Space. A massive satellite drifted in the void, its hull emblazoned with a single word: AXILE.
Inside the command center, chaos reigned. Technicians rushed between stations, voices overlapping in urgent bursts.
"Deploy drones to Russia, sector 4-21A!"
"Egypt, sector 34-Q, standing by!"
The Chief Commander stood at the center of it all, hands gripped tight on the console.
"We need to find that ping. This is our only chance."
A technician's voice cut through the noise. "Sir. We found something. A ping."
The Commander's jaw tightened. "Deploy all units. Set up the Catalyst Transmutator." He paused. "In three. Two. One."
BOOM.
The satellite shuddered. High intensity beams of light erupted from its core, lancing down through the atmosphere toward Finland.
"Hold it! Hold it!" the Commander shouted.
"Sir, systems are unstable. Overheating!"
"Enable Cryo-Freeze!"
"It's not working!"
"Concentrate all power to the beams!"
Sparks flew. Consoles flickered.
"Sir. Portal instability detected. Signal's redirecting."
"Where?!"
"South Korea. Seoul vicinity."
"Lock it down!"
Then silence.
"Extraction complete."
The room exhaled as one.
Then the computer's cold voice cut in. "Warning. Satellite orbit destabilized. System damaged. Cannot correct trajectory."
The Commander cursed under his breath. "Inform A1 Centre. Tell them it was a success." His voice dropped. "He's back."
Gangdong-gu. Farmland on the eastern edge of Seoul.
The portal tore open and spat out a body with extreme force. The figure slammed horizontally through the air, crashing through trees. Branches snapped. Bark splintered. The body skidded to a stop in the tall grass, motionless.
Then it moved.
The farmers watched from a distance as the figure pushed itself upright slowly. Skeletal thin. Ribs visible through skin stretched too tight. A jagged scar across a pale chest. Black hair matted and tangled. Nothing on him. No clothes. No gear. No weapons. Nothing.
He groaned and swayed on his feet.
Then he looked down at the ground.
Then he dropped back onto it face first.
Not from the pain. He just went down deliberately, arms out, pressing his entire body flat against the soil like he was trying to confirm it was real.
He kissed the ground.
Actually kissed it. Twice. The specific enthusiasm of someone who had not touched actual earth in seventeen years and was making up for lost time.
Then he tried to roll over and the pain from approximately thirty four fractures reminded him very clearly that rolling was not currently on the approved list of activities and he stopped and just lay there in the grass staring up at the sky with the expression of someone who had made a decision they didn't regret but were being asked to reconsider.
He stayed there.
A farmer stepped forward carefully, holding his lamp up, looking at the trench the body had carved through the soil for approximately fifteen meters. Then at the trees. Then at the figure lying flat in the grass.
"You okay?" he said.
The figure turned its head slowly.
"Yes," Kicks said.
The farmer looked at the trench again. At the four trees. Three. Mostly three.
He crouched down and looked at the injuries properly. The burns. The fractures visible through the skin. The specific comprehensive damage of someone who had been through something that should have ended them and hadn't quite managed it.
He stood back up.
"Stay there," he said. "Don't move. I'm getting help."
Kicks looked at him.
"I wasn't planning on moving," he said honestly.
The farmer jogged back toward the road.
Kicks lay in the grass and looked at the stars.
Same stars.
He almost wished they weren't.
Okay. Before I go any further I should probably explain something.
My name is Kicks.
Well. My name isn't actually Kicks. That's just the name I decided to go by permanently because of consequences I am not going to get into right now. But Kicks is what I answer to and Kicks is what gets written on the forms so Kicks is the name we're using.
Agents are basically people with powers. FuryForce flowing through their veins, giving them abilities that range from useful to genuinely terrifying. Fire. Strength. Speed. Manipulation of matter. The list is long.
I am not one of those people.
I am a support agent. The only agent without a single trace of FuryForce in my entire body. What I have instead is swordsmanship skills that are honestly exceptional and have gotten me significantly more attention than they probably should have. I stay hidden. I assist real agents in the field. I function as a repository for FuryForce, basically a living battery that field agents draw from when they're running low.
Hidden. Invisible. Background.
I work under the Korean government.
The only agents in my entire team who carried weapons were me and Lizzy. Which tells you everything you need to know about the kind of operation we were running.
My team. The Gadgets.
The strangest, most unorthodox group of people to ever be assembled under one operational name. I say that with complete affection and also complete accuracy.
If you're wondering how a support agent with no FuryForce ended up trapped in a pocket dimension for seventeen years, I need you to understand the sacrifice I had to make.
I blame the Gadgets.
Specifically I blame the fact that I joined the Gadgets in the first place.
And I joined the Gadgets because of Ari.
So technically this is her fault.
I am choosing not to tell her that.
The fire agent arrived eleven minutes after the farmers made the call.
