PART 1: THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

 

The training hall smelled of stale sweat, unwashed canvas, and the pungent, metallic scent of male ego. It was a suffocating atmosphere, thick enough to taste.

I stood at the edge of the mat, my hands clasped behind my back, my eyes fixed on a point on the far wall. I didn’t fidget. I didn’t shift my weight. I didn’t exist. That was the first rule of the Program: Be the ghost. If they don’t see you, they can’t kill you. But here, in the heart of the SEAL compound, anonymity was impossible.

I was the glitch in their matrix. The only woman in a platoon of granite-carved men who had spent the last six weeks trying to make me quit.

“Lieutenant Atraus,” the voice boomed, echoing off the high rafters.

It was Chief Petty Officer Lazarus Reed. He was a mountain of a man, his face a roadmap of violence, bisected by a scar that ran along his jawline like a fault line. He didn’t just walk; he occupied space, displacing the air around him with pure menace. He hated me. I could feel it radiating off him like heat from a sidewalk in July. To him, I was a political stunt. A weakness.

I stepped forward, my bare feet silent on the cold rubber mat. “Chief.”

“Standard combat rules apply,” Reed announced to the room, though his cold, predatory eyes never left mine. The other recruits—thirty-five men who were stronger, faster, and louder than me—formed a circle. I could hear their whispers. The snickers. The bets being placed on how long I’d last.

Ten seconds, one voice murmured. She’ll tap before he even touches her.

Reed circled me. “The purpose of this assessment is to determine if you possess the primal aggression required for the teams. Size is a factor, Lieutenant. Physics is a factor. And right now, physics is not your friend.”

He was right. In a fair fight, he outclassed me by eighty pounds and six inches of reach. But I hadn’t fought a fair fight since I was seven years old in a burning village in Grozny.

“Fighting stance,” he barked.

I raised my hands, assuming the standard military combatives posture. elbows tucked, chin down. Text book. Boring. Predictable.

I had to be careful. My body wanted to move differently. My muscles, honed by the Vesper protocols, screamed to drop lower, to shift into the fluid, liquid stances of the Systema-hybrid style I’d been brainwashed with for two decades. I had to suppress the reflex to strike the throat, the eyes, the femoral artery. I had to be a clumsy, struggling candidate.

Reed lunged.

It was a telegraphed right hook, meant to intimidate rather than devastate. I slipped it, ducking under his arm.

“Stop running!” he shouted, spinning with surprising speed for a man of his bulk. He threw a kick at my midsection. I took it on the forearm, gritting my teeth as the impact rattled my bones. I staggered back, feigning more damage than I felt.

The crowd jeered.

“Come on, GI Jane!” someone yelled. “Hit him with your purse!”

I saw Endorian Frost in the crowd. He was leaning against a pillar, his arms crossed. He wasn’t laughing. His eyes were calculating, dissecting my movements. Frost was dangerous—Naval Intelligence, I suspected, though he played the role of a dumb grunt well. He was watching my breathing.

Control, I told myself. Don’t let the heart rate spike. Don’t let the pupils dilate.

Reed pressed the attack, sensing blood in the water. He didn’t want to test me; he wanted to humiliate me. He wanted to break the “little girl” in front of his platoon. He came in with a grapple, his massive hands reaching for my lapel to execute a hip toss that would slam me into the concrete subfloor.

As his hand grabbed my shirt, the fabric pulled tight across my ribs. A sharp, stinging pain flared in my side, right where the old scar tissue met the new bruise.

The Implant.

A flash of memory, violent and jagged, tore through my mind. A cold metal table. A bright light. The smell of ozone and blood. A voice speaking in Russian, then English. “You are the vessel. You are the future.”

Reed yanked me forward. “Is this the best the Navy has?” he growled, his face inches from mine, spitting the words. “You’re a liability, Atraus. You’re going to get good men killed.”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

He threw me. I hit the mat hard, the air leaving my lungs in a rush. The room spun. Laughter erupted around me. It was a wave of sound, crashing over my head.

“Stay down,” Reed whispered, leaning over me. “Do yourself a favor and quit.”

I lay there for a second, staring up at the industrial lights. The pain in my ribs was throbbing, a digital pulse syncing with my heartbeat. The Vesper tech was analyzing the trauma, regulating my adrenaline, suppressing the shock.

