Chapter 13: Shadows Within

Section 1 – Fallout in the Base

The corridors of the base no longer carried the steady pulse of machinery and boots that once formed its heartbeat. Now the rhythm was fractured—limping, ragged. Alarms had long been silenced, but their memory lingered, a phantom echo that made every hiss of sliding doors feel urgent, every flicker of overhead light seem ominous. Smoke stains still clung to the ceiling near the breached wing, black scars against the silver-gray metal. The faint scent of burnt insulation mixed with iodine and antiseptic, seeping through the ventilation system until it clung to skin and hair like an unwelcome reminder.

Nathan walked those halls with his fists unconsciously clenched and unclenched at his sides, his raw knuckles still red but no longer torn. The healing was happening too quickly, even he could feel it—skin knitting itself together overnight, the pain fading before it should. His hair, once a lighter brown, now seemed darker, the curls weighted with shadow when the overhead lights caught them. Even his eyes, once hazel with warm flecks, had deepened toward a brooding brown. The change hadn’t gone unnoticed. Trainees whispered when they thought he wasn’t listening, mentors watched him with a wariness that wasn’t there before.

Through the glass of the infirmary wall, Nathan could see the wounded lined up. A girl no older than seventeen had her arm wrapped from shoulder to wrist, eyes wide with the kind of trauma that left scars no bandage could hide. A boy with burns across his cheek tried to joke with the medic, but his laughter was hollow, forced, cracking halfway through. The mentors were scattered, trying to hold the threads of morale together, but the fraying edges showed.

Nathan caught snatches of their words as he lingered outside the door.

“…how did they breach security that easily?”
“…Iron Veil must have had someone on the inside—”
“…Nathan. They were after him. You heard it.”

That last voice hissed the name like it was a curse. Nathan’s chest tightened, the words slicing into him with surgical precision. He turned before he could hear more.

The eyes that followed him through the training hall were sharper, heavier than before. Trainees didn’t just glance—they measured him. Some looked at him like he was their shield, their weapon. Others looked at him like he was a blade pointed at their own throats. Conversations faltered, laughter died, whispers sprouted in his wake.

Corvus approached first, his presence like an iron weight. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “You walked into the fire and came out. That doesn’t mean you’re untouchable. Remember that.”

Nathan leaned against the wall, resisting the urge to lash back. “Am I untouchable, or am I not even human anymore? Because I don’t think they see me as one of them.”

Corvus’s gaze locked with his, eyes like stormclouds. “You think fear means they’ll turn on you? No. Fear means they know you can do what they can’t. You’re a reminder of their limits. That’s why they stare.” He lowered his voice, gravel scraping against gravel. “Don’t mistake that for hatred. They’ll follow you. If you keep control.”

Nathan swallowed the words, but they tasted bitter. Control. What control did he have anymore, when the only thing that made sense was the way his body reacted faster than thought, faster than instinct?

Raze found him next. She came from the far side of the room, boots striking hard against the mats as she approached. Her sharp eyes locked onto him like twin blades, cutting through the haze of whispers. “They’re talking about you,” she said, arms crossed, jaw tight.

“I know,” Nathan said, the fire in his voice barely contained.

“Then give them something worth talking about.” Her tone wasn’t mocking—it was demanding. “Don’t make them doubt whether you’re with them. You think this base can survive another raid if they don’t trust who they’re fighting beside?”

Nathan’s fists tightened. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be their weapon. I lost my family, Raze. Overnight. And now they expect me to stand here like I’m some battle-hardened soldier with no fear, no grief, no humanity? Do you have any idea how recent that was for me compared to all of you? How fresh?”

The words came out sharp, bitter, and heavier than he intended. The room fell quieter, ears tilting toward the conversation. Raze’s expression flickered for just a moment—something softer breaking through her hardened veneer. “You’re not a weapon,” she said finally. “You’re a choice. Whether you like it or not, they see you as the difference between life and death. Figure out what you want to do with that. Because standing still won’t save anyone.”

Nathan looked around the hall, at the bruised and bandaged faces staring at him. Some carried awe, others distrust. All carried expectation. And beneath that weight, Nathan felt something coil tighter inside of him. Not fear. Not doubt. Power.

A steady pulse whispered through his veins, the same pulse that had carried him through the raid, the same fire that made him faster, sharper, more than he was before. It was raw, brutal, and unrelenting.

And for the first time, Nathan didn’t feel the urge to push it away.

Section 2 – The Iron Veil’s Shadow

The debriefing chamber was colder than usual, though Nathan suspected it wasn’t the temperature. It was the atmosphere. A heavy silence hung in the air, only occasionally broken by the soft hum of the holo-projector at the center of the room. Blue light washed over the faces gathered there—mentors, senior trainees, the few scientists who had survived the raid. Their shadows stretched long across the walls, as though the Iron Veil itself lurked just out of reach.

Nathan sat toward the back, his chair angled slightly away from the table. He wanted to see everyone without being seen too much himself. Old habits. His curls, now darker than he remembered, cast shadows across his face, making his eyes look even deeper, harder. He could feel the weight of the stares on him—half curiosity, half fear.

Corvus stood at the head of the table, arms folded like steel beams across his chest. “We know now they weren’t after the base,” he said, his gravelly voice cutting through the quiet. “They were after him.” His gaze flicked, deliberately, to Nathan.

The room stirred. Some shifted uncomfortably. Others whispered under their breath, too low to catch but sharp enough to sting. Nathan felt the knot tighten in his stomach, but he kept his posture calm, his breathing steady.

Dr. Elara, one of the lead scientists, leaned forward into the blue glow. Her hands trembled slightly as she adjusted the holo-controls, bringing up the sigil they had carved from one of the fallen enemy’s gauntlets. A circle etched with jagged lines, intersected by a shape that resembled a closed veil. The mark shimmered as if alive, humming faintly with residual energy.

“The Iron Veil,” she said, her voice soft but steady. “An organization older than most of us have been alive. They’ve survived because they’re not just soldiers—they’re zealots. Fanatics. To them, Enhanced aren’t just weapons… we’re the blueprint for what humanity should become. And Nathan—” her eyes lingered on him, “—to them, you’re the pinnacle.”

Nathan felt the air grow heavier. The word “pinnacle” didn’t sound flattering in this context—it sounded like a target painted on his back.

“They had a spy in our ranks,” another mentor, Harken, growled from the far side of the table. His scarred face twisted with frustration. “For years. Feeding them intel, leaking training regimens, access codes, weaknesses. Everything they needed to walk into our house and tear it apart.”

“And they would’ve succeeded,” someone else muttered, “if he hadn’t been here.”

The murmurs grew louder, filling the chamber like an infection. Nathan caught words—monster, weapon, liability—but also others—savior, fighter, unmatched. The contradiction hung in the air, dividing the room.

Raze slammed her hand down on the table, silencing them. Her voice was sharp, commanding. “Stop bickering like children. The Iron Veil isn’t just going to vanish. They won’t stop because they’ve seen Nathan. If anything, they’ll come harder, because they know he’s the only one who can match them.”

Nathan finally spoke, his voice low but carrying through the room. “Why me?” His words were simple, but they cut to the heart of it. “I wasn’t born for this. I didn’t train for years like the rest of you. I was dragged into this after my family was killed. So why me? What makes me so special to them?”

The silence that followed was thick, but Dr. Elara broke it. “Because you’re changing, Nathan. Faster than any of us anticipated. Your healing rate, your reflexes, your perception—they exceed the projections. Most Enhanced plateau after their augmentation. You haven’t. You’re still climbing.”

Corvus’s eyes narrowed. “And they know it. That’s why they’ll stop at nothing to either claim you or destroy you.”

The words hit Nathan like iron weights. He leaned back in his chair, letting them sink in. He wasn’t just fighting for survival anymore. He was fighting to prevent himself from becoming theirs.

A flicker of memory surfaced—the spy, cornered, bleeding, sneering at him even as security dragged him away. They’ll break this place apart brick by brick if it means getting to you. And when you see what they offer, Nathan, you’ll wonder why you ever resisted.

The memory made his blood run hot. For a moment, he saw the laughter of his family—the warm kitchen, the sudden cut of silence, the night it all ended. His fists clenched so hard his knuckles cracked, though the pain faded almost instantly. His healing was faster now. Too fast.

He caught Raze watching him from across the table, her sharp eyes softened by something unspoken. For all her steel, there was an edge of concern there. And for the first time since the raid, Nathan realized she wasn’t just calculating his strength. She was measuring the toll this life was taking on him.

Corvus cleared his throat. “We’ll tighten security. We’ll root out every trace of the Iron Veil. But make no mistake—they’ll come again. And when they do, they won’t send scouts. They’ll send their best.” His gaze turned to Nathan once more, heavy as stone. “And they’ll expect you to answer.”

The holo-projector flickered off, plunging the room back into dim light. The meeting was over, but its weight followed Nathan into the hall like a shadow that clung too tightly to his heels.

Section 3 – Tests of the Flesh

The medical wing was colder than the debriefing chamber, its walls a sterile white broken only by the sharp blue glow of diagnostic consoles. The scent of antiseptic stung Nathan’s nose as he stripped down to his training shorts, standing barefoot on the reinforced testing platform. Electrodes dotted his chest and temples, wires snaking back to humming machines that pulsed with green and red indicators. He looked less like a soldier than a specimen laid bare, and for a moment, the thought made his skin crawl.

Dr. Elara stood nearby with her tablet, dark circles under her eyes betraying sleepless nights. “Pulse steady,” she murmured, fingers flying over the display. “Baseline reflex speed… already outside the expected parameters. Begin first sequence.”

Two med-techs activated the drone cluster overhead. Half a dozen training spheres whirred to life, glowing faintly as they darted around Nathan like hornets. One shot a beam of light at his shoulder. Nathan twisted—too fast for thought, too precise to be instinct. The beam missed by inches. He pivoted again, catching another blast mid-motion with the edge of his forearm. By the time the third sphere fired, he was already there, deflecting it with a sweep that looked rehearsed but wasn’t.

Raze whistled low from the observation deck. “He’s not dodging. He’s… predicting.”

Corvus’s eyes narrowed, arms crossed as he leaned against the railing. “No. He’s reacting faster than their sensors can adjust. To the machines, it looks prophetic.”

Nathan barely heard them. His focus narrowed until the world slowed to a crawl. The hum of the drone motors separated into distinct frequencies. The flicker of their targeting lights became as readable as handwriting. Every movement was a message, and his body responded before his mind could translate it. He lunged, grabbed one drone mid-flight, and crushed it in his fist. The sparks stung, but the skin of his knuckles healed even as the smoke curled upward.

Elara’s voice trembled. “He’s exceeding the drone program’s maximum predictive model. Reset with double-speed variation.”

The drones darted faster, zigzagging with chaotic precision. Nathan’s heart pounded, but it didn’t matter. His legs moved like coiled springs, his strikes exploding with bursts of force that made the reinforced platform shudder. He dropped low, rolled, snapped up with a strike that shattered another sphere. He moved as if time bent around him, as if the world gave him half a second’s head start no one else had.