Kicks watched from the grass as the figure descended into the field wreathed in controlled flame, landing with the practiced ease of someone who had done this many times. Police lights appeared at the road's edge shortly after. Blue and red cutting through the dark.
He looked at the fire agent.
Looked at the crops.
Looked at the fire agent again.
"They brought a fire agent," he said. "To a crop farm." He paused. "How brilliant."
Nobody responded. The farmers were busy watching the police arrive. The fire agent was busy looking at Kicks the way people look at things they haven't been briefed on and aren't sure how to categorize.
Kicks stood up.
His legs cooperated this time. Reluctantly.
"I'm not a threat," he said. "Support Agent. Name's Kicks. Registration number A3003. I've been off record since 2008 which I understand looks suspicious but I can explain."
The fire agent looked at him for a long moment.
Then looked at the trench in the soil.
Then at the trees.
A police officer came forward with a tablet, checked something on the screen, and went very still.
"You're supposed to be dead," he said.
"Yes," Kicks said. "I've been told."
The officer holstered his weapon and looked at him with the expression of someone whose evening had taken a turn they hadn't been trained for.
"Hospital first," he said. "Then the station."
The fire agent stepped forward and snapped power dampeners onto Kicks' wrists without a word. The metal clicked shut, cold against his burnt skin.
"Just a precaution."
Kicks looked at the dampeners. Then at his hands.
He had no FuryForce to dampen.
He didn't mention this.
"Fine," he said.
Seoul. Korean Government Agent Database Archive.
An alert pinged across multiple screens.
SEARCH QUERY: Support Agent Series S, First Edition.
A technician frowned. "Why would the police be checking records on a dead Agent?"
Then hospital security footage came through. A skeletal man with black hair, barefoot, being wheeled into the ER.
The system flagged him immediately.
SUPPORT AGENT: KICKS. STATUS: DECEASED 2008. NEW STATUS: ALIVE.
The alert went out.
The nurse checked his vitals as they rushed the gurney down the corridor.
"Your scars look fresh. Like you just finished a fight."
She checked his eyes with a penlight. "Multiple mild concussions. Thirty four fractures. Severe dehydration. Massive weight loss." She looked at the doctor. "All the bleeding is still fresh. Deep cuts everywhere. How is he still alive?"
Kicks stared up at the ceiling lights. They were too bright. Wrong shape. He'd never seen that kind of bulb before.
What year is it, he thought. But he didn't ask. Not yet.
"We need to operate," the doctor said. "Immediately."
Four hours later the healing agents had done what they could and the doctors were standing around his bed talking about amnesia assessments when Kicks opened his eyes and sat up.
Doctor 1 blinked. "Didn't we give him anesthesia?"
"We gave him enough to drop a horse."
Doctor 3 stared at the X rays. "His bones were broken. I saw them."
Doctor 4 fainted.
Kicks swung his legs off the table. Wobbled. Looked around the room at machines he didn't recognize, screens he'd never seen, the specific impossible thinness of technology that had apparently decided glass could do everything now.
He needed to make a call.
He found the room phone on the wall, picked it up, and dialed a number that was seventeen years old in his memory and probably didn't exist anymore.
It rang.
It rang again.
Then someone answered.
Not her voice. A man's voice. Older. Careful.
"This is the residence of Mrs. Lizzy. Who is calling please."
Kicks was quiet for a moment.
"Tell her A3003 called," he said. "Tell her I need to see her." He looked at the ceiling. "Tell her meet me on the roof."
A pause on the line.
"One moment please," the butler said.
The police burst through the door.
Kicks looked at them. Looked at the phone. Set it down carefully.
Then he ran.
He ran barefoot through the corridors, sirens screaming behind him. Burns pulling at every stride. He stumbled past nurses, past equipment he couldn't name, past doors that opened by themselves which was either very advanced technology or something else entirely and he didn't have time to determine which.
Glass screens everywhere. People staring at glowing rectangles instead of each other.
When did everything change.
He burst through a stairwell and climbed until there was nowhere left to go.
The roof.
Wind hit him immediately. He stood at the edge and looked out over Seoul.
It wasn't his Seoul.
Towers of glass and light stretched to the horizon. Screens covered the sides of buildings. The skyline had become something alien and yet he recognized the mountains in the distance, the curve of the Han River. Same city. Different world.
He stood very still.
How long was I gone.
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP.
A helicopter descended, sleek and black. The door opened. An old man stepped out, impeccably dressed, silver hair slicked back. He took off his coat without a word and draped it over Kicks' shoulders.
"Lizzy sent me," Soo-min said. He looked at Kicks steadily. "The year is 2025. You've been gone seventeen years." He gestured to the helicopter. "Come. I'll explain everything."
Kicks didn't move.
Seventeen years.
He'd lost seventeen years and this man was talking like it was a schedule delay.
But the police were coming up the stairwell. He could hear them.
He got in the helicopter.