I rolled to my knees and stood up. I adjusted my shirt. “I’m not done, Chief.”

Reed’s eyes narrowed. The amusement vanished. “Fine.”

He came at me again, but this time, the restraint was gone. He threw a combination—jab, cross, hook—that was fast, professional, and dangerous. The first punch grazed my cheek. The second slammed into my shoulder.

I was back in the mountains. I was back at Vashi Station. I saw the faces of the men I’d lost there—agents who were stronger than Reed, faster than Frost, and dead just the same. Betrayed. Sold out by a mole inside this very command.

Focus, Ren. The mission.

I had to lose. I had to lose convincingly.

But Reed made a mistake. He got arrogant. He stepped too deep, overcommitting to a straight right hand aimed at my face. It was a sloppy move, born of contempt.

And in that fraction of a second, the mask slipped.

My body moved before my mind authorized it. I didn’t step back; I stepped in. I parried his strike with my left hand, guiding his momentum past me, and simultaneously drove my right shoulder into his center of gravity. It was a redirection technique, purely aikido mixed with something much older.

I hooked his ankle with my foot.

Gravity did the rest.

Reed, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him, hit the deck face-first. It sounded like a car crash.

Silence clamped down on the room instantly. The laughter died in thirty throats.

I realized what I’d done. I froze. I was standing over a Senior Chief, my breathing completely level, my stance relaxed. I had just humiliated the alpha male in his own den.

Reed scrambled to get up, his face flushing a deep, violent crimson. He roared, a sound of pure primal rage, and charged me. This wasn’t training anymore. He was coming to hurt me.

Too fast. He’s closing too fast.

He grabbed my throat.

Reflex took over. Total, absolute, Vesper-9 protocol.

I didn’t think. I grabbed his wrist, located the pressure point between the radius and ulna, and squeezed while torquing his elbow against the joint’s natural rotation.

Crack.

Not a break, but the sickening pop of a hyperextended tendon.

I spun behind him, driving my knee into the back of his shoulder blade, pinning him to the mat. I cranked his arm up behind his back until his hand was touching his opposite shoulder blade. It was a submission hold that defied standard anatomy.

“Tap,” I whispered. My voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “Tap or it breaks.”

Reed was thrashing, grunting, struggling to hide the tears of agony springing to his eyes. But he couldn’t move. I had him locked in a geometric prison of his own limbs.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

His hand slapped the mat frantically.

I released him instantly. I stood up, took three steps back, and snapped to attention. My face was a mask of stone.

“Permission to leave the mat, sir?”

Reed rolled over, cradling his arm. He looked up at me. The hate was still there, but it was crowded out by something else. Fear. And confusion. He looked at me like I was an alien species he had just discovered.

“Dismissed,” he choked out.

I turned and walked out of the hall. I felt the eyes of every man in the room on my back. But they weren’t laughing anymore.

---

That night, the barracks were quiet. The usual grab-ass and joking were gone. The men gave me a wide berth. I was no longer the “girl.” I was the anomaly.

I lay on my bunk, staring at the springs of the bed above me. My ribs ached. I slipped my hand under my shirt, tracing the outline of the device embedded there. It was warm to the touch.

Warning: Elevated stress levels detected, the internal diagnostic whispered in my inner ear—a bone-conduction feedback loop only I could hear. Cortisol spiking.

“Shut up,” I mouthed.

I needed to blend in. I had failed today. I had won the fight, but I had failed the mission. I had shown them I was capable. Now, the questions would start.

I waited until I heard the rhythmic breathing of sleep from the other bunks. Then, I moved.

I slipped out of bed, moving like smoke. I pulled my tactical duffel from under the cot. Inside, hidden within the lining of a standard-issue shaving kit, was a ruggedized tablet the size of a deck of cards.

I made my way to the latrines. I checked the stalls. Empty.

I sat in the far corner, boot up against the door, and activated the device. It hummed to life, connecting to a satellite network that didn’t appear on any FCC registry.

User: VESPER-9 Status: COMPROMISED Location: CORONADO NAVAL BASE

I typed quickly. Target Walcott suspects nothing yet. Reed is suspicious but ignorant. Frost is watching me. Need intel on Frost—friend or foe?

The screen blinked. Frost: ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). Investigation ongoing. Avoid contact.