When the last drone fell, sparking, Nathan stood in the center of the wreckage, chest heaving but his body almost unmarked. Sweat glistened on his brow, but even that seemed to dry quicker than it should. His hazel eyes, once warm, were now darkened—nearly brown, flecked with something sharper, harder.

“Look at his hands,” one tech whispered.

Nathan glanced down. The raw scrapes across his knuckles, earned when he’d crushed the first drone, were already gone. Smooth skin stretched where blood had been only moments ago. He flexed his fingers, unsettled, but also strangely exhilarated.

Dr. Elara scribbled furiously on her tablet. “Healing rate doubled since the last evaluation. Possibly tripled. Tissue regeneration is near instantaneous for minor wounds.” She paused, her eyes darting up to study him. “He’s not plateauing. He’s still climbing.”

Raze leaned against the glass, her sharp profile lit by the glow of the consoles. “Climbing into what?” she muttered.

The second test began—weights this time. A reinforced barbell was lowered in front of him, already loaded beyond what most trainees could touch. Nathan gripped it, muscles tensing, veins rising against his forearms. He lifted. The weight rose smoothly, almost too easily, and he felt the hunger for strength surge inside him. It wasn’t just about training anymore. His body craved it, demanded it. He added more plates, and then more, until the bar bowed under the load. Still, he lifted.

Corvus’s eyes narrowed. “He’s chasing the edge.”

“He’s beyond it,” Elara whispered.

The final test was reflex speed. A wall of lights and sensors lit up in unpredictable sequences, each one demanding a strike, a block, a motion before the next blinked alive. Nathan’s arms blurred, his body snapping left and right in explosive bursts. The sound of his fists striking the pads was like gunfire. His hair, once a lighter brown, now looked almost black under the sweat, curls plastered to his forehead. He moved until the machine itself gave up, circuits overloading in a shower of sparks.

The room fell into silence, broken only by Nathan’s ragged breathing. He looked at his reflection in the cracked glass of the sensor wall. Taller than most of the others, lean but defined, curls darkening, eyes almost unrecognizable. He didn’t look like the boy who had stumbled into this world after losing everything. He looked like something else.

Behind him, whispers stirred again. Some awed, some fearful.

“Not human.”
“Unstoppable.”
“Dangerous.”

Nathan turned away before their words could sink in.

Elara cleared her throat, but her voice wavered. “He’s… evolving.”

Corvus’s voice was steady, colder. “No. He’s becoming exactly what the Iron Veil wants.” His eyes locked onto Nathan. “The only question is whether he uses it against them… or with them.”

Section 4 — Quiet Rooms, Loud Hearts

The med wing emptied in waves, the worst cries fading into the hum of filtration fans and the soft wheeze of oxygen canisters. Nathan should have gone back to his bunk, but the corridors felt too narrow, the lights too bright, and his own heartbeat too loud. He drifted instead toward the only place in the base that didn’t smell like metal or fear.

The hydroponics room was a long, glass-backed spine tucked along the eastern wall—one of Corvus’s “human maintenance” projects. Racks of green climbed in disciplined tiers, leaves glossy with mist, roots breathing in slow, white curtains behind plex casings. Lights the color of early morning drifted from blue to soft amber on a cycle meant to trick the body into remembering things like dawn.

Saela was already there.

She stood in the aisle between basil and dwarf citrus, fingers hovering over a leaf without touching it, as if she were waiting for permission to exist in the same world. In the half-light the sharp edges of her features softened; the small scar beneath her left eye turned from a hard dash to a pale crescent. She didn’t start when Nathan entered. She’d heard him ten seconds before he pushed the door.

“You walk differently now,” she said, voice barely above the hush of the misters.

Nathan tried for a smile that didn’t quite make it. “Is that your sonic mapping talking, or the part of you that likes to scare me with guesses?”

“Both,” she said, mouth tipping. “You used to catch your weight on your heels when you were thinking. Now you barely make a sound at all. Like you’re waiting to move before anyone else decides to breathe.”

He glanced down at his boots. She wasn’t wrong. “The doctors ran their circus. Reflexes, healing, all of it.” He flexed his hands; the skin across his knuckles had the too-smooth look of something new. “I keep getting faster. Stronger. I don’t feel invincible, but…” He searched for language that didn’t make him sound like a stranger to himself. “It’s like everything has seams now. Places to pull. If I tug hard enough, it opens.”

Saela’s eyes flicked to his, steady. “And does that scare you?”

He took too long to answer, and that was the answer. “It scares them,” he said at last. “Corvus pretends it doesn’t. Raze won’t admit it. The trainees—some of them won’t meet my eyes. Others won’t stop staring.”

She moved past him, brushing a leaf back into alignment as she went, and stopped beside the windowed wall. Beyond it, darkness pressed close—the wounded city a smear of low lights and broken silhouettes. “You don’t get to be normal again,” she said simply. “But you do get to decide what the new thing is.”

He let out a breath. “That what you decided?”

Saela’s laugh was small and private, like she’d forgotten she could make that sound. “I decided I would never be a weapon pointed by someone else’s hand.” She tapped her sternum. “I point myself. Even when I miss.”

They stood with the plants and the night for a while. The room’s light cycle shifted another shade toward dawn, picking gold out of the curls that had fallen onto Nathan’s brow. He pushed them back, saw how his fingers shook for a half-second, and tucked the hand into his pocket.

“How long has it been since you slept?” Saela asked.

Nathan shrugged. “Since the blast. Since the nets. Since before that.”

“Sit,” she said, nodding toward a low bench near a cluster of mint. “Before you fall.”

He did. The bench was cool through his training pants; the mint’s sharp, clean smell cut the lingering antiseptic in his sinuses. Saela stayed standing, her hands at her sides, patient as gravity.

“Breathe with me,” she said.

“Saela, I—”

“Just breathe.”

So he did. Four in. Hold. Four out. He’d taught himself the pattern when panic was a new language; now it was the only one he spoke fluently. Saela matched him, not correcting, only mirroring until their rhythms slipped into the same quiet lane. He felt muscles loosen he hadn’t noticed he was clenching—jaw, low back, the small cords that had been humming at the base of his skull since Sector 12.

“My sister used to do this,” Saela said, eyes on the greens. “Before missions. Before storms. She was louder than me. Braver, too. The kind of brave that makes commanders put you at the front of every map.”

“You said ‘used to.’” He wished he hadn’t.

Saela nodded once. “Iron Veil ambush. We were moving a family through one of the old subway arteries. She took the first wave and the second. Third one took her back.” Her voice didn’t break. It thinned. “We weren’t supposed to split. We did. I live in that word some nights.”

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said, and meant it down to the marrow. The apology felt small against the history behind her eyes.

“She told me something the morning before.” Saela angled her head, as if listening to a voice that had not been in the room for years. “She said, ‘Don’t be afraid to be the blade, Sea. Just be sure you chose the target.’”

He almost laughed. It came out wrong. “Everyone keeps giving me knife metaphors.”

“Because you keep sharpening.” She looked at him then, really looked, and for a beat he didn’t feel like a specimen or a weapon or a rumor. He felt seen. “When you moved tonight… it wasn’t just speed. It was… certainty. Like you knew where every path ended. That will save lives. It will also end some.” A pause. “You’re allowed to be good at both. You’re allowed to feel how that feels.”

Nathan swallowed. The taste in his mouth was metal and mint. “What if I like it too much?” he asked, the words so quiet he barely heard them leave. “What if the thing that makes me useful is the thing that makes me something they can’t keep?”

Saela’s mouth quirked. “Then you make yourself someone they don’t want to lose anyway.”

“How?”

“By choosing us every time the choice is offered.”

The simple math of that hit him harder than the doctor’s charts. Choose your own vector. Choose your people. Choose again. Choose again.

He rubbed at his eyes, and when his hand fell, Saela was closer. Not touching. Near enough that he could see the tiny freckles along the curve of her nose, the way her pupils widened and narrowed with the slow shift of the grow lights.

“Raze thinks you’re a storm someone taught to walk,” Saela said. “Corvus thinks you’re a bridge they can march an army across if they shore up the joints. The trainees think you’re a rumor with fists.” She rolled one shoulder, the motion unconsciously graceful. “I think you’re a boy who lost too much and keeps choosing not to fall down. I like that person. Even when he terrifies me.”

The honesty left him a little dizzy. “You’re not… afraid of me?”

“I’m afraid for you.” She studied his hands, the smooth skin across the knuckles that should have been ragged. “And I’m afraid of what this place will do to you if you let it name you for itself.”

He laughed, real and brief. “Naming again.”

“It’s a power,” she said. “Don’t hand it away.”

Silence opened, comfortable this time. Saela’s breathing matched his again without effort. The grow lights hummed. Somewhere beyond the wall, a wind leaned against the broken city and sighed.

“Do you ever wish it had been different?” he asked. “That you’d never been chosen. Or changed. Or whatever lie they used where you grew up.”

Saela didn’t look away from the dark panes. “Every morning. Every night. And three or four times walking between.” She put a palm flat against the glass as if she could push the world back into a better shape. “But I like the person I am when we get someone home who shouldn’t have made it. That has to count for something.”

“It does,” he said, surprised to hear how certain he sounded.

She turned, the edge of her mouth doing that almost-smile again. “Then make sure you count for something too, Nathan Reyes.”

The sound of his name in her mouth did something complicated to the air between them. He had the sudden, absurd urge to tell her about things that didn’t belong in a war—childhood summers, stupid jokes with the only two friends who had stayed, the way his mother used to cut mango so the pieces unfolded like a flower. He wanted to put those soft, ordinary facts down between the mint and the basil to prove to both of them he wasn’t only sinew and speed and the echo of nets cutting skin.

Instead, he said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For… not making me smaller,” he said, and felt heat crawl up his neck for using the right words on the first try.

Saela blinked, as if he’d set something fragile in her hands. “Don’t make yourself smaller either,” she said softly. “Just make sure you fit where you promise to stand.”

He nodded. His chest didn’t feel as tight. The room seemed to have more oxygen in it. He could almost imagine sleeping. Almost.

The door hissed open behind them. Raze filled the frame—hood down, hair braided close, the angled lines of her burned jaw flexing as she chewed her words once before letting them out.

“So this is where you hide when the walls start talking,” she said, crossing her arms. Her tone was flat; her eyes were not. They slid over Nathan, cataloging tiny details the way only a soldier who’d stayed alive too long could. “Corvus is making noises about curfews and assessments. I told him he could shove the first and schedule the second.”

“Thank you?” Nathan offered.

“Don’t thank me yet.” Raze’s gaze flicked to Saela, then back. “He wants you for a closed-door thing tomorrow. Scientists. Mentors. Maybe the ones who still remember what the first war felt like.” Her jaw ticked. “They’re going to talk about you like you’re a map. Try not to let them erase the pieces with lakes.”

“I hate lakes,” Saela said automatically, deadpan. “Too many edges pretending to be one shape.”

