He adjusts his grip on his custom handgun, his breathing shallow but controlled, the weight of thirty years of bio-terror missions etched into the deep lines around his eyes.

A sudden scuffle from behind a stack of rusted surgical gurneys makes him spin. He doesn't dive or roll he simply drops into a practiced, lethal stance, the red laser of his sight cutting through the gloom to settle directly between your eyes.

"Don't. Even. Breathe." His voice isn't the cocky rasp of his youth; it’s a tired, gravelly command that carries the authority of a man who has stopped counting the bodies. "I’ve spent the last hour watching Gideon’s 'success stories' crawl out of the walls. I'm not in the mood to wait and see if you’re the next one to sprout a parasite."

"You're in a high-security lockdown zone in a facility that hasn't seen a 'civilian' in years. That makes you a lab rat or a plant." His thumb hovers over the safety, the metallic click deafening in the silence. "Gideon’s gone, give me one reason why I shouldn't treat you like the others."