I sighed, leaning my head back against the cold tile. Everyone here was playing a game. Walcott, the XO, was the prime suspect for the leak. He was selling American lives for crypto-currency. I was here to prove it and put a bullet in him if necessary. But Frost… if he was ONI, he was hunting the same prey. We were two sharks circling the same seal, liable to eat each other by mistake.

A noise in the hallway.

I killed the screen instantly, stashed the device in my waistband, and stood up.

The door creaked open.

It was Lieutenant Quillin. He was one of the few decent ones—a quiet, thoughtful officer who seemed more interested in survival than bravado. He blinked when he saw me.

“Lieutenant,” he said, his voice hushed.

“Quillin.”

He hesitated, looking at the door, then back to me. “You need to be careful, Ren.”

I stiffened. He used my first name. “Excuse me?”

“The obstacle course tomorrow,” he said, stepping closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I was on cleanup detail this evening. I saw Walcott near the ropes. Specifically, your lane.”

My blood ran cold. “What did you see?”

“He was messing with the anchor knot. Cutting the fibers on the inside. It looks solid, but…”

“But it’ll snap under weight,” I finished. “Thirty feet up.”

Quillin nodded. “Why? Why are they trying to kill you? It’s just training.”

I looked at this man, this boy really, with his honest face and his belief in the system. He thought this was hazing. He didn’t know we were at war.

“Maybe he just doesn’t like my face,” I said dryly.

“Don’t climb it,” Quillin warned. “Request a lane change.”

“If I request a change, I look weak. If I refuse, I’m insubordinate.”

“If you climb, you fall.”

“Then I better not fall.”

I moved past him, but he grabbed my arm. His grip was firm. “Who are you? Really? Because what you did to Reed today… that wasn’t learned at Annapolis.”

I pulled my arm away gently but firmly. “I’m just a recruit, Quillin. Just like you.”

I left him there and went back to the barracks. But I didn’t sleep.

The next morning, the marine fog was thick, a grey blanket smothering the base. We assembled at the ‘O-Course’—the obstacle course. It was a towering structure of wood, rope, and misery.

Commander Thaddeus Blackwood was watching from the observation tower. Beside him stood Lieutenant Commander Walcott. Walcott was a snake in a uniform—handsome, polished, and hollow. He was smiling as he looked down at the roster.

“Lieutenant Atraus,” Walcott’s voice came over the megaphone. “Lane Four.”

Lane Four. The sabotaged lane.

I stepped up to the base of the rope climb. Thirty feet of slick hemp leading to a bell.

Reed was standing by the timer. He wouldn’t look at me. “Ready,” he grunted.

I looked up. The rope looked normal. But I had Vesper vision—enhanced pattern recognition. I could see the slight fraying near the anchor bolt at the top, visible only because I knew where to look.

If I climbed that standard style, using my legs to clamp and push, the jarring motion would snap the fibers. I’d drop three stories onto concrete. A tragic accident. Sad day for the Navy. The girl wasn’t ready.

“Go!” Reed blew the whistle.

I launched myself.

I didn’t use my legs. I couldn’t create the friction or the drag that would stress the knot. I had to climb purely with my upper body, maintaining a fluid, constant tension. No jerking. No stopping.

Hand over hand.

My arms burned. The implant in my ribs throbbed, pumping an analgesic cocktail into my bloodstream to dull the pain of yesterday’s beating.

Ten feet. Fifteen.

I glanced up. The knot was straining. I could see a single strand pop.

Twenty feet.

Below me, the class was silent. They were waiting for me to fail. Walcott was up in the tower, probably holding his breath, waiting for the snap.

Twenty-five feet.

The rope groaned. It was a sound like a dying violin string.

I was five feet from the bell. If I reached for it, the shift in weight would break the line.

I took a breath. I had to calculate the physics. If the rope snapped, I needed to be close enough to the horizontal beam to catch it.

I surged upward, moving faster than I should have.

Snap.

The sound was like a gunshot. The rope gave way.

I was falling.

The scream of the recruits below was audible even in the rush of air.

But I had anticipated it. As the rope went slack, I was already throwing my body toward the steel crossbeam. My fingers—calloused and strengthened by years of gripping cliff faces in the Hindu Kush—clawed at the metal.