Raze huffed something that might have almost been a laugh. She leaned shoulder-first into the doorjamb. “You did good tonight,” she said to Nathan, like the words were heavy and she didn’t trust anyone else to carry them. “You also scared half the base out of a week’s sleep.”

“I know.” Nathan found he could say it without flinching. “I’m trying to figure out who that makes me.”

Raze studied him. “It makes you ours, if you keep choosing it,” she said, echoing Saela so exactly Nathan wondered if they’d planned it. “But we’re not blind. Iron Veil wants you because you’re the one thing they don’t know how to beat. That’s not a compliment. It’s a leash. Don’t put it in your own mouth.”

“Is that your version of a pep talk?” Saela asked.

“It’s my version of not taking apart the next person who tells me we should ‘contain’ him,” Raze replied, the heat in her voice not entirely aimed outside the room. She let the threat hang, then softened it by a hair. “Get some sleep if you can, Reyes. You look like a ghost I wouldn’t win against.”

“High praise,” he muttered.

Raze pushed off the frame. “I don’t do praise. I do reality. And reality is we’re still here. Don’t make me wrong.”

When she’d gone, the room seemed larger again. Nathan realized his shoulders had been up around his ears. He let them down. Saela watched the doorway for a beat, then turned back to him.

“She cares,” Saela said. “In her way.”

“She does,” he agreed. “In her way.”

They stood in the slow dawn of fake lights a little longer, not needing to fill the quiet. Nathan could feel the edges of sleep finally tugging at him, not the dead drop of exhaustion but something like surrender with a choice attached.

“I should go,” he said.

“You should,” Saela agreed. She stepped closer—close enough that he could count the darker threads in her irises—and, with the same care she’d used on the plant leaves, she reached up and touched the curl that kept falling onto his forehead. She pushed it back with a fingertip. “There,” she said. “Less like a storm. More like a person.”

He didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded. At the door he looked back. Saela had already turned to the glass, a small figure keeping watch over a city that would never know who had stood for it.

In the corridor, the base felt different. Not safer. But connected. Like there were hands at his back he could lean into if he slipped. He walked lighter without realizing it, and the walls seemed to notice.

He did not see the shadow detach from the far cross-corridor and drift after him with a patience that had learned to wear other faces. He did not hear the soft click of a transmitter’s tooth against a molar. He did not know that in a dark room three levels down, an old screen flickered to life with the note: FULCRUM: STABLE. VECTORS SHIFTING.

Nathan only knew that when he laid down, the mint still in his lungs, his body finally let him fall. The last thing he felt was the memory of Saela’s fingertip on his forehead, and the last thing he thought was a promise: Choose us, every time.

Sleep took him, not like a trap, for once, but like a hand closing gently over his eyes.

Section 5

The corridors of the base had changed. Nathan could feel it in the way the air seemed to tighten when he walked through, in the half-finished conversations that died the moment his footsteps echoed off the steel walls. He wasn’t imagining it. Whispers trailed after him like shadows, muttered words carried on the recycled air: unstable… dangerous… too fast, too brutal.

The cafeteria, once a place of noise and clatter, went silent the second he entered. A group of trainees hunched over their trays, stealing glances at him from the corners of their eyes. Nathan met their gaze for half a second before they looked away, suddenly fascinated by their food. It wasn’t respect. It was fear.

He clenched his jaw, gripping the edge of his tray until the metal bent beneath his fingers.

Raze appeared at his side, sliding into the seat across from him. Her presence didn’t silence the room—it deepened the tension. She leaned forward, her voice low.

“They’re afraid of you,” she said bluntly. “You notice it, don’t you?”

Nathan gave a humorless laugh. “Hard not to. It’s like I’m carrying a disease.”

“You’re carrying power.” Her eyes softened, for once free of her usual sharp edge. “That scares people more than sickness.”

Before Nathan could answer, another voice joined in. One of the medics—Lena, a quiet woman with sharp green eyes—approached, balancing her tray. She hesitated, then sat beside him. “They don’t understand,” she said, her tone careful. “They see how you fight, how you move… and it doesn’t look human anymore.”

“Maybe it’s not supposed to,” Nathan muttered.

The table fell into silence. His words hung between them like a knife.

Later, in the training hall, the unease boiled over into something sharper. Nathan was supposed to be sparring with two other recruits, but the match ended almost before it began. The moment one of them lunged, Nathan blurred forward, ducked low, and swept the trainee’s legs out from under him in a single, bone-jarring movement. The second barely raised a fist before Nathan pivoted, slammed an elbow into his chest, and sent him sprawling across the mat.

The entire sequence lasted less than three seconds.

The recruits groaned on the ground, clutching ribs and gasping for breath. Nathan stood over them, chest heaving, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles split against his palms. Blood streaked his hands, but the wounds were already closing, knitting shut almost faster than the eye could follow.

A hush fell over the training hall.

From the shadows of the observation deck above, voices murmured—mentors, instructors, and others who thought they were out of earshot.

“He’s too fast,” one whispered.
“He reacts before the move even starts.”
“He’s not training anymore. He’s hunting.”

Nathan looked up. His eyes caught theirs through the glass, and for the briefest moment, they recoiled.

That night, he found himself in the gym long after lights-out, striking the heavy bag until his arms burned. Each blow was explosive, sending the chain groaning against the ceiling. Sweat soaked his shirt, clinging to the definition of his muscles, but he didn’t stop. Not when his skin tore open. Not when his fists turned red.

In the doorway, two figures whispered. He caught their voices between strikes.

“…he’s unstable. If he turns on us…”
“…the spy said he’s the most advanced we’ve seen. If Iron Veil wants him, that should tell you everything.”

Nathan’s fist froze mid-swing. His body trembled with the urge to break the bag clean off its chain. He turned slowly toward the voices, but whoever had been speaking slipped away into the dark.

Back in his quarters, Lena found him sitting on the edge of his bunk, hands bandaged. She closed the door behind her, eyes wary but steady.

“You know they’re talking about you,” she said softly.

Nathan met her gaze, his voice quiet but sharp. “Let them talk. I didn’t ask to be their weapon.”

“No,” she agreed, stepping closer. “But you are one. And if they’re too blind to see it, then maybe you should stop worrying about their fear. Maybe you should decide what you want to be.”

Her hand brushed his shoulder—hesitant, almost trembling. He didn’t pull away.

For the first time since his family’s death, Nathan felt the walls around his chest shift, threatening to crack. But then the image rose again—his family’s laughter, cut short in a moment of blood and silence.

And he knew. He couldn’t go back.

Not to who he was. Not to what they wanted him to be.

Section 6

The base felt different now, like a living thing that had grown suspicious of its own blood. Nathan could hear it in the way conversations dropped into silence whenever he entered a room, could see it in the way glances darted toward him and then quickly away, as though eye contact might trigger something dangerous. The hum of the air vents seemed sharper, the glow of the overhead lights colder. Even the walls carried an echo of tension, as if the steel itself understood it was holding something volatile inside.

It wasn’t just paranoia; it was deliberate. Someone had been planting seeds. Whispers turned coordinated, small gestures of unease spreading in patterns too clean to be random. A wrong look here, a muttered comment there—soon, the atmosphere around him was thick with unspoken fear. Nathan felt as though he were both prisoner and predator, walking halls that had once felt like corridors of order but now seemed narrow cages designed to contain him.

The gym was supposed to be his sanctuary, the one place where fists against leather and the rhythm of training drowned everything else. But when he stepped inside that night, the cavernous space betrayed him too. Two trainees—Devon and Marcus—stood by the weight racks, their whispers carrying despite their attempts at discretion.

“They say he heals overnight now. Like cuts just vanish.”
“Not just that. He sees things before they happen. Nobody moves like that unless they’re not… normal.”
“Normal?” The first snorted. “He’s not one of us anymore. He’s something else. A weapon. And weapons don’t care what they destroy.”

Nathan didn’t announce himself. He slammed the door behind him, the sound cracking through the gym like gunfire. The two men snapped upright, eyes wide as they froze in place. Nathan’s steps echoed across the floor—measured, deliberate, each one drawing the air tighter. He walked past them without a glance and stood before the heavy bag.

He struck it once. Just once. The impact was so sharp, so explosive, that the chain holding it snapped clean. The bag fell with a dull, final thud that reverberated through the room. Devon and Marcus didn’t wait; they scrambled out, their retreating whispers leaving only the sound of Nathan’s breathing in the silence. He stood over the fallen bag, his knuckles throbbing faintly, though even that pain was already fading, skin knitting faster than it had any right to.

The next morning the unease had spread upward. Nathan overheard fragments of conversations as he passed the command wing. Mentors and officers walked in tight groups, their voices low and urgent.

“…the spy was right. His changes are accelerating.”
“…Iron Veil won’t stop. They’ve marked him.”
“…if this keeps up, containment measures may be our only option. He’s unpredictable—dangerous.”

They cut their words short when they noticed him, faces settling into neutral masks. But Nathan had heard enough. Containment. Unpredictable. The words clung to him like chains, heavier than any restraint.

Later, in his quarters, he noticed the detail that confirmed his suspicion: the door latch was off. He always left it at a precise angle, a habit drilled into him since he was a boy. Now, it was shifted by a fraction, barely noticeable—but enough. His manuals had moved by a hair’s breadth, the edge of his blanket folded differently. Whoever it was hadn’t just intruded—they wanted him to know. A warning. Or a claim.

He sat on the bunk, fists clenched, every nerve thrumming. Someone inside the base was pulling strings, pushing the fear into place.

The door eased open, and Lena slipped in, her presence a quiet mercy against the suffocating air. She scanned the room and frowned, catching the same small details. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s worse than you think. The others aren’t just nervous—they’re waiting for you to slip. Some of them want you to.”

“Why?” Nathan asked, though he already knew.

“Because someone’s been feeding them poison.” She leaned closer, her eyes sharp, searching his. “There’s a spy here. Has been for years. Blending in, whispering truths wrapped in lies. Enough to twist everyone’s view of you.”

The words hit him like a blade, but the name that formed on his lips was bitterly unsurprising: “Iron Veil.”

She nodded, her hand brushing his wrist, grounding him. “They want you, Nathan. More than anything. The spy says you’re wasted here. That you’re meant for something greater. And maybe… maybe they’re not wrong.”

Her eyes softened, the steel in her voice tempered with something else—something human. “But the choice is yours. Don’t let them make it for you.”

That night, the dream returned. He was back in his old home, the warmth of family laughter spilling down the hallway. For a moment, it was real again. But when he opened the door, the sound cut off, and the warmth turned to horror. Blood smeared the walls, the floor, his shoes. The bodies weren’t there—only shadowy silhouettes whispering in perfect unison:

Weapon. Monster. Incomplete.

Nathan woke drenched in sweat, heart hammering. His fists clenched so tight his nails dug into his palms, drawing blood. By the time he released them, his skin was already healed, smooth and unbroken. He stumbled to the mirror.

The reflection staring back was both him and not him. His hazel eyes had darkened to near black, swallowing the faint light. His curls, once a soft brown, were deepening, dark waves now reaching lower around his face, as if the shadows themselves had taken root in him. He raised a hand, fingers brushing the glass, and for the first time, he didn’t recoil from the stranger he saw.

