Chapter song: Father of All… - Green Day
If you'd asked Kenneth if being in the armed forces was his dream job growing up, he would've looked at you as if you were crazy and yelled: "Hell fucking no," without missing a beat.
Yet he marched through the battlefield, the high-pitched whine of incoming artillery filling the air, serving as a reminder of how little he was getting paid for this clusterfuck.
Frustration flickered across his face; smoke and gunfire filled his nose as his unit neared enemy lines.
Fortunately or unfortunately for him, he wasn't doing this for the money. Though it wasn't like he had much of a choice. His team moved in formation, assuming their respective roles, when a noise sounded in his neural link.
"Callsign K-Midnight, this is D-Yellowbird, do you copy?"
Kenneth resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
For the third time in twenty minutes, Darren's voice echoed in his head.
Annoyance bubbled within him. Darren was such a worrywart and always insisted on check-ins. It seemed needless since he could see them from where he was lying low.
Kenneth calmed himself before replying, "Yes, I copy."
"Don't even try pretending, I know you're rolling your eyes right now, Sanches."
Darren's tone held mock offence, teasing but persistent. Kenneth nearly missed a step at the jab.
Before he could snap back, Darren pressed on, his tone dry. "This is a regular extraction. In and out. Save the dumb shit for after we're home free."
Kenneth's brows creased together as he heard this. Dumb shit? What was that supposed to mean?
Kenneth stewed over Darren's words as the command signalled them to move.
He followed, vowing to confront Darren later.
They entered the bombed-out city. Their steps crunched through dirt and sand as they entered a land crawling with enemy scavengers and mech-mercenaries.
Their unit marched into the smoky terrain.
Hagar, their deployment zone, was one of the poorest cities in the Africas and rumoured to be hoarding bio-tech from a failed artificial weapons program the government was shutting down.
Kenneth wondered how a place like this got their hands on such sensitive information in the first place. It was likely smuggled in during one of the invasions.
He scanned the area, signalled Darren for the all-clear, and once approved, they moved in.
The compound ahead was unremarkable; even low-level compounds back home were in better shape. Still, it drew attention: a white building stark against the wasteland. Its chipped walls and battered doors barely stood, but guards made it nearly impossible to enter unnoticed.
As Kenneth approached, he noticed a faint, ominous hum permeating from within the walls, as if something powerful and hidden was lying in wait.
Scorch marks near the door sensors hinted at a previous attempt to breach its defences, adding an unsettling layer to their mission.
"Well, that's lovely. They've got feeler cyborgs on every door," Darren said dryly. "Plus five mercs prowling outside, and five humans inside. Piece of cake, right?" He chuckled.
Kenneth rolled his eyes, as did the others.
But Darren was right; this wasn't their hardest extraction. Given their record, they could be in and out in under ten minutes. Still, Kenneth fixated on the feelers outside.
Those cyborgs didn't miss.
They shot to kill and wouldn't stop until targets were confirmed dead. To avoid these robots, he poured a special herb blend from the northern apothecaries, a secret elixir that paralyzed senses and made them undetectable.
He passed the can on, and once they were properly coated from head to toe, Elias, their team commander, nodded.
"K-Midnight, A-Nightshade, on my orders, we go in."
Kenneth drew his rifle, practically an extension of himself, and got ready.
He and Amir nodded.
Amir shot the left cyborg; Kenneth, the right, using silencers to keep quiet. The dull thud of bodies barely registered over Kenneth's harsh breathing. The air was bone-dry, his lips chapped and his throat burning.
"Man, I'd pay anything to get some water," Amir groaned, shoving a body aside. Kenneth gave a silent nod of agreement, his throat burning in solidarity.
Ruined Hagar sprawled like a graveyard of stone and twisted steel. Kenneth could imagine its former beauty. Now, after three attack waves, it was a skeletal husk. Bombs left buildings like ribs. Debris, shrapnel, and burnt tech littered the field. Death and iron choked every breath. Yet, amidst the bone-dry air, an unexpected scent lingered: the faint, sweet smell of wildflowers emerging from cracks in the concrete.
Kenneth tapped his helmet, activating the air purifier.
He ducked behind a collapsed overpass and exhaled slowly. "K-Midnight, here. Targets down. Advancing on the east side."
The reply came immediately via the neural link.
"Copy. Keep your rhythm tight, we don't have much time. According to D-Yellowbird, drone radar just picked up new heat signatures five klicks out. Armoured mechs are inbound."
"Shit," Nina muttered under her breath.
"ETA?"
"Ten minutes. Tops."
Kenneth signalled the Guardian Unit: move fast and quietly. And for the love of God, don't get caught.
The team split, weaving through rubble like shadows.
Amir and Kenneth flanked the perimeter, picking off guards. Heat baked their armour, and sweat pooled in their skin-suits.
