Dan and Allen walked for another block. Both agents scanned their surroundings, and their HUDs highlighted the areas and gave them lists of anything that could prove useful or be looted. So far, nothing noteworthy had come back from their scans.

“How exactly do these scans work again?” Dan asked.

Allen looked at him as if he had just discovered water for the first time. “You just use your eyes to look around your surroundings and your HUD handles the rest. The serum every agent gets contains nanomachines that go up to your brain and further enhance your information gathering abilities. If you were wondering how your HUD managed to give you a readout of my stats and everyone else’s, that’s how.”

“Oh I see,” Dan said. “These serums they put into us are fucking crazy.”

“Wait until you rank up. Going from lifting barbells to throwing cars is quite the transition.”

Dan recalled feeling his body move to evade danger in the last battle, seemingly on its own. He had experienced this before during his combat training right after his flash training. And not being in control of his own movement at all times was something Dan could still never wrap his mind around.

“Hey Allen—,”

“Let me guess, your body had a mind of its own and avoided an attack that would have been fatal,” Allen said.

“Yeah, it was fucking bizarre,” Dan said candidly. “Is that normal? Does it have something to do with this reflex stat? Mine says it’s average with a plus sign beside it.”

“That’s it kid,” Allen said. “Your reflex stat is basically your reaction times, especially during dangerous situations. Sometimes you get surprised with an attack that might kill you if it hits and then your body will just move, even when you don’t have time to think. It’s a lifesaver that us Alpha agents have that Kodak and the Church doesn’t. Yours is average plus to show that your reflexes are better than regular people. As you continue to level up, your reflex stat will scale up. Sort of.”

Dan’s HUD popped up new info regarding the levels of the reflex stat.

The five ranks of the reflex stat are:

Average

Superior

Superhuman

Metahuman

Mach

An agent must purchase upgrades to elevate their reflex stat to the next level. Agents cannot skip reflex levels at the risk of catastrophic complications.

Dan could only stare at his teammate. Even with his low rank, he truly felt like he had left his old life as a kid back in the States. He had literal superpowers now.

“But don’t let it go to your head,” Allen warned. “Your reflexes and your ability to dodge fatal attacks is sort of like rolling dice. Having a higher reflex stat is sort of like having luckier dice that gives you good rolls more consistently.”

“Understood,” Dan said.

As Dan kept an eye on his surroundings, he noticed something at the corner of his eye—a green human-sized outline moving across the rooftop behind him.

“Uh, Allen? What do green silhouettes mean?”

“Allies. Usually other agents within the same shard. Don’t you see me in a green outline?”

Dan looked at Allen just to confirm. “I do, but there’s another one approaching us from behind.”

“The fuck?”

Allen turned around and looked up. Even if it was supposedly a friendly, the agent still kept his minigun ready.

The green outline finally made its way to the edge of the roof behind them and leaned out. Dan saw the outline wave at them.

“Hey guys,” Kate said through comms. “You mind if I join you?”

“Oh okay. No worries, Allen, it’s just Kate,” Dan said. He looked back at Kate and responded to her through comms. “It’s all good, Kate. We were getting bored.”

Kate’s green outline somersaulted and dropped down from the roof. Dan looked back at Allen, though was surprised that he didn’t seem too thrilled.

Kate caught up with them and they moved forward as a trio. They all continued walking through yet another two blocks while checking their surroundings.

“Aside from those gunmen back there, I don’t see anything suspicious,” Dan said.

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“You got shot at?” Kate asked.

Dan nodded. “Yeah, we got rebels packing good firepower. Allen says that they got the type of guns that only agents use.”

“Well, that’s not good. But at least you took care of them, Dan,” she said, smiling at him.

“Actually Allen was the one who scared them off. I was only the distraction. He threw a car at them.”

Kate wrapped her arm around him. “I’m not surprised. But don’t worry. Next time you’ll be the one throwing cars with how fast you’re progressing.”

The gesture was odd and Dan wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. But this was also the same woman who gave him a kiss on the cheek and gained access to his apartment and made him breakfast. He still wasn’t used to women outside of his mom treating him with kindness, as a lot of the ruthless gangsters he had fought were female.

“By then I’ll probably have better guns than these pea shooters here,” Dan said.

Allen looked over his shoulder and narrowed his gaze at Kate.

She took notice of it and said, “Allen, don’t be jealous just because the rookie is getting more attention than you.”

“Cut the bullshit, Kate.” Allen stopped and turned around. “Why did you join us? I recall Jane giving you a different set of orders through the private comms. You know how she gets when any of us act on our own without justified reason.”