Because beneath the fear was something else, something hotter, hungrier. The realization that chilled and thrilled him all at once:

He liked it.

Section 7
The alarms had long since quieted, but Nathan’s mind hadn’t. The accusation—you’re with them—was still echoing like a curse. He’d heard worse insults from the recruits, but Elias’s dying words had cut deeper, because the man had believed them. And in the fragile order of the base, belief was sometimes more dangerous than truth.

That night, Nathan sat alone in the training hall after everyone else had cleared out. The lights were dim, humming softly overhead, throwing his shadow long and jagged across the mats. His knuckles were raw, skin split open, but he kept driving his fists into the sandbag until it finally split apart with a hollow, tearing sound. The bag spilled across the floor, sawdust and grit scattering around his boots.

Nathan leaned against the wall, chest heaving. He looked down at his hands—ripped and bloody—and thought about how they’d look by morning. He knew already. The skin would be smooth again, like nothing had ever happened. The healing came faster now, almost unsettling in its speed. His reflection in the wall mirror showed curls of hair that seemed darker than yesterday, his hazel eyes swallowing more brown with each passing week. The boy who had once stared at his family’s dinner table was fading. What looked back at him now was someone else entirely.

And in the cracks of his exhaustion, the memory crept in.

Laughter. His mother’s hand brushing his curls back from his forehead as she teased him for stealing a tortilla off the counter. His sister shrieking as their father tickled her ribs, the smell of carne asada and onions filling the room. A warm, ordinary night. And then—nothing ordinary. Blood. Silence. A door opening into a nightmare.

Nathan pressed his fists into his temples, as though pressure alone could squeeze the images out. They never left. They had become the fuel for every strike, every ounce of rage, every refusal to bend.

The next morning, the whispers were worse.

Nathan carried his tray through the mess hall, ignoring the half-finished conversations that cut off as he passed. The smell of eggs and synthetic meat filled the air, but no one was eating. Their eyes followed him instead, darting away when he met them.

A voice broke the tension from one of the back tables. “Why don’t you just admit it, huh?” It was Riker, one of the older recruits, broad-shouldered and scarred from campaigns Nathan hadn’t been part of. He shoved his tray aside and stood, his tone pitched to carry. “Quartermaster’s dead because of you. Supplies gone because of you. And the way you heal—you think we don’t see it? You’re not one of us.”

The room stirred, chairs scraping as others leaned in. Nathan set his tray down slowly, his jaw clenching.

“I didn’t betray anyone,” Nathan said, voice even. “But if you’re so sure, then say it to my face, not to the room.”

Riker sneered, stepping closer. “You want me to?”

Before Nathan could answer, another voice cut in. Softer, but sharper.

“Enough.”

All eyes turned. It was Lira—the medic’s assistant, and one of the few who had ever shown Nathan kindness in the quiet, unspoken ways: passing him an extra ration, holding his gaze when others wouldn’t. Her dark hair was tied back, her eyes fierce as she stood. “You don’t have proof. You just want someone to blame because you’re scared. He fights harder than any of you. You saw it. If he was with Iron Veil, we’d all be dead already.”

The room rippled with murmurs. Some skeptical, some agreeing. Riker’s face darkened, his fists curling, but Corvus appeared in the doorway before it could explode further. His presence was enough to send everyone back to their seats.

But Nathan didn’t miss the look some of them gave him as he sat down again. Suspicion hadn’t left. It had only quieted, waiting to strike again.

Later, Nathan noticed the patterns. The way rumors spread with precision, like blades sliding into the right places at the right times. Logs of patrol shifts that didn’t match. Maps that had been tampered with, tiny adjustments invisible to the untrained eye but glaring to Nathan’s heightened awareness.

There was a hand at work, subtle and patient.

The spy.

He caught glimpses of it in the corners of his awareness—voices nudging the recruits’ doubts, small slips in routine that stacked against him. Once, in the data center, he swore he saw a figure pull a file as soon as he entered, only for the man to turn and smile like nothing had happened. A friendly smile. Too friendly.

Nathan clenched his jaw. Iron Veil wasn’t just outside their walls. They were here. And they were sharpening the blade aimed at his back.

Section 8

The briefing chamber emptied Nathan into a corridor that felt a size too small for his chest. He stood for a moment with his palm against the cool wall panel, eyes closed, counting heartbeats the way he’d learned to before every exam in the life he used to own. Four in. Hold. Four out. The rhythm steadied his hands but did nothing to thin the knot lodged behind his ribs. Words from the room still circled like carrion: containment, unpredictable, if he loses control…

He pushed off the wall and walked, boots ticking a steady metronome. The base’s spine was lit in tired whites gone slightly yellow at the edges, a sign the bulbs were past their cycle. The air tasted faintly of oil and lemon disinfectant, the after-smell of a place that had just been scrubbed too quickly to erase a mess. Somewhere, a vent rattled like a cough that wouldn’t clear. Somewhere else, laughter burst and died, more reflex than joy.

“Reyes.”

Corvus’s voice came from behind. Nathan stopped, glanced over his shoulder. The commander didn’t raise his volume; authority did the work for him. He was alone—no aides, no escorts—and his eyes were the kind that took in a room and already knew the exits before anyone else had found the door.

“Walk,” Corvus said.

They crossed two junctions in silence. Pipes sang softly on the other side of the walls, an iron choir humming at a pitch just below human comfort.

“You’re not the only one who doesn’t sleep,” Corvus said at last, hands clasped behind him. “Old men don’t rest so easy when they can see which bricks are loosening.”

“You think I’m a loose brick,” Nathan said, keeping his tone level.

“I think we built this place on a fault line and didn’t bother with the math.” Corvus’s mouth tightened. “You’re not a problem, Reyes. You’re a variable. Some variables save cities. Some burn them down.”

Nathan stopped. “Then why keep me? If the safest thing is to cut the wire—”

“Because cutting the wrong wire still blows the room,” Corvus snapped, the edge flashing through before he smoothed it flat again. He studied Nathan a long beat, not like a specimen but like a son he wasn’t sure how to raise. “You didn’t do the vault job. Anyone who’s been in a war room more than twenty minutes knows that.”

“You didn’t say that in there.”

“I didn’t have to.” Corvus’s silence felt like a shield and a test in the same breath. “But hear me: your enemies will keep trying to make you a neat shape they can aim at. Don’t help them sharpen the outline. Control the thing in your chest. Not with fear. With choice.” He paused. “Can you?”

Nathan thought of the bag splitting under his fists; of the way his skin had sealed over as if the hurt had been a bad rumor; of the red reflection in the mirror when his eyes went almost black. He wanted to tell the truth—that yes, he could choose, but the choosing got harder each time the world slowed and opened its seams for him to pull.

“I can,” he said anyway.

“Good,” Corvus said, as if he had both believed him and counted the lie. He turned at the next junction. “Be where you’re supposed to be for forty-eight hours. Visible. Predictable. Let them get bored of their fear long enough to remember their jobs.” He looked back once. “And if someone corners you in a hallway with rumor for a weapon—don’t give them the blood they’re asking for.”

The commander’s footfalls faded. Nathan stood alone again with the vents and the hum and the fatigue stamping its shadow into the floor.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Lira’s voice didn’t so much surprise him as break the grip of silence. She’d been there long enough to have watched the last exchange; he could tell from the way she stayed mostly in shadow out of respect, not stealth. She pushed away from the stairwell glass and joined him in the weak light. The fatigue under her eyes looked new, but her posture was the kind of straight that didn’t snap when the hours got long.

“Corvus trying to be human again?” she asked, half-smiling. “It looks strange on him.”

“It fits better than it used to,” Nathan said.

Lira nodded toward the far corridor. “Walk with me. If we stand still, the walls start taking sides.”

They took the long loop that skirted the hydroponics and the small library nook someone had carved out of a storage bay. In the glass, herbs lifted their calm green hands, dew catching light that tried to pretend it was dawn. Lira slid her hands into her jacket pockets.

“They’re moving people around,” she said. “Med shifts got scrambled. Supply chains got rerouted through the north corridor for ‘maintenance.’ That’s not maintenance.”

“The spy,” Nathan said.

“Mm.” Lira’s mouth compressed. “You feel it too.”

“I see it,” he said. “The wrong badge in the wrong hallway at the wrong minute. Clipboard eyes. The pattern of who looks away first; who looks away last.”

Lira’s side-glance was equal parts curiosity and concern. “You read that? From a look?”

“I read pressure,” Nathan said, searching for language that wasn’t brag. “Weight distribution. Breathing. That noise someone’s body makes when a lie sits on it like a second skin.” He shrugged, frustrated with words. “Everything’s louder than it used to be.”

They passed the library niche. A paperback sat open, face-down on the arm of a threadbare chair: a city on its cover, split by lightning. Lira’s gaze caught it, held a second too long. Nathan filed the fact away without meaning to—how people gravitated to symbols that matched their weather inside.

“You were reading that?” he asked.

“Between ten-minute disasters,” she said. “Endings help when you can’t get any in real life.”

“What kind?”

“The ones that make you feel like all the hurt was for a shape.” She exhaled. “I used to hate those. Now I hoard them.”

He wanted to offer something in return and, on impulse, let the words come. “My mom used to cut mango like she was performing a magic trick. Folded it in her hands so the cubes popped into a hedgehog. She’d hand it to me and say, ‘Look, star boy. A tiny sun that won’t burn you.’”

Lira’s throat worked. “That sounds like a person worth the world.”

“She was,” Nathan said. The corridor blurred for a blink; he cleared it with a breath and a rub at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the part that still expects her to walk in with the sun.”

Lira didn’t tell him to be strong. She didn’t reach for a ready-made comfort. She just walked beside him until their steps synced, and then she said, “Let that part keep expecting. Let the rest of you keep moving. Both can be true without canceling each other out.”

They reached the gym doors. The motion sensors woke the lights in a slow bloom. Iron and leather, chalk dust and old sweat—the room greeted him like a church you didn’t have to believe in to be quiet inside.

“Stay,” Lira said, nodding toward the benches by the wall. “I’ll watch your hands.”

“I won’t break,” he said.

“I know,” she replied. “I’m not here for breaks. I’m here for limits.”

He wrapped his knuckles—the ritual slower now, deliberate. Not anger. Measure. He shadowboxed first, testing the ghost spring in his ankles, the quick bite and give of the mats, the way the room’s air moved when his body did. Then the bag—jabs like taps at a locked door, then crosses that knocked; then hooks that asked the hinges if they were tired of their job. He counted breaths, counted beats, counted the milliseconds between a thought and the muscle’s answer. They were fewer than yesterday. Fewer than an hour ago. The numbers scared a reasonable part of him. The hungry part smiled.

He broke off and stepped to the speed bag. Leather patter built from heartbeat to downpour, the rhythm rolling into something so fast it sounded like a single braided sound. Sweat stung his eyes; he blinked it clear and shifted to footwork—ladder drills that made the world a grid he could rewrite at will.