Kenneth's HUD scanned the walls for weaknesses. The mag-sealed doors were their next target.
"Six minutes to breach," he muttered, checking his ammo and repositioning behind broken transport.
"Guardian Unit, confirm status," the commander's voice rang out again.
"A-Nightshade in position," said Amir.
"N-Nimbus ready," Nina chimed.
"D-Yellowbird," Darren responded.
Finally, Kenneth cocked his rifle and spoke up, his voice steady despite the heat.
"K-Midnight, locked in."
His eyes narrowed at the compound's rear entry. "Waiting for your mark, commander."
Kenneth's finger wrapped around the trigger.
He caught Amir's eye, his curls visible even under the HUD.
Kenneth smirked; they tapped their helmets at the same time. Music filled their ears: Green Day's Father of All..., Kenneth's favourite for tense missions.
Trained killers saw war's horrors daily, but music had always calmed his nerves.
As the commander signalled, they moved in sync. As soon as they made their way inside, Nina, who'd been perched on top of another abandoned building, detected movement nearby.
"Hold your positions. There are at least six bodies coming your way."
The three soldiers halted. Kenneth looked around, breathed, and gave Amir a look before telling Nina, "Deal with them."
Amir and Kenneth moved before hearing Nina's soft, "with pleasure."
Four shots were fired; two rounds struck the "guests" moving in on Kenneth and Amir.
Nina's triple rebound rounds ricocheted unpredictably, making them nearly impossible to track.
She was one of the best snipers Kenneth had worked with, and he trusted her with his life, which allowed him to keep moving through the rubble without worry.
While the enemy searched for the shooter, Amir and Kenneth moved in and eliminated anyone in their path. Head-and-heart shots rang through the air, simple and clean.
Kenneth watched the bodies fall wordlessly, his eyes scanning them.
Once confirmed dead, the commander entered. With the coast clear, they were surprised how operational the compound was, nothing like the crumbling ruin outside. White walls, sleek corridors, and a functional ventilation system greeted them.
Kenneth's boots clicked softly against the polished tile. The scent of antiseptics clung to his nostrils, mixed with something chemical and artificial.
"..This is..nothing like I was expecting," Amir's voice rang through the silence. He swept his firearm across the right hallway.
"Looks like someone's been taking real good care of this place."
The halls split in two directions: left, toward what looked like a reinforced medbay, and right, down the core chamber. A flickering digital sign, faded with time yet still burning brightly, read:
RESEARCH WING 2B: HIGH SECURITY - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
"When God opens a window," the commander said, nodding toward it. "Stay alert."
They continued down the corridor. The lighting grew dimmer, the hum of the old machinery growing louder. Panels embedded in the wall flickered with looked interfaces.
Kenneth scanned his HUD and picked up the faint biometric signature. Whatever encryption protected the core, it was still active and online.
"Thermal's picking up a temperature spike ahead," Darren's voice chimed in through the neural-link. "You're close. Twenty meters."
They reached a sealed vault door at the end of the hallway. It had been disabled for a while now, but the lock mechanism at the center still blinked with power. A small blue panel read:
BIO-ENCRYPTED DATA CORE | CLEARANCE LEVEL: BLACK
"There it is," Kenneth breathed.
Behind the vault door lay their objective: the bio-encrypted data core, a cylindrical device said to contain the experimental schematics. It could only be accessed via DNA and neural pattern verification from someone tied to the original research team. Of course, Kenneth's job wasn't to open it; it was to extract it. He would leave that job to the pros.
"Alright," Elias said. "Sanches, you're up. Get the casing off. Johnson, keep eyes on the perimeter, Vos, stay ready, and Torres, watch the rear."
"Roger," they all said in unison.
Kenneth pulled out his toolset, clicking a few instruments into place before kneeling beside the access port. His long fingers moved quickly across the interface, overriding the biometric scan with a backdoor code provided by the higher-ups. The panel hissed open with a blast of cold air.
"Extraction in progress," he reported. "Thirty seconds."
But as he got to work, something didn't feel right. Call it intuition or a gut feeling, but he felt like everything was going too smoothly. An unexpected chill brushed past his neck, mingling with the sterile smell of electronics, which only added to his unease.
Even if this was supposed to be a simple mission, security shouldn't be this lax. Yet despite the gnawing feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, he continued with his task. Finally, after twenty-five seconds had gone by, he was done.
"Extraction complete."
"Good, now, let's get the hell out of here," the commander said.
Everyone in the room was in a position to leave. With Darren's confirmation, the coast was clear. The unit went out just as quickly as they had come in.
But once outside, they halted, their eyes widening at the shocking sight.
"Wait! I detect a body coming your way," Darren yelled.
"No shit, Johnson," Amir muttered as the three looked down at the little boy, barely seven years old, staring up at them.
"...What in the actual fuck?"