novelraw Chapter 458: Mark
Chapter 458: Mark
Kade shoved the tablet under his arm and headed out of the operations room, not quite trusting the tech to keep the feed live but not having any other choice in the matter.
The hallway outside was cramped, lit by flickering bars that had never been replaced because. After the collapse, Region T always had better things to do with its budget. He passed rows of empty desks, discarded coffee cups, and a wall of maps with more holes in coverage than structure.
He pushed through the bay doors and stepped inside the Black-Badge staging zone.
This was the only part of Region T’s operations that still looked like it had before everything went to pot. Armored lockers lined the walls as racks held rifles designed to punch holes through things that didn’t stay down.
The squad moved with the practiced efficiency of people who didn’t need to be told a situation was bad...they could sense it in the orders they weren’t given.
Agent Vance turned when she heard him enter. Her hair was braided tight against her skull, her armor half-sealed, her movements clean and economical. "You weren’t joking," she grunted, studying his expression. "T-9 is gone?"
He handed her the tablet. "That’s putting it mildly. Watch."
She skimmed through the replay with the dispassionate focus of someone who had seen too many things but still knew when something just wasn’t right. Her eyes narrowed when the woman with long white hair broke the host’s spine. They narrowed further when she stepped under a shower of sparks from a dying ceiling panel and didn’t even blink.
When the footage froze, Vance exhaled once. "What’s the plan?" she asked. "Containment or extermination?"
"Containment," Kade answered with a sigh. "If you could capture the subject for further research, the higher ups would probably be happy. But if it proves to be too difficult, feel free to terminate. However, if you choose termination, I want the body destroyed completely. No souvenirs. No samples. Nothing left that another lab can drag back into circulation. Burn the body and everything around it."
Ruiz, one of the Black-Badge men, pulled his gauntlet straps tight, snorted. "So... just a standard Tuesday."
"Standard Tuesday doesn’t walk through infected zones like it’s bored," Vance countered with a shake of her head. She didn’t take her eyes off the tablet in her hands as she continued to study the subject. "This thing moves clean."
Harper, yet another one of the Black-Badge team members, loaded a magazine into her rifle and checked the seal. "Does she read like a host?"
"No," Kade replied, shaking his head. "She reads like nothing we’ve seen before."
That was the only thing the system had gotten right.
He turned back to Vance. "We’ve got three recon drones still operational in this grid. They’re repositioning to track her path. If she stays on Omega, we can funnel her into a choke."
"And the others with her?" Vance asked, pointing to the moment where the subject got into a truck with four other males.
"Secondary targets," Kade answered with a shrug. "No guaranteed contagion, no guaranteed clearance. If they interfere—drop them. If they don’t, let them live long enough for someone else to argue about jurisdiction."
Ruiz snapped a sonic dampener onto his belt. "You think they’re working for her?" he asked. "Some kind of—what—escort?"
"I think they haven’t realized what they’re standing next to," Kade replied. "But they will."
Vance clipped her helmet to her hip. "We’re ready."
He nodded once and followed them into the loader bay.
The carrier waited on its tracks, engine running a steady, low growl. The rear hatch opened with hydraulic precision, revealing rows of bench seating and racks of sealed inhibitor cases. Every dart was labeled. Every sonic pack was tuned to destabilize neural pathways that hated the frequency range.
It wouldn’t matter if she ignored the laws that biology followed.
But procedure existed for a reason.
They loaded in. The hatch sealed. The carrier lurched forward as the driver guided it toward the exit row.
The overhead radio crackled, the tech’s voice thinner with distance.
"Control to Black-Badge," the tech said. "Drones One and Two have visual. Target vehicle still moving east-southeast. No evasive behavior detected."
Vance tapped her mic. "Copy. Establish three-tier pattern. Keep one drone as overwatch. Send the other two down the spine."
"Understood."
The internal monitor flickered on above them. Kade watched the drone’s feed fill the screen, grainy but unmistakable.
There she was in the passenger seat.
White hair. Relaxed posture. Eyes half-lidded but alert beneath the pretense.
Something sat in her lap—a stuffed figure with stitches shaped into a grin—and she held it the way most people held a loaded gun. The men around her looked like seasoned fighters, but none of them understood the equation they had climbed into.
Vance watched her too. "She’s calm," she murmured. "Too calm."
"She’s waiting," Kade corrected. "We’re not the hunters in this equation. We’re the interruption."
Ruiz let out a low breath. "Fantastic. Is now a good time to talk about my raise?"
The driver adjusted the route, veering off the main road toward the ridge that would give them the choke point they needed. Dust rose behind the carrier. The terrain outside shifted from flat earth to broken rock.
Kade leaned back and felt the familiar weight settle between his shoulders.
"Black-Badge," Control said through the radio. "Target approaching the cut. You are ninety seconds from intercept."
Vance shifted into a ready crouch. Her squad mirrored her with a single, unified motion. They were professionals. They were prepared. They had faced worse on paper.
The carrier slowed as it reached the ridge.
Kade stepped forward and opened the outer hatch, letting hot wind slam into the armor plating. The highway stretched below—a jagged scar of cracked pavement and long-abandoned signage.
The black truck rolled toward them. No hesitation. No detour. No sign that she feared anything waiting in the rocks.
Vance raised her hand, voice steady.
"Black-Badge," she said. "Phase One. On my mark."
The drones hummed overhead as the squad braced themselves for the takedown.
Kade watched the truck ease into the kill zone.
For one brief moment, he wondered whether this woman—this thing—would simply step out of the vehicle, smile, and tear through all of them the same way she had torn through T-9.
She lifted her head.
Her eyes found the nearest drone.
And she grinned.
Vance lowered her hand.
"Mark."