Lira watched without intruding, the way a field medic learns to watch a patient’s breath for the story it tells when the mouth refuses to. When he paused to retape, she stepped in with a towel and water, and he pretended the shaking in his fingers was only from effort.

“You’re faster,” she said. “Even since yesterday.”

He didn’t look up. “It doesn’t stop.”

“Do you want it to?”

He considered. The truthful answer was ugly. He nodded anyway—toward the bag, the room, the weight inside his sternum. “Sometimes I think this is the only thing I have that’s louder than what I lost.”

“Then make it sing for you,” Lira said. “Not the other way around.”

He almost laughed. “I don’t know the notes.”

“Then learn. That’s what the living are for.”

They stood in the quiet that lands after the right sentence. Nathan felt his lungs find a calmer shape. He reached for the tape again—

—and stilled. Something in the air shifted. Not temperature. Not the hum of the lights. A human thing: the way silence rebrackets itself when another presence enters it.

He didn’t turn. He looked in the mirrored wall and caught the blur of a figure at the far threshold—someone pausing, watching, then moving on the instant they realized they’d been seen. No face. A shoulder, a gait too carefully casual. Clipboard under an arm that didn’t quite match the station they’d left. The kind of wrong that hoped to pass for forgettable.

“You saw that,” Lira whispered.

“I always see it,” he said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet.” He hated the admission. “But they don’t want me to.”

He put the tape down, the motion steady because he made it be. “They’re not just stealing steel and numbers. They’re mapping us. The soft parts. Who’ll flinch. Who’ll listen. How to make me look like the blade pointed inward.”

“Then we give them bad data,” Lira said. The gentleness in her face turned to something harder. “We make you visible where you’re supposed to be. We make you boring. We choke their rumor machine with nothing.”

“Corvus said the same,” Nathan murmured.

“On his good days he remembers we’re people,” Lira said, half-smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “On his bad, he still gets there. He just takes the long road.”

They ran through another set. Nathan pushed and then pulled back on purpose, forcing his body to obey a governor he didn’t want. It felt like driving with the brakes on. It felt like safety with a leash. When he finished, he stood, chest rising and falling, and stared at his hands. The split skin at his knuckles had already closed. The new pink shone a moment, then paled to match the rest.

“Faster again,” Lira murmured, stepping close to inspect. “If this keeps climbing…”

“I know.”

“You need more tests.”

“I know.” He kept his eyes on the healed line that had been a wound a minute ago. “The last time, they looked at me like a map.”

“Then hire a new cartographer,” Lira said, low. “Dr. Elara sees people. Make her the room.”

He looked at her then, really looked, and caught the vulnerability under the steel. She was betting pieces of herself on him. He didn’t know what currency to use to honor that properly except the one he had: showing up.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For?”

“For standing where I can see you.”

Lira hesitated as if weighing something heavier than words. Then she stepped close enough that he could catch the citrus-clean on her skin under the antiseptic and the ghost of mint from hydroponics. “You don’t have to earn this,” she said, and reached—just once—to smooth a stray curl from his forehead with the soft pad of two fingers. The touch was brief, an eclipse you could miss if you blinked. It landed anyway.

The gym door clicked. They both turned.

Raze stood there, hood down, expression unreadable. She glanced at Nathan’s healed hands, at Lira’s proximity, and then past them to the mirror where a reflection would have shown a shadow if the shadow had stayed. It hadn’t.

“Corvus wants you on med at 0600 for scans,” she said. “And on floor at 0900 for visibility. Try to look… less like what you are.”

“How do I do that?” Nathan asked.

Raze’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile and wasn’t not. “Leave a mess. Trip over a chair. Lose a spar to someone who needs a win.”

“That last one is cruel,” Lira said.

“Cruel is keeping a garrison alive by lying to its nervous system,” Raze replied. She fixed Nathan again. “We’re adapting around you. Meet us halfway.”

He nodded. “I will.” It hurt in a place pride hated to admit existed. He tasted the hurt and decided it could stay if it meant the rumors drowned.

Raze didn’t move. Her eyes held him slow and hard, the way a welder holds a beam to make sure it takes. “For the record,” she said, voice like gravel scraped smooth by time, “I don’t think you did the vault. The cut was wrong. The timing was wrong. The story was too clean. Whoever set it knew they needed a corpse and a name. They’re not very creative. They’re just patient.”

“Then we make patience boring,” Lira murmured.

“Mm.” Raze tipped her head in a micro-nod. “Also—stop breaking bags. We’re low.”

“Noted,” Nathan said, dry.

“Good.” She turned, paused, added without turning back, “And Reyes? I’ve seen men enjoy the speed. I’ve seen the speed enjoy the men. Don’t be the second kind.”

The door sighed shut behind her. The gym breathed out the air it had held.

“Does she ever say anything small?” Nathan asked.

“Not to people who matter,” Lira said. The softness returned to her face. “Go shower. Eat. I’ll ping Elara. Make the day ordinary on purpose.”

He did as told. Routine threaded a path through the rest of the night and into the thin hours. Shower. Protein shake that tasted like chalk surrendered to sugar. A walk through hydroponics where the morning cycle had finally earned the right to call itself that. A nod to people who didn’t nod back and a longer look for the ones who did.

At 0600, Dr. Elara’s lab hummed with restrained urgency. Banks of scanners glowed a medic’s midnight blue. She’d pulled her hair into a knot that declared peace with flyaways; the smudges under her eyes said the peace had been hard-won.

“On the bed,” she said, professional warmth wrapped around a core of worry she didn’t hide. “No dramatic speeches. I need clean baselines.”

Sensors kissed temples, sternum, forearms. The machines took his electric confession: heart, brain, muscle, the tiny storms in his blood. Elara’s eyes flicked across streams of data; her fingers danced a choreography only she knew. Lira hovered in the corner pretending to rearrange a tray that didn’t need it.

“Neural latency,” Elara murmured, tapping a readout. “Down again. Reflex arc speed… Nathan.” She exhaled. “You’re outpacing our fastest benchmarks by a factor that makes the math blush.”

“Is that the scientific term?” he asked.

“It is when I’m trying not to cuss.” Her mouth did the tired, proud thing a teacher does when a student overtakes the syllabus. “Healing markers too. Micro-tears in muscle fibers closing before the surrounding inflammation can even flag. That’s… good and alarming.”

“How alarming?” Lira asked quietly.

“On a scale of one to ‘stop,’ we’re at ‘go carefully,’” Elara said. She turned the screen so they could both see. “There’s a pattern in the noise. It looks like chaos until you zoom. Then it looks like a language. His body is talking to itself faster than our equipment can eavesdrop.”

Nathan watched the lines and spikes, the music of himself in neon glyphs. He felt both claimed and free, pinned to a page and flying off it.

“What happens if it keeps climbing?” he asked.

Elara didn’t lie. “We find out what the ceiling is,” she said. “Or if there is one.” She caught his gaze, held it. “We do it with guardrails. We do it with people in the room who will pull you back if the edge is a lie.”

“People in the room,” Lira echoed, stepping closer as if to demonstrate the concept.

Elara’s console chimed. A small alert winked in the corner—one of those polite noises machines make when they know they’re interrupting something human. She frowned, thumbed it open. Her frown deepened.

“What?” Nathan asked.

“Nothing,” Elara said, which meant something. She expanded the window. “A mirrored process pinged the network from a maintenance terminal two floors down. Harmless by itself. Odd in context.” She flicked a glance to Nathan. “You have a talent for generating context.”

“Could it be routine?” Lira asked.

“Sure,” Elara said. “It could also be someone copying scans in real time.” Her hands moved before the sentence finished: reroutes, decoys, a quick bite through the line that had sniffed toward them. She set a trap with the neatness of a surgeon tying sutures. “There. If they’re fishing for his data, let them catch a plastic fish with a bomb in its belly.”

Nathan swung his legs off the table. The sensor pads tugged; Lira eased them free. “If they want me that badly,” he said, the steel in his chest warming, “they can have the performance. But they don’t get the script.”

Elara’s mouth did the ghost of a smile. “That is the scientific term.”

By 0900, he was on the floor, visible and boring on purpose. He delivered a crate to supply. He lost a spar to a kid who needed a story to tell at dinner. He tripped—gracelessly, theatrically—over a bench in the cardio bay and took the teasing like a man who remembered how to laugh. It felt like chewing cardboard. It tasted like strategy. He did it anyway.

The spy watched from somewhere with eyes that pretended to be anyone’s. Nathan felt the watching the way a deer feels a rifle from a mile off: not the bullet, but the line. He kept his head aligned with ordinary. He let the line slide off.

Just before noon, as he cut past the stairwell that arced toward the north corridor, he heard it: two voices in an alcove no one used unless they wanted the world to forget them for five minutes. He would have kept walking if the second voice hadn’t said his name like a password.

“—Reyes,” the voice breathed. “He’s our axis. Stop arguing philosophy and finish the map. Every rumor you seed saves us three bullets later. Make him look like the blast before the fuse.”

The first voice chuckled softly. “You talk like poetry when you think no one’s listening.”

“Poetry pays better than prisons,” the second said. Paper rustled. “Tonight. West maintenance hall. Our friend in med will open the door, and the boy wonder will be where he promised: visible, predictable, and exactly where we want him.”

Nathan kept walking. The world didn’t slow; he made it. He didn’t turn; his body begged him to. He counted to four because that was the only spell he trusted and then went looking for Raze with the ordinary speed of a man who had no reason to hurry.

He would tell them. He would. He would choose them again because that was the only way this didn’t end with a room on fire and his name hanging in the smoke. The decision settled onto his bones with a weight that felt like a vow.

Behind him, in the hush of the alcove, a molar clicked. A tiny transmitter tucked in an old filling sent a pulse through steel and air and rumor to a receiver that lived where no cameras looked. On a screen three levels down, a new line appeared under an older one:

FULCRUM: STABLE.
VECTORS: HERDING.
WINDOW: 2300–2330.

Up in the daylit halls, Nathan let someone bump his shoulder and apologized for it as if he meant it. He did. For this hour, he did. He let the base exhale around him like a creature learning to unclench.

He didn’t see the clipboard change hands. He didn’t hear the maintenance door’s hinge get oiled. He didn’t need to. The shape of the trap was already a drawing inside his head, and for the first time since the night that emptied his house of voices, he felt something like clarity cut through the fog.

If they wanted him visible, he would be. If they wanted him predictable, he would give them a pattern—and then break it along a seam they hadn’t noticed yet.

He kept walking. He kept choosing. And somewhere under the choosing, deep as bedrock, the hunger purred—not for blood, but for the clean line of a plan snapping shut around the people who deserved it.

Section 9 – Fractured Trust

The corridors of the base were darker at night, the overhead strips of light humming in uneven intervals like a heartbeat skipping in its chest. Nathan moved through them silently, shoulders tight, his footsteps echoing faintly. Sleep hadn’t come in days, not since Sector 12, not since the Iron Veil raid. His body didn’t ache the way it should — cuts had closed, bruises faded too fast, and his knuckles, once raw, were clean and strong again. But his mind? That was another battlefield entirely.

