Chapter3

The harsh halo of the flashlight cut through the rainy mist. The guard’s finger tightened on the trigger, his mouth opening to bark an eviction order.

BOOM—

A blinding orb of orange fire ripped through the eastern night sky. Even blocks away, the shockwave swept discarded newspapers into the air.

The radio on the guard’s shoulder erupted in frantic static: "Tank Six just blew! Fire’s spreading to the contraband sector!"

He froze. His eyes darted from the inferno back to the manila envelope in my hands, locking onto it.

"Bring him in." A crisp, icy female voice cut through the radio chatter.

The heavy iron door to the top floor of Warehouse Nine swung open—and the cold muzzle of a Glock 19 pressed dead center between my eyes.

The woman holding it sat behind a massive mahogany desk. Cropped hair, eyes calculating and ruthless. Ivy.

"Did you light that fire?" Her voice was low, yet heavy with lethal pressure.

"I’m not that good." I leaned into the barrel, tossing the envelope onto her desk. "I just knew it was going to happen. Just like I know the line to the East District Police Chief you're dialing right now? It goes dead in ten seconds."

Her eyes narrowed. Her left hand punched the speakerphone button.

"Ivy? I'm already on the tank situation—" The Chief’s voice was instantly swallowed by a violent shriek of static.

Outside the window, massive swathes of the downtown skyline plunged into darkness. A total blackout at the precinct. A rapid dial tone echoed in the dead silence of the office.

Ivy slowly lowered the receiver. The gun didn't flinch.

"Name your price. What do you want from me?"

"A—"

CRASH!

The deafening roar of a heavy shotgun pulverized the rest of my sentence. The office’s side panel of bulletproof glass spider-webbed and blew inward. Two guards grunted, hitting the floor like sacks of wet cement.

Ivy’s reflexes were terrifying. She kicked the massive desk onto its side, grabbed my collar, and dragged me behind it. Shards of glass and buckshot screamed through the air above us.

[System Alert: High-concentration future temporal residue detected! Capturing target will drastically accelerate evolution progress!]

Bleeding through the static of that mechanical voice, Max kicked the shattered door frame to splinters and charged in. His eyes were bloodshot, the muscles in his forearms writhing like trapped snakes.

He actually tracked me down. The System had abandoned its slow-burn growth phase—it was treating me as a premium loot drop.

"Ian! Why are you running?!" Max backhanded a row of steel filing cabinets, sending them crashing. His strength was impossibly monstrous.

Under the barrage of suppressing fire, a jagged piece of shrapnel sliced across Ivy’s shoulder. Dark blood welled instantly.

She blind-fired a shot to force Max into cover, then spun, seized me by the throat, and slammed me against the concrete wall.

The blistering hot barrel dug into my jaw. Her breath was ragged, tasting of copper. "You brought this heat to my door? Give me one reason not to blow your brains out!"

Gunfire roared around us. With my windpipe crushed, memories of my past life—of being drained dry by the System—violently flashed through my mind. In its early stages, the System was horribly unstable. Forcing this much raw power would guarantee an energy backlash.

"Thirty seconds," I rasped, forcing the words through gritted teeth. "In thirty seconds... his energy core overloads. He’ll drop into a seizure."

"You want to gamble with our lives?" The veins on the back of Ivy's hand bulged.

"Start counting." I locked eyes with her, unblinking.

Across the room, Max hoisted a two-ton forklift, ready to hurl it. Violent arcs of blue electricity spasmed across his skin.

[Warning! Host physical integrity insufficient for current energy threshold! Forced rejection initiated!]

Twenty-nine. Thirty.

Max let out a bloodcurdling scream. He dropped the machinery, clutching his skull, and collapsed violently out of cover. He thrashed on the floor in pure agony, his skin rippling as if thousands of insects were burrowing beneath his flesh.

Ivy didn’t hesitate for a microsecond. She tapped her earpiece: "Position Two. Fire."

BOOM—

The muffled roar of a heavy sniper rifle echoed from the crane tower across the yard. A large-caliber round cleanly punched through Max’s thigh, erupting in a mist of crimson.

Howling in pain, Max was frantically dragged back into the shadows of the stairwell by his terrified lackeys.

Deathly silence reclaimed the warehouse, save for the wind whistling through the shattered glass.

Ivy slid down the wall to the floor. She clamped a hand over her bleeding shoulder, her gaze carving into me like a scalpel.

"You brought the plague, you provide the cure," she panted. "Now. Empty every damn thing in your head."

I retrieved the manila envelope from the debris and smoothed the apocalyptic briefing onto the bullet-riddled desk.

"I want that decommissioned private bunker under your name," I said, holding her gaze. "Permanent residency."

Ivy flipped through the timeline—accurate down to the hour—with one hand. Her eyes lingered on words like Deep Freeze and Mutation.

Five minutes later, she snapped the file shut.

"Negotiable." She pushed herself up, ripping a length of gauze to bind her shoulder. "First thing tomorrow, we inspect the bunker. And if that freak comes knocking again—"

She tossed the Glock onto my chest.

"You take the front line."