead, Brick pulled a lever, and weighted sandbags began swinging wildly from the ceiling on chains, mimicking the erratic movement of the armored Vipers.
"The Code," Thorne shouted over the sudden blare of a siren. "Rule one: Hardware fails. Muscles don't. Rule two: Never trust a sensor over your own eyes. Clear the house. Use the red-tips. If you miss, you’re dead."
Leo dived into the first container. Immediately, his HUD—the digital display inside his old military helmet—flickered.
"My visor is glitched!" Leo yelled, squinting through the distorted static.
"I jammed it!" Vance’s voice came over the loud-speaker, sounding amused. "Ouroboros will jam your comms, your GPS, and your sight the second you get close. Rip that plastic trash off your head and use your eyes, Miller!"
Leo tore the helmet off, throwing it aside. The air was cold and filled with the smell of wet sand. He rounded a corner, and a sandbag swung toward his head. He rolled, came up on one knee, and fired three rounds.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The sandbag exploded, white dust filling the air.
"Too slow!" Brick bellowed from above.
Another target swung from the shadows. Leo fired, but his arm was shaking. The recoil of the high-velocity rounds was punishing, kicking like a mule against his shoulder. He missed.
"You're fighting the weapon, Leo!" Thorne’s voice was calm, cutting through the chaos. "The machine in your sister's head makes her perfect. You aren't perfect. You're human. Use that. Anticipate. Don't react—predict."
Leo took a breath, ignoring the ache in his shoulder. He closed his eyes for a split second, hearing the creak of the chains. He felt the rhythm of the swinging weights.
He opened his eyes. He didn't look at the targets; he looked at the shadows they cast on the floor.
He moved. He wasn't a "Regular" anymore, following a HUD marker. He was a predator. He slid under a swinging chain, pivoted, and emptied the magazine.
Crack-crack-crack-crack.
Four bags. Four hits. The room went silent as the last of the white dust settled.
Leo stood in the center of the kill-house, chest heaving, sweat dripping off his chin. He looked at his hands. They were bruised and covered in grit, but they were steady.
Thorne walked down the stairs, looking at the shredded targets. "They have the best tech money can buy, Leo. But they don't have soul. They don't have the will to win when the power goes out."
"I'm ready," Leo said, his voice hard. "Where are they?"
Thorne turned to a map of the North Atlantic. "A supply ship owned by Apex Global. It’s carrying the rest of the Icarus components to a secret facility. We leave at 0200. We’re jumping in low-altitude, no chutes until the last five hundred feet."
"Why no chutes?" Leo asked.
Vance smiled, a sharp, dangerous look. "Because radar can see a parachute, Rookie. But it can't see a man falling like a rock."
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