Every glance he caught from other recruits was sharp, brief, then quickly averted. They thought he didn’t notice. He did. Conversations dropped when he walked into the room. Laughter turned brittle, then died. Whispers followed him like shadows, even when the halls were empty.

Tonight, though, the whispers weren’t hidden.

“Raze still hasn’t recovered fully. You saw what he did to her. Who’s to say he won’t snap on us next?” one voice carried from the common hall.

“He’s too dangerous,” another muttered. “No discipline. Just rage wrapped in skin.”

Nathan paused, standing in the doorway unseen, his jaw tightening.

Then a different voice cut through — softer, hesitant but firm. “He saved us in Sector 12. If you were there, you’d know. You think any of us could’ve stood toe to toe with an unstable Enhanced?”

It was Mara — one of the few who’d been warming to him lately. Her defense wasn’t shouted, but it was steady, unshaken. Nathan’s chest tightened at that.

But the others weren’t convinced.

“You call that saving? Look at him. He’s changing. You’ve all noticed it. The eyes, the way he moves. That isn’t training. That’s… unnatural.”

“He’s not one of us. He’s a weapon. And weapons don’t belong with people.”

Nathan stepped forward then, letting his presence fall heavy in the hall. The chatter died instantly. Dozens of eyes turned toward him, caught between defiance and unease. His darkened curls shadowed his face, his hazel-brown eyes glinting darker under the light. He looked every bit the predator they whispered he was.

“You all want me to be something I’m not,” he said, voice low but carrying. “You want me to stand here like some perfect soldier, all iron and stone. But I wasn’t forged in your ranks. I wasn’t raised in this war.” He swallowed, his throat tight. “I lost everything in a single night. My family, my life, the world I knew. And while you’ve had years to harden, to become what they wanted, I’ve had nothing but grief and rage to keep me breathing.”

Silence stretched, thick and tense.

One trainee muttered, “That’s no excuse to lose control—”

“Excuse?” Nathan snapped, the word like a whip. He stepped closer, his voice rising, harsh and raw. “Do you think I wanted this? To wake up every morning with their laughter echoing in my head — not because they’re alive, but because I walked into a room filled with their corpses? Do you think I asked to be torn open and remade into this thing you all fear?”

The hall vibrated with the weight of his words. Some recruits flinched. Others looked down, shame pressing their shoulders.

And then Mara stood, stepping closer, her eyes locked on the rest. “He’s right. He didn’t choose this, but he’s still here. Fighting. For us. You think you’d still be standing if Nathan hadn’t been beside you?” Her gaze swept the room. “You’re afraid because you see what he’s becoming — but maybe that’s exactly what we need.”

Another voice joined her — softer, from Lyra, the medic who’d tended Nathan more than once. “He’s not just a weapon. He’s still human. I’ve seen it.” Her words carried a strange vulnerability, as if she was defending a part of herself by defending him.

The others shifted uneasily. Lines were being drawn, not in blood but in loyalty.

Nathan scanned the room, heart hammering. He hadn’t asked for their defense, hadn’t expected it. But it settled something inside him — a strange warmth, buried under layers of rage. Not forgiveness. Not peace. But the faint reminder that he wasn’t entirely alone.

Still, as he turned and walked away, leaving the silence heavy behind him, one thought clawed in his mind: they would never see him as one of them. Not fully. Not after Raze. Not after what he was becoming.

And maybe — just maybe — they were right.

Section 10 – The Brutal Rhythm

The training hall vibrated with the heavy thuds of fists meeting reinforced targets. The smell of sweat, oil, and scorched circuits filled the air, an atmosphere charged with effort and aggression. Nathan stood at the center, his hands taped, his chest heaving — but not from exhaustion. From hunger. A hunger for strength, for movement, for the raw unleashing of everything boiling inside him.

The punching bag hanging before him wasn’t the ordinary kind — it was reinforced with polymer and steel mesh, designed to withstand enhanced trainees. Yet with each strike, the frame rattled against its chains. His fists moved in a blur: jab, hook, cross, elbow — a symphony of violence, a rhythm that built faster and faster until the bag swayed wildly.

Around the edges of the room, the others gathered. Some leaned on the railings, arms crossed, expressions unreadable. Some whispered, their voices carrying despite attempts to keep them low.

“He’s faster than yesterday.”
“No… he’s faster than an hour ago.”
“Look at his recovery rate — those knuckles should still be torn open.”

The mentors stood apart, Corvus with arms folded tightly across his chest, his jaw clenched, while Dr. Veyra scribbled feverishly into her datapad, eyes darting between Nathan’s movements and the biometric readouts spiking across her screen.

“Impossible,” she murmured. “His healing… it’s accelerated beyond projection. Look at the cellular recovery rate. It’s like his body’s rewriting itself in real-time.”

Nathan slammed another strike into the bag — and it tore free from its chain with a screech of metal. The bag flew several meters before crashing into the wall, leaving a dent where concrete cracked. The room fell silent.

Nathan lowered his fists slowly, chest rising and falling, sweat dripping down his jaw. His curls clung dark and damp around his face, and when he lifted his head, his eyes caught the dim light. They weren’t hazel anymore — they looked darker, almost obsidian, and for a moment, even those closest to him flinched.

Corvus finally spoke, his voice low. “Again.”

And Nathan obeyed. Not because of the command, but because he wanted to. His movements weren’t mechanical anymore. They were explosive. The way his muscles coiled and released was almost predatory — every strike a calculated burst, every motion a fragment of violence honed sharper by rage.

He didn’t just hit. He hunted.

The sound filled the room again, a brutal metronome, each hit punctuated by the hiss of his breath. Around him, the recruits exchanged uneasy looks. Some leaned forward, captivated despite themselves. Others stepped back, the fear plain in their eyes.

Lyra, the medic, whispered under her breath, “He’s… terrifying.” Yet her tone wasn’t only fear — there was awe in it too.

Mara, standing beside her, shook her head, her voice firmer. “No. He’s what we need. Look at him. You’d rather have that rage against us than with us?”

Dr. Veyra scribbled harder, muttering, “They’ve made a monster.”

But Nathan didn’t hear them. He was lost in the rhythm. Every strike felt like freedom, like letting go of the voices in his head, like punishing the shadows that haunted him. His family’s laughter echoed faintly in the back of his mind — not comforting, but cutting, a reminder of what he had lost. With every punch, he reminded himself: this is why.

The bag’s replacement didn’t last long either. Nor the one after. By the time the fourth was brought out, sweat glistened off his skin in rivers, muscles flexing like steel cables, but his strikes hadn’t slowed. If anything, they grew sharper, crueler.

Corvus’s voice cut through the air. “Enough.”

Nathan froze, fists hovering mid-strike, chest still rising. He turned toward the mentors, his eyes dark, unreadable.

“Do you see now?” Dr. Veyra hissed. “He isn’t like the others. He’s something else entirely. And if the Iron Veil gets to him first…” She didn’t finish the thought.

Corvus’s gaze lingered on Nathan, hard, unyielding. But there was no dismissal in his eyes. No rejection. Only calculation — as if weighing whether the weapon standing before him could still be trusted to choose his side.

Nathan pulled the tape from his fists slowly, his knuckles raw yet already healing, skin sealing as if time bent for him. He felt their stares pressing into his back. Fear, awe, suspicion, loyalty — all colliding into one suffocating storm.

For the first time, Nathan didn’t flinch under it. He welcomed it.

Section 11 – Shadows Behind the Glass

The walls of the observation chamber hummed faintly with energy, a low vibration Nathan could feel through the soles of his boots as he lingered in the corridor outside. He hadn’t been dismissed properly from training — Corvus had simply ordered the recruits out while the mentors remained behind. Something about the clipped tone in his voice made Nathan pause near the glass-walled conference room rather than heading straight to his quarters.

Inside, the mentors gathered around a circular table bathed in cold white light. Corvus stood like a statue at the head, arms folded tightly, the kind of posture that made lesser soldiers shrink. Raze leaned against the far wall, her expression shadowed but her eyes sharp, scanning each speaker as though measuring their words for weight and weakness. Dr. Veyra had her datapad spread across the table, numbers and graphs flickering in constant motion.

“He’s not like the others,” Veyra said, her voice tight, controlled but tinged with unease. “We’re watching accelerated healing rates, neurological spikes, adaptive reflexes far beyond projection. This isn’t a matter of talent. It’s evolution.”

Corvus’s jaw flexed. “And evolution doesn’t ask permission.”

Raze finally spoke, her voice edged like steel. “We pushed him. We wanted to see what was under the skin, and now we’ve seen it. He’s dangerous — yes. But he’s also indispensable. When the Iron Veil comes in force, tell me, who else could stand in the breach?”

Dr. Veyra shook her head. “Indispensable until he decides we’re the enemy. You saw it in his eyes today. He isn’t just fighting for us. He’s fighting for himself. For something inside him none of us control.”

A silence followed. Nathan’s fists clenched at his sides as he leaned closer to the door, his heart pounding. They’re afraid of me, he thought. Even after everything, they’re afraid.

Inside, one of the elder tacticians spoke for the first time, his voice low and measured. “Fear may not be misplaced. The boy’s potential exceeds projections by orders of magnitude. The Iron Veil would stop at nothing to turn him. And if they succeed, he would be the spear that guts us from the inside.”

Corvus’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “They won’t turn him. Not while I breathe.”

“But what if they don’t need to turn him?” Veyra countered, eyes flashing. “What if we already pushed him too far? What if his loyalty isn’t to us, but only to his rage?”

The words landed heavy, and for a moment, no one responded. Nathan felt his throat tighten. Rage — always rage. That was all they saw. Not the boy who had lost everything, not the son who still woke in the night hearing laughter cut short by screams. Just a weapon, barely leashed.

Raze finally broke the silence, her voice low but fierce. “Weapons can be pointed in the right direction. The difference is whether we give him reason to trust our hands on the hilt.”

Her words hit differently. Nathan exhaled slowly, realizing that for all her sharpness, she was defending him in a way none of the others seemed willing to.

But then Corvus spoke again, quieter, almost to himself, though everyone in the room heard: “The question isn’t if Nathan will change. The question is if we can survive what he becomes.”

Nathan stepped back before they noticed him, his pulse roaring in his ears. His reflection in the glass caught his eye — the dark curls damp with sweat, the shadows under his eyes, the deepening darkness of his irises. For a moment, he didn’t recognize himself.

He turned sharply and walked down the corridor, each step echoing in the silence. Whatever they feared, whatever they whispered behind closed doors — he would make them see. Not as a boy to be doubted. Not as a monster to be leashed. But as something they couldn’t ignore, something neither they nor the Iron Veil could control.

Something inevitable.

Section 12 – Night Terrors and Revelations

Nathan’s quarters were small, sterile, and dimly lit by the faint pulse of a red security light above the door. The walls felt closer tonight, as if the entire compound was leaning inward, pressing on him. He sat hunched on the edge of his bunk, shirt clinging to his back with sweat, muscles still taut from the day’s drills. His fists ached even though the raw skin from striking the training posts had already healed — quicker than it should have.

