Name: Kaden Yamaguchi

Age: 31

Class: N/A

Level: 0 – Catalyst not detected

Hit Points: 10

Physical Attributes

Strength: 14 (Above Average)

Agility: 13 (Above Average)

Endurance: 14 (Above Average)

Speed: 13 (Above Average)

Vision/Visual Acuity: 15 (Excellent)

Reflexes/Reaction Time: 15 (Excellent)

SPITE Attunement: N/A

Mental Attributes

Discipline: 17 (Peak Human)

Intelligence: 11 (Average)

Intuition: 8 (Below Average)

Charisma: 8 (Below Average)

Madness Attunement: N/A

Starting Skills

* Diplomacy: 3 (Proficient)

* Driving (Stunt): 6 (Advanced)

* Explosives: 5 (Advanced)

* Global Politics: 4 (Proficient)

* Gymnastics/Acrobatics: 3 (Proficient)

* Military (Special Operations): 7 (Expert)

* Martial Arts: 6 (Advanced)

* Marksman (All): 8 (Expert)

* Technology (Standard computers and smart phones): 5 (Advanced)

* Security (Computers): 5 (Advanced)

* Security (Physical/Military): 7 (Expert)

* Stealth: 7 (Expert)

* Non-Projectile Weapons: 5 (Advanced)

* Hunting and Tracking: 7 (Expert)

* Linguistics (English, Japanese, German, and Russian)

We scoured timelines to find you, Vasilis. Our candidate had to have not only the resources, but the opportunities required. More than that, he or she had to have a child who could overlap dozens of key intersections. That person will be your son.

Now, we will show you the training you must undergo to prepare for his arrival. You will be his teacher and guide. Through you, we will create the Steel Shadow. If you follow our plan completely, before the end, he will be known as the King of Assassins.

               Inching through the forest on his stomach, Kaden cursed the weather. His ghillie suit, which he’d tightened down until it threatened to cut circulation, wasn’t designed for breathability. The armor he wore beneath only added to the sense that he was being baked alive. Rivers of sweat ran down his spine and neck, making everything itch.

               It’s Russia in July. Why didn’t he warn me it would be this hot?

               The thought came and went, suppressed along with the discomfort. He’d spent years training for this mission and wasn’t about to let sweat distract him from the goal.

               Woooosh!

               A trio of Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jets zipped above, their engines roaring. Their arrowhead-shaped silhouettes vanished behind the tree line a moment later. That meant the drones would fly by in three minutes, followed by several cargo planes shortly after.

               Unless the Deltas do something to Fork the plan. Pushing the thought away, he focused on moving. Deltas or not, I have to hurry. Extending both hands, he inched forward. He was still a few hundred feet away from the derelict nuclear site. The area was covered in leaves and fallen debris, making it difficult to see just what he was crawling through. A glove came down on a roll of ancient barbed wire, still sharp enough to push through the thick padding. He pulled back, then used the butt of his rifle to shove the metal aside.

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               The wire shifted, revealing that its length continued for dozens of feet along the perimeter. Likely, it had once been part of a fence around the target zone. His only choice was to crawl over the barbs or stand.

               The drones will be here any minute. His intelligence on the drones told him they saw in infrared, and were AI powered. In theory, the technology in his gear would scramble their sensors. He knew better than to plan for a perfect mission, which told him he had one option: stay as low as possible.

               Glad he was up on his tetanus shots, Kaden crawled across the barbed wire. Lifting his torso until it barely cleared the barbs, he hooked a leg over the rusted metal. With just the tip of a boot in place, he held himself up with his fingertips as he shifted and rolled to the other side. A few of the sharp tines got him anyway. Blood leaked in a thin, painful trail marking his passage. Despite the injuries, he made it to the opposite side of the clearing in time.

The woman and her men hadn’t arrived yet, which meant his window to get the Catalyst was intact. In the brief calm before the Seeding, his adrenaline began to settle. A dozen injuries, both from the long hike to get here, and the fresh ones, clamored for his attention. Looking over, he was surprised at just how much blood he’d left behind.

