Operation Cherry Soda
Act I: The Fence Line
Ghost never second-guessed a step.
Not on recon. Not on breach. Not ever.
Until today.
It was clean work—low-risk sweep, two rooms left. Soap had already cleared the far corner when Ghost paused in the middle of the threshold.
One second. No reason.
But it was enough.
A shot cracked past his shoulder, and Soap shoved him back behind the wall.
“What the hell was that?” he hissed.
Ghost didn’t answer. Not during evac. Not back at the forward operating hub.
He hadn’t heard from her in three nights.
And no one—not her mother, not his team—knew he was unraveling from the silence.
They were barely back an hour when it hit the comms.
A sharp, chirping frequency wedge punched through TF141’s fallback encryption. No signature. No route.
Roach blinked, spun in his chair. “Uh… Cap?”
Price, mid-coffee, glanced up.
“You’re not gonna like this,” Roach said slowly. “We’ve got an unidentified live transmission… coming through our private line.”
Ghost’s head lifted instantly. “Source?”
“No sat link. No ground base. But our security net just let it in.”
The channel clicked.
And a voice came through—bright and a little breathless.
“Hellooooo? This is Walkie-Talkie Network Version Four! Dad? You there? Anyone?”
Soap grinned. “Oh, no way.”
Ghost’s jaw unclenched for the first time in days. “Patch her in.”
“WAIT!—I think I got it—yep! It stopped buzzing!”
A pause.
“Okay, hi! Hi, team! I lost the channel when Rook sat on my walkie and hit the spinny dial. It’s been broken for three days and I couldn’t find you, and I thought maybe the fridge magnet messed up the coil wire again—”
“You rebuilt the radio?” Ghost asked, voice soft.
“Obviously. I used the hairdryer motor this time. It doesn’t even spark anymore! Much.”
Soap leaned forward over Roach’s shoulder. “Hiya, pup. Been too quiet without you.”
“Uncle Johnny! Hi! Did you get my drawing? The snail tank with flame cannons?”
“Put it on my vest.”
“YES. That’s battlefield-certified then.”
Laughter rippled across the room—Gaz chuckling behind his mug, Farah muttering “Unbelievable” with a grin, Nikolai just shaking his head like he’d missed half the conversation but loved all of it.
“Mama’s working again—double shift. But it’s fine, I’ve got the house. Bear’s on patrol, Hound’s doing stairs, and I gave Rook a sock so he’d stop eating the charger.”
Ghost settled into his chair, the tension easing from his frame.
“Glad you got through, sweetheart. I was starting to worry.”
“I didn’t wanna make you think something was wrong. I just couldn’t reach the channel. But I’m okay. I did the checklist. I even put the rubber stopper under the back door like you showed me.”
“Oh! And I think we got new neighbors.”
That stopped everything.
Ghost blinked. “What neighbors?”
“The weird ones.”
Her tone didn’t change.
“They hang out by the fence. Way back where the trees are. They’re out there a lot now. Just standing.”
Ghost sat forward.
“When did they show up?”
"I dunno. I saw them first like… five days ago? But only when Mama’s not home. They disappear if she’s in the kitchen. I think they’re super shy.”
Roach’s fingers flew over his keyboard.
“Bear always growls at them. Not loud though—his sneaky growl. And yesterday one of them was at my school too. Behind the fence, near the big slide. I waved but he ducked.”
“They’re probably just nervous.”
She didn’t hear the way the room went still.
Didn’t hear Ghost stand up slowly.
Didn’t know that Laswell was already pulling satellite patterns for movement near the house’s thermal perimeter.
“Okay, star,” Ghost said, too calm. “I need you to stay inside. No windows, no doors, and don’t go near the mailbox. Copy?”
“Copy. Lockdown Level Two?”
“Three.”
“Whoaaa. Alright, hang on. I gotta tell Bear. He won’t like it.”
They heard her put the walkie down—call out to Bear in her sock-foot shuffle. A low bark. Nails on tile.
Soap exhaled shakily. “She doesn’t even know.”
Ghost looked down at the comms panel.
“She’s not supposed to."