When he closed his eyes, he didn’t find rest. He found fragments.

His family’s laughter, bright and warm. His mother’s voice carrying from the kitchen. The familiar creak of the old stairwell. Then the cut — sharp, merciless — the laughter torn away, replaced by screams and silence. He saw himself frozen in the doorway, powerless, his heart beating like a trapped animal. And then the shadows — faceless, merciless, their movements swift and rehearsed — slipping away into the night with blood on their hands.

Nathan jerked awake, gasping, but he was still caught in the nightmare. The shadows weren’t gone; they were inside him. His pulse quickened, his vision sharpened, and every sound in the compound seemed louder — boots against concrete in the hall, the hum of the air filtration system, the faint crackle of power through the conduits. His senses stretched wide, alive, overwhelming.

He pushed himself to the mirror above the sink, gripping the edges until his knuckles whitened. The face staring back was his, but not the same. The hazel in his irises had deepened to an almost unbroken brown, the curls of his hair darker than he remembered. There was a hunger in his reflection, one that scared him — and yet, it thrilled him too.

They don’t trust me. They never will.

The thought repeated like a drumbeat in his mind. He remembered Corvus’s voice: The question is if we can survive what he becomes. He remembered Veyra’s doubt, the tactician’s cold words, Raze’s sharp defense. They didn’t see a boy. They saw a weapon. A blade.

So what if they did?

He let out a shaky laugh that surprised him with its edge. Weapons weren’t pitied. Weapons weren’t doubted. Weapons cut, and the world bled.

A tremor ran through his arms as he lifted them, flexing his fingers, studying the speed and precision of their movement. He struck the air once, twice, then faster — a blur, each motion flowing into the next until the room seemed too small to contain it. His breath came steady, almost serene, as though the violence was meditation.

And beneath it, the memory of his family anchored him, not softening him but sharpening the blade. They took them from me. They made me this. If I can burn the world to stop it from happening again, why shouldn’t I?

The overhead light flickered once, then steadied, and Nathan leaned back against the wall, sliding down until he sat on the cold floor. His pulse slowed, but his eyes still glowed faintly with that predatory focus. The nightmare hadn’t broken him. It had shaped him.

He whispered into the silence, as if daring the Iron Veil to hear him through the walls:

“You want me? Try and take me. See what happens.”

And in that moment, Nathan knew — the darkness wasn’t something to resist. It was his edge. His strength. The only part of him that had never abandoned him.

Section 13 – Threads of Connection

The mess hall was mostly empty by the time Nathan wandered in, hands shoved into his pockets, curls damp from the cold shower he’d taken after training. The long tables were lined with half-finished trays, utensils clattering faintly where others hadn’t cleaned up properly. The room smelled of reheated rations, metal trays, and something faintly sweet — coffee brewed too strong, cut with synthetic sugar.

At one of the side tables sat Raze, boots kicked up, her dark eyes narrowed at a datapad in her hands. She didn’t look up when Nathan slid into the seat across from her, but he saw the way her jaw shifted. She’d noticed. She always noticed.

“You’ve been moving different,” she said finally, not bothering with a greeting. “Not just in drills. In the way you walk. The way you look at people.”

Nathan leaned back, masking the tension that coiled through him. “And what way is that?”

Raze’s gaze lifted, sharp enough to cut. “Like you’re already measuring their weaknesses. Like you could break them if you wanted.”

He didn’t deny it. The silence between them said more than words, and for once, she didn’t push further. Instead, her expression softened slightly. “That scares some people, Nathan. They see what you did in the hall, how fast you heal, the way you don’t hesitate anymore. They’re whispering.”

Nathan’s lips curved into something between a smirk and a grimace. “Let them whisper. I’m not here to make them comfortable.”

“Maybe not,” Raze said, lowering the datapad. “But you are here to make them believe you’re on their side.”

Before he could respond, another voice joined them.

“You’re too hard on him,” came Selene, sliding gracefully into the space beside Nathan. Her presence always carried an odd calm, a soft glow in the chaos of the compound. She brushed a strand of black hair behind her ear and set down her mug of tea. “He’s adapting to what was forced on him. That doesn’t make him the enemy.”

Nathan shot her a sidelong glance, caught off guard by her quiet defense. “You don’t even know half of what I’ve—”

“I know enough,” she interrupted, her voice steady but warm. “I know you didn’t choose this. And I know that every time you fight, you fight like someone with something to lose. That matters more than the fear you put in them.”

Raze tilted her head, smirking faintly. “Careful, Selene. You’re starting to sound like you actually like him.”

Selene’s cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away from Nathan. Instead, she placed her hand over his on the table — a light, deliberate touch that sent a flicker of warmth through him. “Maybe I do.”

The world seemed to slow for a moment. Nathan didn’t know how to answer. The rage and darkness inside him had become so familiar that the idea of someone choosing to see past it felt unreal. Dangerous. And yet… he didn’t pull away.

He cleared his throat, forcing himself to speak. “They want me to be a weapon. Something they can point and unleash. But I’m not like the rest of you. I didn’t grow up in this life. One night — just one night — took everything from me. My family. My future. And now they expect me to just… erase who I was and become what they need.” His voice cracked slightly before hardening again. “I’m not a machine. I’m not your perfect soldier.”

The words hung heavy in the air. Across the hall, a few stragglers glanced up, listening, then looked away quickly. Raze leaned forward, elbows on the table, her voice low but firm. “Then show them that. Don’t let them box you into their mold. You’re dangerous, Nathan — but dangerous isn’t the same as lost.”

Selene squeezed his hand gently. “And not everyone is afraid of you.”

For the first time in weeks, Nathan felt something stir in him that wasn’t anger. It was smaller, quieter — but powerful in its own way. A reminder that maybe he wasn’t as alone as the shadows in his nightmares wanted him to believe.

He nodded once, exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Then I’ll fight for the ones who still see me as more than a blade.”

Raze’s smirk widened. “Good. Because blades can break. People don’t, if they have the right reason.”

The conversation lingered in his chest long after the mess hall emptied, Selene’s touch and Raze’s words pulling at two sides of him he hadn’t known how to balance. Somewhere between the darkness and the connection, Nathan realized, was the person he was becoming.

Section 14 – A Whisper Before the Breach

The compound at night always had a strange duality. On the surface, it was quiet — a fortress of reinforced steel, humming generators, and the low pulse of security lights casting pale halos over the corridors. But beneath the silence lurked tension, like a bowstring drawn back, waiting for a release no one wanted to admit was coming.

Nathan walked the empty hallways alone, his boots making the faintest thud against the metal flooring. It was past curfew, but sleep had been a stranger to him ever since the interrogation of the spy. Even now, he could feel Selene’s hand lingering on his own, the weight of Raze’s hard truths, the whispers of the others in the mess hall. He was many things in their eyes — a weapon, a threat, a comrade, a boy too raw and too dangerous to be contained.

He wasn’t sure which of those was closest to the truth.

Passing one of the tall reinforced windows, Nathan paused. Beyond the glass stretched the ruins outside — skeletal buildings swallowed in fog, neon graffiti still clinging to half-collapsed walls like ghostly messages from a civilization long gone. He studied the way the fog shifted, the way it seemed to curl against the walls unnaturally, almost like it was watching back.

He shook the thought away, but his body didn’t. His pulse quickened, the hairs along his arms prickling.

The hum of the security cameras overhead felt louder tonight, almost intrusive. He could hear the faint click of the rotation mechanisms, each sweep punctuated like the tick of a clock. And further down the hall, someone turned a corner just as he glanced up — a shadow too quick, too deliberate.

“Raze?” Nathan called softly, his voice carrying but not loud enough to echo. No answer.

He narrowed his eyes, his body already shifting into that dangerous readiness. His strides grew faster as he followed the corridor, ears straining. The low hum of the compound’s power grid was steady… but beneath it, he swore he could hear another rhythm, a subtle, pulsing throb — not mechanical, not natural.

At the junction, he stopped. To the left lay the barracks, to the right the armory. The shadow could’ve gone either way. His chest tightened as he realized how easily an intruder could move through the base if they’d managed to slip in unnoticed.

“Relax,” he muttered to himself, though the word rang hollow.

Then he noticed something else: the faint scent of ozone and rust, carried on a draft that had no business being in a sealed facility. He turned slowly, eyes narrowing at a nearby ventilation grate. The edges were smudged, faint handprints visible if you knew how to look.

Nathan crouched, tracing the metal with his fingers. Still warm. Recently disturbed.

He straightened, jaw tightening. “They’re already inside.”

The words came out barely above a whisper, but the weight of them settled in his gut like lead.

Section 15 – The Warning

Nathan’s pulse hammered as he stood in the corridor, the disturbed grate still whispering its truth at him. He knew what it meant. Someone was inside — already weaving through their supposed sanctuary.

He moved fast, but not recklessly, retracing his steps until he reached the common barracks. The door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing the dim-lit space where a few of the trainees were already half-dozing, boots unlaced, armor peeled away.

“Up,” Nathan barked, his voice sharper than he intended.

Heads turned. A few groaned, assuming it was another late-night drill. One of the newer recruits muttered, “You’re not in command, Reyes.”

Nathan ignored the jab. “There’s movement in the ventilation system. Someone’s inside.”

The room froze. Sleep left their faces like smoke whipped away by wind. Raze, who had been sitting at the far end polishing the edge of her combat knife, stood instantly. Her expression was unreadable, but her posture screamed readiness.

“You’re certain?” she asked.

“I saw the prints. Warm metal. Whoever it was, they passed through minutes ago.” Nathan’s words came fast, clipped, but steady.

A murmur rippled through the room, tension swelling like a tide.

Corvus appeared in the doorway then, his eyes narrowing at the sight of half-dressed recruits caught between fear and disbelief. “What’s going on here?”

Nathan met his gaze without hesitation. “We’ve been breached.”

Corvus’s eyes sharpened. “Explain.”

“Vent system. Disturbed. I could smell the air — not ours, not recycled. Ozone and rust. Someone slipped in.”

For a moment, silence held the room. Then Corvus turned, barking orders with soldier’s precision. “Arm yourselves. Silent prep. No alarms unless we confirm.”

The recruits scrambled, fastening armor, sliding cartridges into place. The metallic clicks of weapons locking were almost comforting in their familiarity.

Raze moved close to Nathan, her voice low. “You’re sure you didn’t imagine it?”

Nathan bristled, then forced himself calm. “I’ve been imagining my family’s laughter burned into the walls of my skull for years. This wasn’t that.” He leaned closer, eyes hard. “They’re here. And if we don’t act now, they’ll gut us from the inside.”

For the first time that night, he saw something flicker in her gaze — trust.

Behind them, Selene stepped forward too, sliding a sidearm into her holster. She laid a hand briefly on Nathan’s arm, steady but warm. “Then we’ll move with you. Lead us.”

It struck Nathan then — not just the weight of her touch, but the gravity of the moment. They weren’t doubting him. They were waiting for him.