My fingernails tore. My shoulders wrenched in their sockets.

But I held on.

I was dangling thirty feet in the air, hanging by my fingertips from the support beam, the severed rope pooling on the ground far below.

I pulled myself up, swung my legs over the beam, and rang the bell with my hand.

Ding.

I looked toward the tower.

Walcott’s face was pale. He gripped the railing, his knuckles white. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

I locked eyes with him. I didn’t smile. I didn’t cheer. I just stared.

I know, my eyes said. And I’m coming for you.

I rappelled down the support pole, sliding down in a controlled freefall, landing in a crouch. Dust puffed up around my boots.

Reed walked over to the severed rope. He picked up the end, examining the cut fibers. He looked at the rope, then up at Walcott in the tower, then at me.

“Equipment failure,” Reed announced loudly, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. “Clear the course!”

He walked past me, leaning in close. “That rope didn’t just break, Atraus.”

“I know, Chief.”

“Watch your six,” he muttered.

“Always.”

As the recruits filed out, confused and rattled, I felt a vibration in my boot. A distinctive pattern. Short-Long-Short.

It was the emergency signal.

I waited until I was clear of the group, then checked the micro-display on my watch.

MESSAGE: BURN NOTICE. VASHI STATION FILES ACCESSED. COVER BLOWN. EXTRACTION IMMINENT.

I stopped walking.

The note I had found earlier… They know you were at Vashi Station.

Walcott wasn’t just trying to kill me because I was investigating him. He knew who I was. Or at least, he knew I was one of the Vesper survivors.

I looked around the compound. The sun was burning off the fog, but the shadows seemed longer, darker. Every window could hide a sniper. Every recruit could be an asset.

I wasn’t the hunter anymore. I was the prey.

I checked the ceramic knife concealed in my boot. I checked the position of the sun.

“Part one is done,” I whispered to the empty air. “Now the war begins.”

PART 2: THE KILL BOX

The sun didn’t set; it surrendered. Darkness swallowed the Coronado compound, bringing a chill that settled deep in the bone. The air was heavy with the scent of salt spray and imminent violence.

We were mustered on the tarmac for “Night Infiltration Training.” Standard operating procedure said we’d be using sim-rounds—paint pellets fired at high velocity. But as Lieutenant Commander Walcott paced in front of us, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. My Vesper implant was vibrating against my ribs, a low-frequency warning: Threat proximity: Immediate.

“Tonight is a live-fire simulation regarding movement to contact,” Walcott barked. His voice was too smooth, too eager. He avoided looking at me. “Team Four: Ensign Frost, Lieutenant Quillin, Petty Officer Caldwell, and Lieutenant Atraus.”

A death squad.

He had put me in a box with Frost (the intelligence agent watching me), Quillin (the innocent bystander), and Caldwell (Walcott’s sycophant).

“Lieutenant Atraus,” Walcott said, finally meeting my gaze with a shark-like grin. “You’re on point. Lead your team through the southern ravine to the comms tower. Secure the objective.”

The southern ravine. A geographical funnel. A kill box.

“Yes, sir,” I said. My voice was calm, but inside, I was chambering a mental round.

We moved out. The darkness of the ravine was absolute. I adjusted my night-vision goggles (NVGs), the world turning into a wash of grainy green phosphor.

I took point, moving ten meters ahead of the group. My boots found purchase on loose shale without making a sound. Behind me, the heavy, undisciplined crunch of Caldwell’s footsteps was a liability.

“Pick up your feet, Caldwell,” I whispered into the comms.

“Don’t tell me how to walk, LT,” he sneered back.

Two klicks in. The silence was wrong. The insects had stopped chirping.

I raised a fist. Halt.

“Why are we stopping?” Quillin whispered, sliding up beside me.

“Something’s wrong,” I murmured, scanning the ridge line. My enhanced vision picked up heat signatures that shouldn’t be there. Three forms. Prone position. High ground.

“It’s just the OPFOR (Opposing Force),” Caldwell grunted, pushing past me. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Caldwell, get down!” I hissed.

Crack.

The sound wasn’t the hollow pop of a sim-round. It was the sharp, supersonic snap of a high-velocity projectile breaking the sound barrier.

Dirt exploded next to Caldwell’s boot.

“Live fire!” Frost shouted, diving for cover behind a fallen oak.