“Oh, would you relax?” Kate said with a casual wave of her hand. “I do things that Jane disagrees with all the time.”

Dan stared at Kate with confusion. Kate was far above him in stats and experience. Even so, he doubted she could get away with consistently deviating from Jane’s orders.

Kate looked at him and said, “That’s the dynamic between Jane and me. She gives me an order, I disagree and do things my way, and Jane gets pissed but forgives me at the end of the day.”

“I wonder how long that will last,” Allen said.

Kate pouted at that comment but didn’t push any further. Dan looked back and forth between the two and briefly wondered who would win in a fight between them.

Allen chuckled to himself. “I know what you’re thinking, kid. Since Kate loves to be a showboat, I’ll throw my hat into the ring. If it came down to it, I would crush Kate easily in a deathmatch.”

“Oh really now?” Kate said with extra sass in her tone.

“Absolutely,” Allen said. “Kate lacks discipline and thinks her speed alone can win every fight. She conveniently forgot to tell you that she has never won a single sparring match against Jane.”

Kate, instead of giving a response, simply brushed it off and glanced over at Dan. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Dan. We’re just super competitive here. I’d say Allen would much prefer to take me on a date than ‘crush me’ in a fight.”

Allen rolled his eyes and turned around. “We should wrap up our patrol here. Jane will have a problem with us for taking too long.”

For the rest of the scouting, everything was eerily quiet. So far, they hadn’t been attacked by anyone again nor had the team encountered any of the local civilians. Dan’s two other teammates kept to themselves as well.

It seemed odd to Dan that even though Allen and Kate remained silent, the two of them would still occasionally exchange glances with one another. Allen was tense and constantly aiming his minigun ahead of him or at the rooftops ahead, alert for upcoming danger. Meanwhile, Kate seemed oddly relaxed and would sometimes exchange pleasant glances with Dan.

They eventually reached an intersection and Allen finally said something. “Alright then. Kate, head left and check things out over there. I’ll take Dan and head off to the right.”

“Understood. Later, Dan,” Kate said, waving.

Dan replied with a simple nod and headed down the other street behind Allen. Once the two had walked a good distance away from Kate, Dan opened up a channel between him and Allen.

“What the hell went on back there?” Dan asked.

“Between me and Kate? So you caught all that.”

“It was hard to miss the glances you two were exchanging. Judging by how serious you looked, I could tell it wasn’t flirting.”

“Well, at least you’re observant,” Allen said.

Dan shrugged. “I have to be. I would have died back in the States if I couldn’t pick up on little details like that.”

“I’ll give you the short version. I was trying to coax some answers out of Kate during our little walk. I reminded her that coming here to give you a morale boost wasn’t a good enough excuse to break formation and disobey Jane’s direct orders.”

“And what did she tell you?”

“Well, on top of these rebels having firepower they shouldn’t, something about Kate is off. I can’t help but feel something is out of place.”

“I don’t know her well enough, but what’s going on with her?” Dan asked.

“Well, what Kate said about her pattern of disobeying Jane’s orders is true. The difference is that she would make her intentions clear to Jane before she does anything reckless and usually Kate is pretty rational about her suggestions in altering the original plan. This time, it seemed like Kate is more carefree than usual. You don’t pull that shit when Jane is in charge.”

“That makes sense. There’s no way I could get away with that, even without the scrutiny I get by being a rookie.”

“Exactly. It’s not like Kate to just disrespect the chain of command like that. You’re asking for trouble when you pull shit like that. If you want to deviate from plans, do it on a solo mission. But pulling that shit just gets everyone into hot water with the Alpha executives.”

Dan didn’t know what to make of this. So even high-ranking, respected teams like Jane’s squad had turmoil within.

“You want my advice, kid? Be careful of the hot chicks, especially if they’re agents. If we weren’t so busy with this mission, I got a whole bunch of stories of crazy female agents. You wouldn’t believe the shit they get away with just because they have a pretty face.”

“Seriously? I didn’t know such a… profession attracted so many women. I would assume that all the guns and the killing would turn off a lot of women.”

“You would think so, but has that ever been the case in your experience?”

Dan only took a second to think about it. “No, a lot of the gangsters that I tussled with in my hometown were female. You’re right about the hot chicks being fucking crazy.”

“In that case, keep your eyes and ears open when you’re around Kate. I don’t trust how much she’s been stroking your ego lately.”

It was a strange warning for Dan to hear regarding another one of his teammates. But since Allen had been an agent far longer than he had, Dan would have been foolish not to listen.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”