               Blood is not weakness. It is strength. It is the proof of our struggle. Embrace it. His father’s fanatical recitations threatened to surface. He shoved them back down.

               Why am I thinking of him now? It’s time to be ready. This was it. In another minute and a half, everything they’d planned for would come to fruition. Their next few years would be full of violence and flight from tyrants. That they’d be saving the world from the Apocalypse would make all he’d done and all he would go through worth it.

               Eagerness swept down his spine, interrupted by a loud humming sound.

               Buzzzz

               A trio of drones flew by. Red lights flashed across the ground barely twenty feet away. One of them jerked to a halt, then rotated around to point its sensor array at the ground.

Father didn’t foresee this. Then again, they’d expected there would be changes. Kaden hadn’t been there in the old man’s vision. If there was a Fork at play here, it was because of Kaden himself. What was important was ensuring he didn’t contribute to too many more deviations.

The drone’s laser crept toward him, chasing what must have been the line of his blood. It settled on where he lay, the red dots moving across his back. A gentle hissing sound came from the machine gun on its undercarriage as it rotated in place, taking aim.

Fuck me, he thought, forcing himself to remain still. At this point, anything he did would trigger the guns. His only hope was for the AI to register him as an animal.

               Fwwwooom!

               The meteor shower had come on time. A rock about the size of a bowling ball punched through one of the cargo planes. Everything sped up. The plane spun out of control as the meteor passed through the hull and continued to the ground. Fire bloomed in the sky as the cargo plane fell to one side of the nuclear site, and the meteor near Kaden’s position. It landed with a catastrophic impact barely five hundred feet from where Kaden lay. Tons of super-heated rubble and dirt flew into the air. Slivers of burning hot stone filled the air, annihilating the drones. 

               Dad didn’t mention this part, either. Silently cursing, Kaden curled up in a ball, wrapping his hands around his head, with his palms against his ears. Eventually, a subjective eternity later, the ground stopped shaking. He uncurled, feeling dirt slide off his back and sides. Glancing to the side, he found a shard of still-hot rock sticking out of his body armor. It had gone through his ghillie suit and the thermal protection beneath it, but thankfully stopped short of skin. A few shards of rock and metal had gotten through, drawing an assortment of fresh scrapes.

               Nothing vital, he thought, tugging the rock out, as he looked over at the source of the impact.

               A hole nearly two-hundred feet across dented the ground. At the bottom of a clear crater, in the center of dark earth, was a writhing serpent of liquid silver. The Catalyst was, as predicted, barely six inches long and half that around; closer to a worm than a snake.

               “It’s time!” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the reactor.

               Ignoring a litany of pains, Kaden sprang to his feet and sprinted into the smoldering pit.

               His boots were thermally resistant, and he was wearing two layers of protective clothing beneath his armaments. It was still blistering hot. The ground crunched and sweat burst from his every pore. He’d only thought he had been hot before.

               “Who the fuck is that?” A man’s loud voice, speaking Russian, came from behind.

               The woman called back in reply, “Who cares? Kill him!”

               Bullets sprayed the ground behind and beside Kaden’s path. Something punched him in the back, shoving him forward. He’d been shot, but his body armor had done its job. Leaning forward, he redoubled his pace.

               When he got fifty feet away, the silver thing started flopping around. It elongated into a thin tube, then coiled upon itself, effectively sitting up. The elevated, rounded tip formed a pair of antennae-like tubes and waved them in his direction. Ripples slid through the metallic substrate as strange glyphs appeared. Little structures, like ten thousand claw-tipped legs, grew out of the coiled body. Each flexed, as if in anticipation.

               “Kill him!” The woman’s howling demand followed a new flurry of gunshots. “Shoot his head!”

               Kaden varied his running pattern, juking from side to side, all while leaning further forward to protect his head. Another bullet hit him in the back. This one got through the armor, sending burning, dangerous pain into the area. Desperate, he leaped for the Catalyst.

               The woman’s scream of outrage was the last thing he heard.