Caldwell stood frozen, his brain unable to process that the training wheels were off. The second shot didn’t miss. It took him in the shoulder, spinning him around. He screamed—a raw, terrified sound that echoed off the canyon walls.

I didn’t think. I moved.

I tackled Caldwell, dragging him behind a cluster of boulders just as the ground where he had been standing was chewed up by automatic fire.

“They’re shooting at us!” Caldwell blubbered, clutching his bleeding shoulder. “Why are they shooting real bullets?”

“Because you’re expendable,” I said coldly. I ripped the med-kit off his vest. “Pressure. Hold it.”

I turned to Frost and Quillin. They were pinned down, bullets chipping away their cover. The ambush was professional. Triangulated fire.

“Frost!” I yelled over the roar of gunfire. “We need suppression!”

“I’m armed with paintballs, damn it!” Frost yelled back, though he looked surprisingly calm. He was assessing, calculating.

“Then use them to blind them!”

I checked my own weapon. Useless. I reached into my boot and pulled out the ceramic knife. Then, I reached into the hidden pocket of my tactical vest and pulled out the one thing I wasn’t supposed to have: a jagged, mesmerizing piece of tech—a signal jammer I had built from scavenged radio parts.

I activated it. The comms in our earpieces squealed and died. If the shooters were coordinating by radio, I just deafened them.

“Quillin, stay with Caldwell,” I ordered. “Frost, on me.”

“Where are you going?” Quillin asked, his eyes wide.

“To change the rules.”

I slipped into the darkness. I didn’t run; I flowed. I became part of the ravine. The Vesper protocols flooded my system, dumping adrenaline and focus. The pain in my ribs vanished. The fear vanished. There was only the geometry of the kill.

I flanked the first shooter on the ridge. He was dressed in black tactical gear, no insignia. Mercenary.

He never heard me. I came up behind him, clamped a hand over his mouth, and drove the hilt of my knife into his temple. He dropped like a sack of cement. I took his rifle—a suppressed HK416.

Now it’s a fair fight.

I verified the weapon. Loaded. Safety off.

I located the second shooter. I didn’t hesitate. Two shots. Double tap. Center mass. He fell.

The third shooter realized his team was gone. He broke cover, running toward the extraction point near the comms tower.

I lowered the rifle. I didn’t shoot. I needed him to lead me to the handler.

I sprinted back to my team. The ravine was quiet again, save for Caldwell’s whimpering.

“Hostiles neutral,” I announced, emerging from the shadows.

Quillin looked at the real rifle in my hands. He looked at the way I stood—predatory, relaxed. “You killed them.”

“I neutralized the threat.”

Frost walked up to me. He wasn’t looking at the gun; he was looking at me. “Standard training doesn’t cover flanking professional mercenaries in under three minutes, Lieutenant.”

“And standard Naval Intelligence doesn’t send Ensigns to play in the mud unless they’re hunting moles,” I countered.

Frost smiled, a tight, grim expression. “Touché. You know who’s behind this?”

“Walcott,” I said. “He’s clearing the board. He sent us out here to die so he could extract the data from the server room without witnesses. He’s running.”

“The server room,” Frost realized. “The NOC list. The deployment schedules.”

“If he gets that out,” I said, “every SEAL team operating in the Pacific is compromised. We have to move.”

“We can’t,” Quillin argued, pointing at Caldwell. “He needs a medic.”

I looked at Quillin. He was right. A soldier would leave Caldwell. A Vesper asset definitely would. The mission was the data. Caldwell was dead weight.

But then I looked at Caldwell’s terrified face. He was a bully, an idiot, and a pain in the ass. But he was one of ours.

“Quillin,” I said. “You’re strong. Fireman’s carry. We move double time.”

“You’re not leaving him?” Quillin asked, surprised.

“I don’t leave my team,” I lied. Or maybe it wasn’t a lie anymore. “Let’s go.”

We ran. We moved through the woods not as recruits, but as a combat unit. I led, cutting a path through the brush, my senses extended outward like a radar net.

We reached the perimeter of the main compound twenty minutes later. It was chaos. Alarms were blaring. Smoke was pouring from the generator building—a diversion.

“Take Caldwell to the infirmary,” I told Quillin. “Then find Chief Reed. Tell him Walcott is the hostile. Tell him ‘Vashi Station’.”