His throat tightened, but he forced the words out. “Squads of two. Sweep corridors. Watch the vents. Don’t trust the shadows.”

Corvus studied him for a long beat, then gave a curt nod. “You heard him. Move.”

The barracks came alive with motion, boots hitting metal, bodies cutting through the dim light with a precision born from drilled instinct. But Nathan felt it even more acutely than the others — the weight of eyes on him, unseen and patient.

The Iron Veil was already here. And they were waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Section 16 – The Ambush

The sweep began like clockwork. Pairs of recruits moved down branching corridors, weapons raised, scanning vents and junctions with nervous precision. The air was tight with static tension, the kind that made every sound—every hiss of air, every creak of metal—feel like a loaded weapon.

Nathan led one group through the main maintenance hall, his senses straining. He could feel the thrum in his chest, the sharpened clarity of adrenaline turning the world into sharp edges and subtle cues. Selene was at his flank, silent but watchful, while two younger trainees brought up the rear.

A faint noise—a hollow clink—echoed from above. Nathan froze, his hand raised. The team stopped instantly, breaths caught.

“Vent, four meters ahead,” Nathan whispered.

The grate above them bulged outward for just a second, as if something heavy pressed against it. Then silence.

Selene’s lips parted, her voice a ghost. “Nathan—”

The corridor exploded.

A deafening crash as the vent tore open, bodies dropping down like blackened phantoms. They weren’t recruits, weren’t soldiers in any uniform Nathan recognized—they were Iron Veil operatives, clad in matte armor that seemed to swallow the dim light, faces hidden behind masks with slitted visors glowing faintly red.

The first landed right in front of Nathan. Reflex, not thought, propelled him forward. His boot struck out, catching the intruder mid-kneel, sending him sprawling. The second was already swinging a blade — a short, curved edge humming with some kind of current. Sparks flared as Selene blocked it with her weapon, the sound shrill and wrong in the confined corridor.

“Nathan!” one of the younger recruits screamed as another operative lunged from behind. Nathan pivoted, too fast for the attacker to adjust, his elbow smashing into the masked visor with bone-cracking force.

The corridor descended into chaos. Gunfire erupted somewhere deeper in the base, the sound muffled by walls but close enough to rattle the steel. From every vent and shadow, Iron Veil poured in like a flood.

Through the carnage, Nathan’s perception narrowed. He could read the micro-movements of the enemy, their weight shifting before they struck, their muscles coiling before they leapt. Every twitch became a map, and he moved like lightning through it. He ducked, spun, countered — more predator than soldier now.

Selene stayed tight at his side, her expression hard but her eyes flickering with something else — awe, maybe fear. When one operative nearly cut through a younger recruit, Nathan intercepted, slamming the attacker against the wall with a brutal force that made the metal buckle. The recruit stared wide-eyed, too shocked to even thank him.

Over the comm, Corvus’s voice thundered: “We’re compromised! Defensive grid is falling! Regroup at the hangar!”

Nathan gritted his teeth. The hangar was half a base away. The Iron Veil knew that. They weren’t just raiding — they were herding.

Another operative lunged, blade flashing. Nathan caught the wrist mid-strike, twisting until the bone snapped with a sickening crack. The mask tilted back just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the eyes behind it—cold, disciplined, and utterly unflinching. Not mercenaries. Not amateurs. This was a force built for dismantling them.

Selene’s voice cut through the clash. “They want you!”

Nathan knew she was right. The enemy wasn’t random. Their attacks pressed hardest wherever he moved. Every strike felt coordinated, like wolves circling a single prey.

The Iron Veil wasn’t here to destroy the base. Not yet. They were here for him.

Section 17 – Toward the Hangar

The corridor had become a killing ground. Every step forward was soaked in blood and sparks as Iron Veil operatives pressed in tighter, their blades and shock batons flashing under the emergency lights that now strobed across the hall. The air tasted of copper and ozone, heavy with the stench of ruptured wiring and scorched flesh.

“Move!” Nathan barked, shoving the younger recruit ahead of him as another Iron Veil dropped from a ceiling vent. His fists blurred, landing two crushing blows that caved in the enemy’s visor before the body hit the ground.

Selene fired a shot point-blank into another mask, the round bursting through with a spray of synthetic fluid and blood. Her expression didn’t flinch. She stayed glued to Nathan’s side, reading his movements as if tethered to him.

Overhead, the alarms howled louder, red strobes painting the steel walls in the color of slaughter. The comm crackled again, Corvus’s voice strained, barely holding composure. “They’re converging on you—get to the hangar now!”

The hangar. Their only chance of regrouping. Nathan could already picture it—reinforced barricades, heavier weapons, maybe even one of the gunships prepped to launch. But between them and salvation stretched what felt like miles of twisting, enemy-filled corridors.

He could feel it in his bones—the Iron Veil weren’t scattering across the base randomly. They were funneling. Herding his group like wolves steering prey toward a choke point.

Another squad of Iron Veil appeared at the junction ahead, their movements unnervingly synchronized. One raised a weapon unlike anything Nathan had seen—a short barrel humming with pale blue energy. The shot ripped down the hall, detonating in a burst of electric fire that blew a section of wall apart. The concussive force threw Nathan back against the steel, rattling his skull.

Selene grabbed his arm, hauling him upright. “Stay with me!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Nathan growled, shoving forward, even as pain pulsed through his ribs. His body healed fast now—too fast. Already the ache dulled, replaced with an animal hunger to hit back harder.

They fought in brutal rhythm, step by step, carving toward the hangar. Nathan’s fists became a blur of brutal strikes, each one breaking bone or shattering armor. He didn’t hold back anymore—rage and precision fused into something monstrous. His enemies faltered not just because of his speed, but because of the raw terror his presence radiated.

One recruit glanced at him mid-battle, eyes wide. “He’s—he’s not even human anymore…” The words weren’t meant to be heard, but Nathan caught them, and his blood boiled hotter.

The Iron Veil pressed closer. Every mask turned toward him, ignoring weaker targets, ignoring easier kills. Their strikes honed in on him, coordinated like a hive mind.

Selene realized it too. Between swings, she shouted, “They’re after you! They’ll bleed this base dry just to drag you out!”

Nathan’s chest heaved, his hazel eyes now so dark they were almost black under the flashing lights. His voice was raw, edged in fury: “Then let them try!”

They smashed through the last junction into the wide stretch leading to the hangar doors. Nathan could see them at the far end—reinforced gates half-open, silhouettes of allies holding the line within. Safety, if they could just reach it.

But standing between them and the hangar was something different. Larger. Armored heavier than the rest, with a mask shaped like a predator’s skull. Its gauntlets sparked with arcs of energy, each movement deliberate, patient.

The others froze. Even Selene’s breath caught.

Nathan felt his heart slam once, hard. This wasn’t a soldier. This was a hunter.

The Iron Veil’s vanguard had arrived.

The masked figure raised its weapon—an executioner’s blade humming with lethal energy—and the rest of the operatives fell back, clearing space. The message was clear: this fight was Nathan’s.

The hangar doors loomed just beyond. Safety, survival, and his allies’ hopes—all waiting.

But first, he had to face the hunter.

Section 18 – The Hunter’s Challenge

The corridor narrowed into a killing stage, the glow of the hangar spilling faintly through the open gates at the far end. Allies waited there, shouting, urging Nathan and the others forward, but none dared to rush to his side. They knew. Everyone knew. This was different.

The masked figure—the hunter—stood motionless, weapon humming with blue energy that seemed to ripple through the air, distorting the very light. It wasn’t just a soldier in heavier armor. Its presence was oppressive, calculated. Every measured breath radiated lethal purpose.

Nathan’s chest rose and fell as his hands curled into fists, skin still raw from hours of fighting yet already knitting back together. He could hear the words echoing in his skull: They want you. They will bleed this base dry to have you.

Selene grabbed his wrist before he could step forward. Her eyes were wide, dark with something he hadn’t seen from her before—fear. “Nathan… don’t.”

He looked at her, then at the waiting hunter. His lips curled into a thin, bitter smile. “I don’t think they’re giving me a choice.”

Corvus’s voice crackled over the comms, urgent. “Nathan, fall back! Don’t engage it alone. That’s an executioner-class—”

But Nathan had already taken the first step forward. The floor trembled beneath the heavy weight of the hunter’s advance as it mirrored him. The clash was inevitable.

The sound when they met was thunder inside steel walls. Nathan’s fists collided with the energy-coated gauntlets, sparks showering into the air. The hunter moved like a machine, every strike brutal but efficient. Nathan countered with explosive bursts of speed, weaving under swings, slamming elbows into weak points in the armor. Each impact rattled the corridor, denting walls and sending vibrations through the floor.

At first, it was almost equal. Nathan’s reflexes, sharpened to near-prophetic speed, let him evade and redirect. He could see the hunter’s tells—the faint shift of weight, the flick of a wrist before a slash. For a moment, it seemed like he might overpower it.

But the hunter adapted.

Its strikes came faster, feints folded into feints, every move designed to force Nathan off-balance. A gauntlet caught his ribs, sending a jolt of electricity searing through his body. His muscles spasmed, his vision blurred, but his body recovered too quickly, almost unnaturally. He spat blood onto the floor and surged back in with a roar, landing a blow that cracked the hunter’s mask across one cheek.

The operatives behind the hunter hissed in unison, as if the blow had struck them all.

Selene screamed his name from behind, but he didn’t falter. He liked the way his blood surged, the way his knuckles split and healed in the same breath. The pain wasn’t slowing him anymore—it was fuel.

Still, the hunter was relentless. A slash came low, forcing him back. Another high, forcing him to duck. Then a brutal knee drove into his chest, shoving him against the wall with bone-crushing force. The air left his lungs in a rush.

Through the fractured mask, he finally saw the hunter’s eyes. Cold. Calculating. And utterly certain.

“You’re not ready,” it said in a voice like grinding stone.

Nathan snarled, forcing himself upright. “Then you’ll regret underestimating me.”

He lunged, faster than before, driving the hunter back with a flurry of punches so rapid they blurred into one another. Steel dented, sparks burst, the mask cracked wider. Allies cheered from the hangar, their hope flaring with each strike.

And then the hunter shifted its weight. One precise motion.

The executioner’s blade hummed to life, and in a single brutal sweep, it slashed across Nathan’s side. He gasped as heat and cold flooded him all at once, the cut deep enough to nearly cleave through his armor.

Selene screamed. Raze shouted. The team surged forward, trying to reach him.

Nathan dropped to one knee, vision swimming. His blood pooled too quickly, but already his skin twitched as if trying to knit itself back together. His body fought to heal, but his strength faltered.

The hunter raised its weapon again for the finishing blow.

And then—

The hangar doors slammed shut, cutting off the screams of his allies. The corridor filled with Iron Veil operatives, their weapons raised, their focus unbroken.

Nathan realized, with icy certainty, that he wasn’t just fighting for survival. He was being taken.

The last thing he heard before the blade came down was Selene’s voice, breaking with desperation:

“NATHAN!”