"I thought you didn’t care if I lived or died," Adam said.

"I don’t. But I’m curious," Miriam said. "Those doors are meant to be blast-resistant, you know?"

He glanced down at the fading lines on his hands instead. The aftertaste of the [Hacking] tingled his senses. It tempted him to dive back into that metaphysical space full of electric lights and break open another door. The augmentations would’ve done wonders back when he was raiding convenience stores and burger joints for food. Those CCTV cameras wouldn’t have known what hit them.

"Oi, did you fall over, civvie? You sounded real winded there."

"Tell me how many hostiles are in the immediate area or fuck off," Adam said.

"Piece for piece, huh? Sure. There are eleven wraiths currently in the building and they’re approaching your location."

"I hacked the door open," Adam replied.

Miriam clicked her tongue. "I thought it was something like that. You’ve got some weird augs, civvie."

Adam quelled the retort burning in his throat and moved into the room. Three shelves lined the walls of the storage room, constructed from hard, black plastic. Their contents told a tale of a place vacated with haste. Plastic containers with dark liquids lay tipped on their sides, some even on the floor. Dust clung to scrap metal and empty metal boxes.

"More of these piles? Seriously?" Adam knelt next to a set of clothes at the back, next to a crate. A shirt, a jacket, and trousers, along with a pair of metallic-framed glasses. The frames were sleeker than those of the batty old librarian from down the road. The clothes were arranged almost side by side, as if someone decided to strip, then lacked the motivation to stash their garments away.

A brownish stain, reminiscent of the wraith fluid, clung to the front of the jacket. Did this person get killed by one? If so, where was the body? Adam bit his lip. He rummaged through the clothes until his hands wrapped around hard metal.

About damn time.

"You find anything, civvie?" Miriam piped up.

"I have a damn name."

"No point in learning the names of the dead," Miriam said. Adam scowled. She kept yapping her mouth anyway. "Bet you didn’t get anything better than a handgun. Cadets must’ve snuck them in here to do…whatever. Exchange handling tips?"

Her prediction was correct. Adam raised his new handgun to his eye-level. The coloration was a thick grey, the six-star sigil imprinted on the grip. A small computer interface rested near the hammer at the back, reading ‘25’.

Experience (New Weapon) acknowledged: +10%.

He closed his grip around it. The handgun felt lighter, and more compact, unlike his experience with the M18s. Unmarked too. There’d be recoil and handling intricacies, but he’d scored good marks at the practice range, so it made up the difference, right?

A howl resounded from the corridor, reverberating through the room and rattling the containers. Miriam popped a piece of candy into her mouth. Adam picked up one of the jars, dashed around the corner, and threw it straight at the incoming wraith. The creature staggered back, scrabbling at its head.

Now, Westfield! The echo of Instructor Rackhart yelled in his head, Pull the goddamn trigger!

Adam clenched his jaw. A beam of light exploded from the barrel and tore a hole straight through the wraith’s torso. The wraith flailed, attempting to crawl toward him with its broken body. Adam fired another round into the wraith’s head, ending it for good.

A damn laser pistol. The Space Force would kill for one of these. He pinched his nose and peered at the orange-hot marks around the wraith corpse's wound. The scent of burning flesh stung his nostrils. The hole was a full circle, almost mechanical in its lack of edges. Sorry sis, but this is my life now.

Experience (Combat) acknowledged: +8%.

The way back was swarming with the bastards. Adam charged forward and met their blows head-on.

One of them spat up a crimson mist when he got close with a whack. It had been like the tear gas chambers all over again, including the part where he got pushed to the ground and bashed on the front. A blast straight to the head fixed that.

Draw aggression, retreat back, and fire two or three shots into their bodies. Whack them with the tomahawk if they kept moving. Repeat. A trail of foul-smelling jerky stretched behind each kill.

User Adam Westfield’s Competency Level has progressed from 1-1 to 1-2!

Acquired 1 Biometric Key!

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Yeah, he had to admit, the new handgun was cool. Powerful, simple to use, and one of a kind. It almost made up for the way his instincts screamed whenever one of their blows came close to tearing his head off. By the time reached the exit—a set of wide double doors accompanied by a reception desk—he was sweating like mad and burning hot.

He leaned against the wall and wiped his brow. Right, time for a quick check. His pack was undamaged. His ammunition had reached the halfway point. Killing the wraiths had yielded slightly less experience than when he was Competency Level 1-1.

Experience returns are diminished (or nullified) when combating previously encountered obstacles.

He checked his Status—another feature of ADOSCH. Most of it was locked.

Attributes are not available due to insufficient combat data regarding the User.

It did show the following:

Vitality: 65%.

Competency Level: 1-2

Experience: 0%

He wiped off more sweat, ignored the sharp jolt in his elbow, and checked the Augmentation Foci. A single Upgrade Point remained, one that he did not want to waste. He twirled one of the medbay syringes, then shook his head and put it back. Again, better to not waste it now.

"Huh, you did kill most of the wraiths in the medbay," Miriam asked. Adam rolled his eyes. He’d forgotten to hang up in all the fighting. He also wasn’t in the mood to deal with this woman, either. "That’s a first."