“What about you?” Quillin asked.

“I have a date with a traitor.”

Frost stepped up beside me. He drew a sidearm he had apparently concealed in his waistband. “I’m coming with you.”

“Try to keep up, Ensign.”

We breached the admin building. The corridors were empty; everyone had evacuated to the muster stations due to the fire alarm. Perfect cover for a heist.

We reached the sublevel. The door to the server room was blasted open.

“Stay here,” I told Frost. “Cover the exit.”

“Ren,” he said. “He won’t come quietly.”

“Good.”

I stepped into the doorway.

Inside, the emergency lights bathed the room in a blood-red glow. Walcott was there at the main terminal. He was frantically typing, sweat beading on his forehead. A civilian technician was cowering in the corner.

Walcott looked up as I entered. He didn’t look surprised. He looked relieved.

“Took you long enough, Vesper,” he said.

He picked up a detonator from the console.

“Take another step,” he smiled, “and I blow the foundation. We all go down together.”

PART 3: THE GHOST’S REQUIEM
The room hummed with the sound of cooling fans and the whine of the dying generator. The red light pulsed like a slow, dying heartbeat.

I stood five meters from him. The rifle was in my hands, but I couldn’t use it. If I shot him, his hand might spasm on the dead-man switch.

“Put it down, Walcott,” I said, my voice steady.

“You think this is about money?” Walcott sneered, his eyes manic. “You think I’m selling out my country for Bitcoin?”

“I don’t care why you’re doing it. I just care that you stop.”

“I’m doing it because they lied to us!” Walcott shouted, stepping away from the console. “Just like they lied to you, Ren. Or is it Nine? Do you even remember your real name? The one your mother gave you before the bombs fell?”

The words hit me like physical blows. My breath hitched.

“They took you,” he continued, circling the console, keeping the detonator raised. “They took orphans. Broken things. And they filled you with metal and code until you weren’t human anymore. You’re a remote-controlled drone made of meat.”

“I am a United States Naval Officer,” I said, though the words tasted like ash.

“You are a weapon!” he screamed. “And weapons don’t have souls. I’m selling this data to the people who can dismantle the program. I’m freeing you.”

“By killing your own men?”

“Collateral damage. The greater good.”

I watched his eyes. He believed it. That was what made him dangerous. He wasn’t a criminal; he was a zealot.

“The detonator,” I said softly. “Last chance.”

“Or what?” He laughed. “You’re unarmed. You dropped the rifle when you walked in because you’re scared of the switch. You can’t reach me in time.”

He was right. I had lowered the rifle. I was five meters away. Human reaction time is 0.25 seconds. He could depress the trigger before I crossed half the distance.

But he was calculating based on human speed.

He didn’t know about the overdrive protocol.

“I was never unarmed,” I whispered.

I triggered the implant.

Pain exploded in my chest—white-hot, blinding agony as the device flooded my system with synthetic adrenaline and neural accelerators. The world slowed down. The hum of the servers dropped an octave. I saw the dust motes floating in the air, suspended in time. I saw the micro-twitch in Walcott’s finger as he decided to push the button.

Move.

I didn’t run. I vanished.

I covered five meters in two strides.

Walcott’s eyes widened, but the signal from his brain to his finger was too slow. I was already there.

I slashed the ceramic knife upward.

It severed the tendons in his wrist.

He screamed, his hand going limp. The detonator fell.

I caught it before it hit the floor.

Time snapped back to normal speed. The sound of his scream caught up to the action.

Walcott stumbled back, clutching his useless hand, blood spraying across the server racks. He looked at me with pure horror.

“What are you?” he gasped.

I stood over him, breathing hard, the chemical burn in my veins slowly fading. “I’m the one who survived.”

I kicked his legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor. I knelt on his chest, the knife pressed against his jugular.

“Who is the buyer?” I demanded.

“Go to hell,” he spat.

“I’ve been there,” I said. “It’s cold. Start talking.”

“Drop the knife!”

The voice came from the doorway.

I didn’t look up. “Stay back, Frost.”

“It’s not Frost.”

I turned my head slightly.

Chief Reed stood in the doorway. He was battered, his arm in a sling from our fight, but he was holding a sidearm leveled at my head. Behind him were half a dozen MPs.

“Step away from the Commander, Lieutenant,” Reed said. His voice was hard, professional.

“He’s the mole, Chief,” I said, not moving. “He rigged the obstacle course. He set up the ambush tonight. He has the detonator.”

Reed looked at Walcott, bleeding on the floor, then at me. He looked at the detonator in my left hand.

“He’s right, Lazarus,” Walcott wheezed, trying to play the victim. “She’s crazy. She’s a sleeper agent. Look at her! Look what she did!”

Reed looked at the blood. He looked at the impossible distance I had covered. He saw the truth in my eyes—the cold, dead stare of Vesper 9.

“Lieutenant,” Reed said slowly. “If he’s the mole, we need him alive. Step away.”

“He knows where the other agents are,” I said. “He knows about Vashi Station.”

“Ren,” Reed said. He lowered the gun an inch. “Trust me.”

Trust.

The program taught me never to trust. The program taught me that everyone was a potential threat. But Reed… Reed was the man who had mocked me, fought me, and then—when I beat him—had looked me in the eye with respect.

I looked at Walcott. I wanted to end him. For the team in the ravine. For the orphans.

But if I killed him now, I proved him right. I would just be a weapon.

I stood up. I stepped back.

“He’s all yours, Chief.”

Reed nodded. “Secure him!”

The MPs swarmed the room. They cuffed Walcott, dragging him out. He screamed obscenities at me as he passed.

Reed holstered his weapon and walked over to me. He looked at the knife in my hand, then up at my face.

“You moved fast,” he said quietly.

“Adrenaline,” I lied.

“Sure.” He reached out and gently took the detonator from my hand. “We found the explosives in the foundation. EOD is disarming them. You saved the base, Lieutenant.”

“I just did my job.”

“No,” Reed shook his head. “You did more than that. You saved my men.”

The debriefing took hours. Director Hawthorne arrived by helicopter at dawn. He was a small man in a tailored suit who smelled of expensive cologne and secrets.

He swept the incident under the rug with terrifying efficiency. Walcott was “transferred.” The shooting in the ravine was a “training accident.” And me?

I sat in an interrogation room, staring at a two-way mirror.

The door opened. Hawthorne walked in.

“Vesper 9,” he said, sitting down opposite me. “Good work. The data is secure.”

“Walcott said the program was compromised,” I said.

“Walcott was delusional.”

“Was he?” I leaned forward. “He knew my designation. He knew about the implants.”

Hawthorne’s eyes were cold. “You have your orders, Lieutenant. You return to the shadows. New identity. New assignment. You leave Coronado within the hour.”

“And the team?” I asked. “Reed? Quillin?”

“They will forget you ever existed. That is the price of the trident you will never wear.”

He stood up and left.

I gathered my gear. I stripped off the uniform, the name tape that said ATRAUS. I put on civilian clothes—jeans, a hoodie, a nondescript jacket.

I walked to the main gate. The sun was rising, painting the ocean in gold and blood.

“Heading out?”

I stopped. Chief Reed was leaning against the guard shack. He wasn’t in uniform. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

“Chief,” I said.

“Just Reed,” he corrected. He looked at the duffel bag on my shoulder. “So that’s it? You just vanish?”

“It’s what I do.”

He nodded, looking out at the ocean. “You know, when you first stepped on my mat, I thought you were weak. I thought you were looking for a handout.”

“I know.”

“I was wrong,” he said, turning to face me. “You have the heart of a warrior, Ren. Whatever they did to you… whatever machine they put inside you… it didn’t kill the human part. Don’t let them take that.”

He extended his hand.

I looked at it. The hand of a man who had tried to break me, and now stood as my only friend.

I took it. His grip was warm, solid.

“Watch your six, Reed.”

“You too, Ghost.”

I walked out the gate. I didn’t look back.

I had come here to find a traitor, and I had. But I had found something else, too.

I touched the spot on my ribs. The implant was silent.

Walcott was wrong. I wasn’t a weapon. A weapon has no choice in where it’s aimed.

I pulled out my phone. A new message from an unknown number. It was coordinates. A location in the Swiss Alps. A lead on the origins of Project Vesper.

I deleted the message and crushed the phone under my boot.

I wasn’t a weapon. I was a hunter. And for the first time in my life, I was choosing my own target.