"Look, if you don’t have anything to tell me, can you just go away?"

Miriam wheeled her chair closer to the screen. She rested her elbows on her table, mouth twisting. "I have to admit, you’ve done well. Most of the other guys who woke up from cryo got murdered by the wraiths. But it all ends here."

She flicked her hand towards her screen. "Beyond those doors lie the MOB grounds. You step out and you’ll die."

Another burst of gunfire resounded, muffled. It came from Adam’s north. A dull thump followed. Adam balled up a wad of saliva and spat. It tasted like sand.

"So? I’ll just hunker down in here for a bit."

"Won’t work. You try to hide, you’ll also die, because the big bad threat will hunt through the corridors of the MOB and pulp your guts into meatbread. Great bunch of choices, eh? You’re rot either way, civvie."

"If you’re so smart, tell me what’s gonna kill me."

"A War Maiden."

Adam froze. "What."

Miriam turned her gaze away. "That’s all I’m saying."

"Hold the hell up! There’s a War Maiden here?"

Miriam squeezed her wrist. She refused to meet his gaze. Her chair swiveled around. Part of the back had a black burn mark streaking down it. "Now is a good time to say your last rites. That gun will help."

His forehead throbbed. The image of the mysterious girl flashed through his head, compounded with red splotches rolling down the skyline. Phantom hands scraped his lower back, clawing with their non-existent fingernails. "Screw you, Miriam! Just tell me what she’s like!"

"Goodbye civvie. I hope the War Maiden makes it quick." Miriam said. Her tone was flat and emotionless. "May you be reborn beneath Her wings."

Transmission concluded.

Call her back! The ringtone echoed through his head. Once, twice, thrice. Miriam did not return. Two sentences. That’s all he wanted. Who did that bitch think she was? Other people had died, sure, but that didn’t mean she had to leave him hanging!

The gunfire had stopped. The memory of the dream rang louder than ever. The mysterious blonde girl mouthed the words again. Save the War Maidens, Astraea’s Chosen.

Adam grabbed the regenerative syringe and jammed it into his vein. The pinprick of pain sharpened his focus. To hell with saving anyone! He looked out for himself first. For all her bullshit, Miriam didn’t appear to be lying, which meant he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He was armed, yes, but the dream girl had elected to not inform him what these War Maidens were like.

They are beautiful, powerful, and shining with hope.

Yeah, that didn’t count. A ballpoint pen was a powerful weapon under the right circumstances. Besides, shining with hope? There were people who uttered that without any ounce of shame? Disgusting.

The gunfire had halted. It was now or never. Adam pressed the door panel. The double doors parted with a dull grinding sound. Bright, red light assaulted his vision. He shielded his face with one arm, held up his new handgun with the other, and stepped into the grounds of MOB Tifereth-56.

He looked up into the sky and stared.

This wasn’t America. This wasn’t any location in Earth, north or south, hot or cold. The sky was the purple of a nasty bruise, a singular stark white orb hanging from the center amidst smoky grey clouds. Sinewy red wisps trailed across the horizon like evening birds taking flight.

The aftertaste of rain rolled across his tongue. Hexagonal buildings were laid across flattened dirt in neat groups. But time had taken its toll; the roads were cracked and untamed plants grew everywhere. Some buildings had collapsed altogether.

More gunfire drowned out the ambient wind. Adam jerked his gaze away and ran forward across the cracked path, detouring to hide behind a fence. He crouched down, dust clinging to his cheeks, and peeked from behind the metallic paneling.

A battle roared. He saw heavy weaponry, the type fit for machine gunners atop tanks. The huge guns were brandished by men in thick leather armor and gas masks. They must be the intruders Miriam talked about. Screaming like mad, they fired with all their might at a target in the dust cloud, who soaked up the bullets so well that none of them flew astray in his direction.

The target approached closer. One of the men squeezed his trigger, heard the click, and stared down at his gun. He tipped his head and howled. And charged at the thing in the dust cloud.

A silhouette emerged from the dust cloud—a hunched-over figure with long hair and a feminine posture.

Adam only got through the ‘Is that’ half of his question before the figure raised its arm. Bright, yellow light exploded at the men’s feet. It obliterated his vision, even in the shadow of his cover. He dropped behind cover, hands pressed over his ears.

It took him until the spots faded from his vision to detect the new smell. One of rancid meat, worse than a landfill, mixed in with traces of iron and immersed in a bubble of clammy, frantic sweat.

A corpse lay at his feet.

The stench leaked from a hole in the patchwork armor like overflow from a broken pipe. Wide-eyed and a contorted, open mouth stared back at Adam. His hands flew over his mouth. He banged his spine against the fence.

Calm down. Adam shouted to himself over the lurches swaying his stomach. His eyes watered, but he couldn’t look away from the decomposing meat. His throat tightened. He was a soldier now. This was expected of him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen dead bodies—overdosed hobos, dead hookers, mates who bragged too hard—so he needed to hurry up and stop shaking!

He clutched himself tight, and felt the presence of someone behind him.